GURPS Essential core books

[Anders]

Isn't this off-topic?

[Zarathustra]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

No, that would probably be GURPS supers. Action is mainly about gunplay, heists and chases, the sort of stuff you see in action movies like the Transporter, Expendables, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, the Bourne series, and so on. It's really geared for 200-300 point characters, larger-than-life guys who nonetheless "feel" realistic.

Supers, especially four color supers, tend to discard realism, and not just in the sense of the fact that they have super-powers. A super with a fireball power never bothers to pick up a gun, for example, and heroes infiltrate with infiltration powers. As a general rule, supers use their powers to do everything. Even heroes without powers (Batman, Iron Man) have some profoundly larger than life ability, and use that prodigious talent to accomplish everything. And even they tend to follow rules and stick to their core themes.

So for Supers, you want GURPS Supers, and GURPS Powers. Though I personally think that GURPS doesn't do supers well, though not for the reasons most people cite.

Thanks. I already have Supers and Powers. I was just wondering if Action had anything useful in it.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

Thanks. I already have Supers and Powers. I was just wondering if Action had anything useful in it.

For a low-end supers campaign, I would favor Monster Hunters over Action.

Bill Stoddard

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

For a low-end supers campaign, I would favor Monster Hunters over Action.

Bill Stoddard

Most of what's generally useful in Monster Hunters is also in Power Ups 5: Impulse Buys.

[Zarathustra]

Originally Posted by whswhs

For a low-end supers campaign, I would favor Monster Hunters over Action.

Bill Stoddard

Thanks for the reply Bill. I decided to start a new thread about the best books for Supers.

[Hugin]

Originally Posted by trooper6

I own Action 2...also the DF and Monster Hunters lines...because I habitually get all the pfs of new GURPS stuff that comes out, not because they are fundamentally all that useful to me.

And I don't think much about Action, never think about Monster Hunters, and only selectively use bits of DF. Why?

I'm gritty, "realistish" GURPSer...or I suppose a "method actor GURPSer" and all of those three lines are cinematic 250cp sorts that discourage the creation of well-rounded humans in favor of heroic archetypes. All three of those lines feature recreating the niche based class model that you get in D&D through templates. And I don't like that. I prefer PCs that are not classes. Not Fighter, Driver, Slayer...but this gal was a blacksmith and after her village burned down from the Orc invasion of '02 she became a rambler and sellsword, he passion is mythological stories of the time of the Gomar and can tall you almost anything you need to know about that culture. These genres reduce/delete social status and all the social elements that brought me to GURPS in the first place. All those skills left off the skill lists...too fluffy, to far away from the Action! are the skills I value very highly. I'm always encouraging my players to take more of then...so a line that removes them altogether is not going to be for me.

I get the feelings those books aren't for me--which is cool. The DF line has a bunch of things that can be adapted to less cinematic games--Treasure Tables for the win!--but when I think about the gritty spy game I want to run, with full well-rounded characters who don't mimic character classes. I don't think Action.

Take another look at Action 2 Exploits. There are a lot of cool rules that can apply to any game, such as the chase rules, the BAD rules, hacking rules, etc...

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Hugin

Take another look at Action 2 Exploits. There are a lot of cool rules that can apply to any game, such as the chase rules, the BAD rules, hacking rules, etc...

But all of those are cinematic abstractions, and I prefer the gritty detail.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by trooper6

But all of those are cinematic abstractions, and I prefer the gritty detail.

Not everything in Exploits are cinematic abstractions (and eventually, you have to abstract something. Electronics Repair skills should not go into the details of soldering what to what, for example). BAD is, yes, but let's look at the rest.


The Action genre often involves: Getting a mission, getting more information on the mission, getting to the target, scouting the target, infiltrating the target, doing what you came to do (steal something, hack something, destroy something, murder someone, rescue someone, etc), dealing with whatever unexpected troubles arise, and getting the hell out. The book, first of all, breaks those steps down, and second of all, discusses the skills associated with those steps, suggests additional tactics that might work, and detailed modifiers for those skills. The book further goes into problems that might detract from the drama and how to avoid those.

That's actually the majority of the book, and it's one of the reasons so many of us recommend it, not because we like the awesome awesomeness of the awesome combat rules (though we do), but because it breaks down those sorts of missions, and those sorts of missions are fantastically common in games like Shadowrun, Spycraft and Traveller, to name a few games that I often see people running look-alikes in GURPS.

The rest is the aforementioned awesome combat stuff. I'm not sure what you mean by "gritty detail," but the chase rules are probably the most detailed chase rules you'll ever get in GURPS. The combat rules do, indeed, start with abstract simplifications (this is actually another reason many of us recommend the book It makes GURPS much more accessible precisely because it shows you how to discard some of that gritty detail), but you can ignore those and go straight to flashy combat and stealthy combat, both of which add (rather than remove) detail, as do the sections on Using your Head and Banter and... well, you get the idea.

Whether you're running detailed tactical combat with military precision and low-key characters, or you're running loosey-goosey "Let's kick in the door and shoot some people," I think action has something to offer, provided you're focusing on the kind of tech-heavy game full of competent agents that Action caters to.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

The Action genre often involves: Getting a mission, getting more information on the mission, getting to the target, scouting the target, infiltrating the target, doing what you came to do (steal something, hack something, destroy something, murder someone, rescue someone, etc), dealing with whatever unexpected troubles arise, and getting the hell out.

...

Whether you're running detailed tactical combat with military precision and low-key characters, or you're running loosey-goosey "Let's kick in the door and shoot some people," I think action has something to offer, provided you're focusing on the kind of tech-heavy game full of competent agents that Action caters to.

First note, I did buy the book, so SJGames has my money. And I will reread it to see if there is something useful, but the book seems very much to be incompatible with the kind of games I run...which are very often Spy/Investigative games...from modern day to cyberpunk to Traveller.

Pg. 44, lists 10 rules you shouldn't be using in Action! games, or use very sparingly. All 10 of them, except #1 (Magic) are not only rules I use all the time, but they are the reasons I like GURPS in the first place. The action books want to help you recreate a certain kind of action movie where heroes don't get crippled, fatigued, deal with tech level unfamiliarities, etc....that is just not a game I run.

Second, Action follows a mission template (as do DF and MH)...one that you outline in the quoted paragraph. I do not like to follow mission templates like that--especially the way Action and DF understand mission templates. Mysteries, I felt, discussed genre tropes and possibilities without being so rigid. I never really got the feeling that Action would help if you are more interested in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold than James Bond.

I think that GURPS is really trying to get in good with a certain type of gamer...a gamer that likes Pre-fab. Those Pre-fab run the gamut of character classes for in the form of templates for players and modules in the form of a very defined mission tempate for GMs. This is all pulled together with a 250cp feel vs a 150cp feel, and a move to cinematicism rather than grittiness and rules that support that feel.

This is also very successful for them, so yay!
But it doesn't resemble the games I run at all, even if theoretically they are in the same genre.

If the original poster had similar aesthetics to mine, wanted to run a spy game, and wanted to know what supplemental books to pick up, the last books I'd recommend would be the Action series. Instead, I'd recommend 3e Espionage, High Tech and Social Engineering. Heck, the introduction to Action 2 even says it isn't going to be useful for gritty police procedurals or wilderness of mirrors spy games. It is very clear that it is about over-the-top action. Not everyone wants that, though Action is great if you do!

The OP mentioned wanting to do zombie game, and people mentioned Action. I'd recommend Horror. But I want my zombie game to be more like the original Night of the Living Dead not Evil Dead...and Action not only wouldn't help, but would hamper.

The point is that GURPS manifests in really different feels, and Action, DF, MH promote a kind of feel that is very popular, but not everybody's cup of tea. So book recommendations for the OP...they have to take into account that there are ways to craft really, really different experiences based on what books you use and that not everyone needs Action...or Social Engineering...or any book beyond the basic set.

Now. I only read Action through twice, I'll give it another read through...but I've gotten far more use out of other books than that one.

[Keiko]

Another campaign idea that I've been rolling around for awhile is a low fantasy game set in the stone age. "cave man" fantasy, basically. Are there any books that would be especially good that?