Name your top 3 Gurps books of all time and why?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I wasn't. I excluded Characters and Campaigns. Those are what I consider the core books.

Agreed. I seldom use Powers for anything, myself.

My favorite three are High Tech, Thaumatology, and while I've gotten considerably more use out of Cabal, I think Transhuman Space is just wonderful. :)

I've actually spent a lot of time pushing a modified THS timeline out for a Transhuman Stars campaign I'm unlikely to ever run.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Off the top of my head:

Three books about which I am obviously biased:
[LIST][*]GURPS Arabian Nights: You never forget your first time. Actually, I could write this much better these days, but that's life.

Holy wow, yes. I have learned so much more about writing and presenting stuff - and simplification - since I first penned Technical Grappling.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by whswhs

This is, as a side note, the one point where my tastes really differ from yours. I would rather use Vehicles 2, and I wish it had rules for spacecraft. I've attempted to read Spaceships at least twice, and maybe more, and it's never made any sense to me; I can't even get to the point of starting to design a spacecraft to test drive its system. I don't know what it is that holds me up, but I just can't make it work for me.

I've actually built many spacescraft in Ve2 though the GVB software made it much easier.0

I'd help you with Spaceshuips all I could but I suspect your problem may be in the ways Spaceships does not need very much in the way of concrete detail to start. The short version goes like this:

Your Spaceship with have 20 hit locations. Each will represent 5% of its' total mass. One of them must be a Control Room. If there is co Control Room you have a rock rather than a ship. The Control Room also includes systems such as maneuvering thrusters, basic communications and basic sensors.

After that, everything is optional (at least for some type of vehicle you can build with Spaceships). Organized people wil begin a list on scratch paper but I count on my fingers.

Common items are 3 armor systems for your hull. Without these your spaceship has only DR 2 which is half what your personal automobile has.

Then you probably want a drive (2 if your vessel has FTL capability). Some drives require fuel. Others need power and therefore a powerplant. Some need both. This is probably where you sort out what sort of performance you want. That will determine how many fuel tanks/power plants you have to have.

After this it's really just going through the list of component systems and deciding what you want and/or can afford.Spoem of these ssytems will require power and may require other additional powerplants.

You do have to choose 20 systems but if you run out of things you want cargo spaces are free.

It may weird some people out that it's nt until you've chosen your 20 systems that you have to decide how big your ship is going to be but until now you've only been dealing with relative units i.e. 5% of your total ship's mass.

Anywyaa, this is where you're finalizing your design and looking up performance numbers for your combination of size and systems.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

GURPS Space, 2nd Edition. Easily one of the best written genre supplements for GURPS, and the first one I ever purchased (in a double pack BOGO with Space Bestiary). The 3rd Edition updated the spaceships rules, but didn't change too much else. The 4th Edition somehow loses the magic for me.

I rank Space 4e as the worst GURPS book I own. All those pages dedicated to generating empty star systems. There's a case where Kromm should have been more aggressive with his 'not a simulation' policy.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I rank Space 4e as the worst GURPS book I own. All those pages dedicated to generating empty star systems. There's a case where Kromm should have been more aggressive with his 'not a simulation' policy.

That was part of it, but there were multiple decisions that made Space 4e fall flat. The removal of the sample aliens, which would have been a nice finisher for the Alien Creation chapter. The removal of Spaceships and Equipment (which lost my favorite joke in the book, the inclusion of a Towel in the Equipment chapter). The book just seemed to be expanded to be longer while saying less.

[weby]

Absolute top pick and the reason I actually started using GURPS as a system: 1)Vehicles(second edition).

The other two slots are more open and have varied over time, but currently:
2) Characters: specifically the powers chapter as it introduced such powerful framework to do almost anything.

3) Low tech companion 3. The whole how to build things framework. (There really would need to be such a book for other eras too)

----
Expanded answer:

There are several books that I use more than those, like the tech books(ultra, high,low) but they are just catalogs of things so only give details not big things or special tools to build a game and action 2 exploits that has such good ideas and tools for running almost all games that are not hyper realistic.

Of those Action 2 exploits would likely have made a top 4 list..

Transhuman space core book would have likely gotten on the top 3 list if it did not have the several strange design choices. It is a great setting, with well written lore and world building, but the delivery of the "crunchy" parts is just sub par so requires a lot of decoding.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I wasn't. I excluded Characters and Campaigns. Those are what I consider the core books.

Originally Posted by Otaku

I thought you were not including core books?

Third Edition, Revised had GURPS Basic Set (a single book), Compendium I, and Compendium II as its core three books.

GURPS Fourth Edition has GURPS Basic Set Characters, GURPS Basic Set Campaigns, and GURPS Powers as its core three books. :) Teasing aside, I guess I thought this perception was more than just a "me" thing.

Emphasis added. Or maybe I'm the one not getting the joke?

[Apollonian]

My top 3:
GURPS Cabal, for 3rd edition: It's a great meaty setting, which is something GURPS desperately needs. The lovably complex magic system is just gravy.

GURPS Action 2: Exploits, because it is, as far as I can tell, the best "how to run situation X" in GURPS available. How do you run a chase? How can PCs assist each other? What skills do I need to call for when the party is infiltrating a base/dungeon/building? What's a quick way to resolve an investigation? Right here.

The Hellboy RPG or Dungeon Fantasy RPG - I love the powered by GURPS concept, and I'd love to see more games done this way.

[Arcanjo7Sagi]

I don't know if I can choose only 3, but I'll try.

GURPS 4th Edition - Martial Arts: I love everthing is this book. The rules, styles descriptions, the history chapter...

GURPS 4th Edition - High Tech: This book is a "must buy" for everyone who want to play in a modern campaing.

GURPS 4th Edition - Supers: Although I play less than I would like, the theme is one of my favorites and this is one of the books that I like to read and reread the most.


Hard choice.

Honorable mentions:

GURPS 4th Edition - Psionic Powers: I love psi stories, so, this is a "must buy" for me.

GURPS 4th Edition - Low-Tech: Another one that I use a lot in medieval fantasy games.

GURPS 3rd Edition - Transhuman Space Classic; Core: Although not as interesting as Eclipse Phase, this is perhaps one of the best GURPS setting books I've ever read. It has perhaps the best illustrations and one of the most supported with supplements.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by whswhs

This is, as a side note, the one point where my tastes really differ from yours. I would rather use Vehicles 2, and I wish it had rules for spacecraft. I've attempted to read Spaceships at least twice, and maybe more, and it's never made any sense to me; I can't even get to the point of starting to design a spacecraft to test drive its system. I don't know what it is that holds me up, but I just can't make it work for me.

The thing that I really like about Spaceships is the very thing that I was initially very sceptical about - that every ship, regardless of size, has twenty systems. That turns out to be enough to give good flexibility but not so many I can't keep track of them in my head. Thus I can work out roughly what a ship should look like in my head whilst on a walk or doing chores.