What GURPS needs... now

[D10]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

A 4th Edition of GURPS Magic...

This over a 1000 times. GURPS magic is the achilles heel of GURPS 4e
RPM and all the variants are good, and theres plenty of cool suplements and extra spells to go around to make gurps magic viable, but at the end of the day if you dont want to use alternate magic mechanics and just want to go by the standard magic system, it quickly presents itself as the weakest link in a ridiculously strong chain.

I think it could really use a revamp, and I know I would buy that months before it was writen just to support the cause.


Additionally, I think theres no need to do a Basic set minus X. I think that would only divide the player base, and make life hellish for those writing content to support each series.

GURPS main barrier is the fact that its greatness only shows after sufficient knowledge is acquired. So I think that the one thing that could really make it a lot easier for many people would be more content like "How to be a GURPS GM" that gives you insight into a game designer mindset, showing how to use the many options gurps gives you to achieve some theme, tone or effect. I know it might seem like this is already the case, but I feel like the lack of baseline examples of problems/questions being solved by GURPS in simple ways are one of the main reasons people get turned off by the rules.

Which is also one of the reasons this community is so great! But, alas, its hard to put a forum in a book, and someone who is gonna come here and ask is already commited enough to the system that its initial unfriendliness wont bother them. Altho if you would argue that this is a more fickle and unreliable player base, not worth risking the time/money, id understand.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I could see the opposite being much more useful: something that ramps up the cinematic, and really pares down the mundane. Most of the players I've encountered don't want to play Papers and Paychecks, they want to do something amazing.

That's a false dilemma. For example, I played in a game that had absolutely no magic, no exotic abilities, no cinematic whiz bang of most any kind, but I don't think many people would call brutally realistic* medieval warfare "Papers and Paychecks."

* Some might say disturbingly realistic. One combat devolved into grappling, and ended when one fighter got his hand under the other's visor. And with no magic healing, eyes don't grow back.

Personally, my favored gaming style falls somewhere in the middle of all that, at what I would describe as optimistic heroism with a fair touch of grit.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

And I'm of a mixed mind about identical weapons. But, he's probably right about that as well.

I could see a lot of it being trimmed down with liberal use of the phrases "Use the same stats for X, Y, or Z" and "For an extra $A, add a B that enables C."

[camazotz]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I would have no use for a book like that. I can't imagine many players, especially new players, would as well.

I could see the opposite being much more useful: something that ramps up the cinematic, and really pares down the mundane. Most of the players I've encountered don't want to play Papers and Paychecks, they want to do something amazing.

I've mostly used GURPS only for "modern" and historical gaming, and have never needed 95% of the weird and unusual stuff other than to build the occasional monster. A book with mostly conventional features for modern/historical would be of great value to me.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I really like the ham rule from Action, as well.

As someone who pretty much only runs various flavors of ACTION!, you know I use it.

Originally Posted by Tyneras

I like and use the Ham Clause (Action 1, p.20) but I've been wondering if Impulse Points might be more dynamic. Guess I'll find out next campaign.

I've done both... and... well...

Impulse Points as rewards for playing a mental Disad works as intended, it's a carrot. But it tends to cause more disagreements over "how well the disad was played/how many points need to be handed out" and I've had Players claim that they rp'ed their disad in the last scene and thus deserve an IP, but I didn't notice any disad come up and it doesn't look like it to me.... Also then I get Players "disad moment hunting", looking for places to rp that disad where it won't be that much of a drawback, but still net them some tasty, tasty IPs.

As such I prefer the Ham Clause. It's straight forward and easy to adjudicate.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by JMason

One thing that I have noticed from quite a few people recently, is reflecting on how the 3rd edition basic set was more manageable. The 4th edition basic set is more expensive, more dense, and can be hard to parse for someone new. DFRPG is one solution to this, but gamers that are looking for a great universal system might skip a worked genre game.

There has been talk of reworking GURPS Lite (4th edition) since... well for a long time! I think Lite 4th is good... but the lack of magic and many other options makes it feel less than... "universal".

The third edition was easier to manage because it was less generic. It assumed you were more or less humanoid and you more or less had no more than the traditional super powers one finds in many RPGs. It was less interested in catering to cinematic styles. It focused more heavily on combat than other activities. Anything outside these assumptions and focuses were put in add-on books.

The fourth edition generalized the game. It lays out rules for being just about anything, not just a humanoid. It gives rules for constructing your own super powers (though it wasn't entirely clear that this is what it does until Powers came out). Cinematic options are given much more attention, and non-combat activities gain ground (e.g., in the third edition, the equipment chapter goes pretty much straight into armor; in the fourth edition, it lays a groundwork for cost of living, legality class, and general goods before it goes into weapons).

With generalization comes complexity. Third edition's Toughness DR1 or DR2, which simply means your skin is tough, is now expanded to fourth edition's more general Damage Resistance. You can take it in as many levels as your GM will allow. You can use it to turn damage into character points (Absorption), it can be a Force Field, it can have an armor divisor (Hardened), and it can reflect damage (Reflection). It can be Ablative, it can prevent you from wearing armor (Can't Wear Armor), it can protect only from one direction (Directional), it can ineffective against blunt trauma (Flexible), it can be limited to certain damage types (Limited), it can be limited to certain hit locations (Partial), its ablativeness can be partial (Semi-Ablative), and it can leave you vulnerable to poisonous scratches and the like (Tough Skin). It can be taken in multiple layers.

If you want to make the fourth edition more manageable, take away the complexity due to generalization. Write up whatever advantages exist in your campaign, in a format easier for you to digest than what's in the book. You'll have to do this work yourself, though: I don't think SJG will be making "De-generalized GURPS for Realistic Humanoids" anytime soon. It's a "Basic Set" not in that it requires "basic" understanding, but in that it's the core of the game, and all other rules build off of it.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

If you want to make the fourth edition more manageable, take away the complexity due to generalization. Write up whatever advantages exist in your campaign, in a format easier for you to digest than what's in the book. You'll have to do this work yourself, though: I don't think SJG will be making "De-generalized GURPS for Realistic Humanoids" anytime soon. It's a "Basic Set" not in that it requires "basic" understanding, but in that it's the core of the game, and all other rules build off of it.

On the other tentacle, this could be an interesting book.

A book that explains how to prepare and constrain your campaign. Both to help you focus your expectations and assist the GM in preparing to tell their story. Advice on the many options GURPS presents, what their intention was, and suggestions for using or not using them.

[JMason]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

If you want to make the fourth edition more manageable, take away the complexity due to generalization. Write up whatever advantages exist in your campaign, in a format easier for you to digest than what's in the book. You'll have to do this work yourself, though: I don't think SJG will be making "De-generalized GURPS for Realistic Humanoids" anytime soon. It's a "Basic Set" not in that it requires "basic" understanding, but in that it's the core of the game, and all other rules build off of it.

I'm not saying we need to get rid of the Basic Set. I'm not saying we need to change the forth edition (or that we need a new edtion). I'm just saying that a NEW, smaller, cheaper, more digestable product would help get NEW players into the game.

[philosophyguy]

I have three things that I would like to see in GURPS right now.

1) A revised lite that incorporates magic and cleans up some of the detail in favor of generic task difficulty modifiers. This would help make GURPS more accessible, wouldn't require the huge time investment of rewriting an existing book, and wouldn't break backwards compatibility.

2) Quick start guides: a series of questions that guides GMs on what rules to use / what to avoid in running a game with a specific feel. I'm envisioning that these would be 2-4 page documents, per genre/game style. They would be the worked genre equivalent of How to Be A GURPS GM, and would be designed to streamline game and character creation. The PC creation element would look a lot like the worked genre books' list of appropriate advantages and skills.

3) Estimating guides: a lot of what I do as GM is ballpark things. How much damage should X do? How much is X limitation worth in this context? How many fatigue points should X require? I have developed a lot of cheat sheets that take canonical examples of X and put them in a chart so I can quickly skim and say, this armor should be more effective than Y but less protective than Z…I think it should have DR 4. I would find a lot of value in a PDF that gave advice and charts for ballparking all kinds of game details.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

1) A revised lite that incorporates magic and cleans up some of the detail in favor of generic task difficulty modifiers. This would help make GURPS more accessible, wouldn't require the huge time investment of rewriting an existing book, and wouldn't break backwards compatibility.

This is probably the only thing I could want more than the upcoming DFRPG boxed set in terms of tabletop gaming.

[GM Joe]

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

1) A revised lite that incorporates magic and cleans up some of the detail in favor of generic task difficulty modifiers. This would help make GURPS more accessible, wouldn't require the huge time investment of rewriting an existing book, and wouldn't break backwards compatibility.

Being able to point people to a free version of GURPS that allows them to experience what it's like to use GURPS for the most popular RPG genre would be very helpful. The lack of magic in GURPS Lite 4e is unfortunate.