Just Play!

GURPS has a lot of theory crafting, which is natural since the game is more of a "game designer's paradise" sort of "box of Legos" that we can use to create anything we want. But this also leads to the perception that "the game is complicated" and lots of discussion on "how to make it easier." I don't think the game will ever get any more accessible, and if it does, a lot of that "box of plastic bricks" feeling will be lost.

The best thing we can do is "just play."

Don't be deterred by the perceived complexity of GURPS. With pre-gen characters, it's actually easier than 5E. Roll-low is simpler math than roll-high, and the skills are just one number plus a modifier. Combat with GURPS Lite is not only easier than 5E combat, but also faster, with better tactical options. Even 'High-level' combat in GURPS is much easier than 5E, and it won't take you 30 minutes to decide what to do. The concepts of damage and armor are straightforward. So, take a deep breath and dive in-it's not as daunting as it seems.

Most of GURPS is the theater of the mind roleplaying, with an occasional skill or self-control dice roll. It isn't much more than what any D&D streaming show does, and most of it is more straightforward without all the complicated and overlaying action types.

Where is GURPS complicated? Character design. World building. Advanced combat. Power design. Character design is the biggest sin here, but in general, new groups should be playing with 50-point characters with a few skills and less than 5 advantages and disadvantages. This is the big flaw of Dungeon Fantasy; pushing a 250-point design on new players will overwhelm them with too many choices. The templates with guided choices are great, but the game feels designed for advanced players rather than new ones.

Delvers to Grow for Dungeon Fantasy is a fantastic product. However, those books don't fix the problem that DF was designed for an experienced audience. The GURPS Basic set is a more accessible game to learn since the 50-point starter characters are more manageable for new players to use.

I love Dungeon Fantasy's tight focus, but I was overwhelmed, and it took me a lot of effort to learn the game with a 250-point starting character.

One thing that B/X does well is roll 3d6 down the line, pick a race, choose a class, get a few pieces of gear, and go. Some B/X games have you start with gear packages, and some (Dungeon Crawl Classics) start you with random gear and don't really have vast lists of equipment.

You could play a DCC-like "0-level" game in GURPS with zero-point characters and a random gear list and give players 4 points for weapon skill to start (one weapon or sword and shield split), any 1-point skill on a random chart, and a 5-point disadvantage rolled from a chart. All other skills will be their terrible defaults, and the game will be fast-paced, deadly, and hilarious, just like DCC. The characters won't be complicated either, just the default 10 in everything, and you can play with a straightforward sheet.

Want a more advanced zero-level start? Give them 15 points for skills or abilities and 15 points for disadvantages. Suddenly, your characters are more capable but a little more complex.

But the answer to making the game more popular is just to play it. This will fix the "can't find a game" problem many players have. Start a group! Stream on YouTube. Spread the word. Show people how much fun you are having. Just play.

And play it in imaginative and exciting ways.

YouTube: GURPS: 5th Edition Changes | What It Needs

Today, a compelling video discusses the potential 5th Edition of GURPS and its needs. Your diverse range of opinions on this potential edition is invaluable, and I'm eagerly looking forward to hearing from each and every one of you.

One comment mentioning SWADE is spot-on. I have always felt SWADE was designed as a rules-light GURPS; the characters are put together similarly, and the point values and picks are greatly simplified. As a model for a simplified GURPS, SWADE is very close.

This is really a great discussion starter. Go and watch, like, and subscribe. As a community, these are good discussions to have and make heard.

Some may feel the 4th Edition is just fine, with a few simplifications and clean-ups. House rules can help solve many problems, such as the archery issue mentioned.

The game's basic rules are refreshingly simple. Compared to the action economy in Pathfinder 2 and the complexity of high-level play in 5E, GURPS is more straightforward in many ways. You don't need a PHD in GURPS to enjoy the game; the GURPS Lite model and theater of the mind is how many groups play.

You need to pay attention during character design, but that is a hobby inside the game. I enjoy character design in GURPS 4E.

The game can need a college degree when you play with every rule, but that is different from how it is played in most cases. Have you ever tried playing high-level Pathfinder 1e by every rule? Arguably, GURPS is easier.

I am sure 4E will continue to be sold and supported for years, even if a 5E comes out.

An excellent video today; check it out.

Monster Movie Monsters

One of the best parts about Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is the way the company approaches monsters.

They don't.

They provide a few sample creatures, but the real treasure is their advice: make monsters unique. They don't mean unique in the ordinary sense. If you have a monster, make it the only one of its type in the world. If it's an ogre terrorizing a village, this is the only ogre in the world. You can have other ogre-like monsters later on, but this is the only one called 'ogre,' it has its own unique traits. Those are the only ones you will ever meet if you have a race of demonic poodle humanoids living in a crashed asteroid. This approach to monster design empowers you to unleash your creativity, giving you the confidence to create monsters that are indeed your own.

We are done shipping monster manuals filled with creatures with stats and standardized stat blocks like they were slices of processed cheese.

The adventures follow this format; for the most part, you won't see rooms filled with orcs and kobolds in the scenario. They develop monsters unique to the adventure, making them fit in with the theme of the madness happening, and you won't see these monsters again in other adventures. Many types of robots exist in some cases, but one "security robot" won't be the same as another adventure's.

So, what does this have to do with GURPS?

Well, ask yourself: Do I need standardized monster blocks? Do "lagoon creatures" need standardized stat blocks to appear in many villages, or are they specific to one adventure and scenario? Are all monsters the same? Are there "fire orcs" that live in volcanoes, and do they even call themselves orcs? Maybe they are unique enough to call themselves magma-brutes, and they never want to be associated with other humanoids, as calling them an orc would be an insult!

And those magma brutes live in this one volcano, this one place, and if they are vanquished, there are no more in the world. As always, other "brute-like" monsters could be elsewhere, like the kelp-bed living fish-person beasts, but they aren't "orcs" and are nothing like magma brutes.

And the players will never see the same monster twice. In the D&D and Pathfinder model, this is done by choosing one type of low-level monster, another type of mid-level, and another high-level so you get the illusion of not seeing repeats. Still, in other groups and in the next playthrough, everything becomes less unique and more like you are eating at a fast-food restaurant. You know what to expect. You optimize your character build to fight what you know. The mystery and thrill are gone.

And if one thing is true about every monster in a "monster manual," they eventually become gentrified, made cute, and presented as a character option or a pet. Orcs? Kobolds? Mind Flayers? Intellect devourers? Mimics? Dragons? Demons? I can identify multiple first- and third-party books from publishers that have done this time after time.

Also, you run into the danger of nostalgia taking over your game. If you want nostalgia, are aware you are using it, and want that dopamine hit, then great! If you aren't aware you are doing it, you may put the past on a pedestal just "for the feels." You aren't expressing your ideas and feelings through a game; you are repeating someone else's and expecting to feel something that does not come from you.

Once they become standardized in a monster book, they are no longer monsters.

Just like processed cheese isn't cheese.

Besides, aren't monsters supposed to be scary and mysterious? Monster movies in the 1950s often relied on the beast in the "movie of the week" as something nobody had seen before. The Alien movie from the 1970s is the best modern example; the films after that first never lived up to the shock of seeing the original (Aliens was good, but nothing tops the original).

This is practical, old-time, classic Hollywood "crowd pleaser" advice. How can you thrill an audience if the monster in your movie is something the kids just saw a few weeks ago? You can't do giant ants again! What about an enormous killer moth? A killer leech! The subterranean burrow beast! The killer bats! The cactus creeper! The robot from planet X-51! The talking giant spider with the human face on its back!

Or we can use "orcs" again.

So, when discussing conversions to GURPS, understand what you are doing. Do you agree with the "bestiary" model of monster design where there are standardized forms, like video-game or MMO monsters? Or do you believe every monster should be unique and different? And if you are wasting months of effort converting hundreds of monsters into GURPS, you need to ask yourself, is this how I see my fantasy world?

Random monster stat blocks? Who cares? They could be anything since all monsters aren't the same! One cave crawler species could be immune to a fire, while others could be weak. This is true in the real world of animals and insects; depending on where something comes from will influence its abilities, special attacks, and natural immunities.

In a way, "making it all up" as you need them is the right way to go.

And when you are converting an entire setting into GURPS, like Pathfinder, you need to ask yourself, what do I like about the setting? If you convert everything "just to have it," you are likely better off playing the original game. Pathfinder's Golarion is a tricky conversion since this theme park setting is based on the game's rules and constructs. The kingdoms are these "adventure land" zones, which are micro-settings, often designed to host an adventure path from level one to the mid-teens. They are very structured, rely on the progression of challenges, and each adventure path is almost like a "play it once" video game release.

Be careful with "high stuff" games; these are systems lock-in designs. They give you so much to overwhelm you, keep you from playing other games, and make you feel you have a lot of stuff here. This is a classic quality-over-quantity thing; I would rather have a smaller list of high-quality, well-designed, and exciting monsters over lists with many repeats where the only difference between monsters is a special attack and a few hit dice. There are a few B/X games where you could list a half-dozen monsters under one entry and never know the difference.

A setting stronger in characters and stories is more straightforward to convert since your focus is different. With the old Forgotten Realms setting, if all your source material consisted of the TSR novels before Wizards of the Coast took over, that is a vast library of conversion content. Let's say your game begins after that last TSR novel ends. Your focus is different, and you aren't relying on "false content" - adventures and monster stat books. Since your focus is on characters and stories, this will automatically play better in GURPS, where the game shines.

Why are we focusing on numbers and ratings when we could be focused on stories and characters?

Isn't "what we come here for" the characters, conflicts, and stories in those books? Why are we worried about "how many hit dice the owlbear has" when that is secondary and only serves as opposition and conflict. Those owlbear stats could be anything, even "just use a bear's stats, " which would serve the same purpose and be far less work. Plus, you may want to give this owlbear a "stunning screech" attack, which no other owlbear has in any other game, and make it memorable.

Standardized "books of monsters" only kill your imagination and take the fun out of the game. You put that owlbear screech attack in 5E, and I bet half the players will pull out their monster manuals and point to the entry, saying "nuh-uh" and blaming you for being a terrible DM and leading to the deaths of half of their precious characters in that encounter.

How did we get here?

Is this a place we want to be?

Take a step back and ask yourself what the goal of your conversion is. You are on the right track if it is closer to stories and characters. If you are just doing a conversion for "numbers and stat blocks," you must ask yourself, "What am I doing?"

Hexagram 13 Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/hexagram-13-an-old-school-zine-for-the-fantasy-trip-rpg

I like The Fantasy Trip, and the hex tiles are great for GURPS dungeons and battles. If you support their zine releases, the 13th issue Kickstarter dropped today. I added a sidebar gadget to help support the project.

Leveled Fantasy Worlds

Your typical fantasy world from B/X to 5E only makes sense if you treat the world like a videogame. Shouldn't high-level NPCs and monsters dominate the world, controlling kingdoms and exclusive knowledge? Won't groups band together to "level up" all their friends and become the most potent factions?

Otherwise, the world could become imbalanced, like in the 'World of Warcraft' MMO, with zones of levels 1-10, 11-20, and so on. Maintaining balance is crucial in game design, ensuring that all players can contribute to the world regardless of their level.

Most of the time, the world "levels up" around the characters. This is the easiest way to handle it, and it avoids the headaches of leveled areas. However, "world-leveling" is not always compatible with a sandbox-style game.

One challenge I encountered in my Pathfinder 1e conversion was the ingrained levels of the creatures. However, this also sparked a creative process. I reflected on the power of some monsters as 'X times human' and attempted to translate this into my monster conversions for GURPS. This process of adaptation and creativity is one of the most rewarding aspects of role-playing game design.

You can play GURPS that way like giving monsters 50 to 100 character points per B/X hit die and roughly designing them off of that number. You could do a "realism spec" and mirror existing animals of the same size as base GURPS monsters and then tweak from there.

Yes, you can play GURPS in this sort of "leveled world," with monsters getting stronger and stronger for "video game reasons." It differs from the standard way of playing GURPS, but it can be done. The concept of "CR" never meant anything in GURPS, and it will mean even less now as 8-10 HD creatures suddenly become "boss monsters" and single 20+ HD creatures become demi-gods and almost unstoppable like epic-level superheroes.

If you want to convert HD to GURPS character points, you can do so. Your world will be a strange world where high-level creatures become epic challenges. D&D has always had this problem with monsters being "bags of hit points with a funny shape." Many D&D monsters are a little different than similar ones, like one monster being the armored brute at 3-6 HD and another at 14-18 HD being way too similar in attacks and powers; one is just the high-level version of the same archetype.

More is not more.

And I likely made a mistake with that conversion.

Pulling out the "realism ruler" and rating creatures on a flatter "skill-based" scale is always better. This is how GURPS does most everything, basing statistics and abilities on a real-world base rather than giving Naga snake people 8 hit dice just because characters are supposed to fight them around the 8th level. In GURPS, it is better to "size" a creature around something tangible, like a giant turtle based on a rhinoceros stat-block, then modify from there.

When you do a GURPS conversion it is like "X Setting: The Movie" and things look like the things in the books, but nothing is rated on some "game style" power scale. Things are more realistic, and monsters and heroes are on a flatter power curve. You can still have a dragon the size of a building, but nobody is going to be fighting it for four hours of the film's runtime.

In GURPS, take a real-world animal of similar size and ability and create your monster using that base. When in doubt, find a monster like the one you are imagining in GURPS and use that as a base. 80% of the time, you search for a beast already converted in one of the 4th or 3rd Edition books. For the other 15%, you are using something in the same ballpark and using that. The last 5% are actual conversions.

And 70-80% of the creatures in typical B/X games are already given stats in GURPS or Dungeon Fantasy somewhere, so you rarely need to convert much. Dungeon Fantasy has come a long way to defining power levels in the "dungeon crawling" side of GURPS; everything from the spells to the monsters makes sense in a way that D&D and many d20 games just guess at or "throw more hit dice at" to balance a monster.

The "old way" of the hit-die scale to put monsters on a power curve is an artificial construct of D&D.

It has been the same since D&D 3rd Edition when they introduced power and damage scaling. Suddenly, DPS per turn started going up with magic and multiple attacks. Wizards' D&D isn't even D&D, and the high-level math and scaling are all wrong compared to the original game. It is only close in the first three levels.

One of the best things you can do is ignore it all. Just use the pretty pictures of Pathfinder 1e, play in that world with the GURPS rules, and forget all the "fake" 3.75E numbers. They are all wrong anyway. Realism-base your world, ignore the math, and silly leveled this and that.

If you have played Pathfinder 1e as long as I have, it can be challenging to let go of those numbers.

You almost have to go "cold turkey" and let realism and the natural balance of GURPS guide you.

Settings: Pulp Gangsters, Noir, Adventure

The original Gangbusters game was one of our favorites growing up, and we always had a soft spot for the tough-talking, two-fisted, pulp era. These days, the shine has worn off this genre, and it is hard to find anyone interested in pulp and gangster adventures in the era outside of a few old-school and nostalgia groups.

I have always felt the pulp era is the closest you can get to a "fantasy" genre in the modern era since many fantasy genre conventions are here, with some of the best modern additions and features.

These days, the excellent B/X Gangbusters has picked up the torch for this gaming genre, and there is always Savage Worlds in the pulp genre. But for the gangsters, Prohibition-era, tough-talking, rise-and-fall gaming, you need to go to B/X Gangbusters to get the focused package.

Either of the Gangbusters books (original or B/X) is an excellent resource for GURPS and helps "set the tone" of the game you want to play.

It's worth noting the unique era shift in Call of Cthulhu, which has redefined the 'gangsters' genre with its eldritch horror vibe. In this game, you will find many excellent resources for playing in this era.

With the Basic Roleplaying game, you can easily do a gangster game in the same system and leverage the 1920s material in CoC. You need to eliminate the monsters and horror elements, and for such an iconic game, that may be hard to do with player expectations. The players will look around for evil fish monsters in the swamp when they should be looking for bootleggers.

GURPS has one of the best genre books of the period: GURPS: Cliffhangers (a 3E book), which has an excellent history and overview of the era for any 1920s and 1930s game.

One of the genre's weaknesses is its heavy combat focus, and this is endemic to the early 1980s games, which were "bam-pow" sort of tabletop combat games. The original game sometimes felt like a "gangster miniatures wargame," and the adventures existed to "have combat." There was a late shift in the original Gangbusters game towards Noir private-investigator mysteries, especially in the adventure modules. With a combat system as deadly as GURPS and a lack of body armor and defenses, any modern gangster game will be lethal, and characters will tend to be shorter-lived without pulp conventions.

Before beginning a campaign based on nostalgia, it helps to ask, "What does GURPS bring to the table?" GURPS will quickly drill down and do a heavy simulation of any genre, and that "immersion thing" will kick in. This requires you to "ask a few questions" about your character before you begin the game. In 5E, you don't usually need to ask these; just pick a class, race, background, or culture option and go. Motivation comes later; just give me a dungeon.

In a pulp or modern game, you must set goals and create a character directed towards them. Want to be a gang boss like Al Capone? What advantages will help? Powerful allies in government and people you can bribe for favors? Luck? Some inside knowledge? Contacts? An alternate identity? Cultural familiarity with an immigrant group? Legal immunity? Patrons? Go through the GURPS advantages lists and zero in on the social advantages. You will find so many useful ones once you creatively apply them to give you various friends, favors, and immunities in various areas.

As a referee, you must define families, other crime bosses, minor rackets, and other nefarious groups that work in the underworld. I have had a few Gangbusters games fall flat because the game started with nothing and went nowhere besides a "do crimes" simulator. To capture the era, you need a story of families, immigrants, struggles, and the world rapidly changing from farms to industry - and all the small, street-level stories around that struggle.

Movies from that era were also great inspirations for the look, speech, conflicts, and world. Creating a game around them is much easier if you are a fan of these films. If you focus on a story that is not crime-related, things get even better. Let's say your "crime boss wannabe" is looking for a sister he was separated from when they emigrated. That story runs through the "rise to infamy" - then you have a deeper motivation for the character than just a "do crimes" story that can get repetitive and boring.

Do not create a character whose motivation is to "play the game" and "stick to the genre" - you will get bored. This is 95% of 5E characters, and that is why that game now needs to include "random background tables" for character motivation, like "your mentor wronged you and took what you love."

In dungeon adventure games, the motivation "I am an adventurer" is just as boring as the motivation "I am a gangster" in a Noir or mafia game. This is the same for private detectives, G-Men, explorers, bank robbers, reporters, or other characters.

You are not what you do.

You are not your job.

Your motivation is not "my class and race."

Your secondary and tertiary stories will be more important than what you do. Your character will be driven by the story that has nothing to do with their occupation. What you remember about the campaign will be this story, not the genre conventions.

Let's say our gangster has a grandma he cares for in an elderly home, and he needs money for her treatments. Now, he is looking for his sister, and he has someone he needs a significant source of income to care for. His story will be how he gets that and the consequences of that life for him and everyone he loves.

Suddenly, "being a generic gangster who plays wargame battles" fades into the background.

Now, this character has motivation.

This is also one of the most important differences between GURPS and other games. In GURPS, the rules and the genre conventions are not your motivation. The rules are just there to provide a task and conflict resolution system. In 5E, that constant video-game-like chase of power is the primary motivation for many players. This is why the game is popular; you can play the 5E with zero in-character motivation and "go up the level chart." 5E is a pen-and-paper ARPG.

With GURPS, you ignore the rules. This is why some people dislike the system; there is very little "rules motivation." GURPS excels in "designing story into characters" with the advantage and disadvantage system. So, if you start with a story and you bake those into your character designs, you will have a better game.

But you need to have stories that matter to the world.

You also need a referee who creates a layered and detailed enough world or lets players create things in it they can link themselves to. Players creating people, places, and things they want in their story helps players "buy-in," and it saves the referee a little work.

But I will take these story points (grandma, sister, love interest, and a few others) as advantages or disadvantages and find a way to work that into the game. These story points will be "baked in" to my character. This is the best part of GURPS that many other games ignore or miss.

My character will have built-in motivations.

And it won't be "gangster" or "dungeon crawler."

Setting Conversions: Svilland

https://drspublishing.com/pages/svilland

When converting a 5E setting to GURPS, Svilland is a straightforward and fantastic choice. While Nordland from Gaming Ballistic is also a viable option, especially for Dungeon Fantasy and default GURPS settings, Svilland's Norse-themed content makes it an excellent choice for a GURPS game.

But why Svilland? Why not just go Nordlond and ignore this 5E setting book? Well, for one, every 5E setting book can be a GURPS book.

For one, the art of Svilland is not just fantastic; it's also inspirational. It gives you that epic Norse feeling, a feeling that you won't find in other settings. Also, you get a complete world map with locations, cities, NPCs, plot hooks, and different holds and kingdoms. So there is a lot here, from a basic gazetteer level of information. Half of the 200+ page book is setting info, while the other is 5E-specific (that can be used for conversion bases).

One of the key advantages of Svilland is its flexibility. While the book includes 'races,' they can be easily swapped out or supplemented with your favorites. For instance, the setting features blue dwarves as its 'dark elves,' aligning with the Norse themes. However, if you prefer traditional dark elves and light elves, you're free to incorporate them. In Svilland, you have the freedom to shape the game as you see fit.

Regarding GURPS conversions, the rule is simple: make it your own. In Svilland, you can bring in traditional 'Vanir' elves, the 'Aesir' humans, dwarves, giants, and dark elves to create a unique and exciting campaign setting that's entirely yours. You could put warlike Blizzard WoW-style orcs in this world and they would fit well.

They would fit nicely if you wanted the Nordlond races, with the raven-folk, tiefling-like demons, and all the others. Again, if you are talking Norse, you need the Gaming Ballistic Nordlond books in this conversation, too; all of these work so well together. The Monsters book for Nordlond is a natural fit and is a huge time saver.

I like Svilland because it has the epic feeling of towering mountains, deep haunted forests, jagged coasts, towering cliffs, and stormy seas. The setting and art capture a sense of grandeur and make you feel incredibly small in a vast, rugged, and inhospitable world. I don't get this epic feeling from many GURPS products, and the world here is vivid and amazing, along with providing page after page of specifics and locations.

The art here screams epic, and it also feels more GURPS than 5E by far. This stuff just gets me in the mood to play and play now. it is epic, towering, inspirational, moody, evocative Norse eye-candy and it drives me. Also, none of this looks like your typical "planar candy" style 5E setting, this is all very basic in reality, grounded, and serious style art.

All of this begs for GURPS and realism.

There were books and settings early in 5E's life that were more of this realistic style. Wizards undercut these settings by going "full planar" like they did in 4E, and it trashes anything based on realism, low magic, or low fantasy. The game shifted towards zany anime tropes (101 silly species options) and anything-goes planar whacko-verse settings and classes, and the realistic simulation-style settings (like Primeval Thule) were left in the dust. Another aspect of current-year 5E is the low-powered settings (Brancelonia), which are also left in the dust as the power level increases.

GURPS has a flatter power curve, making all these settings magically "work" again.

Nordlond can be a small setting, while Svilland could be the world around it. Or the world could be Nordlond and use Svilland for inspiration. Both of them work so well together that they are like distant cousins. They work apart or together well. You could run all the Nordlond adventures in Svilland and even drop these lands somewhere in this vast world.

Also, you could run this as a dungeon-crawler with Dungeon Fantasy, or a full GURPS setting with the main rulebooks. Note the omissions in Dungeon Fantasy if you do this, as that game is a subset of the full GURPS rules, so just be aware of the differences in skill, advantage, and disadvantage lists so you can run the type of game you want to run.

No, you don't need Svilland to run a Norse game. I could use GURPS Basic for all of this. The Gaming Ballistic books are a great time-saver, if you choose to get those. But the epic feeling, maps, art, and world development improve everything. It feels as grand an epic as a World of Warcraft-style world. You could paint the world in a time of war, with orcs, dark elves, undead kingdoms, and the alliance of light all locked in grand battles.

This place could be cool - if you just make it happen.

This is a setting that does not deserve to slowly fade as the old 5E rules sunset. Using this as a "mega setting" alongside the Gaming Ballistic Norse-themed content makes for a perfect match of a 5E world that is epic and amazing, and books that give you GURPS stats and adventures that perfectly fit the theme.