Getting back into GURPS (Migrating to 4th?)

[Densar]

Hi,

Many years ago, I used to play GURPS (back in the 3rd edition days). I played a fair bit, but only online so not quite the same experience as a FtF group yet still a lot of fun. I recently found the boxes with all of my GURPS books (130+ — I was a bit of a compulsive shopper back then) and was going to sell them, but I started reading them again and it brought back many great memories (I also have many of the In Nominee books, as well as other RPGs such as Ars Magica, Space 1889, Bureau 13, etc.) and so I decided to keep them. I found spaces on shelves and have been going through the books, trying to refresh my memory (and also planning a simple first game to introduce my 13yo daughter to GURPS — I’m thinking of setting it in the GURPS technomancer universe but starting with a bit of a Scooby-doo-like haunted mansion adventure).

Now, I saw that several years ago, a 4th edition came out. I don’t want to spend too much more money on GURPS at this point (I figure that I have enough stuff already ;-) ) but I bought the PDFs for GURPS 4th edition’s Characters and Campaigns basic set, downloaded and printed GURPS Lite 4th, and looked at the GURPS update document that shows how to convert from 3rd to 4th edition. I then converted one of my old characters to 4th. The point cost is significantly different (mainly for attributes) and I had some trouble finding out how to “translate” the knife skill but otherwise it seemed fairly straightforward (thanks to the GURPS update cheat sheet.)

I’m debating if it is worth getting the new versions of some of the supplement books or not? For example, I already have GURPS Horror second and third edition, and saw that there is a 4th edition of GURPS Horror — is it really different enough to warrant buying yet another version of GURPS Horror (as much as I love the genre, is the book different enough to warrant it)? What about GURPS Magic (I have third edition Magic, Grimoire, Thaumaturgy, Magic Items 1,2,3, etc)?

Also, are people able to use the 4th edition to run games using 3rd edition supplement books or is this too much work (do you convert everything in them to 4th or use them as is). Now, I understand that large chunks of these supplements do not contain specific rules or specs and thus don’t need updates per se, but still — has anyone done this (using 3rd edition supplements with 4th edition GURPS) and if so, how has been your experience?

Thanks,
-D

[whswhs]

My current GURPS campaign is a hybrid. Its setting is a fictitious Martian city from GURPS City Stats (fourth edition), but migrated into one of the alternative history timelines from GURPS Alternate Earths (third edition). I take all the mechanics from 4/e, but the 3/e setting was inspirational and provides added distancing from our own history.

I've done something similar at least once before, running a martial arts themed campaign (using 4/e Martial Arts) in a timeline taken from GURPS Alternate Earths 2, one where Ming China dominates the world.

You do have to use either 3/e or 4/e mechanics, and I prefer 4/e. Trying to hybridize them would be a pain at best. But a lot of 3/e books either provide narratives without game stats, which can be turned into 4/e stats, or provide game stats with accompanying narratives, for which you can use the narrative to create new stats (trying to convert one set of stats to another by applying a set of rules tends to be more trouble than it's worth).

[Rolando]

GURPS Horror for 4e have about 120 pages more, so it may be good if only because it is great read, but you don't need anything but the basics if at all.

Characters pint costs is differnet but everything is still GURPS and I regularly use my 3e (ando a few 2e) books with the 4e rules, sometimes not even translating anything.

ST changed a lot, you will feel big beasts are wimpy in 4e but they now use the same damage table for bites, so they are the same as 3e mostly, that is why I don't change stats, I use the same 3e stats with 4e. I also use the 3e vahicle stats (mechas in particular) with the 4e, even if there are some big changes there.

GURPS regularly handles importing stuff from other games, importing from other editions of GURPS is a no brainer, the less time you give to that part the more time you will have for actual gaming.

By the way, knife is melee weapon (knife) with the light rules I believe, but with the full rules it is just the Knife skill as always if you get the 4e books.

[Fred Brackin]

okay. 4e v. 3e.

There are things in the core rules that are great improvements. For example I am _never_ going to use 3e Death Check rules. Generally the newer rules about HP and similar topics have a lot of useful little tweaks.

Oh, and I forgot about getting rid of PD. No PD in 4e and it's a good thing.

Ranged combat is significantly different. It's generally faster and simpler but is less simulationist. This would particularly affect a few Technomancer Spells.

Crunchy rules supplements like the "Tech" books are better. High Tech in particular is much broader and is better researched in almost every way.

Martial Arts is also much better though much of this affects only persons involved in highly detailed combat in their games.

"Genre" books are thicker but much of that page count is being sucked up by "Templates" and I find templates the opposite of useful.

If I was going to do a Technomancer campaign I would take the core book improvements and just go 3e with the rest. There's only a few Pyramid articles updating Technomancer to 4e so you'd need to go with 3e material for most of it anyway.

In particular, the 4e Magic book is useful as a combination of the 3e Magic and Grimoire (with a few new Spells bt a few significant screw-ups too) but it didn't include the new Spells in Technomancer.

[Stormcrow]

Because GURPS (any edition) gives real-world equivalents for nearly everything, the best way to "convert" things from the third edition into the fourth is to just recreate them using the fourth edition rules. You can use GURPS Update to do the conversion mechanically, but GURPS Update should be viewed more as a "How do I get my third-edition characters into my fourth-edition game?" document than a "How do I convert entire third-edition books into fourth-edition books?" document. GURPS Update does not get converted characters to "think" in fourth-edition terms. Skills like Running and Swimming have different uses between editions, and the fourth edition lets you have more realistic basic attributes while letting you bump up the subcomponents of these that you're interested in, in a way that the third edition didn't do so flexibly.

So I'd suggest one of two strategies. (1) Just keep playing the third edition. It's still perfectly good. (2) Play the fourth edition, use GURPS Update if you want to port third-edition characters into your fourth-edition game, and instead of "converting" your sourcebooks, just recreate those bits you need using the fourth-edition rules, using the third-edition versions as guide. In most cases, the differences will be obvious.

(Be careful with the fan documents that convert animals and monsters. They can be useful, but they have been converted in a somewhat mechanical way similar to the way GURPS Update works for characters. Again, good guidelines, but don't take them without looking them over first.)

[Densar]

Ok, I've been exploring 4e a bit more and there are things that I really love and some less so. I love the secondary characteristics and the fact that you can pay points to improve them separately from the base ones (I guess you could do that with advantages in the 3rd edition, but it is nice how it is done in the 4th). I'm not terribly happy with how language is done (instead of a skill, it seems to have become a kind of advantage or some such -- not sure why it needs that much special treatment). You also don't have 1/2 points for skills anymore, which I guess is ok.

I also discovered GCS (I have an M1 Mac mini computer and it works great on that!). Very nice software, and very helpful. Plus it links to the GURPS Basic Set PDFs so makes it really easy to look up descriptions. I just wish I had a laptop to carry it around -- as far as I can tell, it can't be set up to work on an iPad (I can get the PDFs, but not those nifty lookups). Still, works really well and is very helpful (and you can have a picture of your character, something that disappeared from the new character sheets.)

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Densar

I then converted one of my old characters to 4th. The point cost is significantly different (mainly for attributes)...

Yup, Attribute costs, no 1/2 point Skills (use a Perk called Dabbler instead), and no Passive Defense (and a few other small changes to defenses) are teh biggest changes.

... and I had some trouble finding out how to “translate” the knife skill but otherwise it seemed fairly straightforward (thanks to the GURPS update cheat sheet.)

I don't get this, it should be a straight conversion, unless it's the Lite document or no 1/2 point skills that got in the way.

I’m debating if it is worth getting the new versions of some of the supplement books or not?

It can be. The Tech books and Martial Arts are probably worth it for the rules. Magic is going to be hit or miss, it's mostly a copypasta from 3e with a few small changes to some rules, but you could probably get away with just using your 3e Magic and Grimoire for the present.

I don't remember there being a 3e Thaumaturgy, if so I need to pick it up, but 4e Thaumaturgy is really only useful if you want to play with how magic works.

There are no 4e Magic Item books, except for the ones in DFRPG. But they use a different idea ("no PC enchanters") and cost setup, so they won't mix well, but are convertable if you want to use your old 3e Magic Items in a 4e Dungeon Fantasy setting game.

If you want to run Dungeon Fantasy, I do recommend thinking about picking DFRPG (Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Powered by GURPS). It's mostly self-contained (which sucks), but it generally has everythign you might want to run DF style games.

Also, are people able to use the 4th edition to run games using 3rd edition supplement books or is this too much work (do you convert everything in them to 4th or use them as is).

IDK why it would be hard... unless you like stating your NPCs up completely, just run them as they are and mind the difference in Defenses and DR.

Originally Posted by Densar

I'm not terribly happy with how language is done (instead of a skill, it seems to have become a kind of advantage or some such -- not sure why it needs that much special treatment)

From what I gather Languages never really "worked" well before...

Personally I think it "works" better as penalties to other skill rolls (if the PC is not a Native int he language), but depending on the campaign having a lot of languages can be overpriced.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I don't remember there being a 3e Thaumaturgy, if so I need to pick it up, but 4e Thaumaturgy is really only useful if you want to play with how magic works.

T.

No 3e Thaumatology but the 4e book has an expanded version of the "Ritual Magic" Rules from Gurps Voodoo and Spirits. The term "ritual magic" is used for something else in 4e so now the old "Ritual Magic" is Path/Book Magic and it's one of the big reasons to get Thaumatology.

[Densar]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I don't get this, it should be a straight conversion, unless it's the Lite document or no 1/2 point skills that got in the way.

Knife just took me a bit to find -- I looked it alphabethically, and it points me to Melee Weapons on p.208. So I glance at that, but don't see it. So I start reading and eventually find it in the Swords subgrouping. Not a big deal, just surprised me that I even had to put any kind of searching to find this... Mind you, if I had used GCS, then that would have sped up things like that... :-)

[Densar]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No 3e Thaumatology but the 4e book has an expanded version of the "Ritual Magic" Rules from Gurps Voodoo and Spirits. The term "ritual magic" is used for something else in 4e so now the old "Ritual Magic" is Path/Book Magic and it's one of the big reasons to get Thaumatology.

Interesting. I have both Voodoo and Spirits, and even have a character that has Ritual Magic (although I never got to play her -- hoping to use her as an NPC at some point ;-).