When the pandemic hit, my first priority was collecting GURPS books. I feared significant supply chain disruptions would impact printing, and I am happy that did not happen since I could get 100% of the 4th Edition books I wanted, plus a best-of-the 3rd Edition greats on subjects that have yet to be revisited since.
Only once did GURPS get put in a storage crate, and it only stayed there for a short time. I will do this to games to see "if I really miss them." The great games find their way out since I can't live without them. The chaff and junk can stay there and eventually be sold to someone who enjoys them more than me.
But why buy and collect GURPS?
This was always a game I could come back to. It will give me a lifetime of enjoyment, and I can play it solo and enjoy stories without end. The game does not really need a community. Pathfinder 2, 5E, and a bunch of others? No community, no game. Pathfinder 2, especially, was built for community play since every class and build needs a "table advocate" to understand how it works to its fullest. If a player specializes in clerics (or fighters, rogues, etc.) and memorizes all the rules around them, your table will have much more fun.
GURPS? No classes and no special rules around them. It lacks 5E's "classes by committee" design, where any designer can toss any power in any class in any expansion - even in adventures. In GURPS, all characters are mostly the same; they develop differently along the same framework of point-buy choices. In 5E or other games? Who knows how the mechanics will change when you introduce a class? And that is another thing to remember and keep track of. If you buy too many 5E books, your mind will blow up.
GURPS characters still work the same way to the maximum point level, and nothing introduces special rules you need to allocate "mental RAM" to keep track of. I can't handle all of Pathfinder 2's dozens of "tagged conditions," nor can I process 5E's infinite class options that each change how the game works.
GURPS, when you understand it all, is a more rules-light game than either 5E or Pathfinder 2 since the designers of the latter two games need self-control to control the game's complexity. This is the "West Coast" game model where the game becomes a "Windows installation" and some tech-company scheme to turn it into a live service to keep you paying money and "lock out" competitors by making the game so complex and take up so much shelf space you don't have room for any other game in your life, mind, or collection.
"Midwest Games" are like the original D&D, GURPS, and Castles & Crusades. Games designed with this model can be created by designers on the coasts (and anywhere in the world). Still, historically, this is an apt way of describing these games since this is where their origins are. These more humble games tend not to take up a lot of space, have the sensibility not to be a boorish space consumer in your life and house, and tend to be plain-spoken and "are what they are." They are also not trying to sell themselves as "lifestyles" but recognize themselves as "games."
This West Coast tech-company mindset is destroying roleplaying by trying to sell it as a lifestyle and social platform. Monopoly is not a social platform, nor is D&D.
GURPS is one of those down-to-earth games. I have two shelves of GURPS books, but I only need two to play and last a lifetime. Even the basic Dungeon Fantasy set is a complete game that can last decades. And like these Midwest roots, a lot of the game is DIY. In that spirit, you can see where this "make your own game" vibe comes from. You even see that in the older editions of D&D. The canning, gardening, patching your own clothes, sewing your own things, fixing your own house, building an addition to your home, fixing your own car, and that self-reliant vibe permeates GURPS. You are creating your own game every time you play.
That was my feeling during the pandemic. Become self-reliant, even in my gaming.
If they ever made a 5th Edition of GURPS, you know it would be a trash fire of West Coast live service tech company nonsense. You can never get away from it these days. People get ideas of how to put gamers over a barrel for more money, and it kills games. It looks and sounds fantastic, and the community seems behind it all, and the excitement is there. But it is driven by corporate and community grift, slick presentation, us-against-them anger marketing, and mental manipulation.
I would rather be a self-reliant and self-sustainable gamer than buy into another social media grift.
Creativity is like the ability to grow your own food. That can feed you for life and help you live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Rely on fast-food chains for your primary food source, and guess what? You become overweight, unhappy, and reliant on them for survival. You "can't have fun" unless "you buy the next book for Paizo or Wizards." I know the core books are a lifetime of enjoyment for those games, too, but you would be surprised how many D&D and Pathfinder consumers are collectors and never play the game - or say the only fun is the next thing I can buy.
I fell into that trap. I know. All it got me was a garage full of books to sell, and money lost I could have better spent on retirement.
Better to realize it late than never.
I am creative enough to have my own fun without the guilt that I "am missing out" since the only thing I am missing out on is being taken advantage of again.
And I enjoy GURPS for almost any game or genre.
No comments:
Post a Comment