SJG news that might be of interest

A couple of items from this past weekend's Daily Illuminator: On Saturday, the shipping of GURPS: Fantasy was announced. Not a 4E version of the old supplement with the same name, but a toolbook for building fantasy campaigns, similar to Fantasy Hero; and on Sunday, playtesting was announced for GURPS: Powers, which seems to be like Fantasy, but geared to superpowered campaigns. As usual, playtesters must be subscribed to Pyramid, though those interested have up until the 24th to subscribe and then contact the writer (Sean Punch) to apply for playtesting. Here's the significant article.

Sounds like someone has gotten a bit concerned about Hero Games and decided to copy the route Steve has put the Hero System on... I do not know about you all, but that is really irritating to me.

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Originally Posted by Gary Ciaramella

Sounds like someone has gotten a bit concerned about Hero Games and decided to copy the route Steve has put the Hero System on... I do not know about you all, but that is really irritating to me.

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Except that SJG announced a Fantasy toolkit book (which was to be called GURPS Fantasy Campaigns) before HERO 5E was even launched. As it happened, this never came out because the decision to launch GURPS 4E saw this and many other GURPS 3E projects cancelled or remodelled, but the concept was identical to what has now become the 4E version of GURPS Fantasy. For that matter, you might just as well conclude that SJG are modelling their other genre lines on GURPS Space, since it has been structured as a genre toolkit book + further supplements for specific settings (i.e. the same way HERO Games structure their genre lines) for several years. As has GURPS Horror and several other GURPS lines for that matter. GURPS Cyberpunk looked just like a modern HERO System line from the moment it first came out, back in 1990. You had GURPS Cyberpunk (genre book), GURPS Cyberworld (setting book) GURPS Cyberpunk Adventures (battlegrounds, anyone?) and GURPS Cthulhupunk (crossover genre / setting book all in one, Galactic Champions springs to mind).

Having said that, the new GURPS line is looking considerably more HERO-like than previously, but that is just a natural evolution, just as HERO System evolved from Champions. You might just as well accuse HERO Games of copying the whole "core rulebook completely divorced from genre and setting, plus supplements for specific genres and settings" concept from GURPS in the first place, since IIRC GURPS was the first RPG system (and certainly the first successful RPG system) to be structured that way.

Both GURPS and HERO System have influenced each other over the years. That doesn't mean they're "copying" from each other any more than every other RPG ever made is "copying" from D&D. Frankly (and I don't work in the RPG industry so somebody who does feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think RPG designers / publishers can afford to get worked up about companies borrowing ideas X or Y from them, unless they are unique ideas specific to a game setting rather than a system. If they did, then to be honest 90%+ of the RPGs out there wouldn't even exist, because there is no such thing as an RPG system that doesn't borrow ideas and concepts from previous RPG systems.

My biggest problem with the new GURPS Fantasy is that they are keeping their magic system as the only magic system. IMHO, I believe this has always been one of their greatest stumbling block to true universality. After all, magic works differently in Earthsea then it does LotR and neither one fits within the GURPS college system. While this book will give ideas as how to tweak it, it is still the same old same magic system but with options of different colours. Now I admit I don't have the book yet and is only going on what I read in an article, so I might be wrong.

G

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Originally Posted by yamamura

My biggest problem with the new GURPS Fantasy is that they are keeping their magic system as the only magic system. IMHO, I believe this has always been one of their greatest stumbling block to true universality. After all, magic works differently in Earthsea then it does LotR and neither one fits within the GURPS college system. While this book will give ideas as how to tweak it, it is still the same old same magic system but with options of different colours. Now I admit I don't have the book yet and is only going on what I read in an article, so I might be wrong.

G

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Just one of the things that will keep me playing HERO System. It's the best system for fantasy (at least for how I like to run fantasy) I've discovered so far.

I don't have the book yet, either, so my first thought is that it is best to wait and see what it actually does to expand the rules presented in G4E Basic Set. I note that even in 3E, there were alternate forms of magic presented (in various sourcebooks), some of which were easily tweakable (cf the Improvised Spell system from Magic, and the Hermetic system from Cabal). I expect we will see guidelines in the new 4E Magic providing at least as much modularity as those.

Okay, folks. History lesson time. How many folks remember HERO pre-fourth edition? All those different HERO games with slightly different rules? Before there was a HERO System rulebook even?

GURPS doesn't quite have that situation, but they're not all that far off when you look at how the sourcebooks relate to each other. So they're sitting down and unifying as much of the stuff as possible, ala what the HERO people did.

While they may make this the "official" magic system, I still think that for a lot of magical genres there will be a magical system invented for them, incompatible with the main one. Just too much tradition behind it.

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Originally Posted by Mutant for Hire

While they may make this the "official" magic system, I still think that for a lot of magical genres there will be a magical system invented for them, incompatible with the main one. Just too much tradition behind it.

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Sure there will, but I'd rather have a toolkit of the sort that allows me to construct my own magic systems. :)

It's no surprise that SJG and we have pursued pretty similar business paths over the years- Evil Stevie learned a lot from the Hero OGs when he started up, and we in turn watched what he did with great interest, and back and forth over the years. I think SJG is a superior game company, and fully cop to borrowing several parts of their business model for ourselves when DOJ took over Hero. I don't think they're "copying" us with 4E, just responding to the same sorts of evolutionary pressures inherent to our little niche of the industry- we're both trying to figure out what our fans want and give it to them while making a decent living. We probably have more in common with them than just about any other of our competitors; our differences in philosophy are narrow but deep, if you know what I mean. dw

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Originally Posted by yamamura

My biggest problem with the new GURPS Fantasy is that they are keeping their magic system as the only magic system.

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That was always -the- reason GURPS never entered the table for me as a serious choice for a Fantasy game. They've got a decent system, better than many RPGs, but it is not -my- system, not what works with the worlds I run.

Hero may be overly complex at times, but I can model many of my ideas with it, if not all.