GURPS 4th Edition RPG Announced

Grizzletooth writes "According to GamingReport, at the GAMA tradeshow in Las Vegas today, Steve Jackson Games announced they will release the 4th edition of the GURPS pen-and-paper role playing game. The Steve Jackson Games site has updated its official GURPS page to reflect this announcement." For those not in the know, the GURPS FAQ page explains: "GURPS is the 'Generic Universal RolePlaying System.' It starts with simple rules, and builds up to as much optional detail as you like. The basic rules system is designed to be playable in any background: fantasy or historical; past, present, or future."

Comments

Fluffy Article

[BrookHarty]

Half the article talks about the the books appearance, leather, colors, hardback. Wheres the details in the article?

Sean Punch, GURPS Line Editor for the past nine years, and David Pulver, a key contributor responsible for many of the core GURPS supplements, took two years to break the system down and rebuild it, guided by a decade and a half of gamer feedback. The new rules are designed to enhance the key strengths of GURPS: compatibility with all genres and flexibility for the GM. You'll still recognize it, but a lot of little things - and a few big ones! - are different.

I guess I expected a little more details in the article about actual changes in 4, other than the mention of the need for a conversion guide from 3.

Haven't played Gurps in over 10 years, but I remember how easy it was to switch genres game, from mid-evil to tech weapons in game, was rather impressed compared to D&D. But then I moved on to Battletech.

Humm, Maybe its time to pick up version 4 and teach the Kids how to play .

Woo-hoo!!!

[Lurch Kimded]

I have to admit that I like GURPS its a really good system but it REALLY needed a revamp. Better layout and organisation of its rules and where and when ceratin things applied would be so cool.

I can't wait. I bet my local game store is gonna be a happy bunny when it comes out thats for sure. ;)

Re:Woo-hoo!!!

[spun]

That is the best thing about GURPS, the fact that you (or your game master) determine what rules aply when. Like a lot of realism? Use the advanced combat rules with a hex grid and miniatures. Like a quicker game with more swash and buckle? Use the simple combat rules, but add the cinematic rules. Change the rules as you see fit, add rules, or buy books to add rules if you want to get some pre-playtested rules.

I love that GURPS supplements come in two flavors: themed world books and generic builders. The space, fantasy, and magic books, for instance, are very generic and useful for game masters who want to mix things up and build their own custom worlds. Things like the Uplift, Conan, and Callahan's supplements are detailed backgrounds and rules for other author's worlds.

I helped C.J. Carella (not his real name, btw) playtest the War Against the Chtorr supplement he wrote before it was published. He is the guy who wrote the Martial Arts supplement, simply the best treatment of real world and fantasy martial arts in any game, anywhere. He also ran an 800+ character point game that was a completely over the top superhero, magic, cyberpunk crossover world. Good times, good times.

I might have to RPG again

[Foo2rama]

What other system allowed for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to battle my Dwarf Mage Bruticus?

Re:I might have to RPG again

[fireduck]

the obvious answer to this is Palladium's system. Seeing as how they were the publishers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle RPG as well as the Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game. They had a fairly nice system and strove to keep rules compatible across genres, similar to GURPS. I was a huge fan of Palladium's stuff. Particularly their weapon, armor, modern weapon, and castle compendiums which made great source material for any ruleset.

Re:I might have to RPG again

[cpt kangarooski]

Meh. Character creation under Palladium was always a gigantic PITA -- particularly when you got into working out combat skills. And then after that, you're extremely limited in what your character can do forever after.

And of course, their HP / SDC / MDC system grew increasingly broken as they moved on into Rifts, where looking at someone funny can easily crush a tank.

I remember how impressed I was with GURPS after having used Palladium for a few years. More when I sat in on a session of RIFTS last year and wound up having to struggle with all of the problems in the Palladium system.

GURPS could certainly be a lot better, but it's pretty nice so far, I've got to say.

That said, I'm not looking forward too much to 4e unless it's a very substantial improvement. That means paring things down so that combat and skill resolution are extremely easy and fast to get out of the way. The magic system could also stand to be totally redone, and GURPS needs quite a bit of work in extreme circumstances, e.g. 250pt+ characters, especially with heavy duty magic, superpowers, or cybernetics. Right now it's a bit too geared towards characters that aren't terribly far from ordinary.

Funny thing about RPG systems

[ReyTFox]

Because different groups have different ideas of how the game should be played, the rules as written usually don't actually matter as much as one might be led to believe, scanning through all the pages of different rules and statistics and options and tables as I remember doing when I was younger. When it comes down to it, all the material, the minatures, the sourcebooks, the rulesets - all are just tools to help along the storytelling, and fun reading in between sessions.

They do help in some aspects, I have to admit, but if you figure you can do a better job yourself, then you can easily roll your own with the guidance of a meta-system like FUDGE. The difference between it and something that's big by design like GURPS is mainly a matter of the fluffy pieces of detail, stuff like the exact effects of consuming a case of beer or getting hit with a radiation blast of 1000 rads or how far characters should be able to jump.

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[Cychwyn]

It's the fluff that makes it easy for newbies to pick up the system and create characters and/or worlds that will have them coming back for more, though. Those of us with years of experience can easily do without, but if you've never role-played before it is much easier to see what can be done if you're given some colourful pictures and pre-made characters to play with. After that, most people will have a concept of what they'd like to change, but it's taking that first step that needs padding, and the more people hooked on RPG:s the better IMHO. And even after yonks of systems, I still find it interesting to read other designer's thoughts and ideas.

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[imr]

You can also get rid of the dice alltogether.
The big flaw behind all rpg games is the idea that randomness is at the heart of reality and at the heart of good games.
Not that I dislike one game of rpg with dice, it can add spice to an action, but as a model to represent reality it is flawed.
Take that football player doing the run of his life, do you think the roll of a d20 against his capacities actually render in any way what is actually happening on the field?

Going further, my group and I even suppressed all rules:
We realized that the rules were basically just a way to force everybody to be coherent with the rest of the group and with the adventure.
We immediatly realized we didnt need that, because nobody in the group wanted to take advantage over the others, but rather wanted the adventure to be really good, from a story telling point of view.
We then realised we that we were actually creating a story alltogether and that it was what mattered. A collective creation based on improvisation, on inspiration and on a collective sense of what the setting is (if we do a cthulhu run, nobody go into machine guns).
At this point of understanding, a gamemaster was not necessary anymore, just a scenarist who knows the grand trend of the present adventure, and tries to keep it on track, but all other players can add content whenever they feel like, it just has to please aesthetically the group. (so meta gaming discussions and rants about bad dice rolls have been replaced by vivid discussions when one tries to convince the others his last idea is actually worth keeping in the flow of the story).

As a matter of fact, being the scenarist of the last story, a cthulhu one, i even had no scenario, just a starting (gloomy gory insane unsane) point, based on the players wishes of characters (one of them was a coroner; so i had to have a body). They didnt know that there was no scenario, but believing in it, they created it themselves pretty easily. It was amazing to watch.
A funny exemple, a new player to the group, who actually didnt take seriously the fact that he could add content, to the question:
"what do you see now that your in front of the house (I just described)?"
answered, expecting to kinda make fun of the process:
"a chinese man!"
"what does he look like, where is he?"
"No, non, NO, I WAS JOKING!"
"hmm i like the idea, let's keep it"
the others:
"yes, a chinese man, at night, on the other side of the street" "yes, watching us from the shadows" "his face is motionless" "oh yes, but he has seen we've seen him (going into character) this guy gave me the shivers. Let's go into that house, we have to ..."
Imagine the face ot the new player as this flowed naturally.
And since, i later read a description of what the fungi of mi-go look like when they desguise at human, this player even managed to bring into the story the enemy. Which was neat, since my story already had strage fungis in it.
Tell me about randomness!

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[cmpalmer]

Back in the day when I played a lot of RPGs (paper/pencil/dice ones), our core group of players got so fed up with the basic flaw of most systems -- the easy to manage ones weren't realistic and the realistic ones were unmanageable.

We had a big Traveler campaign going and we all were dedicated to the story and characters (in other words, we weren't munchkins or rule's min-maxers) so we decided on a basic system:

1) we would keep the characters and settings were were using
2) as in an action movie franchise, the main characters weren't going to die unless they did something *really* stupid or *really* heroic. They might fail, get hurt, get maimed, etc., but they weren't going to die from a bad roll.
3) when something fell to chance, we used percentile dice (d100) and came up with a quick and agreeable chance of success and rolled for it. The players and the GM pretty much made up the results based on how good or bad the result was.

Until we scattered around and got married and stuff, it was the most fun we ever had role playing.

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[Hakubi_Washu]

Take that football player doing the run of his life, do you think the roll of a d20 against his capacities actually render in any way what is actually happening on the field?

Actually, yes, I do. Looks like a pretty clear natural-20 to me... But then, I'm one of those "nothing is impossible, it may just be very, very unlikely"-guys... You know? Those people actually enjoying Quantum Physics, because its modelled that way?

That said, I do not think dice are necessary for rpging, just because they would represent a more "realistic" feel to me, doesn't mean I want that all the time... Sometimes I might be looking for something dramatic, like a good book, or even something cheesy, like B-Movies. Those should not be burdened with "Realism", suspense and action don't work that way (which is why life seems boring, when compared to artifical situations, I think)

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[mwheeler01]

One important thing to note is that Stephan O'Sullivan, author of FUDGE, was (is?) an author and prolific contributor for GURPS and it's supplements. I can see advantages and disadvantages for both. GURPS can be easy for limiting power gamers, but can enable them at higher point levels. The same is true for FUDGE but it takes more effort on the GM's part to define rules, like magic systems and psionics and super powers are only briefly outlined in FUDGE.

IMHO off the shelf GURPS is better but with work and a good GM, FUDGE can really out shine it.

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[cr0z01d]

First of all, not all RPG systems are random. Look at Theatrix or Amber... no dice, no cards, nothing.

Although randomness is not necessary, it is very useful for simulation. Let's say your character is in a gunfight. Most of the time, there will be no guarantee that you'll hit or miss. To simulate that, people roll dice. This lends authenticity to the battle. It adds danger because you are rarely certain to win, and it adds hope because you are rarely certain to lose. This increases tension and character identification because uncertainty fundamentally feels real or at least plausible.

From another point of view, randomness and rules allows for freedom from scripting. Let's suppose that the GM has an outline for a story, and some of the characters don't like it -- maybe it's distasteful, maybe it's just like the last story, maybe it's out of character, or maybe they just have different ideas. Without rules, the differences have to be resolved personally between the GM and the players. With rules, everyone accepts a certain level of reality, and the freedoms granted by that reality, and the players have the option to alter the events that occur without having to change the script. Rules and chance make it less like a story from a book and more like a story from life.

Role-playing is only two-thirds of the acronym 'RPG'... some people want to play a game, on some level similar to Go or Monopoly. A game is about making interesting decisions against opposition to achieve goals. Without rules, you're not playing an RPG... you're doing make-believe, not that there's anything bad about make-believe. Free-form role playing is fun when it's done well. In an RPG, your goal can be to tell a story and the opposition can be the rule system. That's a challenge and it's usually fun. People can basically choose their goals in an RPG, and although the rules are relatively constant, each person is playing a different game -- but everyone is still playing together. Without rules, completing these challenges is somehow less significant: rather than achieving something because of effort, you achieve things because it fits the story or because the GM said you did. Randomness just puts the game a little closer to Poker than Chess.

I've tried to explain how rules can be useful from each of the three classic RPG perspectives. If what you want is to tell a story through role-playing, don't use a system. If what you want is Story-Telling and Catharsis and Character Development and Plot Arcs, then you should be writing a book instead. If you like stories, games, and other people, then RPG systems are the way to go.

Finally, I get tired of people whining about RPG systems. Sure, some are really bad. However, D&D is for people who like to play powerful standard fantasy archetypes and role-play a bit between combats and dungeon crawls, if you don't want to do that, don't play D&D. If you don't like making rules to fill in the gaps, then don't play FUDGE. If you don't like explaining all of your actions in terms of story, play a system more based on simulation. Whatever you want.

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[alexo]

I would mod you up if I had points.

Our system was pretty close (though not identical) to what you described.

1) "Realism" does not matter but internal consistency does (otherwise it kills your suspension of disbelief and ruins what could have been an otherwise good story).

2) The mechanics need to be simple enough not to be distracting (so we could concentrate on the story) but consistent enough to be dependable (so the players could approximate their chances of success in each action). That's why I did use some tables instead of picking up a number each time. It also helped keeping disagreements to a minimum, after all, how productive is complaining about the unfairness of F=ma in the real world?

So we kept a (modified) AD&D 2nd ed. set of rules that we were all somewhat fimilar with and got rid of everything that got in the way.

However, after a while, I realized that this was not enough so I, as the GM, added some "unwritten rules".

1) The world is a hostile and dangerous place.
That gave the party a sense of unity and purpose, an "us against everybody" mentality. Also kept the party from splitting up (which was difficult to manage).

2) The punishment for stupidity is quick and harsh.
Stems from #1.

3) The rewards of resourcefulness are generous but not lasting.
Kept them hungry for more.

> Until we scattered around and got married and stuff, it was the most fun we ever had role playing.

I'll drink to that!

Re:Funny thing about RPG systems

[cmpalmer]

Of course, remember that when D&D started the emphasis was role playing GAME not ROLE PLAYING game. The game was to see how long your character survived and how powerful it got while pretty much just going on dungeon crawls, killing monsters, and collecting treasure (like Nethack -- an yes, I realize hack, nethack, rogue, etc. were based on D&D, that is my point, they are based on the original concept of D&D).

For the game aspect to work, you had to stick to the rules, accept the random die rolls, and accept that your character might die for weird reasons.

As players became more interested in the characters and the world building than in doing cliched dungeon crawls, the rules started getting the way and/or becoming more and more complicated to handle an increasing multitude of character skills and attributes. The two extremes of this are the D&D/d20 and GURPS systems with dozens of book and the super simple systems like Fudge. I'm not sure where the diceless systems fit it as I have not read the Amber rulebooks.

I really like GURPS and I've read the d20 stuff and it seems OK, too. However, I'm either too old or too spoiled by computer games to invest the time to become a rules expect with either system. I am glad the new GURPS edition is rolling in the compendiums and vehicle rules and getting back to a one book plus any world books you want system.

Applicable to computer RPG's?

[8tim8]

I don't know much about GURPS but I'm curious: is it possible to use GURPS in a computer RPG, like the AD&D rules have been used? Or is it much more geared toward paper and pencil games?

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[blackcoot]

i doubt it, for for one major reason: there are entire classes of advantages and disadvantages which simply won't translate. how does the computer reward you for playing someone who's deluded into thinking that s/he is really zeus? (he he, that was a *fun* character) how do you handle the mental and social advantages / disadvantages / skills? for example, you're a historian from the future and you're doing some field research back in your favorite era. like the absent minded academic you are, you forgot to bring the right power converter to let your time machine work using the existing power supply, so you end up stranded with only one-way communications (if that!) to the future. translating this scenario into something that a computer could handle would be a daunting task (this is, of course, a fairly common occurance in the gurps universe[s] -- 50-100 points unusual background, -10 absent minded, etc.) how do you handle things like phobias, addictions, delusions, and so on?

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[mudpyr8]

They are already working on it, and focusing very much on the impact of disads, including social ones.

Here's the skinny: http://www.gurpsonline.com/
The first 2 settings are Old West and Transhuman Space. If you haven't seen the Transhuman Space stuff it is phenomenal, and the best of the GURPS line in terms of depth and quality.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[Lord_Pain]

Well, I believe it can be done. But you got to work your booty off coming up with flexible algorithms(sp?) to work with each of your examples. It would be hard work but I believe it can be done.

A GURPS computer games was in the works once upon a time. The deal fell through during developement. But the result was a little know game called Fallout. ;)
That game borrowed a few concepts from GURPS... OK alot of concepts from GURPS.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[Alliante]

The successful game Fallout was originally meant to have the GURPS mechanics, but Interplay decided on the "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." home-grown system.

I don't have a hard link to Interplay's site, but the closest Google Search that also mentions this fact is here

Turned out to be a licensing/legal dispute unfortunately, not a technical one.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[Harlockjds]

aparently sj games didn't like the direction fallout was going and pulled out.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[scrytch]

> is it possible to use GURPS in a computer RPG, like the AD&D rules have been used?

It lends itself even better, especially for combat-oriented games. GURPS combat rounds are one second each as opposed to D&D's minute rounds and vaguely defined "segments"(*) (are those even in third edition?). Bioware had to scale it down by a factor of 10 to get something approaching real time combat. In GURPS, if you fire off an automatic weapon, it has rules for modelling each individual bullet (but most GM's use the simpler variant). For a real amusing "roll a whole pile of dice" game mechanic, take a look at the shrapnel damage rules from the "GURPS High-Tech" sourcebook. GURPS has rules for weapon reach and models it at a 1 meter hex scale (or is it 1 yard?), including whether the weapon is in the right or left hand.

GURPS can mire you in so much mechanics if you follow it to the letter, that most GM's at some point do end up fudging things. Oddly, where GURPS doesn't have a lot of separate mechanics is in character stats: there's only four of them: strength, dexterity, intelligence, and health. Advantages, Disadvantages, and Quirks all make up for it, they are THE most fun in creating characters. In fact, I got to requiring any character in my D&D games to pick a balance of advantages and disadvantages from the GURPS sourcebooks, plus five quirks.

* - Not that I have a problem with D&D's system: for all of the derision aimed at D&D for being "hack and slash", it actually has one of the most abstract combat systems of any RPG, especially if you consider HP as experience and "heroic luck" instead of just being able to soak up damage, and require a DM to actually narrate combat rounds a little.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[Planesdragon]

GURPS combat rounds are one second each as opposed to D&D's minute rounds and vaguely defined "segments"(*) (are those even in third edition?).

Wrong.

d20/third edition (and 2nd edition's "Combat and Tacitcs" has 6-second rounds and no segments. Everyone is assumed to be doing six seconds of activity each round, and initiative is just used to determine who gets "done" first.

AND d20's a hell of a lot more "Universal" than GURPS. With a little bit of looking, you can find every RPG setting as a d20 version--and if you can't find it, you can make your own thanks to the Open Gaming License.

GURPS, despite is so-called "universality", is about as far from OSS as gaming gets. It's an odd inversion in RPGdom, wherein the 800lbs industry gorilla (Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro) is the most "open source" of the RPG system-makers.

(Of course, the "third party" companies like Mongoose or Sword Sorcery Studios are even more "Open Source", but they write games, not systems for games.)

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[InThane]

D&D 3rd edition has 6 second rounds. No segments at all.

As far as GURPS goes, the combat system CAN get screwy if you use the "advanced" combat system - but the basic combat system works just fine, and gets the job done quite well. The main point (for me) that GURPS breaks down in is in high point-cost characters - the system just doesn't balance well at that point. I find GURPS works better as a "gritty" low-point campaign than in a high-value "supers" campaign. Champions/HERO works better in that environment.

Be interested in seeing the changes...

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[InThane]

More specifically, SJ objected to the intro sequence where some guy (in a scene eerily reminiscent of a famous photo from Viet Nam) shoots a prisoner in the head, then waves a "hi, mom!" wave to the camera watching him.

Considering the global level of violence in the game, I think he overreacted. That's just my opinion, though, and he (and anybody else that wants to) is welcome to disagree.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[j_d]

AND d20's a hell of a lot more "Universal" than GURPS. With a little bit of looking, you can find every RPG setting as a d20 version--and if you can't find it, you can make your own thanks to the Open Gaming License.
You can do that with gurps, too. Hasbro just suckered a bunch of geeks who don't feel comfy releasing writing without some sort of license attached to it. In other words, they sold you what you already had the right to do. Besides, if it were 'open', you'd be able to republish core content. You couldn't do that the last time I cared about DnD -- which was shortly before they inanely added 'point five' to their revision system. I mean, why the hell does it matter if your Role Playing Game is open source or not?

The sourcebooks for gurps are often history lessons bound up in guise of roleplaying books -- that's what makes them so worthwhile, not the fact that they codify a system of dice rolling.

Judging by some of your appalling and embarrasing opinions, you could use a history lesson, so maybe you should switch from D20 -- mostly crazy fantasy worlds written by intellectually inbred children of Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien -- to GURPS, where things are a little more grounded in fact, when possible.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[mwheeler01]

You should probably take another look at GURPS. If you have a world in mind and you can't find a supplement, chances are GURPS has enough rules you can use to apply it to the world you're looking for. D20 on the other hand may have gobs and gobs of supplements but not all of the rules are nearly as high quality or go into as much depth.

Just because a game isn't OSS doesn't make it inferior or any less universal.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[Planesdragon]

You can do that with gurps, too.

No, you can't. Read the entire sentance.

If I wanted to write a GURPS supplement, it wouldn't go anywhere if Steve Jackson Games didn't feel it was worth publishing themselves. No licensing, no Open Gaming--no nothing.

You CAN do that with D&D. Go to http://www.theFGA.com/ or http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/ or even http://www.wizards.com/d20/ to learn how.

Judging by some of your appalling and embarrasing opinions...

There is, last time I checked, one historical document outside of the Gospels--and it either does not contradict or supports the Gospel's account of the Jewish people's involvement. (And it was written by a non-Christian jew.)

Which is beside the fact; I have yet to meet a jew that will admit to "if it did happen, it was a bad thing and I'd be pissed." It's a sort of social mind-block that a few sociological research papers could be written on. (OTOH, they wouldn't go anywhere, because even suggesting that there's anything wrong with any culture en masse that isn't a puny fourth-world tribe is taboo.)

to GURPS, where things are a little more grounded in fact, when possible.

There are historical-based d20 supplements. They don't fly well, because most RPG gamers don't really want to get anal-retentive with history--and those who do play GURPS. ;)

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[j_d]

If I wanted to write a GURPS supplement, it wouldn't go anywhere if Steve Jackson Games didn't feel it was worth publishing themselves. No licensing, no Open Gaming--no nothing.
Of course you could. There were third party supplements back in the seventies for DnD that weren't licensed. You'd have to ensure you didn't infringe on their copyrights at all, but you could do it.


There is, last time I checked, one historical document outside of the Gospels--and it either does not contradict or supports the Gospel's account of the Jewish people's involvement. (And it was written by a non-Christian jew.)

You might as well say "one historical document" period -- the difference between the Holocaust and the Crucifixion is that one is well documented history, and the other is epistolary mythology.
And don't fall into the trap of "the Jewish people" because "the Jewish people" encompass more people than those who conspired against Jesus.

Which is beside the fact; I have yet to meet a jew that will admit to "if it did happen, it was a bad thing and I'd be pissed."
Well, the Romans crucified lots of people -- beyond the fact that it was a cruel act in general -- they have no reason to share your spiritual indignation. The Holocaust was quite different.
(OTOH, they wouldn't go anywhere, because even suggesting that there's anything wrong with any culture en masse that isn't a puny fourth-world tribe is taboo.)
That's right -- it's the worldwide intellectual sociologist conspiracy keeping your level-headed opinion down. And you are, of course, wrong -- there's been a lot of writing critical on how bad American consumerism is, for instance.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[Anonymous Daredevil]

The excellent Fallout series was originally based on the GURPS engine. The 2 companies later had a falling out (no pun intended) and the game was released without any mention of SJ games or GURPS. But the game still felt very much like playing GURPS, especially in character creation.

That being said, the GURPS system is, in many ways more, complicated than AD&D, and thus more difficult to put into a computer medium. The spell system jumps to mind because it has a great variety of different kinds of prerequisites for spells. Each of these would have to be accounted for in some large rules based spell advancement system, for example.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if GURPS 4 is planning to address some of these issues. To make both the pen and paper game more consistent and simpler to learn, and the computer game easier to update as new sourcebooks are released.

Re:Applicable to computer RPG's?

[Planesdragon]

Of course you could. There were third party supplements back in the seventies for DnD that weren't licensed. You'd have to ensure you didn't infringe on their copyrights at all, but you could do it.

"don't infringe on their copyrights" can mean a heck of a lot more than "don't copy their text word-for-word." A few good cases can be made that an RPG is a "character" and thus deserving of copyright protection as-it-is.

At the very least, Steve Jackson could take me to court--and no distributor in the industry would sell me if they really wanted to say "no."

And don't fall into the trap of "the Jewish people" because "the Jewish people" encompass more people than those who conspired against Jesus.

Sorry. I have tried to be careful to avoid that grammatical collusion--the people who call themselves jews today have about as much blame for the Crucifixtion as I have for the Holocaust. (Hence the wording of my question.)

You might as well say "one historical document" period --

The Gospels, Epistles, and the multitude of books of the Old Testament are historical documents. Biased documents that reflect belief more than fact, but historical documents nonetheless.

Well, the Romans crucified lots of people -- beyond the fact that it was a cruel act in general -- they have no reason to share your spiritual indignation. The Holocaust was quite different.

Comments like that make me slide a bit more to the "Oh, get over it" side. There's nothing spiritual about my question--it's about as secular a question as I can ask about Christ's life.

The Jewish populace in the Gospels were somewhere between conspirational and complacant in Christ's crucifixtion. Regardless of how close the actual historical jewish populace were to their portrayal in the Gospels, the reaction of people when presented with a claim that the Jews were even partially responsible for the Cruicifixtion of Christ is, in a word, "enlightening."

That's right -- it's the worldwide intellectual sociologist conspiracy

Heh. Conspiracy? Hardly. It's simple politeness. Don't critize a world culture for something that culture doesn't aknowledge itself as having.

And it wouldn't suprirse me if such artices were written, and simply (mostly) ignored. People are drive to be polite to those within their social circle, and one of the consequenes of modern life is that we're all in each other's social circle. (Which is, by and large, a Good Thing.)

About time!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been waiting for SJG to get off their butts and put out d20 GURPS.

Superman versus the Hulk

[EastCoastLA]

The Test to any system is can you "realistically" convert superheroes to the system. We had an interesting experiment to see if Gurps could be used to convert Marvel and D.C. characters for battle. Who would win:

Superman versus the Hulk.
Converting this to Gurps was interesting. Using the comic meeting of the two as the base we had to include the disadvantages. In a quick battle Superman wins with his intelligence, but the NOTHING can stop the savage Hulk. The disadvantages included in the Gurps Supers helped big time.

Batman versus Daredevil
The Batman wins. He plays dirty. Discovers that Daredevil is a one trick pony. But the setting was a big x factor. Don't run into the devil in Hell's kitchen.

Ah GURPS

[SuiteSisterMary]

The system you may or may not like, but most of the World Books are works of genius; most are also designed that the background and creative material are sharpely separated from the GURPS underpinnings, allowing for easy adaptation to other game systems.

Of course, it's the flexibility inherant in the GURPS system that allows them to put out a Conan fantasy game, a Time Travelling book, a 'Robots Took Over The Earth' book, and a book about Bunnies, all on the same shelf.

GURPS Online

[DaRat]

An online version of GURPS, aka GURPS Online is in development. The first settings will be the Wild West and a semi-near future setting known as Transhuman Space.

The last time I played GURPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I played was about 10 years ago and that gaming session became a legend... the legend of the thirty second game time, hour and a half real time combat round.

Granted, we were in high school still adjusting to all the different types of game systems, but that one got us good.

But does it...

[Wylfing]

I've never taken a close look at GURPS. I wonder if it fixes my two major pet peeves about fantasy combat in every system I've ever seen:

1. The net benefits of full plate mail outweigh all other armor configurations. That's pure nonsense, but the rules make it so "middle" armors like chainmail (which should be the most useful armor for a fighter) are only for people who can't afford full plate.
2. The net benefits of the "longsword" outweigh all other weapons. Staves and axes, in particular, which should be fantastically effective, always pale next to the longsword (which isn't even a real weapon).

Re:But does it...

[TroubleMagnet]

You might like it. No details on the changes for 4e yet but for 3e:

1. You will need a to have enough strength to handle the emcumberence of plate to make it worth it. The guy in chain or lighter will be able to outrun the guy in plate if they have the same base speed. You also get vision and skill penalties if you wear the full helm with just eye slits.

2. Axes have higher damage than swords, staves have a better parry and flails are hard to defend against. Swords are a good general weapon but some of the others can be better for some combat styles.

Steve Jackson Games: A company still not recovered

[ArmorFiend]

Steve Jackson Games changed direction in 1991 (I think) when they were raided by the US Secret Service. Before that they'd basically made small wargames and strategy games. I think their cash cow was "Car Wars", but they also had success with Ogre, Raid on Iran, and Illuminati.

After the SS raid, they seemed to derive their primary income from GURPS. And starting in about 2000, they began supplementing that with gag card games like "chez geek", "munchkin", and "ninja burger".

Frankly, the pre-SS SJG was a lot cooler.

GURPS is great

[EatenByAGrue]

For those not in the know, GURPS is a great platform for building your own pen and paper RPG. Especially fun is crafting your character's personality from a huge list of positive and negative traits - nothing quite like playing a one-eyed kleptomaniac midget with a high IQ

Re:GURPS is great

[Allison Geode]

yeah, the disadvantages in GURPS can be a whole lot more fun than any other part of the game. we were playing a semi-serious/semi-silly campaign that went completely to hell when I gave the players too much free-reign on what they could do with their characters... basically, someone took skills in kung-fu, and a delusion that they were a chicken... a sense of honor, and the ability to ride horseback (in a modern, urban setting).. so basically we had a kung-fu chickenman (he even set it up so he bought a "chicken-mascot suit", and figured an armor class for it)... so he was a kung fu chicken vigilante, fighting the oppressors of his people, namely, KFC. and he actually role-played the character, and with a (mostly)straight face! it was funny as hell, and more fun than I've ever had with any other RPG system. it completley ruined the campaign I'd based ideas for that night, but I rolled with it, and we ended up having MUCH more fun than we probably would have with my generic "mercenaries raiding an experimental tech facility" (I reworked it so that it wasn't a tech facility, but instead, a chicken cloning farm. remember the urban legend about KFC changing their name because they used genetically modified animals,and could no longer call them chicken? yeah. its like that.)

Re:GURPS is great

[spun]

Oh, I have had the same exact problem with players at times. Especially theater majors. One guy played a sex pervert gargoyle that liked to fly above people and come in their hair like a monkey. It sounded kinda funny at first, and in character for a gargoyle, but it got... out of hand. I don't even want to think about it. Really tested my skills as a game master. I told him his character caught a gargoyle venereal disease, Stone Rot. Things crumbled into sand and gravel. It was the only thing I could think of to do to stop the madness...

Not to flex my geek nuts too much, but...

[Mongoose Disciple]

The net benefits of full plate mail outweigh all other armor configurations. That's pure nonsense, but the rules make it so "middle" armors like chainmail (which should be the most useful armor for a fighter) are only for people who can't afford full plate.

IMHO, this isn't true anymore in 3/3.5E D&D. It might well outweigh all other armor configurations for a mounted fighter, or one who is both non-dexterous and doesn't particularly care about his mobility, but in the general case, it doesn't.

A lot of changes in the game since 2E, some fairly obvious, some more subtle add up to full plate not being the be-all and end-all of armor anymore. You're at least as likely to see a fighting character in play armored in a chain shirt as in full plate mail.

The longsword thing is more of an opinion matter but I'd say that's much less of an answer to everything as well.

Re:Steve Jackson Games: A company still not recove

[Ondo]

Steve Jackson Games changed direction in 1991 (I think) when they were raided by the US Secret Service. Before that they'd basically made small wargames and strategy games. I think their cash cow was "Car Wars", but they also had success with Ogre, Raid on Iran, and Illuminati.

They got raided due to a GURPS supplement, so I have trouble believing that.

After the SS raid, they seemed to derive their primary income from GURPS. And starting in about 2000, they began supplementing that with gag card games like "chez geek", "munchkin", and "ninja burger".

And Frag, and Spooks, and Knightmare Chess, and a new edition of Car Wars, and others. Not to mention prior things like Ogre Miniatures and Illuminati: New World Order. Last year Munchkin accounted for over 30% of their sales, so it's hardly just "supplementing" GURPS.

Re:Steve Jackson Games: A company still not recove

[mwheeler01]

SJG was raided by the secret service for their cyberpunk book (still bleeding edge at that point) because it had rules for hacking into computers. They've been a profitable company practically every year since then except for last year due to some reorganization of their supply chain (non recurring expenses). They continue to win Origin awards for their games and are usually the second or third company ordered from by any hobby store to fill up their RP shelves. The "gag" card game Munchkin has won two Origins awards. GURPS was also inducted into the Origins hall of fame a few short years after D&D was (pre D20).

Too little, too late

[metamatic]

I wanted something like GURPS for years for assorted modern-day and SF campaigns. Unfortunately, Steve Jackson games refused to issue the metric version of GURPS in English, and I flat out refuse to run a science fiction game in old-fashioned units. Feet and inches and hogsheads are OK in pseudo-mediaeval games like D&D, for flavor, but I don't want to be working out storage capacities of starships in cubic feet or laser energy in ergs.

Then WotC released d20 under an open license, and now I can get Call of Cthulhu and d20 modern and T20 (Traveller d20) and mix and match as I like, and do all the SF stuff in metric. SJG had their chance, but I think d20 is going to wipe out GURPS.

That said, I may yet pick up a copy of GURPS 4th Edition if they drag it into the 20th Century. (Well, the 19th really, but let's not be too pedantic...)

Re:Too little, too late

[brotherscrim]

Dude, it's called a calculator. Try one sometime. Just do all of the vehicle design rules and such in their neanderthal units of measurment, then convert cf - m3. how tough is that? Shit, they even have nice "round" approximations for the various metric equivilents in the basic book to satisfy people just like you.

Re:Too little, too late

[SD-VI]

So because you don't want to bother doing the conversions from crappy to metric once (that's right, you can just write it down!) and altering your gameplay rules slightly for that, you'd rather take a vastly inferior system with a half-broken core mechanic? Hmmmmmmmm.

Re:Too little, too late

[Mongoose Disciple]

you'd rather take a vastly inferior system with a half-broken core mechanic?

That's really, at best, a matter of opinion. There've been a hundred different RPG systems over the years and there's yet to be one that did everything better than all the others in the opinion of everyone. At the risk of being tackled and beaten by suggesting as much on /., in that way, the situation is much like operating systems.

For some people, having to do various conversions on most of the numbers in a book is a big deterrent. I don't know that it's a deal-breaker for me, but it'd certainly make me look twice at other systems.

Granted, I don't think the d20 system suits the feel of Call of Cthulhu, but that's a whole other ball of wax.

GURPS has never been my cup of tea, but if releasing a new version of it helps make the system better at the things it does well and appeal to the people who like it? More power to SJG.

The REAL reason why SJG was raided

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, from Bruce Sterling's Hacker Crackdown, SJG was not raided because of GURPS:Cyberpunk. That's just how it was presented by the authorities to justify the raid. They were in fact raided because one of Jackson's employees was running a BB at home and one of his users used it as a storage site for a copy of the infamous E911 document.

Re:Steve Jackson Games: A company still not recove

[ArmorFiend]

There's a difference between being a well-selling game, and being a good game. Of course is subjective, however, munchkin's idea of strategy is "roll as high as you can". That to me is not a very interesting game. For the scale of the game (number of players, game components, etc), I prefer a more thinking game like pre-bastardization Jyhad / Vampire(the Eternal Struggle).

Obviously many people like GURPS, however, I wish it did not take up so much of their attention. This only started happening to annoying levels after the Car Wars bubble burst and the SS raid went down.

Rules, randomness and storytelling

[alexo]

> You can also get rid of the dice alltogether.

You could but, IMO, that would in most cases detract from the game.

> The big flaw behind all rpg games is the idea that randomness is at the heart of reality and at the heart of good games.
> Not that I dislike one game of rpg with dice, it can add spice to an action, but as a model to represent reality it is flawed.

This is a Role Playing Game, we're talking about, designing nuclear reactor!
You don't need realism (how realistic is frying orcs with fireballs anyway?), you need internal consistency and some statistical predictability. Dice, when used correctly, provide a simple aid towards that goal.

> Take that football player doing the run of his life, do you think the roll of a d20 against his capacities actually render in any way what is actually happening on the field?

Why not?

Allow me to use baseball instead of football for my example. We'll consider a hypothetical player with a batting average of .300

When that player player bats, there are probably millions of factors that can influence his chances of successfully hitting the ball but at the end of the day, this player will hit 3 out of 10 on average.

So taking all this factors and distilling them into a d20 roll of 15 or better is actually a pretty good approximation for a social game.

And the GMs can fine tune the way they see fit. Playing against a lousy pitcher? Have a +1 modifier. Hurt your shoulder in a brawl the day before? Make that a -2.

Combining all the factors into a single die roll (or two rolls in case of a charcter vs. charcter situation) with situational modifiers strikes a good balance between "realism" and playability, and if the 5% resolution seems too low, you can always use a d100 or higher.

Now, back to football. Statistically, that player has a certain chance of scoring a touchdown. You can roll the dice and spin a good tale based on the outcome, or you can break the run into several events (catching the ball, dodging the defence), each requiring a separate roll. As long as the presentation is convincing, the actual mechanism can be as simple or as detailed as you like - it will not make much difference.

> Going further, my group and I even suppressed all rules:

Rules are there to help you. If you feel constrained by them it means that either you chose the wrong rules for your game or you are not using them correctly.

> We realized that the rules were basically just a way to force everybody to be coherent with the rest of the group and with the adventure.

Rules also provide a point of reference. A framework that ensures consistancy and helps you build a believable universe.

> We immediatly realized we didnt need that, because nobody in the group wanted to take advantage over the others, but rather wanted the adventure to be really good, from a story telling point of view.

In order for a story to be a good one, the suspension of disbelief should come naturally and effortlessly. Without rules of some kind, it is difficult to maintain consistensy, which is essential given the immersive nature of good RPG campaigns.

Even when nobody tries to "take advantage", you still have a situation where several people with different styles and views collaborate on the same story. "External" rules help keep everybody on the same page without risking feelings of unfairness that can arise by GM decisions that are perceived as arbitrary.

We, as people are used to live in a world where the rigid laws of physics apply. We feel comfortable being able to calculate, or at least approximate, the results of given actions most of the time. An immersive game (or story, book, movie, play - they are all similar in that respect) should provide a similar feeling.

> We then realised we that we were actually creating a story

Re:Steve Jackson Games: A company still not recove

[mwheeler01]

I believe you're missing the point of Munchkin. It is meant to be a parody of DnD, the D20 version of Munchkin is essentially the same as D&D but the classes have ridiculous bonuses and the magic items are intended to be funny, like a two handed sword that actually has two hands on the pommel that can wield two more weapons.

d20 system better

[Anonymous Coward]

as much evil as WotC might be, they did FUCKING OPEN SOURCE the d20 system when they rewrote it all. I've tried like 5 times to play a GURPS based game and never got the hang of it. It seemed like crap.

D&D based on d20 was always better. and now it's open source.