GURPS Character Sheet (GCS)

I am glad I learned about GURPS Character Sheet (GCS), the community-supported and free alternative to GURPS Character Assistant (GCA). Before I go any further, consider becoming a backer of GCS if you love and use it! Even a dollar a month helps, and it helps the developer gauge interest and develop new features.

Where GCA forces you to create subsets of books to play with (and you sometimes end up with conflicts), GCS is designed from the perspective that every book is valid simultaneously. You start with a character sheet and apply templates and other selections to that sheet, and it copies them over.

GCA's books and scripts will delete unneeded and unused options; you can put a custom library rule that limits gear to a particular tech level or below.

GCA with templates guides you through selections one at a time. With GCS, it applies everything to your sheet, and you delete the ones you don't want (and combine duplicates). So, where GCA is a bit more user-friendly and guided, GCS makes up for it by allowing you to pull in anything from any GURPS book in your library.

GCA is more new-user-friendly and oriented to picking a subset of books. GCA also gives you an excellent loadout manager and factors shields in a little easier than GCS. If you are the type who manages your weight carefully and drops that backpack to be unencumbered during a fight, GCA does that well.

GCS is for power users and allows you to use your entire library to design characters. This feature is worth a lot if your campaigns extend across multiple books and you pull in random things from any book in your GURPS library.

Both are great programs and currently, GCA feels like it has slightly better support of Traveller: Interstellar Wars than GCS - but you can't go wrong with either. GCA is also stricter on character validation and auditing, ensuring the templates' rules are followed for every selection and point value. GCS feels much looser; you are fine if your points add up.

It took me a while to get used to GCS and how you delete unwanted template options and combine duplicate choices. They don't happen that often, but knowing how to sort through and filter your character to a legal design is a good skill. Also, deleting things on your sheet (not the libraries!) feels strange at first, like how you can go into 'edit mode' and delete the bite from your natural attacks if you never use biting in melee.

With GCS, you enter this "search, apply, delete, combine, and add" mode, which becomes your character editing workflow. GCA uses a lot of dialogs to guide choices, and you pick A, then B, then C, then D, until you finish - sometimes more than a dozen dialogs deep. It ensures all choices are made, but you can't go back into a dialog if you make a mistake.

Both are great, get constant updates, and whichever you choose is your personal preference.