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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."
Half the article talks about the the books appearance, leather, colors, hardback. Wheres the details in the article?
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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
What other system allowed for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to battle my Dwarf Mage Bruticus?
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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 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.