Quote:
Originally Posted by panton41
I've played GURPS off and on since about 1995, but recently took a break from it and got into other game systems. I came to realize that while GURPS is an excellent system, everything you play is just, well, GURPS-flavored. I also came to realize the same thing about the (very different) Fate system.
During the break from GURPS I got into the Chronicles of Darkness (aka "New" World of Darkness), Shadowrun 4th and 5th Edition FFG Star Wars RPG, Star Trek Adventures, Starfinder and Pathfinder 2Ed and realized how many of them were designed around a publisher's in-house system they used for several, often very different, settings. Which got me realizing many of the official GURPS settings really wouldn't work well in another system.
So it kind of dawned on me (rather recently) that the years I spent trying to shoehorn other system's settings into GURPS would have been better spent just learning those systems and to use GURPS for the things it does better. (Though, honestly, I think GURPS could do Shadowrun better than the actual Shadowrun system.)
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To some extent. But on the other hand I think part of the problem is a failure to distinguish between between mechanics and setting in the first place. I have sighed in exasperation many times at people who insist on trying to import game mechanics that aren't really part of the setting. No, it is not essential or even all that useful that magic missiles not miss, that you have a sanity meter.
Then again I have wondered why people try to make GURPS totally modular when Hero System is already a thing and and if you like another game system's features there's really not much reason not to use that system with the setting, if it's a campaign entirely based in the setting. But I'll tell you right now, I would have no trouble at all running a Pathfinder game in Yrth or Madlands. Apart that from me just not liking Pathfinder or Madlands.
Which is the thing. There are a lot of game systems I do not like but could find the settings useful. Shadowrun. Space 1889. Traveller, and most notably D&D/Pathfinder. There are other settings and adventures where I just don't have the RPG. Battletech for example. A bunch of stuff that I got on Drivethru bundles. or as freebies. And there are settings that seem like a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to campaign there. So stick 'em in Infinite Worlds and then the PCs can just hop in for one mission.
Sometimes though you just need to accept that the way to play in a Maid RPG setting is with the Maid RPG.