(After reading the basic ruleset for 3rd edition)
I like it! I'll never find anybody to play it! I found the basic ruleset for $6 at a used book store. I think it's an ingenious system, in that each new genre is a potential sale for the game designer. Wanna play a Cthutlu campaign? There's a book for that. Like space opera? There's a book for that. Wanna start a campaign with the diseased offspring of Kermit and Miss Piggy called Muppet Rabies? Okay, that hasn't been written yet, but there's no reason you couldn't write it yourself using this system.
That being said, I think the mechanics, being that they are streamlined to fit many different possible genres, are a bit too simplistic for my taste. Granted, this is based purely on a single reading of the rules and a few other sourcebooks, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. But it seems like combat has far fewer options than, say, a game like Pathfinder. Now, I'm sure that options multiply with each supplement I buy (or a compendium, were I inclined to pick one up), but I'm talking about pure mechanics in play during battle, not the number of weapons, skills, vehicles, spells or powers I might utilize with a given character. I think I like variety in my dice and in my rolling options.
One of the things I've heard proponents of GURPS tout is its vaunted realism. 'Realism' in this case seems to refer to player mortality. This could potentially appeal to the OSR crowd, possibly, if they weren't busy churning out their own retro clone kickstarter projects at the moment. While I do applaud the fact that a fall of 50 ft would kill the average, or even considerably above average player, it's simply not my own style of play, nor would it have appealed to the group I was playing with up until Lily was born. Although the way things are going now, I may be looking at waiting until Lily's of gaming age before I get to bust out my DM'ing skills again.
In conclusion, I think my previous group is a bunch of poo-heads for not asking me to DM for them by now even though I'd have to tell them I'm much too busy at the moment. What? Oh, GURPS, right. Good game. Wish I'd get the chance to put it into practice.
GURPS was one of the first campaigns I ever played in. I likes "skills, not class ", but that seemed tat the time, almost 20 years ago) to be open to abuse by spending all points on superspecialization. While I have never picked up the basic rules, I have acquired a number of licensed sourcebooks over the years that were worth the cost just in background information.
ReplyDeleteIt ended with my companions throwing me out of a shuttlecraft after a cyber-ninja elf poisoned my pyromaniac pyromancer for trying to set the elf homeworld on fire.
Poo-heads indeed... I can squeeze 2 - 3 hours every other week away from my wife and daughter, and they are not even playing right now...