Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I'm not saying we need to get rid of the Basic Set. I'm not saying we need to change the forth edition (or that we need a new edtion). I'm just saying that a NEW, smaller, cheaper, more digestable product would help get NEW players into the game.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I have three things that I would like to see in GURPS right now.

1) A revised lite that incorporates magic and cleans up some of the detail in favor of generic task difficulty modifiers. This would help make GURPS more accessible, wouldn't require the huge time investment of rewriting an existing book, and wouldn't break backwards compatibility.

2) Quick start guides: a series of questions that guides GMs on what rules to use / what to avoid in running a game with a specific feel. I'm envisioning that these would be 2-4 page documents, per genre/game style. They would be the worked genre equivalent of How to Be A GURPS GM, and would be designed to streamline game and character creation. The PC creation element would look a lot like the worked genre books' list of appropriate advantages and skills.

3) Estimating guides: a lot of what I do as GM is ballpark things. How much damage should X do? How much is X limitation worth in this context? How many fatigue points should X require? I have developed a lot of cheat sheets that take canonical examples of X and put them in a chart so I can quickly skim and say, this armor should be more effective than Y but less protective than Z…I think it should have DR 4. I would find a lot of value in a PDF that gave advice and charts for ballparking all kinds of game details.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

The problem, however, with having both a Basic Set and a "Starter Set" in print, is that both cost resources to be kept in print. I don't believe we've reached the point where SJ Games can do a print-on-demand service for big books like the Basic Set every time someone orders one, at least not with good profit margins. So the Basic Set would have to be kept in conventional print, getting a bunch of copies made up in a batch, then warehoused until they were sold. And the same goes for the "Starter Set". And people would, I believe, generally not be willing to buy both the Starter Set and the Basic Set. People generally have a resistance to purchasing material they already own. So what you've effectively set up is competition between your own products. That could, quite easily, lead to a situation where it's not actually profitable for SJ Games to keep either the Starter Set or the Basic Set in print.

All this said, I do think that Basic could probably be organized in a different way, to make it more obvious what stuff was the simplest and most basic, and what stuff was more-complicated optional rules (yes, all rules are optional. But you see what I mean). For example, rather than listing all the advantages and disadvantages in the one big list, the ones useful for building, as Stormcrow said, "more or less humanoid" characters could be put first, then ones for building more alien physiology and psychology, then supernatural ones, and so on. More like the 3e Basic Set, I guess, although perhaps not subdivided into as many sections, and definitely all in the same book, not split into another one.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

1) D&D is also... D&D. Just because WotC can do something, doesn't mean that anyone else would be able to do the same and make a buck.

2) What to cut is a GOOD QUESTION. I'd say looking at traits that aren't typically found in in the most popular settings. Leave in enough support for modern day, "typical" fantasy, and general sci-fi. Support of supers would probably have to be dropped, as would many of the traits that only show up in supers.

Again, this isn't suppose to be a replacement for the Basic Set. It can't do all the things that Basic can do. But it might lower the bar of entry for a lot of people.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

That is a description of the DFRPG. Contemporary action and sci-fi are no less marginal than superheroes. I suspect that realistic contemporary action is actually significantly more marginal.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

But we already have that: GURPS Lite. You may not agree with the authors' choices of what to cut and what to keep, but this is the document that does exactly what you want: lower the bar of entry to GURPS by cutting out the complicated stuff and by being free.

I often hear people talk about starting up campaigns using GURPS Lite, usually in the context of "You don't have to own the rules or already know how to play." So someone finds it useful.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I'm a lot more likely to purchase well-crafted mystery adventures than additional or alternative rules. Pelgrane Press has put out a number of adventures (with an eye to aesthetics as well as meat & potatoes) to support their Trail of Cthulhu line and which serve as an excellent example. Sure, one can convert them, but it is a bother. Wouldn't it be nice to give aspiring or time-strapped GMs an easy way to run GURPS for their groups with some top-notch adventures in genres ranging from hard SF to high fantasy that show off the system to its advantage?

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Which would be how many products that most people want at most a handful of?

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

"Easy to translate" is one of the big selling points of GURPS in the Introduction, both to and from GURPS.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

We need an author/editor team that's willing to not only wade into the garbage fire that is Magic 3e but also to weather slings and arrows of discontent from the community when they fail to please everyone in any way at all.