GURPS: Fix My Game!

"Please, GURPS, fix this game!"

The Starfinder discussion is fun. Yes, the 3.5E rules are not really ideal for science fiction, and the long lists of leveled weapons, like they were some World of Warcraft list of weapons tied to levels, are just nauseating to a simulation gamer. I love the world, the races, and the whole magic-meets-sci-fi vibe. The neon looks and classic fantasy races in a modern setting give me a strong Shadowrun feeling.

I, too, have done this. Back before GURPS, Aftermath was our "fix it" game, one we would convert everything into to finally settle in and enjoy the setting. There was a short time when this game was Champions; we did that, but GURPS is much better for character creation and bases everything on that "zero-level human" baseline, so everything is easy.

Today, my "fix it" game is GURPS, and there are very few other alternatives.

The zero-point GURPS starting character still works in the game, quite well, actually. You do not need to mod them very much to get a "mook" in any adventure, a goblin with a sword and a few levels of skill, a guard with a gun and some ranged weapons skill, and it goes on and on.

Some settings are so good, and the rules so insanely different from what you are used to, that you reach a point where you grab GURPS and let the best tool in your toolbox do its magic. I have experienced this with Shadowrun, Battletech, Star Trek, Star Wars, Starfinder, Star Frontiers, and many others. Even if I ended up still using the original game's miniature game (Battletech, Knight Hawks, Traveller's ship combat), I would still play the man-to-man parts with GURPS, and just find a way to convert the skill levels into what the board game needed, or just swap out the skill rolls for GURPS.

Some games feel better in GURPS. Traveller is a huge one, with the universe instantly feeling "real" to many, where the 2d6 system feels a few levels too abstract to engage me on that "deeper simulation" level. I would rather sit in a Traveller starport bar with a full rack of GURPS social skills, a full set of social advantages and disadvantages, and have all these options than just make a 2d6 Carousing roll at a DM-2.

I feel I am inside that starport bar when I am playing GURPS. I can almost smell the smoke, weave my way through crowds, have my eyes adjust to the light, and taste the grit in the air. I am in that moment and paying attention, and a pocket pistol hidden in this crowd could mean my end. But there are worse things than combat and death in GURPS; the game was still designed in an era when failures could have serious consequences beyond death.

Did you sneak in an outlawed weapon into this higher law-level world? Start playing Renegade by Styx, please, and please don't make me play a GTA-like chase-and-battle through the streets (again). If your character is caught, please roll a new character, since that one will be serving a hard time for a few four-year terms, or longer. I've had groups quit on me when I enforced the long arm of the law on the BS their characters pulled, but they always came back to play more.

Not true in 5E these days, someone is going to throw an X on me and retcon it all. They will play through a few hours of chase, hate the story's Reservoir Dogs ending, and X me. Four hours of the group's time will have been wasted because someone wants to load from a save point. You wait, "save points" will become a thing in the next D&D or zeitgeist of modern gaming. There is already one game with these "save crystals" built into it, and I forget which one, since I was horrified at the prospect.

"It was fun until there were consequences to our actions..."

Traveller in a 5E-like system? Forget it, my brain turns off, and I lean on my passive skills to make the referee do all the work for me. Passive carousing? Sure, put the game on automatic play mode and just read me a story, please. I pre-designed my character to have the highest levels of passive carousing and perception, so I can just sit here on my phone and treat the entire group and story as "second screen entertainment."

I am beginning to see 5E as the death of roleplaying, and the introduction of "one-button mechanics" to pen-and-paper gaming, like the infamous World of Warcraft one-button mode. And it is not even 5E's fault. It is just the most popular system, and it keeps attracting all these terrible ideas and gimmick-de-jeur design tricks from designers who want mobile games and know nothing about the hobby's history.

There were always consequences to actions in my games. This is the "safe sandbox" of roleplaying where we could live out dangerous fantasies through imaginary characters (and not ourselves).

The removal of the need to engage with the world and the social environment kills many games for me. I was forced into hotels for a week with 2d6 games (a water leak), and while they were fun on a gamist level, my characters felt like racks of uninteresting numbers who were just "rolling through the random charts" included with the game. I still love the 2d6 games, since they are perfect "gaming on the go," but I missed my GURPS books dearly.

I would have gotten more out of that trip with just my two full-sized GURPS books in a laptop bag, and a GURPS Character Sheet app on my laptop. Seriously, I have this feeling GURPS will "travel better" than most any other game since it does so much with just the core books. With the 2d6 games, I need several of them just to cover a tenth of the genres GURPS covers by default, and the bulk and weight of the digest-sized books begin to add up.

"On the metal," GURPS gaming, limited to just the two core books, is a better experience than most other games, which start to add up serious weight when hauling half a library around. Forget even taking 5E on the go, even with just the corebooks. You are talking D&D at 7.5 pounds versus GURPS at 1.5 pounds, five times less. When hauling bags into a hotel and around an airport, that five pounds is a huge difference, and if I choose to go up to 7.5 pounds, that is a lot of GURPS sourcebooks I can throw in my bag, at least the best dozen softcovers. At ten pounds, that is practically the entire core GURPS library of must-have books.

I could put together a GURPS "bug out bag" with my softcovers and some dice, and have a good time wherever I go. Then again, PDFs are zero weight, but nothing beats having the books. There are times in the hotel when the tablet and phone go off, and all I want is a real book in my hands with words on the page.

As for Starfinder, yes, GURPS is a "fix this" game. The rules are all over the place, the 3.5E whiff-happy system is not the best suited for freewheeling space adventure (I know about the PF2E version), and the leveled upgrades are too much of a video game for me. The damage is far too low for the low-level items, and I don't feel the danger. I get to enjoy the setting without any of the rules' problems, and that holds true for many games.

When I convert it to GURPS, it feels real. The rules work. There is a logical consistency to everything. If the setting doesn't hold me, then that is not the game's fault. Some games are admittedly more of the setting than the game, and Shadowrun is one of them.

GURPS will show you quickly if the setting is lacking, and interest will wane as there is "nothing there" to hold people in the game and compel them to "stick around." I suspect part of the appeal of Starfinder is the "level up game," which goes away once the lists of leveled gear are gone, and you are left there with the races, factions, and conflicts - minus the lists of leveled toys.

If people lose interest in your GURPS conversion, it could be that the setting never held them there in the first place, and the game was more about the rules than the world it was set in.

Battletech is in the same boat. The miniature battle game is great, but the official role-playing game is sort of weak and not well supported. I get transported "into the world" with my GURPS mech-warrior, and things at the lowest levels of play matter a great deal.

GURPS is a "game fixer" along with a "setting repair kit."