Simulationst or Light

[d10tavern]

How many people would you say play GURPS as more of a simulationist system, taking into account every little detail, and how many play it more as a light system, ignoring most of the details and just sticking to the basic system?

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by d10tavern

How many people would you say play GURPS as more of a simulationist system, taking into account every little detail, and how many play it more as a light system, ignoring most of the details and just sticking to the basic system?

I usually pick a couple areas of the rules where I want more details (depending on the genre and campaign), and use that to zoom in on that part of the action, mechanically. The rest of the areas of the game I just use the basic system and glaze over the finer details.

[whswhs]

Can I say "Yes"?

Actually, I've run GURPS in a range of styles. It depends on my narrative purpose, which is a matter of what the theme of the campaign is and how the setting supports it. GURPS works in more than one style.

On the other hand, the genius of GURPS really is in "your characters are real people moving and acting in the real world." If I want a really light generic game, I look at BESM ("your characters are figures in a visualized world and can do what can be visualized") and FUDGE ("your characters are characters in a narrative and can do what can be narrated"). GURPS works, not so much for more realistic games, as for games with a stronger aesthetics of "realism," games that are supposed to feel like the engineering and economic facts matter.

Bill Stoddard

[Phantasm]

I tend to be more fast-and-loose with the rules, using the base rules and not worrying about the more fiddly details unless necessary.

I am definitely here for what Bill calls out as GURPS's sweet spot - real people in a real world. It may not be our real world, but it is a real world, and I want to simulate that world as thoroughly as possible. I will always err on the side of greater granularity where possible, at least in those areas that I am focused on at the time.

I've been gaming, off and on, since '79, and the best way I can think of to describe my goal in a game is to give players a system that accurately portrays the universe, no matter how fantastical, as being based on our own. I want to be able to entirely immerse myself in my characters and make decisions utterly through their eyes, without any reliance on information they would not possess, roll the dice, and honor the combination by seeing what story emerges, stochastically, from the results.

[Rocket Man]

My current campaign is pretty "talky" (to the point of soap opera sometimes), so there are entire sessions where the rules don't matter ... well, except the ones in Social Engineering. :) But since it's supposed to be a fairly gritty superhero series, I don't throw the rules out the door. Combat can still be deadly, surgery can still be risky, and so on. In fact, Bio-Tech's rules on surgical procedures are proving useful, since one major NPC has cancer and another has had to be treated for massive brain trauma.

"Real people in a real world." Maybe that needs to be the next big tag line; it sure fits my game.

[Engurrand]

Honestly I think the real genius of GURPS is how well it's worked for Everything I've Tried To Do. I've done some pretty seriously gritty games, and some game concepts call for that. But I've also done some wildly off-the cuff and cinematic games, still using GURPS.

But I have to agree, there is a sweet spot. Even in the most off-the-cuff games, throwing in a little salt of realism from time to time, (the details of a surgery in a supers game is a damn fine example) really thickens the soup.

Am I mixing metaphors? Maybe... maybe.

Simulationist or Light? Depends on the game, but usually somewhere right in the middle.

[Joe]

I think maybe there are two questions here: the question of the level of rules detail being used, and the question of the level of realism used.*

* Am I right in thinking these are not really the same thing? For instance, it seems to me that you could easily go rules-heavy + realism-light, or rules-light + realism-heavy, if that's what your group is into.

On the question of rules detail: mostly light, I would say. We've always just wanted to keep the scene moving, rather than spend too much time referring to the rules. So we run fairly fast, relatively rules-light games, focusing on atmosphere and narrative.

On the question of level of realism: medium, I suppose. most of the campaigns I've been involved in have been what you might call "heroic realism" - fairly realistic, but still never reluctant to put the realism on hold for a bit in order to tell a more fun story.

None of the groups I've been with have particularly wanted to try to play rules-heavy + high-realism for any extended period of time. I 'd love to get a chance to try, though!

Just a thought in passing: people sometimes talk a lot about GURPS' amazing capacity to do high-realism simulationist gaming (and it obviously is so good at that). But that's not really why my groups have loved the system.

I think most of the folks I've played with have loved GURPS firstly for the depth and flexibility of its character creation system, and secondly for its simplicity - it's so easy to do rules-light in GURPS, if you want to, while still getting to spend a lot of time using the rules to flesh out your character. (Plus obviously the ability to do any genre without learning a whole new ruleset).

[Warden]

I would like to ask, what is 'basic' GURPS to you?

Is there a general consensus, or is it totally subjective?

Thanks

[johndallman]

I don't know if there's a consensus, but what it means to me is not worrying about fatigue points, not worrying about every detail of supplies and equipment, and not using a hex map for combat (and hence not worrying about movement points and the like).