GURPS Essential core books

[Kromm]

Although I have a vested interest in every GURPS player buying those books (and all the others!), I'd have to caution against them if you like fast-and-loose game play. I've played in plenty of perfectly fun campaigns where specific gear and encumbrance were ignored . . . the spy got "Spy Gadgets," the mechanic got "Tools," the medic got "Medic's Gear," etc., and the details were hand-waved except for penalties when tools were missing. Nothing broke. I have also had players who despised having to keep track of 20-30 pieces of gear, especially when several were related things like "explosives, caps, wire, and clacker."

Moral: Know your players before investing in these items.

[Kage2020]

I don't know about required, but some of the books that I find myself consulting beyond the Basic Set include:

• Powers. At present, I've used this for every project that I've worked on in GURPS.
• Thaumatology. Another book that I've frequently consulted.
  

Call out to books that work with my general style include:

• Action 2. Love it love it love it.
• Monster Hunters. Ditto.
• Hororr. Errr, ditto.
  

Other books get consulted on an as-needed basis, but the above are the ones that in recent history seem always to be open in front of me (as it were).

[trechriron]

Powers
Magic
Thaumatology
Martial Arts

I think these expand on the core enough to give you a customized tool set that would cover 90% of any setting you could conjure.

Toss in Space, Fantasy and Horror for genre treatments and I think that rises to 97%. :-)

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I've played in plenty of perfectly fun campaigns where specific gear and encumbrance were ignored . . . the spy got "Spy Gadgets," the mechanic got "Tools," the medic got "Medic's Gear," etc., and the details were hand-waved except for penalties when tools were missing. Nothing broke. I have also had players who despised having to keep track of 20-30 pieces of gear, especially when several were related things like "explosives, caps, wire, and clacker."

Moral: Know your players before investing in these items.

Fair comment. I ought to have written "I am more interested in world detail that detailed game mechanics" rather than "[m]ore detail is not my cup of tea".

[simply Nathan]

Played my first GURPS campaign with just the Basic Set. Never want to do fantasy again without at least the price and effect for healing potions (found in Magic and Dungeon Fantasy 1). Trying to use the drug rules in Basic to make them is painful on my brain; other than that, most things worked fine.

I'd say Magic is your essential core book if you want to run any kind of fantasy, unless you don't like how magic works in the Magic chapter of the Basic Set (in which case you might want Thaumatology).

[trooper6]

The first campaign I ever ran was a low magic Fantasy game...only with the Basic Set.

Then the second was a modern Scanners type Psionic thriller...also only with the Basic Set.

It all worked really well. The other books are really nice--but you get a complete experience without.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

Played my first GURPS campaign with just the Basic Set. Never want to do fantasy again without at least the price and effect for healing potions (found in Magic and Dungeon Fantasy 1). Trying to use the drug rules in Basic to make them is painful on my brain; other than that, most things worked fine.

I'm still trying to figure how reasonable or unreasonable those drug rules are. They might soon show up in my current campaign.

[Keiko]

Initially, I'm using GURPS for survival horror online game and I'm planning a Transhuman Space game in the near future. After that I'd like to use it for variety of settings when my usual go to (Hero) feels too cinematic.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Initially, I'm using GURPS for survival horror online game and I'm planning a Transhuman Space game in the near future. After that I'd like to use it for variety of settings when my usual go to (Hero) feels too cinematic.

For Survival Horror I would go with High Tech, Low Tech (possibly, especailly if they do a lot of low tech scrounging) and Horror not only has monsters and such but a lot of ideas on running different kinds of Horror games.
Martial Arts is also a strong candidate.

For the next one...
The Transhuman series is worth a look.
Cyberpunk, couple of Pyramids and possibly Ultra Tech.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Id shake this mindset.

You can make excellent arguments for MA and Powers, and they are GREAT books, but consider instead what game you are going to use GURPS for. Let that guide your purchases.

This, definitely this. He took the words right out of my mouth.

And despite what all the other forumites are saying, you really only need the core books. The supplements help a lot, but they're not essential to running the game. I've run combat-heavy games without Martial Arts, power-heavy games without Powers, low-tech games without Low-Tech, and so on. I do highly recommend them, but it's one thing to say "This supplement is great!" and "This supplement is essential."