What GURPS needs... now

[VIVIT]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

At some level, all RPGs use reality as a check.

Not really. All RPGs use people's idea of what reality is as a check, many if not most of them don't use actual empirical data to back any of it up. They're aiming for a system that's believable, not a system that's accurate.

[edk926]

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Druid supplement of some sort.

As it stands, the Druid is kind of out of place in a typical Dungeon crawl. Most of the standard Druid spell ideas are more designed for the outside. There tend not to be plants in the dungeon due to the lack of sunlight, and dungeons limit weather spells.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

At some level, all RPGs use reality as a check.

Not really. They care about shocking breaks of verisimilitude, but after that a lot of them are more interested in good game play and/or narrative emulation than realism.

[namada]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

At some level, all RPGs use reality as a check.

I'll add my 2 cents to this comment by saying: not even close - ;)

My very first session of playing D&D 2E, I instantly disliked the system because the only way it made any sense to me was in a self-referential way. You had to master the abstract nonsense to make sense of the abstract nonsense, and I still feel the same way about the system to this day (though I fully acknowledge that I'm in the extreme minority in my dislike there). I did play & even GM it for a few years, but that was only because I didn't have Internet back then & didn't know there were better systems out there.

When someone gave me a used copy of GURPS 3E, I was instantly hooked & at home with the system precisely because of its use of grounded reality as a foundation. So much more than I was ever at home with D&D. God, I still loathe the experience of playing & wizard & Vance-magic, so awful. Lol...

[tbone]

Originally Posted by edk926

As it stands, the Druid is kind of out of place in a typical Dungeon crawl. Most of the standard Druid spell ideas are more designed for the outside. There tend not to be plants in the dungeon due to the lack of sunlight, and dungeons limit weather spells.

I think the understanding is simply that DF players and GMs need to go bring druids into play with eyes open – the GM needs to promise to include plenty of wilderness adventure, and the player needs to accept reduced power in many situations.

If the game will mostly take place in dungeons, there are still things the GM should do: be sure to include underground animals and weird plants (including lots of fungus beasties), and chances to use druidic elemental magic.

All that said, you've got the right idea that it'd be good to see more druidic strengths in a typical dungeon. Some special ability to deal with slime-class things would be interesting – maybe not all the power druids command over plants and animals (slimes' status as "natural" is iffy), but something would be good. Delving druids would certainly want to divert points to such underground specialties. (DFRPG notes "Unaffected by Animal or Plant spells that don’t specifically target slimes" for all slime monster entries, suggesting there might be druidic spells that do target slimes. Unfortunately, Spells seems to offer none. Time to make up a spell or two!)

(Tying this directly to the thread topic: I wouldn't put "beef up DF druids" high on a list of "What GURPS needs" - but as one of many very minor things, sure, I can see this on a list.)

[maximara]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

Not really. All RPGs use people's idea of what reality is as a check, many if not most of them don't use actual empirical data to back any of it up. They're aiming for a system that's believable, not a system that's accurate.

Some of the things in RPGs are not "believable" (even for the genre) and make for great comedy (hence Murphy's Rules)

Let's face it, the really early stuff didn't even aim for believability. Was it believable for a house cat to kill a 1st level Magic User in AD&D1? Was the speed of your vehicle being dependent on your reflexes and personal speed score as in an older version of Champions (Them gas pedal sure is tricky...) make any sense?

Even GURPS itself has hiccups, (Animal) Control for example is Resisted by Will which is based on IQ so "If I ever find a smart one, I'm Dead" still applies (worm control is resisted by Intelligence) though I am not sure about "That Last Yard's a Killer" where it it is stated that an average person running 500 yards takes 83.3 seconds but it supposedly took twice that long to run 501 yards (which should be impossible as the shortest amount of time in GURPS for any action is a second so it should take 83 or 84 seconds so something is wonked here).

[myrmidon]

I'm not meaning to resurrect this thread. I've been wanting to post on this topic and am just now getting around to it.

A couple of weeks ago, DaosusLeghki posted a few comments. I thought they were relevant coming from a person who's been interested in GURPS but isn't yet a player. I think that's important because it shows what may be keeping players from diving in.

Originally Posted by DaosusLeghki

Here are the things that kept me from trying GURPS using the Basic Set:

1. The books are wonderfully written reference books that fit any and every setting. But, to go from "I want to play" to "I am ready to play" will take a 2-3+ page document describing what stuff from the Basic Set is available and which rules we are using/not using.

2. Players are lazy and will not read the Basic Set. They will not read my 2-3 page document. They will not even read their spells when playing DnD. So, Templates are a must have, but will require me to write up a bunch of templates in a system I'm not familiar with.

3. After all that, the game might not be a good fit, and I'll have to scrap all that work.

It is absolutely true that GURPS is a toolkit system. But what I need to be able to sell that toolkit is a pre-designed structure that my players can build with that toolkit. Without that, there is a bunch of work I have to do "on speculation," so to speak. As a comparison, I can pick up a Savage Worlds setting, give it a quick read through, and go.

Speaking as a GM with about six or seven years of experience in GURPS now, I think he hit the nail on the head with his second point, in two ways.

First, it has been my experience as well that players do not read anything more than what the GM places in front of them at the table. This means I have had to develop summary sheets of advantages, disadvantages, and skills; equipment sheets to help manage armor locations and carried weight; equipment forms to list equipment; equipment sheets that have the text for items copied from the relevant pdf. It's been a lot of administration.

Second, and along those lines, making NPCs is more difficult in GURPS. Other games, for instance, have manuals of monsters. GURPS doesn't, at least generally. I have developed simple NPC templates that I modify and reuse, but that was done after several years of feeling lost and unsupported when trying to come up with NPCs. (Mook's "How to Be a GURPS GM" was very helpful in realizing how to make such templates.) Collections of templates would be vastly helpful when creating NPCs, especially for new GMs who may feel overwhelmed by all the options presented in GURPS.

It has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread that D&D's DnDBeyond site is very helpful, especially for new players. (There is a question on whether it makes better players, but it definitely aids in getting people into the game.) I think something similar but simpler for GURPS would be very helpful. I imagine a tool where one builds a character by simply clicking through and adding advantages, disadvantages, skills, equipment, etc. Then, whenever the player has a question, he can open up the website, open his character sheet, and click on the advantage (for example) about which he has a question and read the text. NPC templates could be incorporated as well. I realize this may be beyond the ability of what SJGames can do or afford to contract out, but I wanted to give my thoughts on it.

[namada]

This thread keeps getting revived, and unless a moderator closes it, I don't see it going away anytime soon, so I'd not worry about that. Even if this were closed, a similar thread would likely pop-up right behind it, so that's probably why it's still open.

Anyway, I agree with you that DaosusLeghki did bring up some very common complaints, and was quite right about all of that. However, speaking as a GM with nearly 25 years of experience running GURPS, these things keep coming up, and the rebuttals are always the same:

Originally Posted by DaosusLeghki

1. The books are wonderfully written reference books that fit any and every setting. But, to go from "I want to play" to "I am ready to play" will take a 2-3+ page document describing what stuff from the Basic Set is available and which rules we are using/not using.

SJGames' preferred method of getting around this these days is there Quick-Start series of product. These are not even mentioned in the Basic Set though, unfortunately, because they hadn't been thought up and written up yet. So far we have Action, After the End, Dungeon Fantasy, Monster Hunters, and Steam Punk, but I suspect more are coming eventually. Making some minor revisions in the Basic Set, such as removing those utterly pointless quotes strewn about the thing & replacing them with advertisements for products (and other products, especially Genre Guidebooks like Fantasy, Horror, Mysteries, Space, Supers, etc. - and, rather obviously: How to be a GURPS GM), would be a wise move on the company's part, IMHO.

Genre books used to be the default way to bypass this issue, but it seems the quick-start series have taken over instead. In my experience, GURPS is unlike any other RPG in that it rewards those that play it for a long time, in that, eventually, as your players get more and more familiar with the system, a GM can simply say things like:
Make 300 point characters with a max of 40 points in disadvantages, including a required 5 points of quirks. I'll be running a campaign in Forgotten Realms, but just using the Basic Set and Fantasy, so make sure your characters are appropriate.
...and, so long as you've made it clear that RPG gaming is a cooperative activity, plus the whole "GURPS rewards you" thing, you actually can just throw books at your players and end up with appropriate PCs (or virtually so when you actually review them.)

Originally Posted by DaosusLeghki

2. Players are lazy and will not read the Basic Set. They will not read my 2-3 page document. They will not even read their spells when playing DnD. So, Templates are a must have, but will require me to write up a bunch of templates in a system I'm not familiar with.

see GURPS rewards players & cooperative activity above...
If players can't be bothered to try, boot them, or don't play. You're GMing, and thus taking on the greater load, if people can't make an effort to meet you half-way, go read a book instead. Make that clear to the players as well.

Originally Posted by DaosusLeghki

It is absolutely true that GURPS is a toolkit system. But what I need to be able to sell that toolkit is a pre-designed structure that my players can build with that toolkit. Without that, there is a bunch of work I have to do "on speculation," so to speak. As a comparison, I can pick up a Savage Worlds setting, give it a quick read through, and go.

Since Savage Worlds is mentioned here (and we may as well throw Pathfinder's Adventure Paths, and D&D5E's massive adventure book releases in too), I think this was where the whole "Powered by GURPS" venture flopped. Instead of allowing third-party publishers to creating competing RPG games, SJGames' should allow them to create full-blown campaigns (or adventure paths, adventure series, whatever you want to call them), and sell those. That's what many gamers find lacking in GURPS, and a variety of well-made campaign, using just the Basic Set (preferably), would do more to attract folks to GURPS, IMO.
It happened with D&D 5E, that Wizards took a more campaign-focused, rather than rules-focused, release approach, and it drew many old D&D gamers back to the table.
It happened with the release of Pathfinder, that many gamers flocked to Paizo because they were so well known for their cool campaigns.

It seems that most modern gamers are simply lacking in the time to use a toolkit, to me, and it seems that SJGames doesn't have the resources to produce high-quality, massive, 100% Ready-To-Game campaigns like this - so it should be the area to explore allowing third party support in. I'm certain that great stuff would come out, if only publishers could

• harness the power & flexibility of GURPS, while keeping the #of-books-required to a minimum
• without requiring massive amounts of oversight by SJGames
• & limit it to Table-Ready support, not Rules support (that's SJGames' place)

Originally Posted by myrmidon

Second, and along those lines, making NPCs is more difficult in GURPS. Other games, for instance, have manuals of monsters. GURPS doesn't, at least generally. I have developed simple NPC templates that I modify and reuse, but that was done after several years of feeling lost and unsupported when trying to come up with NPCs. (Mook's "How to Be a GURPS GM" was very helpful in realizing how to make such templates.) Collections of templates would be vastly helpful when creating NPCs, especially for new GMs who may feel overwhelmed by all the options presented in GURPS.

NPC creation is only as difficult as you make it. If you want to fully stat an NPC, yeah, it'll take some time to do it by hand. If you want to speed things up, buy GURPS Character Assistant. Then you could, for example, load up the Basic Set & Fantasy books, and you can combine Racial and Character Templates to quickly make an Orc Archer NPC mook, an Orc Bandit NPC mook, or an Orc Battle Wizard NPC mook. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of possibility combinations you could generate, quickly & easily, by using GCA. Why SJGames hasn't done the work already, and tried to sell it, is something they'd have to answer, because I don't understand it either, since it's such a frequent request.

The same applies to many other combinations, btw:

• Basic Set & Space
• Basic Set & Horror
• Basic Set & Dungeon Fantasy
• Basic Set & Action
• ...etc...

Or, alternatively, just do the simple thing. Ask yourself what the purpose of the NPC is. If it's to provide a haggling challenge in the market, for example:
Harold the Merchant:
Merchant - 16
Other Stats - 12

If it's to provide a fighting challenge in a barroom brawl:
Harold the Drunk:
Brawling - 16
Other Stats - 12

If it's to provide a pick-pocketing challenge in a crowded street:
Harold the Random Guy on the Street:
Perception - 16
Other Stats - 12

***Vary numbers as needed, based upon the PC, or PC's in question. ;)

[Refplace]

This might be a good use of the Template Toolkit line.
For genres that dont have their own line (like Action, Dungeon Fantasy, Monster Hunters) we could see Template Toolkits for genres and settings.
Easy way to update some older settings (in that the books could be smaller and less repetitive) and hit populr genres.
The last Steampunk book is one possible example. Some of the DF line are also examples.

This could save a lot of time building characters, making it easier for people to jump in.