I was playing with my 5E character designer, and I created a multiclass bard-warlock of 14th level, and the character sheet was pages long, full of special abilities, spells, descriptions of powers, a dozen powers all with differing "uses per day," and tons of special rules for one character. Some of the selections are cool and "not what I would have come up with," but that is part of the fun, being surprised by designer choices and figuring out which one is the best pick for you at this level.
But all this complexity starts to add up.
While my 500-point GURPS character can have a half-page of skills, the character by itself is not really all that complicated. Even with tacking on superpowers, those are pretty straightforward without the paragraphs of special rules that 5E loads on every ability, like text was free, and there is no need to unify and streamline the design system.
Everything is a special case in 5E.
Every 5E ability comes with a few paragraphs of text.
If you multiclass, it starts piling up fast.
By 6th level, a 5E character feels on par with a 250-point GURPS character. Past that point? The 5E characters start to grow exponentially heavier as paragraphs of descriptions of powers and abilities pile up. I would rather play a 500-point GURPS character than a 14th-level 5E character, just in terms of character sheet complexity.
In GURPS, I will have a few skills at 20-minus or above, and those do not introduce character sheet complexity, but unlock depth in the combat actions you can take at a high level of difficulty.
My 5E character has abilities that have fixed uses per long rest, proficiency bonus uses per long (or short) rest, sometimes are modifiers, are piled full of subclass features, and others are flat bonuses.
My 14th-level 5E character is a 16-page PDF. That could easily reach 24 or 32 pages by the 20th level, and that is not counting spell descriptions. I need all those pages to play, and I am flipping through them all during a turn. In reality, it is a horrible play experience. If I don't "scan my abilities," I will miss one. It is easier to "learn as you level" and repeat them as you gain them, learning how the design works and slowly training yourself on your build.
Now, let me run a 4-person party in 5E and multiply that 16-page character sheet by four. All of a sudden, the amount of character sheets I am managing is getting to the size of the player's guide, and it would only take a dozen characters to reach a book-sized pile of character sheets. This has not changed since D&D 3E, and every game based on the Wizards' design theory runs you dozens of pages for one character sheet at higher levels. Even Pathfinder shares this legacy.
Go digital or go home, and if you are playing in a character party? Four PDFs open, each with a dozen or more pages. I dare say playing GURPS feels like a rules-light game at this point, just in comparison to the pages of character sheets you are dealing with in 5E.
GURPS? Filling four pages of character sheets is very rare, and that is pushing it; most of the important information is on the first sheet, with maybe some skills running onto the second page. If I have powers, most likely they use an energy reserve (from myself or an item) or fatigue to power abilities.
For a 250-point character, I am averaging a two-sided sheet, and most of the time, a page and a half. Some 250-point characters I can fit on one side of a sheet of paper.
Even if I have superpowers in GURPS (as fantasy powers), those will be a lot more straightforward and easy to understand than your average 5E subclass ability, where 5E has no standard of design and can do almost anything, or modify any part of the rules.
Also, in GURPS, I am making myself more complicated by buying piles of small power-point powers, or I can invest in a few expensive powers or high-level skills. In 5E, I have no choice but to take what they give me. I can control complexity far more easily in GURPS by not going overboard and keeping my character straightforward and streamlined.
GURPS is the more concise and straightforward game, especially for higher-powered characters.
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