What is your favorite genre and how well does GURPS handle it?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

The problem I'm having is survivability. The higher the TL, the more it's a rock-paper-scissors contest between technologies with the human element being less and less important. If your armor is this good or better relative to weapons, you'll be unharmed, and if it's not, you're dead, no matter what your stats are. That's absolutely realistic, but I don't want realistic. That said, I don't necessarily want the more blatant kinds of unrealistic I use for cliffhangers. It's a tough niche for me.

I like high armor divisors for this. They make armor less effective but don't neccassarily red mist everyone which simply increasing the damage would do.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by AOTA

Same here.
Personally I never had problems with any form of Supers with GURPS. Low or high point levels. My personal favorite genre is time travel and alternate earths. Which GURPS handles very well.

My supers game right now among my four groups is 500 points to 12,000 points. I've had zero problems running it that was in the issue of power or mechanics. The problems I HAVE had have been of my own making and the result of not having enough notes on what's going on - something I have long remedied, but now need to deal with the other stuff from past seasons.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

My supers game right now among my four groups is 500 points to 12,000 points. I've had zero problems running it that was in the issue of power or mechanics. The problems I HAVE had have been of my own making and the result of not having enough notes on what's going on - something I have long remedying, but now need to deal with the other stuff from past seasons.

Yeah a new supplement for Supers should address jusat how imporetant communication and understanding between GM and player is for the genre.
Its important everywhere but in Supers your often making up new powers and that can cause a lot of frustration and trouble if mutual agreement and understanding is not reached. Even then sometimes a special effect or power could be thematically appropriate yet game breaking which also can be an issue.

[Lovewyrm]

Low key heroics, both fantasy and modern: Very very well handled by GURPS.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yeah a new supplement for Supers should address jusat how imporetant communication and understanding between GM and player is for the genre.
Its important everywhere but in Supers your often making up new powers and that can cause a lot of frustration and trouble if mutual agreement and understanding is not reached. Even then sometimes a special effect or power could be thematically appropriate yet game breaking which also can be an issue.

All of this is true. I think the most important part is the communication issue. Your players almost HAVE to know what you're thinking and planning to some degree so that everyone gets their shine. This isn't particular to supers, but to games over a certain number of points or have expanded capabilities.

[Blind Mapmaker]

Slice of Life / Everyman play - be it kids at a magic school, trash-level supers making a living or well-meaning, but hopeless fantasy wanna-be heroes. GURPS is one of the best systems for supporting various flavours of characters that have all their unique strengths and weaknesses. There are many systems who do this sort of thing well for a one-shot or a short campaign, but in GURPS you can literally play for years, have incremental improvement, small victories and loads of relationships without either ascending to superhero level, growing stale or blending into indistinguishable copies.

The only thing where it is lacking a bit is building relationships outside of the clear Ally/Patron/Dependent/Enemy structure. And even that you can sort of wing with a bit more fine-grained reputations.

[Dalin]

1. Dungeon Fantasy (aka, "GURPS D&D") — I've been doing this since I converted my AD&D campaign to GURPS in the early '90s. The DF line makes it even easier.
2. Pulp Action
3. Weird West

I've experimented with some other genres, too. I can't remember running a game where GURPS didn't do what I wanted. (I've played in some, but that was usually due to an inexperienced GM who let the game grind to a halt while looking up every nitpicky rule.)

I'm hoping to run or play in a space opera campaign at some point.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

GURPS is weakest in its emulation of a certain niche dungeon-crawling genre pioneered by another brand.

I just noticed this after posting that this is my favorite and most-played genre. I've always felt that GURPS does D&D better than D&D.

I love the range of responses we're seeing in this thread!

[Lancewholelot]

I was looking through old game notes just last night. Medieval fantasy is by far the bulk of of what I've ran in GURPS over the years, due in large part to the availability of material to draw on for inspiration (I've converted many adventures from AD&D and Tunnels & Trolls). I had a traditional fantasy realm and a high powered Planescape campaign going for many years. Second would be modern weird world pulp/horror, followed by Gamma World and then sci-fi, with some dabbling in four-color supers.

[mburr0003]

I just realized I put down what I prefer to play, not what I prefer to run... going over my campaigns the last 40+ years of GURPS...

#1 - Fantasy, whether it be strongly themed or kitchen sink, I have far more fantasy campaign under my GURPS belt. However two things; 1) it's what my Players want (and I never have a problem running fantasy) and 2 it's always some mash-up with some level of post-apoc/current apocalypse.

#2 - "2 weeks/months in the future" post-apocalypse without any fantasy.

#3 - Modern Wainscot Mystery/Monster Hunters. What it says ont eh tin. It's already pretty 'mash-up" so I really don't have to mix too much more in, though I did run a "1970s" post-apoc supernatural "wainscot".

#4 - Sci-fi/Space Opera, always a heavy mash-up but that runs as either heavy emphasis on either Science/Tech or High Cinematics "Two-Fisted Space tales".

Lastly two short run Supers campaigns.

I keep trying to pull together a Cyberpunk game, but I find it's difficult to get people to except my level of detective noir in their c-punk.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I'll start this out with a negative: for *me* the only genre GURPS doesn't do well is sci-fi. And I think this is a problem for *me* versus the system itself. As a GM I need three things to run a game: a cartograph of all the places a PC might go, a fully realized "tech-tree", and a handle on all the races in the setting.

So what about the Sci-fi genre do you find hard for GURPS, the cartography or the tech-treeing?

My heroes have always been cowboys.

Intriguing that you've never run a game in the setting your heroes are in, but use it to inform your games nonetheless. I've done the same, my heroes are a mix of Arthurian, Robin Hood, Zorro, the Four Musketeers, and the Scarlet Pimpernel... followed by Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Dashiel Hammett's nameless Continental Op. So I tend to run either over-the-top Action which encourages chandelier swinging levels of acrobatic combat nonsense (up to full wuxia sometimes) or cinematically gritty noir, regardless if it's fantasy, or space opera, or or modern wainscot. But I've never run detective noir or Arthurian/Robin Hood nor Swashbuckling Politics.

I tried to run a "hyper gritty noir with high cinematic narrative control" in a Fallout/Horror game... and it was working... mostly*. But I lost the time (and mental stamina) to keep running it.


* The Players thought it was gonzo awesome, swinging from thrilling hijinx to "la-la-la-la-la I'm not listening anymore" psychological/body horror, but I could see the cracks. I mostly think I kept them plastered over... but I'm not sure the campaign could keep juggling the duality of themes and emotional settings. I don;t know. I might have to try and dust the setting off and rerun it when I have time and mental fortitude again.

Originally Posted by Dalin

I've always felt that GURPS does D&D better than D&D.

That's going to depend on what you're definition of D&D is. For me that definition is "Levels", "classes", and "pure rp your non-combat skills". Three things GURPS tends to eschew.

If your definition is "fantasy of all flavors from Kitchen Sink High Magic to Sword and Sandal", then yeah, GURPS does it best.