GURPS Conversion Questions

[Seenar]

I so totally hate GURPS, but the folks at Amarillo Design Bureau decided to use GURPS for Prime Directive. (I guess now technically, GRUPS Prime Directive, gah).

Anyway, while I have already spent a lot of time converting the orginal Prime Directive to Hero, they will contiune to come out with thing (stupidly titled) like GURPS Klingon Empire, and GRUPS Rmulans, and GURPS Photon Torpedoes (OK, I made that last one up).

So, I am wondering if their is a good rule of thumb to convert from the dumb-ass GURPS system to Hero, Truly The Ultimate Gamers Toolkit?

[Peregrine]

I've looked at it before, and never came up with anything solid.

However, I have observed that the proper conversion of stats might be HERO Char Roll = GURPS Stat, so that, for example, a GURPS stat of 15 = HERO char of 30. (Well, good for a supers conversion, I suppose.)

[Armitage]

Originally posted by Seenar
So, I am wondering if their is a good rule of thumb to convert from the dumb-ass GURPS system to Hero, Truly The Ultimate Gamers Toolkit?

As I rush to beat Surbrook posting the address for his own web page...:D

http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/herosource/gurpshero.html

[Seenar]

Thanks, Armitage. Looking at this page just increases my disdain for all things GURPS.

[Fur Face]

GURPS has great background materials, but to me it always seemed the system made things complicated and inconsistent. I would just eyeball the effects and translate how that would work in your campaign, forgeting conversion altogether.

For example, I picked up GURPS Martial Art Adventures some years back, and they had a supplementary rules material at the end. They had two things I thought were cool, some new maneuvers, like Axe Kick, and one thing called Sharpshooter. As far as the Axe Kick, instead of requiring things like "must be taught by master", I just ended up calling it an Offensive Strike, because that's what it truly was. As far as the Sharpshooter power, this was something that could only be done in character creation, and a character with this power could pick up, use & repair any pistol-type weapon from any time period. Not only that, but he could pull off phenominal shots without even trying. In the end I decided it was kind of hokey, but if I wanted something similiar I could just by tons of Weapon FAM's & Combat Skill Levels.

FWIW, I would just eyeball the effects you want and press on. :)

[Garlak]

Originally posted by Seenar
Thanks, Armitage. Looking at this page just increases my disdain for all things GURPS.

Ok we get it you hate GURPS.
Get on with your life already.
It is not like anyone is forcing you to use it.
So dont and please stop whinning about it.

P.S.: Not trying to flame you, just tired of this type of posting.
It serves no good purpose.

[Blue]

Originally posted by Garlak
Ok we get it you hate GURPS.
Get on with your life already.
It is not like anyone is forcing you to use it.
So dont and please stop whinning about it.

P.S.: Not trying to flame you, just tired of this type of posting.
It serves no good purpose.

Now *THAT* served no purpose. If you don't like the guy, don't read his posts. There's even some kind of ignore feature in here somewhere.

Back to topic: After spending much of my life trying to convert systems back and forth mathematically, I tend to think Fur Face is right. It's fairly time consuming, but I generally just look and go "... Should this guy be as strong as Grond?..." or "In GURPS a dragon is XXX and in the Hero System Bestiary he's XXX." But generally I just wing it. The "that sounds fair" approach to choosing figures and stats.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Blue
After spending much of my life trying to convert systems back and forth mathematically, I tend to think Fur Face is right. It's fairly time consuming, but I generally just look and go "... Should this guy be as strong as Grond?..." or "In GURPS a dragon is XXX and in the Hero System Bestiary he's XXX." But generally I just wing it. The "that sounds fair" approach to choosing figures and stats.

Agreed here. My campaigns have wandered back and forth between GURPS, Hero, Shadowrun, Unknown Armies, Aberrant, Night Life, BESM, etc. over the years. Strict conversions never capture the feel of characters or material; better to think in terms of following the special effects as closeley as you can and wing the rest.

[Garlak]

Originally posted by Blue
Now *THAT* served no purpose. If you don't like the guy, don't read his posts. There's even some kind of ignore feature in here somewhere.

It serves as much purpose as insulting a game system just for the sake of it I would say.
Which is like you say: none.

I was not trying to insult anyone, I was just pointing out that insulting game systems is pointless.

I am new to this game so conversion stuff is very interesting to me.

Carrying on posting, I got alot of reading to do now that I finally have the HERO System Book. :cool:

[JMHammer]

Amarillo Design Bureau decided to use GURPS for Prime Directive

It's a good thing SJG has such a good portfolio of other products so ADB can't ruin that company the way they did TFG. I'd be very interested to learn some of the details of that contract, such as who has final say on content and who controls publication.

Former SFB Goober,
John H

[SCUBA Hero]

Originally posted by JMHammer
It's a good thing SJG has such a good portfolio of other products so ADB can't ruin that company the way they did TFG.

(snip)

Former SFB Goober,
John H
I'd be interested in the TFG/ADB details. . . never did hear much about what went on. . . probably better done as a new thread in the General Roleplaying forum, though.

Inquiring minds want to know!

[Seenar]

Originally posted by JMHammer
It's a good thing SJG has such a good portfolio of other products so ADB can't ruin that company the way they did TFG. I'd be very interested to learn some of the details of that contract, such as who has final say on content and who controls publication.

Former SFB Goober,
John H

Was not ADB's fault that TFG just stopped publishing SFB. ADB has been doing a great job getting stuff out since getting away form TFG.

[JMHammer]

ADB has been doing a great job getting stuff out since getting away form TFG.

That might be true, and if so provides even more evidence that good 'ol Steve purposely drove his "partners" out of business.

I shouldn't have brought it up. I am SO glad I don't play that game anymore, or have anything to do with Stevie or the Cole-bots. It's over for me, thank god, I hadn't thought about this nonsense for years, and I've decided I don't want to think about it now.

I'll just back toward the door now. Stepping out, yessir, didn't mean to step in here. Now I'll have to buy new shoes...

John H

[Toadmaster]

At the risk of starting a rant fest, why do you HATE GURPS so much. I've played both and there are many similarities which always makes me curious when people have such strong reactions vs HERO or GURPS. I can understand when GURPS or HERO people say they hate games such as D&D or Vampire type games because they are so differant from HERO/GURPS but it seems odd to have such a strong reactions between GURPS and HERO (love one, hate the other).

Strictly curiosity not trying to stir up a hornets nest.

[Blue]

I've also heard nothing but good things about GURPS... before this thread that is. I still have no interest in learning another system when HERO handles everything I need to do.

[OddHat]

I've played GURPS on and off for years. In many ways it's a nice system, with some excellent world books. I also like Hero system.

To each his (or her) own.

[Kintara]

GURPS has many of the same problems Hero has, breakpoints and such, but it has a different style. GURPS is a great system to use for a grittier game with middling to lower powered characters. GURPS is a little more specific than Hero, as its goal isn't to be a toolkit as much as a game system that can be used generically. There's an important difference between them. Also, I'd say that the level of detail to the system is differently placed than Hero; they are equally detailed, just in different ways.

Anyway, I'd agree that acrimony is counterproductive, as one is alienating the very people that can help most, GURPS fans. Also, it's impolite to those who like the system as it is insulting their taste. But it ain't a big deal, really.

Anyway, I'd say that the rough guidelines that were posted earlier are good, well, guidelines. That is to say, they are useful to a point, and then you just have to guesstimate the rest, and use some artistic license while you're at it. When you convert, there is always certain aspects of the new system that might be worth looking into, even if they don't exactly model what your character was. You want to take advantage of the benefits of the system you're converting to after all.

[Garlak]

GURPS is designed for "realistic" game play.
It breaks down in high powered campaigns.
GURPS Supers is know for being problematic.

But if you like grittier game play it works great.
But it badly needs revision to smooth out the system and simplify some of its complexities.
3rd edition was published a very long time ago.
Late 80s or early 90s I think.

[Mr. Negative]

Originally posted by Garlak
GURPS is designed for "realistic" game play....


...But if you like grittier game play it works great.
But it badly needs revision to smooth out the system and simplify some of its complexities.



However, some of the GURPS complexity isn't a matter of smoothing or simplifying, but of a decision to base rules on real units and reality, rather than game units. GURPS has chosen, by and large, to do their rules by "cause" rather than by "effect" as it is in Champions. This means that instead of having general rules that you modify to create specificity, you instead have specific rules for specific effects.

For example, Pyrokinesis raises the temperature of a specific cubic area by a specific temperature in GURPS. This would mean that perhaps a pryokineticist could raise a human's temperature by 1° per second (and GURPS tells you the temperature at which humans lose consciousness).

Thus, you have a LOT more complexity than HERO, but it's for a specific reason, which you may or may not like.

[Bartman]

Originally posted by Toadmaster
At the risk of starting a rant fest, why do you HATE GURPS so much. I've played both and there are many similarities which always makes me curious when people have such strong reactions vs HERO or GURPS. I can understand when GURPS or HERO people say they hate games such as D&D or Vampire type games because they are so differant from HERO/GURPS but it seems odd to have such a strong reactions between GURPS and HERO (love one, hate the other).

Strictly curiosity not trying to stir up a hornets nest.

Well I can't speak for Seenar, but I can tell you some of the things I dislike about GURPS. Some of these may no longer be true as it has been some time since I have played.

1- Costs are based on difficulty/rarity rather than utility. In GURPS, each point of STR costs twice as much as the previous point. An exceptionally strong character is virtually unplayable as nearly every point will be sucked up by STR. By comparison a 30 STR character in a Hero NCM game will only have to sink 30 pts into STR allowing him to have some other skills and characteristics. This has a tendency to encourage generalists who all share a number of abilites rather than unique characters with one or two exceptional abilites.

2- No standardization. SImilar effects can have wildly divergent costs. A 200pt GURPS mage will be at a vastly different power level than a 200pt Psionist or Superhero. In other words there is no real universality to the system. Compare this with Hero where you can put a 75+75pt Fantasy mage, Justice Inc. mystic, and Star Hero cyborg in the same campaign and expect them to be more or less equal in effectiveness. In Hero 40pts in a fire attack is always the same 8d6. In GURPS pyrokenesis, a fireball spell and a super's fire blast all have different values for the same effect.

3- No unified rule system. You want to do magic? You have to buy the magic rule book. Want psionics? Than you have to buy that. The same is true for virtually everything. With Hero literally all you need is FREd. With GURPS you really can't run anything without getting the applicable rulebook.

Now none of these make me hate GURPS, but they do make me want to play Hero instead.

[Mordacius]

I used to both play and run GURPS - still have a decent collection of books.

I *love* their worldbooks. About the only one I read that I didn't like was GURPS Riverworld - in every other case I've seen, they've really done their homework. GURPS Space talked about at least a couple of things I later brought up in high school physics. :)

Moreover, because GURPS is big on real world units, said books are often very handy in other game systems, such as HERO. I'd still consider buying a GURPS treatment of just about any genre, if only for the sidebars. (Someday I'm going to find time to convert GURPS Technomancer to HERO, and then I will play it again...)

On the other hand, the system a mess. I have given up on it. This is more than just a design philosophy thing, as others have mentioned. There is that - GURPS reasons from a very different paradigm than HERO. But it's also about a lack of quality control in their rules.

This is particularly glaring if you look at their magic system, which I genuinely do hate. After reading the GURPS Grimoire I was certain that not only had the spells been written by at least a dozen different people, none of them had the same idea of what spells should cost, and nobody had forced a consensus before the book went to print.

So I have a love/hate thing for GURPS, rather than the more common HERO-fan hatred. :)

After edit:
Their fan based stuff is sometimes very good, though. If you want to see a really fascinating discussion of scale in roleplaying games, check out GURPS Gulliver.

[Toadmaster]

I can understand prefering one over the other, its the downright hatred wouldn't play it if it were the only game on earth but HERO (GURPS) is great.

I look at GURPS as HERO for those who don't want to "build" stuff. I favor HERO because I think GURPS has become close to unplayable with all the additions (which book is that in?), but at one time GURPS was my choice over HERO (except Supers which I don't think GURPS has ever done well). If GURPS had a serious overhaul / revision I'd consider it again, I still find it quite useful for ideas. It also makes HERO combat seem quick.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Bartman
Well I can't speak for Seenar, but I can tell you some of the things I dislike about GURPS. Some of these may no longer be true as it has been some time since I have played.

The costs issue has been fixed (STR starts getting cheaper after ST:15 and becomes dirt cheap in the superhuman ranges). Hit Points have been (somewhat) fixed as well, it that they may now be based off of Strength instead of Health; Superstrong supers no longer kill each-other with a single blow, but still instant-kill anyone else.

The Standardization issue remains a problem; a Supers mage is not a Voodoo mage is not a Fantasy mage is not a Mage ...er... mage. OTOH, the world books are excellent, and Steve Long broke Hero System standardization with Fantasy Hero anyway. ;)

The no unified rules system problem remains unchecked.

Like any other rules system, you'll eventually have to tweak it to you liking. Currently I'm back with hero because I like having the mechanics right out in the open where I can fiddle with them until they work, but I can certainly understand someone whose play style made them prefer a game world where a punch that could smash through a brick wall would have no trouble splattering a normal human.

And yes, it's easy enough to weak Hero system to allow for that.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by OddHat
OTOH, the world books are excellent, and Steve Long broke Hero System standardization with Fantasy Hero anyway. ;)


How so? I think I know the kinds of things you're getting at, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Nevertheless, it's not as "bad" (quotes because what's bad for me isn't for everyone) as in GURPS, and you can still play a perfectly fine FH game with only the core book.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by GamePhil
How so? I think I know the kinds of things you're getting at, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Nevertheless, it's not as "bad" (quotes because what's bad for me isn't for everyone) as in GURPS, and you can still play a perfectly fine FH game with only the core book.

The optional magic rules. They are, of course, optional. Still, a 350 point Mage built under a given set of optional rules is no longer fully interchangeable with a 350 point mage built "by the book" or under other given sets of optional rules.

This is not an attack; I can see why they were suggested. Still, it does make the Hero system a bit less Universal, and that is the same problem GURPS was being called on the mat for.

And you can play a perfectly good game of GURPS fantasy with only the core book as well. ;)

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by OddHat
The optional magic rules. They are, of course, optional. Still, a 350 point Mage built under a given set of optional rules is no longer fully interchangeable with a 350 point mage built "by the book" or under other given sets of optional rules.


That's what I thought you meant. Optional rules do have a way of creeping in, don't they?



This is not an attack; I can see why they were suggested.


I know, I saw the smiley. :)



And you can play a perfectly good game of GURPS fantasy with only the core book as well. ;)

Well, sort of. There's certainly enough there to build your own spells, which you'll probably want to have. I just prefer Legoes to Playdo.

[Seenar]

Originally posted by Toadmaster
At the risk of starting a rant fest, why do you HATE GURPS so much. I've played both and there are many similarities which always makes me curious when people have such strong reactions vs HERO or GURPS. I can understand when GURPS or HERO people say they hate games such as D&D or Vampire type games because they are so differant from HERO/GURPS but it seems odd to have such a strong reactions between GURPS and HERO (love one, hate the other).

Strictly curiosity not trying to stir up a hornets nest.

GURPS pretends to be what Hero actaully is, and gets all the limelight.

[Seenar]

Originally posted by Bartman
Well I can't speak for Seenar, but I can tell you some of the things I dislike about GURPS. Some of these may no longer be true as it has been some time since I have played.

1- Costs are based on difficulty/rarity rather than utility. In GURPS, each point of STR costs twice as much as the previous point. An exceptionally strong character is virtually unplayable as nearly every point will be sucked up by STR. By comparison a 30 STR character in a Hero NCM game will only have to sink 30 pts into STR allowing him to have some other skills and characteristics. This has a tendency to encourage generalists who all share a number of abilites rather than unique characters with one or two exceptional abilites.

2- No standardization. SImilar effects can have wildly divergent costs. A 200pt GURPS mage will be at a vastly different power level than a 200pt Psionist or Superhero. In other words there is no real universality to the system. Compare this with Hero where you can put a 75+75pt Fantasy mage, Justice Inc. mystic, and Star Hero cyborg in the same campaign and expect them to be more or less equal in effectiveness. In Hero 40pts in a fire attack is always the same 8d6. In GURPS pyrokenesis, a fireball spell and a super's fire blast all have different values for the same effect.

3- No unified rule system. You want to do magic? You have to buy the magic rule book. Want psionics? Than you have to buy that. The same is true for virtually everything. With Hero literally all you need is FREd. With GURPS you really can't run anything without getting the applicable rulebook.

Now none of these make me hate GURPS, but they do make me want to play Hero instead.

Ditto

[Bartman]

Originally posted by Seenar
Ditto

LOL. I guess I can speak for Seenar.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Bartman
LOL. I guess I can speak for Seenar.

Dude! Quick! Sell his stuff!

[Just A Guy Name]

Originally posted by Bartman
<snip>
2- No standardization. SImilar effects can have wildly divergent costs. A 200pt GURPS mage will be at a vastly different power level than a 200pt Psionist or Superhero. In other words there is no real universality to the system. Compare this with Hero where you can put a 75+75pt Fantasy mage, Justice Inc. mystic, and Star Hero cyborg in the same campaign and expect them to be more or less equal in effectiveness. In Hero 40pts in a fire attack is always the same 8d6. In GURPS pyrokenesis, a fireball spell and a super's fire blast all have different values for the same effect.

By "universality", do you mean adaptability? Certainly the existence and playabilty of multi-genre campaigns using GURPS is verifiable, and ought to indicate otherwise. Regarding the example of pyrokinesis, et al; if abilities have exactly the same effect, they should have the same cost. GURPS design philosophy treats the SE of each of the attacks as fundamental, resulting in different pricing for each. Whether the costs are fair, compared to each other, is another matter;)

[Bartman]

Nope I just meant standardization. I have played in multi-genre GURPS campaigns and they were always a mess. Generally a whole lot of handwaving had to be done, or the whole thing would fall apart.

[tetsujin28]

Originally posted by Seenar

So, I am wondering if their is a good rule of thumb to convert from the dumb-ass GURPS system to Hero, Truly The Ultimate Gamers Toolkit? Nice to see you're so open-minded. I usually end up doing my conversions the other way around.

[Mark Taylor]

GURPS -> HERO conversion is something I'm working on. When I've got somewhere satisfactory with it I'll post it for all to see - even GURPS haters who insult us GURPS fans then ask for help. ;)

I don't favour either a pure 'mathematical' conversion method or a pure 'just use your judgement' method, but a combination. Use the mathematics to spit out some numbers, then jiggle and adjust as necessary to taste.

[Mark Taylor]

Originally posted by Bartman
Nope I just meant standardization. I have played in multi-genre GURPS campaigns and they were always a mess. Generally a whole lot of handwaving had to be done, or the whole thing would fall apart.

It takes a highly competent and experienced GM to pull this off without making a mess. Possibly that's a flaw with GURPS, but then HERO isn't that 'beginner friendly' either.

[Mark Taylor]

BTW, for anybody who needs a very basic understanding of GURPS to interpret materials, you can download or view GURPS Lite as a free .pdf here (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/). At only 32 pages it shouldn't tax your brain or your time too badly. :) Bear in mind it is a hugely cut down version of the system, with only a tiny fraction of the skills, advantages, disadvantages etc. sampled.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by Realms of Chaos
It takes a highly competent and experienced GM to pull this off without making a mess. Possibly that's a flaw with GURPS, but then HERO isn't that 'beginner friendly' either.

Actually, I'd say GURPS is quite a bit more beginner friendly than HERO. One thing that seems to appeal to new people is having a shopping list of things to buy, like "Lightning" spells and so on, rather than having to build them from scratch. It inspires the player, and even an old hand can get ideas from such a list.

The non-standardization thing is somewhat illusory: it certainly exists, but it's not as much of a problem as it seems if you really want to use GURPS. it would be quite possible to make GURPS more universal by simply taking one of the supplements (unfortunately, the best one for this would probably be Supers) and only using it. Don't use the magic system presented, but build all spells from scratch with Supers. And so on. Some Multipower replacement would be nice for this, though.

Of course, my main use for GURPS materials is to get ideas for or even convert them over into HERO, so I can use virtually everything without balance issues. It would be kind of funny to convert GURPS into GURPS, though.

[tetsujin28]

Unfortunately, GURPS Supers is one of the worst books they ever put out, even when they revised it.

[Mark Taylor]

Originally posted by GamePhil
Actually, I'd say GURPS is quite a bit more beginner friendly than HERO. One thing that seems to appeal to new people is having a shopping list of things to buy, like "Lightning" spells and so on, rather than having to build them from scratch. It inspires the player, and even an old hand can get ideas from such a list.

The non-standardization thing is somewhat illusory: it certainly exists, but it's not as much of a problem as it seems if you really want to use GURPS. it would be quite possible to make GURPS more universal by simply taking one of the supplements (unfortunately, the best one for this would probably be Supers) and only using it. Don't use the magic system presented, but build all spells from scratch with Supers. And so on. Some Multipower replacement would be nice for this, though.

Of course, my main use for GURPS materials is to get ideas for or even convert them over into HERO, so I can use virtually everything without balance issues. It would be kind of funny to convert GURPS into GURPS, though.

I agree that GURPS is more beginner friendly (at least for players, not so much for GMs) but the challenges of running a multi-genre game are considerable. However, that's probably true for any system, unless it's built around a specific and detailed multi-genre universe.

As for non-standardization with point costs, this is rooted in GURPS's assumption of a particular level of commonality of certain abilities in the game worlds in which they are likely to appear. In game worlds where they are more or less common, point costs need to be adjusted. The experienced GURPS GM can usually achieve this by applying a set multiplier to the point costs of every ability in the affected class, or by the use of the deliberately ill-defined 'unusual background' advantage, which exists for precisely that purpose.

Somebody else in this thread argued that abilities should be priced by their effectiveness, not by rarity. In reality though, effectiveness is affected by rarity. Somebody who had high powered magic (especially mind affecting magic) in the real world, for example, could probably end up ruling the world, assuming they had the intelligence and subtlety to use it most effectively. It is valid to take rarity into account. The problem is, GURPS makes some assumptions about rarity that just don't hold true for every game world.

If every ability could really be measured by a number of dice of 'damage', ability pricing would be easy and infallible. Unfortunately that's not the case. In a world where (for example) mind affecting abilities are so rare hardly anybody possesses any adequate defence against them, their prices would be totally out of proportion with mere 'damage dealing' abilities, even in HERO system.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by Realms of Chaos
Somebody else in this thread argued that abilities should be priced by their effectiveness, not by rarity. In reality though, effectiveness is affected by rarity.

Effectiveness can be affected by rarity, true, although GURPS goes too far in saying that rarity must always cost extra. In a game world in which rarity is an advantage, in HERO I'd charge a Perk or apply an Advantage on the Power (or Skill, for that matter), in the same way Unusual Background works in GURPS.

[Ron]

Many of the perceived problems with GURPS are from the fact that GURPS sells itself as a generic system, which it is not. At least, not in the way that HERO is generic. GURPS is rather a modular system. Need magic? Take GURPS Magic. Different one? Allright, experiment GURPS Voodoo. Theres little effort of making costs standardized along all supplements.

I was a great supporter of GURPS in the past and I still think it is a good game. However, as supplements got released, GURPS became increasely difficult to play, due to the lack of standardization and the option for exhaustive listing everything. Compared to HERO, GURPS' advantage/disadvantage lists are huge. Instead of giving guidelines to the GM price specific mental or physical advantages/disadvantages, they tried to list every single one. There was a point that I gave up this insanity. I still think that GURPS do stats better than HERO, which I think has too many. But that's it. I don't see any other compeling advantage of GURPS.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Ron
I still think that GURPS do stats better than HERO, which I think has too many. But that's it. I don't see any other compeling advantage of GURPS.

I see one; well designed specific settings. GURPS world books almost always do a very good job of describing worlds and campaigns in great detail, and carefully develop logical alternatives for those settings. Look at GURPS Voodoo; you have a clear and well conceived world history, a bunch of alternative campaign ideas, a very flexible magic system, and a few well written examples of play.

IMO Hero System: Champions certainly trumps GURPS Supers if you don't want to end up doing a lot of hand waving to keep characters alive or to get just the effect you're looking for, but GURPS Wildcards and IST and their companion books are well done; both make for good sources to adapt to Hero System.

[tetsujin28]

Originally posted by Seenar
GURPS pretends to be what Hero actaully is, and gets all the limelight. Oh, please. This is just silly.

[Sketchpad]

Originally posted by tetsujin28
Unfortunately, GURPS Supers is one of the worst books they ever put out, even when they revised it.

I agree 100% ... which is too bad because love the GURPS system (especially the Horror genre book) ;)

[Kintara]

Well, I have used the GURPS Supers rules, and it worked passably. That doesn't mean that I think it is good. I'm mostly bringing it up to say that it is playable, at least in the right game. Of course the game I played it in was a gritty one during the Cold War, where desperate Americans and Russians turned people into supers at the expense of the poor person's sanity and freedom. In fact, I'd say it was rather Cthulhuesque.