What GURPS needs... now

[Gollum]

Here are my two cents about this very interesting topic …

Dungeon Fantasy RolePlaying Game Boxed Set will help GURPS to be more well known and really liked. And I’m sure such tool boxes will be designed for Action and Monster Hunters series … If DFRPG is bought a lot and some GURPS authors have time and money to make them.

Waiting for that time, do we need another GURPS Lite, a more streamlined Basic Set, more hints about how to handle GURPS for each specific genre?

In my humble opinion, no.

GURPS Lite is already a very good tool and it is hard to do something better – that is, a book which shows GURPS in a so simple, easy to read and fully compatible with the Basic Set manner … How to be a GURPS GM already gives amazing hints about how GURPS works and which rules to use for your own campaign. And Dungeon Fantasy, Action and Monster Hunters series are precisely books which explain how to adapt GURPS to those specific genres. We even have Adaptation, which describes how to translate your favorite fictions in GURPS terms.

So, what does GURPS really need to attract new people? Simple. What does other universal roleplaying system (those who are best sellers) propose?

Game worlds and adventures! That is, really ready to play stuff.

Do you want to try the BRP system for instance? Simple. Download Call of Cthlhu Quick Start Rules and you’ve got all what you need to play immediately. Rules and a ready to play adventure to start with. Or, if you prefer fantasy, do it with Runequest Roleplaying in Glorantha Quick Start. Here again, everything is given without having the least preparation to do. You just have to read and you can play.

Of course, GURPS offers some adventures here or there. You can for instance download GURPS Lite and play it with Caravan to Ein Arris, for free. But, first, these two books are not clearly linked together. And second, what will happen when you will want to go on with the same Player Characters? The Game Master will have to write new adventures and to design the game world for himself. While with Call of Cthulhu or Runequest, you’ve got fully designed game worlds and a lot of ready to play adventures and campaigns.

This is what frightens newcomers, in my humble opinion. GURPS is a very good game … If you’ve got a lot of time to do everything by yourself. Sure, GURPS gives you all the rules you want (perhaps even much more than you would like to), and a lot of hints about how to use them. But you still have to do everything by yourself. And if you look at official supplements, they just give more rules and more hints about how to use them … But no really ready to play stuff. Even game worlds very rarely give you a ready to play adventure!

Brief, GURPS is a very good game for those who love building their own world, writing their own adventures, or adapting ones from another roleplaying game. Thus, it is a very good game for experienced Game Masters, but it cannot really attract newcomers who just would like to try it.

At least, not before the DFRPG and other projects like that will be published out. And more there will be projects like that, more newbies will be able to see and understand how things work (so amazingly) rather than having hundreds and hundreds of pages to read just to know what to use or not to use … to build almost everything by themselves.