What's With All the Hate, Man? (GURPS)

One thing I've noticed about the system, is it requires far more skill on the part of the game master. (This is in my own experience, obviously.) You can have a so-so DM in Dn D and have quite a bit of fun. If you have a Gamemaster of the same caliber GM a GURPS campaign, it tends to be a lot less fun.

I've been G Ming with GURPS for about a year now, and have been able to track my progress as a gamemaster. Now I'm actually decent, and the campaigns are a rip-snorting good time. The system just takes a lot of getting used to, and a lot of practice.

One of the best things about GURPS is all the stuff that isn't GURPS.

Don't get me wrong - I like the rules. I like that you can choose how much detail you want (particularly with combat), if you want it gritty or cinematic, the ability to mix genres within the same rules system; all that is great.

But the best thing about GURPS, or one of the best things, is the sourcebooks. If you ever need a gamer-centric book on a period of history or genre, check the GURPS lineup first.

True. I seem to recall a story about a student who aced a history class by studying GURPS books.

Honesty I've find GURPS easiest to lean then D&D, it migth be more complex but it's also more straight forwards. The game mechanics are uniform through out everything.

True words... Even if you don't like GURPS, reading their genre sourcebooks is a great way to get inspiration to write campaigns, encounters, to look at things from a fresh perspective, etc. They have such a nice generalist approach to it, you're sure to find something useful.

The thing I think most people will hate about the system, is the very same thing people hated (and still do!) about the new World Of Darkness: there's no meta plot for your to pick from, no setting all ready for you to read about and present to your players, there are no classes that will constrain your choices to a few simple ones. And there are so many choices for character creation! GURPS gives you complete freedom, whether it's how many points you want to use to create your character, what your character can be, or in which setting you want to play.

And that sort of freedom is something a lot of newbies can't handle, if they've already gotten used to the DnD way of doing things :/

(Edit for clarification: I mean for Players coming from Dn D) The best thing to do is ease people into the freedom. At first provide class options, essentially prebuilt characters, with a little room for customization. Then, provide, a small list of advantages to choose from, and some sets of skills to choose from, and let them pick their stats. Eventually ease them in to having full control (Or at least, having all the options that the GM would allow/make sense in a setting.)

Also, reading a lot of this thread frustrates me. Is the argument "It's bad because everyone hates it and character creation takes forever" a decent argument? Yes, I'll agree it has flaws. Many in fact, but GURPS provides so many things in one place that other RP Gs just can't. I don't think you can justify your own hate with someone else's.

edited 22nd Aug '11 3:32:47 PM by Kraftwerk

GURPS shines in realistic historical or psuedohistorical settings, and at low to moderate power levels. Anything above 250 points is only going to interest a devoted number cruncher (I happen to be one of those, but that is another issue...). It is ideal between 100 and 200 points. Below 100 points it's great for mundane simulationism, but most people don't like mundane simulationism. GURPS works best for things like Sherlock Holmes or Indiana Jones. It is not so good for Star Wars or Spiderman (because although it can model any character from both of those series quite well, nobody wants to try to comprehend the resulting mess of numbers).

Well, nWoD does at least give the structure of the clan/covenant model. Even if you're totally clueless, you can be like, "I want to be a sneaky religious guy!" and have your GM say "OK, Mekhet/Lancea Sanctum." GURPS doesn't have that, usually.

I've played tabletop rpgs since the 80's- though I have been inactive for a few years now- and GURPS is one of my favorite games. The impression I got was that fans disliked it (in the old days anyway) either because they were not used to point-system games or because of the rivalry between its publisher and the Hero System's (it could get quite petty at times).

My opinion on it:

Bad Points: Its own original settings are usually not as colorful as others ex. its Fantasy Setting (Yrth) is not as interesting as D&D's. OTOH it adapted *perfectly* many already-existing settings such as Wild Cards, Traveller, etc. Also, its sourcebooks are full of useful data such as history, science facts, etc.

Another problem is that it has sooo many options for character creation it's hard to choose exactly what you want right away. Though that can be fixed by the GM editing the lists to what will actually be used in his game. (EVERYTHING besides the basics is optional.) It also lacked customizable templates that so many other games had (they were indeed added later however.)

Good Points: You can play ANY setting with just one set of rules. (Again, they are pretty basic, it's just that they keep coming up with tons more *optional* ones.) No need to buy a whole new game if you just want to change genres.

It's very intuitive: you don't have to know anything about the rules to choose what you want for your character- just read the Advantage, Disadvantage and Skill lists and pick whatever you like, because everything is exactly what it sounds like. This has always been a peeve of mine with other games: when I cannot make out what a character description means without reading the rules first. Also, the use of real-world measuring units (eg. seconds and yards instead of turns and hexes) also makes it easier to visualize.

And finally, it was and still is a popular system that keeps turning out products to use even after all this time. I'd recommend it as a basic system, and buy material from other games and then convert it to GURPS for your campaigns.

edited 13th Sep '11 6:59:41 PM by Sijo

Yrth is less interesting than D&D's settings? That's false! The mix of real life elements together with the fantastic world creates a very awesome mix, and a one that feels just ready to be a sandbox for the players.

I personally already have enough money problems to not have a PHB for D&D.. I

In my opinion of course, it's just not worth it for a system I wont' play much.