GURPS 3rd Edition - Steve Jackson Games - Review - Why Old School?

#RPG #Gaming #Review #OSR #Roleplaying #Preview
I bit of nostalgia and look back at, GURPS 3rd Edition - Steve Jackson Games - Review - Why Old School?
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[@DM_Bluddworth]

The follow-up videos will be: Gurps Conan Source Book Gurps Conan - Character Creation Gurps Conan: The Wyrmslayer Gurps Conan: The Queen of the Black Coast Gurps Conan: Beyond Thunder River Gurps Conan: Moon of Blood These are all Solo (Solitaire) Adventures that I will play through in real time, unscripted, unedited, and unchained. Please consider subscribing and hitting the alert bell so you know when this series launches.

[@emrek99205]

I personally prefer 3rd, but I will admit that 4th does clarify some of the rules while streamlining others. Unfortunately it leans a little too much towards what became of D&D 4th by oversimplification and lost a bit of its flavor. If there were a GURPS 3.5 that simply cleared up errors instead of rewriting things (where is my PD?) then I might play that. There is a private group on FB that discusses 3rd edition. Only a few hundred people and only 20 or so check in during the month, but we are more than willing to answer any questions. So if you have them, you can also try looking there for your 3rd edition only needs.

[@King.Leonidas]

they also have dungeon fantasy edition of powered by gurps. that has released with more adventures

[@EvilvonScary]

Thanks. Good explanation of Gurps. Now Im thinking of getting 3e

[@michaelconnor1542]

WhilebI respect GURPS, and played many a game using it. Nothing beats Hero System 5e.

[@King.Leonidas]

so after looking at gurps 4 edition. you really only need 2 books as a GM and 1 as a player. it's just that there are so many extra books over the years that add so many cool things that might feel essential to your campaign

[@Katie-hj5eb]

I'm pretty sad they never made any of the solo adventures for 4e. There are quite a few for 3e though!

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Yes, I think every edition of every game system should make solo or small group adventures.

[@Katie-hj5eb]

@@DM_Bluddworth Oh yeah for sure. I had the 3rd edition revised growing up and played All in a Night Work many many times!

[@glen20rainman56]

Excellent, I still have second edition boxed set, bought in the day and sadly never played!

[@rustyshackleford634]

I see that DCC rulebook in the background!

[@fsmoura]

Nice channel, great review.

[@mizukarate]

I had this book. Didn't understand it well.

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Yes Character creation is a bit cumbersome.

[@mizukarate]

@@DM_Bluddworth however the cover takes me back to the 90's

[@cheerdiver]

Apparently making a come back. Recently saw a 'witch hunt' world in which you could play A CAT! All Star 2004

[@Dracopol]

GURPS could cover some very specific settings or genres and reach the fans. I was amazed that they came out with GURPS HUMANX (Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth SF books where humans ally with the insectoid Thranx), or GURPS THE PRISONER (from the 1960s British show about a spy who tries to resign but gets trapped in a mind-bending island resort as his prison.) But the game is a big barrier to those who only know Common Core math. The level of accounting you have to do in character creation is too much for young gamer audiences now.

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Dracopol a lot of the games of the 80s required math, and a ridiculous amount of it. V&V carrying capacity comes to mind. Character creation in Role Master, oh dear lord!!

[@tcschenks]

Unscripted & Unchained RPG Review I actually liked Rolemaster. We took a break from AD&D to play MERP/Rolemaster one summer. After that I actually converted my World of Greyhawk campaign to Rolemaster for a few adventures. I even bought the Spacemaster set but never played it. When D&D 3.0 came out it reminded me a lot of Rolemaster (d20 instead of d100), and then later I noticed that some of the writers of Rolemaster were writing for D&D 3.0.

[@Maximara]

IMHO it is more the number of choices that is a barrier. 3e and more so 4e has a lot of information and does require a decent level of work by the GM to keep things sane. Though Champions and the Hero system are insanely math heavy.

[@fsmoura]

Indeed! It is also worth noting that all the complexity is also indeed mostly in choices of details and subsystems to use, as the core system itself is very simple in structure and highly modular, being scalable from a fully functional one-page RPG all the way to multi-volume fully-fledged simulation. _(GURPS Lite,_ and _GURPS Ultra-Lite,_ free PDFs at SJG's store, are examples worked out examples of such scaling down at two different levels. And there's enormous space for homebrewing because of the system's modularity.) And since the combat system itself is also modular, you can have complex games focused on character personality and storytelling with very light combat (it can range from "single-roll combat," all the way to a full standalone tactical-individual level wargame simulation-which is what _Man to Man_ is, and is the core around which the rest of the GURPS system was built.) But it can definitely _feel_ daunting for a novice, and as Bruce said, it's probably more an effect of the amount of material available to be used, raw page count, than actual complexity. Generic lists of skills, traits, equipment, and spells, that cover all common genres easily fill up hundreds of pages, but you don't really need to read, know, or memorize those to play. You could jumpstart it by ignoring those at first, and incorporating those into play as needed. However, it is definitely a system that gives the GM who _wants_ to prepare stuff to do. While GMs who like to wing it are perfectly fine doing so (the system has no impediments to casual improvisation adventures, being agnostic in that regard-and it even has many related amenities, like quick-generation schemes for random characters and similar things) it is not uncommon that it attracts people who want to develop their campaigns fully, for the rules and background details (from settings books) are certainly there. If you want to come up with a quick foe in 10 seconds, you can focus on the relevant stats and ignore all the rest, the system works equally well, or you can dedicate a couple of hours to tune and tweak an important villain/ally full character sheet. The amount of freedom for variation in styles of play is really huge. That said, it was made by simulationist wargamers and it tends to attract a simulationist RPG crowd-people who make it a point of their games to use all subsystems possible for maximum reality; and when most new people get exposure to the system, if they ever see people playing it, or come to join a game, that is probably the impression they get out of it, because it is so commonly the personality of the people playing it, rather than a limitation of types of play the system can competently handle. Ironically enough, with one or two exceptions, all the math involved in character creation is addition and subtraction (the huge burden it poses is usually, for people who cannot help but min-maxing, choosing _optimally_ among hundreds of trait/skill options). And even in all genres and settings books considered, all the rules will only use the four basic arithmetic operations with one or two exceptions (a square root) here and there in obscure optional rules in books like GURPS Space. But most importantly, the calculations never really make the game burdensome, because it is all front-loaded, done at character creation time (or adventure creation time by the GM). During play, you usually don't have to do more than adding or subtracting, and only consulting tables for one or two specific types of tasks (like ranged weapons modifiers, or critical hits) and not for combat resolution (no CRT). A knowledgeable master can conduct the game very satisfactorily with beginners, the players do not need to be specialists well-versed in the system (only power gamers do, but those will achieve it naturally, on their own).

[@Maximara]

Anyone who wants a detailed glance at the (somewhat overwhelming) diversity of GURPS (mainly 4th edition) the GURPSwiki ( gurps.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page ) should give you a good overview.

[@Maximara]

I'm curious. Why 3e rather then 4e? Easier to explain? Oh the GURPSwiki ( gurps.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page ) gives a reasonable break down of 4e GURPS

[@tcschenks]

I’m surprised you didn’t game a lot in the military.

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Timothy Schenks I was more into Playstation, EA Sports titles, and single player RPGs on computer & console. To be honest, I never really thought about TTRPG games in the service. I never got the impression anyone else played. I was in a Military Police brigade, we ran EPW camps. We were more competitive sports video gamers. Madden Football, EA Hockey, etc.

[@tcschenks]

Unscripted & Unchained RPG Review I used to think that it was really common in the military, but that might’ve passed. My first dungeon master in 1983 or so was one of the local Marine recruiters. A lot of other people I met who had served in the military picked it up there.

[@23bcx]

How do you feel about 2d20 Conan?

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Connor Calarco I backed it at the second highest level. I love it, have some older videos on my channel going over the game mechanics, character creation and even a few game play sessions. I think it is one of the best systems for GM + 1 game play. I not only think that plays true to REH theme, but the game mechanics with some tweaks truly shines.

[@tcschenks]

I never played it. Is GURPS considered “old school”?

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Timothy Schenks for me I consider anything before 1990 to be “Old School”. To my recollection, GURPS was the first, multi-genre system that was marketed as its main selling point. I wasn’t much of an analyst of the industry, as a teen, so I could be wrong.

[@Maximara]

@@DM_Bluddworth What of systems that got updates? Like GURPS which became 4e in 2005.

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Bruce Grubb that depends on the nature of the update. D&D / AD&D from OD&D thru AD&D 1E, 2E and D&D 3.5 are arguably “Old School”, but D&D 4E + are not. I’d argue neither is PF 1E +.

[@Maximara]

@@DM_Bluddworth But didn't D&D 5e basically go back to 3.5 and smooth out the kinks?. I should mention there is effectively a GURPS 3.25 (Basic Set revised) and 3.5 (3e Basic Set+compendium I)

[@DM_Bluddworth]

Bruce Grubb D&D 5E is by no stretch of the definition “Old School”.

[@m.a.packer5450]

My favorite system by far. 3e really nailed it, but 4e is a hellish nightmare, due to too much layered complexity

[@Katie-hj5eb]

I'm actually kind of curious what you mean. There were many point changes from 3e to 4e but I am not aware of any added complexity. I know PD was removed in 4e but that would seemingly lower the complexity.

[@Maximara]

@@Katie-hj5eb Same here. I find 4e to be more robust and it is no more complex than Classic.

[@DM_Bluddworth]

I will have to take a look at 3E and 4E and see how they changed or even advanced (improved upon) what the systems were in 1E and 2E. I know that 4E is much maligned, so I’m really looking forward to doing a deep dive into that edition to see if that is at all justified. I’m skeptical of that as a starting point.

[@Maximara]

@@DM_Bluddworth The only way 4E being maligned makes any sense is the amount of material in the Basic Set. But when you look at it the 4e Basic Set is just a more streamlined version of Classic Basic set and the two Compendiums. Sure the other books can add complexity but like everything else one has the choice as to what they include and what they ignore.

[@Katie-hj5eb]

@@DM_Bluddworth One of the biggest changes in 4e is the swap of HP to ST and FP to HT and the rebalancing of buying attributes. It makes more sense to me cause previous versions implied wizards should be buff and tanks should be healthy, when the opposite sounds more reasonable. I actually recently picked up a copy of the 1e box set and 3e unrevised and the 2e to 3e update sheet (I couldn't get 2e for a reasonable price). It is very interesting to go through them and see how things have changed, and surprising they haven't changed as much as you'd think. If you want to go back even further there was a kind of demo release of 1e called "Man to Man" which was designed to give people a taste of GURPS but only included rules for combat in a medieval setting. Even though it has no non-combat spells or magic it still encourages players to take IQ levels for "wit rolls and perception checks" and touts that the system doesn't need a GM if you want to make a character and battle your friends. Man to Man even included it's own adventure book Orcslayer. Which is the one big thing I would say is wrong with 4e, there are almost no adventure books!