Video: GURPS SuperLite Combat Example

Another great getting started video today, with a combat example using the GURPS Lite system. This is a pared-down version of the rules and is also "playing GURPS."

It is easier than B/X with all the optional rules stripped off the game, and in many ways, it is far more streamlined and internally consistent. The GURPS skill system back in the 1980s was far better than how B/X did things back then, and it still is today. I love B/X, but the only thing B/X got over those 40 years was nostalgia appeal, better presentation, and "the feels."

It brings back memories.

Back in the 1980s, as kids, we saw GURPS and the unified skill system as a massive improvement over B/X. And B/X could not decide if some skills were 1d6 versus percentage, and you could not raise the skills you wanted when you gained experience. These days in 5E and Pathfinder, skills are a d20 but are tied to classes, and improving skills feels very restricted and limited.

Each version of the game changes the skill system massively, and you just feel d20 struggles with skills and needs volumes of rules to handle the simplest things. In 3.5E, most of the game's rules are hidden in the skill descriptions. Or it swings the other way (4E) and is too simple to the point of, why bother?

It has been 40 years, and they still can't get the skill system right.

In GURPS, do you want to put all your XP into stealth? Go right ahead. You can be a "low-level" thief with the best stealth skill in the world. It is your choice. If you get discovered and can't fight, that is on you, but the freedom to do what you want and improve in any area you like destroys any version of B/X in character design and improvement.

Want your magic user to train in stealth?

Oops. Some games don't allow that. Why? Because it was easier to limit classes in Chainmail to a few standardized abilities, it made characters more like "wargame units" than "real people with a variety of experiences and backgrounds." Nobody at TSR wanted to change this because the game was popular, so they perpetuated a less-than-great skill system.

And we love it today because of nostalgia. And people today, not even alive at that time, love it because of the illusion of nostalgia they see on TV.

GURPS has aged far better since the system is based on the freedom to do what you want.

This corporate-fueled nostalgia was fueled by the OGL, all the D&D adjacent games, and Hollywood. Our eyes were opened when they took that away because of greed. The sad truth is the OGL helped 5E and One D&D more than it hurt by keeping the game relevant. Those D&D-like OSR games fed 5E's popularity and helped perpetuate the appeal of limited-focus class roles.

In 2023, the illusion is shattered.

And if you went back in time with all of today's B/X games to us in the 1980s, as kids, we would laugh and say, "What are you future people doing? There are better games than D&D to play!"

And GURPS would be one of them.