Suggestion for someone returning to GURPS

[Donny Brook]

I found GURPS 4e Space very, very, very, very ... very disappointing.

3e Space is an excellent handbook for campaign building. The 4e Spaceships series is useful too.

[Jakob]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I found GURPS 4e Space very, very, very, very ... very disappointing.

Can you specify why? As I said, for starters, I'm more interested in reading in than in playing it, so a lack of crunch, for example, wouldn't be a problem for me.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Jakob

Can you specify why? As I said, for starters, I'm more interested in reading in than in playing it, so a lack of crunch, for example, wouldn't be a problem for me.

Oh, the random roll systems I mentioned are _full_ of crunch. The step where you figure out the Black Body Temperature of your random planet is but opne example. Out of a 240 page book, by my count 107 pages is given over to those random roll systems.

[FrackingBiscuit]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Oh, the random roll systems I mentioned are _full_ of crunch. The step where you figure out the Black Body Temperature of your random planet is but opne example. Out of a 240 page book, by my count 107 pages is given over to those random roll systems.

The ordering of steps is also weird sometimes. "Next step: atmospheric pressure! You can't actually do this step now, though. Come back in ten steps."

And a lot of the worked examples end up as "We decide this step doesn't apply to our world and skip it."

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by 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.

Welcome back!

Originally Posted by Jakob

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:

Speaking as someone who initially resisted the 3e/4e jump, I have not regretted it for a second.

Originally Posted by Jakob

GURPS Banestorm [snip] GURPS Horror and Madness Dossier [snip] 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!).

Your taste is your own and the Fun Police ain't gonna come to your house. That said, using the materials that make sense will save you a lot of work because someone else has already done it for you. Madness Dossier feels a lot like Grant Morrison's The Invisibles to me, and there is no way I would run a campaign based on The Invisibles without Action!, all the Psionics stuff, and Martial Arts on my desk.

Originally Posted by Jakob

So, please, cheer me on!

You got this.

[Jakob]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

The ordering of steps is also weird sometimes. "Next step: atmospheric pressure! You can't actually do this step now, though. Come back in ten steps."

And a lot of the worked examples end up as "We decide this step doesn't apply to our world and skip it."

So are the random-roll systems just badly organized?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Jakob

So are the random-roll systems just badly organized?

No, they have math of significant (though of course not impossible) difficulty embedded in therm. You will also find _many_ steps involved in 107 pages of random rolling.

You might also go through all this to end up with a finished product that will be completely unsuitable for your gaming needs.

I don't use random roll systems to create things any more. At best I investigate the probabilities of systems that are more scientifically informed (like the world generation rather than the alien creation) to get a rough ideas of how many "useful" worlds there might be in a given number of systems.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Jakob

Can you specify why? As I said, for starters, I'm more interested in reading in than in playing it, so a lack of crunch, for example, wouldn't be a problem for me.

To add to what has already been noted:

-The star system generation takes far too many pages in service of a ludicrous level of verisimilitude of boring, usually empty systems. But worse, it neglects to equip you with how to tailor-make plausible-but-interesting places.

-It lacks guidance on space travel paradigms and consequently also lacks advice on building interplanetary/interstellar settings.

-The alien race building content is poorly linked to the GURPS template system and IMO is short on advice on ecosystems and evolutionary sociology to bring alien sapients to life.

-Guidance on different styles of space campaigns is superficial.

[Jakob]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

To add to what has already been noted:

-It lacks guidance on space travel paradigms and consequently also lacks advice on building interplanetary/interstellar settings.

-The alien race building content is poorly linked to the GURPS template system and IMO is short on advice on ecosystems and evolutionary sociology to bring alien sapients to life.

-Guidance on different styles of space campaigns is superficial.

Okay, that sounds like the three things that would interest me most are missing ... pity.

[shawnhcorey]

I suggest you check out the GURPS Resources & Play Aids page. There is lots of free stuff to help you get up to speed of 4e. Also check the GURPS Resources forum for more freebies.