GURPS (mechanics) why the hate?

Oh, I forgot to mention that those skills are not even close to balanced. In the basic set alone you have accounting and acrobatics right next to each other. You can choose to be good at falconry or you could instead choose to be good with a sword.

If you go to serious Game Developing places like the Forge you will see how playing GURPS is literally fucking your brain and how its whole design phylosophy is TOTALLY WRONG, if not LITERALLY CRIMINAL.

Which "the forge"?
enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?159851-What-is-quot-The-Forge-quot

But they're not all priced the same. The crappier ones are cheaper, are they not?

Can you link to an article that explains this perspective better?

Skill difficulties are based more on complexity than overall utility. For example, Mathematics (Pure), a Hard skill, is probably not as useful to the average adventurer as might be an Easy skill like Guns (Shotgun).

That feel when IRL you has invested all those points in Mathematics (Pure) and nothing in Guns (Any)

But at least I can design dungeons that are 5-dimensional hypercubes

Oh. Yeah, not ideal. I'd be inclined to set their prices based on power/usefulness, not "how complicated is this in real life".

Okay, so the skill difficulties are shit.

Any other bad mechanics I should be aware of?

I hear I should avoid the ultra tech book in general.

You can just mod skills like that if that's what fits your campaign. I wish people didn't stare at RAW too hard, GURPS is a toolkit.

I likely would/will do that.

If that's my biggest concern that's an easy fix (but good to know in advance).

Another thing is not to let players take disadvantages that don't matter in the campaign, or to give out fewer points for them. G-Intolerance in a historical Crusades campaign? No.

Sure, I can see that.

I've already talked to GURPS general about general advice about campaign prep, I'm currently looking for specific examples of mechanics that don't work so well.

That's a pretty big cop out. If you're going to say that a system is good as long as you ignore most of it then the system isn't good. GURPS doesn't really offer anything that justifies all the extra work that you have to put in. Fans like to wank to all the options it gives you, but you might as well not have any limitations at all and just tell people to roll every now and then. The vaunted crunchiness comes to nothing once the GM establishes that he will eagerly override most of the rules because they are too clunky and inconvenient.

The GURPS people I've talked to seen to hold the view that the benefit of GURPS is you build the game you want to play with minimal homebrew required, by selecting the published mechanics that best match what you're looking for.

Yeah on the other hand if you play a social campaign where maths are also important, your 12 points in shotguns are going to be much more useless than the 12 in mathematics.

Sure.

I'm unlikely to ever run a campaign where math is more valuable than combat skills though, realistically.

most of the people who vehemently hate it around here haven't played it and are arguing with outdated memes (muh no flavor, maths, too many rules, etc)
as for actual flaws:
>the skill system can be a little arcane to new players between skill difficulty levels and the 1,2,4,+4 pattern of skill costs
>the default magic system is shit. SHIT.
>it requires a good level of work on the part of the GM compared to other RPGs - characters need to be vetted properly to keep out dumb shit, you need to decide which rules you'll be using, and ideally you'll give the players a list of allowed/recommended skills and traits
i've ran a few campaigns and many one-shots using it, and besides that first hump of getting used to the system it isn't that much more complicated than most other systems
just don't go full retard and try to run your first campaign with every splat under the sun - basic set and some smart DMing will usually cover your ass

ultratech's pretty bad because it was one of the first proper splatbooks made for 4e, iirc, so unlike later splats it's not only way too focused on a specific type of scifi but also the numbers are kind of wonky so there's stuff like damage vastly outstripping all armour very fast (and the armour that does resist most damage being virtually impenetrable).
so the splat kind of fails in being neither generic nor balanced

I'm not saying to strip most of it. It's just easier to take out the stuff you don't like compared to trying to mod 3.5/pf or something.

newb here

so even if you can just pick any rule that you want, it's still bad?

Not that guy but:

I think it's a mixed blessing. It's good in that it helps you run exactly what you want to run, but bad in that if you're not familiar with the system you won't know where to find the options you want.

Like building a character for 3.5, but on the DM side.

I mean, it's obviously a matter of taste, but I think it is. Yeah.

But I think that the problem with being able to choose any rule you want is that there are so many rules and ways for them to interact that removing rules becomes its own challenge. Now, someone compared it to building a character in 3.5. That's a decent comparison except that if you fuck up a character it's not that big a deal. Fucking up the system is a much bigger deal. Trust me, I run a home-brew Paranoia game and I recently changed the skills a bit. I basically changed three or four skills and the changeover gave me headaches. And I had the benefit of being able to kill the characters and replace them with imperfect clones.

And I just think that the skill system is irredeemably bad.

Nobody cares about you. GURPS is universal. it doesn't matter if a style is played 10k times more than the other. in the manual they are treated equally or at least that's the idea

Skill difficulties are fine and provide a solid baseline. Hard skills tend to be things that, logically, would take a very large investment of time and effort to master.

For most Hard scientific or academic skills they are the kind of thing where you can spend a lot of resources to be good at them, trust that you will be able to find an expert to help you if you need them in game, or put a small investment of points into them and take lots of extra time when you need to use the skill.

oh, that's too bad.

if not GURPS, then what do you guys recommend?

Yep, called Wildcard! skills. They can either represent a focus (Swords! or Science!) or a dramatic archetype (Knight! or Bard! or Wizard!) depending on what kind of game you want to run.

The skill system is fine and your comparison falls flat.

GURPS rules are deliberately modular and it's clearly explained when they are optional. A GM with a few months of experience can easily tell players what rules are in effect and what books are being used for a game.

With players that know their stuff you can even switch to simple shorthand explanations rather then a full write up.

GURPS rewards players and GMs for learning more and getting better with the system, unlike, for example, World of Darkness games where the cracks and flaws become unbearably visible with familiarity.

> there are so many rules and ways for them to interact that removing rules becomes its own challenge
No dude, that's the issue with homebrewing with normal systems that assume everything is staying as-is and messing with one aspect can cause a butterfly effect throughout the mechanics of the system.

GURPS is meant to be modular. Everything is built from the ground up to be used without having to worry too much about other things being knocked out of whack.

Well first of all, I personally dislike how steep 3d6's gauss bell is, it fells pretty binary with you either being proficient at something or sucking at something and not much inbetween.

Secondly , due to the weird range of numbers on 3d6 things like criticals are on unintuitive thresholds. "5 and below" simply is not as evocative as "on a 20".

Thirdly, there's a shit ton of options and most players will never read them, GURPS is a system for the DM. Read your stuff, provide overviews and compilations that highlight what your players will need. Copy and compile stuff from the books into a single document (I did this with a copier, thank god for flatrate memberships at the copyshop).

Fourthly, and I think this is the biggest caveat, and yes I know this is often repeated as a meme, bit it's still true: GURPS core mechanics are very straightforward, and not even its extensive module rules will change that. They represent a very deterministic simulation of happenings. If you want to play something where the very basic logic of the world is more embellished (for example a world of wuxia kungfu magic, a game where narrative is more important etc), GURPS isn't the right game.

Don't forget the UT tanks would die to a T-72 from HT.

I think in UT they tried to convey that camouflage, jamming, deception and good sensors would matter more than raw firepower/armor but failed at it. (And that'd also come back to not making the book generic or universal enough.)

So you think a d20 system is better for wanting higher numbers? Or is it just because you are just as likely to get any single number on the dice. What a juvenile notion.
Gurps dice favor your skills being ten or higher because the curve favors the middle.

There are a shit ton of options in almost every system, not reading them is the players fault not the systems, Gurps has the advantage of more heavily themeing their splats so unlike many other systems you don't need to dig though every book for your character options, if you are making a modern soldier for instance, you would want core, high tech, and possibly powerups, where if you wanted to make a fighter in dnd let's say you need to comb every book for feats, items, ect.

And on your final note, name a system with a good rule set that can do what you are describing, gurps can do other settings fine, but if you mean narrative as in freeform rules light, then no gurps doesn't do that, no good ttrpg does that. But gurps would allow you to play a narrative game much better then most other rpgs because it's skill system is much more free in what you can do.

Fudge.

All you arguments are INVALIDATED!

Can you give an example? Most people cite either stuff from third edition that hasn't been valid in two decades, or optional rules from pyramid articles that aren't the core system anyway.

You'll notice that the guy who's hating on GURPS is long on generalities but has yet to give you a specific example of any of his claims.

His point about 3d6 being "you rule or suck" is false. Most rolls have situational modifiers (such as taking extra time to lower a difficulty). It's not as swingy as, say, pathfinder, but pathfinder being way too swingy is one of the big critiques of the system.

If you want the weaknesses of GURPS, here you go:

1) Requires significant DM prep if you don't use a pre-configured suite of rule options like you get from Dungeon Fantasy or After the End.

2) Nearly all the rules are in the core books, but they're a little disorganized.

3) There are lots of options to let you do lots of things. Inexperienced GMs often turn on all or most of the options and end up with way too much complexity. Like cinematic damage and gritty realistic damage are supposed to be opposites, but newbies sometimes try to turn both options on at once.

4) PLAY is very easy and simple, but character creation can be a beast if the GM allows everything.

> If you want to play something where the very basic logic of the world is more embellished (for example a world of wuxia kungfu magic, a game where narrative is more important etc), GURPS isn't the right game.

The whole point of campaign options and GURPS is to do this. The core rules support it, and there are two different supplements that walk you through how to do this particular option. It's like claiming that Shadowrun sucks because it has no system for cybernetics and if you want biomodification then Shadowrun isn't for you.

And more to the point, it's not about turning stuff off, it's about not turning ON campaign options in the first place.

GURPS is quite good and works great in actual play, but it also has public image issues.

The rules are modular. Which PARTICULAR interactions are leaving you this butt-hurt?

Here's an example: Psi, ritual path magic, divine empowerment, imbuements, and sorcery are all different systems for supernatural effects of different kinds for different genres or character classes. And yet all are very compatible, to the point where I can't remember even a question about how they interact ever even coming up.

The martial arts styles rules are so easy and clean that you could summarize them in less than a page. Adding new styles happens all the time and nobody bitches because they're all mutually compatible with one another.

And weird, intentionally complicated combos, like a chi-wielding martial arts alchemist with supernatural fighter game special moves, is easy and simple to do. Even if you slap it onto a vampire, robot, or Celestial Zebra. The modules are self-contained and interact with one another in consistent, predictable, simple ways.

The skill difficulties are fine. You'll learn them in minutes and once you've created your character they stop mattering anyway.

Ultra Tech is the weakest of the Tech books and has some problems, but that's by GURPS standards. By the standards of any other RPG it's a great book that gives you not just a catalog of good options for a sci fi game but also guidance on sticking gear into a sci fi setting of your own creation.

I'd highly recommend Ultra Tech, but the other user who warned you about the relative armor ratings of different kinds of tanks was right that you'll need to shift those numbers around a little if you try to merge HT and UT into the same game (e.g. high tech aliens invade present-day earth). Increasing DR on the tanks in ultra-tech is all you really need to do. We're talking about one page in a book that's mostly not about vehicles.

Magic is another example of a book that by GURPS standards is lacking. The magic system is fun and easy and works just fine, but still has a lot of cruft left over from third edition and compared to other stuff that's come out since then it's weak.

You've got to understand, a book like Martial Arts is so damn GOOD that it'll recalibrate your expectations about what to expect compared to what you'd get from Onyx Path or WotC or CGL. By those standards, books like Magic and UT are great. It's only when you look at a book like High Tech that you realize that those two could have been even better.

Usefulness varies from campaign to campaign. The pricing is the same, it's the default difficulties of skill checks that vary somewhat.

Try GURPS general, the OP usually includes a PDF that has a good primer on the major issues/strengths of GURPS. The people in that thread are helpful and non-assholes.

That's because it FUCKING SUCKS.

That's not really the point.
The rules are there for if you need them. If it becomes a point of contention at your table how much damage you take from falling off a biplane, you can use the falling rules. If not, then you can just say you die.

It's not ignoring rules, it's using what you need. I don't really understand why people have trouble with this.

People are dumb. Memes got to their brains.

I've had some fun Ultra-tech campaigns, where the GM used the rules in ultra tech, but then designed a universe where poeple had adjusted to the wonkiness of ultra-tech. People now used stealth fields, which in turn were countered by sensors, which in turn people would try to hack. Its janky as hell once you get into laser pistols being the basic gun, don't get me wrong, but the earlier tech stuff like exo-suits and man-portable railguns is actually quite fun to play around with.

I had a ghost in the shell/elder sign game that had black ops encountering the occult. They regularly used genius level dedicated blowtorch devices to brick the enemy cloaking and then open fire with hyperspectral target system linked chain guns.

When they found something invisible that couldn't be hacked was when they panicked.

Especially when they found it was invisible to electronics, but visible to the naked eye.

The Forge is your source? Hahahahaha

Is this the forge that made dogs in the vineyard, or the one that's a bunch of pretentious theory rafters who take credit for WOD and 3.5?

OP it sounds like you should have no problem with GURPS. The downside of GURPS IS the up front work. If you are OK with that then the system is perfectly fine.

On the other hand if you are a lazy GM who wants everything to be done for you then look elsewhere. In the end most criticism of GURPS really wouldn't apply.

This pretty much. GURPS isn't any heavier than many popular RPGs, and the actual game resolves very quickly. For OP's purposes it is perfect.

GURPS is a giant pile of fucking __fun__ made by aspies who actually care deeply about the game, its long-term viability, and their playerbase and beyond that are also motherfucking highly competent designers who do actual research, but don't let that spoil the playability of their material. Not only that, the rules themselves are a mess of fucking well thought-out plug'n play options/rules modules which don't even break if you use most of them together and if you don't use them, it makes you a fucking okay person because they're designed to be used that way. As if all this weren't enough, once you get past prepping the campaign shit and you're ready to play, guess what? YOU FIND OUT IT DOESN'T EVEN RUN heavy, and is remarkably smooth in actual play even when using some of the heavier rules stuff if that's your 'thing'.

Bottom line and the bare naked truth, GURPS is easily one of the most fucking pleasant and enjoyable games I've run or played with over the years, and is remarkably flexible and easy to bake in whatever feel, style, 'flavour' etc. you're going for with a particular campaign. Granted no, it's definitely not perfect and it's not a game for everyone; nor would it run every single campaign idea with the same vigor and expertise. However, it is well-loved for many good reasons and if you want a generic system that can do from light or narrative stuff all the way to full autistic crunch or simulation, and let you bake in whatever weird campaign ideas or character concepts you want, and having it be fully supported and an undiluted version of "your vision" when the game starts... GURPS is a fucking great toolbox to have in your toolbox. Plus, the sourcebooks are fucking fantastic no matter what you play.

The memes are the work of the Patriots.

Between your post and the others in this thread, I think I will be giving GURPS a go, but changing skill difficulties so that the more useful ones are the ones that cost more points.

The trick will be picking and choosing what to turn on and off.

I wouldn't worry about tweaking the skills thing personally. Try it before you muck about too much, the skill system really works fine as-is. There are also "official" tweaks and mods for it out there, but wait to dive into the rabbit hole until you've got a grasp on things how and why they are by default.

Good luck, I hope you enjoy. Either way, good gaming to you.

The people who hate on GURPS either a) don't like the large amounts of options or b) have never played it and rely on memes.

GURPS is fine if you like to customize your own custom game with custom rules. You can make it as lite or as crunchy as you want, and everything under the sun is there for a GM to make their idea come to life.

The problem lies that many players hear "options" and throw all sanity out of the window and insist that just because it's in the rulebook, you have to use it. That's so not true and un-GURPS-y. Technically, hitlocations and damage types are optional (but are widely accepted), and some people say no completely to the likes of Martial Arts.

The other problem is that players are so incredibly lazy, or shortsighted, that when they say "hur there's just too much" and you reply "well there's Dungeon Fantasy and Action that streamline a bunch of stuff pretty well," they completely ignore that fact and insist that their outdated memes are valid.

ITT: GURPS fanboys brush off every criticism of their game as a "meme" or a "toxic meme" or an "outdated meme"

They are the absolute worst RPG community there is.

Worst RPG worst community. Is fair.

OP here

Here was my impression:

ITT: a couple legitimate criticisms of GURPS show up, and a bunch of rabid crazies start spouting off their angry feelings without any rational arguments to back them up.

Then some GURPSfags show up and dispute the validity of the few real issues that were mentioned, with rational counter arguments.

I'll consider all rational points made, and give it a go, since the rational complaints mentioned seem mostly small and easily fixed.

Hopefully it's less of a waste of time than mutants and Masterminds and Savage worlds were. Fuck did I ever hate those mechanics.

Is not too late to use Fudge and put GURPS in the trash were it belong.

What makes fudge good?

I know literally nothing about it.

He does everything GURPS does, but is leaner and made by a proper game designer.

I think your impression is flawed. There wasn't a bunch of rabid crazies, it was obviously one troll (no one actually thinks that playing GURPS is akin to dumping nuclear waste into the sea).

The GURPS fanboys didn't really offer any rational counter arguments, they just said "you've never played GURPS" and "it's OK if you are experienced with the system" (which is true of literally any system that isn't FATAL). One person even argued that the fact that the useless pure math skill is a bigger investment than the very useful shotgun skill was fine because you might play a game where your character's knowledge of pure math is more useful than shotguns. As a guy who has a degree in pure math from UC Berkeley and is currently studying for his math GRE, allow me to state that PURE MATH WILL NEVER BE MORE USEFUL THAN SHOTGUN PROFICIENCY IN ANY CAMPAIGN EVER.

>Does everything GURPS does
I thought the only system that could make that claim was HERO.

So fudge can handle everything from gritty realism, to scifi, to cartooniness, to superheroes, to fantasy with all different types of magic?

HERO is another broken corpse like GURPS, seriously user is 2017.

>Skill difficulties are bullshit.
Yeah, that was the main real problem that was mentioned. One that seemed easy to fix by reassigning skill difficulties based on what's actually useful, so shotgun is most expensive, and math is least expensive.

The other valid seeming complaint was that I could fuck up and choose the wrong options for my campaign. Which, is certainly possible. I would run my selections by GURPS gms to make sure I've picked the right ones, at least the first few times.

Assuming I don't find a better system to suit my needs, that is. But as mentioned, this is generic system number 5. SW and M&M were shit, BRP was simply disappointing, and Unisystem had balance issues, no universal rules, and is only really suited to low powered campaigns.

>based on what's actually useful
Which is different in different campaigns, and GURPS supposed to be universal.

One criticism of GURPS that hasn't been brought up is that the spread of the 3d6 is too steep. If you have an 11 overall then you have a 5 in 8 chance of success. But just one point lower and it goes to 4 in 8. Another point lower and it falls to 3 in 8. Your odds have just fallen by 20% because you have the next highest skill rating. Then it falls 25% because you have the highest skill rating after that.

Fudge also has this problem, but worse as far as I can tell.

Other than that I don't know much about Fudge even though I own the book. I really should look it over some time.

Skills are not priced on campaign utilities. Getting a Degree on Pure Math in RL is more difficult that learning to use a shotgun. This is why GURPS is garbage because it try (and fail) to simulate a reality no one care about.

I'm looking for a 5th system to try. That means there have already been 4 systems that let me down. I was under the impression my only remaining options for such a flexible system were FATE and GURPS and HERO,and FATE seemed lowest on the list.

Been looking for such a system since 2008. Tried several options for 6+ months each, and so far they're all shit.

So, you're uggestions Fudge. What makes it good?

>allow me to state that PURE MATH WILL NEVER BE MORE USEFUL THAN SHOTGUN PROFICIENCY IN ANY CAMPAIGN EVER.
Anything TL

Stop looking for flexible system. Flexible system arenothing but a lie. Flexible = Shit at everythign it does. Look for games that has just the rules you need to do the thing you need then. RULES MATTERS.

Can you give an example other than skill difficulties?

Agreed. If I do run GURPS, I'd price them on a per campaign basis. But since I typically run faction heavy action+adventure campaigns, I expect once I came up with a list of what was valuable, it wouldn't change much from one campaign to the next.

So, you're saying the skills aren't granular enough, and the option that's supposedly "better" IE fudge, is even worse.

I'm the guy who studied math and you might have noticed that I don't like GURPS. I just don't like it.

On the other hand FATE is total and absolute shit. Garbage. Its community might not be as bad, but the game itself it absolutely horrid.

I'm not sure what you didn't like about Savage Worlds. I know that some friends have complained about stun locking but I've always played in groups that ignored that so I can't say. The skills aren't really balanced and there isn't much reason not to max out your fighting skill, but I guess it worked because my groups were more RP oriented (I actually played a pacifist for the first game so I rolled fighting one time in the entire campaign to use a stun gun).

Start with GURPS Lite. It's the core books pared down to 32 pages of essentials, as opposed to ~600 pages of optional subsystems.

user what game do you want to play? Maybe we can suggest you soemthign useful that is not UNIVERSAL GENERIC shit.

Essentials like how fast you can climb up a ladder.

And when there is no good system for what you want to run (often the case), or when the existing systems you've found in that genre are ones you consider to be shit, what then?

Sometimes I want to play something other than Shadowrun 4 or 5 or Unisystem (for urban fantasy).

Sometimes I want capeshit or scifi or various forms of high magic fantasy.

Exactly.

Then use a Capeshit only system and an High Magic only system. SYSTEM DOES MATTER. Looking for Generic Universal shit will only fuck your brain beyond repair.

Use GURPS for the background info in the splat books.

Its research is pretty decent.
Don't use GURPS to play except if you fully plan on restricting yourself to the Core Rules.

This is what will happen if you don't follow this advice:
You'll spend weeks fiddling out which rules you actually want in your system, tinkering around for hours because "just taking everything from eg Martial Arts" is not an option.
Well, its a theoretical option but a single Combat sequence with full MA rules will make it such a mess focused on miniscule details that nobody will want to repeat this shit afterwards.
And going with the core rules only is really only an option if you don't want super deep rules with stuff like different targeting zones to attack.

Trying to introduce GURPS into a GRUP that doesn't consist solemly of people on the Assburger spectrum will lead to two things: Switching to a different system to play
A GM whose sole future interaction with GURPS will be creating useless character builds that will never ever see play.

Well, I'm not saying that skill granularity is a huge concern for me, I'm just saying that if you think it is then Fudge will just make it worse. Personally I don't mind it for one-shots when some characters are virtually guaranteed to do well in some skills and virtually guaranteed to fail at others. It helps you find the character immediately. But in a longterm game I'd get kind of annoyed because it just kind of encourages compartmentalization as you level. Why be OK at something when someone else is already amazing at it?

Now, maybe it isn't that much of an issue with GURPS' curve. I've never stuck through a campaign long enough to find out. But it seems like it must be a problem in Fudge. I mean, look at the distribution, you only have a 1/16 chance of rolling better than +2 and a 1/16 chance of rolling worse than -2

I didn't like SW skills or how integral it's Benny system is to everything, or the stunlocking.

I don't like m&ms bland and repetitive slogfest combat.

Computer science degree here.

The reason fate seemed unappealing was largely a matter of dissociated mechanics. I don't want a game where narrative editing is a central focus. I *do* want a game where the mechanics represent/simulate the rules of one world or another.

The GURPS is definitely not for your. GURPS can't simulate anything beside Kromm flawed perceptions of reality.

If GURPS fanboys weren't so obnoxious then I would probably love the books as a supplement to other games.

But I'd rather just ignore the game completely than risk some GURPS fanboy trying to talk to me about the shitty game and then getting mad that I'm adulterating what is clearly already a perfect system.

A setting agnostic, classless, high magic fantasy system, with interesting tactical choices, and where I can tailor the races/cultures/background training to the homebrew setting I come up with, which can handle the creation of new abilities or powers as needed. Unsure if I want "internal MP reserves" magic, or Witcher style "channel manager from the area" magic.

Legend

Why don't we ask for banning GURPS Generals, let's move them to /trash.

What background info does it have that's good?

(That's what I generally go to BRP books for)

All of it except Japan that has a weab slant and Greece that has been made outdated by recent archaeological finds.

I have played the Mongoose version.

The d20 one isn't classless, or even finished for that matter. "Build everything as PCs" kills it's viability, to boot.

And In case you were about to suggest FantasyCraft, it's not really any good for high magic.

ruleofcool.com/get-the-game/

I'm going to assume that you're serious and explain my reasons for not agreeing with that idea
1) If they're in their general then they're not shitting up the rest of the board as much
2) There's no good reason to ban their threads as a whole just because we don't like them.
3) Censorship is a slippery slope. You think you're using it against your enemies but tomorrow it'll be used against you

Have you considered there might be another explanation for your brain problems?

>as much
The general inhabitants don't shit up the board at all. It's the memelords who shout GURPS at everything that do that.