Virtual Table Tops (VTT) and automation: It's about choices, stupid!

[heruca]

Battlegrounds: RPG Edition (aka BRPG) is another virtual tabletop program that has solid GURPS support (although not much in the way of automation, beyond turn sequencing). Hexgrid with snap-to-grid, support for character facing, GURPS-compatible figure and animal bases, etc.

I'll provide some convenient links for anyone wanting to prepare a GURPS game using BRPG:

Here's a link to some dice macros for playing GURPS.

Here's a link to some custom text labels that are useful for playing GURPS.

Here's a link to Turn Sequencer settings for GURPS. This allows the turn sequence to be auto-sorted based on things like each combatant's Move, Basic Speed, DX, etc. (both 3E AND 4E rules are supported)

And finally, here's a link to a pre-made Gladiator Arena which should provide a handy way to try out GURPS combat.

(Note that some of the links I posted here might only be accessible to people who have registered on the Battlegrounds forums.)

I am the developer of BRPG, by the way, and GURPS is my RPG system of choice. It might interest some of you to know that BRPG actually started out as a GURPS-specific program.

PS: Anyone who plays in a GURPS Autoduel campaign (or just Car Wars) should check out this free artpack for BRPG.

[Tinman]

My group and I use Maptools.
Useing the macros for damage & other pre-modified rolls, knock back ect... takes a lot of work out of things. Also, there are tables you can roll against for crit hits or crit misses, malfuction, ect...
You can also put a lot of info into the tokes & that helps mitigate the need to look-up stats for the PC's & NPC's.

We find the Maptools program very helpful & vastly improved our game quality.

[GhengisRexx]

I have to put in a plug for Roll20 here. It has been a great tool to bring back together my gaming group, (who are now scattered across the country).

While there is no automation, there are virtually no barriers to entry. It is free for my players, (I do pay $5 per month for some advanced features), and there is nothing to intstall (unless you don't already have Chrome). And while it is system agnostic, there are GURPS character sheets that work very well.

I wanted to try FG, but the price was a consideration, and given the chance that it might not work on one of my players disco era laptop, I couldn't justify the price.

Maptools seems terrific, and has tons of great features, but.... getting the modules right, and then learning how to use it bogged me down.

With Roll20 we have a vtt that is very close to our face to face experience. I still keep my books open on my desk, and on a tablet, but I can create great maps easily, and there a tons of tokens, both free and for sale for any kind of scenario. For a group that wants to test the waters of of online gaming, I can not reccomend the Roll20 VTT enough.