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Old 07-21-2020, 09:31 AM   #13
Apollonian
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Shoreline, WA (north of Seattle)
Default Re: Alternatives to GURPS? Other tabletop RPGs to try?

If you're interested in expanding your horizons to something you might not like, I suggest also looking at The Burning Wheel and any one of the Powered By the Apocalypse games (I like Dungeon World, but I hear it's not the best implementation of the system.) Burning Wheel is a fantasy game that's easily as crunchy as GURPS, but comes at it from some very different assumptions. It also has some pretty solid GMing advice baked into it. The writing style may be a bit of a "love it or a hate it," but I think it's worth picking up regardless. Notable bits are the lifepath system (not original to BW, but a good implementation of the idea), scripted combat, and very strong Player/GM role definition. Good for provoking ideas to improve your gaming, whether or not you agree with the author's stance.

Powered By The Apocalypse games are much less crunchy than GURPS, and again they're more GM advice if you don't actually want to play their system. I got quite a lot of use out of the ideas of Moves, and the way each "class" is presented as a little playbook of concept, moves, and so on informed how I present GURPS templates to my players.

I also like Nobilis. It's amazing, if hard to describe. I hear that Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is also good. Both are by the same author, Jenna Moran, and are very different from GURPS.
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