What are GURPS' true strengths?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by dfinlay

Wait, you ran a time-travel game which used the Novikov self-consistency principle? I've thought some about how to do that and concluded it was impossible, because you have to base outcomes in the past around decisions the players will make in the future and you can't know what those will be. How did you get around that?

The PCs never had access to time travel, nor communication with the people who did. The time travellers didn't understand about the self-consistency principle, and after a while, simply vanished from the campaign.

[RogerBW]

Another thing that I find GURPS is good for: if you're in a fight, you have lots of options. I grew up on AD&D, where the fighter's choice was basically which monster to hit and maybe with which weapon. In basic-set GURPS you have three levels of commitment (AOA, normal attack, AOD), there are different sorts of AOA, you can Evaluate, you can strike at a location, you can Feint… and these are things that anyone can try, not special feats that you have to be a fighter to learn. That can seem overwhelming to a new player, but it means you can change your tactics to suit your foe and the sort of outcome you're looking for.

[T.K.]

To me...It's not really about the realism per se.

I believe the GURPS ground systems allow to stretch it far away for whatever side you might want and it'll not distort too much.

What I mean with that is that invariably you will find some quirks here and there that people have with GURPS structure depending on what you want to tackle with it, be it fantasy, futuristic, sci-fi, drama, adventure...but overall, it'll handle all of them sufficiently good enough to bring fidelity and enjoyment.

This is personal opinion but ...If you'd lay a score system from 1 to 10 in terms of mechanics and playability for their fields of focus, you'd have something like:

D&D (Fantasy) 8-9 for Playability / 7-8 for Mechanics-Fidelity
D&D (Other settings) 4-5 for Playability / 2-3 for Mechanics-Fidelity

Mutants and Masterminds (Supers) 8-9 for Playability / 7-8 for Mechanics
MnM (Other settings) 3-4 for Playability / 1-2 for Mechanics-Fidelity

Conspirancy X (Special Ops) 8-9 for Playability / 8-9 for Mechanics-Fidelity
Conspirancy X (Other settings) 3-4 for Playability / 2 for Mechanics-Fidelity


Meanwhile, GURPS would net you a solid 6-7 for all those settings in Playability and a 6-7 in Mechanics-Fidelity.
In some specific settings and power levels where GURPS is very good at, you can reach 8 or even 9 but the opposite is also true, with some settings and/or power levels where it gets hairy and ugly and it might fall to 5 or even 4.

But the point is, with GURPS no matter what you tackle with it, you'll get very close to what a specific focused system would get, loosing just a bit of Playability and/or Mechanics-Fidelism (sometimes not even loosing anything) and if you ever want to completely switch settings, power level, or what you tackle with it...you don't need to learn a completely new system, get new supplements (which often times don't exist when you move away from something mainstream like D&D), being able to use the same ground system that you're already used to.

Also, although it might take some time, eventually hairy cases in GURPS are taken care with Pyramid articles and supplements (Last Gasp, Tactical Grappling, Dungeon Fantasy, RPM...).

Also, on top of all that, the Basic Rules in GURPS provide a groundwork that allows (I'd say even expects) GMs to modify and build on their needs to tune their setting which is often obscure or rather hard to do on other specific/focused systems.

TL;DR > While focused systems may provide a "8-9 out of 10" experience on their tackled fields (like medieval fantasy for D&D) GURPS provides a "7-8 out of 10" experience no matter what you choose to tackle with it (for some fields GURPS even manages a 8 or 9), while still being the same system, with the same or mostly the same rules.

[Eukie]

I think the strength of GURPS is its flexibility to handle a large variety of situations out-of-the-box. it may not be a system specifically designed to run adventures in 17th Century China, but has tools that make it capable of doing it. Until someone makes Adventures in 17th Century China: The Roleplaying Game, GURPS is a strong contender for being the best game to run such a game in.

And GURPS is flexible enough that this quality applies to a wide variety of fantasy, sci-fi, historical, and modern settings. Included in this flexibility is the toolbox approach to mechanisms, allowing players to customize how they engage with the game, and the maximalist, high-fidelity, include-everything approach (like the Skills), which provides the systems necessary to run almost-but-not-quite anything.

Other RPGs are either more specific to genres (making them difficult to use for less common settings or genres), or generic but less detailed (making them less capable of giving depth to the experience). Even compared to other high-fidelity generic approaches, GURPS has strengths in being broadly applicable and/or having great detail and quality.

[Ronnke]

Originally Posted by Eukie

Until someone makes Adventures in 17th Century China: The Roleplaying Game, GURPS is a strong contender for being the best game to run such a game in.

Kinda like GURPS: China (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/china/) :P

[Orochi-art]

In my opinion majority of answers in this thread gave only partial answers. They are not bad answers but I think they should be kept for finer points when describing what you like about GURPS system. They best serve their purpose when used in the main part of the discussion or when used in further discussions to expand on the basics that you already explained. That said; they shouldn’t be used as introduction segment.

You are describing gears, parts of gears and how those gears work but not explaining what the purpose of the machine is.
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Originally Posted by Embassy of Time

So, if you had to explain to someone why GURPS would be better than Brand X RPG, what would you describe as GURPS' real strengths?

Quick and simple answer is: Biggest strength of GURPS lies in ability to play different genres without the need to change game system. There can be few modifications now and then but once you learn the basics you are competent in knowing that although scenery and plays change; theatre floor, you are playing on, remains familiar.

Or to put it less poetically: You learn one set of rules, and taking into account ability of modification, core system won’t change drastically from game to game.

Originally Posted by Eukie

I think the strength of GURPS is its flexibility to handle a large variety of situations out-of-the-box. it may not be a system specifically designed to run adventures in 17th Century China, but has tools that make it capable of doing it. Until someone makes Adventures in 17th Century China: The Roleplaying Game, GURPS is a strong contender for being the best game to run such a game in.

If a person asks "Why GURPS is better than Brand X RPG?":
1) If you decide to make a campaign that revolves around a specific theme first step for the majority of people is to get already existing rpg that covers it. Most of those rpgs have their own set of rules. That means that you need to learn a brand new system with every game you want to try out. Every single time. Also bigger problem lies in that if you want to make a specific campaign you are also asking your players to learn a new system every time. There is nothing wrong with expanding your repertoire or wanting to learn new stuff but learning a new system is time consuming. Not everyone is willing or has the time to learn it. People have problems with organizing rpg nights because they have jobs and other real-life obligations. And you are asking them to find time to learn a new system every so often? They would rather commit that time to actual playing instead of learning to play.

It should not be forgotten that there is a possibility that system won’t met your expectations in the end. Which means you wasted your time.

I played in campaigns that used systems that were atrocious. Because campaigns were interesting I was able to keep going. If not I would leave those games a long time ago. This way I stayed to see how the story would end. Some people leave games because they don’t find them interesting but I also seen people leave games because of the system. They get bogged down in mechanics, have hard time grasping them, or they just don’t like the system.

2) Other RPGs are focused around specific themes and types of stories and game’s system reflects that. It is tailored for that task and that task only. This presents a problem in my book. Because system reflects the game’s theme and mood, that this particular game-line is trying to emulate, it usually means it is not suitable for other genres. You will have hard time using that system in other game-types or it will be bad choice from the start. (Remember when D&D 3rd edition went all out with 3rd party publishing license? Those companies tried to use D&D for almost every game type. Because d20 system has its strengths and weaknesses it really showed in those attempts and people usually went to other alternatives when not slaying goblins and orcs.)


My finer, and shorter, points are:

- I can use GURPS system in multiple game types.
- I can change the mood but that doesn’t affect the system.
- I can modify the GURPS rules and make it complex or simplified without drastic changes on my players.
- My players are not forced to learn a new system every time.
- I can read books and other rpgs for inspiration without the need to learn a new system. All fluff, no cruch.
- I can use other rpg’s rules as inspiration to emulate them in GURPS system.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Orochi-art

My finer, and shorter, points are:

- I can use GURPS system in multiple game types.
- I can change the mood but that doesn’t affect the system.
- I can modify the GURPS rules and make it complex or simplified without drastic changes on my players.
- My players are not forced to learn a new system every time.
- I can read books and other rpgs for inspiration without the need to learn a new system. All fluff, no cruch.
- I can use other rpg’s rules as inspiration to emulate them in GURPS system.

However, all these apply just as much to FATE or Savage Worlds.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

However, all these apply just as much to FATE or Savage Worlds.

I think the second and the third in his list, with mood and crunch, are more suited to GURPS than Fate or Savage Worlds, personally.

[RogerBW]

As I see it, there are two separate arguments - one for "a generic system is better than a specific system if you play multiple different campaigns", the other for "GURPS is a better generic system than the competition". (The existence of the Dungeon Fantasy, Action, Monster Hunters, etc., lines would support a third argument, that GURPS is a better specific system than the competition.)

[Kuroshima]

This is kind of a hard question to answer, because for most readers of this subforum, GURPS is already the go to system for everything, meaning that we can be blind to some of its issues and take some of its strengths for granted.

To me, GURPS' greatest strength is that it's consistently concrete in its resolution:
For example, combat is much less abstract than with other systems. It also has a consistent level of abstraction. When you make your character move one step to the right, and shoot your pistol at the foe's hand, then the character is doing that (and baring dodge, that is probably the only semi-abstract mechanic in common use). When the character is hit, and the blow goes through armor and crunches the character's hand bones, then that's what happens. Some systems are consistently abstract, meaning that you roll the dice and then figure out what the results mean. My problem is with systems that have inconsistent levels of abstraction. Typical is D&D, where HP is not actually being able to absorb damage, and can represent dodging, being lucky so the blow bounces harmlessly, etc etc, until you face followups like poison, where if the attack damaged you, then you're poisoned unless you resist the poison (I could come up with other examples from D&D, easily, as it's one of the greatest offenders of this behaviour). This means that abstraction level goes up and down all the time, and results in situations where applying real world common sense can only trip you (and any house rules designed to introduce it usually introduce way more issues than they "solve").
This applies to all aspects of the game. As a consequence of this, the game itself is consistent and coherent with the real world, minus any supernatural aspects that you introduce. Since everything else works as expected, then any special elements create a much stronger contrast. Unlike other games, you can bring physics to the discussion without god killing a catgirl! You don't have to drag physics in, as the rules provide a playable approximation, but you can let them guide your decision making.