GURPS- Love it? Hate it? Why?

[Thorsteinn]

GURPS- Love it? Hate it? Why?

One of the players in my weekly gaming session is trying to convince us that GURPS is the best thing since sliced bread. If I recall he's been making this argument for years now. From what I've seen it's ugly clunky, crunchy, and by trying to do everything it does nothing well.

It seems to make Hero Games look streamlined.

Am I wrong? Am I right?

[Sir Wolf]

what??

[Don Jorge]

Heard of it, never done it, barely did tabletop in my youth and have found it hard to do seriously as an adult...too much time and nuance to do it right...I rather LARP

[Thorsteinn]

what??

"The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting." -Wikipedia

I stole cause they explained it better.

[Ian]

only AD&D, and D&D 3.0/.5 here with some exposure to D20.  No GURPS.  If I was going to pick a tabletop system right now it would be Pathfinder, which is based on a 'fixed' version of the D&D 3.5 ruleset.

[Sir Edward]

I still haven't done any GURPS. Back when my gaming group still existed in High School, we did AD&D 1st and 2nd edition, Mechwarrior, Shadowrun, and a few other things. In college we tried some Rifts. And more recently I've done some D&D 3.5 and 4 (btw, 4 sucks compared to 3.5. It's D&D redesigned by WoW players), and also some Deadlands. I recently got the rulebook for Torchbearer (made with a Kickstarter campaign), but haven't opened it yet.

And that's about my range of pen/paper RPGs.

[Thorsteinn]

What's Torchbearer?

[Sir Nate]

wait. im confused. is gurps a thing for video games or Larp?

[Thorsteinn]

wait. im confused. is gurps a thing for video games or Larp?

No it's a table top dice & paper RPG like AD&D, Shadowrun, Rifts, Pathfinder, Vampire the Masquerade, Call of Cthulu, Etc.

[Sir Edward]

What's Torchbearer?

They can explain better than I can:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/burningwheel/torchbearer

[Aiden of Oreland]

Wow, hold up, I'm still trying to figure out how to even play Magic The Gathering! And thats difficult enough! I guess these things have more of a calling to others.

[Don Jorge]

I still haven't done any GURPS. Back when my gaming group still existed in High School, we did AD&D 1st and 2nd edition, Mechwarrior, Shadowrun, and a few other things. In college we tried some Rifts. And more recently I've done some D&D 3.5 and 4 (btw, 4 sucks compared to 3.5. It's D&D redesigned by WoW players), and also some Deadlands. I recently got the rulebook for Torchbearer (made with a Kickstarter campaign), but haven't opened it yet.

And that's about my range of pen/paper RPGs.

I HATED 4.0e! So boring and I felt like my spells were just spam-able rather than a wizard with a spellbook! My wizard should be preparing different spells and always have the right one available for the right situation, it is the only fun part of being a wizard!

[Sir Edward]

I HATED 4.0e! So boring and I felt like my spells were just spam-able rather than a wizard with a spellbook! My wizard should be preparing different spells and always have the right one available for the right situation, it is the only fun part of being a wizard!

Yeah, I have a love/hate response to that. In class AD&D, the problem with playing a mage was that they only had a couple of spell casts, and then they were useless. I think it's great that they have something they can spam away with, but I don't like that the whole thing feels that way. Wizards should still have a very different gameplay mechanic than the melee fighters and the like.

Instead, it's all been equalized. Every class has a couple of spammy abilities, and a few other less-spammable ones, no matter what the class is. So whether you're playing a fighter, wizard, or whatever, they all feel the same.