Has GURPS lost it's charm?

[Gilfander]

Over the past few months I noticed that my enthusiasm for GURPS has been waning. Now before I get flamed off the boards please hear me out. GURPS is still me favorite gaming system. I’ve been GMing GURPS for 20 years. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the system at all. That is not my point. My point is nothing has felt new for a few years.
I like 4th ed. and I think it fixed many of the mechanical issues with 3rd ed. I think all the new books are good quality and well written. But I can’t help get over the feeling that I’ve seen this material all before. So many of the concepts appear to be the same as in 3rd ed. stuff. I know SJG needs to put out core books to support the new edition. I know 240 page hardcover books take longer to produce than 128 page soft-cover ones did. I know Munchkin is the main bread-winner now at SJG not GURPS, but I feel the magic is slipping away.
I remember going to my FLGS ten or fifteen years ago and always seeing something new and interesting from GURPS. I didn’t buy all the books but I have over 40. I always remember thinking how this new material would make a great campaign. I don’t feel that energy in the stuff I’ve seen in the past few years.
I think this feeling came from setting books. Seeing some new Cyberpunk or Ice Age book was always a thrill. Ultra-Tech is cool, but I have the UT and UT2 plus all the THS books already. The items are slightly different, and layout is better now but the theme is not new.
Maybe the point I’m trying to make with all this is will we see ‘new’ material again? How long will it take with one three books a year? And am I alone? How do others feel?

[DoctorRomulus]

Originally Posted by Gilfander

Over the past few months I noticed that my enthusiasm for GURPS has been waning. Now before I get flamed off the boards please hear me out. GURPS is still me favorite gaming system. I’ve been GMing GURPS for 20 years. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the system at all. That is not my point. My point is nothing has felt new for a few years.
I like 4th ed. and I think it fixed many of the mechanical issues with 3rd ed. I think all the new books are good quality and well written. But I can’t help get over the feeling that I’ve seen this material all before. So many of the concepts appear to be the same as in 3rd ed. stuff. I know SJG needs to put out core books to support the new edition. I know 240 page hardcover books take longer to produce than 128 page soft-cover ones did. I know Munchkin is the main bread-winner now at SJG not GURPS, but I feel the magic is slipping away.
I remember going to my FLGS ten or fifteen years ago and always seeing something new and interesting from GURPS. I didn’t buy all the books but I have over 40. I always remember thinking how this new material would make a great campaign. I don’t feel that energy in the stuff I’ve seen in the past few years.
I think this feeling came from setting books. Seeing some new Cyberpunk or Ice Age book was always a thrill. Ultra-Tech is cool, but I have the UT and UT2 plus all the THS books already. The items are slightly different, and layout is better now but the theme is not new.
Maybe the point I’m trying to make with all this is will we see ‘new’ material again? How long will it take with one three books a year? And am I alone? How do others feel?

Maybe you need to take a break from GURPS for a while and do something else or some other system. I'd say D20 but I'm in hate with them right now.

OR

Try coming up with your own stuff. I'm sure you remember the early years of GURPS. In 1986 when I bought the first boxed set it took a while for Fantasy to come out and Space we didn't see til like late 88 or early 89. So we made our own stuff.

and

Check out if you haven't Pyramid Magazine.

just my 2 centavos

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Gilfander

Maybe the point I’m trying to make with all this is will we see ‘new’ material again?

We are seeing it. It's just on e23. So far as physical books are concerned, certainly, we'll be seeing revised versions of older books for quite some time to come.

[Brandy]

I'll add that GURPS Martial Arts is a substantial upgrade over 3e Martial Arts and Swashbucklers with a lot of truly new ideas and material. That's reported to be coming in August.

[ArmoredSaint]

I'm salivating in anticipation of GURPS martial arts so much that I've put my GURPS games on hold until it hits the shelves.

[Ciaran]

As a playtester on High Tech and Martial Arts, I can say that GURPS hasn't even begun to peak in its' charm. And with GURPS: Thaumatology around the corner I'm thrilled about the coming year or two. I hope you'll forgive my calling this a silly, silly thread.

[Gudiomen]

I think what the OP and Mad Douglas seem to be referring to is mainly lack of new settings and world books. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the impression came across.

Tech books are tech books, and the old system was not junk, so we have no reason to eliminate it. I'm very glad there was a 4e to update the core rules, as the number of house rules was quickly increasing in my games, most of wich became unnecessary in 4e.

I think that the current "lull" in novelty books is the fact that we need to update the core as soon as possible. Precisely because there was so much variety updated before, 4e began with a huge "to do" list. We'd be hearing numerous whines (I'd be one shouting in outrage) if we were haing totally novel world books taking up development time of the core rules. By core I mean the full spectrum of tech books that allow you to GM anything.

Most GURPSers are builders, or at least that's the impression I get. I have never played or wich to play Banestorm, Roma Arcana, Infinite Worlds, etc... I'm sorry, but I just find them lame. Transhuman Space and Traveler appeal to me, even though I'm not a sci-fi kind of guy. I have yet to find a ready-built setting for medieval fantasy that pleases me.

In short, world books depend largely on taste. And ditto for their sales. I'll never buy Banestorm or Infinite Worlds. But almost everybody needs tech-books.

The truly novel thing I'm seing in 4e are the "GM Books" wich we didn't have, particularly I'm talking about Fantasy 4e, wich I LOVE. It's not a tech book because it's not about formulas, advantages, etc... it's about options and ideas. I think Thaumatology will follow, and I'm very exited about it.
While I'm not a big martial arts fan, I'm definately getting MA, because it can add something to every game.

So I feel that the SJG move to publish mostly tech-books first seems reasonable. They can go out on a limb afterwards.

Novelty material like Deadlands, Witchworld, Old West, Celtic Myth, Vikings, etc... are what truly make the system shine it's best, I agree. But it's worthless to have great novelty world-books with only half the core rules out. These things will resume, I'm sure. Some writers are probably working at them right now, and they'll be added to the list afterwards. Hang in there.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Mad Douglas

I owned GURPS Fantasy 3rd Ed., and in my zeal to convert to GURPS 4th Ed, I bought GURPS Fantasy 4th Ed. It was a different book entirely. That is another example of that consistency thing I was talking about. Why use the same title, if the content was so radically different?

Uh, because the old title was pretty much wrong?

SJG had eventually set up a system that was easy to follow:
Space was a genre guide with stuff in it about designing your own space campaign.
Cyberpunk was a genre guide with stuff in it about desigining your own cyberpunk game.
Mysteries was a genre guide with stuff in it about designing your own mystery game.
Special Ops was a genre guide with stuff in it about designing your own Special ops game.

And then there was Fantasy, which was a game world and some stuff about fantasy games and magic spells and all kinds of stuff hodgepodged togeather, and they didn't have a dedicated book about designing your own fantasy game, nor did they have a dedicated book about the game world. They had already come out with a book dedicated to the spells (Magic).

It just didn't work. So they took the opportunity to fix it.

[crazycaleb]

Originally Posted by Mad Douglas

GURPS Banestorm is essentially the old GURPS Fantasy worldbook. Complete with the same nations, races, and notable figures. The GURPS Banestorm book for 4th Ed outlines all sorts of fantasy races. So which version of Elves do you use? The Fantasy 4th Ed book has a different version, and only a few of the other races detailed at all.

You seem to be under the impression that Banestorm is some sort of generic book for fantasy games. Yes, there are a lot of templates for fantasy races, but they are specifically intended for a game set in Yrth. It really isn't supposed to be something your players should mine for any old fantasy game; that's what GURPS Fantasy is for.

GURPS isn't D&D, it doesn't specifically say "this is what an elf is." GURPS attempts to present different variations of what an elf might be, based on the various works of fiction and myth in our culture, and then let the GM choose what he likes best for his game.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

snip

Novelty material like Deadlands, Witchworld, Old West, Celtic Myth, Vikings, etc... are what truly make the system shine it's best, I agree. But it's worthless to have great novelty world-books with only half the core rules out. These things will resume, I'm sure. Some writers are probably working at them right now, and they'll be added to the list afterwards. Hang in there.

I think that since most of the information in world books is robust (that is to say, can be tweaked to work in 4E) it is more important to get the G & U stuff covered first. Once the rules framework is finalized all the rest of it will fall into place more easily and taking 'Calahan the time traveling bartender 3ed' and making it synch up with 4 ed should be almost trivial.
If the authors have the option to write good consistent easily understood and unambiguous crunchy bits or good story lines I'd vote that they spend their time on the good crunch bits. I can write good stories (or steal good stories if I have to).

To answer the initial question... IMO, no it has not lost it's charm, it's changed it's focus (as we all really should have expected it to do) when it decided to revise.

Don't worry about the turtle wax and tire shine when you're rebuilding the engine... that stuff comes later.