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Old 05-05-2021, 03:54 AM   #1
deanjday
 
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Default Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

Being quite new to Gurps and feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the books over the many editions, I thought it might be useful to get some solid recommendations from you veterans as to some of your favorite books.

I have no preference for genre, edition, printed or pdf. Please just list your top three favorites and explain why if you have the time, so I understand from your point of view what made it so great for you.

This will be really informative as to what purchases to make going forward in a general way and also get a good feel for what the community feels was the highlights of whats been published over the years.
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Old 05-05-2021, 04:10 AM   #2
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

Well, leaving out the core rules books, I'm going to pick the following:

GURPS Alternate Earths 2: It has a variety of really imaginative timelines, more interesting than those in GURPS Alternate Earths 1, and with a lot of texture.

GURPS Powers: The single most useful of the major system expansion books, with its extremely detailed treatment of special abilities, helpful for everything from supers campaigns to "magic as powers." The concept of power modifiers is a really great unifying mechanism.

GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks: It's hard to choose just one of this series, but I consult this constantly in creating new characters, and I'd find it harder to get by with just the perks in the Basic Set than with just the quirks.
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Old 05-05-2021, 04:24 AM   #3
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

Quote:
Originally Posted by deanjday View Post
This will be really informative as to what purchases to make going forward in a general way and also get a good feel for what the community feels was the highlights of what's been published over the years.
I fear that you'll discover that the tastes of forumites are very eclectic. My choices are:

High-Tech, for its vast supply of solid information, which adds hugely to the verisimilitude of games in 20th-century settings, which I enjoy.

Thaumatology and Cabal, which provided the source material for my most successful GURPS campaign.

Do you have a specific kind of game that you want to run? We can be more focussed with a clearer target.
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Old 05-05-2021, 04:37 AM   #4
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

GURPS Special Ops 3e (the first GURPS book I bought and the reason I got into it)

GURPS Tactical Shooting (useful for realistic combat at all TLs, psychologically as well as in terms of situational awareness)

GURPS Thaumatology (I might as well have mentioned GURPS Martial Arts, but Thaumatology might be even more impressive in terms of inspiration and spurring creativity)
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Old 05-05-2021, 05:47 AM   #5
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

I'd be hard pressed to pick just three, as my imagination tends to run wild and my adventures cross genres.

Excluding the Basic set and five -Tech books, my favourites are all Third Edition titles:

GURPS Mecha: I love giant robots and big guns.
GURPS Autoduel: I came to GURPS via Car Wars a couple of years ago when I realized we did more roleplaying in Car Wars than actual duelling.
GURPS Myth: A great fantasy romp based on the video game series. Especially fun as a DFRPG adventure.

(Honourable mentions go to GURPS Cops, Mysteries, and Mass Combat)

Last edited by sparcipx; 05-05-2021 at 05:55 AM. Reason: Bold.
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Old 05-05-2021, 06:18 AM   #6
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

GURPS Vehicles second edition: So much fun and so much information.

GURPS Ultra Tech: hardware and gizmos galore

GURPS Banestorm: I love Yrth. There should be T-shirts with the map or something.
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Old 05-05-2021, 06:27 AM   #7
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

I would not suggest these as any kind of buying guide, since I like them for very different reasons and would put them to very different uses, but:
  • GURPS Action 2. Indespensible for any modern-ish gaming. Every now and again, during the days of Pyramid, I'd have an idea for something relevant to non-historical gaming and consider writing about it, and then I'd check Action 2 and see that it had already been covered.
  • GURPS Conan. I'm an REH fan, so I appreciated the depth and breadth of coverage of the Hyborian Age, but I also really like the structure and how it approaches describing a game world. So much so, in fact, that I kind of used it as a model for GURPS Hot Spots: The Silk Road.
  • GURPS Goblins. Hardly GURPS at all, but written with great charm.
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Old 05-05-2021, 07:27 AM   #8
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

How to be a GURPS GM. This is a good starting point for a GM who is new to the system. My favorite sections are the ones discussing building appropriately difficult adventures and paring down the complexity of GURPS. For someone coming from a level-based system, the adventure design advice would be particularly useful.

Template Toolkit 1: Characters. This gives a lot of good advice about designing templates. Building characters with well designed templates is a good way to handle character creation without overwhelming new players with choices!

Thaumatology: Sorcery. Sorcery is one of my favorite magic systems. In short, it is a beginner friendly magic-as-powers system built around Alternative Abilities with fatigue costs as the main limitation on spell casting. Each spell has a fixed effect and cost, cutting down on the need for rule look-ups in play. Sorcerers also tend to learn fewer spells than standard magic mages, meaning that there is less for the players to memorize. However, the ability of sorcerers to improvise spells takes some of the pressure off of spell selection.

Last edited by Emerald Cat; 05-05-2021 at 07:29 AM. Reason: Forgot to mention sorcerous improvisation
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Old 05-05-2021, 07:29 AM   #9
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

I've seen a couple of people mention Thaumatology, so I want to mention that it was one of the ones I thought of; I only ranked Powers above it because I use all of Powers, but I use specific parts of Thaumatology.
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Old 05-05-2021, 07:30 AM   #10
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Default Re: Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I've seen a couple of people mention Thaumatology, so I want to mention that it was one of the ones I thought of; I only ranked Powers above it because I use all of Powers, but I use specific parts of Thaumatology.
I technically use GURPS Martial Arts and GURPS High-Tech more than GURPS Thaumatology, but GURPS Thaumatology sparks more joy.
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