Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Yeah. That. It's all 4th edition - just with setting specific goodness. :)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Not really setting specific. Just sensible fixes.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Well, it's 2017... Any new answer now?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Purely as an outside observer and fan, a new edition doesn't seem to be needed.

The current trend in the business seems to be towards GURPS 4e as a game engine that can be customised for specific settings, like the Discworld Roleplaying Game or the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. The latter apparently has some rules tweaks that have been referred to as a lightly revised 4e, but we won't see how significant those are until it is published. SJG has also mentioned the possibility of doing other packaged customised versions of GURPS, but has not announced any plans.

Meanwhile, the fanbase continues to buy incremental supplements in PDF and develop writers to create them, plus Pyramid articles. This gives SJG a fairly low-cost way of developing the game, matched with its fairly low sales. The fanbase's play is spread over a very wide range of genres and settings, and wouldn't respond well to GURPS becoming more tightly focussed, in my opinion. However, that tight focus would be necessary for a new edition to be publishable at a reasonable cost.

Sometime in the past decade, Kromm said that the most likely cause of a new edition would be some new publishing technology. The idea of something computerised that lets you add rules modules and fold them into a single reference cleanly is quite attractive, but it would not be simple to implement, and SJG isn't in the publishing software development business. So until someone else invents something applicable, this probably won't go anywhere.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

There are no plans for a fifth edition.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

It's the RPG equivalent of "are we there yet?" on a road trip. :-)

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Except we are there, and having fun - perhaps it's more like "when does the bus leave to go to the next fun place"?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I'm gunna go out on a crazy-tree limb here and say that maybe you should make a sticky on the SJ Games Discussion sub-fora about GURPS 5E.

There you could have something to the effect of "Steve Jackson Games is not, at this time working on, nor planning, an edition update to GURPS Fourth Edition. If this changes we will update this thread to inform all stakeholders at once." Add as much, or little, additional detail as you deem necessary.

Then lock the thread so people can't add comments to it and you guys can just point any questions you receive about GURPS 5E to that thread.

Once the singularity hits, everything changes and we get 5E, in whatever form the new technology has updated the fora into, you can simply add the same thing for GURPS 6E.

That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I'd rather have a virtual tip jar with a sign that says: "5E planning starts when $25 million is reached _or_ we feel it is time."

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Honestly, I wouldn't put money in that jar. 4e suits me fine. I will continue to spend money on Dungeon Fantasy, and I'd spend money on a space setting given similar treatment.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

That would be hilarious!

Or start up a SJ Games GURPS Patreon, with the $100k/month level (or whatever) being GURPS 5e production.

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

Even if it made financial sense to publish a fifth edition, what would you want in it, seriously?

The biggest things I can think of are just as needed for fourth edition anyway (rebuilding the GURPS Magic spell list, the vehicle design system, etc.), and a new edition would only push these back as existing books need to be touched-up for the new edition.

Compendia in a few years, with 5th edition after the singularity.

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

This is exactly what I wonder as well!

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

That's really the thing I think is needed, but isn't currently part of SJG's theory of publication. 4E is essentially self-consistent across its various documents (more so than 3E) but the information is all over the place and somewhat disorganized.

However, a Compendium is probably a cashflow assassin. It obviates the need for a lot of the existing products, since the sort of person who wants a Compendium (me!) is also probably the sort of person who prioritizes crunch over fluff.

For example, I look through the Horror book and realize that there's maybe 5 or 6 pages worth of crunchy stuff and the remainder is just telling me a lot of stuff I already know about how to run games and build worlds. Which is great for most people who buy the Horror book, but likely unnecessary for someone buying a Compendium. And so you end up with one and not the other...rinse and repeat for all the books. (As another example, there is exactly 1 page in Fantasy that I regularly turn to: the abstracted map of pre-industrial trade networks.)

Now of course this sounds like a critique but it isn't. I appreciate those books for what they are; they're just not for me, really, and likely not for the other sorts of people who are deeply interested in a Compendium.

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

3E needed Compendiums because rules were scattered all ovder the place and a lot of things in setting books.
4E did a lot to fix that by A) Republishing material (several things in Horror are elsewhere, like Powers) and B) Putting a lot of new stuff in Power Ups, Powers, Thaumatology or other lines rather than setting books.
In fact for the most part the Power ups books are Compendiums and even better modular or topic specific so people can more easily pick and choose what they want.
The final thing is that the editors strongly discourage new advantages and skills so that we only see them when needed and often with an Under The Hood on how they were built so we have more consistency. Third Edition had a lot more special snowflakes.

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

I agree that 4E is in considerably less need of a Compendium than 3E, but I believe 4E would benefit from one regardless. Truly thorough character creation for most fantastical (do not read: fantasy) settings requires a lot of books. I routinely build characters using all (not some, all) of the following: Power-Ups, Powers, Action, one of High/Low/Ultra-Tech and Martial Arts.

Not complaining that I have to - it's an embarrassment of riches, honestly - but it would be easier if everything were in one place, organized appropriately.

4E doesn't need it, but the system would benefit from it. The company, of course, would not, unless the resulting compendium cost more than $200. (Which is why I will never say that SJG should do it, or be disappointed by their continuing decision not to do it. It's a bad business decision.)

What would be really nice is if GCA could be reproduced in e-book form (well, e-book-of-the-future form). Pull a couple switches, turn a few dials, and the character creation options document you end up with only contains the elements you're planning to select from.

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

Personally, I think we are less in need of a Compendium, and more in need of a thorough online Index that covers all the books.

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

I'd pay good money for this.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Am I the only one who was hoping that Kromm would post, "Ask me again in 2027"?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I wasn't aware we were even in the metaphorical car.

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

Rather than a compendium perhaps what is needed is a tool to search through and cross reference multiple pdf's simultaneously. That way a gamer could easily find what they need regardless of which book it's in. Of course that would mean you'd have to get all your books in pdf rather than print, but I'm doing that with most of my books these days anyway.

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

Most PDF readers do this. Using Acrobat: Shift+Ctrl+F

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

I use Sumatra PDF, which doesn't have multi-file search but is otherwise very nice. For search, I use Agent Ransack, which is quick, displays text around matches to make it easy to see what they're about, and has a good regular expression engine.

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

For Windows, installing the PDF ifilter allows multi-PDF searches through the file search (based on content, that is).

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

In my experience, multi-volume indexes are better. And not just because I used to be an academic sequestered in dusty libraries. Relying on a user's ability to select a search term is an abdication of responsibility. Reference works should always have thorough indexes. Otherwise, search effectiveness depends on a user knowing exactly what text to search for, even in cases where s/he isn't even sure what s/he's looking for.

A good index, especially one that's internally cross-referenced and behaves like a traditional thesaurus, covers all cases much better.

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

I don't disagree, but that's not what the poster was asking for...

I don't necessarily agree either, personally, I find I do searches like this as least as often as I consult the index.

Although since all GURPS books are indexed (well other than Pyramid), it should be possible for a script to read all GURPS pdf indexes and assemble a multi-volume index.

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

I seem to be in the (surprising) minority who have a much easier time searching a hardcopy than a PDF. I've even timed myself. I'm an order of magnitude faster finding specific things with a physical book and an index than I am with a PDF and a search bar.

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

For your search methods and style, I have no doubt that you are correct. As you said, you used to be an academic - thus, you've had training in searching.

However, not everyone who plays GURPS is an academic.

Luckily, this isn't an "either/or" situation; it's possible to have both a comprehensive index and a multi-file search tool.

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

OK, this has gone really far afield.

If you want to keep discussing the GURPS Fifth Edition that is not in the works and may never happen, go to the GURPS forum.

If you want to talk about PDF searching, go to Geek Culture.

If there's something else you want to discuss, find the appropriate place and discuss it there.

In neither case is the discussion going to continue here.