Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

[weby]

Personally I find basic GURPS not complex enough.

Back in the day before we had resources like Wikipedia, I used a lot of GURPS world books (I have around 50 total), but never considered running GURPS as a game because it was not detailed enough.

It was finally Vehicles that got me to switch to GURPS.

Then fourth edition came along and the system was much improved overall and the optional rules in places like tactical shooting, martial arts and so on helped a lot. But overall the scaling requires Supers and rewriting things like vehicles to use that and the lack of an updated vehicles and so on has forced me to do a lot of work because of the simplicity of GURPS that generates so many unrealistic results. So I have been thinking of changing away due to that..

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You could pull the equivalent of Blackhawk Down with a horde of Orcs. 1 out of every 20 Orcs will hit and when they do it's for double damage (natural 20 rules). There is some number of orcs that will be able to kill any PC who stands there and slugs it out with them. The DM has to follow tropes of D&D like "Level Ettiquette" to avoid this because it wouldn't be fun either.

True, EVENTUALLY, against someone who stands there. In my example no one was, "standing there".

In GURPS, the first hit from a 7.62x39 or 5.45x39 will usually be the only one needed. Not a very mighty battle at all unless you are playing the medic.

A group of high level D&D characters can wade through a moderately sized horde of low level foes for a comparatively long time. Even if they eventually fall it will still be a, "mighty battle" IMO.

[Boge]

Overall I feel it's because it covers SO MANY situations. In almost any situation you can think of, there's a gurps ruling for it. So if you want to be accurate by the book, it's very complex. There's a ton to remember.

What you have to do in Gurps is know that you won't know it all and you'll have to wing some of the rulings. The problem I have with this is that I feel if someone at the table is very confident they know the ruling, then go with that and look it up later. But, that seems to cause problems with many GMs. They don't want to feel undermined. If the GM overrules, great, they have that right and they're probably seeing something the players aren't. But if they overrule because of pride, that's when it starts to suck for the players.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

T
A group of high level D&D characters can wade through a moderately sized horde of low level foes for a comparatively long time. Even if they eventually fall it will still be a, "mighty battle" IMO.

But it wouldn't be "fun". It would be quite annoying and fun in D&D requires that the DM not harass high level characters to death with hordes of low level monsters. This was what I was getting at with my mention of "Level Ettiquete".

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

True, EVENTUALLY, against someone who stands there. In my example no one was, "standing there".

In GURPS, the first hit from a 7.62x39 or 5.45x39 will usually be the only one needed. Not a very mighty battle at all unless you are playing the medic.

A group of high level D&D characters can wade through a moderately sized horde of low level foes for a comparatively long time. Even if they eventually fall it will still be a, "mighty battle" IMO.

Not sure anyone actually wants that "mighty battle", but placing gunfights and hand weapon fights side by side like that is also a problem.

With good armor, the problem with your "mighty battle" in GURPS is to a large extent GURPS' failure at modeling low tech weapon vs. armor performance.

[Lovewyrm]

Also, for mild negotiations sake, I think the basic set would have been better off with Magic as Powers instead of the 'legacy' magic.

I can't think of much else to improve, though, and that change possibly would have required time travel.

Also, for more context about my perhaps 'strong views'.
I like to think that I am mostly somewhat astute, but otherwise I'm not that smart, or perhaps, not very learned in 'smart' things.

On one hand, that gives me some disadvantages in life, but at the same time, I'm also too dense to get lost in intellectual mires that cloud judgement, introduce subtle flaws in thinking and the like (hence, the astute)

But I'm not a poindexter. I'm not an egghead. When I program I use the works of minds more brilliant than mine and I'm glad that I can at least understand why some concepts are used, and would never be able to create them myself (at least not in a reasonable timeframe)

Yet, I see the excellence and 'sense' in GURPS, and don't consider GURPS complicated or whatever at all.
Sometimes obtuse, (like my question about spear reach) but that isn't complex.
One can be obtuse about the most basic things.

I simply cannot accept the reality that GURPS is out of the league of the majority of people. I do NOT want to be 'the smart person' in the group.

I ain't dumb, I have pretty damn good judgement, but you don't put me in the room where you engineer algorithms and all that jazz (I can't even talk about it, I have to call it 'all that jazz' )

If I can do it, anyone with rudimentary cognitive abilities can.

Now, just like the algorithm design weakness I have, I also have a homebrew weakness for GURPS.

So, what I would love for GURPS to be, would be an in depth guide about homebrewing, pricing, etc.
THAT is what confounds me about GURPS the most. Not the system itself, not using it. That's easy. And alllll the material it has is just an elaboration.

Like syntactic sugar that makes a sentence richer, instead of. Me go home, me want food.

Perfectly gets across what I want, and what I plan to do, but not very stimulating is it?

And like language, the more verbose it can be, the deeper/broader the dimensions of thinking (or at least verbal conceptualization, or whatever, don't have the lingo)
I think the fact that GURPS has so much to offer also has a sort of 'mental flavor' additive, which some other systems have to rely on from fluff only, and lack the gameysized side of it.

(Testament to it, threads like "design a power for 50 points" and so forth. Huge creativity)

I put great value in 'soul' and 'flavor', yet it is nigh impossible to make me go back to D&D for example. I'd rather just go freeform.
It's THAT dull and draining to me, at least the modern versions, and that's what GURPS seems to 'need' (and which I disagree with the most)

Enraged Eggplant put it succinctly in one of his videos, where he pointed out that they managed to make Spelljammer be lame.

Does the notion of that attract the fingertips to the region above your brows, which furrow, and the thumbs near your temples, if you think deeply about this notion?
If you meditate on the full juiciness, the full course dripping of what such a notion encapsulates?

Magical seafaring through space/dimensions.
Boring? Soulless?

I would say you would have to work HARD to achieve such a thing.

And GURPS outpaces this with RULES. Imagine that one too.
It's true, too. You probably can find it in yourself. Again, the design threads here are testament to that.

That's much harder for D&D for example, where you get honeyd'd by fluff and then get the standard template statblock with MAYBE some epic moves or what they are called.

Ah well, post is long *again*. Does it even matter? Probably not. Good to reinforce to myself that I'm still cool, though.
Still drinking my milk with actual reformatted cow's blood, and not plant squeezings.

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

But it wouldn't be "fun". It would be quite annoying and fun in D&D requires that the DM not harass high level characters to death with hordes of low level monsters. This was what I was getting at with my mention of "Level Ettiquete".

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Not sure anyone actually wants that "mighty battle", but placing gunfights and hand weapon fights side by side like that is also a problem.

I was making a point with an analogy, not a direct comparison or intending to imply said game play should ever be attempted in either system. It's a comparison of systems, not game play. I used the Battle of Mogadishu b/c it's a well known and documented battle of professionals vs mooks.

Regardless, the realism of GURPS is off putting to many b/c, lacking supers, a mook can easily kill even high point value, human-ish characters.

Level etiquette (a requirement in D&D, as noted) is not a fix for that, it is simply a game balancing operation. It's not a fault if that's you thing, it's just a difference.

Maybe a better example is falling damage. In D&D the maximum falling damage is 20d6. AnyDice says the most likely outcome of that is 70 points of damage. So, any fall that does not cause one to suffocate from lack or oxygen or burn up on re-entry will, usually, not kill an uninjured 10th level fighter with a +2 constitution bonus.

A 200' fall in GURPS...we don't even need to calculate it for a human, but if we were to do so using the table, it would be 11d6 with a most likely damage of 38. Additionally, falling damage in GURPS is not maxed out at 200' for a humanoid.

So, to mburr0003's point, GURPS is more realistically deadly, and based on my experience, contributes (among many other things), to the popularity level of GURPS.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

But it wouldn't be "fun". It would be quite annoying and fun in D&D requires that the DM not harass high level characters to death with hordes of low level monsters. This was what I was getting at with my mention of "Level Ettiquete".

The problem with hordes of low level monsters is mostly that it's extremely tedious to resolve, not whether it's actually that likely to defeat the PCs; PCs with the defenses to only get hit on a 20 are likely to have access to other effects that allow avoiding or dealing with the occasional critical hit.

This shows up in GURPS as well; even though skill 12 mooks doing 1d6+1 damage can eventually drop a PC in DR 6 plate, is that really a fight you want to play out?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

A 200' fall in GURPS...we don't even need to calculate it for a human, but if we were to do so using the table, it would be 11d6 with a most likely damage of 38. Additionally, falling damage in GURPS is not maxed out at 200' for a humanoid.

S.

I've had genetically human characters who could not only survive but technically could not be killed by 38 pts of damage (22 HP). With his HT 14, Very Fit and 3 pts of Tough Skin he'd be very likely to survive 134 pts. I didn't have Martial Arts back when I made him or he'd have even more HP.

Maybe you don't need to calculate falls like that for a "human" but I suspect you're only allowing very limited characters compared to what Gurps is actually capable of.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I've had genetically human characters who could not only survive but technically could not be killed by 38 pts of damage (22 HP). With his HT 14, Very Fit and 3 pts of Tough Skin he'd be very likely to survive 134 pts. I didn't have Martial Arts back when I made him or he'd have even more HP.

Maybe you don't need to calculate falls like that for a "human" but I suspect you're only allowing very limited characters compared to what Gurps is actually capable of.

Then there's the amount of falling damage someone in a decent suit of ultra-tech full-body armour can take.