What do you want for the 35-year anniversary?

[David Johansen]

oooh...the old Dragon Magazine ad!

"What the &%$# is GURPS?"

Also, while socks would be awesome they don't screen print well and custom knitting is expensive.

[Kale]

Somehow convince Ryan Reynolds to do a GURPS ad.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Kromm

But swag that raises the overall visibility GURPS doesn't require a specific genre or play-style preference, or even being a current GURPS fan, to have value. That's probably the right way to be thinking about an anniversary.

And yet, the semi-recent Kickstarter for GURPS art t-shirts didn't include the system's name anywhere on the shirt. I had trouble getting my head around that.

[RedMattis]

A GURPS 4.1 or other update of the main books would be nice honestly.


• Add some of the random advantages and disadvantages from fringe books (things that aren't GURPS Powers-something f.ex.)

• Add a part discussing rebalancing advantage costs for different settings.
○ Is ST & DR really worth 5-points per level in a TL 12^ setting? Is 6 points of DR and one points of ST really as comparable to as 'DX+1 and Extra Attack', or 'Charisma 4, Reputation 2 and Appearance (Transcendent)'?

○ Immunity to Fire and other Immunity to Damage type. Those generally will have a cost based on how high a damaging attack goes. Guidelines for where this should land in a given setting?

• Reevaluate old dis/advantages and add more discussion to them. Especially reevaluate them if they aren't practical in most campaigns
○ Affliction vs Affect Others enhancement?
○ Maybe rewrite Affliction to something which doesn't have its cost tied to its level. Almost no one takes it beyond level 1 for anything with modifiers. Compare to Innate Attacks with Side-Effect, which tend to be much cheaper.
○ Maybe reconsider the value and purpose some strange dis/advantages like Terminal Illness, Unique, Unaging, etc. Is "I'll have to roll up a new character in 1 in-game month" even worth something as a disadvantage? If Unaging is basically just an Unusual Background and a possibly irrelevant immunity to (some) age-related magic, what does the PC get for it?
○ Rebalance the cost and details of stuff, like Regrowth being super expensive for what you actually get.
○ Clear up some mechanics, is a persistent Obscure Vision a way to essentially make yourself "hard to hit"? There is a lot of stuff which has been answered on the forums which hasn't made it into the rulebooks.



...I could go on, but you all know what I mean.

[Gumby Bush]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

A GURPS 4.1 or other update of the main books would be nice honestly.

[Snip]

I see this as Basic Set + Power-Ups series, really. What you suggest would all fit nicely in appropriate Power-Ups books.

To add my 2-cents to what has been said since I first chimed in:

I think a T-shirt with just the GURPS logo on the front, "Celebrating 35 years of psychic blueberry muffins" (or similar) on the back is a good idea for truly anniversary-type products.

I would also support a "Kromm tip jar"

Kromm's "Ten for ten" in P#3/70 could probably be expanded into a supplement, perhaps adding some of the honorable mentions. Call it, say, "The Budget Expansion". One might leave some items as simply references to other supplements just sketching the idea, which could still provide a nice unified shopping list for "I have the Basic Set, what should I get from the immense quantity of GURPS releases next?" Alternatively, or folded into the same, a sort of DF Career Guide, only for the system as a whole, could serve a similar role.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by Gumby Bush

I see this as Basic Set + Power-Ups series, really. What you suggest would all fit nicely in appropriate Power-Ups books.

I love the power-ups series, but I really think a proper compilation and a fresh look the old GURPS advantages and attributes would be nice. Most players aren't going to buy half a dozen power-up books.

Also perhaps making official some common house rules like IQ being decoupled from Will and Perception (so it doesn't effectively cost 10p/level)

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

A GURPS 4.1 or other update of the main books would be nice honestly.

This sounds like a project that would take such time as it wouldn't be available for release next year.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

This sounds like a project that would take such time as it wouldn't be available for release nest year.

Kromm has been talking about sekkrit projects.

[Kalzazz]

I am all for t-shirts that are fabulous and cheap (with a suitable blend, super fabulous can be less cheap, suoet cheap can be less fabulous) though sadly the last GURPS t-shirts were not fabulous or cheap

I totally snagged a Munchkin Steampunk shirt when it was on sale, fabulous and cheap how could I resist?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

This sounds like a project that would take such time as it wouldn't be available for release nest year.

Correct.

That would call for work comparable to the effort needed to create GURPS Third Edition Revised from GURPS Third Edition, or even to that required to compile the GURPS Compendium volumes. That means at least one year of full-time, exclusive work. The editing, layout, and other steps that would follow would add at least another year. If I dropped everything else to do just that, it's barely possible that we'd see the results in late 2022, and 2023 or even 2024 wouldn't be needlessly pessimistic.

Plot twist: All of that was back when GURPS was a flagship product – a top earner that could justify "rush" orders and have multiple editors devoted to it, permitting me to drop everything else to work full-time and exclusively on major projects. That hasn't been close to true in recent history. It was possible with extensive planning in the 1990s, when much of our staff was devoted to GURPS; it was barely workable up to 2004, when I had David Pulver to assist me and the game still had a couple of full-time staff editors; and it was hell to do when I took time out to create the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game in 2016, when it was just PK and me. Now it's just me, so . . .

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Kromm has been talking about sekkrit projects.

Yep! But those were things that took a few weeks of my time to review.

To be clear: Even a "fractional" or "revised" edition isn't a few weeks' or even a few months' work. I probably have more experience to speak from than anybody reading, and I'd estimate one to two years of research and writing, and then that much again for the editing, production, promotion, and release. The "turning radius" would be so huge that it would be more realistic to discuss for the 40th anniversary, assuming GURPS sales were to skyrocket enough in the intervening years to justify the effort.

Right now, GURPS sales and staffing support nothing more ambitious than the short PDFs we've seen in the past decade or so. That's why I'd counsel those talking of 35th-anniversary items to think more in terms of non-rules swag that could raise the game's profile. That would use marketing time, not mine, and possibly generate enough new players to justify major rules-oriented projects.

Existing GURPS fans tend to be too close to the rules and always think in terms of those. Our need is for totally new fans, and while I'm sure there are rules tweaks that could help with that, we're looking more at a marketing problem than at a game-design one.