GURPS is becoming the only game I'll run

[Grom]

I Have to admit, I am a roleplayer now of 25 years, and I've played many systems ( AD&D - D&D - Tunnels & Trolls - Call of Cthulhu - Warhammer - Paranoia, well lets just say the list goes on a long way ), my point is that until Feb of this year when I met an interesting young man from my local gaming club, I had never played GURPS. Truthfully I never wanted to, I hadn't read the rules or then again even bothered to look at the cover of a GURPS book, But all this changed when he asked if he could run an adventure he wrote using the GURPS rules, so reluctantly, myself and my RPG group said OK.

Well to cut a long story short, I haven't enjoyed playing any other RPG's since then, I just cant get enough GURPS, I dont care what the genre is, it always works with GURPS. So now I play mostly GURPS ( but still play a little AD&D ) and am in the process of getting the GURPS 4ed core rules. I never realised I could like a system so much, but it's just sooooo bloody good.


GROM

[combatmedic]

I like GURPS, but sometimes I don't need the level of detail and the variety of fiddly bits it provides, or another system is better suited to what I'd like to run.


other games I like to run:

Basic/Expert D&D

Boot Hill

Call of Cthulhu

Classic Traveller


I also run D&D3.5 online, and have done so for a few years now. It isn't my favorite system, but it works well for my purposes.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I like GURPS, but sometimes I don't need the level of detail and the variety of fiddly bits it provides...

One thing which is also great with GURPS is the fact that you can have as much detail as you like... Or not! This is often forgotten because, when you are in front of two so thick books named "Basic Set", it's hard to imagine that all these rules are just optional.

Actually, you can keep the game as light as you want, by using only the basic rules (which are explained in GURPS lite or in the Quick Start Section of the Basic Set) and the Task Difficulty Modifiers.

But I perfectly understand what you (and others) mean by...

Originally Posted by combatmedic

or another system is better suited to what I'd like to run.

All what I wanted to add is that I've played a lot of Cthulhu campaigns with the Basic Role Playing System. I really like this game which is very well designed. Now, I have also tried it with GURPS and it works even better.

GURPS wounding system really adds something to the game, with its realism. And GURPS fright check system (where you get more and more mental disadvantage) is as frightening for players as losing sanity points. Perhaps even more. Furthermore, it's more simple for them to understand exactly how their character become crazy rather than a very generic sanity point loss.

Add to that the fact that GURPS rules can be as simple as Call of Cthulhu ones, and you will immediately understand why I play my Cthulhu campaigns exclusively with GURPS rules now. Just try it once. It's amazing.

[combatmedic]

I don't buy into 'one size fits all.'

Take character generation; GURPS doesn't give me the quick and easy classes of D&D, the fun lifepath system of Cyberpunk 2020, the career system of WFRP, etc. It works really well for making highly detailed PCs who are designed without any randomness. Some people like randomness. Not everyone wants a high level of detail.


GURPS is fun and well-designed, but I don't like to use it for all games I run, and I doubt I ever will.

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by Mencelus

Seriously. The last campaign I ran started out in Spirit of the Century, but after great table annoyance with the rules (especially Aspects) I decided to switch it to GURPS and all was well.

Fast forward a few months. I have left said group for various issues, and starting a game with a new group. I originally pitched a particular fantasy idea for Reign, which the group agreed sounded good. So, I start giving out setting details, and they start sending character ideas. Reign, I discovered, simply wasn't flexible enough to handle some of what they wanted.

(And there was also the issue of shoehorning in the Company rules for no real reason, but that's more my issue than anything else).

So, naturally, I said, hey, GURPS, and nobody disagreed, and at least one player was happy with the idea (she'd played it with me before in a cyberpunk game).

Thing is, when I think of GURPS, I feel like it's easy, familiar, and the like. I also feel like it's just so damned logical and easy to adjudicate as a GM, that I'm finding it's harder and harder for me to use other systems now. The logic thing even holds for the illogical bits like magic and so on.

This is the second time in a row I've given some other system a pass in favor of GURPS.

Is it the same for you? Or almost? If so, why?

I understand what you're saying. Partly, it is because I'm lazy, and I don't want to bother learning a whole new system each time I run a new game, but I really don't see the advantage of using another system. GURPS will let me run any kind of campaign and it lets me model anything from gritty realism to cinematic powers. Every game system has its limitations, but GURPS has, to me, the fewest, and the most advantages. Obviously, this will not be true for everyone, but I have not yet experienced a situation where I felt that I could not handle a campaign better (or at least as well) with GURPS, so I just don't bother using anything else when I run a game.

Having said that, I'm perfectly happy to let someone else do the work and run some other kind of game. d20 has grown on me; it is good for certain kinds of campaigns and adequate for most other genres. Savage Worlds works quite well for cinematic action (it's like a cinematic-oriented little brother of GURPS). Other systems are fine, too. I just don't use them myself anymore when I'm either building or running a campaign.

Mark

[DanHoward]

I have sat down to play different systems over the last few years with different GMs. Throughout each session I kept thinking "GURPS does this better". By the end of the day I'm saying to myself "why am I wasting my very limited gaming time trying to learn a different system when GURPS is better anyway?"

[Evil Roy Slade]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I have sat down to play different systems over the last few years with different GMs. Throughout each session I kept thinking "GURPS does this better". By the end of the day I'm saying to myself "why am I wasting my very limited gaming time trying to learn a different system when GURPS is better anyway?"

I know what you mean. I play GURPS with a motley assortment of players I recruited one at at a time. I have GMed probably 70% of the time and the other two who have done so often talk about their urge to explore other systems, which we do with regularity. Personally, as someone who has been into RPGs since the late seventies, I recall with chagrin the 'golden era' when every single game needed players and GM to learn a new set of poorly-realized mechanics.

Frequently under the other GMs, the group branches off into Top Secret for a week, or All Flesh Must Be Eaten for three or four sessions, or Icons for three games. Inevitably I wonder as a player what exactly we are gaining by doing this, as whatever novelties the games offer seem counterbalanced by the way the clumsing or non-existent handling of many situations and the way they fail reality tests all over the place.

That said, there are occasional perfect matches of non-GURPS mechanics to situations, for which I am more than happy to put aside my loyalties. TOON was mentioned upthread and is a fine example. Call of Cthulhu's SAN mechanism is no less brilliant today than when I started running a game in high school, more than 25 years ago. Car Wars' rudimentary systems for dealing with characters is fine for a game that focuses in vehicle combat.

Still, in practice, I am at one with the OP.

[Kage2020]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

Having said that, I'm perfectly happy to let someone else do the work and run some other kind of game.

This is something that I run into more often than not. When I come across something that inspires me about the setting I normally end up automatically breaking it down to how I would achieve certain things within the GURPS framework. For good or ill, that's just how it works for me, even if I don't have the familiarity with the system that many of the people here evidence. So I'm kind of stuck on GURPS as a GM.

On the other hand when it comes down to playing? As long as the campaign description is intriguing and the GM doesn't automatically expect me to be up to speed (i.e. a little help would be appreciated) on an unfamiliar system, I'm fine with it.

Of course, whether I can actually take a top-down approach to character generation (concept-through mechanics-to-character) rather than a bottom up (mechanics-to concept-to character) is another question entirely.

Kage

[SimonAce]

I was a GURPS only gamers for a long time and if it was a "can only have one" situation it would be my choice. Its probably the best designed multi purpose game on the market with Unisystem running 2nd place

That being said I play and run quite a few other things, Pathfinder , OSR D&D variants, Risus Unisystem -- it really depends on what seems interesting at the time...

[TJA]

I realy love GURPS - that part of why i bought so much stuff around it - but i need to say, that it is too complicated in my parts for me and my players.
We always tend to search around in books and seek this or that rule.
Yes, we could wave such things, but we instead try to find and learn ...
This begins with simple things like Details of Grappling or Area attacks.
The problem for *me* is, that GURPS books are so dense - if you seek a rule, mostly it points you to other rules and other books, who in turn ... yes, points to the next thing.

For me, GURPS would be greatly enhanced, if all books and rules would contain more "fluff" and more redundance - not pointing to other pages at all, but explaining all details *there*.