Skills & Wits

One of the trends in post-2000s gaming is the expectation that everyone will be given special powers. Our games became less about "skills and wits" and more about "powers and progression." Granted, there were always superhero games before the year 2000, but with D&D 3.0, game design became more about power trees and progression paths, often mimicking ARPGs like Diablo in pen-and-paper form.

You see this sort of design culminating in D&D 5.5E, where every class feels like a video game series of unlocks and granted powers, where player skill (and the character's skills) matter less, and it is all about what power I can get next, and where I am going on this class tree.

I am speaking broadly, as if D&D 5E is 90% of the market, and games like it tend to follow the leader, and you will see class designs with special powers granted at each level. This "prebuilt powers on a class list" design is incredibly common in gaming today.

Also, skills have been relegated to a secondary role, often "solving a toggle problem." Passive perception covers, "Do I see something?" A referee calling for an active skill roll, like History, is just presenting a pass-fail problem with very little player input or interest. After a while, it doesn't matter what the skill is or what the roll covers; it is just a binary test in the adventure: you get to read something, or you do not. You can move somewhere, or you can't. You take damage, or you don't.

If you can see a 5E adventure as a decision tree, this is the structure. Skill rolls just force you down decision tree paths. And I get this feeling that in 5E, the primary way you solve a problem is with a power, rather than creativity and skill use.

GURPS hits differently for me. Skills feel more open and more like player tools than pachinko machine pegs. For most things, you don't have the skill. You may know someone who does, though. Many D&D adventures are designed around skills. Since they are so limited, there will be a number of skill encounters that act as toggles or filters, making the roll go this way, fail it, and go that way.

In GURPS and many older games, you don't really have adventures designed so tightly around skills. Skills are there as player tools that could open new paths, but they primarily exist to give players the tools and options to create new narrative paths. Skills feel optional and more player-initiated than adventure-required.

Powers are another thing. Powers force the player to read the character sheet each turn and choose a path for that turn of combat. Choice paralysis also defines modern gaming. You will have high-level D&D games in which players forget their characters have powers they could use.

D&D 5E says to me, "Powers solve problems, not plans."

GURPS was designed in the pre-modern era, and you can even see this design philosophy reflected in other games, such as Palladium and Basic Roleplaying. Characters in these games are more about character skills and player choices, and powers are an extra, special bonus.

If you wanted special powers, you turned to games like Champions or ... GURPS. GURPS sort of stands in both worlds, with a power design and a full-featured system for superpowers. D&D never had the focus on special powers it does today, merging with video games and with powers taking over the mental decision tree for a player when their turn comes around. GURPS, by default, can ignore the power-design system and still run like an old-school "stats and skills" game.

Then again, I started with GURPS 1.0, so special powers were always something found "in other books" rather than something in the core rules. GURPS 4 changes all that and is an excellent all-in-one game. And in GURPS, you design whatever power you want, whenever you want, and work with the referee to get or have it. If you have the free character points, you can play.

Still, for me, GURPS feels like a "skills & wits" game.