I have been on a GURPS break and am working on writing and immersion in a few other games. I know, "Why play other games when you have GURPS?" Sometimes, I want to relive things, play games where a lot of work has been done for me, explore the systems I have out, and sort through the ones I consider "core" in my library. I am drawing down my library size, so games will revisit a shelf for a while, and I will ask, "Do I really want this?"
The first I have been pulling out and exploring is OSRIC, which is, at its core, first-edition AD&D, but OSRIC is "just the rules." The first edition is likely the "greatest version of D&D ever written," it invalidates most everything that came after, even the 5th Edition. Sometimes, I want to go back to the start to "rebase" my gaming expectations, but it does not get much better than the original.
I use OSRIC because this is the community-supported version of the game, and it is still open and free to publish expansion work with. The AD&D books sit nearby, just to absorb Gygaxian wisdom, but the
"rules engine" is all OSRIC, along with a few BRW Games expansions.
AD&D was there when GURPS started, so this game, being one of the inspirations to "make a better mousetrap," is strong here. I can see why GURPS is the way it is when I go back to race and class combos. There is an unmatched sense of freedom in GURPS. The divergence came when GURPS started adding skills and rules, and the game grew away from that "simple core" in the earlier editions.
That sense of freedom that GURPS gives is tempered by a "why?" when I read these rules. Gygax was trying to build a game and world model, almost like a video game, where mechanical balance was created by limitations and allowing some combinations by not others. In GURPS, there are no limitations, and it is as mix-and-match as a modern game, such as Pathfinder 2's near-infinite combinations, though on a far more finely granulated level.
Those choices create a mini-game inside of character creation. There is a "game" here where you are trying to figure out "why Gygax was going for." with these combos and limits, which is more than just slapping arbitrary restrictions everywhere. The racial abilities "in the dungeon" were supposed to play a more significant role in the game, almost like the superpowers we see in 5th Edition, and that "in the dungeon" experience was not supposed to be abandoned or marginalized at high level. There were supposed to be "20th-level dungeons," almost like a video game.
AD&D changed more in the second edition into a story game supporting the novels. They are mostly the same game, but the tonal shift is significant. GURPS is better suited for story gaming since its skill list does much more than several games in the dungeon genre.
Combined.
There are stories I can't tell in the first edition or any B/X clone that GURPS makes simple. When I am just "rolling polyhedral dice in a dungeon," OSRIC works fine. OSRIC keeps me out of the market for newer games and the endless stream of B/X clones, which suits me just fine. Why have the rest when we have the best? The only exception is Swords & Wizardry, which is quite likely the best B/X game ever written.
Still, OSRIC and S&W can't tell the stories that GURPS does. It isn't close.
The first edition was harsh, and characters died regularly. This is just like GURPS, but in this game, creating a character was fast, so you cared, but it wasn't a huge setback. In GURPS, I can spend a few weeks designing a character, both a blessing and a curse.
The first edition I love also has a "survival game element," which is also in GURPS. I love the idea of a harsh world standing in the way of "getting to the dungeon" and "going home." You get a lot of people in the hobby who bemoan "wilderness encounters" as "resource-wasting elements" that "insert RNG into encounter balance inside a dungeon." I hear "video gamers complaining about video game things," which is the optimizer thing again, and "the game is programmed to be won" crowd back at it.
First-edition and many original role-playing games weren't "written to be won"—they were written to challenge a party of a certain level range and present things "as is." The massive push for "encounter balance" wasn't until the Wizards came in with D&D 3.0 and started turning the game into a card game.
GURPS isn't "written for balance" either; it is "written to simulate reality," which gives the game a flatter power level and makes it easier to balance. After a few combats, it gets simple to balance GURPS fights, which are usually over quickly (unless you make dodge and parry insanely high).
The "dungeon games" do "dungeon gaming" the best. GURPS does "everything else" the best. When I use GURPS to run fantasy game worlds, it isn't dungeon gaming, and the stories are much more varied and textured. The stories are better. But the focus shifts. Dungeon games (OSRIC, S&W, etc.) are like handheld game consoles that do that experience the best. GURPS is my PC, which does every other experience so well that nothing else competes.
When I try to "limit GURPS" to do SRD-style fantasy, I always lose more than I gain. I feel constrained to the concepts and rules "from other games" than what GURPS allows me to express. It isn't GURPS but "trying to be AD&D using GURPS." I don't want to be "designing a fireball or magic missile spell" inside of GURPS, but having magic be that strange, unknown, powerful, and "magical" force it is in novels and books.
"Using GURPS to simulate other games" is a lose-lose situation, at least for me. GURPS does a lot more and a lot better, and trying to design "other game stuff" limits your imagination and storytelling capability. So many games are moving away from the SRD and OGL and getting better for it. In my experience, moving away from "SRD magic" makes the entire concept "of magic" a more compelling, strange, and mysterious thing.
Can I simulate the SRD using GURPS? Yes, and it works well.
Do I want to? Not really. The fantasy books I read that present magic as a strange and unknown force don't follow SRD mechanics. GURPS does that well, and this is how I use it. I don't want players "expecting a converted SRD" in my games; I want them to use their imagination and weave together strange effects and powers that aren't possible in any other game.
Again, GURPS tells that "story of magic" better than any other game.
Tying myself to an SRD world limits my ability to tell it.
I want to "express the impossible," not "design inside the limits of another game."
Even the designers of Pathfinder 2 are discovering that tying their concepts too tightly to the old ways limits their ability to create new classes and magical traditions, and adherence to SRD concepts limits their freedom. They have a playtest of their new necromancer class that was impossible with the old SRD wizard concept hanging out there as a junk drawer saying, "I can do that!" This is a counter-example, but it shows how an assumed concept can limit designer freedom.
Why do I like the first edition? It was my first game. This also expresses "SRD mechanics" in their simplest form. While limited in scope, it tells that "dungeon story" well enough.
Having OSRIC out and giving that my "SRD gaming" fix allows me to use GURPS to tell the stories I want it to tell and the ones I feel it does best. OSRIC is also a fantastic GURPS reference if you want to go that route, with plenty of inspiration.
In some ways, this is the fight between Dungeon Fantasy and GURPS over the game's "identity" - at least regarding the dungeon genre (and, by extension, Fantasy). Before DF, we did things the GURPS way. After DF, there is a DF way of doing the genre.
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