Monday, February 25, 2013

The Tipping Point

I've come to realize in preparing for the con a couple weeks ago that GURPS 4th edition holds little of interest for me. My play style is more aligned with a much lighter set of rules. The camel straw was downloading a combat cheat sheet. It was 2 pages of tiny, densely packed print with more than half of the cheat sheet stuff that I completely ignore.

Don't get me wrong. I love GURPS. I've written for it and played it for 25 years. They publish IMHO the best supplements on most any given topic that I've read or played. Their advice in Space, Fantasy, Thaumatology, Time Travel, etc. for building a campaign and a world of a particular type is hands-down outstanding. I'm currently using Thaumatology to build the magical underpinnings of my daVinci-punk setting that won't even use GURPS rules.

One complication of this is that I'm a member of The Men in Black, Steve Jackson's cadre of demonstrators and GMs for store and convention support, and I still want to remain a member. I could just start running tournaments of Munchkin and Revolution! at cons, but my heart is in roleplaying.

So, I've decided that I'll continue to run GURPS games at cons using GURPS Lite, a free 32-page ruleset that contains the essence of the GURPS system. On top of this, I can add whatever I need, magic, ultra-tech gear, time travel, whatever.

Another outcome of this revelation is that for system development, I'll be focusing on other things, notably OSR rules and supplements. I'm writing my own d100 old school game and several settings. Tekumel will remain at the center of my interest, as it has for the last 38 years. I will finish my GURPS Tekumel rules, but that is probably my last major GURPS project. I will also translate some of my other projects into GURPS for the purpose of running at cons, but those will mostly be only personal translations, not published ones.

12 comments:

  1. I'm sort of a similar mind. I like GURPS but it's too complicated for what I want these days. I should probably pay more attention to GURPS Lite, though.

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    1. GURPS Lite gives me exactly what I want: a consistent die mechanic that really works for me, a reasonable structure for character creation, and a quick way to tie into hundreds of sourcebooks.

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  2. It's good to discover those sorts of things about yourself, even if it does take a while sometimes.

    I keep coming back to GURPS because every other system leaves me throwing my hands up over some aspect or another that breaks my enjoyment of the game - more often than not due to unnecessary (to me) abstraction or mechanics that fail to capture the sort of "realistic feeling" that I want out of a game.

    Have you looked at GURPS Ultra-Lite yet? I was impressed that a game that fits on a single page of paper could still feel remotely GURPSy. Somehow, it manages it - definitely something to consider, especially for pick up and con games.

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    1. I looked at GURPS Ultra-Lite for the first time over the con weekend. Very interesting. I don't think I need things that simplistic.

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  3. I hope this question isn't irritatingly basic (or incendiary!) but...here goes:

    I keep seeing references like yours to "Old School" and "OSR." But I have no idea what "Old School" and its revival refer to.

    I'm not feigning ignorance, I really don't know. I started gaming in '78 and stopped in '84 and I don't really have a clear picture what has happened since.

    Or maybe, if Old School refers back to the 70s and early 80s, I know exactly what "Old School" looks like, in which case...what is "New School?" and what was wrong with it (or different, or whatever) to spur an old school revival?

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    1. Try this article, which compares the two: http://d20darkages.blogspot.com/2013/02/so-whats-new-school.html

      Others will define things differently. Jim Raggi, author of Lamentations of the Flame Priestess (an OSR game), says it's about whether the GM makes up their own world or uses prefab worlds from the publisher. I don't agree with that. It's more complex than that.

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    2. Thanks for this, clearly its not a simple question, but now I have a better sense of what people are talking about.

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  4. Dude, I don't even use half the stuff on that cheat sheet, and I wrote half of the book on additional combat options.

    GURPS Lite is really all you need if you don't want a lot of rules to draw on.

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    1. Thanks, that confirms my feelings.

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    2. I dunno ... even GURPS Lite 4e is pretty dense. I don't think of it as "Lite", I think of it as "Firehose" -- concentrated GURPS, but not really any simpler.

      That said, I am in complete sympathy with your new approach. Many's the time I thought I'd do the same. I only finished one project in that vein, but it was a good 'un.

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    3. Then gander at the 3rd edition GURPS Lite. Perhaps it'll be simpler.
      http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG30-6094

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  5. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using GURPS Lite as the basic platform and adding what you need on demand. In fact, I think this is where 4th edition went awry.

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