Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

This may be self-selection bias in your friends and associates.
In my day job, I have to deal with the general public, and math on a daily basis (I work at a bank).
Easily 10% of people I deal with have trouble with simple addition and subtraction.
Well over 50% of them have math skills at a level where multiplying by 1.5 would require a calculator for numbers over 5.

You also have the issue that even if they have the skills, multiplying mentally is fundamentally SLOW. It's a fact that for mental calculations, addition is the fastest, while subtraction is noticeably slower, and multiplication and division as VERY slow.

He specified 4th Edition D&D, which you are obviously not playing.
In 4E, Fireball is a Daily power (so you only get 1 per day, even if you're a Level 30 wizard), and damage is fixed at 5d6+Int Bonus (regardless of level).
4E did away with level based damage entirely. Higher level abilities have more dice of damage, but it's not a straight 1d6 per level progression. Around level 30, they cap out at about 7 or 8 dice, plus stat and magic item bonuses. Rogues can exceed 10 dice with sneak attack, but even that is capped at 5 extra dice.

This has the much needed effect of eliminating the Quadratic Wizard problem, wherein a single Level 20 wizard can easily match or exceed the damage output of a dozen Level 20 fighters.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

GURPS has Move for 5 CP per level, but we don't know why the character can move faster/longer. That's what Leg Length does in Sagatafl. Besides, it's a specific kind of stat: a sub-Attribute.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

That's because description is a special effect in GURPS. It doesn't matter whether somebody's got long legs or built-in rollerblades or a gait that doesn't bend the knees; they all give the same game-effect Move +1, and that's all that matters.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

There's also an in-between group: people like me. I have issues with arithmetic (always have) and so usually have to do simple math on paper, sometimes to the amusement of bank tellers and such. But math, even algebra and higher, doesn't intimidate me. I tend to rely on computational assistance and get by fine.

I'll keep playing GURPS up until it starts regularly employing transfinite and surreal numbers. But I refuse to attempt to roll ωd6. Or even 6dω.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Conversely, having longer legs doesn't necessarily mean you move faster. Giraffes have longer legs than cheetahs. Even within a species, counting only leg length makes the huge assumption every other factor is identical. Usain Bolt has shorter legs than Manute Bol.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I think this is the problem, these people may feel pressured or intimidated to get the correct value quickly and not to hold up the game. I think people can overcome this with practice. The problem is getting them to try. I believe the GM needs to keep the pressure down. I find this tough as I want to get through the combat before lunch ends so try to step it up some. I am trying to avoid this temptation.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Well, to sort of stay on topic . . .

There are people out there with crummy math skills, for whom addition is faster than subtraction, both are faster than multiplication, division is nearly hopeless, powers are hopeless, and transcendental functions (trig functions, logarithms, etc.) are "stuff geeks did that I didn't understand." This makes anything that relies on fractions or percentages difficult, texts containing mathematical expressions frightening, and even table look-ups kind of scary. Probabilities are best left vague, not played upon explicitly. Then there are the people who have a PhD in mathematics or a physical science, who would consider all of the above trivial.

Thus, audience selection is always an issue when deciding how much math to design into an RPG. For GURPS, we were already aiming fairly high with the concept: a single, unified tool kit for emulating specific genres and fictional tropes, for telling stories in worlds that exist only in the mind, while keeping a synthetic persona separate from your natural one. Thus, we aimed the math at the same general level of mental horsepower. That means we took "can do basic mental arithmetic (+, -, ×, and ÷) intuitively, without much regard for the specific operation" as given, and didn't dwell on it, and included things immediately upscale from that (%, √, etc.) without comment.

If GURPS were a single-genre, intro-to-roleplaying kind of game aimed at total newbies to the hobby, we would have to lower the conceptual difficulty, and at that point we would probably lower the mathematical difficulty to match. It's a valid criticism that the two don't have to track one another, but we reject it. A game written to appeal to advanced roleplayers with bad math skills, or to people with excellent math skills but no grasp of role or story, would end up insulting half its potential audience by writing down to them. A game that maintains a consistent high level shows respect for their ability to learn and adapt.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Are learning disabilities really that common though?
Not every game is playable by everyone, and that's not a bad thing.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Nothing Kromm mentioned is in the realms of learning disablilty level. Anymore than not being of an artist temetment is a learning disability. Most people can draw, and can make reasonable copies, but there a step up in compataces to take those skills as simple as you form letters in hand writing and make new images.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Having trouble with basic cyphering is a learning disability. Being unable to understand even after schooling, is a learning disability.
There's nothing disgraceful about it. But I won't call the disabled differently abled. My severe anxiety makes me mentally ill. It is what it is.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Being lazy and not wanting to bone up on quickly doing simple arithmetic is not a learning disability. I believe most people who are slow at it just don’t do it on a regular basis. Many jobs require next to no math. I think if most people did regular exercises of simple math in their heads they would become quite quick at it. I think they just lack the desire.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Kromm said nothing about not understanding cyphering, he talking about how much contration/effort is needed to pull it off... the only part he said they did understand are things most people never see again one they finish the class. sorry logrthims and sinoald trasformations are not basic cyphering

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Exactly. There are plenty of people who can read yet never bother to pick up a book. They don't enjoy the exercise of reading, so they just don't bother to read when they don't have to. Similarly, there are plenty of people who can do basic math, especially if given pencil & paper or a calculator, but they simply don't enjoy the exercise of doing math so they avoid it when they can.

One might argue that people who don't spend much time reading or doing math are less intelligent. Since most intelligence tests are based on reading comprehension and mathematical skills it's kind of a catch-22 though - people who don't practice the kind of skills that are on intelligence tests tend to score lower on those tests.

However, all that said, my experience is that most RPG players are of above average intelligence. Of course, at the same time, most of them want to believe that they are of significantly higher intelligence than they actually are, so anything that might make them look "dumb" becomes an activity that they don't want to participate in. This may be where the whole "GURPS requires knowing cube roots and other hard math" meme comes from - while GURPS doesn't actually require that much mathematics to play, it does require more than many games, and anyone that doesn't particularly like doing math is going to dislike it for that reason alone. Then, to make themselves feel better, they are going to make the math that GURPS does use sound far harder than it actually is.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I believe PnP roleplaying games will make than come back in the future. There are certain groups of people who hated PnP roleplaying games after it encought you to think and use your invageion.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I don't enjoy reading. Nor do I enjoy doing arithmetic.

But I find that doing either brings rewards. Reading brings the reward of getting to explore interesting worlds and interesting characters, or acquiring useful information. Doing arithmetic brings many rewards. I keep track of personal finances (budgetting), I get to make better decisions in computer games (even if often it is as simple as calculating or intuitting the "value density" of loot in Skyrim), I get to objectively simulate interesting characters who differ starkly from the average in specific regards, in RPGs, and so forth.

But doing either as a thing in itself is completely unrewarding for me. It makes as much sense to me as fetishizing the act of sitting in front of a computer and using it. A computer is a tool, interesting only in terms of what I can do with it or on it. Like reading, writing and arithmetic, it empowers the person who has mastered it.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I didn't mean only 4E. I also had 3E and 3.5 in mind, where Wizards have a limited number of Fireballs prepared per day, so the choice of actually casting one is important. Should I cast it now, or should I save it for later, for a more critical situation?

Sorcerers are freer to cast Fireballs, though, since they don't hae to prepare spells.

But my point stands that casting Fireball is not routine in any edition of D&D, except at very high levels.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

IME, most of these people have never played it, or even really looked at it. It's not D&D (or whatever) so therefore it must suck for some reason and they heard from a guy that heard from a guy that heard from a guy that some guy was doing cube roots for something in GURPS. Haters gotta hate.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Most people in this hobby are one-system people who find the idea of having to learn a new system extremely intimidating. I draw my own conclusion about the mental capacity of such people.

Also, those who are biased against GURPS in factual ignorance often fail to overlook that most of the arithmetic is done prior to game start. In advance. They assume that the arithmetical work is spread evenly throughout the sessions, sometimes because that's what they're used to in D&D or AD&D.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

So why are you hating haters so much? :)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Hate haters gotta hate haters. :)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

So you're saying your hat know no limit?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Ouch. My poor brain.

Though I do have some pretty awesome hats...

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Whatever happened to keeping negative opinions under one's hat...?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

And that's hat one, hat two, hat three -- HIKE!

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Hatters gotta hate too. 'Cause they're mad, doncha know?

"We're all mad here"

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Hateful hattters hath hat hate as hate haters must hate the hats of hateful hattters?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

The way you did it (inserting a row into the middle of the tables) is the best way to get what you want without chancing mucking up names and range assignments. I didn't comment earlier because it was clear you figured that out yourself.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

That's certainly part of it. Oh how my math skills have declined since grad school! Algebra that used to be intuitive now requires pen and paper. It's so bad, I'm actually thinking of picking up a calc book and going through the exercises just to keep my brain from turning into brain flavored jello.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I've forgotten so much from my calc classes as well.
I somehow misread everyone's point in relation to math phobes. I thought someone wrote about those having difficulty with basic cyphering like division and multiplication, not simply disliking it.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

To be fair, there are people with quite solid math skills where the above statements are true; while none of 29+12, 29-12, 29*12, and 29/12 are actually particularly complex, my experience is that the first is faster than the second, and the relative speed of the third and fourth depends on how I express the results (it takes more time to get 29*12=348 than 29/12 = 2 5/12, but converting that to 2.416666.... might be slower), and either is significantly slower than either the addition or the subtraction.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I think y'all are really missing the point. People that complain about math in GURPS generally haven't ever played the game.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Then that's the whole human issue of trying to defend rationally a decision made from uninformed emotion.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Is that not exactly what have I been saying? Haters gotta hate.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Well a lot of people can eventually be convinced to reevaluate their preconceptions. I've changed some relatively basic beliefs based on what Stoddard has written in some threads despite my initially emotionally laden basis.
It's those that refuse to ever challenge their emotions that are the haters that are hating and won't every not hate.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I hate to say this but you guys are talking in circles now. This Verdana font is pretty rounded. :)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Mad hatters hate, but Evil hatters Fate.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I wrote about my difficulty with basic arithmetic, but I play and enjoy GURPS. I also have a certain affinity with higher mathematics, and can do formal logic and set theory like a Meatloaf title. I just have a mental block against basic arithmetic.

Hating GURPS likely has little to do with fear of cyphering or math, and more to do with hating GURPS.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I hope you didn't take offense at my labeling of learning disability. I'm not one to use political correctness even when it applies to me. For example, I call my anxiety issue a mental illness.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Offense? No. Political correctness or no, it's not quite severe enough to qualify as an honest-to-god learning disability. Once I got past 4th grade math, everything was fine. I work things out on paper or on a calculator and manage to interact successfully with society.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

That sounds more like not having lightning calculator than a quirk level disadvantage.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

No it's a noticeable trend in a lot of people. At the lower grade basic cyphering like the multiplication tables more relies on rote memorization, those of us with the quirk simply can't answer quickly in the drill like the majority of the class as we have to stop and think the answer though were the rest of the class is bring up the answer from memorized values.

however when the basics are meant to have been learnt and calculator are allowed in class and the emnphise switches to problem solving the speed issue dissapears in the preformace level with the rest of the class. it not a problem learning math at all.
lightning calcultors can do algebraic equation at that speed level not just cycphering

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Basic algebra is just odd cyphering.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

and that is not on the level of algebraic equations.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Exactly so in my case.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

This thread seems to have spiraled* out of control.

* a Fibonacci spiral, of course.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I would be interested in a 5th edition for the same reason people playing D&D 3.X are interested in their 5th.

I still play the 3rd edition of gurps and would kind of feel better entering a new system knowing everyone is doing the same and we are all united (not that this isnt true for the 4th).

OTOH, 3rd edition is so good with a moderate ammount of house rules, I dont know if I will ever change

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

That is, unfortunately, a perpetually unrealizable goal. There's no reason to believe that those who didn't switch from 1st to 2nd, 1st and 2nd to 3rd, or 1st through 3rd to 4th would jump from 1st through 4th to 5th. People who like an edition tend to stick with it, and as long as they accept "no new support" as a condition of doing so, that's cool. And newcomers might want their new edition, but keeping up with that is literally an impossible task.

What motivates a 5th edition is unlikely to be any kind of failing (real or perceived) in the 4th – or the 1st through 3rd – nor is it likely to be fan pressure. Most likely, if it happens, it will be tied to moving to new media. Rules may very well remain entirely unchanged, but simply be better-integrated and more easily found thanks to technology. We'll see (or not) . . .

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Finally, all my carping about immediating the RPG in an online Content Management System has done some good. I wouldn't have guessed it from all the pushback I got everytime I piped up about it.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I don’t think Kromm is yelling “Incoming!!!” They have done it with the PDFs already by putting errata in for people to download again with the update.

One thing I worry about with new technologies is the concept of limited life. With the sheer volume of PDFs out there I feel somewhat confident that a PDF reader will be available during my life time (I am over half way through it already). I think PnP RPGs don’t have a limited life. While you may not want to play an older game, they are a wealth of ideas. The thought of not being able to go back and reread something for ideas is badong (Kung Pow! Bad and Wrong:).

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

People need to be careful what they wish for. We often talk about how the game company can't come into your home and either:

• Tell you that you're doing it wrong
• Take your books away

With online content this is exactly what they can do. I speak from experience with DnD 4e. I used to subscribe to the DDi which gave you the Character Generator web tool, and used it to generate all my characters given the amount of accumulated stuff which goes with a DnD 4e character. We didn't bother keeping up with errata, but we did start to notice that some of the power cards changed the next time we printed them out - they had been errata'ed and those changes implemented whether we wanted them or not. And it makes implementing house rules much more difficult when you are dependent on an electronic tool to make your characters.

Finally, lots of DnD players were bragging on-line that they had stopped buying the books as they got all the rules 'for free' in the DDi. What they had failed to grasp was that, Wizards will choose to turn that service off at some point (probably when 5e comes along soon) and at that point they will have nothing. DnD 3.x players can still use their books to play the game if they wish; the 4e crowd will be left with nothing in many cases.

So moving to a wholly (or even predominantly) on-line solution for delivering rules seems like nirvana, but it could be hell.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

There's a difference between "online content" and "new media" - the former is a delivery mechanism, the latter is a format or a group of formats. You don't need to use one to use the other.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I like 4th because the production values are current and on par with DnD 4e, Pathfinder, etc. The rules for me are a push. All my Gurps 3rd material is with my garage with my MegaTraveller, Dark Conspiracy and Cyberpunk 2020, etc. - classic and well liked RPGs.

An on-line or electronic version of Gurps does not have to be a 5th edition, just 4th Edition in a revised format.

The third edition paperbacks towards the end of the game were costing up to 28.95 each, so the full color hardbound books of Gurps 4th edition at $34.95 I saw as a real bargain. I would liked to have seen Black Ops, Cliff Hangers, Old West, etc. get the 4th edition full color hardbound treatment - but the current support is very good. Some new 3rd edition material got released in recent years and keeping the classic Gurps material in print on e23 is a real plus. Also - there is plenty of 4th edition Gurps material out there now so you can just play 4th edition - and thanks to e23 its always in print.

The price of Gurps material on e23 - average price of around $7.99 is a real plus and having Pyramid come out monthly as a Gurps supplement is as good support for an RPG as I want.

So - with Gurps 4th well supported with lots of material and considered to be a solid set of rules - the business case for the cost of creating a Gurps 5th edition right now is not there - 3rd went for 15 years and 4th will go at least that long, hopefully much longer.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Okay. I'm asking 1 month early. Will gurps be revitalized with an updated 5e in 2017?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

wow, time flies.

Standard disclaimer: I know nothing of SJ Games internal processes.

I will make a very open prediction for the next ten years. There will be a major shake up in GURPS books sales model.

It might be: DFRPG taking off and getting print support while GURPS doesn't.

a series of different boxed set looking less and less like GURPS 4E.

a (very unlikely) rework of 4E put in a boxset.

a 5E incorporating web and new non print techniques.

(horrible to speculate) GURPS not releasing any more books.

crowdsourcing of funding for all print projects.

But I think the buy Basic set, then buy GURPS book that you want to use, then buy PDFs for infinity won't hold up for another ten years.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

No. There are no plans for such a thing.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I don't have specific inside information, but I'm willing to bet that we're still not going to see a full-blown 5e for at least another five to ten years, if ever. The DFRPG has very informally been described as "GURPS 4.5." That is, it's 4th edition, but with a few tweaks. If it goes over well, we'll probably see more products based on 4e, even if they're only 99% rather than 100% compatible. If not, I imagine there's still not a strong case to be made in support of a 5th edition. There's probably not enough worth changing, and not enough people who would really want or need a new edition.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I agree. The only reasonable path to a new edition of the Basic Set would be if DFRPG becomes massively popular, and the follow-ons become massively popular, then maybe producing a Basic Set that reflects the rule changes in those products would make sense.

Maybe.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

No. Ask again in 2022. (I was going to say 2020 if asked in January, but this whole "one month early" thing has messed up the time continuum so now you need to give it two extra years to settle out.)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I don't think it's coming any time soon either. But 4th edition wasn't exactly known to be in the works up until it was finished, so public knowledge isn't always that accurate.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Pretty sure the CEO knows what he's talking about.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

These three posts are the story of this forum :( Some smart, well-informed people, and a lot of disrespect when they take the time to comment. I understand why you and the other SJG staffers don't post very often.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Agreed, we kept 4e secret for a few years. I can safely tell you, though, that we have no plans at all for a 5th edition of GURPS. We have discussed a second boxed set to follow Dungeon Fantasy -- which you can pre-order https://dungeonfantasyrpg.backerkit....sted_preorders -- but no discussions at all about a 5th edition game.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Still not so far away. I wonder if the forums will make it till then though.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Yeah there really isn't. 4E isn't broken in any appreciable way and the industry is as far moved on from GURPS-style gaming as it was when 4E was new, so it's not like there's additional drift that "requires" some horrific hybrid monster like D&D 4E was.

The only thing I'd ever want to see is a consolidation, integrating the most important rules expansions and addenda back into the main books (for example, the Create advantage from Powers, and a good chunk of the Social Engineering stuff). But that would be another Compendium-style book and SJG is most definitely not moving in that direction. It's moving in more or less the exact opposite direction.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Do you not remember everyone in the know outright lying about 4th edition being a possibility right before it came out? Their business, their rules. But please don't rewrite history.

(I seriously hope I don't get an infraction for stating a basic fact, but if so, then I'll accept it.)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I understand how it would be an unsound business decision for a still shiny edition, but that's not quite what I meant.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Pretty sure the marketing was "We don't have anything to announce about a Fourth Edition," not "We aren't doing Fourth Edition." I'm pretty sure because a lot of that marketing came from me or people who reported to me, and I was careful NOT to say we weren't working on something that we very definitely were working on.

SJ Games does not, as a rule, discuss unannounced releases (particularly major products such as GURPS 4E) before we are good and ready to do so. We have been burned too many times by premature announcements of things that, for one reason or another, never made it to market. It is our experience, however, that simply ignoring the "When are you doing XXX?" question just makes people ask it again, louder. And sometimes the honest answer is, "We don't have plans to do it but we aren't ruling it out down the road," which satisfies nobody.

Having said that, Phil's flat statement that we are not working on or even really thinking about GURPS Fifth Edition is true. We wouldn't be putting a LOT of time, effort, and money into a new Fourth Edition-compatible boxed set if we were moving on to 5E in a couple of years. In any event, the reasons we updated to Fourth Edition just don't hold true right now -- the system is NOT overloaded with options, we have NOT figured out enough different ways of doing things that we could fill two books and then some with house rules, and (most important) we do NOT believe that a Fifth Edition would be a good use of our limited time, effort, and money. If we did, we would have done that instead of the DFRPG.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Just pulling out this quote to shine a spotlight on it. I can't think of many decisions that would be dumber than investing a ton of resources into producing a Fourth Edition-based box set, followed by deprecating those rules in favor of a new edition.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

It seems like there's a little bit of contradiction in the explanations of exactly how 4e compatible the DFRPG actually is. Kromm said that is more compatible with 4th edition than 4e is with 3eR, but also called it "4.5". If that means it is as different as D&D 3 and 3.5, that is probably significant. I honestly don't have a really good feel for how compatible it actually is based on the statements that you all have made, and probably really won't until I read it for myself...

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

OTOH, if the DFRPG fills the same niche that the Third Edition Compendium books (which were sometimes called GURPS 3.5ed) did, then Fourth Edition is roughly halfway through its lifecycle, and we should stop pestering SJGames for statements about a Fifth Edition for a decade.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Did he explicitly call it that, or (as I recall) did he say that a person could call it that if they really wanted to?

Everything we've heard about DFRPG suggests that the changes are isolated and specific (changes to certain advantages, adjustments to individual spells) or reductive (eliminating/simplifying certain complex rules, which has the effect of making the complex versions "optional" from the perspective of Basic, in the same way that tactical combat is optional). None of it seems much more significant than a series of house rules designed to work in a DF setting. Nothing nearly as major as (off the top of my head examples) removing PD or altering the skill cost progression, both of which had knock-on effects that radically altered large chunks of the game.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon? [Answer: NO, it isn't!]
 

Yeah I think it was you could sorty of call it 4.58 if you wanted to and IIRC he said it was like 90% or maybe 95% comatbile.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon? [Answer: NO, it isn't!]
 

Another reason to update will be when the tech in high-tech, Ultratech and even the Basic Set is completely out of sync with the present day.

I make no predictions, but I suppose that puts a practical cap on 4th edition.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon? [Answer: NO, it isn't!]
 

Nah. Then it just becomes "retro" tech like Traveller, Lensman, etc.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon? [Answer: NO, it isn't!]
 

I don't think it works that way. Not with the Basic Set at least. Not when people say "hey, why aren't there rules for [common household device in 20XX] in the Basic Set?" or "what tech level are we now? we have [device], but its not in the GURPS tech tree and I haven't used a [2004 item] in XX years"

At the very least you've got to do a revision.


Also, its less of a problem, but prices get a bit wonky too. Especially if things become very available or very scarce over next X years

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I wouldn't read too much into that. Personally, I'd say it's more like "4.1" if anything -- GURPS/4E with a few things cleaned up for the sake of clarity and game balance (in the context of the dungeon fantasy genre).

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I think of it as "4 (variant)". That is, I perceive it to be 4th edition with variations to support Dungeon Fantasy. At some point (I hope), we might have another 4 (variant) for a space campaign or monster hunters or other good things. :)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

The first 4 (variant) is due out next month, actually.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Assuming you don't count Changing Times, which granted doesn't include the core rules.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

There we go.
DFRPG using GURPS Edition 4^DF and GURPS Discworld using 4^DW