On to GURPS
Yes, you ready that right my group is going to make the move, at least in the short term, to GURPS. One of the guys in the group has been asking for the group to take the plunge for a while and since our current 3.5 D&D campaign has hit a good break point and we have a member going on hiatus for a while we decided this would be a good time to try GURPS on for size.
I’m actually a bit excited about this for a couple of reasons. First, we’re switching Game Masters again and I haven’t been a player in a campaign run by this individual and second, I’ve never played GURPS.
I know it may seem strange that for someone that has played RPGs for almost 30 years hasn’t played what, according to their site, is “the premiere universal roleplaying game for almost two decades,” but with all the other systems that have been available to me over the years and the simple fact that our group as been D&D centric since its inception a decade ago it just didn’t make to the gaming table.
So, I’ve pulled the GURPSLite and started looking through it and the rulebooks and I can see this is going to take a bit of getting use to – a lot more options, which is both good and bad and I have to get use to the idea that I only need three dice, all six siders, to make this work.
I’ll be posting about my experience as I go and my first step is figuring out a character!
May your dice roll well.
Do you play GURPS? If so I’d really like to get your take on the system.
FYI. If you are new to GURPS, the GURPS Character Creator is *required* if you’re going to run a long-term campaign. It saves a heckuva lot of boring math when doing character sheets; the auto-calculation of skills (based on stats) alone will save hours over the course of one character’s use. See also SJGames.com & its forums. GCC updates are available in the forums.
Thanks for the software suggestion, I’ll need to look into it. I typically roll my own character sheet using Excel or Open Office Calc so I can avoid all the “boring math.”
I will have to check out the forums though – as a “newbie” to this system I have a lot of learning (and unlearning) to do before we hit the table for our first session in a week and a half.
Keep in mind that playing GURPS is like eating a cow: you never want to down the whole thing at once, and there will almost certainly be bits you never have any interest in consuming. Don’t try to cram the whole thing into your head, ever. Just learn what you need, and move from there.
Do you know what the GM wants to run? A character made for Bunnies & Burrows is very different from a Traveller character who is nothing like one made for Transhuman Space. And yeah, it can do light-and-fluffy too, though you need to ignore most of the rules to achieve that effect.
Do let us know how it goes. I think GURPS is one of the underrated games that doesn’t get nearly the love and play it deserves.
– Brian
I have to agree with you Brian, there’s a lot there and I’ve already come to the conclusion it’ll take me a while for me to work through just the rules I think I need to know.
As for the game, while we’re trying on GURPS for size we’re going to stay with a familiar setting – fantasy, good ol’ sword and sorcery. The group as a whole like that flavor but we wanted to try something different mechanics wise as we’ve all begun to feel a bit of burn out with D&D.
I will post off and on as what I call the “GURPS challenge” goes on, because as you pointed out it is a bit underrated and from what I’ve been able to track down online it could use a bit more press.