I am in a few other games, and my blogs reflect my current interests. But I keep coming back to GURPS. This game does not let me down. I will think up a concept in another game, and I have to jump through a dozen hoops just to get to that point. In some games, it is not possible at all. In others, you need to OSR "say it is so," and you won't have rules for what you want to make happen, nor a good way to handle it.
You just guess and keep moving on.
While that is old-school, I like having rules to cover things I wouldn't expect to need to handle. A good example is urban fantasy, which ranges from the overt of Shadowrun to the Covert of Vampire: The Masquerade. Shadowrun was an early GURPS game for us, the first edition we could not figure out, and there were way too many dice to roll, floating target numbers, and we just gave up and converted it all to GURPS.
This was a fun game; admittedly, I ran it much more post-apoc than vanilla Shadowrun, where the megacities were the last bastions of humanity and the wilds were overrun with ruins and monsters. It kept the focus on the cities, and anytime the group had to venture out into the wildlands, it was a paramilitary-style operation. There were semi-secure land routes on major transit corridors, but those were constantly under attack by monsters and strange magic surges.
Vampire, we played it by the rules; the system wasn't too bad, and we knew some LARP groups in college, so it was all cool. Still, if I were to play any Urban Fantasy today, GURPS would be my best bet. There is so much to mix in, and you need a cross-genre game that can pull in elements of fantasy, science fiction, hacking, modern weapons, martial arts, magic of specific traditions, and so many other areas that combine to make the genre work. While the "book powers" are incredible, they are nothing I could not do in GURPS just as easily, and I would have far more options to choose from.
d20 tried to do urban fantasy, but it came off strange. Sort of like, "here are 3.5 modern rules, now, um, do Shadowrun with it." We tried to make this work, but it never felt right. The Urban Arcana setting was interesting, but it felt like off-model Shadowrun. 3.5E Greyhawk was a lot more fun and classic for that system, at least for us.
Again, GURPS does this better, and the only thing that would come close is something like Cities Without Number, with fantasy races shoehorned in there. This would work, but again, it would feel like "off-model Shadowrun" and sort of strange. It would be easy, since I would import BX fantasy races and play, but it would feel a bit pointless. It needs a story and a reason for existing beyond "let's do it."
What GURPS does better is in the unknown. With all of the above, you know what you are getting into. In Vampire, you are getting the classic conflicts and clans. With Shadowrun, you are getting the mutated fantasy races, magic, and monsters. With Urban Arcana, you are getting D&D 3.5E with cyberpunk seasoning.
With GURPS?
I have no clue what I am getting into. I can limit it down to "secret vampires" or open it up to "fantasy races in a modern world." If each of these games exists on a slider bar of "secret world" to "everything in the open," then GURPS does them all. Better yet, the extent of the secret conspiracies and what could be going on in the shadows can be anything.
Some people won't play urban fantasy in GURPS since they have no clue what they are getting into. I love it, but some are more comfortable with predictable things. I critique kitchen-sink fantasy for being too predictable and like comfort food for fantasy gaming. I love it, it is what I grew up with, and I will never stop being a fan. But I have done it for a few decades. There are times when I want to be surprised, like when I started gaming and did not know all the monsters by heart. With Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Vampire, and many other games, I know them. It feels like walking into a McDonald's and knowing what I am going to order.
Easy? Familiar? Comfortable? Yes.
Unexpected? Risky? Discovery? No.
There has to be a balance between the familiar and the new. I like my orcs and goblins, but I like new things, too. I want to be surprised.
Also, when it comes to Cyberpunk, I want the world to be mine, not knowing all the same mega-corps by heart, and I want to figure them out for myself. Cities Without Number is an excellent resource for GURPS, too, since you can use the random tables in there for any game and just enjoy a randomized, procedural world with surprises around every corner. With vampire clans or werewolf tribes, all I would know is that "they are out there" and nothing about them until I meet them.
Randomize them all, and figure things out when we get there. Yes, if I were playing with others, there is a benefit to having a lot of work done for me. But solo? I need to be surprised, or I will get bored.
I like the unpredictable and new.
No other game does that like GURPS.
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