Suggestion for someone returning to GURPS

[Jakob]

After not really looking at GURPS as a system for about 25 years, I kind of want to give it another try ... I don't yet have players for it, but my online group might actually be willing to humor me at some point.

I'm not quite ready to make the (expensive) dive and buy the 4th Edition Basic Set - I still own the third edition (in German), and feel more or less familiar with the tenets of the system, which should be (hopefully?) enough to make sense of the supplements that interest me, in comination with GURPS Lite. If the supplements spawn a campaign idea, I'll probably buy the current Basic Set.

Anyway, this is the stuff that interests me, and this thread is me asking for further recommendations around them:

GURPS Banestorm - I actually owned this and sold it off without ever reading it, but I will probably buy it again; it just feels interesting (and actually convenient) playing in a fantasy setting where all the earth-isms are actually there because humans came from earth - so no weirdly polytheistic fantasy pseudo-Christianity, but simply christianity, no pseudo-Islam, simply Islam, and so forth. Also, I feel like the setting should be perfect for a Portal Fantasy campaign with normal people from our world going over to Yrth; it would add meaning to the whole portal fantasy thing, because not only can they encounter the relationship between the two worlds, they might also be viewed as potential saviours or threats by Yrthian factions.
For that idea, I would probably look at Banestorm and the Portal Fantasy supplement; I'm not sure whether I'd need Magic and Fantasy, for starters, I'd prefer to avoid them, because I'm really not into buying and reading 4 or 5 books for one campaign idea.

GURPS Horror and Madness Dossier: Horror I simply want to read, the preview looks great. Madness Dossier looks like a great setting idea, though I'm not so much into the idea of high-powered PCs for a horror campaign, and the list of recommended supplements Kenneth Hite provides in the beginning is slightly intimidating (not just Horror, but also 3 different Psionic supplements, Martial Arts and Action!).

GURPS Space - Not so sure about that one yet - I love far-future SF and associate GURPS strongly with it, but I seem to remember having heard that current edition is VERY tech- and maths-heavy, which isn't quite my thing. On the other hand, I would love to read it just for some general thoughts and ideas about SF campaigns.

So, please, cheer me on!

[whswhs]

If you run a Banestorm campaign, then other than Banestorm itself, probably the most useful book to add would be Magic. I don't recall if 3/e provides spells; the 4/e Basic Set has a fairly short list, enough to get by on, but the variety is limited.

Portal Fantasy could be useful if you want to have player characters (or some of them) come from Earth rather than Yrth; it provides ways of handling wealth, possessions, and background traits that aren't much use on Yrth. And it's pretty inexpensive.

Fantasy is the least useful of the titles you name. It's largely a guide to designing your own campaign and setting to fit the genre, and if you plan to use Banestorm you don't need such a guide; the work has largely been done for you.

The one other book you might think about is Low-Tech. One of the key points of Banestorm is precisely that it keeps its tech low; a guide to what you can do at that tech level could be helpful. Of course the Basic Set again provides a selection of low-tech gear.

*****

I like Space quite a lot. The 4/e version doesn't have much tech (it got shoved into Ultra-Tech). It does have rules for creating imaginary planets and solar systems, and those two chapters are the most math-heavy. But whether that's an issue depends on what you consider to be heavy math. Square and cube roots? Logarithms? Algebraic equations? Differential equations?

[Jakob]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Logarithms? Algebraic equations? Differential equations?

All of that. Logarithms are but a bad memory from school to me. (Tried to wiki up on it because someone mentioned "Logarithmic vs. linear damage", but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it has to do with wound systems in RPGs.) Though I can deal with square roots ...

[Shuckster]

If youre going for Portal Realms you could use Hotspots - The Silk Road to link the real world's history and religions, cultures and so on with banestorm and craft a setting where the portals are used for trade. As for magic banestorm has it's own chapter on it and so does the basic set, the magic book is an expanded version of the basic set's chapter and you shouldn't need to go farther than that unless you want magic to be much more of a focus. You could also use the Crusades supplement to have some sort of holy war happening in Yrth or something, that could be neat.

[Jakob]

Thanks, both Low-Tech and Silk Road sound interesting, though the latter probably rather just for inspirational reading - I was more thinking of the old clichee of having people from our modern world stranded in a fantasy world, where some people might see them as chosen ones ... and when they finally manage to get back to our earth, they could be picked up by an under-staffed, under-financed secret government organization researching alternate worlds, and the whole thing might become a kind of Infinite Worlds campaign after that ... okay, that's getting well ahead of myself.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Jakob

Anyway, this is the stuff that interests me, and this thread is me asking for further recommendations around them:

G I would probably look at Banestorm and the Portal Fantasy supplement; I'm not sure whether I'd need Magic and Fantasy, for starters, I'd prefer to avoid them, because I'm really not into buying and reading 4 or 5 books for one campaign idea.

GURPS Horror and Madness Dossier: Horror I simply want to read,

GURPS Space -

Banestorm is the book for an Yrth campaign. Even for other traditonal fantasy games it's Gurps' worked example for the genre. Portal fantasy is probably for after you've read Banestorm and you're much closer to running a game. In it's own small way it's a rather technical book.

As to Magic, it's the same system as in the 3e Basic but expanded from 30 spells to 800 (Basic 4e has about 100 spells). On the other hand, if you aleady have the 3e Magic and Grimoire books you don't need the 4e Magic except as a conveient compilation of those two books.

Horror just isn't my thing but Ken Hite makes Horror more useful than I'd expected. Madness Dossier is a very niche sort of Horror game. Brilliant but actual GMs and players for such a game might be very rare.

If you have an earlier edition of Space and aren't interested in the up-to-the-minute (at time of publication but possibly somewhat dated by now)) systems for randomly generating space sectors, star systems, planets and alien creatures you don't need Space 4e. The campaign creation guidelines are largely unchanged from those earlier editions. If you've never read those before Space is about as good as it gets.

However, I will warn you that Space doesn't have even any examples of technology either personal or ship-based. You'd need Ultra Tech, possiibly Bio-tech and Spaceships.

I don't find UT and Bio-tech to be all that "crunchy" and Spaceships allows me to build new ships by counting on my fingers (well, from 1 to 20 anyway).

Your 3e Basic will have starter rules for Psionics and 4e Psionics pdfs are totally different in mechanics. You'd _have_ to have the 4e Basic set and quite possibly Powers to use the 4e pdfs. Of course if you had 4e basic and wren't planning anything complicated with you could probably get by without anything else.

If you're concerned about excessive "crunch" Powers and the works that build upon it are the "crunchiest" of all 4e material.

[Shostak]

Transhuman Space is a fascinating setting written for 3e (though everything has 4e conversions). It has lots of expansion books, but you could get by just fine with just the core title. You would not need GURPS: Space to play in the setting.

[Jakob]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Transhuman Space is a fascinating setting written for 3e (though everything has 4e conversions). It has lots of expansion books, but you could get by just fine with just the core title. You would not need GURPS: Space to play in the setting.

I actually own that one, too - sadly, at the moment, it's in a locker on another continent, but in August, I'll be able to access it. It always seemed like a great setting, but I never read in in earnest because none of my players were interested in it ...

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Jakob

All of that. Logarithms are but a bad memory from school to me. (Tried to wiki up on it because someone mentioned "Logarithmic vs. linear damage", but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it has to do with wound systems in RPGs.) Though I can deal with square roots ...

GURPS Space uses square and cube roots, and squares and cubes (all of which you can do on a cheap scientific calculator). And it calls for multiplying and dividing. None of the more advanced stuff is needed. And you don't do any of it in play; you do it while you're designing solar systems for your campaign, if you want to do that.

GURPS does use logarithms, but it usually builds them into tables, at least in 4/e. The SM table (SM = size modifier) and the size and speed/range table are based on logarithms, but the table does the work for you.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Jakob

(Tried to wiki up on it because someone mentioned "Logarithmic vs. linear damage", but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it has to do with wound systems in RPGs.)

Logarithmic Injury is more simple than it sounds, but is by no means necessary to use (in fact, it's only been published in Pyramid - and an "Alternate GURPS" issue at that). The Size and Speed/Range Table is actually a logarithm, but with the math already worked out (and rounded off) so it's hidden - 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, and so forth (x10 per +6 steps). Logarithmic Injury is basically where you set a wounding level based on the damage - for example, maybe 1 HP is a Scratch, while 5 HP is a Major Wound, and 5 Scratches aren't as serious as a Major Wound in such a system. Linear Injury is the default, where you simply deduct the amount of Injury from your total. In such a system, taking 5 wounds that each deal 1 HP Injury is about as serious as taking a single wound that deals 5 HP Injury.

As Bill notes, the most you may have to deal with would be squares, cubes, and the roots thereof. Heck, even though I tend to play around with the innards of GURPS, it's pretty rare I have to go beyond those.