GURPS, 1986 Release Date?

[GM Joe]

I remember walking into the game store I frequented, and the owner was all excited about this new thing called GURPS. He said it would let you run any type of campaign using a single set of rules. He had a nice display of it, including an opened box so you could thumb through the rulebooks. It looked interesting, so I bought a copy.

I also remember being irritated when GURPS 2e came out (what seemed like) the next day.

[adm]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

There's potentially another work of mine coming out in the year. Isn't that celebration enough? Ungrateful bastards.

We're so grateful that we want other works to be released, celebrating the release of you most wondrous publication. ;)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

I also remember being irritated when GURPS 2e camed out (what seemed like) the next day.

Yeah, so-called "edition compression": A new game comes out, nobody has ever heard about it, so it has poor penetration into smaller and more remote markets. Then it catches on so quickly that there's a new edition . . . and because the game is so popular, that one hits even the outlying markets very quickly. So what was in fact "Year X and Year X+2" feels more like "Year X+1.5 and Year+2" to those of us in obscure corners of the world. We had a lot of this in Halifax in the 1980s.

[mook]

Originally Posted by Parabola

According to Wikipedia, the first edition of Gurps debuted at the 1986 Origins convention that started on July 3rd.

Doh, I was checking from work, looked at the Wikipedia GURPS page which doesn't mention that detail... I didn't even realize there was a specific "GURPS Basic Set" page there as well.

But now, the date is set! Excellent...

[GM Joe]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Yeah, so-called "edition compression": A new game comes out, nobody has ever heard about it, so it has poor penetration into smaller and more remote markets. Then it catches on so quickly that there's a new edition . . . and because the game is so popular, that one hits even the outlying markets very quickly. So what was in fact "Year X and Year X+2" feels more like "Year X+1.5 and Year+2" to those of us in obscure corners of the world. We had a lot of this in Halifax in the 1980s.

Oh, yeah, definitely. I recall very clearly that happening to me with Champions. Well, that one was probably my own fault because I was living in the SF Bay Area at the time, so I had probably just overlooked it for a while...until buying right before Champions 2e came out.

Now I'm trying to recall just when I bought GURPS 1e, though. It's so hard to remember that far back! I remember buying it and then driving over to my girlfriend's house and going through the contents while she watched TV. But darned if I can even remember what time of year it was!

Anyone have a date for when GURPS 2e was released?

[Parabola]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

I remember walking into the game store I frequented, and the owner was all excited about this new thing called GURPS. He said it would let you run any type of campaign using a single set of rules. He had a nice display of it, including an opened box so you could thumb through the rulebooks. It looked interesting, so I bought a copy.

I also remember being irritated when GURPS 2e came out (what seemed like) the next day.

Brings back memories of how, back in those days, you had top learn a completely new game system every time you wanted to play a different genre. Then along came the idea of the universal or generic system. There was the Basic Roleplaying System (Magic World, Super World, Future World) and stuff like Cthulu and that was okay. Then there was Hero Games which was much better but every genre felt like a superhero game. Then came Gurps and the generic system to cover different genres was truly launched.

The universal system is so much the norm now that it's almost easy to forget that being the best of the universal systems was it's big claim to fame and popularity.

[GM Joe]

Originally Posted by Parabola

Brings back memories of how, back in those days, you had top learn a completely new game system every time you wanted to play a different genre. Then along came the idea of the universal or generic system. There was the Basic Roleplaying System (Magic World, Super World, Future World) and stuff like Cthulu and that was okay. Then there was Hero Games which was much better but every genre felt like a superhero game. Then came Gurps and the generic system to cover different genres was truly launched.

The universal system is so much the norm now that it's almost easy to forget that being the best of the universal systems was it's big claim to fame and popularity.

So true!

When the store owner was all excited about GURPS, I remember shrugging and saying, "Hero does that." He replied, "No, this is different." At the time, either he couldn't explain the difference or I couldn't understand the concept he was trying to get across. I don't recall clearly. What I do remember is that I didn't believe it could be all that different, but trusting the store owner since he'd never steered me wrong before. And he was right, of course.

I still love Hero and a whole lot of other games, but GURPS really is something else. As you say, we have a plethora of universal RPGs now, but I think GURPS remains remarkable in many ways.

[ArchonShiva]

GURPS
The Last Word.


Games never live up to such slogans... For a lot of us, this one did.

[sjard]

The time compression was bad enough in my area (no actual game store, just a book store that sold some games) that 1st edition and 3rd edition showed up on the shelves about the same point in time. I grabbed 3rd edition because the 1st edition box was both used, and for some reason slightly more expensive.

That first printing of 3rd edition has long since fallen apart from use (and started when I loaned it to a friend who broke the spine ripping it into 3 sections in spite over a book I'd borrowed that had a minor tear in one page).

One of these days I'll actually manage to order a copy of 3rd edition revised and have it not be 3rd edition 3rd printing (I have 5 of those now).

[Anaraxes]

I skipped over 2e, as the changes weren't all that huge, and the "GURPS Update" tucked in my with 1e binder (in front of all the Roleplayers) served well enough until 3e appeared.