Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12134.phtml

Ranting a part,is this true?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Quote from the review:

"Gurps space 4e is the latest product out for gurps 4e, and like other 4e gurps products it's expensive, hardbacked, slickpapered, colored and overpriced for what actually get."


This does not seem like the reviewer had a neutral, unbiased view on the material.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Hmm, I haven't liked either of Reid's reviews. He expects something different than what the product is supposed to be. GURPS 4e Space is analogous to GURPS 4e Fantasy -- they're both more concerned with creating the world and running the campaign than with giving you actual charts and rules. So if you didn't like Fantasy because it's too theoretical then Space will probably also disappoint (and although the world/system and alien design rules are quite excellent, I bet people like Reid would have preferred a simpler treatment that takes half the space and use that space for charts of weapons, tech and spaceships along with a simple space combat system).

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Comments point out that GURPS Fantasy has a list of supplemental stuff that makes the product more complete. GURPS Space not. Why?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

zay're making it so that to run a campaign you need like 8 books instead of 3.

that was one of the biggest complaints i heard about 3e.. and they're exacerbating it rather than addressing it.

but that's the trade off for no overlap i guess, which was reportedly a bigger complaint.

huh.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Read the review; disagreed with most of it; posted a reply to in on RPG.NET.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Funny you should mention that...

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

The thing is that they seem to be trying to avoid repeating content. So to look for spacecraft (or any other vehicles) you need only look in GURPS Vehicles 4e, once it is out. Although the fact that Fantasy does not follow this guideline is odd.

You can do space campaigns using the equipment and ships in the basic set. Ultra-Tech and Vehicles 4e of course will help those who want even more. But it is a trade off. If you don't want to repeat content then GURPSers may need to buy more books. I for one am OK with that trade off because I am likely to buy the "catalog" books anyway and would rather not have repeated pages.

The complaint about hardcover, color editions is silly though. I think the prices are pretty reasonable for what you get. A lot of other games are pricier than the GURPS 4e line. I think the reviewer is simply biased against SJG for some reason (the stab at forum moderators makes this obvious).

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I like GURPS Fantasy. Good book. very good book.

But I would have to say that many of the things you say make the book more complete are "wasted pages" in my opinion. Fantasy has spells that are covered in MAGIC -- so why do I need them here? When I got to that section, I skipped it without reading it. I knew it was wasted pages, in my opinion.

Fantasy includes some material that will be getting full treatment in Vehicles -- so why do I need them here? When I got to that stuff, I skipped it as well without reading it. I knew it was wasted pages, just like the spells, in my opinion.

Do I find Fantasy "more useful" because of that info? No... I wonder what other info would have been included had those pages not been wasted.

So I guess I am on the other side of this fence.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Hmm, I think his final paragraph is quite telling:
Hmmm . . . cross purposes or innocent suggestion?
You decide.

Edit:
The only reason I bought GURPS Fantasy is because of the Author. I hate fantasy, but I'll pretty much buy anything that has William H. Stoddard's name on it.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Personally I think that SJG should use Web-Enhancement for such things. They would:

• shut down complaints
• tease customers
• avoid repetition in books (wasted pages)
• be updated to match latest products

If they can't, I prefer a little bit of overlap. You shouldn't need lots of books to run a campaign. What strikes me as odd is that they used two different stances for Space and Fantasy.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

WhsWhs rocks.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I like the idea... but SJG has not gone this route... no harm in suggesting it, I suppose.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

What's even odder is that the decisions seem to have been made by the authors.

Does anyone remember the order in which Ultra-Tech and Space were playtested? I'm wondering whether the original intent was to release Ultra-Tech first. Magic came out only a month after Fantasy, so it's also possible that Ultra-Tech was expected to be released second, but much closer in time. Releasing Interstellar Wars before either one is also kind of a weird decision.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

If you don't like the review, submit your own to RPGNet...

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

The Space playtest was late last year, IIRC. The UT playtest was not too long after 4e came out, so about a year before the Space one.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I understand SJG not wanting to repeat rule when necessary. I seen to recall much complaining about the overlap in BASIC SET: Campaigns and IW. You just can’t make everyone happy.

The tone of this review made me feel a bit like the author was irritated he couldn’t bash it more.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

"Unfortunately." Make of that what you will. It suffices to say that we did kind of plan for the tech book to be in place first . . .

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

OTOH, repeated material means, in theory, fewer books one has to carry around to gaming sessions or have at the table. I didn't mind Cyberpunk repeating the TL8 chapter from Ultra-Tech -- it means I didn't have to carry Cyberpunk *and* Ultra-Tech with me. In general, I don't like to carry more than 3-4 books with me as GM.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Bah! Carrying books builds character. I remember in the old days we had to lug around all these stone tablets that the first RPGs were inscribed on. AND we had to make our own dice from painstakingly carved ivory wrested from the mighty mammoths...the youth of today...

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

If only it were so! Repeated material means a) I finish reading any new book much more quickly, because I know a good part of it already and b) looking for something is really painful, since I have to leaf through page upon page of the same material.

If 4E hadn't publicly been announced to refrain from these repetitions, I wouldn't have changed. The structured design is a big Plus, imo.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Exactly my opinion as well.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Uphill. Both ways. In the snow. Without shoes, over razor sharp rocks. And we liked it that way!

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

That's touching on pretty much every reason I'm sticking with 3e GURPS supplements for now. (Yes, I admit some of them are petty, like the layout, but.) Really, 4e supplements should be everything the 3e supplements were and more, not an expansion of one or two chapters of a complete space book...

I'm thinking of getting Beastiary, since I could use some animal stats to write a fan supplement or two, but the way things are going, there'll be hundreds of pages about animal behavior and running zoos but not one actual animal stat-block.

If you can afford that... some gamers who play more than one system consider two or three books in a game line to be quite an investment; for them, SJG has already priced themselves out of the market.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

But if gaming material is repeatedly printed in several books, you're paying for it more than once.

In 3E, I paid three times for the vehicle design system (Vehicles, Mecha, Robots), two times for cyberware (UT and Cyberpunk) and three times for the statistics of a Laser Pistol (UT, Space and Basic).
Now this is annoying and expensive.

In 4E, if I'm looking for Vehicles, I get Vehicles or Basic. If I'm interested in cyberware, I'll get Cyberpunk or Basic. If I'm looking for spells, I need Magic or Basic. That's quite neat, imo. You can buy what you need.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Yes, but the books are much larger: 75 to 100 pages or so. There should be enough room for both dozens of pages of GM content, *and* 25 to 50 pages for such core and necessary topics as equipment, races, and vehicles.

People who are buying GURPS are buying Space, expecting to get a supplement about Space, not expecting to get a book about Space and requirements to purchase other books to handle the actual game. (Not to mention the fact that many of said books haven't even been written yet...) Buying a "basic set" is acceptable to most gamers; buying a basic set and 2-5 mandatory supplements (unless you artificially limit your game concept to what the basic set and a single content-light supplement can handle) is not. When they only find part of a complete supplement about Space, they will turn to other games -- even many Palladium games are more complete in this regard.

And just to note, I don't mind paying that extra $2 to $5 to see the stats for that laser pistol put in a book where it logically goes.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

So, let's say you want to play a Space Campaign. You need the Basic Set and UltraTech (though I make do without UT, at the moment).
IF you intend to design a whole new Space setting, Space4E would be a good idea, but not a necessary one. Thats 2-3 books so far. I think that's acceptable.

atm, I'm also playing a Fantasy campaign, even though I don't have Fantasy. All I really need is Basic + Magic. I don't need Fantasy, I don't need Banestorm. Again, 2-3 books.

If you include everything in Space that "belongs" to the genre, you'll need: Psi Powers (Jedi Mind Trick), Vehicles (spacefighters, death stars, mecha), weapons (lasers, blasters, stunners, tanglers, death rays...), armor (vacc suits, servoarmor, powerarmor, bioarmor...), equipment (breathers, sensors, survival), space combat rules, spells (Techno-Fantasy, Spelljammer), etc.

There is either simply not enough space in Space, or all these things could only be outlined very roughly, making them not very useful. And making them repetitive, compared to other books.

I find the equipment chapter in Space3E quite annoying, btw - it's identical to the content of UT, anyway. And I do object to paying multiple times for the same content.

Space4E is certainly not a detailed setting. It's a guideline how to design a setting. This is an important fact, which - for instance - the review on RPG.net didn't quite understand.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Flat paper? WTF?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Nope. You still don't have spaceships. If you want to use them you need GURPS Vehicles, that is a catalog only book. So if you want to design ships you need Vehicles Design System, and e23 release. Still you don't have spaceship combat rules . . .

Personally I like to have a lot of detailed books. This means more crunch and more content for me. But we have to admit that this way GURPS is going to be very expensive. Again I don't mind paying for high quality, well researched books.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I'm not actually so sure whether you need spaceship statistics for every space game (or even for most). Frequently, ships are just devices which bring you from A to B, or which explode in the background. I never needed plane/car/boat statistics for a modern game.

Still, I admit that there are certainly games where you do need these statistics. :) But there are also space games where you need the rules for Psi (get Powers!) or for Magic (get Magic!). What is central to a genre and what is not is probably dependent on personal preferences, right?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Would it suprise anyone to learn such an item was in the works?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I think one of the major problems is not the content of the books, but the lack of information on the SJGames website.
Not everybody is aware of their book content/naming policy, so If they would make the description a little bit longer (yes, I'm aware that there is also the TOC but that does not help so much, as far as I know there is no equipment list even thogh there is a whole chapter on alien tech.)
I think they should add to that description that this is not a space setting (for that buy X) it contains no rules to build spaceships (even though this is a major part of most space settings) (for that buy Y) and also no equipment (for that buy Z)...
I bought GURPS Fantasy and was very disappointed by the content, simply because its not what I need...

In summary: A better description on what the book is on the website would help people make the right choice, would prevent disapointments (and loss of clients)

At overlap: I personally think it is very annoying that I need both Basic and Power for every advantage I want to look up and would have preferred if they repeated the whole advantage section from Basic in Powers to have everything complete in one place (IMO they could have dropped the whole example part). On the other hand the small spell list in Basic is a waste of paper and would better have been left out.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I think he meant the pages of the book lying flat.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

So basically, Space 4e is an example of the philosophy behind Fantasy but without the weird Vehicles and extra stuff from GURPS Magic? I find this pretty nice in and of itself. I find space interesting as a genre, similar to Fantasy. I liked GURPS Fantasy quite a lot, it really was worth the money as it showed me a few things I'd not have considered myself.

I can understand the concern of some that without "more equipment and additional vehicles rules" the book is incomplete, but personally, it fits me just fine. I always found most of that stuff in games wasted space. I don't need any more detail than whats in the basic set, and if I do, a small chapter in Space isn't going to tide me over. I'll want the Ultra Tech book. Having basic material in the basic set, more basic material in space, AND an exhaustive book entirely on ultra tech strikes me as somewhat unnecessarily.

So, interesting. I also don't mind the larger hardbound glossy books. I prefer what SJG does as opposed to White Wolf (and no offense; I love WW), for instance. SJG's at least leave me feeling like I'm getting something for my money, since the books are hefty and filled with content. I'd rather feel like I've got too much info than not quite enough...

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

HEY! This isn't the thread for bomb-dropping! >:(

Oh, wait... maybe it is *sg*

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

As opposed to shiny paper. Think book versus magazine.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I was looking forward to GURPS Space simply because I thought that it was.. well.. what I need to run a Space Campaign. Unfortunately this is not the case (this is not a criticism since there are many great things in there and a lot of work behind it, no doubt).

I think people react very badly to this title because this assumption that I made up there is made by many.

As a Science Fiction fan I love a Space System generation system.. but that would be a classic candidate for the use of Software!
Most people I know don't use it (Star system generation) for gaming anyway- its mostly just a backdrop in the story somewhere.

I understand the argument of not wanting to repeat content- but the same argument can be reverse engineered:

Some people probably don't want to buy GURPS Martial Arts to find the (wild guess) 2 pages on Zero-G-Combat (assuming it is in there), or GURPS Vehicles for a few pages of Spaceships, GURPS ? for rules on Ship to ship combat, that could have been in the SPACE book, and therefore in context.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I will agree with this to an extent, but I think the issue ultimately comes down to "Where else would this logically go?"

Space System Generation or Alien Generation -- well, you really have to put it in Space since that's just the best place for it. On the other hand, if your going to make a GURPS Vehicles book, it makes sense to put rules for Spaceships and Vehicle-based combat (including Spaceships) there. That's where it makes the most sense!

Similarly, the best place for additional magic info is GURPS Magic. Yet there were a number of spells in GURPS Fantasy. I wasn't too thrown by that, as it really wasn't much, but it was a bit of a waste of space IMHO. Equipment, in my mind, is even more of a waste than magic spells would be. The stuff in the basic set for magic is pretty bare bones, but you can easily run a Space campaign with just the basic equipment from the corebook.

Again, I'd guess that vehicles will have both spaceships and rules for vehicles fighting that include spaceships. Will there be people that only want, like, rules for cars and helicopers in there? Sure, probably. However, that's the problem in the end. There will be people who don't want Aliens in their Space book because they're doing Hard Science Fiction and that entire chapter is a waste for them. "Why not put this in a GURPS Aliens?"

In the end, I think it ultimately comes down to "What's the best way to give the players this information?"

In the end, I'm fairly happy. I can run pretty much anything with just the basic set, and I've mostly been happy with how the other books have arranged stuff. The one issue I've found is Interstellar Space, since Traveller is a world kind of all itself. Setting books should have at least a few "unique" things. Even Infinite Worlds had a few bits of equipment!

:D

Anyway. In the end, it comes down to this: No matter what you do, someone will be unhappy. That's just a fact of life.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

It would not surprise me in the least.

What would surprise me is if the complains were to stop once it was released.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Hey, I think that's the best way to support GURPS. Glad to hear that SJG has something cool for us :)

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Having interacted with William H. Stoddard on at least one playtest, and as a fan of GURPS Fantasy I would certainly have to agree!!

On the actual question of Substance 3/5 (for the purposes of disclosing my potential biases to the project, I was a playtester on GURPS Space...) I would have this to say:

There is a lot of Substance to this product. Depending upon what you want to do with the material, there is ample material for designing the things that you are likely to find *in* space, like alien races and new worlds...

While there are some discussions of government types and campaign types and even a large set of templates of character types that show up in SF campaigns, there are not a lot of materials that provide in depth discussions of what a GM would do *downstream* of a set of technological assumptions. This is on purpose and was part of the design of this product...

Specifically, there are discussions in general of how communications and travel technologies differ. Depending upon the combination of any one 'setting' for communications and any other 'setting' for travel work you could potentially have a huge set of resulting society types...

High speed communication + low speed FTL travel, for example would make piracy among the stars much more difficult. On the other hand, if FTL Travel is the limit for communication--Poof! Traveller!

There are so many combinations of assumptions that one could make that conceptually, it made a lot of sense to discuss in concept what impact technology has, and then go into a lot of detail on any one axis of technological development in downstream books.

Ultra Tech, for example, will have a lot of indepth discussion of what each technology *means* and along the genetic engineering/medical axis, Bio-Tech will have a great deal of discussion as well. (I was a playtester on GURPS Biotech too, incidentally)

The point that I'm making is that there is so much material out there for writing and running Space adventures, that complaining that everything isn't in one book (as this review appears to do) simply isn't fair to the scope of the project.

I don't know if it is permissible or appropriate for a playtester to also write a review, but I just might...

In any case, this reviewer appears to have penalized the work for not placing the substance that he would envision, but it's really unfair to say that there *isn't* substance in the work, to my mind.

There is a lot of discussion about star systems and world types... The material that 3e crammed into First In is much more appropriate (being that it's not just a subset of Traveller assumptions) in a book entitled "Space"

-Paraj Mandrekar

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I see space system generation not too different from vehicle generation or generation of guns etc. The latter two are, however, just to be released on e23 for the freaks/techheads/gunheads/whateverelseheads.
Well, alien generation could also be more appropriate in any upcoming book focusing on Monsters and their generation.

Vehicles can not, under any circumstances, go into detail on everything.. thats what a genre-book is great for... more detail in a certain direction.

In the end, you hack down everything in small bits and pieces and plant it in half a dozen books.. but this will worsen a problem that GURPS currently has and is, as far as I got the impression, trying to reduce: preparation time.

Well, if you feel you have enough spells with that and the basic set: great, you didn't have to buy a 240 page book on Magic.

If not you paid for a few pages you didn't use (which is less of an investment than a full book in the other case).

I agree, but you can also easily run a space campaign without GURPS Space... (Which I see as a sign of quality that speaks for basic set rather than against GURPS Space though)

Sure, all of this is subjective and depends on personal preferences in the end.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I may be being incredibly dim but what is Web-Enhancement?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Providing additional material for a book on the web. For example, a PDF detailing various new powers for GURPS Powers would be a web enhancement.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Thanks for that.

Personally I like Space. Its true that it probably would be disappointing in actually providing stuff for use in the campaign, but its excellent in providing an insight into how to design the setting which is what I expected of it. The System generation rules are excellent and the alien ones look so too (though I haven't read them all yet). It gives me what I wanted, info on how to make a believable world, how it all works in real life and how literary SF compares to it. Personally I would just wait for the ultra-tech and vehicle books (Campaigns already contains vehicle combat rules which work well for space) and if I don't want to take the entire books with me when I GM I just copy out the stats of the important weapons/items/vehicles. If you want gadgets then this book isn't for you; if you want to create Space then its perfect (just like Fantasy was for fantasy settings it explores all the different ideas).

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I am very very disappointed with Space 4e. Space 3e was a great book that you *could* use to run a space campaign, including space combat and technology.

I don't get it and haven't received a satisfactory answer...how do you have a Gurps Space 4th edition with LESS than was in the original? Without a space combat system and space ship design system? It's preposterous and silly. They gave me a big expensive colorful book that is certainly pretty and has some interesting content but doesn't let me do some basic things you want to do in a space campaign!

And I understand the issue of not wanting redundancy in books, but I don't see the why you *wouldn't* include a basic useful ship design and combat system for comprehensiveness of a space campaign worldbook, then include more detail and a more sophisticated system in a Vehicles book.

It's very disappointing, when I opened the book up I kept paging through it for the section on space ships and combat and another section on technology...nothing. Incredible.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Genre books cover such genres as conspiracy, cyberpunk, fantasy, and space SF. Their job is to describe the genre, its conventions, and its tropes; to survey genre fiction; and to explain in broad, non-world-specific terms how to create campaigns and PCs that are true-to-genre. Examples: Fantasy, Space.

Worldbooks describe specific settings. Their job is to detail the history, geography, and politics of the setting; to catalog that setting's signature abilities, equipment, races, etc.; to show how to create suitable characters for that particular setting; and to illustrate possible campaign types in the setting. Examples: Banestorm, Infinite Worlds.

Rulebooks provide new systems, usually either for character abilities (magic, martial arts, superhuman powers, and so on) or designing things (vehicles, weapons, etc.). Their job is to provide expansions of the core rules that can be used in any genre or game world (although they'll suit some genres and settings better than others!). Examples: Martial Arts, Powers.

Catalogs list ready-made armor, beasts, implants, magic items, races, vehicles, weapons, or whatever. Their job is to provide large numbers of sorted, indexed items with statistics that can be used in any genre or game world (although they'll suit some genres and settings better than others!). Examples: Bestiary, High-Tech.

It's rather unfair to use one reviewer's inability to grasp the difference between a catalog and a genre book as a basis for the assumption that SJ Games is too stupid to tell the difference between a genre book and a catalog. Of course Bestiary will be a catalog.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Dr. Kromm,

I understand what you're saying and understand the distinction between rulebooks, catalogs, worldbooks, and genrebooks (in another post I mistakenly referred to Space as a worldbook, my mistake).

But can you please help me understand why some examination of spaceships and how they move or engage in combat wouldn't be part of a genrebook? I think the distinction between rulebooks and genrebooks isn't as clear as your description would suggest, particularly when it comes to the kind of comprehensiveness needed for playability.

Can you help me with this?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

You you expect a Hourse move and engage in combat in a Fantsy Genre Book, or in the Book the talks about Animals?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

And much of it was handled in way that made it *disagree* with the tech books on the same material. GURPS 4e avoids this by splitting the Genre books from the Catalogs and the Rulebooks.

Then you have not been reading very carefully or are unwilling to accept the answer. I think the SJG staff has made it abundantly clear why the material is organized the way that it is. If anything, we have not gotten a satisfactory answer as to why GURPS Fantasy bends the organizational mold a bit.

No, it is the method of organization chosen; a method I happen to agree with. the fact that you disagree is neither the definition of preposterous, nor silly.

Like what? The book covers everything that a Game Master wanting to design a Space campaign would need and would need to consider during the design process. This, in my opinion, makes it a nearly perfect Genre Book. The fact that the Genre Book is not also a Catalog and a Rulebook is not a flaw.

Because any trimmed down version of the Starship design system and the Combat System would require that the book know what choices you made of the hundreds that are presented to define the campaign itself. In other words -- it would be fine for one set of those assumptions and completely useless for any other possible set of assumptions the campaign could make. This is why you split these things up.

Increadible?

Yes, I agree. It is increadible that they managed to avoid the temptation of putting their peaches and their grapes into the apple cart. Good job, SJG.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Heh.

I wonder how much of the problem comes from reuse of the 3e title. Banestorm made it fairly obvious that Fantasy wasn't a setting book, but Space doesn't really have a setting book paired with it. (ISW is explicitly for the Traveller line, and so isn't necessarily the flagship GURPS science-fiction setting. That would be TS, I guess, unless someone's tacking the setting tidbits from the old Space and Space Atlases into a single book.)

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I don't think you can reliably say this is true. I have GURPS Space, 3rd edition, and it has 176 pages including the Index and the Planetary Record Sheet at the very back of the book.

I can tell, just looking at the table of contents for the new book, that it has considerably more material than the third edition book. Both in page count, and thus level of detail, but also in general (aliens, mostly).

It might be true that GURPS Space 3rd edition covered some subjects that are not included in the new edition, but it's certainly not true that there is less material in the book.

This, sorry, is just something I can't agree with -- and the real reason that I've replied to your post in specific. I've run several years worth of Science Fiction campaigns and I can tell you right now that I've never ever used a spaceship design system or anything but the most basic ship combat system that mostly involved the players rather than the ship itself.

I've played in other Science Fiction campaigns, and in those games, I've never ever played in a game that actually used a vehicle design system or a real detailed space combat system like that included in Space 3rd edition.

It is NOT necessary for running a game.

I can perhaps see the point to 3rd editions huge list of gear and equipment, which accounts for like 3 chapters. That's much more important. On the other hand, honestly, I still hold that the basic set covers this in enough details for any Science Fiction game that I would run. I can make up the rest of what I need within the examples provided.

However, really, in almost every Science Fiction game I've ever run a spaceship was a plot device and the setting for the occasional space-battle that was resolved with "Gunnery" and "Starship Combat Tactics" rolls.

I understand that some people feel differently, but personally, I'd rather have a 240 page book that spends all its time talking about the genre, aliens, and the other GOOD STUFF as opposed to the other stuff. I prefer supplements along the lines of GURPS Illuminati or GURPS Horror, which contain a whole lot of "genre stuff" and very little "crunchy detail". Vastly.

So, in this respect, the 4th edition genre books have been very successful for me and I find them very sufficient. For space, in fact, significantly more so for 3rd edition. I was a bit disappointed with my purchase last time, not because the book wasn't good but because there was proportionally very little of the stuff that I'd actually use and a lot of the stuff that I really didn't hugely need (because I had UltraTech or would never have used it anyway).

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Designing ships is a mathematically intensive process. A decent 3D movement system with detailed wargame-style rules is almost as intensive and appeals more to wargamers than to roleplayers. As we were trying to attract non-GURPS players and new gamers to pick up the book for its GMing advice, survey of the genre, information on creating campaign settings, etc., we deliberately avoided aspects that would come across as intensive, system-specific mechanics. And to be fair to Space, it does contain "some examination of spaceships"; there's an entire 21-page chapter called Space Travel dedicated to the matter. It just isn't dedicated to detailed rules and stats, because the reality of most space fiction is that the ships are plot devices and the focus is on the technobabble, not on the pounds of thrust and gees of acceleration. Those who wish to "turn on the math" in these areas will get their book.

Fundamentally, it comes down to a difference of opinion between those who think that the essence of space gaming is "detailed numbers and mechanics, doing all the math" and those who think the essence is "spaceships are a handwave to get from A to B -- A and B had better be interesting." We sided with the latter group, since evidence suggested that 3e's focus on the former led to the "GURPS is scary" reputation.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Don't underestimate the fact that the trip from A-B is the focus of the game, with both A and B being handwaved. Just because the actual travel is the big part of the game doesn't mean that you need huge amounts of math. I mean, how many star trek episodes have you seen that take place entirely in space on the ship and yet don't really need space combat rules;)

And, as I noted in my post, you don't need detailed 3D movement graph rules to run an exciting and awesome space combat. Think of the Millenium Falcon running away from the Imperial Star Destroyers, with Luke and Han in the gun turrets targeting Tie Fighters!

The only games you really NEED something like that are Wind Commander style games, and even then, I get more mileage out of something considerably more simple and a lot easier to do in play.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

And in fact this keeps getting overlooked. Space for 3e had an idiosyncratic design system that was largely incompatible with Vehicles for 3e, and a combat system that was integerated with neither turn-based combat in the 3e Basic Set nor the Mass Combat System in 3e's Compendium II nor the tactical combat rules in 3e's Vehicles. It was very complete for those who liked design and combat . . . at the expense of being a boondoggle. It's easy to say, "So what? It's what I wanted!", but that mostly isn't what people said -- mostly, they complained about the system being incompatible.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I didn't get to read a copy of Space for 3e until a few months ago, and I recall saying something like "If this was the first GURPS book I'd ever read, I wouldn't be playing GURPS," so I think this was a very good decision.

It's emphasis on math made me leary of buying 4e Space. However, that was fixed before I was even done reading the table of contents...I'm not kidding...I was sold on the book by just the table of contents. And the only complaints I have about it are a couple of nitpicky things I would have done differently, but that are easily house-ruled, so not worth mentioning.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Thanks Kromm, that helps me understand a little better.

And you're right about the travel or ship-design stuff often being not that important to the story in a game, though the same can't be said about combat. On the other hand, I take your point about the 3e combat system...but often it's not overall system compatibility and seamlessness that works for me, it's having some decent system for resolving combat in a way that's fun, understandable, and useful to the players.

But wow I can imagine some gamers just exploding their heads at incompatibility and contradictions in a game system. I guess you're not going to please everyone.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Do you think maybe this should be in the FAQ or something, seeing how often it comes up?

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Good call. Can someone please put this in a FAQ -- and while you are at it, on the book pages, include which of these catagories each book falls into.

Heck, you may even want to start color-coding the book spine text to indicate what catagory they belong to.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Maybe you don't, maybe lots of other people on here don't. But that extra $2 to $5 would have made the difference in whether or not I got it when I did or a month later, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

However, having a detailed solar system generation system is completely at odds with this.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

In 3e, you just needed two books, the Basic Set and Space.

<shrugs> Obviously some of us would rather pay for repeated material in some books than have to buy multiple books.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I'd love to please everyone. If split runs were remotely economically feasible (and they aren't -- the editing expenses alone would kill the idea, never mind the printing and distribution headaches), I'd argue for them. So for the time being, I have to clean bits of exploded head off my screen every day.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

And in 4e I've been running a space game just fine with only Basic Set and only got Space so I could flesh it out more, so what's your point? Ultra-Tech would be nice, yes, but it's not necessary.

And some of us would give up on GURPS as a waste of money if that happened.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

In 4e, you need just two books, Basic and Space. Basic has an adequate selection of high tech stuff; while it's smaller than what was in Space 3e, it's probably more functional. I never found the tech chapter in Space 3e remotely useful.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I disagree. You need rich, detailed systems and planets to have a fun space game. They're part of setting- and campaign-building -- the topics to which Space is meant to be a guide. Ships, on the other hand, are plot devices. Chapter 2 gives 20-some pages of detailed advice on how to handle them as such. Yes, I realize that this excludes the narrow subgenre of "space SF that's all about ships and has no worlds," but genre books can't hit every subgenre.

Also, the mechanics boil down to "roll on some tables" and "basic arithmetic." That's nothing like "calculate the volume of an oblate spheroid," "find the 2/3 powers of volume," "run the numbers through the rocket equation," "use the Pythagorean Theorem to find 3D displacement," etc. The latter level of detail is what frightened people away from 3e in many cases. The former level is typical of virtually all RPGs.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

But the arbitary distinction that means some books don't include material that they should is a flaw.

Err, the starship design system in Space 3e covered several different sets of assumptions. OTOH, I think the starship combat system in Space 2e was more generically useful than the one in 3e.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

No, you don't. I, and others, had fun playing Traveller for years using the simple rules in Book 2. I had fun with d6 Star Wars without ever using any system for designing worlds.

Then you never read the starship design system in Space 3e. The actual design rules were not complicated at all. There were some finicky formulas for some *performance* calculations, but these were no worse than some of the formulas for solar system and world building.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Good for you and others. I found CT deadly boring, and got out of it as soon as more interesting games came along. Brandon 1, Sean 1. Great. That's a tie. Fortunately, we had other input.

I edited them, so I like to think I read them. I also read the customer feedback, of course. I might have exaggerated the exact math in those rules to make a point, but I'm not exaggerating the average customer's disdain for those rules. As a gamer from the days of CT, you're not really "the average customer." I hate to be mean, but gamers in their 30s and 40s aren't in any way "average." We have to engage kids who are used to computers handling math and detailed rules, remember. That's "average" these days.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Stoddard and Wiseman here.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

The fact that you feel that the book should contains things that it does not include, was not intended to include, and not designed to include does not mean that it should have been included. Nor does it make such distinctions arbitrary.

Brandon, I have (historically) agreed with you on far more items than I have disagreed with you on. I value your opinion and thoughtfulness on most topics. But please, do not fault the orange for not being an apple.

Then play with the rules from 2e. No, that was not sarcasm. The rules presented in GURPS 3e for starship design and combat were, in my games, useless. They did not jive with the rules in nearly every other book that handled similar material and caused a lot of long, sometimes heated, discussion with friends and players. One man's trash, another man's treasure, I suppose.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

What about corrugated paper?
http://www.papermart.com/templates/23-0-10.htm


It don't never get no re-spek.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I was not a huge fan of Steampunk (not my thing). But GURPS Fantasy sold me on Mr. Stoddard. The guy is one of the best. But I am still an unappologetic fanboy of anything that bears the names STEVE JACKSON (as an author), DAVID PULVER, or SEAN PUNCH.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

*tries to imagine a GURPS book printed on corrugated paper*

Ow. My BRAIN!

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I still have my GURPS Space from 2e (I miss PB and Inc). And I have two copies of GURPS Space from 3e, as well as three copies of UT1 and 2 copies of UT2. And I didn't need any of them to run a sci-fi game previously. They helped, but they weren't mandatory.

At best, in Space 4e, I was hoping for maybe a chapter of an example campaign that included a couple of star ships and maybe a handful of weapons, just to give a flavor of the campaign. I wasn't expecting it: I knew what Space was going to be. And, with the exception of the system/alien generation tables, I got what I was expecting. The system generation was an order of magnitude beyond what I was expecting, and the alien generation tables have been fun to tinker with.

Did I need this book? Not so much, although the system generation is much more streamlined than 2e or 3e, even though it's much, much larger. I haven't had time to dive in and create much with it, but I do think it's better than 2e or 3e (which I have lots and lots of experience with). And in my only space-based game, all the planets are specific and "engineered."

Was the book a waste of money? No. I hardly think so. But, then again, I'm the guy who's bought four copies of Powers (two as gifts, two for reference), four and a half copies of the basic set (including a collectors edition; and an additional character's book) and two copies of every other book (usually one as a gift). So being a waste of money is dependent on your point of view.

Could the book have been better? Yes. That's a very tricky question and the only correct answer is "yes." There is always something they could have done differently that they didn't even think about until after release and everyone says "You should have done this!" but they chalk it up to experience and try to do that in the future if it's all all feasable.

GURPS Space 4e shouldn't be looked upon as the final authority on science-fiction. That's the job of the GM. The book is a tool, and it's a mighty fine tool. It's there to give you ideas and suggestions and to spur you on. Because, at the end of the day, the final product is a product of your imagination.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Very well put, sir.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

Maybe its also SJGs fault because the forgot to mention this details on their website (And not everybody is so aware of this distinction, besides that there is no mentioning in the GURPS SPACE description what sort of book this is). Sorry if I hear Space I assume that there are Spaceships in there...

Additionally, it says right there on the GURPS SPACE website:Now maybe this is language barrier, but TOOLKIT sounds to me like: there is a list of space ships, alien races, exotic devices, laser guns and light sabers...

why not write a little bit more detailled description.
SPACE: is a genre book, it covers information to build your own privat galaxy/solar systems. Blah, blah, blah...
If you are looking for Spaceship design buy GURPS Vehicles for SF Gear buy Ultra-Tech...

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

I probably won't be getting it based on what it doesn't include... The subjects covered by the 3rd edition Space book handled the games I run a lot better.

As for carrying books, it sounds like Space won't be needed to carry to play.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

There are spaceships in there. They just aren't statted out.

Re: Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5
 

To me "Toolkit" doesn't mean that.
To me, a toolkit gives me the tools to make everything. A toolkit doesn't give me a house, but the means to build one. It doesn't give me a working engine, but the means to fix it.
But, we already know that the tools to make alien races is in GURPS Basic Set: Characters. And GBS:Campaigns had exotic devices, laser guns and space ships. Lightsabers aren't so much an object as they are a plot device. All of these are tools used to show you how to make your own.
At the bottom line much of your space campaign will be to your taste anyway, so they're just giving you a crutch.