Has SJGames been working on GURPS 5th edition for 2 years, or is Steve just trolling?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Dalin

Whereas among my middle school students, Terry Pratchett is a demigod. .

Sure. I never said that there weren't some fragments of the market that would test Pratchett positive.

However, even if you go to what are arguably the root sources of the rpg hobby and the literary adventure fantasy genres you don't get universal hits.

Modiphius is losing it's 2D20 Conan license and appear to be just letting it go. One person in my group bought some books for it. I looked at the free preview and winced at the rules system..

I think "One Ring" is the latest Middle Earth adaptation but even that only got a couple of purchasers in my game group and no resulting campaigns.

We could bring up recent underperforming Star Wars and Star Trek adaptations too.

I don't think that a really killer license is out there.

[mehrkat]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Check the number of printings for the 3e version. It sold pretty well.

I understand that different people have different desires but I find GURPS Vehicles to be much more complicated than what I want in an RPG resource. I would much rather a GURPS Spaceships style vehicle system (maybe even a smidge simpler) with lots of examples that you can tweak a specific aspect of a vehicle thats most of what you want.

A good solid program like Gurps Character Sheet (GURPS Vehicle Sheet anyone that has way more programming chops than me).

I know this isn't quite made for a newbie and isn't quite made for a full expert but its in that experienced but not grand master space.

[Rupert]

Given that Spaceships' level of fidelity would get you a 0.1 ton motorcycle (that's on the small side), or a 0.3 ton motorcycle (pretty large) or farmer's quad, then a 3 ton car (large), and then a 10 ton truck, I don't think 'simpler' and 'vehicles' really go together. There might be fewer sub-system options, but the fiddling to get intermediate sizes, and then a decent set of rules for performance will counter any perceived simplicity those fewer systems bring.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by mehrkat

. I would much rather a GURPS Spaceships style vehicle system (maybe even a smidge simpler) with lots of examples that you can tweak a specific aspect of a vehicle thats most of what you want.

I've worked a lot with Spaceships too but I'm cautious about it's limits. I am afraid that in many respects it's just too granular for PC vehicles.

As for tweaking the output, you don't need a system for that. As low as Spaceships' level of resolution already is (factors of 3 and 10) just change what you want to the numbers you want.

[rosignol]

Originally Posted by DangerousDave

edit: of course they'd have to keep the rules mostly the same. Just reordering the content, and rewording where necessary.

It would be nice if they could also fix the minor details that got overlooked in the 3rd-> 4th transition. Point costs for obscure dis/advantages that everyone agrees should have been tweaked but didn't, etc.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by mehrkat

I understand that different people have different desires but I find GURPS Vehicles to be much more complicated than what I want in an RPG resource. I would much rather a GURPS Spaceships style vehicle system (maybe even a smidge simpler) with lots of examples that you can tweak a specific aspect of a vehicle thats most of what you want.

I've seen this from a lot of people. But you know, I don't have much trouble using Vehicles, but Spaceships has just baffled me. I've been given suggestions on how to use it effectively, and maybe sometime I'll try it again, but I didn't find it intuitive.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Sure. I never said that there weren't some fragments of the market that would test Pratchett positive.

...

I don't think that a really killer license is out there.

I don't disagree. The fact that Discworld is out of print suggests that it wasn't selling well enough to justify another print run. I'm not particularly interested in more licensed properties.

[Anthony]

I gearheaded the heck out of GURPS Vehicles when it came out, but in the end:

• If I want a quick gameable abstraction it's too much work.
• If I want to emulate real systems... I can just look up the real performance of the real system. Note that the internet makes this a lot easier than it would have been when Vehicles first came out.
• If I want exotic vehicles and I don't care about realism... it's too much work.
• If I want exotic vehicles and I do care about realism... it has a lot of realism problems and there's no reason to use a RPG book to do it -- again, the internet has a ton of resources.

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I gearheaded the heck out of GURPS Vehicles when it came out, but in the end:

• If I want a quick gameable abstraction it's too much work.
• If I want to emulate real systems... I can just look up the real performance of the real system. Note that the internet makes this a lot easier than it would have been when Vehicles first came out.
• If I want exotic vehicles and I don't care about realism... it's too much work.
• If I want exotic vehicles and I do care about realism... it has a lot of realism problems and there's no reason to use a RPG book to do it -- again, the internet has a ton of resources.

What about this reason:

• A player wants a crunchy way to optimize a vehicle or gun that the campaign doesn't offer out-of-the-box

(I don't think that's a compelling reason, but I do think it's a common one.)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by kenclary

What about this reason:

• A player wants a crunchy way to optimize a vehicle or gun that the campaign doesn't offer out-of-the-box

It's actually quite hard to use Vehicles to modify an existing platform. You'll get comparable quality results by just giving the vehicle a BL and count all the stuff you add to it as encumbrance (honestly, that's a way I would be tempted to do things like robots in GURPS).