4e Revised

[fula farbrorn]

I would love to see a revised 4th edition or a 5th edition and would kickstarter either, what i play as "GURPS" is by now pretty far removed from the basegame a lot of the time and tailored to what i like (Fairly gritty modern games focused around gear and guns) but all of that could easily be backslotted if i needed to, onto a revised or new edition.

BTW. if someone made a revised GURPS 4th edition thats meant to slot into the existing rulebooks for free, whats the legality around that ? or is that something SJG wouldnt like ? (EG i wanted to make a version of GURPS and post it, but it does not contain the core rules or anything like that)

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by fula farbrorn

BTW. if someone made a revised GURPS 4th edition thats meant to slot into the existing rulebooks for free, whats the legality around that ? or is that something SJG wouldnt like ? (EG i wanted to make a version of GURPS and post it, but it does not contain the core rules or anything like that)

Very illegal. The company is very generous as regards fan work, read yje online policy and talk to liscenicing if you have questions. But what you are talking about sounds like far too much content.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by fula farbrorn

BTW. if someone made a revised GURPS 4th edition thats meant to slot into the existing rulebooks for free, whats the legality around that ? or is that something SJG wouldnt like ? (EG i wanted to make a version of GURPS and post it, but it does not contain the core rules or anything like that)

In terms of copyright, it depends on what use you make of it. You can slice and dice your books any way you like for your own uncompensated use. The moment you start trying to make money with it you would be heading out of bounds.

Even if you don't have any monetary intentions, you might violate trademark protections or be liable for reputational damage depending on how you represent your material.

[Kromm]

Please start by reading the Online Policy. In brief, this spells out what SJ Games deems reasonable and what SJ Games will act to shut down, pursue in court, etc. It might take a judge to decide who's right, but this document spells out what the company is willing to argue is right before a judge. Notably (to quote):

VI. The Most Common Misconception

You may have noticed that none of these provisions discuss money. That is at the heart of the biggest misconception about copyright and trademark. Many people believe that if no money changes hands it's legal to violate others' intellectual property rights. This is, at best, wrong. At worst, it's a crime.

Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are not about money. They are about the creators' right to control their creations. Federal law give us not only the right, but also the obligation, to prevent people from misusing our intellectual property, whether or not we're being paid. Don't violate our rights and we can all stay friends.

Which is to say, publishing something for the game isn't a great idea even if you do so for free.

[Donny Brook]

I think the way languages work could use adjustment.

In particular, I find the category Accented incorrectly incorporates disparate concepts of, on the one hand, fluency, and on the other hand, accent.

Many people are supremely fluent in their second, third, etc. language in terms of ability to understand and communicate while still retaining a distinctive accent.

Accordingly, I would change the term "Accented" to 'Proficient', and "Native" to "Fluent". Every character would specify their native accent as a feature and it would characterize any language they speak at whatever level. Buying an additional accent would be a perk.

So the language profile of an English spy working in France might be described:

Native Accent (Scouse) [0]
First Language English: Read/Write-Fluent [0]; Speak-Fluent [0]
French: Read/Write-Fluent [3]; Speak-Fluent [3]
Additional Accent (Parisian) [1]

This person perfectly understands and composes English and French. He inherently speaks both languages accented from northern England. If he chooses, he can speak either language accented as if from Paris.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Accordingly, I would change the term "Accented" to 'Proficient', and "Native" to "Fluent". Every character would specify their native accent as a feature and it would characterize any language they speak at whatever level. Buying an additional accent would be a perk.

I think that that kind of thing dips below resolution and into stuff like having the Acting skill and Rehearsed Role perks. I do like changing the terms around, but I think the remark on calling one out as "Definitely accented" is to emphasize that even though this is good enough to speak at full speed, it has enough weird turns of phrase that it's not enough to be seen as a foreigner. Like:

Spy A has Acting-20 and French (Accented). He will be able to pretend he's a native Parisian right up until he trips on "what fly bit him?".

Spy B has Acting-12 and French (Native). He won't have any trouble with idioms, but he might be more easily spotted.

Or to put another way, if you're from the north of England and you want people to think you're from Minnesota, take Acting.

[Shimmin Beg]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

...Dai Blackthorn, Robyn of the Meadows, Katrina, and Corwyn Bearclaw presented as sample characters, possibly along with one or two others)

It seems like these are all fantasy characters from 3e? I'd personally steer hard away from overemphasising the fantasy and want a spread of characters from different settings to highlight the flexibility of GURPS. Dai is fine (I agree with dropping the teleportation), but I'd want to balance him against a modern journalist, a near-future roboticist, an ancient Assyrian, someone from a gothic horror world, etc.

(I may be in a minority, as I've never played GURPS as generic fantasy. The gamers I know mostly have a slew of other games for that, and often lean into the explicitly less realistic, more narrative or metagame systems when they do play fantasy.)

[Jpot]

I may be in a minority here, but I liked having a "random character generator" like 3rd Edition had. Maybe do it for Fantasy, Space, Action.

This allows a new GM or player to be guided through character creation without thinking too hard about it and getting them to the table very quickly. Let them have fun playing a one shot (maybe Caravan) and then they can come back to the table later with their own creations.

I think I'd lean to the Basic and the Advanced books. Some amount of magic should be included in the first book. I'd like to see old-school box sets put out, but I understand SJG has lost clout for shelf-space in recent years, or it is at a premium nowadays. But sold via KS and online is another consideration.

"Tool-kit" aside, I think a new GURPS would get a closer look from gamers if there were a steady release of pre-written adventures for it.

There are ways to do it.

As long as it avoids the extensive social commentary and safety protocols that D&D is falling into, I'd def back ALL of a Kickstarter. It'd be awesome.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Jpot

I may be in a minority here, but I liked having a "random character generator" like 3rd Edition had. Maybe do it for Fantasy, Space, Action.

This allows a new GM or player to be guided through character creation without thinking too hard about it and getting them to the table very quickly. Let them have fun playing a one shot (maybe Caravan) and then they can come back to the table later with their own creations.

In the extant corpus of GURPS works - albeit DFRPG rather than GURPS proper - it's tough to beat Delvers to Grow for quick-to-the-table character generation, and that's something that would lend itself well to random character generation (roll to see which general category of Delver, roll to see which specific role, maybe a roll to determine what your preferred weapon skill is, and finally some random rolls to see which Upgrade Modules you're tacking on). I'm hoping the upcoming Mission X uses a similar framework, although that's probably not going to be quite as backward-compatible with mainline GURPS as DFRPG is.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Shimmin Beg

It seems like these are all fantasy characters from 3e? I'd personally steer hard away from overemphasising the fantasy and want a spread of characters from different settings to highlight the flexibility of GURPS. Dai is fine (I agree with dropping the teleportation), but I'd want to balance him against a modern journalist, a near-future roboticist, an ancient Assyrian, someone from a gothic horror world, etc.

(I may be in a minority, as I've never played GURPS as generic fantasy. The gamers I know mostly have a slew of other games for that, and often lean into the explicitly less realistic, more narrative or metagame systems when they do play fantasy.)

The reason I suggested those sample characters, besides the fact that they did feature on 3e, is because they're similar enough to each other that you can use them all in the same setting. For instance, Caravan to Ein Arris. The problem with a generic fantasy thief, a modern journalist, a near-future roboticist, an ancient Assyrian, someone from a gothic world, and so on, is that while that does give a greater diversity of illustrations of what kinds of characters GURPS can feature, it doesn't let you use more than one at a time.

With that said, I'd also like to see most (but not all) sample characters in the Basic Set presented as examples of using Character Templates; and I'd like to see sample Character Templates in the Basic Set that are easily adapted to a broad range of possible times and places. Following the pattern of Pyramid Volumes 3 and 4, perhaps have the default Templates implicitly assuming generic low fantasy; but include a lens for each showing how a minimal set of changes could allow the same basic template to be used for a modern or safetech sci-fi campaign.

The only thing I'd insist on would be that the templates and characters in the Basic Set be fully playable using only the Basic Set. If you leave Magic and Psionics out of the Basic Set, that means no magicians or psychics among the sample templates. Likewise, sci-fi characters would need to be restricted in what technology they have access to, in order to match what technology the Basic Set provides. Which probably leaves "roboticist" out of the running, and would also leave cyborgs, espers, and aliens out.

Advanced Set would expand on this. I'd start with some additional lenses for the Basic templates that let you adapt them to more exotic genres such as high fantasy, urban fantasy/horror, and cyberpunk/transhuman space. I'd supplement that with racial templates similarly inspired (elves, dwarves, and orcs for traditional fantasy; vampires, werewolves, and ghosts for urban fantasy/horror; cyborgs, androids, and a couple of parahumans for cyberpunk/transhuman space), along with adaptation notes that lets you transplant them into other exotic settings. Show some magical styles and power builds that can be added to ordinary characters to make them not quite so ordinary (possibly using Dai Blackthorn as an example by showing how easy it is to add psionics to a character). And, of course, include at least one sample character who is made "freeform".

And, of course, always include at least one oddball option, to show what GURPS can do: for instance, a racial template for a housecat.