Are there any GURPS clones? The only thing I know of that comes close are the 'programmed adventures' from Dark City Games... which are pretty much solo adventures using the rules from The Fantasy Trip.
Much as I like GURPS I'd probably go for something welding a legal dupe of GURPS Lite to a specific purpose.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;531601Oh, ok.  I only hear about Warhammer 40K from the players at the tables when I'm in the game stores.  I don't belong to any 40K forums.

It's been a while since I frequented a local game store... but yeah, I heard a lot less complaining during games.

Quote from: Simlasa;531614Are there any GURPS clones?

The only other stuff I've ever played that was based on GURPS were the Fallout PC games.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;531606The CIA or FBI (I forget) left a bad vibe on him.  He had enough with lawyers.  Another event roll like that one would finish SJGames.  He just never recovered fully game-spirit wise.  Just kept an aloof presence about anything.

Working with the CIA, FBI, or NCIS is never fun.  Unless you have very high bureaucrat skills.

I hadn't thought about it from that angle. Huh. That makes sense if it's true. Has Steve Jackson ever made a statement that his experience with that ordeal has caused him to lose interest in his tabletop line?


To the person that asked a few pages back- yes, I meant a 4th edition Fantasy Bestiary. It's the most requested GURPS book I've seen of, from personal experience and online.

I have lots of Bestiary books for GURPS.  But I don't see a 4th edition one for fantasy.  Those books I don't use much.

Quote from: Marleycat;531603Traveller does it better anyway.

So use the GURPS: TRAVELLER rules with the SERENITY deckplans - its pretty close in spirit. Just declare the ship has a Jump 2 or jump 3.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;531635So use the GURPS: TRAVELLER rules with the SERENITY deckplans - its pretty close in spirit. Just declare the ship has a Jump 2 or jump 3.

- Ed C.

Yep.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;531634I have lots of Bestiary books for GURPS.  But I don't see a 4th edition one for fantasy.  Those books I don't use much.

That's because you're special.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;531606The CIA or FBI (I forget) left a bad vibe on him.  He had enough with lawyers.  Another event roll like that one would finish SJGames.  He just never recovered fully game-spirit wise.  Just kept an aloof presence about anything.

Working with the CIA, FBI, or NCIS is never fun.  Unless you have very high bureaucrat skills.

Or you get to date Abby Sciuto.  

JG

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;531606The CIA or FBI (I forget) left a bad vibe on him.

Neither. The Secret Service.

See "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling. It's available for free pretty much everywhere, by author fiat.

Quote from: James Gillen;531891Or you get to date Abby Sciuto.  

My dad loves that show.  And I'm always telling him that no one working for NCIS is remotely like her or works in such an office.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;531897Neither. The Secret Service.

Ah, that's the dept.

As a former fan of GURPS who has renounced  the system, this is my opinion.

First of all, some GURPS fans seem to be under the delusion that if it weren't for Munchkin, GURPS wouldn't have lost its former share of the market and would be selling better. If only SJG supported GURPS more, it would return to its old days of glory.

This is not true. Since it was released, GURPS 4th is selling worse than GURPS 3rd, this is a fact, and SJG reacted like it should have, that is, reducing the support of GURPS and increasing the support of the things that did sell, like for example Munchkin.

So the question is, why is GURPS 4th selling worse than GURPS 3rd? I think that rules-wise, 4th is a better edition than 3rd, I like some of the rules changes so much that I preferred them over my houserules for 3rd. But not everything is perfect with GURPS 4th, and the exact problem dawned on me when I finally ran a GURPS 4th game. The problem is that GURPS has become too bloated. It's not an exclusive problem of GURPS 4th, GURPS 3rd was bloated too, but I think GURPS 4th was the straw that broke the camel's back. Every succesive edition of GURPS has become more and more bloated, until the fans said enough. Character creation is a chore, you get a long list of skills, advantages and disadvantages, most of which will not be relevant to the campaign you want to play. A lot of GMs and players don't want that, they want chargen to be as fast as possible, they want to be done with it as soon as possible and actually get to play the game. This is, in my opinion, why GURPS is losing sales more and more.

The solution? I would have a look at GURPS competitors, BRP and Savage Worlds (not at HERO, HERO is done unless they realize they have the same problem as GURPS). In spite of the Big Golden Book, the point of BRP was never to have a generic universal system, the point was to have one system for several different games. Although the core system of Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer and RuneQuest is the same, every game has its own flavor, and the most importantly, you don't have to decide which skills or advantages are available or not, character creation is very straightforward in these games. Regarding Savage Worlds, they have always tried not to go overboard with the rules, its emphasis has always been on plug-and-play settings.

The modern gamer is generally a thirty or forty-something, with a wife/husband and children, who no longer has the time for games like GURPS or HERO. If instead of the two big GURPS corebook, you got one powered by GURPS manual tailored to a setting, with just the relevant rules for that setting and NO MORE, well, I wonder, would it do better?

Quote from: Simlasa;531614Are there any GURPS clones? The only thing I know of that comes close are the 'programmed adventures' from Dark City Games... which are pretty much solo adventures using the rules from The Fantasy Trip.

The closest thing I have ever seen is the Captain Alatriste RPG. It's clearly a GURPS derivative, but unlike GURPS, it's not generic.

Quote from: Claudius;531983First of all, some GURPS fans seem to be under the delusion that if it weren't for Munchkin, GURPS wouldn't have lost its former share of the market and would be selling better. If only SJG supported GURPS more, it would return to its old days of glory.

This is not true. Since it was released, GURPS 4th is selling worse than GURPS 3rd, this is a fact, and SJG reacted like it should have, that is, reducing the support of GURPS and increasing the support of the things that did sell, like for example Munchkin.

Word. If anything, Munchkin is probably keeping GURPS alive, by dint of keeping SJG afloat.

Quote from: Claudius;531983The modern gamer is generally a thirty or forty-something, with a wife/husband and children, who no longer has the time for games like GURPS or HERO. If instead of the two big GURPS corebook, you got one powered by GURPS manual tailored to a setting, with just the relevant rules for that setting and NO MORE, well, I wonder, would it do better?

I don't know. Those would still be some pretty hefty books. I find it hard to imagine a way to dial down the complexity of GURPS without, well, without it ceasing to be GURPS, to feel like GURPS.

The main stumbling block for me is character generation. D&D 4e circumvented this problem by making the D&D builder free at levels 1-3 (leveling is done in small increments, so the free CB was enough for us). Maybe if SJG made the character generator software a free download, things would be easier.

I don't hav e any hard data (no one does, I think), but I feel that you're right, in that the market for good, old-fashioned heavy-duty systems like GURPS and HERO seems to be contracting. Such detailed game engines seem to be increasingly the province of an aging old-schooler demographic that clings to its favorite edition, and doesn't buy new stuff (at least not in the volumes necessary to keep a line alive and kicking like back in the day).

Quote from: The Butcher;532005I don't know. Those would still be some pretty hefty books. I find it hard to imagine a way to dial down the complexity of GURPS without, well, without it ceasing to be GURPS, to feel like GURPS.

The main stumbling block for me is character generation. D&D 4e circumvented this problem by making the D&D builder free at levels 1-3 (leveling is done in small increments, so the free CB was enough for us). Maybe if SJG made the character generator software a free download, things would be easier.

I know people have different opinions on complexity. My opinion is that the core of GURPS isn't that complex. See GURPS lite. The problem is in your second paragraph. It is the sheer wealth of options. And the need to distill it for a particular campaign by players AND referees.

It used to be that it was pretty straightforward to see what you needed to do for a fantasy campaign and that the issue afflicted mainly modern and science fiction campaign.

But the GURPS 4e removed the fantasy bias and now it is truly a generic system within the core books.

To me it is blatantly obvious that to expand the audience for GURPS that you need a solid standalone intro product.  Which means more sales for the rest of the line, including the current core rulebooks, and more work for the SJ Games stable of freelancers.