I love GURPS and Hero both. It irritates me when folks complain about having to read the rules, but I remind myself that I'm familiar with the games, know what you don't have to read to play, and that the comprehensive rules to both games are pretty big and intimidating to folks who haven't played them for decades.

No one ever complained about having to read Justice Inc, though. Terrific little boxed game. Short concise, rules book and a short, inspirational setting book, with accessories all in the box. Both Hero and GURPS could benefit from finding a new way to do that sort of thing, in addition to their regular presentations.

GURPS 4e seems pretty well done. I do miss the historical sourcebooks, though.

RPGPundit

I am not a GURPS player tried it years ago found it dry.

However I would say that for any generic system the Savage Worlds aproach of a cheap entry level book with the core mechanics that you can use to play most anything with a bit of work, supported by genre based settings books is the way to go.

The settings can be as complex, rich and idiosyncratic as you like (Solomon Kane for example) or very generic like a D&D style fantasy book that just has classes, spells, items, monsters etc.

This seems to be the best way forward from a game design perspective for both the players and the company (the penetration of Savage Worlds just due to the $10 Explorer edition is huge).

Quote from: Koltar;352576Sean Punch's work on 4th edition GURPS has made it a much, much, MUCH better Game.

Alas, not for me.

I loved GURPS 3e -- it was my go-to game for years. Did a crapload of playtesting of 3e books. Even did a little GURPS-centric writing (for Steam-Tech, Pyramid, and my GURPS Lite 3e e23 product).

But somewhere in the 4e playtest, I just started losing the thread of what was going on. It seemed like the game was becoming more HERO-like, and I dug GURPS because it was like a "chunkier"/"bigger block" version of HERO.

By the time the Powers playtest was going on, I realized I had no clue about 4e, and my interest in the overall system had dwindled accordingly.

However, I realize people's mileage varies -- some of my friends are utterly enraptured with the new edition. And good for them!

Quote from: Koltar;352576Also - I've met Sean Punch and talked with him a little bit at Gen Con. He's a heck of a nice guy and prettty damn reasonable. Good sense of humor too

QFT.

Kromm is a great guy, and has always been a pleasure to work with -- or just chat with.

Quote from: estar;352946Now I spent over $100 on GURPS Books and the monster list is nowhere near as comprehensive as other FRPGs. The same for magic items. There is no adventure in a format commonly used by D&D players. And the Fantasy Setting is a fantasy Rome which doesn't really relate to what most D&D player are used too.

Individually each of these weaknesses could be overcome by the general quality of the GURPS line but together they present a formidable barrier to the novice looking for an alternative from D&D. And like or not the prime source of players for second tier RPGS are ex-D&D players.

I think you're on to something here.

I played a lot of GURPS 3e back in the day, and recently, I became interested in revisiting the game, and decided on picking up a new copy of my own (my old one being long gone).

To my surprise, GURPS Basic Set: Characters is $40, and GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns, $35. I think that's one pricy buy-in.

Most supplements are $30-35, and you're likely to use at least 2 (say, Fantasy and Thaumatology, or Space and Ultra-Tech), which would set your back, which would set you back another $60-70, for a total of about $150.

Compare to Savage Worlds, at $10 the core, $20 the (admittedly, somewhat drab) Fantasy Companion, and possibly $35 for one of the nicer settings, like Slipstream or Sundered Skies. That's $65 for essentially the same thing.

Hell, compare to D&D, where you can get the three core books for $100 or whereabouts.

I love GURPS. I love toolkit games, and GURPS is the toolkit to end all toolkits; I think your complaint about setting is a bit misguided, because of this. GURPS is a great game for homebrew settings. However, it's a modular toolkit, and the modules are getting pretty damn expensive. I'd love to invest in GURPS but at this rate, it's becoming a luxury product, and I'll probably stick to Savage Worlds.

I'm not sure my dropping out counts as "the GURPS fanbase eroding" but there you go.

Damn. I miss me some GURPS.

Quote from: chadu;352999However, I realize people's mileage varies -- some of my friends are utterly enraptured with the new edition. And good for them!

Yours rather reflects my own, albeit from an inside perspective.  It's rather refreshing to me in fact to see someone who was there express basically exactly the same things I have been saying for years, only to be shouted down by whiny GURPS fanboys.

I don't at all understand the point of turning GURPS into HERO.  I don't have any problem with HERO, but we already have it, we don't need another one.  GURPS3 was a fairly straightforward game at it's core, and while the sourcebooks got all too interdependent, it was over all pretty easy to get into if you weren't a completist.  

GURPS 4 isn't a bad game, it just isn't the game I signed on for, and it seems to have been kludged together from a lot of unnecessary bits designed to cater largely to the ultra-hardcore that populate SJGames' forums, as opposed to a regular audience that as it was had given GURPS an (I think unfair) reputation as being a bit overcomplicated.

Quote from: Koltar;352864It was until the movies got made.

Someone made GURPS movies? :confused:

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;353027Someone made GURPS movies? :confused:

!i!

He's taking about Hellboy according to him it was an obscure property, until the moves got made (the first of which was nearly six years ago), as if that has something to do with the thread or my comment.
I predict he will resurface now, force some water through his blowhole and dive again.
If only you could have left well enough alone, Ian. If only.

Quote from: Aos;353030He's taking about Hellboy according to him it was an obscure property, until the moves got made (the first of which was nearly six years ago), as if that has something to do with the thread or my comment.
I predict he will resurface now, force some water through his blowhole and dive again.

The Hellboy book came out two years before the movie.

Sigh..
This was the post I was responding to initially. Notice the poster's use of the present tense- this is why I said that Doltar's post had nothing to do with mine, and it is why I didn't even bother to respond to it with any seriousness initially.

Quote from: David Johansen;352860I think they hung it on liscences too much.  Discworld, Myth (video game), Hell boy are all cool liscences but they're obscure.

My response:

Quote from: Aos;352863Hellboy is an obscure lisence?

Again notice the use of the present tense.


Furthermore, Hellboy is a nerd property. Making a game book of it  creates an overlap into another nerd hobby (which is pretty common) and I dispute the idea that Hellboy was obscure amongst people of the nerd subset of the overall population before the film came out. Certainly it was no more obscure amongst the general population than say, GURPS itself.

Quote from: Aos;353030If only you could have left well enough alone, Ian. If only.

"Whatever you do, don't open this box..."

Right.  Like that was going to happen.

Quote from: ticopelp;353033The Hellboy book came out two years before the movie.

Again, what GURPS movie? :confused:

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;353041Again, what GURPS movie? :confused:

!i!

Quack-quack.

Quote from: estar;352946Well suppose you are a D&D player disgruntled with with 4th edition and wants to try an alternate Fantasy RPG. GURPS has been around a while and has a reputation for being flexible, allowing totally custom character  for being some what realistic.

So you buy the two core rule book.

You read the two core rule books.
No monster manual, a lot of stuff about guns, geology, ah templates that seem the ticket but for fantasy we got Mage, possibly soldier of fortune, Dragon, dwarf and vampire.

Wait there is GURPS Fantasy so I buy that. Sure that better but then I find out there is GURPS Magic that has expanded version of the magic system in the Core Book.

Now I spent over $100 on GURPS Books and the monster list is nowhere near as comprehensive as other FRPGs. The same for magic items. There is no adventure in a format commonly used by D&D players. And the Fantasy Setting is a fantasy Rome which doesn't really relate to what most D&D player are used too.

That's because you've got too much game. In addition to a fantasy game with a full spell list, you also have an alternative Rome setting, a multiversal time travel game, technomagic spells, suggestions on how to write numerous fantasy campaigns, etc. That would be like saying:

Imagine you are a disgruntled GURPS player and you decide to give D&D a try. So you buy the PHB and the DMG. Then you buy the Eberron player's guide. Then you buy the Forgotten Realms, guide, too. Then you buy the PHB 2. Then you actually join a game and create a character to see if you like D&D....

You can try GURPS for free. If you like it, you can buy more GURPS. The correct thing for a dissgruntled fantasy GM to do is to buy the core books and start writing up the campaign he wants to run. All the other fantasy books he already owns becomes his bestiary, and he begins converting monsters a bit at a time... because in GURPS, you don't want or need 300+ kinds of insanely deadly creatures.

If you are interested in classic dungeon delving only, you would probably just grab the free 4e GURPS Lite, then Dungeon Fantasy.

Quote from: estar;352946These issues would be addressed by making a one book Fantasy RPG that is powered by GURPS. The same for Space and Horror. Supported by a handful of adventures each these three book would allow RPG players a clear pathway to learning GURPS and enjoying the rest of the line.

Here's one more anecdotal data point. My interest in GURPS was reawakened last year after we played a 6 month campaign of The Fantasy Trip. It's such a good game that it got me interested in the GURPS line, which I hadn't been all that interested in before. Anyway, I took a fresh look at the current edition of GURPS (4th) thanks to playing TFT, and I couldn't get into it for basically the reasons that Estar mentions. A one book fantasy RPG powered by GURPS would be something I'd buy pretty much sight unseen.

Instead, I ended up buying GURPS Man-to-Man on Ebay and I'll be probably be sticking with TFT (with a couple rules ported in) whenever I want to play a fantasy adventure RPG that isn't D&D.

I have said it several times, The Fantasy Trip is to GURPS what OD&D is to D&D3.