What Is A GURP?

GURPS is Steve Jackson Generic Universal Role Playing System. It was basically d20 before there was d20. You have a book that is nothing but basic rules (character generation, skill checks and advancement, combat, etc) -- no setting or world info at all. Then there are dozens, and I mean dozens of supplements, covering almost every conceivable genre. There's GURPS Supers (for super-heroes), GURPS Horror, GURPS Space, GURPS Old West, GURPS Hi-Tech, GURPS Modern Day, GURPS Ancient Rome, they go on and on. Then there's the GURPS versions of existing games. There's GURPS Vampire, GURPS Werewolf, GURSP In Nomine and GURPS Deadlands, to mention a few. They've also managed to license some literary properties -- they have a book based on Alan Dean Foster's Pip and Flinx books, a Conan book, and one that basically lets you play the rabbits from Watership Down. The line is still active (I believe they're on their fifth or sixth edition of the Basic Rules right now), and plenty of gamers swear by it when they want to play something that's not already out there (a friend of mine used it to run a Judge Dredd campaign a few years ago).

Well, the Modern Day is more if you want to run a real-world spy/covert ops kind of game.

Well, it all depends, Rath. A few years ago a friend of mine ran a Rainbow Six style campaign using the GURPS Special Ops rules, and that was a blast. Taking out terrorist cels, hostage rescues, executive order "sanctions" of foreign leaders, all kinds of cool shit.

But then again, a year ago a friend of mine who was in the military ran a campaign where we played a Ranger unit, and he decided to go for hyper-realism re: the military life aspect of the game. We went on a couple of cool missions, but overall the whole thing was so boring we abandoned him for a 3rd Edition D&D game after about four sessions.

So I guess it all depends. Roleplaying Executive Decision = cool, but roleplaying Patriot Games = suck. Which I suppose means that real life really isn't like the movies

If there is a gaming store anywhere near you that doesn't completely fucking BLOW, they've got at least one copy of the GURPS basic book. Barring that, you can easily find it online. Gimmie a minute.

<a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/" target="_blank">http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/</a>

Okay, you can order a hardcover edition of the Basic book, along with about a dozen of the supplements, from <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps" target="_blank">www.sjgames.com/gurps</a> . They also have GURPS Lite, a 32 page hard-and-fast bare-necessities stripped-down version of the basic rules, which you can download for free. You can pick up the Basic book on <a href="http://www.amazon.com" target="_blank">www.amazon.com</a> , and it looks like <a href="http://www.gamersattic.com" target="_blank">www.gamersattic.com</a> has a shitload of the supplements for sale at twenty bucks a pop.

edited to fix links

I ran a GURPS Modern Horror/Cthulhu campaign for about 2 years. One of the best gaming experiences of my life. wink There is nothing quite as satisfying as freaking out your players on a regular basis.

Mind fucks for EVERYONE!

Before that we ran a 'Multiverse' campaign for a while. The nice thing about GURPS is its versatility. I have most of the books. If nothing else they make great reading.

How'd GURPs Cthulhu stack up against CoC, Tin?

The rules conversion was pretty straight forward. However, the GURPS book is CthulhuPunk. Sort of a Near Future, world is on the brink of being totally fucked scenario.

The Sanity Points thing actually worked fairly well. If I recall correctly it pretty much created a new stat. Willpower was a small boost, but now a straight bonus.

I actually used several Cthulhu Now! adventures for the campaign. I think I ended up using some Chill stuff too.

There's actually a new system that was just released called SpyCraft. A d20 system that puts you in a mondern day/clancy/la femme nakita type world.

Also seems like GURPS uses a TON of d6's. I'm an investor in a local gaming shop here and when i'm around while a GURPS game is running it sounds like the mother of all fireballs sometimes when they start rolling them.

GURPS uses nothing BUT d6s. So, depending on the genre, a massive amount of dice can be heard clattering...

i.e. Rolling for damage in a high point Supers campaign can be interesting..

But nowhere near as bad as Champions...

Hey, there's a new HERO system out also. What a coincidence.

Just want to mention that the fantasy author Steven Erickson played GURPS regularly in Canada, and the adventures he ran were a major inspiration to his phenomenal Malazan Empire series. Can't get 'em in the States, though. I paid extra by going to Amazon.co.uk, and it was worth every penny.

Galt

Is this the fantasy series set in a future world where there are still 'mag tubes' connecting the continents and other ancient technologies? My memory of it is very fuzzy. But if I remember correctly this was some good stuff.

ADDED: Nevermind, it's not.

If anyone has a clue about the above stories though, let me know. I know this should go into the Literature Forum but I'm tired and am just following the stream of consciousness of this thread.

Random Addition to the GURPS Lineage: When they first started developing Fallout for the PC, the character creation and skills system was going to use the GURPS rules. But supposedly after Peter Jackson found out how dark and disturbing the storyline was going to be (especially some of the slaving and child killing options) he pulled his license and Interplay (or Black Isle or whoever) had to develop their own system for the game.

Oh, and the Fantasy books where you could create your own fantasy races was fun, until we all figured out how to customize insane god-like characters who only lived for like 5 years but had incredible spell powers and abilities. Still, twas fun while it lasted.