Rules Breakdown: GURPS: The Generic Universal Role Playing System

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Retro RPG: GURPS (The Generic Universal Role Playing System)
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Description: The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting. It was created by Steve Jackson Games and first published in 1986 at a time when most such systems were story- or genre-specific.
Players control their in-game characters verbally and the success of their actions are determined by the skill of their character, the difficulty of the action, and the rolling of dice. Characters earn points during play which are used to gain greater abilities. Gaming sessions are story-told and run by "Game Masters" (often referred to as simply "GMs").
GURPS won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Rules of 1988, and in 2000 it was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame. Many of its expansions have also won awards.

[@SourenaFFS]

My man out here casually rolling triple sixes 🔥

[@RPGGamer]

Makes making these videos interesting, as I roll the dice and have to adapt what I'm saying based on it. Sometimes the random element will really bite me on the ass, as I'll have just mentioned how a target number is unlikely to be reached and then roll double it by chance.

[@azmendozafamily]

I just bought the 4th edition books. I had played GURPS in the 90's and early 2000's. When I saw Dai Blackthorn in the "Character creation" and now seeing him in the old book on your review, it was nice to see some things are eternal. Thanks for the good review and breakdown.

[@RPGGamer]

Cheers mate, I've only got the rulebook I've reviewed, so nice to hear there's a thread running through the editions.

[@donald347]

"When you improve a skill, the cost is the difference between your current skill level and the cost of the new skill level" I eventually understood but this needs to be re-written lol

[@RPGGamer]

I think this is something we got wrong for so long when we were playing Gurps, because advancement was painfully slow. It's not the worst phrasing I've seen in an RPG though.

[@nullpoint3346]

A given skill level has an absolute value.

[@NefariousKoel]

Your 3E book looks like it's in great condition.

[@RPGGamer]

Cheers, I like to take care of my books, but I can't totally take responsibility for this one as I was only gifted this book a few years ago, so most of it's life it was cared for by someone else.

[@matthiasholzinger5592]

Might be worth mentioning that there is a new version out (4th Edition) that overhauls some of the things mentioned, but in general works in a similar way.

[@RPGGamer]

Good to hear. I may cover it at some point to see what the improvements are, cheers for letting me know.

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

Good breakdown It’s been awhile since I played so thanks.

[@colinlogan2909]

Extremely well presented! Thank you!

[@RPGGamer]

I'm very glad you enjoyed it! Many thanks for the kind comment.

[@ex1stgames]

succinct - thank you!

[@RPGGamer]

My absolute pleasure, thank you for the comment.

[@zombietotseater3894]

More GURPS. 😊

[@RPGGamer]

Will do.

[@Dasharr]

There's a lot to like about GURPS - I'm always fond of systems that are modular like it is with its optional rules. The points system puts me off though, and it's because that there's a disconnect in terms of what the points mean. You covered balance in the video, and at character creation you can take disadvantages to get more points, buy advantages/skills/attributes with points, etc. But the skills are priced according to realism, not balance - Nuclear Physics (or some other highly specialised academic knowledge) is going to be priced at the Hard or Very Hard level while Streetwise might be only Average difficulty cost, even though Streetwise is the more useful skill in gameplay (unless you're doing GURPS Large Hadron Collider Project Management or something). Likewise, mental skills beimg costed from the IQ attribute baseline and physical ones from DX is realistic (because intelligent/agile people can more easily become proficient in mental/physical skills) but means that some concepts are objectively worse under the same points cost, like someone who's got good combat skills from practice but isn't dextrous; this character pays more points for the same final skill totals and has a lower DX into the bargain. There's a similar case with the Eidetic Memory advantage giving a discount on mental skill costs - it's realistic that an exceptional memory makes it easier to learn academic disciplines, but it can be an imbalance because the advantage's cost plus discounted skills can be cheaper than just buying the skills. It isn't consistent because other elements are based on game balance instead of realism - there's no realistic reason that disadvantages directly cause someone to be advantaged elsewhere or vice versa, but that's how it works within a points budget. It can actively be counter-realistic, for instance someone with a high rated Wealth advantage and exceptional social skills in GURPS can have a hard time fitting in the points to buy an advantage for a high social standing or reputation, when realistically a socially skilled and rich person would have an easier time being part of high society, not harder. Which all means that I fimd the point buy system incoherent in GURPS. It doesn't work as a balance mechanism, because you can't ask players to build characters to a given points value and have any confidence that they'll be similarly capable. It doesn't work at resulting in realistic player characters either because it incentivises players to collect odd disadvantages to pay for other things - PCs being deformed social pariahs are an old joke about the system. I haven't read the 4th edition, so I don't know if this is true of the current edition or not.

[@RPGGamer]

I get what you mean, that sometimes the effort for balance led to a strange unbalancing. In the campaign that we played in, while other people were playing characters with some superpower like abilities. All I wanted to play was a smart techy kid. And the abundance of points to be spent led to the characters Intelligence being basically off the charts. So this teenager character I'm trying to play suddenly can solve most problems. We encounter alien tech, he can figure out how it works. We find advanced warp engines dragging the whole world out of sync, he knows how to fix what the worlds best scientists messed up. Took the character concept and warped it into something else all in the name of balance.

[@Maximara]

@@RPGGamer A *lot* of that has to due with the fact that Classic Supers (all pre 4e GURPS stuff is called classic) was itself broken in relation to the rest of the Classic GURPS system which of course meant it was broken even within the context of the Basic Set. Heck, Classic Supers was such a mess that it got an update in a year with the bonanza-fest that was Magic Power dropped but most of the original problems still intact. In 4e terms your character would have had a Wildcard (Bang!) skill

[@dantouzeau6985]

Thats why Fallout uses the Gurps systems: the world is crafted in such a way as to make Nuclear physics as useful as streetsmarts

[@stevetheduck1425]

Only use what you need: character 'value' balance is a D&D problem. If one player summons angels and another rides a BMX bike, but they are the only people who fight the bigbad, then the bike kid gets angel summoner to where the threat is.

[@OgamiItto70]

@@RPGGamer You were playing Ensign Wesley Crusher?

[@Leverquin]

how does defance works in 4th edition?

[@nullpoint3346]

Basically a quick contest.