GURPS people always recommend it but never explain why. What’s actually good about it compared to something like Pathfinder 2e? It seems to me it would be really hard to find players. With Pathfinder I can at least tell my players it shares a legacy with D&D so they were receptive to switching systems.
Is there anything GURPS does particularly well over other systems? I know hardly anything about it. With PF2e there are a few easy-to-rattle-off features that drew me to it like the three action economy and better tools for game balancing as a GM.
GURPS has two letters that I think are the best: Generic and Universal. You can run anything in it and switch it up as much as you want. You could run campaigns similar to any of Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Sliders, Brisco County Jr, Walking Dead, Harry Potter, etc., and have the ability to do crossover episodes.
I can see how that would be a selling point for a lot of groups, but most D&D-style rpg players I’ve played with don’t really think about RPGs as a way of playing in cinematic universes that aren’t relatively generic fantasy. Even my slightly steampunk-ish 1800s-style homebrew setting that I used for D&D and now use for PF2e often throws my players for a loop.
Edit: also, Starfinder 2e is coming soon and is planned to be built in the same mechanical system as PF2e, meaning that the two systems will be compatible. So that idea of a generic system for different genres of fiction is not going to be as unique.
Yeah I just always wondered what the draw was. Is it really just that it doesn’t have a set genre? Because that honestly seems like a relatively small list of killer features compared to being able to say that “it’s really well balanced” or “combat feels really fun” or something like that. It’s not as though it’s hard to reflavour the mechanics of a D&D-style rpg to fit different kinds of fiction if you really want to. I’ve seen people use 5e as the backbone for lots of different kinds of genres. And like I said, Pathfinder will soon have Starfinder integrated so that will make things easier too.
Plus, SJG is a genuinely awesome company full of people who are really dedicated to the love of gaming. You don’t feel like you’re being exploited by fashion and capital. You feel like you’re collaborating with your friends.
I don’t know anything about Pathfinder but compared to even the TSR days of D&D, the culture is so much better around SJG, and it really shows in the quality and depth of the source books. They are absolutely amazing. The CIA confiscated early drafts of the Cyberpunk source book along with all their computer equipment, insisting, “This is real!” I learned so much as a kid about world religion from their primary Fantasy setting source book. The rules are very simple and elegant, exploiting the naturally occurring normal distribution provided by 3d6, which maps very well to the normal distribution of real life events and makes the plusses and minuses (or “adds” if you remember Tunnels and Trolls) a lot more meaningful, realistic, and interesting because +/-1 means something completely different in different situations.
What I appreciated most was the depth of character creation, while staying incredibly light weight. D&D always seemed like a video game where your character is nothing more than a class, some equipment and some basic stats, like it’s specifically designed to produce dungeon grinds, and if you want to do anything else, that’s up to the DM to figure out and mix in, but it’s optional. With GURPS, you’re designing an actual character in the literary sense, who has stories to explore and interests that necessarily interact with other character’s interests. It’s an actual role playing game.
Always been a much bigger fan of Steve Jackson Games and GURPS
GURPS people always recommend it but never explain why. What’s actually good about it compared to something like Pathfinder 2e? It seems to me it would be really hard to find players. With Pathfinder I can at least tell my players it shares a legacy with D&D so they were receptive to switching systems.
Is there anything GURPS does particularly well over other systems? I know hardly anything about it. With PF2e there are a few easy-to-rattle-off features that drew me to it like the three action economy and better tools for game balancing as a GM.
GURPS has two letters that I think are the best: Generic and Universal. You can run anything in it and switch it up as much as you want. You could run campaigns similar to any of Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Sliders, Brisco County Jr, Walking Dead, Harry Potter, etc., and have the ability to do crossover episodes.
I can see how that would be a selling point for a lot of groups, but most D&D-style rpg players I’ve played with don’t really think about RPGs as a way of playing in cinematic universes that aren’t relatively generic fantasy. Even my slightly steampunk-ish 1800s-style homebrew setting that I used for D&D and now use for PF2e often throws my players for a loop.
Edit: also, Starfinder 2e is coming soon and is planned to be built in the same mechanical system as PF2e, meaning that the two systems will be compatible. So that idea of a generic system for different genres of fiction is not going to be as unique.
Ok, then it’s not for you and you don’t really have to make a counter point.
Yeah I just always wondered what the draw was. Is it really just that it doesn’t have a set genre? Because that honestly seems like a relatively small list of killer features compared to being able to say that “it’s really well balanced” or “combat feels really fun” or something like that. It’s not as though it’s hard to reflavour the mechanics of a D&D-style rpg to fit different kinds of fiction if you really want to. I’ve seen people use 5e as the backbone for lots of different kinds of genres. And like I said, Pathfinder will soon have Starfinder integrated so that will make things easier too.
Plus, SJG is a genuinely awesome company full of people who are really dedicated to the love of gaming. You don’t feel like you’re being exploited by fashion and capital. You feel like you’re collaborating with your friends.
Yeah I’d say that’s true of Paizo as well. Does GURPS release all of the game content under an open license like Paizo does?
Not all of the content (you’re talking shelves and shelves of books) but the basic rules are free.
I don’t know anything about Pathfinder but compared to even the TSR days of D&D, the culture is so much better around SJG, and it really shows in the quality and depth of the source books. They are absolutely amazing. The CIA confiscated early drafts of the Cyberpunk source book along with all their computer equipment, insisting, “This is real!” I learned so much as a kid about world religion from their primary Fantasy setting source book. The rules are very simple and elegant, exploiting the naturally occurring normal distribution provided by 3d6, which maps very well to the normal distribution of real life events and makes the plusses and minuses (or “adds” if you remember Tunnels and Trolls) a lot more meaningful, realistic, and interesting because +/-1 means something completely different in different situations.
What I appreciated most was the depth of character creation, while staying incredibly light weight. D&D always seemed like a video game where your character is nothing more than a class, some equipment and some basic stats, like it’s specifically designed to produce dungeon grinds, and if you want to do anything else, that’s up to the DM to figure out and mix in, but it’s optional. With GURPS, you’re designing an actual character in the literary sense, who has stories to explore and interests that necessarily interact with other character’s interests. It’s an actual role playing game.