Monday, October 6, 2025

Dungeon Fantasy Magic vs. 5E Magic

On my SBRPG blog, I went at length to prove that the magic in the B/X and AD&D versions of D&D was far more potent than either D&D 4E or 5E. Relative character power (as you level) is also far better preserved in the original editions of the game.

The problem with "Wizards D&D" is that they scale hit points on a curve as you level, and they have to artificially boost character damage as well, but it never keeps up. This has been true since D&D 3.0. Where in AD&D a single fireball spell can wipe out a room full of ogres, in D&D 5E, it barely touches them. In AD&D or B/X, the fireball is mighty. Is it anything 3 HD or less? That is vaporized with a 6d6 fireball spell when you get it at 6th level, and it scales up as you level.

In general, you are doing half the damage in D&D 5E than you are in AD&D or B/X, and it gets worse as you level up. You need to optimize everything to "keep up," or you will fall behind, and if you focus on roleplaying feats and other non-combat abilities, you will be useless in high-end play. Have fun, and you will be punished for it.

So, the question is, where do Dungeon Fantasy wizards fall in comparison to a B/X magic user or a 5E wizard? As a player who wants to play a spellcaster, what game gives me the most power? Which game preserves my power versus higher-level foes? Which game gives me the most flexibility when casting spells, the types of spells I can cast, and how many times I can cast them? What game gives me the best wizard I can play?

First, we need our baselines for comparison, so let's use the classic 3rd-level spell, fireball, as it is iconic. For B/X, let us use the excellent Old School Essentials.

  • Fireball (B/X)
  • 3rd Level Spell
  • 240' range, 20' sphere
  • Gained at level 5
  • 1d6 damage per level, save for half, no damage cap
    • 5d6 damage total
    • 18 points of damage average

For 5E, let's use the SRD:

  • Fireball (5E)
  • 3rd Level Spell
  • 150' range, 20' sphere
  • Gained at level 5
  • 8d6 damage total, save for half
    • 28 points of damage average

For GURPS, let's use Explosive Fireball (DFS29) as our spell.

  • Explosive Fireball
  • Many spell prerequisites, Magery 1 minimum
  • 1/2D 25, Max 50
  • Two rolls to cast:
    • Spellcasting Skill Roll
    • Innate Attack (Projectile)
  • Costs:
    • Any amount of energy up to twice your spellcasting talent per second
    • Up to three seconds
  • 1d explosive burning damage per 2 points of energy

So, what does that mean? Looking at some of the starting spellcasting characters in the game, we see they have about 12 mana to use, so if we have magery 2, we could dump 4 points of mana per second into that fireball, for three seconds, and cast it at 12 energy, for 6d6 total explosive fire damage (21 average). This needs a little breakdown, so let's open the Exploits book (DFE46):

  • 6d6 damage in the target hex
  • Everyone out to 6 x 2 = 12 yards takes damage
  • Divide damage by 3 x hexes to the center
    • 1 hex = 2d6
    • 2 hexes = 1d6
    • ...and so on.

Add to this the chance to be set on fire (either one location or all, see DFE68), and there can be some nasty consequences for fire spells in GURPS in general, along with ongoing damage. The GURPS fireball is far more of a "simulation spell" than it is one that just does damage in an area equally.

Additionally, as GURPS, the referee is free to rule on the effect of fragmentation based on the environment. Let's say my wizard casts an explosive fireball into a dining room full of goblins. I am throwing a [2d] fragmentation effect on there (B414).

Yes, this is a sim. As a GURPS referee, you need to "sim when you need to sim."

It is also worth noting that the GURPS fireball scales, and a character with Magery 6 and enough mana can dump 36 energy into the explosive fireball in a 3-second casting, for 36d6 damage. If you have the skill and the mana, the GURPS spell will scale to an insane level of damage, and that is like the blast of a 120mm modern-day mortar.

What does any of this mean? Let's pull a few sample monsters from each game and go up the level chart with them. Let's do B/X first:

  • Goblin = 3 hp
  • Orc = 4 hp 
  • Gnoll = 9 hp
  • Bugbear = 14 hp
  • Ogre = 19 hp
  • Mummy = 23 hp
  • Green Dragon = 36 hp

Let's do 5E, from the SRD:

  • Goblin = 7 hp
  • Orc = 15 hp
  • Gnoll = 22 hp
  • Bugbear = 27 hp
  • Ogre = 59 hp
  • Mummy = 58 hp
  • Green Dragon (adult) = 207 hp

Let's do GURPS:

  • Goblin = HP 12
  • Orc = HP 14
  • Hobgoblin = HP 16
  • Ogre = HP 20
  • Troll = HP 20
  • Vampire = HP 20
  • Green Dragon = HP 50

GURPS hit points tend to be between 10 and 20, and armor and resistances make a huge difference. When you get above 20 HP, you are talking big creatures. The B/X fireball is the most powerful of the group, since monster hit points are constrained and do not scale on a curve. The range is impressive, too. The 5E fireball is the weakest, with most of the monsters alive on a save, and the dragon laughing off the damage.

The B/X and GURPS HP ranges being so close means the games are more closely compatible than you think. If you use B/X "rolled hit points" in GURPS, you will get some very weak "mook" creatures at the low end, but some pretty nice fights when you go above 5 HD, and challenging for parties. Ogres and mummys become "boss creatures" that require a party to take down.

With GURPS, that 6d6 fireball at 12 energy tends to be in the B/X level of power, but once you start dumping 20 or even 40 energy into the attack, you begin vaporizing the toughest monsters with a direct hit. While B/X is the most powerful, GURPS can scale to even more powerful, just because the hit points have a tighter constraint.

Damage in GURPS will drop faster to targets farther away from the center of the explosion, so the overall power of a single blast will still be less than B/X. If you averaged damages, the GURPS fireball feels about equal to the 5E counterpart. Still, if you are going to hurl a 36d6 blast, that will be 12d6 to targets in one hex, and 6d6 to two hexes, and so on - out to 72 hexes.

It gets to a point where, uh, if you cast explosive fireball at a particular power level, you are also taking damage since the range is short. At that point, just begin to use GURPS Powers and design them like a superpower, since Dungeon Fantasy is closer in spirit to The Fantasy Trip and meant for fun "hex crawl" dungeon battles. 12d6 is the practical limit for the Dungeon Fantasy fireball because of range.

That is another wonderful thing about GURPS: if you wanted to ignore Dungeon Fantasy entirely and just design "magic superpowers" as your game's spells, you could. Your fantasy world's magic may work a different way. Collect character points, create the spell, buy it, and put a roleplay cost on learning it. In GURPS, you can do that. In B/X and 5E, you are stuck with whatever TSR or Wizards gave you.

Dungeon Fantasy is just one way of doing it. And it is not always the right way. In fact, Dungeon Fantasy may be how just one world in a multiverse of worlds works. The rest may work completely differently, with different rules and laws of magic.

You are free to say "mages can design powers given this framework of limitations" and just let the players go wild, with the referee approving the designs to fit the world's theme. Very few games give you that amount of creativity.

Monday, September 29, 2025

GURPS: Old West, Adventure Ideas

Yee-haw! Today, we are rustlin' up adventures and adventure ideas from a few different Western-themed RPGs and converting them all over to GURPS. There is a severe shortage of stock, no high-falutin' magic, none of that supernatural mumbo-jumbo, rough and tumble Western adventures, but there is gold in them thar hills if you know where to look.

So we are looking for Wild West adventures with no magic, and they don't have to be for GURPS. They just need a plot, characters, situations, and an adventure progression. A great campaign starting location is also a massive plus for our adventure cattle drive. We will do all the converting to GURPS ourselves; getting our hands dirty down here on the wagon train isn't anything new to us 3d6 cowboys.

The fact that I started this roundup with the classic Boot Hill meant something. Well, there are five solid adventures for that system, y'all can throw a lasso around and round up for your Old West adventure collections. These also have the advantage of being free from all that hocus-pocus magic and weird west tomfoolery, and they are a straight-shootin, rootin-tootin good time.

Now, Mad Mesa here is a solo adventure! This means you can create yourself a GURPS 4th Edition cowpoke, saddle hand, saloon gal, vagrant, cattle rustler, bank robber, or some other man with no name and run him or her through this adventure all by your lonesome! You can read the entries, make your choices, and perform minimal conversions to make all this work according to GURPS rules.

Heck, rustle up a free copy of GURPS Ultra Lite (GUL) if you wanna create bad guys for your six-gun to blast at! This is right fine for creating NPCs as well, and even vamints like wolves and rattlesnakes can be quickly thrown together using this little book of guidelines. This works seamlessly with the full GURPS rules, and will get you quick stats for any character in this here solo adventure, or any of these other adventures you rustle up.

I hear you saying, Prove it! Alrighty, here's my GUL rattlesnake for ya, using three levels as my base:

  • ST: Weak (8 HP, d6/2 damage)
  • DX: Agile (12)
  • IQ: Dull (8)
  • HT: Hardy (14)
  • Rattlesnake Skill: 2 levels (+8)
  • Rattler Poison: 1 level (+4)

Wut? Reading GUL, that rattler will attack at a -6 for a skill that needs training, so that blasted snake in the grass's base attack will be DX + skill - 6, or doing the math we get: 12 + 8 - 6, or a 14- to-hit. Pretty dangerous! It doesn't do much damage (d6/2 + 2), but the poison is where it gets you.

I used a skill level to give that varmint a special ability for rattler poison, which I am sure you could find in one of the GURPS bestiaries, but I treated it like a skill here for a quick-and-dirty pick. If a creature has a special attack or ability, treat it like a skill and throw a level or two at it. Note: Use a contested roll with the skill level for poison creature HT + skill - 6 versus character HT, which is 14 + 4 - 6 = 12- on a contested roll.

Yes, skills can utilize any ability, and even multiple ones, such as a giant spider with a web attack that has a to-hit based on DX and an entanglement level based on ST. And skill levels can be used to buy creature special abilities, attacks, and defenses. Damage? Use the STR table for the ability, plus levels of skill.

Of course, that snake is dumb as a box of rocks, so you could distract it by tossing a river stone past it and watching it snap at it, and that may give you a chance to bean that scaley viper with a camp shovel. Just remember to skin the thing for meat and its hide; the town trading post may give you a few buffalo nickels for that.

That rattler works with the full GURPS rules, too! And your players will be none the wiser, you are building these with the quick ruleset and not flipping through books to find this critter. This will mean faster play, a still true-to-GURPS experience, and using a supported and official system to guesstimate NPC and creature statistics. Guesstimate is one of those words that those folks from Philly use, and it means to spit in the wind and get a hankerin'.

If yer' not using GURPS Ultra Lite fer' your games, you are doin' a whole lotta work you don't need to be doin. Most NPCs and critters don't need to be designed using a fancy character sheet program, and these rules we got in this one-page game work just fine for 95% of anything you need.

Want more proof? Here's my GUL grizzly bear, and I will use five levels since these are supposed to be very dangerous predators of the wilds:

  • ST: Very Strong (18 HP, 3d6 damage)
  • DX: Agile (12)
  • IQ: Dull (8)
  • HT: Hardy (14)
  • Grizzly Skill: 2 levels (+8)

Woo doggy! That grizzly attacks on a 12 + 8 - 6 = 14- but does a whalloping 3d6+2 damage per hit.  This is a massive, legendary bear; for normal ones, I could do one less level of ST for 2d6+2 damage and 14 HP, and up the DX by a level.

Wait one second! You designed a rattler and a grizzly using the same GUL design system, and did it in less than a minute? And these work well enough with the main rules; no one knows the difference? That's faster than flipping through a 5E Monster Manual and taking 30 minutes to read a whole stat block! People who say GURPS is too complicated are full of hogwash. Making NPCs and monsters in GURPS is easier than 5E, B/X, or any other game on the market.

In fact, GUL is the key to quickly playing and converting these adventures on the fly, with a minimum of fuss and reference. Yes, if you have the GURPS Bestiary and want to run a full rattlesnake, be my guest, but this works just fine for our needs.

Pardner, I ain't doin' any more work than I have to so I can run these here Old West adventures, nor does having perfect stats matter all that much. Just look over yonder at D&D-land; they keep changing their monster stats every five years for the last fifty.

We got Mad Mesa, The Lost Conquistador Mine, Ballots and Bullets, Burned Bush Wells, and Range War for a complete campaign of adventures to play with GURPS Old West and the 4th Edition rules. You will get a decade of campaign gaming out of these five adventures alone, and they are worth checking out.

Some of these are right excellent campaign starters and home bases in their own right, with Ballots and Bullets featuring a small city as its home base of operations. While you can play through the main adventure, creating linked adventures for an epic campaign set in any one of these adventures would fill out a whole pickle barrel of adventure time for your cowpokes.

BH4 and BH5 are from the third edition Boot Hill, but they are still fine additions to your Wild West adventure library.

If I were looking for adventures and campaign starters, you couldn't get any more classic and good old-fashioned clean fun than these classic Boot Hill adventures. The old game's rules are so simple that they don't take up too much of the book, and you can just drop GURPS right in and make your own stories with one of the best generic universal role-playing games this side of the Rio Grande.

https://www.amazon.com/Definitive-TV-Western-Collection-Television/dp/B003ANP8CO/

Another downright mother lode of adventure ideas is any of these huge DVD collections featuring westerns, cowboy TV shows, and all sorts of rough-ridin' adventures. Sure, you've got to mess with those old-fashioned "movie disc" thingies, and maybe round up one of those movie disc players. If y'all can operate a remote and hook up one of those HDMI cables, you are gonna have a good time.

The quality won't be like a new-fangled 4K masterpiece, since some of these shows are as old as the hills, but all the work is gonna be done for you when you pop in a disc and turn an episode of some random TV show into a GURPS adventure idea.

Those writers from the golden age of Hollywood, creating these "moving pictures," will probably be tickled pink that you are reusing their plots and stories for your "silly dice games." And these TV shows are so old; none of your players are going to know better. Use the GURPS Ultra Lite system and create characters, no good outlaws, and critters from the stock footage included in these films, and you will have some right good gaming.

And if you can't get your hands on this, there are loads of 10 and 25 Western movie collections to get your grubby hands on, and you can score them used or dirt cheap at places like Oldies.com.

https://www.oldies.com/Western-Movies/collection.cfm

What is this? A place you can pick up Western TV shows on DVD for as cheap as $2 per disc? And the Blu-rays are $4 each? I will stop trying to sell you things now, and I won't be getting any money for it. However, deals are available, and there are some amazing collections and affordable discs to own. If you are a fan of the genre, you will love having these to enjoy. 

Additionally, physical media remains a viable option in an age of streaming services, where content can be easily taken away. People have lost entire libraries of films they thought they owned forever.

Popping in a TV show or movie you never saw in your favorite genre is a far better experience than YouTube or random scrolling to find entertainment. Plus, all these do qualify as adventure ideas, NPCs, locations, and scenarios for you to use in your games.

Other western games are hit and miss for adventures, such as the 2d6-based Rider and the Hero System Western Hero (WH). The WH game does have a 44-page section in the back with campaign information, a few scenarios, and adventure seeds, so this is still a worthwhile idea book for creating period adventures using Western tropes. This is not as useful a book as the Boot Hill adventures, which I recommend getting first, but it still has a few good bits in the campaign section, as well as maps of trains, buildings, houses, and other period locations.

Rider has a dozen pages of basic information on adventure creation, along with the familiar act structure. Most of the book is 2d6 rules and careers, so it is not as useful as adventures written for the genre. This is not as helpful for GURPS referees and is more akin to a 2d6 version of the Cepheus Engine, designed for playing Wild West games.

The book is enormous; most of it consists of 2d6 rules, but there are some nice d66 charts for encounters, patrons, and rumors. I wish there were more charts for creating solo adventures, plots, factions, and other Wild West scenario pieces. This one is not as useful, but it is still an interesting game. Western Hero is the better buy.

I know I am done selling things, but this is another book in my collection. There are times when beautiful coffee table books, like the one above, inspire me. Just looking at the illustrations, pictures, and reading the stories is worth more than a written adventure, film, TV show, or a game designed to cover the subject, but you need that extra thing to make it feel real to you.

The Old West is more than "playing generic fantasy" and spinning up cowboys to shoot things. It is a love of the genre, the tropes, being a part of a massive sweeping change, and those frontier stories of seeing the last open expanse on Earth being settled. This wasn't just "them 'mericans" doing the settling, either; this was the entire world flooding in as immigrants, the European powers, banks, and the crushing power of the world moving in on a massive land rush for what would become a nation.

But in this grand, sweeping, oil painting of moving West, one you would see on a saloon wall, there are moments for personal stories, struggles to survive, tales of souls fallen to evil, lawmen and those who bring justice, pioneers, settlers, trappers and hunters, wagon trains, cattle drives, saloon gals, railroad workers, share croppers, townsfolk so poor they lived in dirt hovels and sewed clothing out of burlap sacks, farmers, ranchers, investors, schoommarms, cowboys, marshals, bandits, and so many others living a dream in a grand experiment and moment in time that did not last forever, but left its mark on us all.

Playing an Old West game is more than simulating a cowboy movie or screaming yee-haw!

It is about a more profound love of the genre, of this being a uniquely "American fantasy" with legends, myths, stories, giants, gunfights, and a mythology all its own.

Friday, September 26, 2025

GURPS: Boot Hill

This will be a brief article.

Done.

Joking aside, the GURPS Old West book is a far more comprehensive resource for Old West gaming than can ever be imagined. Even if all you are doing is a casual, generic, Wild West gunfight simulation, GURPS has you covered. There is far more information, history, factions, technology, and functional adventure information in the GURPS book than Boot Hill could ever hope to deliver.

I like the GURPS Old West book a lot, and this is very well written. It is helpful for more pulp, TV shows, and serial cowboy action films as it is for a more gritty and realistic treatment of the genre. It is excellent reading and one of my favorite GURPS guides. You gain an appreciation for the hardships of life, the plight of the Native Americans, and the sweeping scope of change that moved across the country.

The period was part of the nation's formation, encompassing both its positive and negative aspects, as well as the transition from one way of life to the one we know in the modern centuries that followed. The story of every settlement, town, city, and place out West was one forged in fire and blood, a mass movement of people and settlers seeking a better life, some finding it, and many not.

The time was both the end of the strife of the Civil War, during which a nation forged the meaning of the word "freedom," and the beginning of a very hungry Industrial Age, where those freedoms were eventually realized after long struggles and hardships. The entry of the world into the Industrial Age led to displacement, a hyper-aggressive rush for resources, food, and land. The pressures of a shrinking world doomed those in its ravenous path.

Progress was the enemy.

If I were to play this, I would maintain that perspective. I would not gloss over the bad parts. Ignoring the struggle is a disservice to the entire fight, erasing the hardships that have brought us to our current state. We can't forget this and pretend it never happened. If the struggle is there, I want to acknowledge it and remember those who made sacrifices.

This may be why the safe opiates of fantasy are more popular.

https://www.amazon.com/Famous-Gunfights-American-West-Southworth/dp/1890778176

Boot Hill does have scenarios, but you could always find real-world accounts in history books to pull from. I would go by the history books for the classic gunfights, and don't worry about getting every weapon perfect. Stick to the most common types of guns, such as six-guns, shotguns, rifles, thrown knives, and lever-action guns, and things will work out fine.

I do feel the Western has held up as a genre stronger than Gangster movies, as we see the influence of the Western even today in modern films and TV shows, where that "gunslinger influence" and "Code of the Old West" can be seen in TV shows like the early Mandalorian seasons, and even TV shows like Fallout. If the traditional fantasy genre is "European D&D," then the Old West is "American D&D," at least in mythology, the role of the hero, and lore.

Plus, gunfights are tense, epic, and cool. In GURPS, they mean something, and you are not using a short rest to heal off a shotgun blast to the face. I swear, modern 5E has a reality disconnect that drives me up a wall, and while they may present realistic art (and even games that pretend this is gritty and real), none of it is true. D&D 5E lies to you in that you can get seriously hurt, die, and it doesn't matter.

You respawn in 5E like a video game.

In GURPS, injury and death are real and matter. The stakes are raised. The battles are tense.

Gunfight mechanics and weapons matter. Track shots and reloads! Part of the calculus of Western gunfights is not "spamming bullets" like in an FPS game, but being careful about shots and making each bullet count. Knowing the combat system and how to get and stack bonuses helps, even if that means taking a few seconds to brace and aim.

These are not high-capacity firearms, and even bullet belts should be limited in how much ammunition they can hold (typically 50). Reloading a revolver with the fastest gun to operate takes a full nine seconds! Make each shot count.

There is a gritty realism to gunfights where you must perform "mental math" to determine if a shot is worth it or not, and take actions to aim and slow your rate of fire. You do not have many rounds before you have to duck under cover and reload. Making shots matter, while avoiding getting hit and not being too careful, is the gunfight calculus you need to master.

You will use every point of those firearm skills.

You will remember those ranged combat rules.

Even the fighters can be mostly done with bang skills, or quickly designed characters from GURPS Ultra Lite, which I am a massive fan of. These will work with the full GURPS game just fine, and this gives you a bit of customization to personalize your gunfighter. The most armor anyone will ever have is a DR 1 leather jacket or overcoat, and most fights can be done without any armor at all.

It is what it is.

Now, this assumes that you think "Westerns are all about gunfights." This is like thinking "fantasy is about combat," which is the legacy we live with, given D&D is turning more into a wargame these days than a roleplaying game. While classic Old West gunfights are amazing and fun, they are not something an entire campaign can live on.

This "roleplaying is combat" feeling with 5E turns the hobby into a tabletop video game. I am more drawn to characters, story, skills, and a deeper plot, as well as a sense of character development. In GURPS, my cleric can become an Arctic survival expert specializing in exploring ruins and ancient history. In 5E, they are a cleric. Need to survive? Find a ranger. Need exploration? Find a rogue.

In a Wild West game, my sheep herder or preacher can become an outlaw, lawman, gunfighter, treasure hunter, or go in any direction the story takes me. Yes, I started here, but in GURPS, I can go anywhere. This is why I love GURPS: you are not going down a set class progression path, and anything is possible.

While progression is essential, you need more. I will say this about fantasy, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, science fiction, gangster settings, modern games, or any other historical or speculative roleplaying. You need characters doing something compelling, a story that they will tell together, a goal, and a reason why you are playing.

You need more than a "let's create cowboys" theme for your game. While that "random adventurers" thing may work in D&D, for most GURPS games, you need a little more.

You need to know the focus of your game, and your characters need to fit that theme. The character concepts have to work together. You need a story and a current situation. The story can't be set in stone and unchanging; there needs to be enough freedom for the players to solve it with creativity, wits, and grit. There may be other answers they come up with. They may also want to do different things, and your game becomes a sandbox.

Take a favorite western movie, set up the characters, and let the players resolve the entire film the way they want to. If you get stuck, simply send them to the next scene to stumble through and have a laugh. Play the whole movie like that, having them solve each scene, wrap it up early, or go completely off the rails. Make adjustments to reflect how the characters impact the plot. Go with it. Make "High Noon" into "Your Noon."

A love of the genre and its conventions always helps a great deal. If you are not into Westerns, then this genre won't appeal to you. But most of science fiction these days is a play on the classic Western tropes, so if you like science fiction, you may find a lot in Westerns to be very familiar, except with laser swords and blasters, and lots of fantastical aliens. You could watch a Western and replace the guns and characters in your mind with lasers and aliens, and make the evil army "space troopers," and you will begin to recognize things quite quickly.

There is also a nice town map in the Boot Hill game, which can be helpful for campaign setting purposes. Other than that, the Boot Hill game itself is rather slim, more of a tactical miniatures game than a full-fledged RPG. There is a fun list of characters from Western fiction in the Boot Hill games, which is also an interesting note.

The 3rd Edition of the game is more meaty and a more complete game, but then again, why do I want to learn a dead game that isn't supported, with limited options, when I have GURPS?  I am not learning and supporting a new game that won't go anywhere, and I have all the best and most familiar rules right here in GURPS.

Also, watch some movies and TV shows for inspiration! You can do classic "Lone Ranger" games and singing cowboys, where the bad guys "fall down" when they are hit, or you can do a more realistic and gritty game. You can make your game as "Hollywood" as you want, do pulp adventure games, or as "tall tale" as you can imagine. This is not always about realism, and you can do comedy and lighthearted gaming if you want.

And, we have an entire line of GURPS Deadlands books! If you're looking for Weird West games, we have them here. So, not only do we have the best RPG with the best character options, but we also have an entire setting with supernatural elements. We want magic or Steampunk? Airships and steam-powered robots? We got it. We want to cross over to Mars and venture forth with an alien princess? We got that too. We wish to run this gritty and realistic? That is possible too. Cowboys and Cthulhu? It works here. Unlike other games that force a single way of play, GURPS lets you customize your game in any way you can imagine.

We truly have the best of all worlds with GURPS, allowing us to mix and match options and books to our heart's content. Do we want furries or fantastical races? Elves and dwarves? We have them here. All the sourcebooks from GURPS can be used, from Horror to Zombies, and many others can be mixed and matched. Even the martial arts book is handy for a Kung Fu Cowboys-style game out of the 1970s drive-in movie genre.

Generally speaking, historical gaming is easier with GURPS than with games written for the same period in other systems. With other Old West games, I feel a sense of being lost, and the energy drains from the game as the motivation wanes. The original Boot Hill was only 44 pages of tactical combat rules and very light campaign support, which served only to string together gunfights. Some of the OSR and 2d6 games in the Old West genre are nice, but they still lack the motivation and driving force of "why play this" beyond the gunfights.

I can easily create unforgettable characters and have a classic campaign using GURPS.

As long as I have a theme and a story to go on.

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

It Becomes GURPS

One of the best things about converting a setting to GURPS is that it becomes GURPS. And I don't mind it "not feeling like D&D anymore," and I see that as a good thing.

The setting gets real.

I get complete control over the settings rules, and it does not have to be a circus of high-magic fantasy, like the setting is these days. With the Forgotten Realms, I am free to play this like we used to, a low-magic, gritty, realistic, character-driven fantasy world with no unkillable GM NPCS, vast areas of unsettled lands filled with monsters and evil humanoids, and even the first edition demons and devils that were later erased from the setting by the Satanic Panic.

I can ban every book past the first, original, AD&D gray box set. I can include anything in the original AD&D books, mostly just the monsters, and have those as the bad guys. But as for the characters and magic? The gritty day-to-day life and survival? The deadly melee combats where you think twice before drawing a blade? Slow healing, bleeding out, and serious injuries in melee?

That stuff is all GURPS.

An Orc swinging an axe like that on horseback is a serious threat, capable of causing serious injury, maiming, or even killing, and not just "damage we can short rest off." Even that muddy horseback battle screams "grit and realism," something the plastic and too-clean later versions of the setting seriously lost. Today, this is just a setting inspired by a video game, and we lost so much.

I miss the old Forgotten Realms, and we are never getting that back.

Well, at least I can have it with GURPS.

But I appreciate the realism I get with GURPS, and it fits my vision of the setting much better than the original game. With D&D, you get into this "D&D mindset" where the setting becomes more about the rules than the setting and story. Players begin to "chase power" instead of driving a narrative. The design of D&D forces you into this mindset.

In GURPS, I can get more skilled, but getting impossible to kill is not easy. Combat is always a serious descision, even with supposedly "low level" foes. One lucky shot from a goblin shortbow is taking my 400-point wizard down.

I have a few boxes of Pathfinder 1e standup minis, and I'm looking to revive another setting with GURPS. I hated what they did to this world at the end of 1e, and today in 2nd edition, the removal of any mention of the evils of slavery, the too-cute plushie races, the elevation of goblins to a core race, and the high-tech mess the setting has become with steampunk technology and modern ideas. They got rid of the Drow, too, which is wrong. OGL be damned, they are a part of the setting, and in the Creative Commons now as well (as a monster). Half-orcs, half-elves, and all the classics are here in the first edition books, and this is the world as I loved it.

I miss the original Golarion so much.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting, Inner Sea Races, Page 141

Plus, the first edition Golbins were way cooler than their goofy counterparts in 2E. These little monsters were dangerous, far more capable of demon-worship, slave-taking, town-raiding, and doing all sorts of vile wickedness than the cleaned-up corporate McMascots we have these days. The modern goblins are cute, but they have been defanged and turned into plushies. I miss the old ones and that vibe. Look at them, they have red glowing eyes, and they are drawn coolly.

With GURPS, I can have that feeling.

With any other set of rules, it will feel more like modern fantasy, where you can sleep off a shotgun blast, have someone throw a bandage on you to raise you from the dead, and be fine the next day.

And I love the idea of using those standups on my hex grids for GURPS combats, the gritty, dark, deadly, and pulp-fantasy, sword-swinging, almost Conan-themed art of the original books. Again, you look at these books, and the characters who look like they are carrying a million-and-one things on them, plus a kitchen sink, and these scream GURPS to me.

And yes, that is a Golarion Drow on this cover, and they are amazingly cool and wicked elves with style. They even go beyond the D&D ones and can worship a variety of evil gods and demon lords. Again, we lost them, and these were a massive part of my setting and lore.

Granted, the worst part about a GURPS-Finder campaign is the conversions or the thousands of monsters in the setting. You don't have to, but the standups I have force my hand at either conversion formulas or some other manner of translating statistics other than guesswork. I can always lean on my B/X conversion guide for many of the creatures, but I need a better answer.

Maybe Grok or ChatCPT can convert monsters over, and I won't have to worry about it. We are not there yet, but it would not surprise me if this worked reasonably well to get a baseline. There will be a day when we won't need game books or conversion formulas at all; we will just have anything we want, instantly, on demand.

But I don't mind the mood and feeling of a setting changing once GURPS drives the action. This is a bonus, and I love that feeling since it aligns with my original vision of most of these worlds.

Saturday, September 20, 2025

One Great Character Versus Many Simple

First up, I love OSRIC, Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy, and all my B/X and First Edition games. These are S-Tier games for me; the math is correct, they don't use silly video-game number scaling, and the characters are simple. If I am playing a d20-based fantasy game, these are my go-to games. And I play a lot of solo, so having these "books full of data" makes the game easy for me.

But, in playing solo, why do I want to play simple characters? If I think about this in terms of computer gaming, this is the difference between a Skyrim character and one from an RTS game. I would rather have a fully detailed "CRPG character" in a solo-play tabletop game (with full gear, skills, backpack, magic systems, and ability scores) than a simple "RTS unit" with a few ability scores and no ability to equip or change them (attack, armor, speed).

Granted, playing GURPS solo with six characters begins to overload my will to manage that amount of complexity, as this is like running a six-person party of Skyrim characters and drowning in micromanagement and wishing things were simpler.

But for one to three characters in a "small party" game, GURPS does that fine and gives me a greater level of detail to each, which provides me with a greater level of satisfaction "per hour spent gaming." Running one character in a B/X-style game is a "thing," and I would probably get bored with it pretty quickly. Even four is not that hard, but when it comes down to those "small choices" that I love to make in GURPS, like what eight character points can be spent on, given what my character needs, it's excellent stuff.

In B/X games, so what? My bard has 1,600 XP out of 2,000, and there's nothing I can do with it except wait. What will happen in 400 XP at level two? My combat modifier and saving throws remain unchanged. I gain 1d6 more hit points and a level one spell.

Really?

The character does not get interesting until level five, and most games end around level ten. Even if you accelerate leveling to a rapid pace of one level per session, that is five 4-hour sessions to get to level five, or about 20 hours of solo play, with most of the "small choices" being around treasure and gear. Most of your interactions will not be rules-based ones. By that point, we get our first bonus to-hit, our first second-level spell, better saves, and a few class abilities open up.

An accelerated rate in GURPS is about five character points per session of play, with one to three being normal, but we are going on an accelerated pace to match our "level per session" that we used in B/X. This is a total of 25 character points in GURPS for our theoretical five sessions of play.

GURPS typically "levels up" character power every 50 points, so this is halfway to increasing a tier of power. The wonderful things I could do with 25 character points in GURPS blow my mind. If I engage in more social and performance activities, I can improve those skills; otherwise, I will apply my skills that I learned in combat. I could develop my magic, learn new songs, or improve the ones I have. I could create a new advantage based on my experiences and the story. If I went on a harrowing survival adventure, I could develop new survival skills.

The actions of my character will be reflected in their improvement.

That does not happen in B/X. 5d6+CON hit points, a few spells, some save numbers, and a few class abilities. Gear and treasure will reflect the most significant differences between fifth-level bards.

My bard in GURPS? Specialized in social, combat, magic, survival, or any other area relevant to the campaign I am playing and "what is going on." The character will morph and change to reflect the game I am playing, and be specialized in those areas of campaign interest. If I am doing more of a social campaign, guess what? My bard's skills will improve in social areas, and my character will reflect the campaign. And remember, in GURPS, there are a few areas of social skills, so these can be specialized social interactions (with supporting advantages, and an expansion book focusing on the area).

MS Paint strikes again. -Hak

In B/X? Level five bard, extra hit points, slightly better to-hit, a few class abilities, and spells. No better social skills, magic is a fixed path, and I may get some magic items to help me out? If I need survival skills, I need to find a ranger, and the improvement can't happen inside my character (without houseruling it).

In 5E? Forget it; find a Kickstarter book for $60-100 that improves the social aspect of the game, and add it to the pile of books to fix the system. 5E is notorious for shipping a basic tabletop game that requires a few thousand dollars' worth of add-on books to play the way you want. The grift is so high here that it is off the charts.

GURPS works perfectly, even with just the core books.

And it gives me greater satisfaction with fewer characters.

Monday, September 15, 2025

GURPS is the Better Game for Powers (and Combat)

When comparing GURPS and Mythras, I had that typical "is this better?" feeling in the back of my neck. Mythras offers several advantages, including an easy d100 system, 3d6-ranged attributes, and excellent combat special effects applied to either offense or defense. If you're familiar with BRP or Call of Cthulhu, you'll likely be familiar with Mythras. It is as easy to pick up as B/X in complexity, but it has layers of depth that surprise me.

The combats in Mythras are fun, with a level of unpredictability in the results and the combat specials you can stack up, or have used against you. This is dependent on relative skill levels, with lucky hits still possible for unskilled fighters, and everyone having low hit points, so every hit matters.

Mythras is an easy game to use when transitioning away from D&D 5E and the OSR, and it gives you a look into a "whole new world" of tactical possibilities. However, GURPS has greater depth to tactical combats, and marries that with a complete character and power design system.

In GURPS, you are much more "close to the metal" when it comes to combat specials, but you need to declare them before you roll. You need to know what is available, when they apply, how much of an attack penalty they give you, and you need to declare them before your attack. To players who like to control a character "down to every move," this is ideal, since they want to call for a trip and try that, and not have it come up due to a lucky roll with a high result differential.

If I am tripping someone, or someone is trying to trip me, it has to be declared, attempted, and rolled for. No randomness or stacking special effects due to an attack and defense total difference, please.

That said, Mythras is miles better than D&D combat, by far, and this is starting to kill my interest in my B/X games, OSE, AD&D, and Shadowdark. If a game offers a B/X level of simplicity but a far deeper combat system, that is a winner for me.

Mythras is a D&D and OSR killer for me.

If I were migrating recovering players from D&D-style games to Mythras, running them through the System to get them used to combat actions would be helpful and show them another world. If they liked that, we could stay here. Eventually, I would like to bring them into GURPS, where we have the most freedom. But showing them a world where it is more than just d20 vs. AC and roll damage would be an eye-opener. Even Shadowdark suffers from the d20 curse of bland numerical combat.

But what about GURPS?

Well, GURPS is the "everything else" killer.

To be fair, GURPS offers more combat options and a broader range of "combat specials" than Mythras, once you consider all the Martial Arts options and utilize a combat cheat sheet resource. One of the problems with GURPS is that many special combat actions are scattered across different books, making it hard to find them in one place for easy reference.

In Mythras, you get to "choose them from a menu" after a roll, and this is honestly easier for D&D players to start with to "expand their thinking" around combat. In GURPS, you'll need a cheat sheet to fully utilize the combat system's details. It's also a good idea to practice these moves a few times to get the hang of them, as many will change factors (like not being able to defend with all-out attacks). I added a cheat sheet section to the sidebar with a few of these, since they do come in handy.

Combat specials are easier in Mythras.

Combat options are better in GURPS.

It's not GURPS, but it is my MS Paint art. -Hak

Powers are the clear place GURPS wins. Suppose I have a monster with a special attack ability, such as eye beams, charm, confusion, entanglement, push back, blindness, darkness, stun, or any other special attack. In that case, this is far easier in GURPS than in Mythras or D&D. In those games, you just sort of need to "wing it" and "say what it does," but in GURPS, I will design that as a power, and guess what? 

Suppose a character gains an extraordinary power from touching a runestone, becomes corrupted by demons, is sanctified by the holy, acquires a power from an ancient master, passes on the legacy of the king, or experiences any other special campaign event. In that case, this can be just designed and added to the character, just like any other power.

GURPS makes the 5E-style "superpower abilities" almost stupidly easy to create, design, and balance with limitations and disadvantages. That demon corruption? That is a template package that also gives adverse social reactions and a "hunted by demon hunters" disadvantage. It is far easier to do this in GURPS since it has a power design system with full advantage and disadvantage support, and I can balance these powers right down to the last die of damage and special effect.

And, many of these powers come pre-designed with examples in GURPS Powers. Just drop them into a character or monster and go.

And GURPS works for any genre, so my superhero, Gamma World mutant, science fiction adept, fantasy wizard, air elemental, or kung-fu master can all use that "concussive air blast" power (GURPS Powers, p. 137). I can slap on a power source modifier there for magic, mutation, training, superpower, or wherever it comes from, and I am done. Any monster in any GURPS bestiary, or one quickly created using GURPS Ultra Lite, can have these powers tacked onto it.

My MS Paint art strikes again! -Hak

Yeah, this air elemental has super breath and can push all of you off the cliff. I know that is not in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, but hey, this is GURPS, and this air elemental is "The Windlord" and special. Boss monsters in GURPS can have superpowers, use special combat attacks, and have martial arts!

But that isn't fair in 5E! Air elementals only have a double slam attack and a whirlwind that throws in random directions. They don't have a line attack! Or throw an air blast area effect attack! Or blind people with dust! What is this thing? Stupid custom monster not in the Monster Manual and cheating DM! Play the game right and only use things we know!

I go by the Dungeon Crawl Classics theme of "Every monster is unique."

Have fun as I look up the falling rules.

In making a custom power for GURPS, I am not guessing, copying an existing spell, wondering how many times a day it can be used, or worrying if it breaks my game. I have the point cost in GURPS, and that keeps it relatively balanced. If something is overly powerful, I can either add a use limitation or reduce the damage; it's no problem. In B/X, Mythras, or other games, I am left winging it for monster powers. I have to borrow one, and then it is guesswork.

In GURPS, I have tons of powers in my books to use as-is.

Yes, if I am playing "dungeon games" with Mythras, I get those combat specials, but I lose so much character depth with what GURPS gives me for free that I wonder if it is worth it. I get "combat specials" in GURPS, but I have to preannounce and try them, closer to the metal, so I am not losing those, and the ones in GURPS are comparable (and more expansive) once you find a cheat sheet and print that out. It does take more system knowledge in GURPS to get what Mytras gives you for free, but in the end, it is probably a better feeling to have greater control of your combat options than to rely on the dice.

Mythras is still a fantastic game, mind you, and still an easy D&D replacement that drops right in.

However, if I want to tell the types of stories I envision, where the whims of a game designer, class designer, or someone else dictate powers and sources, GURPS offers me more control. With games that go beyond the ordinary, GURPS is far better when it comes to special powers, and lets me be the game designer.

Monday, September 8, 2025

Mythras and GURPS

Mythras is loved by its fans as much as GURPS is loved. I have been reading this lately and am surprised by how similar it is to GURPS.

  • Deadly combat
  • Skill-based play
  • Hit locations
  • Combat maneuvers 

The first three points are a given and can be easily seen. Getting into combat is a serious matter, so characters go out of their way to avoid it or take precautions. The skill-based play is fulfilling. Mythras has hits per location, while GURPS does full body hits. GURPS limits damage to the minimum required to cripple the extremity, so it sort of does have "hits per location" in a way.

The last one is combat maneuvers. This is where the games differ significantly.

With Mythras, the difference in success levels gives you several "combat specials" that you can apply to an attack, and these are things like damage armor, trip, choose location, and so on. You get these when there's a significant difference between an attack and a defense roll. With a greater difference in combatant skills, the number and severity of effects will increase.

There is a built-in "surprise factor" to Mythras combat dice rolls where a huge difference happens, someone picks the best combat specials for the situation, and the death spiral begins. This is where Mythras stands far apart from D&D, and provides "pool ball English" to the melee combat that so many enjoy.

With GURPS, you choose what "special attack" you make and roll for it. You decide ahead of time, know what you are doing, and hope your skill is high enough to overcome the negative modifier. You don't get "a number of them" to apply, since the combat round is shorter, and you have to pick the best one to make in the moment and try for it.

With GURPS, you need to know the combat system well to understand your capabilities. While there is a "list of attacks" you can make, you are not getting them as a bonus to a high-difference attack and defense. You pick the one you want, and you try for it.

Both of them have melee combat far better than D&D; they just get to the same place in different ways.

 

Like GURPS, Mythras does not convert the classic "D&D adventures" that well. If we are talking B2 Keep on the Borderlands and 40 Kobolds in one of the first rooms you enter, that is a slog of a fight in either Mythras or GURPS. Adventures in both GURPS and Mythras tend to feature smaller, more tactical combat encounters. D&D has always been a game about "shoving around mass amounts of monsters," and it suffers from over-relying on quantity of enemies and not quality.

Mythras adventures feature highly tailored fights that require you to use combat specials wisely to open up weaknesses and take advantage of them. A greater number of foes than the party begins to shift the action economy in favor of the enemies, and single boss monsters, once overwhelmed, will go down faster than in D&D or GURPS. This is due to the game's action economy driving the impetus of attacks and defenses.

In GURPS, having a low skill means you are not attempting anything special. In Mythras, having two low-skilled opponents, one rolling a crit and the other a fumble, a lot of cool stuff is happening. So there is a high degree of surprise in Mythras when it comes to rolls and the effects that occur in them.

Mythras publishes these mini-game-like "combat modules" featuring a few foes and pre-gen characters, and they highlight features of the combat system that players need to take advantage of to win the fight. These double as combat mini-games and player training, and I wish GURPS had these. Given that Mythras gives away its basic Imperative rules, a GURPS version of a product like this would need to rely on GURPS Lite, which would not have all the options required to train people on the system's finer points.

These are excellent books for Mythras, both serving as training and fun scenarios to use on a VTT as a standalone combat game. I wish GURPS had similar pre-gen characters and interesting combat encounters that featured tactics and strengths of the system.

GURPS is the more simulation-heavy game, with the one-second turn. The action economy is the ticking seconds on the clock. For the most part, everyone does one thing per turn. The action economy versus 40 Kobolds becomes a nightmare, and you need to start holding 75% of that force back just because the entire room would not act like "stupid video-game sprites" and rush the players all at once in the first second of contact.

Watch YouTube videos of firefights in war. Count the seconds soldiers stay under cover. Sometimes it is 1d6 seconds, other times it is more like 2-3d6 seconds of inactivity under cover. This is how most firefights go. In melee combat, nobody will pause that long when faced with a threat, but many will not all charge in on that first second of meeting an enemy, and many who will take cover or try to get into an advantageous position. Some may even stand there confused for a few random seconds before their brain kicks in and they act.

In GURPS, we think second-by-second. This isn't to say "make the kobolds stand there doing nothing," but make allowances for the chaos of combat, the relative skill of combatants, and a confusing melee where everyone may not have perfect information.

Even in Mythras, I will give the Kobolds a "training level" on a d6, and if a combat special comes up, using the "best one" will require them to check that first. Not every Kobold will fight like an elite fighter, always using the best option every chance they get. These special effects in Mythras are deadly when used against the characters. Untrained would be a 6+, and it would go down to elites on a 2+.

I may even do that for GURPS, since we tend to fall into this "videogame mode" when running monsters and optimize every fight to an unrealistic degree. In GURPS, it would be a d6 roll or lower.

But GURPS tends to be the game where you make more of the "combat maneuver" decisions before you commit to the attack. In Mythras, a higher skill difference will create more situations, but these can't be predicted. You will have more of these happen in Mythras since they do not reduce the attack chance, and the dice give them to you for free, depending on the difference in attack and defense rolls.

GURPS is more planned and conscious. A trip does not happen out of nowhere unless it is ruled by the referee or initiated by the player. Mythras has a level of randomness. A trip could happen at any time, as the opportunity arises and the player chooses to seize it.

Both games are very deadly and force players to take a step back before violence becomes the only option. Deadly combat increases the need for smart roleplay! D&D is becoming too much of a "numbers versus numbers" game, and the roleplay is not needed if a bandit stands there pointing a crossbow at someone. I have 40 hit points! What could he do? Even if I get hit, a 10-minute rest will "sleep it off." In Mythras and GURPS, you have a crossbow bolt sticking out of your character's eye.

There is no parlay and roleplay in D&D when it comes down to it. It is all a performative, fake, and pretend way to waste time. Nothing matters when you can kill everything in your path and take a quick nap to heal from a shotgun blast to the face. Look at the game from an MMO player's perspective. Roleplay "wastes time" to "get up the XP and treasure track." It is a brutal way to see it, but it is ultimately true if there are zero consequences to actions.

The GURPS and Mythras games are similar in deadly realism. Still, in combat, they have apparent differences in implementation, where GURPS requires a hard choice to be committed to and made before the attack. Mythras has a softer "chaos factor" where the skill difference creates more opportunities and options for a high-difference roll.