Here's my take on the differences;

FATE: It is very loose with Aspects. I have a couple problems with Aspects. First, you get the same bonus regardless of what it is. Second, people wrack their brains trying to come up with them. Finally, they feel terrible as special abilities. Games like the Dreseden Files or Strands of Fate created magic or powers whole cloth as a side-system, but then why not just find a good generic powers system? If you wanted generic FATE with a cool power system I recommend Strands of Fate. Personally, I don't like FATE but many people enjoy it. Worth looking into to see if you like how it does system.

Savage Worlds: It really is fast, furious, fun. However, I find the dice method irksome (my personal opinion). You roll a "wild die" of a d6 with every roll, which mitigates the potential swings of one die which feels like having attributes or skills rated in one die to be somewhat less important (therefore, it feels like everyone is about the same - again, in my opinion). I also don't like the health system, it's very simple and abrupt. It does a smash up job of being cinematic, and for quick character creation. The plot-point campaigns are well done. I really like the Solomon Kane stuff, it's super well produced and the plot-points are quasi-sandbox with lots of suggestions. Still, overall the system is not to my liking.

GURPS (4e): GURPS is a toolkit. As the GM, you pick and choose what things you want, what things the players can't take or can, and how you want things like magic and powers to work. This can require some upfront work. Of course, if you don't have the time you can pick up one of the "ready to rock" PDF series like Dungeon Fantasy, Action (for modern action hero stuff) or Monster Hunters. These offer you templates, settings and advice on how to run those games so you can hit the ground running.

GURPS allows your players to make the character they want. Within reason. You CAN make some strange awesome super being in a modern horror conspiracy game but that character's point total will likely be higher than their fellows. If that doesn't bother you or the other players, you can do that too. People often brag that "GURPS can make any character" and then some ass hat throws up some asinine concept that you wouldn't allow in any game whatsoever and now GURPS sucks because #stupidfuckingpeople. You can make a solid customized character based on reasonable archetypes for any genre. And you can customize where many games keep you in a box.

GURPS hit point, fatigue point and damage recovery system are awesome. You don't abruptly drop unconscious. You can get pretty beat up and with the negative hit points, has a natural "this is how much you're injured" system. You can run a classic D&D style game by handing out potions or having a healing cleric OR you can up the grittiness by limiting magic healing options. It feels like a real damage system to me. I would rather good fighters avoid blows and when they take a hit, it means something.

I really like the options for Magic. I really like to be able to tune up spells. GURPS has lots of options for how magic can work. From Ritual Path magic to the original GURPS magic system. The options are awesome and I really enjoy them.

There has to be thousands of pages of 4e material. There is tons of advice and examples on how to adapt or emulate things in 4e. There is a monthly PDF magazine called Pyramid that is dedicated to GURPS and roleplaying.

Yes, the writing is precise. It is "an encyclopedia" of gaming info. If you have a setting without an RPG or a especially something you created, you can take GURPS, tune it up and create the "engine" that drives it. Or, perhaps you have a system that you don't really like, and you like how GURPS works, you can replace it.

GURPS is complex in structure but simple in execution. It starts with 3d6 roll under your Skill. You roll d6 plus adds for damage. There are a slew of modifiers available or you can simplify them like in Action.

OK, I'm rambling now. I think it's the best generic system option out there. It takes some upfront work, but I'm really starting to realize how much it's worth it. Every time I think about modding a system, I think to myself "GURPS does this better already".

Of the generic systems I know of. Lets see.

Gurps: Probably the best toolkit from hell out there. Also one of the hardest to get into for some. Absolutely requires a GM who can reign in and trim mercilessly. Technically in print. But it feels sometimes like its OOP.

BESM(Big Eyes Small Mouth): Another good toolkit setup. Fairly versatile and freeform. Intended for anime style romps. But is versatile enough to cover just as much ground as Gurps. Moreso actually as BESM can do supers fairly well. Out of print but easy to find.

Amazing Engine: The little engine that tried. No toolkit. Very setting book dependant. Some neet ideas though in those setting books. OOP.

Palladium system: The game that proved that D&D really could handle just about any possible setting you could throw at it. Very setting book dependant. But one book tended to give you a pretty interesting setting. Scraypers is still one of my favorites from the series.

Alternity: The other little engine that tried. Much more of a toolkit. But only barely realized before it was ended. OOP.

d20 Modern: another pseudo-toolkit that was setting book dependant to really shine. Some rather nice pieces produced for it. And some really abysmal ones too. OOP but relatively easy to find.

Torg: not quite generic. But close enough. The system could cover quite a bit of themes. Setting book dependant to really shine though. Nile Empire is my favorite. OOP and not easy to find.

Mythic: Really freeform system that does not require a GM. Can cover pretty much anything imaginable. But is really dependant on players who are not jerks to try to derail or abuse the system.

Mekton Zeta: An odd one. Its geared to mecha combat and started off as a wargame more than an RPG. Still feels that way really. But via the system you can cover quite a bit of territory.

Quote from: TristramEvans;8253893) recognizing humour is an important part of participating in adult conversations.

Quote from: The Butcher;825401...

In any case, I think Tristram and Jeremy were very clearly tongue-in-cheek.

...

Fair enough, I guess I felt it was disparaging. If someone is investigating systems I think Tristam's blurb was somewhat akin to saying "GURPS sucks, don't play it". It's almost an inside joke for people who give GURPS a hard time for "being too complicated", etc. Not sure how obvious the humor was or would be to someone looking for comparisons.

A few obscure ones worth mentioning.

JAGS (Just Another Roleplaying Game System) is a more rigorous and structured points buy game that uses 4d6 with 6 read as 0 as its system.

CORPS is a technical masterpiece by an expert designer but even more than GURPS, it handles high powered stuff poorly.  Not for everyone but certainly deserving more praise than it gets.

EABA by the designer of CORPS (Greg Porter IRRC) is a more open ended game with a dice pool mechanic.  While I'm sure the technical aspects and math are excellent, I hate dice pools so I never gave it another glance.

FUZION an attempt to blend HERO and Interlock, FUZION is the game that failed at everything.  I really like FUZION in concept but in practice its sub games were often internally incompatible.  It could have been so good but somewhere in there it just never came together.

QUAGS rude, abrasive and funny.  Get your "there's a monkey up my butt" tee shirt and a grand cathedralpult from their Stuff guide and a bag of yum yums and stop caring about what makes sense or is realistic.  

TWERPS The World's Easiest Roleplaying System by Jeff and Marsha Dee.  Roll 1d10 + Strength to do everything.  Hit points equal Strength.  Heck I think even movement = Strength.  Cutsey and silly and yet very well supported.  Lots of cute little counters and silly gags.

Anyone remember the name of long time GURPS writer S John Ross's game where Dish Washer -18 beats Prince of Hell-17 every time?

Quote from: CRKrueger;825328Why the interest in generic?  Is your campaign something you think will need a system that can support Supers, Fantasy & Mecha?  

It begins with the fact that I have players interested in different genres. These players are also not going to stay interested if I have to teach them more than two systems.

SO I am working up a story that has an eternal champion vibe.  The characters are sometimes aware that the world around them changes.

Then I read The Flux by John Wick and thought this is half of what  I need.

In his book he outlines a few simple ideas to make it easy to switch from game to game while maintaining the characters.

He is pretty ambitious as his system allows you to switch complete rules systems.

I have one player who has only ever played D&D. He wants fantasy and can not yet concieve of classless sytsems
One who only plays whitewolf. He really wants to play Werewolf the apocalyse
The other guy has a resonably diverse background but is interested in certain settings and concepts like 7th Sea, Scion, and L5r

At this point I am just desparate to get some gaming in since I just moved and have not been able to find an english speaking game in my area.

Ideally I want a system that can handel  7th Sea + Eberron or Pathfinder + Werewolf/Deadlands crossover + WWII Supers + a home made Urban Fantasy.  

That would be 5 settings in planning, However some will only be brief for a sesion or two while others may be 6 months of play time. If the game runs well it should last around 36-48 episodes.

Quote from: TristramEvans;825337Things Savage Worlds kinda sucks at:  Hard science fiction, epic Tolkienesque fantasy, subtle fantasy, urban fantasy, and generally any game going for a more serious or thoughtful tone.

You missed one:  Anything that needs to cover a wide range of damage scales.

The key mathematical issue I have with SW is that damage is always "X to Shake, X+4 to Wound" regardless of the value of X.  This works out reasonably well in the system's sweet spot where most targets (people) have Toughness 5-7, plus maybe a point or three of armor, and most attacks are doing 2d6 or 2d8, plus maybe an extra d6 if the attack roll Aces.

Then you scale that up to vehicular combat and get into weapons that do 4d10 or 5d10 damage.  Even if you completely ignore the increased odds of exploding damage rolls from using more dice, the difference between, say 30 to Shake and 34 to Wound on 5d10 is a much narrower probability gap than the difference between 6 to Shake and 10 to Wound on 2d8, so the higher end inexorably marches towards a state where every hit is either a ping or a kill.

The same applies to supers, if not more so, which I suspect is the main reason for SW's reputation of not doing supers very well.

Quote from: ravynwinter;825428It begins with the fact that I have players interested in different genres. These players are also not going to stay interested if I have to teach them more than two systems.

SO I am working up a story that has an eternal champion vibe.  The characters are sometimes aware that the world around them changes.

Then I read The Flux by John Wick and thought this is half of what  I need.

In his book he outlines a few simple ideas to make it easy to switch from game to game while maintaining the characters.

He is pretty ambitious as his system allows you to switch complete rules systems.

I have one player who has only ever played D&D. He wants fantasy and can not yet concieve of classless sytsems
One who only plays whitewolf. He really wants to play Werewolf the apocalyse
The other guy has a resonably diverse background but is interested in certain settings and concepts like 7th Sea, Scion, and L5r

At this point I am just desparate to get some gaming in since I just moved and have not been able to find an english speaking game in my area.

Ideally I want a system that can handel  7th Sea + Eberron or Pathfinder + Werewolf/Deadlands crossover + WWII Supers + a home made Urban Fantasy.  

That would be 5 settings in planning, However some will only be brief for a sesion or two while others may be 6 months of play time. If the game runs well it should last around 36-48 episodes.

My suggestion would be MSH/FASERIP. Its heavily supported, and available free online. The system is crunchy enough to be satisfying, robust enough to tinker with to your heart's content, but people who have never played before can pick it up in under 5 minutes. Writing up NPCs is a breeze. It handles any heroic/pulp situations well, and adapting it to a new genre is as simple as deciding what circumstances in the game award Karma. Its expanded magic system is excellent, the Ultimate Powers book covers any kind of demi-human/monster/mythological beastie/diety or extraterrestrial you can think of, and combat is intuitive, fast and fun while still providing a variety of tactical options. It equally supports the use of miniatures or theatre of the mind play, and the gadgeteering/inventing rules are a blast.

Quote from: ravynwinter;825428It begins with the fact that I have players interested in different genres. These players are also not going to stay interested if I have to teach them more than two systems.

What genres mainly?

My first impression is that you have what I view as very casual and disinterested players.  I'm basing that on very little of course, but I get the view that your players just want to show up and let you handle all the work.

If that's the case, I'd definitely avoid any complex or moderately complex point build system.  On the plus side, they probably won't be interested in reading the books much less acquiring their own copies, so that opens up more obscure OOP games.

I'd suggest D6.  Other than the classic WEG Star Wars stuff, there are three D6 corebooks which should be relatively easy and inexpensive to acquire copies of online.  If you don't want to spend any money, they're all available as free PDFs online as well.  They're D6 Adventure, D6 Fantasy, and D6 Space.  Supplements are available for all.  Each one had a monster book.  The Space book had  a ship design book.  So, there are some resources.  The main flaw is the magic book never got released, but I think a preliminary version is available as a PDF.

Quote from: The Butcher;825401Holy cow, your devotion to GURPS is borderline disturbing.

Not as disturbing as some people's devotion to Savage Worlds or Fate IMHO.

Quote from: ravynwinter;825428It begins with the fact that I have players interested in different genres. These players are also not going to stay interested if I have to teach them more than two systems.
(...)

That would be 5 settings in planning, However some will only be brief for a sesion or two while others may be 6 months of play time. If the game runs well it should last around 36-48 episodes.

Hm, have you looked into GenreDiversion 3E? It has been described as the "Thinking Man's GURPS" on this very site...

Also, how's about good old Fudge?

Quote from: David Johansen;825395Fate is related to Fudge only not fun.   It's what happens when people with more agendas than good sense take a  simple game and make it complicated.

I rather like this.

Quote from: Gabriel2;825443What genres mainly?

My first impression is that you have what I view as very casual and disinterested players.

Main genre will be 2-3 flavors of fantasy, Horror, Supers, and Modern


The players are a combination of people who "USED" to game and have never gamed. Several have Jobs that will limit thier ability to do much when away fro the game table so you are somewhat correct in your assesment of the lionshare of the work being mine.

Quote from: ravynwinter;825477Main genre will be 2-3 flavors of fantasy, Horror, Supers, and Modern

Supers are a pretty big hurdle for my D6 suggestion.  I'd also say that GURPS is a pretty poor fit to Supers, as well as possibly not fitting your group while making a lot more work for you.

I don't know anything about Fate or Savage Worlds.  From what tiny amount I know about them, I think they're fairly light, and I presume that's what level of crunch you're seeking.  So that rules out suggestions like Champions Complete or Mutants and Masterminds 3e.

It sounds like you're wanting to run something like the old Tom Moldvay game "Lords of Creation" where you jump from one genre to another within the same adventure. That game's got some good ideas but most people seem to find the skill system too wacky. You could pick up a copy and steal some ideas though.

You might also want to look into doing something with Mini Six instead. It's a simple system based on the old d6 rules that can handle multiple genres and should work well with the type of campaign you're describing. Modern, fantasy, and horror are easy enough to do, and of the two games I know that use the rules one of them (The Mighty Six) is a supers game.

Plus, you can get the PDF of Mini Six for free to check it out: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/144558/Mini-Six-Bare-Bones-Edition

Quote from: David Johansen;825395Basic Roleplaying is AMAZING [...] it also has no way of really balancing anything.  A Melnibonian sorcerer and Gloranthan duck and a wolf riding elf could team up with a super heroic godling and a hard boiled detective and the game system wouldn't burp but there's absolutely no tools beyond the Gamemaster's wits for balancing encounters or their results.

That's a nice summary. I knew I liked the game for a reason.

Supers always seems to be a sticking point... I've never seen a lot of agreement on what system does them, in all their various forms, well... and if one did I'm not sure it would be all that good at Horror, where protagonists are usually relatively weak.
I'd vote BRP as my go-to 'generic' system/toolkit... and it does have rules for supers that play to my liking, but I generally prefer street-level stuff like The Shadow and The Phantom to cosmic heroes like Green Lantern. I dunno what system would do justice to something like the Warpsmiths.