Old Books; still great

[Johnny Angel]

In a recent order of GURPS products, I decided to pick up two 3rd Edition Books: Bestiary and Fantasy Bestiary.

Even though they are from the previous edition, I've found them to be a great buy. Combined with the free pdf (http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG30-6024) which explains how to update 3rd Edition material to 4th, I now have a *mostly* ready made list of creatures with which to populate areas of my campaign worlds. There is also plenty of advice in the books which talks about various motifs. Yet another great resource is the plethora of ecology information about each creature.

One of the things I often see asked for is a creature compendium of some sort. Between the two of these -which are very very reasonably priced- and the pdf which I mentioned, I have over 400 creatures. Tired of the same old dragon rampaging the country side? How about an Aitvaras?


*Even with the pdf, there's still some work to convert the animals. However, at the very least you have a good base to work from.*

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

*Even with the pdf, there's still some work to convert the animals. However, at the very least you have a good base to work from.*

Definitely. Lacking of a new "bestiary" covering so much as these you're mentioning keep the greatness of these 3e books.

The Fantasy Bestiary is a bit weird for me, and I specially dislike many of its pictures and some selections of the critters, but still is a good and interesting reading and game resource.

[Refplace]

Yeah the Bestiary is probably the biggest weakness of the 4E system right now.
Trouble is I dont see it being done by outside contractors and of course in house staff is real busy.
But the Bestiary being taken off the wish list and a hint of something being done I take as good signs.

[thedot]

I've found the 3e books to be a wealth of information, beyond just the crunchy stuff, on any number of topics. The ones I've read have all been amazingly well researched and written. And with the update pdf, they are still as useful today, IMHO, as when they were written.

Getting them for such reasonable prices doesn't hurt either. :)

[Stoob]

Two community created PDFs add to the Bestiary:

http://www.tesarta.com/HFP/bestiary.pdf

http://www.tesarta.com/HFP/HFP/Welcome_files/NatEnc.pdf

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by thedot

I've found the 3e books to be a wealth of information, beyond just the crunchy stuff, on any number of topics. The ones I've read have all been amazingly well researched and written. And with the update pdf, they are still as useful today, IMHO, as when they were written.

Getting them for such reasonable prices doesn't hurt either. :)

Seconded.

I think even it could be healthy to officially mentioning more often and more assertively these books as an actual backrest for the current fourth edition of GURPS.

For instance, GURPS lacks of a proper official bestiary, but in midst of many tech & gear books (Ultra-tech, High-tech, and soon, Low-Tech) it still will be lacking of a fourth edition book as GURPS Religion, which is also very useful, being that a thematic that can't be left aside in many settings & genres.

Many 3ed GURPS books are a wealth of information (even if many times it's a bit basic), game resources, and many of them are inimitable.

Additionally, people complaining about GURPS 4e being "too much of a toolkit" could understand there's no harm in that because a lot of themes, settings, information and what not was already covered in the still in force GURPS 3e sourcebooks. Even 3e GURPS Psionics is a good resource for 4e GURPS Psionics and 4e GURPS Psionic Campaigns.

So I wouldn't cut a sharp line of distinction between the third edition and the fourth, because it's more easy to see them as complementary: for a fourth edition user, the third edition books offer information & fluff above all, and the 4e edition books are more advanced offering very well developed rules -for handling that "fluff".

[Cernig]

Just how difficult would it be to add a "converting to 4e" section to each 3e PDF on e23?

[Woodman]

Even if you only just append the GURPS Update pdf to each one it would be some work. It could probably be scripted, but someone would need to check if anything went wrong, my guess would be at least a week of work for one person, juts to append an unedited freely avaiable pdf. If you want specific Information about each book we are more likely talking about a week per book to write the text and then editing and layout on top of that. That sounds like so much work i wouldnt even bother to think it through properly because i cant see how that would ever pay off.

[Cernig]

That sounds like so much work i wouldnt even bother to think it through properly because i cant see how that would ever pay off

As opposed to the time and expense of writing and producing entirely new books?

You stick [Now updated for 4e!] onto the title on e23 and away you go - a much more easily sellable PDF a month for minimal extra cost. Or, even easier, get the "4e Update" chapter as a freebie giveaway when you buy the 3e PDF.

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by Cernig

Just how difficult would it be to add a "converting to 4e" section to each 3e PDF on e23?

Probably not difficult; however, if I had to guess, it's still easier to simply have one pdf which is -again- free than add more content to every other pdf.

IIRC though, some of the old books have been updated. In particular, I think GURPS Dragons now includes 4E updates.




I was a little uneasy about picking up 3rd Edition books because I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and -not being familiar with 3E at all- I was unsure how much work it would be for me to update the old material. It did take some work, but it was fairly easy overall.

My biggest obstacle was/is trying to figure out how exactly 4E's damage reduction figures (i.e. PD) convert to GURPS 4th Edition.


Even not considering the plethora of crunch, the information concerning ecology and things of that nature made the books almost a steal at the price I bought them for. I highly recommend both of them as companion pieces to a GURPS 4th Edition collection; I'd even recommend them to someone who plays other game systems.