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Wyzdum
Sergeant
400 Posts
    
Long Island, NY
 | | 04/26/2006 10:28 PM |
| I love DnD, I'm an avid player and everyone who plays also thinks I'm a pretty good DM. I have most of the books and all kinds of props and minis and terrain (above and below ground).
But, I started playing GURPS and I LOVE it! The characters can really be fine tuned to depict attitudes and emotions and it's great for serious role players who don't want to just hang out, eat munchies and go off on tangents everytime something in the game reminds them of a movie line or rock song, (tell me it's not true).
Additionally, there are hundreds of genres to choose from. You can create a character for a DnD style fantasy campaign and the next time make one for an Indiana Jones/League of Ext. Gents style campaign (called Cliffhangers), then play WW2 and then Traveller (grand-daddy of futuristic space scenerios). And each time you make a new character, you use the same rules to create them. You just change the things they can and would be able to do to match the genre/period.
So, tell me, who out there has tried this game and has actually given it enough time to really get into it?
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IanB
Commander
3112 Posts
| | 04/26/2006 10:40 PM |
| I've played it a number of times.
I think it has some problems; d20 does too, but it is more condusive to the sort of game I prefer.
GURPS seems to be a little more prone to min/maxing nightmare characters (4th edition seems a bit better about that) and combat takes for-freaking-ever. I like a faster system, which d20 gives me, even if it does bog down in high level play.
Character advancement is too incremental for my tastes; I prefer a system with more noticeable increases in character power.
I do think GURPS makes a better system for odd one-shot adventures with fully developed characters than d20 does. | |
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Cthulhufnord
Warlord
10980 Posts
Umass Amherst Baby!
| | 04/27/2006 12:48 AM |
| I've played in an run a number of Gurps games myself. It's one of my favorite generic rp systems after Unisystem and White Wolf. It's does have it's issues in regards to character creation/min-maxing and combat speed. I tend to run Gurps fast and light myself, as long as I ignore some of the advanced rules it runs pretty smoothly.
I tend to use gurps for my "when worlds collide" style games, like Gritty space drama meets Call of Cthulhu; or Gentelle Victorian adventure meets The Lords and Ladies. I've yet to use their superhero rules, allthough that day is fast approaching if City of Heroes the RPG isn't released soon. | |
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jacksonm
Warlord
5560 Posts
River City
| | 04/27/2006 11:59 AM |
| GURPS can be a lot of fun. I use to have a bunch of their Conan stuff and I enjoyed it a lot.
As Cthulhufnord said, it's very good for mixing genres and allowing you to design your custom camapign setting.
That being said I haven't played it in a while though. It's more or less been all D&D. | | | |
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kyrin
Commander
3168 Posts
| | 04/27/2006 12:05 PM |
| I've used GURPS for a Horror campaign, and that worked very well, although the PCs spent a lot of time in the hospital...
Never played GURPS Fantasy, though. It seems to me like magic is waaay too weak, and from a DMs perspective, monsters take a little long to create. But again, I've never played Fantasy.
I can see that a bit of GURPS has crept into d20, however: more customizable characters, magic item creation, battles taking longer... [:D]
JIM
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Sulaco
Underboss
1605 Posts
| | 04/27/2006 12:29 PM |
| | I've played GURPS many times. It seems so great in theory but it never actually turns out to be much fun to actually play. The rules and mechanics get in the way more than they help, and it is very open to min/maxing and manipulation. In my experience it is a system favoured by, and suited to, those who do math for fun. | |
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drabbacs
Skirmisher
1 Posts
| | 04/27/2006 3:14 PM |
| I've played Gurps since the late 80's across several genres including fantasy, shadowrun, cybertech, weird wars, superheros, wild west, etc.
Regarding fantasy, I like the point based approach to magic. Something about a character forgetting how to cast a spell because they used up their slots for the day has always bugged me. I also liked the ability to amp up the spell power (at higher cost) on demand or the ability to choose to be so good at a particular spell or spells that it effectively is cast for free. That ability of fine tuning the character concept is appealing.
Yes the math to do these things can be daunting at times but with a good character generator, it pretty much eliminates that problem.
The combats tended to get bogged down so our group streamlined the rules in earlier editions. 4th edition handles combat much better than past editions.
Just some random observations. | |
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Wyzdum
Sergeant
400 Posts
Long Island, NY
| | 04/27/2006 5:11 PM |
| Hi All,
Hey, I see we have some experienced GURPS players. As far as the problems inherit in the system, a good DM can speed things up and make for quick calculations if they know the rules well, just as with D&D.
By the way, I really like the fact that, in GURPS, ranged shots can target specific body groups (areas) and cause more realistic situations. Like, if you get shot with an arrow or bullet in your left arm, then you won't be able to use that arm very well, if at all.
So, I have redesigned the ranged attack rules for D&D to include hit locations. In a similar fashion to GURPS, you throw - say a "3" - and it may mean your right hand recieves the indicated damage. With a quick glance at a reference chart I see that the longbow arrow that did 8 pts. of damage is enough to render the hand useless.
This then can mean several things, such as no more shield (or sword if lefty), causing changes, (ie: AC, dex, str, con). Or it may mean possibly less overall hit points or just a percentage lost due to the fact it isn't life threatening. If it was in the leg or foot, you get a slower speed, etc. This may allow more seemingly overall hit points - but it's OK because the battle becomes more "real" and less decided on just a random roll.
Also, as in GURPS, if you wait an extra turn to aim, your chance of hitting your choice of body part (ie: vital organ) gets better. In other words, if you hang back, declare you're aiming an extra round, you get say a +2 to hit modifer.
The truth is that once you have the stats in place, it makes for a more dramatic skirmish where the DM can describe in greater detail the extent and effect of the damages done.
Such as,
"The Orc takes a hit in the right shoulder, causing him to drop his battle-axe just as the half-elf, who had been aiming, lets go his arrow - hitting him between his ribs."
Well anyway, I encourage everyone to try the range attack rule changes and see if it creates a more fun battle round. Let me know if you do and share the results.
While on the subject, does anyone else make variations to the D&D rules?
Oh, and let's not loose sight of the original topic! | |
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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
Walnut Creek, CA
| | 04/27/2006 7:58 PM |
| I think that Gurps is better for certain settings ... particularly, settings that are designed to have 'realistic' PCs. Accordingly, I prefer to use it for western, space, espionage, and horror games. If I want something with a strong fantasy edge (such as medieval fantasy, superheroes, post apocalypse mutants, etc...), I prefer the d20 system.
A few suggestions on running Gurps:
* If you find the advancement in Gurps to be too slow, speed it up. Instead of a few points after each session, give ten or so.
* If your combat is slow, simplify the combat. Fewer foes make combats run faster. Also, the players never know what you wrote for the enemies. Sometimes it can be faster to just 'estimate' what is happenning to the bad guys.
* Another way to speed up the combats - think tactics before the battle - and think bad! Set the bad guys up so that there are some obvious ways for the PCs to move or act. Set up situations so that the enemy has to spend a lot of time moving, and less time attacking (or doing other things that involve dice and tables). Also, consider prerolling a few events that are likely to occur so that you, as the GM, do not need to spend as much time during the combat rolling dice, looking up skills, etc... If the PCs throw you off track with an unexepected move (or unusual levels of success with what you expected them to do), you're going to have to abandon the prerolled stuff ... but, if not - you'll save a lot of in game time. This should *not* be done for any critical rolls, but is a fine way to get rid of lots of fairly unimportant rolls.
Some places where I'd use this:
a.) If the party makes too much noise sneaking up on the enemy, they'll flee as soon as they hear it. I'd preroll the rolls they'd need to make to sneak away if they catch on before the PCs are in the room with them.
b.) You expect some of the weaker enemies to flee as soon as they see the PCs. I'd preroll any rolls they'd need to make to open locked doors, leap over obstacles, etc... as they flee.
c.) Enemy technicians are trying to make a computer system do something ... and the result of some die rolls will determine how long it will take. I'd roll this in advance, as it allows me to know how long the PCs will have to get to (and kill) the technicians before they finish their evil plan. This prevents me from planning 30 minutes of encounters while the PCs try to get to the techs when there will only be 3 minutes before they complete their plan. | |
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IanB
Commander
3112 Posts
| | 04/27/2006 8:03 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Wyzdum
Hi All,
Hey, I see we have some experienced GURPS players. As far as the problems inherit in the system, a good DM can speed things up and make for quick calculations if they know the rules well, just as with D&D.
By the way, I really like the fact that, in GURPS, ranged shots can target specific body groups (areas) and cause more realistic situations. Like, if you get shot with an arrow or bullet in your left arm, then you won't be able to use that arm very well, if at all.
So, I have redesigned the ranged attack rules for D&D to include hit locations. In a similar fashion to GURPS, you throw - say a "3" - and it may mean your right hand recieves the indicated damage. With a quick glance at a reference chart I see that the longbow arrow that did 8 pts. of damage is enough to render the hand useless.
This then can mean several things, such as no more shield (or sword if lefty), causing changes, (ie: AC, dex, str, con). Or it may mean possibly less overall hit points or just a percentage lost due to the fact it isn't life threatening. If it was in the leg or foot, you get a slower speed, etc. This may allow more seemingly overall hit points - but it's OK because the battle becomes more "real" and less decided on just a random roll.
Also, as in GURPS, if you wait an extra turn to aim, your chance of hitting your choice of body part (ie: vital organ) gets better. In other words, if you hang back, declare you're aiming an extra round, you get say a +2 to hit modifer.
The truth is that once you have the stats in place, it makes for a more dramatic skirmish where the DM can describe in greater detail the extent and effect of the damages done.
Such as,
"The Orc takes a hit in the right shoulder, causing him to drop his battle-axe just as the half-elf, who had been aiming, lets go his arrow - hitting him between his ribs."
Well anyway, I encourage everyone to try the range attack rule changes and see if it creates a more fun battle round. Let me know if you do and share the results.
While on the subject, does anyone else make variations to the D&D rules?
Oh, and let's not loose sight of the original topic!
See all that stuff about hit locations, etc., is a big part of what I don't like about GURPS combat. d20 combat is just as tactical, it just isn't quite as granular, and thus it tends to result in a punchier game - just for one example, you only roll one die for an attack in d20, where you're rolling multiple times for a single attack in GURPS.
Really though it comes down to personal taste; if super-detailed combat is your thing, then go for it. | |
Anson on WotC boards | |
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Korhal_IV
Sergeant
852 Posts
| | 04/27/2006 8:41 PM |
| As a player, I enjoy min/maxing to some degree; GURPS was a field day when the other DM ran it. Everybody, excited by their potential to swing a sword AND cast Fireball AND Cure wounds AND open locks, promptly wasted their 100-odd points on becoming terribly mediocre in each of those areas.
I shoved all of mine into wizardry. In the first combat, I demonstrated my prowess. The second combat took place in an anti-magic field.
It's still a good system; my power was maybe less a result of munchkinyness than a result of poor planning on the other players' parts. The support for GMs, though, seems pretty shallow - I wouldn't want to be a GM trying to design monsters in GURPS.
I also despise called shot systems like the one GURPS mandates. It makes no sense - unless you declare you're shooting for a weak point, your character is dumb enough to blast away in obviously inefficient ways? Clearly, if there's an opening, your hero will always take it, and that's why called shots are a bad mechanic.
Additionally, I have yet to see a called shot mechanic that is neither too good (i.e., there's never a reason *not* to shoot for the head) or too bad (i.e., there's never a reason to make a called shot because the penalties are ridiculous).
Finally, the excessive die rolling creates a powerful need for rulebook memorization or too much time looking up rules, and this is from a d20 rules-lawyer. | |
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Fun Guy from Yuggoth
Cthulhufnord
Warlord
10980 Posts
Umass Amherst Baby!
| | 04/28/2006 2:13 AM |
| | Even if you are not running the Gurps system, their scourcebooks are some of the best ones out there. Pretty much anything by Kenneth Hite is brilliant! The man compiles an amazing amount of weird material that he connects in very disconcerting ways. His Suppressed Transmissions is one of my favorite reads. http://www.sjgames.com/suppressed/ I myself enjoy the fantasy rules a great deal actually. One of my favorite things is to tweak with the magic rules a bit, using either the Supers or Psionics rules for magic in a given campain. I'm still more than a little disapointed that Gurps never got the Wheel of Time rpg contract, their Myth setting was dead on! | |
Pathetic Earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void - without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe - anything at all - you would have hidden from it in terror. | |
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Sulaco
Underboss
1605 Posts
| | 04/28/2006 12:00 PM |
| I recall one game where the GM wanted it to be truly epic-scale so he had us make 1000pt(!) characters.
"Fine" said I, and proceeded to make a 100pt characetr with 900pts worth of increased wealth, which all then went to raising an army of many thousands of troops. [)] | |
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proudft
Sneak
109 Posts
| | 04/28/2006 7:10 PM |
| I like GURPS a lot, but there was definitely some clunkiness in 3rd edition.
I haven't tried 4th edition much, but two big improvements I've seen right off are that now attributes cost their normal price after creation (instead of 2x -- and now that you can buy HP separately for anyone, it gives you something you can always buy for a relatively low cost (3 pts I think, but I don't have my book with me)), and the new rules for firing a weapon with multiple shots (now it is one attack roll for all the shots and one roll for dodging them all instead of one of each for each bullet).
Rolling to hit and having that hit nullified by a defense roll has always been a sore point with me, in that it tends to be a real downer for the players when it happens a lot. I did try out reversing the rolls for a while in a fantasy campaign (defense first, if it fails move on to hit), but that way involves a lot more rolling and messes with the critical hit bypassing defense mechanism, so that didn't last long.
D&D still seems best for sword & sorcery genre, or anything involving more than about a half-a-dozen combatants, but GURPS has some nice touches. But the line between the two was definitely blurred when feats & skills hit D&D, and time differential between the two games to make NPCs has certainly diminished (still takes a lot longer to make starting characters in GURPS, of course).
But all in all, some of my favorite game sessions were in GURPS and many would have never come up in D&D or would have been impossible in D20:
- one was worthless cavemen scorned by their whole tribe who go out and manage to hunt down a mammoth to prove their worth only to realize they can't carry it back home and can't remember how to get back
- another was Tex the unkillable cowboy who regained consciousness from multiple gunshot wounds after his seemingly-dead body was dumped in the desert and he crawled his way back to town for revenge
- a third was a one-shot where the party was trying to solve a murder, only to find out one of the party members was actually a vampire who had been the culprit all along -- they somehow managed to kill him by breaking a shovel to make a stake and sticking him in the vitals (I think they needed a 6 on the damage die to get through his defense, and they got it!)
So I'll keep giving it a whirl from time to time. I never have really given the magic or psionic rules much use and remain curious how they play out over a long campaign -- supers too, for that matter, but I have my doubts about the speed of combat for supers. :)
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Wyzdum
Sergeant
400 Posts
Long Island, NY
| | 04/28/2006 11:21 PM |
| Some thoughts and observations:
There certainly are a number of excellent opinions on the pros and cons of GURPS. And I would not be an avid D&D player if I didn't think it had its merits.
I have not tried the 4th edition of GURPS myself, but it sounds as though they have made some good improvements.
I also appreciate the 6 sided (hex) design as it seems to make more sense for movement. But at this point I've used both that and the squares so much, I can switch easily enough. The hardest part is having to change my flooring in the various structures and scenery I have from one to the other.
By the way, has anyone tried a cliffhanger or steamtech campaign? I created a character who was part adventuring hot air balloon pilot, part anthropologist and part judo expert. It was like playing Indiana Jones - a lot of fun. It also helped that my nephew, who's in his thirties, is a history teacher and GURPS rules expert. On top of that, he's been DMing since he could read. So, he comes up with the coolest story lines with all sorts of actual documentation like gazeteers from the 1930's to make it more real. The right prop at the right time really makes for good realism in role playing. | |
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Fun Guy from Yuggoth
Cthulhufnord
Warlord
10980 Posts
Umass Amherst Baby!
| | 04/29/2006 2:40 AM |
| The last Gurps campain I ran was a Victorian Horror/Action game. Pretty much a supernatural version of the Leage of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It had a good deal of pulp and horror added to it as well. The game was pretty much an adaptation of War of the Worlds, expect in this case it was the Lords and Ladies* invading not martians.
*Fair Folk, the Kindly Ones aka the Fey | |
Pathetic Earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void - without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe - anything at all - you would have hidden from it in terror. | |
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Wyzdum
Sergeant
400 Posts
Long Island, NY
| | 04/29/2006 2:27 PM |
| Now that sounds very cool, I'd love to be in on a game like that! I could just imagine my character involved in some adventure with all kinds of inventions, weapons and crazy contraptions.
Did anyone see "Steamboy"? I think a campaighn like that would be awesome. Lots of steam powered ships, and armor etc. | |
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Wrackspawn
ChristopherGroves
Warlord
6093 Posts
| | 04/29/2006 3:47 PM |
| Part of the draw to me of many games are the settings. Even though other systems might be better in a pure mechanical sense, it's the oddities of the system that we remember or the oddities of the setting.
GURPS has been, in my opinion, the best game to run when there is no other system native to that setting. I've seen folks run Shadowrun in GURPS - and even though the mechanics were better, it simply wasn't Shadowrun. Same holds for D&D, etc. ... but things that have no really good system/support for I think I'd look to GURPS.
Or really, d20 now that everyone plays d20 is a viable option. | |
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Dragon Snack
Warrior
285 Posts
| | 04/29/2006 6:38 PM |
| I played GURPS and loved it. The rest of my group however, did not.
One thing we did avoid was the called shots (we outright banned them IIRC). I think we modified the defense rolls as well but again, it's been a few years and the memory aint what it used to be...
Worked decent for the Vampire/Werewolf/Mage White Wolf setting mash-up we did, plus I got to play a Psion. The Psionics were somewhat overpowered due to my unintentional min/maxing (really it was, stop looking at me that way...). | |
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CarrionCrawler
Underboss
1760 Posts
| | 04/30/2006 1:34 AM |
| GURPS got me started on RP. My first game was a Supers game. I played a Cable-clone (from X-Factor fame). I realized quickly how much fun that wasn't....
GM: What do you do?
CC: I bite the cashier's face!
*Everyone starts laughing at my stupid action*
CC: Now what does she do?
GM: She goes "Aaaahhh! You bit my face!"
I learned a lot about roleplaying that day and what not to do... | |
Vindicated Night Below Champion of the Digestor!!! Knight of the OozesIcons called shot: Angry MobThe stink of rotten meat surrounds this multilegged creature with a segmented, 10-foot long body. Eight writhing tentacles protrude from its head, growing directly from below its clacking mandibles and tooth-filled maw. | |
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Fun Guy from Yuggoth
Cthulhufnord
Warlord
10980 Posts
Umass Amherst Baby!
| | 04/30/2006 2:25 AM |
| At the higher levels Psionics can be notoriously easy to min-max with. My first gurps game was a 600 point superheroes game, I stuck pretty much every point I had into telekinetic offense and defense; to the point where I had to use a levitation effect to "move" the character. When the main villian showed up I ended up knocking her out of the solar system with one blow.[xx(]
Needless to say, I asked the GM if this character was too powerfull three times during character creation. Each time he glanced at the sheet and approved it. The lesson, gurps only realy works for an seasoned game master. | |
Pathetic Earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void - without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe - anything at all - you would have hidden from it in terror. | |
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Wyzdum
Sergeant
400 Posts
Long Island, NY
| | 04/30/2006 10:16 PM |
| Well, I would have to agree that it took the group I play with, many sessions to really get a good grasp on the rules before they flowed seemlessly. Even now, there are times when the action bogs down a bit due to having to check to see if someone can do this or that at some given time.
But we stuck with it because we have a gaming group that has so many different loves for genre types; and as mentioned above, you can easily switch by picking up a different reference book.
So far we've played: Conan, Fantasy, Traveller, WW 2, A modern Ops type game, Cliffhangers, and A Pirate/Viking/Steamtech mix game.
Most of them are still going on. We just decide on which one to continue and we find the character sheets in our personal stacks and off we go.
Now my nephew wants to do something with placing us in the campaign as ourselves, in the present, and having us stumble into a house where each room opens to different times/dimensions. I think he got the idea from a movie.
With GURPS, we can create ourselves pretty accurately. (However, I explained to my nephew that I will need to start with about 400 points higher than everyone else due to my super human abilities).
He didn't seem to agree with me. (wait till his birthday comes - no presents this year)[)] | |
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