Discussion on GURPS 4E Revised or Database

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I was going to say FATE! (I tend to shy away from doing so because I'm not a massive fan, and "what about FATE" was the chorus for pretty much any problem for a while)

Leonard Balsera and I have a good discussion about how GURPS and Fate compliment each other in my interview with him.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Leonard Balsera and I have a good discussion about how GURPS and Fate compliment each other in my interview with him.

What I find interesting is that these are the two RPGs I actually play. When people act surprised that I – the best-known GURPS geek – can actually like both, I am surprised. The differences are legion, but I see a lot in common between de facto point-based, skill-driven systems intended to cover any and all genres using a single rules set.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Kromm

What I find interesting is that these are the two RPGs I actually play. When people act surprised that I – the best-known GURPS geek – can actually like both, I am surprised. The differences are legion, but I see a lot in common between de facto point-based, skill-driven systems intended to cover any and all genres using a single rules set.

Anyone surprised by people liking both GURPS and Fate isn't paying attention. :)

The overlap between the two fanbases is huge -- I talk to people on the FateRPG-List all the time who I know from the forums. Hell, our coworker (Leonard Balsera) is the chief architect behind the latest edition of Fate. As you say, the two systems have at least as many similarities as they have differences. If I had infinite free time, I'd love to combine the best of both worlds, stealing liberally from what GURPS does well (flexible character creation, good combat mechanics, attribute-based skills, etc.) and what Fate does well (aspects in place of disadvantages, Fate Points to drive the story, etc.) -- plus a few tasty morsels from other systems -- and create the Ultimate RPG System Of Perfection.

(Wait, I'm not 15 anymore. Am I still supposed to have this urge?)

[mook]

I am a huge fan of GURPS Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys precisely because it feels like a nice bridge between my two favorite RPGs (which is still odd to say, because for a decade or so I only had one favorite).

Even before that came out, we'd been using "Fate Points" in our GURPS games to great effect. Nice to hear there's so much overlapping GURPS/Fate love out there!

Seems rude to post and not at least comment on the OP, but I'm afraid I don't have much more than "having a way to assemble a custom campaign-by-campaign GURPS rules-set digitally would be awesome, but seems pretty unlikely."

[Dammann]

Storyscape is supposed to be something sort of like the app that is being discussed here, with the basic flaw that it doesn't use GURPS rules. Still, Robin Laws wrote the rules, so there is reason for optimism.

[Agent]

Originally Posted by PK

(Wait, I'm not 15 anymore. Am I still supposed to have this urge?)

Why, yes. Even if GURPS is supposedly missing something that FATE can provide, GURPS has always been the attempt to be the best humanly and semi-inhumanly possible. I think, anyway.

Not a far stretch, my friend. After all, most of the system would still be GURPS. ;-)

Originally Posted by Icelander

Certainly not. But I've found games like the SAGA system, d20/D&D or Mutants and Mastermind to be more complex than GURPS, in that there are more exclusive gamist mechanisms which don't correspond to anything benchmarked in reality and are thus not easy to understand for someone without the frame of reference provided by a thorough grounding in the game system.

I'd actually be interested in hearing what those mechanisms are (probably in Mutants and Masterminds in particular), having just enough experience with it to be so without entirely understanding what you refer to...