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GURPS and Hero System


phoenix240

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Because the GURPS: Basic Rules are 32 pages, and the GURPS: Very Basic rules are technically 8 pages, but you fold one page using a set of instructions I didn't manage to make heads or tails of.

 

It's a good analogy for many parts of GURPS.

 

Edit: Sorry, I'm on Page 99 of GURPS: Character Creation, and I've been wading (or trying to wade) through it for months. All the slogging is making me sarcastic about it. Probably not the system for me. :)

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The Lite rules are not great. They should be followable, but they're not terribly useful for any but the most narrow of games. The Ultra-lite rules are a joke, honestly.

 

It definitely helps to either a) have an experienced player to explain the idiosyncrasies, or B) have played it from 1st edition, a million years ago.

 

Because the GURPS: Basic Rules are 32 pages, and the GURPS: Very Basic rules are technically 8 pages, but you fold one page using a set of instructions I didn't manage to make heads or tails of.

 

It's a good analogy for many parts of GURPS.

 

Edit: Sorry, I'm on Page 99 of GURPS: Character Creation, and I've been wading (or trying to wade) through it for months. All the slogging is making me sarcastic about it. Probably not the system for me. :)

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The Lite rules are not great. They should be followable, but they're not terribly useful for any but the most narrow of games. The Ultra-lite rules are a joke, honestly.

 

It definitely helps to either a) have an experienced player to explain the idiosyncrasies, or B) have played it from 1st edition, a million years ago.

I taught myself HERO System. I don't think it's either problem. I like many of the Actual Plays I see (Note to forum: We need more HERO APs), but the rules aren't really clicking for me. No insult to the system, honestly; no RPG that comes up with most of the APs I've seen of it can easily be bad. But I'm probably not a GURPS'ier (GURPS'ian? GURPS'oid?).

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I taught myself HERO System. I don't think it's either problem. I like many of the Actual Plays I see (Note to forum: We need more HERO APs), but the rules aren't really clicking for me. No insult to the system, honestly; no RPG that comes up with most of the APs I've seen of it can easily be bad. But I'm probably not a GURPS'ier (GURPS'ian? GURPS'oid?).

GURPS'ist.

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I once wrote a filksong about the game's title. The chorus went:

 

What is a Gurp, Steve? What is a Gurp?

Is it some immoral power you are trying to usurp?

If you kill one, will it bleed on you? If you eat one, will you burp?

Mr. Jackson, could you please explain -- What the Hell is a Gurp?

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I once wrote a filksong about the game's title. The chorus went:

 

What is a Gurp, Steve? What is a Gurp?

Is it some immoral power you are trying to usurp?

If you kill one, will it bleed on you? If you eat one, will you burp?

Mr. Jackson, could you please explain -- What the Hell is a Gurp?

In case you actually want to know, "Generic Universal Role-Playing System".

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The fun part about the name is that it started out  as a joke, just something to call the game in it's original form before it was completed. They were sure they'd come up with something better eventually, never did, and it stuck.

 

And Narf, if it is any consolation, I taught myself Hero as well, back when it was still Champions - but then I was a much more flexibly-brained high schooler - and that was the basis that made GURPS 3e click for me. GURPS 4e's power system really gave me a hard time, as it was a departure from the old system, and one that just didn't gel for me for probably the first three reads through GURPS Powers. 

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Because the GURPS: Basic Rules are 32 pages, and the GURPS: Very Basic rules are technically 8 pages, but you fold one page using a set of instructions I didn't manage to make heads or tails of.

 

It's a good analogy for many parts of GURPS.

 

Edit: Sorry, I'm on Page 99 of GURPS: Character Creation, and I've been wading (or trying to wade) through it for months. All the slogging is making me sarcastic about it. Probably not the system for me. :)

Ok, this? Forget this. It's making sense.

 

...I, uh, yeah. I dunno. It just clicked.

 

Two! Two generic rulesets![/wakko]

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* Yes, it would be nice if people built their concept and didn't worry about points. Except we know they don't, and it's reasonable that they don't because otherwise the guy who optimized is going to hog the spotlight. If this were the real answer, we wouldn't have points in the first place, we'd just write down on paper what the character can do.

 

That would be FUDGE, in its base form. ;)

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That would be FUDGE, in its base form. ;)

 

Sorry, no, to start with FUDGE encrypts its numbers so FUDGE is certainly not that system.  I've had a printed copy of FUDGE on my shelf for years, and it never has persuaded me to run it.  I loathe certain people's habit of obfusticating numbers by giving them names (to make them "friendly" I guess, or whatever in the world they think they're doing) with the result that you have to memorize a table whose only purpose is to encrypt and decrypt the actual, useful, friendly information, the number.  Beyond that I wanted to like FUDGE enough to make it worth eliminating the encryption and putting the numbers in plaintext, but it didn't make me want to do it.  The little weirdnesses like the skill tree mostly convinced me that there was some underlying imbalance in the system that needed protecting with such mechanics.

More recently I've played FATE, and while the fate point economy is interesting (though I wouldn't personally prefer it as is), the underlying FUDGE mechanics didn't make me more excited than the first time I saw them.  Nothing wrong with them, it just confirmed to me that they just don't appeal all that much.

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Gurps combat can drag, and drag. I figured I was doing it wrong so I asked ona forum and realised a 2-4 hour combat is expected. The turns are broken into 1 second and every single dodge is rolled.

 

I bring this up as an example of how much more complicated GURPS is. Everything in GURPS runs the assumption of higher detail and more specific. On the surfase it tries to trick you by having only 4 Stats you can see, but once you know the system you realise every other characteristic is actually in there, only hiden.

 

On the other hand I would say GURPS plays out better for the gritty non-romantic games. I know a lot of people disagree, but if you are in to picking very presise skill lists and abilities that have built in assumtions. I found as a GM building a game in GURPS required none of the GM set up that hero has. In hero I design a magic system, in gurps I can say we are using the default with X maximum magery.

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Gurps combat can drag, and drag. I figured I was doing it wrong so I asked ona forum and realised a 2-4 hour combat is expected. The turns are broken into 1 second and every single dodge is rolled.

 

I bring this up as an example of how much more complicated GURPS is. Everything in GURPS runs the assumption of higher detail and more specific. On the surfase it tries to trick you by having only 4 Stats you can see, but once you know the system you realise every other characteristic is actually in there, only hiden.

 

On the other hand I would say GURPS plays out better for the gritty non-romantic games. I know a lot of people disagree, but if you are in to picking very presise skill lists and abilities that have built in assumtions. I found as a GM building a game in GURPS required none of the GM set up that hero has. In hero I design a magic system, in gurps I can say we are using the default with X maximum magery.

First off, I only have GURPS Lite and Characters. However, based on the combat tests I did, that sounds way out of range. Some questions, with the caveat that some or all of the upcoming advice may not apply at all:

 

1) For Block or Parry, did you roll under 3 + (1/2 your skill) plus modifiers, or under your skill plus modifiers?

2) Did you roll for unconsciousness at -HP and death at -NxHP?

3) Were you all using Crushing damage? (It sucks. Only use it if you like +1 or +2 damage more than x1.5 or x2 damage that gets past armour)

4) How much armour did you have?

5) Did you use things like Feint or Deceptive Attack, which impose penalties to your targets' defense rolls?

6) Were you using Hit Locations?

 

Ok, some quick math. 1d6+4 Cutting is fairly easy to get. Most beginning enemies won't have more than 5 Damage Resistance (from heavy cloth and scale). Assuming no hit locations (so you always hit versus DR 5), you roll an average of 3.5 HP. That sucks. Don't do that. Either cut everyone's cash in half, so their armour is lower, or buy Striking STR, and less utility skills. Those are the "Hero-Style" fixes. Or...

Now, with Hit Locations: Ok, first of all, hit them in the face. Or neck. Or groin. Or eye. Or skull. Or hand. Or any part of their body that doesn't have armour. You're not John McClane. You're Jason Bourne. You're not Arnie. You're Indie. If there's a cheap shot, take it. Some of the target locations have damage multipliers, or other nasty effects. Hitting someone in the eye has a very obvious effect. I frankly don't know what happens if you hit the skull. But I imagine 'Instant death" is a distinct possibility. If you can attack somewhere there's no armour, you'd do an average of 11 damage, and probably cripple whatever it is.

 

Here: GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy Actual Play: http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.ca/search/label/Felltower

 

Not mine, but should give you an idea of how fast things "should" go with a decent group. I don't know how long their sessions take, though.

 

Finally - Based on my experience, every single system, or at least most of them, has people saying that combat takes four hours, and others saying that combat takes a half-hour. My own experience is that speed of a game depends mostly on how much OOC stuff is going on, how long it takes players to react, look things up, figure out what's happening, do their turn, and do whatever fancy dice-rolling method they like. Based on what I've read and experienced, a group with low OOC chatter, who know how their stuff works, who pay attention to what's happening, have an action ready when their turn comes up, shake the dice a couple times and slap them on the table (no, there is no such thing as a lucky rolling method - Just randomize them and slap them down) will run through combat like a hot knife through butter.

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 I found as a GM building a game in GURPS required none of the GM set up that hero has. In hero I design a magic system, in gurps I can say we are using the default with X maximum magery.

 

One of GURPS' strengths is all of the pregenerated stuff for the game. Hero supplements tend to build some stuff, but the default is to have the Players or GM do most of the work.

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I'm mot sure I agree with that.

The book of Superpowers and the book of Spells give detailed write-ups at 3 power levels plus pre-calculates the cost for a given amount of Advantages and Limitation. You can't get more pregenerated than that without being setting specific and we all know that Hero's settings are not spectacular sellers.

Don't most of the fantasy settings published for Hero have established mafic systems and at least a sample of spells (of which ghere is a whole book)? Yet most of conversation I see is people complaining that they don't like how this or that setting does magic.

Does GURPS really have THAT much more pregen stuff than us?

 

When Hero provides pregenerated stuff people bitch about it, but everyone constantly comments on how we need more self-contained products.

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Yet most of conversation I see is people complaining that they don't like how this or that setting does magic.

Most likely because you actually can change it (with some effort) and you can often see how it's done -- it all comes back to powers, at most you get a somewhat obfuscated way of distributing the points required for a Multipower or similar frameworks (e.g. in a perk-based system).

 

Whereas in GURPS there's a huge gap between what's doable with Powers and Magic. The latter is hailing from the early ages of the system, brought down from the mountains by Steve Jackson himself. Compared to that, Powers, outside of a superhero expansion context, are fairly new. Creating a whole magic system from this is hard, I'm not aware of anything completely pregen here. And you most likely end up with costs beyond the usual sweet spots of GURPS non-cinematic characters. Hardly usable for your average campaign and a big burden on GM prep time. Which is why the magic systems of GURPS receive far less criticism, appearing both more helpful and obfuscated. If you don't know anything about cars, it's all rather magical to you. But show someone just a few concepts, and he's out there criticizing his local shop and most major manufacturers. ;)

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About a year and a half ago I posted a thread in the Fantasy Hero forum entitled "What have you used?"  It seems that generally, people use everything as written except the spells; the responses on spells ranged all over the place.  I'm not sure why, but it makes sense; back to first edition FH my group used everything as written except the spells.  Anyone who played a wizard wrote up their own spells, more or less without fail, including me.  This seems to be the case regardless of edition, also.  

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About a year and a half ago I posted a thread in the Fantasy Hero forum entitled "What have you used?"  It seems that generally, people use everything as written except the spells; the responses on spells ranged all over the place.  I'm not sure why, but it makes sense; back to first edition FH my group used everything as written except the spells.  Anyone who played a wizard wrote up their own spells, more or less without fail, including me.  This seems to be the case regardless of edition, also.  

Well, yeah. The official spells are wrong all wrong, and I must fix them!

 

:D

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Whereas in GURPS there's a huge gap between what's doable with Powers and Magic. The latter is hailing from the early ages of the system, brought down from the mountains by Steve Jackson himself.

Steve "King of Ad-Hoc" Jackson *believes* in special-case rules, something that bothers me about his designs in general (c.f. Car Wars). I doubt it would even *occur* to him to create an underlying toolkit to build stuff instead of just scratch-building them with ad-hoc rules.

 

Compared to that, Powers, outside of a superhero expansion context, are fairly new. Creating a whole magic system from this is hard, I'm not aware of anything completely pregen here.

I have Thaumatology (the only gurps book I've bought in 20 years), and a chapter I haven't read talks about this. As it's the last one about building magic and the chapters go from less to more experimental, I guess it's the most sketchy and out-there and far from pregen. And probably that building magic with powers isn't in any other 4e book. Am I right?

 

Which is why the magic systems of GURPS receive far less criticism, appearing both more helpful and obfuscated.

I don't know about others, but I'll gladly criticize the default magic system. Even my wife, who is not a system wonk at all, still remember she thought it was flat and flavorless when I was messing with GURPS (ca. 25 years ago), and dissatisfaction with the magic was a contributing factor for our final abandonment of GURPS for Hero. GURPS magic doesn't have much of an arcane feel (SJ put way too much scientific reasoning into the structure, the prerequisites for example, it reflects a scientific worldview which is a very poor fit with most of the literature). Beyond the underlying assumptions, it forces *mechanical* assumptions on you that don't much match the literature (powerstones, I'm looking straight at you). It also is just another fixed spell list system, which bores me. If I were to run a fantasy game of GURPS now, I'd end up spending a lot of quality time with Thaumatology (which didn't exist when I was playing with it). At the very least, I'd use some of the optional rules there to modify the standard system, but honestly that wouldn't excite me very much. I'd rather scrap it for something that allows improvised magic, and that's precisely where the underlying design weakness shows: you don't have a toolkit underneath it, so determining costs for improvised spells is more or less based on ad hoc comparisons with existing spells.

 

Or so I remember it from 20+ years ago, plus reading part of Thaumatology recently. There were things I miss about GURPS, but magic certainly is not one of them.

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