Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

First of all. I think the Art is fine. What I mostly would want to see is the depth of content in just a few areas. From that, the Artwork may follow. For example, the graphic design in Transhuman Space (3/e) is very distinct, and follows from the gameworld. If more were written about a game world, one might expect the art to follow from that, and support the "feel" of that gameworld.

I agree with you here! Well Said!!

I am an avid fan of the GURPS Ruleset, but those games that have echoed with my players (using those rules) have been the ones where I've had a lot of resources as a GM, depth, color, history, traditions, customs all laid out for the GM.

I've run GURPS:Vampire the Masquerade Campaigns, and GURPS:Traveller Campaigns, and one homebrew campaign that I basically ran in GURPS, but using the Sword and Sorcery Setting book, called 'Shelzar' and am considering writing another campaign in 'Shelzar'

I think that due to its 'Generic' and 'Universal' nature, GURPS has the *potential* to cover a huge amount of ground, from Science Fiction to Fantasy, to Historical Simulations. That is it's strength. Where it may suffer in comparison to other game lines is that due to that broad set of options, no single ground is covered in detail and in depth. That's a natural consequence of being applicable across a broad set of interests and tastes.

So, what I'm arguing for, in order to best serve players, is for GURPS to really invest itself in a handful of settings *in depth*. I would argue against writing more along the lines of GURPS Banestorm. I have never felt that that fantasy setting really interested me. It felt a little too 'generic' as fantasy, for my tastes, just as Infinite Worlds did.

Traveller, Transhuman Space, are excellent Science Fiction Game settings, and have the type of support that I would expect to gain attention, but along with the fabulous ruleset, one would expect to get a great setting/worldbook. Once you get a series of the basic books with mechanics out of the way (Powers, Magic, Basic I, and II) and once you give people the toolsets to start making their own campaigns in some broad areas (Fantasy, Space), then I think you've covered the basics for the rules systems.

Start focusing on gamebooks that people will take right home and start using without adaptation. With that low of a 'useability' threshold, even non-GURPS players will buy it for the content. A Fantasy Metropolis, for example, can be either a waystation, or a campaign hub, or even the entire campaign book.

The average D&D player seems to be (from my observations) significantly younger than the average GURPS player. So, on average, let's say that the average GURPS player is a little bit older, has a lot of work and family on their plate. What will echo loudly with those players is an in-depth GURPS Fantasy product that they don't have to spend much time developing, something they can skim through and just start mining for NPC's to encounter, locations in a city, or below one to start going to, with secret societies and villains already written into the campaign book.

The archetype of this campaign book is the first GURPS Campaign I ran: Vampire the Masquerade. A copy of GURPS Basic, a Copy of GURPS:VtM, and a copy of the New Orleans sourcebook for Vampire and I had enough materials to start out a years' worth of weekly adventures at least!!

Lots of plot hooks, rivalries, and dangers just from being attached to one faction within the city. And the group was off and running!!

What I would love to see would be settings, ready to go. Not from the Sector level down, but from the city level on up. G:T Mora Station, in one book.

Or, in Interstellar Wars, build Terra as a place of intrigue, a racial capital during a time of war. Lots of Campaign-ready information, not how to write a campaign, but even providing places to go for players within a city. Underground Psionic activists, those who feel that Terra should fall to the Imperials, Xenophobic groups that want Terra to stay Terran... Granted, I can just adapt existing campaigns to GURPS, and I do, but I think that having that sort of depth in a game world adds significantly to its playability.

That's where I would love to see GURPS go towards. If I opened a book of GURPS and recognized that I had in depth material for a campaign in one book, you'd be surprised at how much I would pay for that. Even a map on a single page of a metropolis, with locations would be worth buying, from my standpoint. Heck, they're selling Ptolus at about $120, and people are pre-ordering it!

-Paraj Mandrekar

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

You took the words right out of my fingers! Even his black and white stuff had more personality than the new art.

Also, SJG should send money to Xuub and Pmandrekar. They're both right on. "Generic" and "Universal" are good things for the system, but they should not characterize the entire line. Some kickass settings that include GURPS Lite seems like a good way to indoctrinate people. Licensed stuff might not be a bad idea. I'm sure a decent amount of Terry Pratchett fans have been introduced to GURPS via GURPS Discworld.

Overall, I think the new books look pretty decent. The covers have a very unified theme going on, which is good. The cover art in general is good, and I like the layout. My only gripe is the "action dudes and dudettes" character art. I find it bland and unimaginative. I wouldn't be surprised if the same artists were able to do better if they were working on more cohesive setting-based material. I imagine that generic system books aren't terribly inspiring to work on for artists. (I feel obligated to add that I can't even draw a straight line, so I shouldn't even be judging artists. Hooray internet for allowing me to dump my unwanted opinions on everyone!)

By the way, this is my first post. Hello everyone!

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

here here(or is that hear hear??)


I dropped D20, because the books I was buying were "pretty", but lacked substance. I really like GURPS, I borrowed the basic books from a friend to review, and have decided to buy the basic books, and probably some others. The D&D books are pretty, but are horrible as a gaming system(this coming from a die hard D&D fan). I played 3e(GURPS), with some friends, and I am now hooked, and am looking forward to GMing my first game soon.

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

Maybe the other GURPS/4E books could use some spicing up visually, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is a visual feast. This company has outdone themselves on this new book!!

Thanks,

Scott

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

I do like the 3.5 D&D better than previous versions, but it's still a level-based system. It's fun for me if I am playing a published D&D world where I can say that the world and system are one. But, if I am playing in a custom world, I hate the constraints of a level-based system.

As for the art part, I do very much agree that D&D books are more art than substance. Yes, art is important. Yes, the D&D books do have good information, but if they were to go with a GURPS level of art, they could cut their page count and price in half, OR even better, they could go with a "GURPS" page count, and give us more substance than art.

Sad thing is, even at e23.com they state that d20 is the most popular game system on the d20 PDF downloads... and I truly do beleive it's partially for how "pretty" the books are, and partially because of the marketing strategies of WotC. Some people say that it's cause it's D&D, the first and therefore always will be the best RPG, but the fact is, TSR was going bankrupt (their fault for spending more suing Gygax than the game was bringing in or not) and if they had not sold to WotC, there would be no D&D and no d20 system. WotC bought them, stopped the silly lawsuit against Gygax (who was winning, cause he created D&D (along with some others) and so you can't take his name off it), giving them the money they needed to keep afloat, and either they "finished" 3rd edition as WotC would say, or WotC dreamed it up, either way... WotC breathed new life into D&D that TSR never could have.

GURPS could get more customers by "going pretty" but, I think they will KEEP more customers by keeping it as it is, and get more in the LONG RUN from word of mouth about the system, than the short term "pretty book" sales.

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

I for one was very surprised, to tell the truth, that D&D went with the old "Class/Level" paradigm for character development. Other than D&D, almost everyone else has gone to a point-buy system. Vampire, Hero, GURPS... D&D has a lot of exposure as a system, and is a good starting point for players, as it's a simple combat system with relatively few additional rules. I find that most players who start with D&D when they are young tend to move away from it as a system. Where it also falls short, as a system, is in portraying actions and occurrences realistically. The most unlikely outcome, when playing with a 1D20 will occur 5% of the time. On two successive rolls, you're still only talking about events that occur one time in 400.

By contrast, by playing with 3D6, and especially with 'confirmation' rolls (which, in fairness, occur in 3E as well) and you can get, in two rolls, events that occur one time in over 10,000.

The other advantage that GURPS has is that the social interaction rules in D&D are pretty low-res, compared to the combat rules. So, games that are likely to have more social interaction in them, you're better off gaming in GURPS.

So, on average, players who are looking for More complexity and realism go towards the GURPS end of the axis. Can anyone imagine playing WWII in D20? But with GURPS, absolutely!

What I'm getting at is that D&D has a lot of culture, history, well-defined game worlds (Forgotten Realms, Eberron) to play in, but the game system itself doesn't necessarily support non-combat gaming as well. I suspect that in those areas where GURPS systems interface with well-defined game worlds (i.e. Traveller, Vampire) they may do better than those stand alone game books with no additional support. I regularly decide on the game world, and then figure out how to adjust GURPS to fit the situation, which it is flexible enough to do in all cases to date.

On average, players delve more into the non-combat rules as they get older. When I was 11 or 12, I could make a weekend out of a dungeon crawl. In my mid-30's, I would be bored stiff with no story or social interaction in my games...

So, as long as people continue to play pen and paper RPG's, and age, there is likely to be a trend towards those systems that can deliver better modelling of social interactions, as well as the combat stuff. In other words, GURPS may continue to gain converts by virtue of the aging of it's players.

Efforts such as GURPS Lite are great to bring in players who don't want as much complexity from day one. I start campaigns in GURPS Lite, and slowly spike in additional rules as they become required. But GURPS really is designed for the long haul, for players who *continue* to game.

I suspect that GURPS is well aware of the demographics of their players, as well...

-Paraj Mandrekar

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

Well, yes, but... D&D was a level based system with Dungeons and Dragons. It was with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It was with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition, and it would have been suicide (more so than everyone said 3rd ed was going to be) for 3.x to be a point-based system. It wouldn't be D&D. D&D is level-based.

It would be like GURPS 4th edition being level based after having been point-based for 3 previous editions.

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

I have actually been playing AD&D and D&D from about 1981, so I was very aware of where previous editions had come from. But having said that, between original D&D (1970's) and the 3rd Edition (late 90's) the paradigm of how to best design a game system shifted from Class/Level based systems towards point-based systems. I think that if a game system was designed to take advantage of that paradigm shift for the D&D universe, players who know how games are currently being designed (Hero, GURPS, Storyteller...) using a point-system, would have accepted this change in D&D.

But instead, they stuck to the old notion that 'D&D is Level-based', sacrificing flexibility in the game system (in my opinion) in order to adhere to a system with inherent limitations.

In other words, "That's how we've always done things" isn't really a good justification for the question "How do we best address the question of game design to cover all the different game worlds and genres we want to cover?".

-Paraj Mandrekar

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

I whole-heartedly agree. I play d20 with my old group of friends because we've internalized the rules of the system. We just know it. I personally hate the system, and will never voluntarily start running any new campaigns using it. I'm curious if "success" is defined by the sheer volume of d20 material being published right now, or by WotC's creating the Open Gaming License. We know from SJGame's own history that volume doesn't necessarily equate to popularity or success. They themselves stated in Basic Set that it was time to bring all of the disparate bits-n-pieces, the gems of supplemental material, under one roof.

Now, I've seen some house rule attempts at converting d20 to a class-less system, but I don't know of any tested and published rules that do so. Then again, I've avoided d20 like the plague that it is...

OK. Getting back on topic here... I've heard criticisms about the artwork in the new books. Personally, I would have been happy with black-and-white, two column, sparse artwork, paper-back books that I've known and loved. Slap on a new cover and away you go. At $20 or $25 each for Characters and Campaigns, I know a lot more of my friends would buy in. I'm really more interested in the system than artwork. If I want artwork, I'll go to a museum or dealer. In fact, I would prefer if GURPS Lite didn't have the high-quality graphics that it does. It makes printing on my circa '98 bubble-jet painful.

Plus, you can take artwork too far. Take, for example the new White Wolf publications. Have you picked up the new Mage? Can you even read the headings and subheadings? They're in sepia cursive font! Not only does sepia not stand out on the page, the font makes it even more difficult to read. The artwork is pretty cool, but if you can't read the book, what good is it?

I know nothing of the publishing world, so I have no idea what types of decisions SJGames had to make when designing the new books. I talked to one of the FNGS sales reps about this very issue at Con of the North in Saint Paul, MN this weekend. His comment on one of my dislikes, the 3 column layout, was that it had something to do with the width and positioning of the epigraphs. Dark print on dark to light gradient epigraphs? To discouraging people standing at a copying machine (what a collossal waste of time that would be).

If SJGames stuck with the 2 column layout, black and white pages, and paperback book, perhaps selling their system books for $10 less than the competition, would it gather enough sales to be worth it? *shrug* I suppose if it mattered to me, I could search the forums for the answer. What will matter to me is whether or not my friends like the system when I start our character creation and an introduction encounter tomorrow. If they like it, then it'll be their decision as to whether $35 per book is worth it.

Re: GURPS/4E... could be more attractive?
 

I agree. At least GT:IW looks a lot better than the Basic Books, Magic and Powers. There are no real flops (like the ugly Poser/Photshop pics), even though some are "adequate" at best. As a 3D artist myself, I would like to see better looking starships. But I really like the overall feel of the book. The images support the content, as it should. And I think GT:IW as a RPG supplement has more useful stuff than any other GURPS book I've had before, to begin a campaign in it's world (finally good starmaps and world descriptions in a Core book!).

I really miss Christopher Shy's art. (Pay him more to get him back! ;) His art combined to the greatly written THS setting was a killer combination... Also Dan Smith was one of my favorites. Some people seem to hate his works, but I don't. I find it clear, simple and attractive.