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Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion / Re: There will not be a Gurps 5th Edition
« Last post by GeekyBugle on Today at 02:50:02 AM »I'm not going to link to the thread at TBP nor will I quote it. It's the one where Phil Masters (of Steve Jackson Games) got a ban for explaining what the disadvantage "slave mentality" means in Gurps.
In that thread, he basically says there will not be a 5th edition for Gurps, unless the RPG market drastically changes, and the popularity for Gurps increases. It's not really a surprise, but hearing it from Phil makes it real.
What I find hard to believe is why they won't Kickstart it. The diehard fans alone would fund it, assuming it did not have an astronomical funding goal. Throw in a bunch of 4th Edition PDFs as stretch goals and it would skyrocket. The Dungeon Fantasy KS made $176,450 over a $100,000 goal, which isn't a spectacular success but it's a success nonetheless.
As a start, they could simply make a new Gurps Lite, which is something we've wanted since the beginning. Something that could appeal to D&D players who are looking for more realism or grittiness. There's definitely a market there, as evidenced by OSR games that try to do exactly that.
Imho, what they need is to take the engine and publish focused games, start with whatever they think it does best, and make a full game, in a single book, They already have lots of source books, but they won't get new players if they have to learn a brick with all it's fiddly bits and own also several other bricks and understand how to put them together to play X.
It's the same issue Hero System has, they stoped making full games and instead publish two massive bricks plus source books. I'm not buying all that shit, and then I would need to understand it enough to put it together.
Why would they need a 5th edition? To simplify things? I doubt it. Full games IMHO.