Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-30-2023, 06:18 AM   #161
WingedKagouti
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
There is room for improvement in a “next edition” of GURPS; and I'd go further and say that if you aren't making any changes to the game engine, if it's just a repackaging of the same rules in a more presentable format, you shouldn't call it the Fifth Edition.
This is somewhat off-topic, but calling a repackaged version of the current rules "Fifth Edition" would help boost the visibility of the game compared to calling it "Fourth Edition Revised".

"4E Revised" is more likely to make previously apprehensive players go "It's probably just the same cumbersome rules with a few text updates". If it is labelled "5E" you get a larger chance to have those people go "I wonder what they changed" instead.

With Lite (or Lite+) as the core rules, you would obviously need to rework books like Fantasy, Supers and Martial Arts so any skills, advantages and disadvantages relevant to the books are present in the books. The amount of work this represents is definitely enough to be worthy of a new edition label in my opinion.
WingedKagouti is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 09:22 AM   #162
Opellulo
 
Opellulo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Rome, Italy
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Casting aside the defensiveness of some comments I think that the main problem that holds back GURPS (and any possible future iteration on the same system) is its morbid fetish with "realism".

Yes i know I sound like a broken record... But my impression is that for some users (and some writers) GURPS is not just a series of guidelines to play "pretend" but some scientific method to measure real world phenomena, and this way of thinking generated a lot of complex, complicated, math heavy, and frictional rule bloat.

But Realism should not be the goal... Fun should be.

Think of how many rules and variants are there that, in game practice, only covert to a modest bonus/penalty to skill checks. Do you really need hundreds of pages and multiple manuals of advantages, disadvantages, talents, familiarity, adaptation, dabbler, defaults and whatnot only to ask a player to do a skill check -2?

In 2023 I personally cannot understand anymore this friction between rule "lore" and gaming practice, to me it's just an unnecessary superstructure used to justify what? That your game of choice is more "valid" because more realistic? That your game is "scientifically sound"? What this fetish really brings to the table?

To me it only holds back the game: GURPS at its core is a remarkably elegant, sleek and easy to teach system. Unfortunately when it is played at a level just above Lite it quickly spirals to a monster bloat of rule wrinkles that makes difficult to run any adventure that do not adhere to its version of "realism". Generic? Absolutely! Universal? Not so much...
__________________
“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”
Opellulo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 09:49 AM   #163
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Opellulo View Post
In 2023 I personally cannot understand anymore this friction between rule "lore" and gaming practice, to me it's just an unnecessary superstructure used to justify what? That your game of choice is more "valid" because more realistic? That your game is "scientifically sound"? What this fetish really brings to the table?
I wouldn't really call it a fetish, but basing things on a degree of realism has the benefit of making it easier for the GM to make judgement calls. I also find it makes it a lot easier to come up with new rules to cover specific situations, when I'm in the mood to generate some houserules. It just seems like the natural place to start for a generic and universal system - much as a lot of fiction starts from the premise of "like the real world, except..."

There's also the problem that, if you want your base to be highly-cinematic, you've got to decide what kind of highly-cinematic you want. Four Color Supers? Space Opera? Low Tech Fantasy? Shounen Anime? Noir? Wuxia? Spaghetti Western? 80's-era American martial arts movies? Each of those are fairly distinct, and the more you lean toward one over the others, the less generic and universal your system is.

That said, there are some cinematic options I feel GURPS is sorely missing. As unrealistic as it is, the "subdual damage" concept from DnD is simple and works well in a lot of cinematic genres (you often see it in play in just about all of the above), yet GURPS refuses to officially have such an option in a form other than using special abilities (or techniques, like the blood choke) to inflict FP damage or just knock out a foe outright, which ultimately work far differently (and feel rather different) from portrayals of such in fiction.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 09:54 AM   #164
Ulzgoroth
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Opellulo View Post
But Realism should not be the goal... Fun should be.
Good old 'what I like is the universal axis of fun, what you like is dead weight'?

I buy GURPS rulebooks for reality-oriented information and mechanics, and sometimes for gearheaded rules extension. That is, I would have no reason to buy any part of your version of GURPS.

I mean, as a marketing strategy dumping some of your current customers is certainly an option. (If there were going to be a next edition at all.) But it'd certainly happen if you define your update around less crunch.
__________________
I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident.
Ulzgoroth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 10:26 AM   #165
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I wouldn't really call it a fetish, but basing things on a degree of realism has the benefit of making it easier for the GM to make judgement calls.
The problem is... the vast majority of games are interested in simulating literary genres, not reality, and most likely some form of action/adventure genre, and a focus on realism often interferes with that.

If I had to point to a book that I think caused the most problems for GURPS, it would be high tech for 3rd edition... because that's where they introduced the current way of scaling firearms damage, prior to that it was something like 3d damage for a rifle.
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 11:04 AM   #166
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
The problem is... the vast majority of games are interested in simulating literary genres, not reality, and most likely some form of action/adventure genre, and a focus on realism often interferes with that.
Again, there's the issue that you need some level of cinematics/realism to default to. Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and The Expanse, despite being ostensibly-similar (character-driven stories INNN SPAAAACE!), have very different levels - and indeed different flavors - of cinematics/realism in play. I feel GURPS is at about the right level of cinematics/realism to be fairly-readily modified into functioning like any of those, while something that works like Star Wars or Star Trek would require more extensive reworking to function like Firefly or The Expanse (I feel The Expanse - or at least what I've seen of the TV adaptation of it - is fairly similar to GURPS from the start, and Firefly is just a bit more cinematic, but not nearly to the extent of Star Wars and Star Trek).

Maybe I'm wrong, and there's a different starting point that would work much better for adapting into just about everything. But I think GURPS defaults to a good point for that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
If I had to point to a book that I think caused the most problems for GURPS, it would be high tech for 3rd edition... because that's where they introduced the current way of scaling firearms damage, prior to that it was something like 3d damage for a rifle.
I can see benefits and drawbacks to this approach. One of the big benefits is that you can pretty readily adapt an existing weapon (or in many cases a fictional one) into the system, simply by looking at its penetration in RHA (the fictional ones might say something like "can burn through up to an inch of durasteel plating," so you'll need to figure out how durasteel compares to RHA to assign overall penetration, but that's typically not terribly difficult). The drawback, of course, is that while many authors will quote their technology as having a given performance, a lot of the time they won't actually behave anything like that in the story, so basing their performance on such will result in them functioning quite differently in the campaign than the GM and players will expect from the story - not a weapon per se, but giving X-Wings in your GURPS Star Wars game the quoted acceleration of 3,700 G's is going to result in space battles that look absolutely nothing like those in the movies). But then, a lot of game systems are going to have difficulty correctly matching such performances, where weapons have a range of PLOT, a damage of PLOT, can fire up to PLOT times a second with a standard magazine/energy cell holding PLOT shots, etc.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 11:12 AM   #167
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I can see benefits and drawbacks to this approach. One of the big benefits is that you can pretty readily adapt an existing weapon (or in many cases a fictional one) into the system, simply by looking at its penetration in RHA (the fictional ones might say something like "can burn through up to an inch of durasteel plating," so you'll need to figure out how durasteel compares to RHA to assign overall penetration, but that's typically not terribly difficult). The drawback, of course, is that while many authors will quote their technology as having a given performance, a lot of the time they won't actually behave anything like that in the story, so basing their performance on such will result in them functioning quite differently in the campaign than the GM and players will expect from the story
I would say the drawback is sufficiently large to make the benefit disappear completely. "You can, based on random technobabble that the writer produced, come up with stats that are totally inappropriate to how the item actually behaves in the source" isn't really a selling point. Note that this can be wrong in any of a variety of directions, such as "Phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range" from Terminator.
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 11:42 AM   #168
Ulzgoroth
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
The problem is... the vast majority of games are interested in simulating literary genres, not reality, and most likely some form of action/adventure genre, and a focus on realism often interferes with that.

If I had to point to a book that I think caused the most problems for GURPS, it would be high tech for 3rd edition... because that's where they introduced the current way of scaling firearms damage, prior to that it was something like 3d damage for a rifle.
Which literary genres are hindered by rifles doing ~2 times as much damage?

Nothing springs to mind for 'tanking rifles is normal' except supers who are bullet-proof.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
I would say the drawback is sufficiently large to make the benefit disappear completely. "You can, based on random technobabble that the writer produced, come up with stats that are totally inappropriate to how the item actually behaves in the source" isn't really a selling point. Note that this can be wrong in any of a variety of directions, such as "Phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range" from Terminator.
Yeah, it must be said that fiction is (A) likely to not give stats like that to begin with and (B) likely to do it wrong if it does.

Though for literary emulation, in most cases 'does damage like a pistol or rifle firing hollow points or maybe frangibles' may be all you need, with the occasional 'makes people explode and shoots through buildings'.
__________________
I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident.

Last edited by Ulzgoroth; 03-30-2023 at 11:51 AM.
Ulzgoroth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 12:05 PM   #169
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
I would say the drawback is sufficiently large to make the benefit disappear completely. "You can, based on random technobabble that the writer produced, come up with stats that are totally inappropriate to how the item actually behaves in the source" isn't really a selling point. Note that this can be wrong in any of a variety of directions, such as "Phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range" from Terminator.
If something has inconsistent performance, nothing but a fairly abstract system (such as d20's treatment of damage, where the bulk of a character's "hit points" instead represent something nebulous, with most attacks that reduce them actually missing... but then some players treat any hit as an outright hit and wonder how their 5th level Fighter can take enough punishment to have dropped him at level 1 four times over and keep fighting on) is going to be able to handle it. In cases where the item doesn't function the way it's stated to function, of course you can't actually use those stats, and will need to come up with more appropriate ones based on the item's actual performance (such as giving X-Wings performance more akin to WWII-era fighter planes, which they more closely mimic). Personally, I prefer things to have consistent, definable characteristics, and GURPS supports that quite well. Also, the GURPS basis lets you more readily come up with how novel things function. So you've got a wonder material that is 1/3rd the weight of steel but just as protective? Alright, just about any system will let you make existing armor but only have it weigh 1/3rd as much and be good to go (3e DnD does this with Mithral, although that's 1/2 weight rather than 1/3rd; it also downgrades the weight class a step, letting you move faster, because d20 has a clunky way of handling armor weight... of course this also means you don't know if 1/3rd weight should just downgrade one class or make everything light armor or what, because the weight classes are set more-or-less arbitrarily). But what if you instead decide to have armor that's the same weight but made of this wonder material? d20 can't really tell you, because armor doesn't really work that way. But GURPS can handle that, no problem - 3x as heavy means 3x as thick, which means 3x the DR. Of course there's the risk that such a thing may be too thick to move around in... but the fact GURPS has a defined relationship between thickness and protection means you can determine just how thick that is*, and there's even something of a guideline for how thick armor can get - in the Armor Design Pyramid articles, it's pretty consistent that rigid materials can be used to make armor up to 0.2" thick, and flexible materials can be used to make armor up to 0.5" thick (and they keep the Flexible modifier so long as they are 0.125" thick or thinner).

*Of course, this means you'll have to decide if your wonder material is 1/3rd as dense as steel, or the same density and armor made from it is often extremely thin, or something else... but that's a good idea anyway, so you know what someone walking around in such armor looks like, allowing you to describe it better (do they look as armored as they are - "She looks to be wearing an ornate full plate harness, but the metal catches the light beautifully and seems to have a bit of a green sheen to it - is it perhaps Adamant Steel?" - or is the metal noticeably thinner - "Her plate armor looks almost paper-thin, like a costume rather than anything protective, but you notice it catches the light differently from mundane steel, and indeed your eye catches a hint of green - you realize she's wearing Adamant Steel, and is as well-armored - possibly even more so - than a knight ready for a joust").
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2023, 12:07 PM   #170
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Which literary genres are hindered by rifles doing ~2 times as much damage?

Nothing springs to mind for 'tanking rifles is normal' except supers who are bullet-proof.
In an RPG, you have to assume that people's decision making will be influenced by the effectiveness of the weapon. The reality of cinematic genres is that guns just don't get used much by the heroes (and are generally ineffective when used by the bad guys), and if you want to emulate that in an RPG, you have to make guns ineffective. That doesn't have to be low damage, it could be low accuracy (though we have the separate problem of armor; it should be possible to punch out someone wearing tactical armor).
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
complexity, math

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:19 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.