Dice Of Doom: GURPS Review

[RupertG]

Hi guys,

I run the Dice of Doom blog. The review was written by Ellisthion (or Duncan if you listen to the podcast) as he was the person who ran the game.

It is clear from some of the posts here that you are all very passionate (and protective) of the game that you play. This is a good thing, it speaks to the game's appeal. We didn't mean to tread on any toes, we were merely reviewing the game as we experienced it.

Some things that may need some clarification. We only had a month to learn and play the game. We have been cycling through a game a month in a year long project. This was game 8 in the cycle. Clearly a month is not enough time to 'get' everything about a system, and we acknowledge that in the podcast review and in the post. We know we missed things and a lot of you have been very helpful pointing things out in the comments on our post. We appreciate that.

The review is written from the point of view of a gaming group who have had no experience with GURPS picking it up for the first time and trying to find their feet. This would accurately reflect the majority of our readers. Many of you would have been introduced to the game by someone experienced in running it, and would have passed it on in a similar fashion. I would ask you to consider what it might be like to pick it up with a clean slate, so to speak.

At the end of the day we really enjoyed the game and some of us in the group (myself included) are interested in picking it up again sometime. It got a very high review score from us compared to some of the other games we've tried (Gamma World only got 48% for example).

Thanks again to those of you who have commented on the site clarifying things, we really appreciate it. (And if you'd like to point out the flaws in 'sample character', please feel free to do so...).

[Xplo]

I think this is a fair review for what it is: a first impression formed without the benefit of advice from more experienced players, by someone who is more used to D&D. For instance, the complaints about a lack of ready monsters and advice on encounter balancing seem to assume a fairly hack-and-slash game, whereas a GURPS game could easily have humans as the only opponents - or even a peaceful diplomacy/court intrigue/etc. game with very little combat. Likewise, many of the complaints about the system itself are less valid if you understand the nuances of the system, and so really they're complaints about insufficient hand-holding for new players - which is a valid criticism (and one that was made, to give credit where it's due), but not a ding on the system per se.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by RupertG

Thanks again to those of you who have commented on the site clarifying things, we really appreciate it. (And if you'd like to point out the flaws in 'sample character', please feel free to do so...).

A pony probably should have more than 10 ST - without looking at the books, I'd guess somewhere around 15 would be more appropriate.

[Danukian]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

A pony probably should have more than 10 ST - without looking at the books, I'd guess somewhere around 15 would be more appropriate.

But the MYPs aren't normal sized ponies - in times that I've seen them interact with humans, the are waist high to a 6yr old - maybe half the size of my dog - 10 ST is decent.

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

He does fall into the usual trap of "There's no monster manual." Unless you count the Creatures of the Night series, the book titled Monsters, the several monster-specific books from 3rd edition, the bestiaries for Fantasy and Space, and the monsters included within the genre books and the basic set. And Horror, which is about how to make your monsters especially scary.

Aside from that, there's no monster manual.

I agree with you on the "Plenty of Monsters in GURPS" front, but I never really found CotN very campaign ready, and up until DFM1, there was no other MANUAL, so plenty of monsters - no single Big Book of monsters (until DFM1), which is part of the Generic core concept, but it's a cliche argument on several forums of Fanboys vs. Fanboys.
Fanboy A: "GURPS doesn't have a monster manual!"
Fanboy B: "Yes it does: pgs x-xiv in book X, pgs v-xi in book Y and the racial templates in book Z!"
Fanboy A: "That's not a manual..."

Overall, I liked the review. It was obviously people that didn't go months in-depth creating a world and going over all the possible options beforehand, but that stated that from the get-go.

[ClayDowling]

Originally Posted by Danukian

I never really found CotN very campaign ready

I find that interesting, because it was the basis of the first GURPS campaign I ran. I had nobody to act as a mentor, and I'm the one who introduced GURPS to my group. I saw the templates in the basic set as a good basis for a modern urban fantasy campaign, and Creatures of the Night was perfect for setting a low-powered monster hunters campaign in Detroit, a city with plenty of darkness and scariness on its own.

The default magic system isn't ideal. It's not even what I would have preferred. But I did find that even with Basic Set, a starting wizard was a pretty powerful foe. Our group's wizard dealt with several a lot of supernatural horrors in a very permanent sort of way.

The biggest trick is to not approach GURPS like it's D&D. It's not. So I worked early on to get people accustomed to different ways of thinking about combat, not as the abstracted D&D combat, but a quick and cinematic system where you described what you were doing, rolled some dice, and then described the results. We made fights quick and deadly, and they got into that right away.

[trooper6]

I don't believe that people nowadays are significantly more stupid than I was when I was 16--which is when I taught myself GURPS and started my own game. So I always find it interesting when people say that GURPS (and other games) are too difficult. I wonder what happened?

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

The biggest trick is to not approach GURPS like it's D&D. It's not. So I worked early on to get people accustomed to different ways of thinking about combat, not as the abstracted D&D combat, but a quick and cinematic system where you described what you were doing, rolled some dice, and then described the results. We made fights quick and deadly, and they got into that right away.

Anyhow, I think this is important. I think the biggest problem GURPS have is that is seems close enough to D&D to have people approach it using the wrong paradigm. There are stats that D&Ders know...and they think they understand what a ST12 means...except that 10 is GURPS average and D&D average has been creeping upwards from 12 to whatever it is now (14?). There are Mages with spells like the D&Ders know...but the Magic system works completely differently. There is combat that seems like it would be the same...but it really isn't. I think it is the seeming similarities to D&D that makes it the most difficult for the D&Ders rather than the differences.

As an example, everybody is really clear that Vampire and D&D don't have anything in common and I'd see D&Ders adjust to Vampire easier than to GURPS. I think it is because the systems were so different that they came to them fresh.

[Wraithe]

Originally Posted by RupertG

Hi guys,
I run the Dice of Doom blog. The review was written by Ellisthion (or Duncan if you listen to the podcast) as he was the person who ran the game.
...
Thanks again to those of you who have commented on the site clarifying things, we really appreciate it. (And if you'd like to point out the flaws in 'sample character', please feel free to do so...).

Well Rupert, I want to thank YOU guys for doing such a good job on the review. I mean really, a MONTH playing it? I think that's pretty awesome and shows a good understanding that a Pen & Paper RPG isn't like a boardgame where you can play it once or twice and get it.

What's more you guys mechanically did a good job, the idea of using GURPS Lite is one of the things I only picked up a while after getting back into GURPS.

And as I said earlier, ˆ*saw the review as good, that was why I mentioned it - GURPS folks have some serious concerns that the game is overshadowed by D&D and seen unfairly as "overly complex", so good press is, well...good! :)

What's more, I really appreciate that you came HERE to follow up, that's really cool.

[seasong]

Originally Posted by trooper6

I don't believe that people nowadays are significantly more stupid than I was when I was 16--which is when I taught myself GURPS and started my own game. So I always find it interesting when people say that GURPS (and other games) are too difficult. I wonder what happened?

Speaking purely for myself, and no one else: GURPS was the hardest game system I've ever bothered to learn (including Rifts and HERO System). That doesn't mean it was hard.

But if I had limited time or limited interest, I would have never bothered to push through the learning curve. I was already familiar with a dozen or more roleplaying systems, and they were easier. Why bother with this one?

As it turns out, GURPS is now my favorite game system.

But "too difficult" can mean as little as "more difficult than that one, which I was also considering buying."

[ClayDowling]

I found it less difficult than the World of Darkness games. I found it had too many dials to tweak in ways that weren't all that clear. GURPS has fewer dials, with more guidance on what tweaks are appropriate.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

I found it less difficult than the World of Darkness games. I found it had too many dials to tweak in ways that weren't all that clear. GURPS has fewer dials, with more guidance on what tweaks are appropriate.

World of Darkness (especially Old World of Darkness) is deceptively simple in some ways. Unfortunately the exact kind of deceptively simple that makes it easy to miss things like the "three different axis of difficulty" issue. And of course there's zero guidance on adjusting anything.

One of our most system-phobic players found WoD and GURPS easier than D&D to play (she won't do character creation in any system at all), and of the three, she prefers GURPS significantly.