My 1000 Point Character

So, to compare against my "wouldn't it be cool" test build of a 14th-level 5E character that ended up with a character sheet 16 pages long, I decided to make my "ultimate GURPS fantasy hero" to see how complex that character would be.

GCA has a wonderful randomization function, so I took four 250-point templates and applied them randomly to my character (knight, wizard, bard, scout). I then spent my remaining points on whatever I felt like. This is NOT how you design a 1000-point character! Taking four templates and mashing them together is possible, but who does that?

But hey, this isn't just a multiclassed character; he is quadclassed.

I had a few repeat skills, strange choices, conflicting advantages and disadvantages, and a general unoptimized mess of everything. He has 160 points of disadvantages. But this does highlight what the worst-designed 1000-point character may look like, and I was shooting for a huge skill and spell list just so the PDF would grow to an insane length. I can always fix the repeats, choose other skills, or combine them. Some polish is needed. And hey, this guy is a 26-minus poet and public speaker with similarly high axe and pickpocket skills. I can't design that in 5E at all.

What is the more complicated character sheet?

A 14th-level multiclass 5E character, or a 1000-point unoptimized mess of a GURPS character?

My 1000-point GURPS character came out to a 7-page PDF, with 3 pages devoted to spells. So, really, a four-page sheet had all I needed to play. My 5E sheet didn't have spell summaries like this one! So my GURPS sheet is easier to use, and I don't really need to be flipping through the Player's Guide to look up spells.

And my GURPS character did not have "rules short circuits" like "characters within 40 feet reroll failed inspiration checks," or similar stuff, which 5E is notorious for. Every character sheet in 5E is a potential "nuh-uh" to any rule in the game, and that blows up complexity compared to a skill-based system like GURPS, where mostly all you are worrying about is, "What is the negative modifier for that?"

If I went to 2000 points, I would probably hit a 10-page PDF, most of which would be my spell list. Most of page four was empty, with plenty of room for more skills.

The silly part of this whole episode is that running a 4-person party is likely easier in GURPS than in 5E. In 5E, the beginning is very deceptive, with "simple characters" that "feel OSR." Like a frog in a boiling pot, this quickly grows out of control, and character sheet complexity for each hero grows to more than a dozen pages for each, all with special rules changing how the game is played.

I was probably wrong to assume GURPS doesn't support solo play for four-person parties because of its complexity. With 5E, it is arguably worse to solo there than GURPS (outside of a VTT). In any OSR game, it is likely easier than GURPS. With Castles & Crusades, that is by far the easiest. GURPS is sort of middle-of-the-road when it comes to solo/party complexity, but it is not the worst, by far.

With the 1000-point non-casters having 4-page character sheets, and casters having 4-8 sheets due to spell lists, that is very manageable in GURPS for a four or even a six-person party. At 1000-points. Which very few play at that power level. Also, my character is massively unoptimized, as most GURPS characters grow organically in a few key areas and become much tighter, well-thought-out designs. My character is the worst-case by design, just to bloat that character sheet with junk.

At most, for 250-point characters? A two-page, double-sided sheet, and another double-sided sheet for spells. One sheet of paper at most for a 250-point character. One extra sheet per character for casters.

If I start throwing on extra attacks in GURPS, my turns get slightly more complicated, but not to the degree of 5E, where some report taking 30 minutes to decide what to do during a turn. I would, too, if I had to flip through a 16-page character sheet on my turn. It would take me a few minutes to leaf through all that paper to find what I was looking for. Each turn. Per player. Over and over.

A one-second, one-action GURPS combat turn solves a lot of problems. I can look at a player, count, "zero...one" and then ask them, "What does your character do in that amount of time?"

The character sheets in 5E are way out of control. I get that most people play on VTTs, and all this complexity is hidden behind UI buttons and scripting that hide the rules and interactions.

"It is easy, look!" they say. "The turns go by quickly!"

But that comes at a cost in software support and an online-only model that locks you into a paywall. You need to buy "digital goods" to make it work, often doubling the price you paid for the game. You will lose those goods when the website goes away, and they will all go away someday. Wizards have always designed their games with that "software as a service" model, so the characters and rules end up hideously complicated. 3E, 4E, and 5E are all the same "dozen-page-long" character sheet, endless, special rules mixed in, and forcing you to use software to figure it all out.

And GURPS?

It will still be out here, more playable at higher power levels, with the easier character sheets, and supported by an enthusiastic community. While yes, designing a GURPS character with software makes it easy, what comes out of that software is far more straightforward than any modern D&D version. And I can still create GURPS characters by hand.

And GURPS is easier than D&D at higher power levels since there is far less to worry about, and most of your power is reflected in higher skill levels to perform the same basic tasks.

GURPS vs. Palladium

Back in the late 1980s, everyone we knew stopped playing AD&D and played GURPS 3rd Edition. Everyone loved how GURPS did everything, and you did not have to learn a new set of rules to play another genre. GURPS killed AD&D for so many of us, and it was then that you began to see AD&D's popularity decline.

And then Rifts happened. A lot of those I knew gave up GURPS 3rd Edition for Rifts. And there was a massive crowd from D&D who found Rifts easier than GURPS, which increased the Palladium game's popularity on that side of the hobby, too. It was a little of both, the massive crowd from D&D that played Rifts drew in a lot of GURPS players, and Rifts became an early '90s juggernaut with a ton of MDC and giant hyper-cannons.

The influence of anime, the Robo-Tech and TNMT games (welcome back Turtles RPG, mine is in the mail), and the cross-genre nature of Rifts meant that many of us with a half-dozen campaign worlds could cross them all over and play Rifts without losing that much, and standardize on the Palladium system. Palladium did amazingly well during the rise and fall of AD&D 2E, and many who played a lot of AD&D 1E did not see much new in 2E, and never upgraded (which should sound familiar today).

Cross-overs of existing, legacy campaign worlds with Rifts were huge and meant you did not need to throw out your beloved characters. You can do cross-overs in GURPS 3rd, too; that is the point! I know.

But Rifts was huge in the 1990s; along with Vampire: The Masquerade, these two games killed AD&D 2nd Edition and GURPS for many of us. By the end of the decade, TSR was bankrupt, and D&D was dead. We even lost interest in gaming for a few years, keeping our games boxed up and unused. College was done, and we moved on.

The Bronze Age of the hobby began with Chainmail, and the Golden Age ended with Rifts.

Rifts was the last major old school game before the modern era began with D&D 3.0.

GURPS 4th was created in the modern, post-2000 era of D&D 3.0 and 3.5, and the games we know today. Palladium did a few post-2000s games, but Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas & Superspies, and Palladium Fantasy were some of my favorite games in the 1990s. They are still d20-based games at heart, plus a great percentage-based skill system, and who cares if one is roll high, and the other is roll-low? It works.

Palladium Fantasy is in the same boat as Rolemaster for me: the "better D&D" made in the 1980s and 1990s that everyone in the know loved more than the mass-market D&D "for kids" game we saw it as, especially with the censorship in 2nd Edition. Everyone I knew loved Rolemaster and Palladium Fantasy far better than D&D. Rolemaster was deep, complicated, and wildly different, but the charts always delivered fun. GURPS was another game that was very different from D&D and also required a lot of relearning.

Palladium Fantasy was close enough to D&D that you knew how to play it by just learning a handful of things, and then you magically knew how to play the game. If you gave people pre-gens, they could figure most of it out from the character sheet. Palladium Fantasy is like "Advanced AD&D" with a lot more thought put into classes, magic system, the world, playable races, backgrounds, and combat systems. Where AD&D felt flat, Palladium Fantasy went into far more detail.

Palladium was the far easier game to switch to, as a result. Even Rifts was not that hard for D&D players. Learning GURPS and Rolemaster were massive undertakings, and with the hobby on the decline in the 1990s, people just wanted something easy and exciting, with great art and a fun premise. If the game was easy to learn, could do cross-over campaigns with all of your games as starting points, and had very reasonably-priced books, it was a winner.

I'm not losing my D&D world; I'm just crossing it over into Rifts. Oh, there is a Palladium Fantasy game, too? Let's use that for our fantasy characters and then toss them into a rift where they can go find power armor and laser rifles, and play alongside cameos from every comic and pop culture reality possible. AD&D doesn't allow us to do this, so Palladium Fantasy is better.

We did not overthink things too much back then, not like today.

Yes, the above conversion also describes GURPS. But in Rifts, the cross-dimensional reality is baked in, and the system is close enough to D&D that everyone can just jump in and play. I could sit D&D players at a Rifts table and have them fluent in the system in 5 minutes. GURPS? Not so easy. We need to go through point buy, and even with pre-gens, the 3d6 system is still very different than a d20 system. In Palladium? Roll a d20, beat a 5, you hit. Beat the AR value? You go past armor. It is a two-layer AC system that is not hard for D&D players to pick up.

We have only gotten "culture and background" in D&D character creation in the last few years, and all three of these other games: GURPS, Palladium, and Rolemaster had them back in the 1980s. In 2050, D&D will get a decent skill system, too. If D&D has one fatal flaw, it is that nostalgia keeps holding it back, and it will never drastically change for the better (or worse, as D&D 4E proved). D&D will never change, and as a game, it is stuck in the past to an extent that playing AD&D is still the best experience you can get. Live by the nostalgia sword, and die by it.

Palladium was free to innovate, and the addition of the SDC system gave everyone that "stamina hit point" system, serving as a "light wound pool" that heals very rapidly before hit points are reduced, and the characters take serious injuries that are far more difficult to recover from. D&D (correction, modern D&D) is stuck with "short rests" and the entire hit point pool being the temporary pool, with zero "real" hit points for serious injuries, and characters can pop up, heal instantly, and sleep off shotgun blasts to the face.

Palladium First Edition and GURPS are 100% "meaty hit points" with no stamina pool that takes damage first, leading to more deadly and realistic games. In the second edition of Palladium Fantasy, they adopted SDC for "soft hit points" to make the game more heroic, and align with all the other game's rules. I say "align" since nothing in Palladium perfectly aligns; it is all custom-fitted for crossovers, and MDC kills anything anyway.

Again, back in those days, we houseruled a lot and made a bunch of stuff up. Nothing had to be "perfect" like it is today. The book and rules got you in the ballpark, and you houseruled the rest.

GURPS is a simulation game in comparison. The combat, once you learn it, is some of the best fantasy combat in gaming, and the characters are clearly head-and-shoulders above all these games. But to understand it, everyone needed books and a lot of time. For a hobby on the decline, and Magic: The Gathering stealing players from our groups, nobody wanted our players to buy and learn something too different than what they knew.

Back then, the Palladium System was like Dungeon Crawl Classics is today. A system built for fun, easy to get into, and similar enough to what you know that you could not understand what you are doing, and sit at a convention table for the game, and have fun. The big difference is that Rifts has great cross-campaign support, giant freaking robots, lasers, and hordes of interesting bad guys.

While Palladium Fantasy and Rifts can easily replace any D&D or 5E game, they can't really replace GURPS. For me, GURPS hits differently and gives me some of the best character-focused systems in gaming, where every choice matters. GURPS also feels more grounded for me, where Rifts and its MDC feel like everyone is walking around with anti-vehicular weapons.

But truthfully, Rifts and its MDC (mega-damage) system are far more survivable than Car Wars, and we played Car Wars for years and never complained about it. In Car Wars, my character is a 6DP ant moving at a snail's pace around a freeway of vehicles armed with weapons that do multiple dice of damage, and would scratch the paint if they ran my character over. In Rifts, they hand out MDC armor everywhere, and it is not that hard to get a ton of MDC armor in a normal-looking suit. You never take it off, and your standard weapons are now worthless, but that is beside the point. It is science fiction, and pea-shooters should not touch space marine-style armor.

Rifts says to utilize SDC situations and environments, and it is good advice. Treat MDC weapons and armor like rare military gear, and run a mostly SDC world in the cities and settlements. Demons and dimensional beings are MDC creatures, so there is a fundamental imbalance in the power levels the game tries to navigate.

But a part of me likes the contrast. If you roll with magic and dimensional beings, it is like hanging around the Avengers, and everyone is flinging MDC powers around you and at you, so armor up. You have no choice, but these are your friends, and they need you alive when they are hurling bolts of magic that could tear through steel, and fighting the same.

Suppose you roll on the other side, as in the human-only fortresses of the Coalition's megacities. In that case, I can picture a world where only SDC weapons and armors are present, even among the police forces, since police body armor and weapons can be stolen, and the MDC-geared military can be called in for more serious threats. You could play a strict SDC campaign for years on the Chi-Town streets and never see an MDC weapon or creature. The Coalition military is the MDC force, so high-powered play options are there, too.

Rifts is like Car Wars if the cars were the characters, and they only had 1 DP of interior hit points once damage got through. It is dehumanizing and terrifying, but this is what modern tank crews deal with on every battlefield. If any damage gets through the tank's armor, good luck with that. Rifts assumes "every soldier becomes a tank," and this natural progression of warfare continues. Once any damage gets through, that is it, game over.

Still, even in light MDC armor, if a car going 100 mph hits you, your armor will be fine; the person inside will resemble a milkshake. Common sense still applies. In a mech-like MDC battlesuit? The car will wrap around your ankle, and you will shake it off like you just stepped in something.

Sure, outside of those "personal tank suits," regular guns still work, and that is one of the challenges running Rifts. But, I can't say it is unrealistic for science fiction, given the way weapons are becoming, and the march of technology makes every gun more and more lethal.

GURPS still does the "massive damage by high-tech weapons" thing, and high-tech armor is butter against weapons with high armor divisors. So, you are still just as dead if a 12d6 weapon hits you with no armor on in GURPS. Rifts just shorthand resolves the whole thing, tells you to roll 1d6 MD instead of 12d6, and one point of damage is death. In both games, science fiction tends to go "off the rails" compared to a more balanced role-playing game like Star Frontiers.

Most science fiction combat tends to be on the one-hit-kill side of things in gaming. GURPS can be like that in fantasy.

But going back to the comparison, it takes a reasonable amount of time and effort to learn GURPS this much to get to a point where this sort of science fiction combat is possible. With Rifts, I could throw D&D players into a mech battle without them knowing much more than 5+ on a d20, and they can play instantly. This is why Rifts killed a lot of interest in GURPS, at least in our groups back in the 1990s.

GURPS gave devoted players a much deeper sense of satisfaction, of course.

But Rifts was the far easier game to both play and get started with, given the core 1994 book was only $25 and was all you needed to play.

But truthfully, all of these games of the 1990s are things I love. This is when my brother and I had the most fun gaming, and the games were amazing.

One Great Character Versus Many Simple

First up, I love OSRIC, Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy, and all my B/X and First Edition games. These are S-Tier games for me; the math is correct, they don't use silly video-game number scaling, and the characters are simple. If I am playing a d20-based fantasy game, these are my go-to games. And I play a lot of solo, so having these "books full of data" makes the game easy for me.

But, in playing solo, why do I want to play simple characters? If I think about this in terms of computer gaming, this is the difference between a Skyrim character and one from an RTS game. I would rather have a fully detailed "CRPG character" in a solo-play tabletop game (with full gear, skills, backpack, magic systems, and ability scores) than a simple "RTS unit" with a few ability scores and no ability to equip or change them (attack, armor, speed).

Granted, playing GURPS solo with six characters begins to overload my will to manage that amount of complexity, as this is like running a six-person party of Skyrim characters and drowning in micromanagement and wishing things were simpler.

But for one to three characters in a "small party" game, GURPS does that fine and gives me a greater level of detail to each, which provides me with a greater level of satisfaction "per hour spent gaming." Running one character in a B/X-style game is a "thing," and I would probably get bored with it pretty quickly. Even four is not that hard, but when it comes down to those "small choices" that I love to make in GURPS, like what eight character points can be spent on, given what my character needs, it's excellent stuff.

In B/X games, so what? My bard has 1,600 XP out of 2,000, and there's nothing I can do with it except wait. What will happen in 400 XP at level two? My combat modifier and saving throws remain unchanged. I gain 1d6 more hit points and a level one spell.

Really?

The character does not get interesting until level five, and most games end around level ten. Even if you accelerate leveling to a rapid pace of one level per session, that is five 4-hour sessions to get to level five, or about 20 hours of solo play, with most of the "small choices" being around treasure and gear. Most of your interactions will not be rules-based ones. By that point, we get our first bonus to-hit, our first second-level spell, better saves, and a few class abilities open up.

An accelerated rate in GURPS is about five character points per session of play, with one to three being normal, but we are going on an accelerated pace to match our "level per session" that we used in B/X. This is a total of 25 character points in GURPS for our theoretical five sessions of play.

GURPS typically "levels up" character power every 50 points, so this is halfway to increasing a tier of power. The wonderful things I could do with 25 character points in GURPS blow my mind. If I engage in more social and performance activities, I can improve those skills; otherwise, I will apply my skills that I learned in combat. I could develop my magic, learn new songs, or improve the ones I have. I could create a new advantage based on my experiences and the story. If I went on a harrowing survival adventure, I could develop new survival skills.

The actions of my character will be reflected in their improvement.

That does not happen in B/X. 5d6+CON hit points, a few spells, some save numbers, and a few class abilities. Gear and treasure will reflect the most significant differences between fifth-level bards.

My bard in GURPS? Specialized in social, combat, magic, survival, or any other area relevant to the campaign I am playing and "what is going on." The character will morph and change to reflect the game I am playing, and be specialized in those areas of campaign interest. If I am doing more of a social campaign, guess what? My bard's skills will improve in social areas, and my character will reflect the campaign. And remember, in GURPS, there are a few areas of social skills, so these can be specialized social interactions (with supporting advantages, and an expansion book focusing on the area).

MS Paint strikes again. -Hak

In B/X? Level five bard, extra hit points, slightly better to-hit, a few class abilities, and spells. No better social skills, magic is a fixed path, and I may get some magic items to help me out? If I need survival skills, I need to find a ranger, and the improvement can't happen inside my character (without houseruling it).

In 5E? Forget it; find a Kickstarter book for $60-100 that improves the social aspect of the game, and add it to the pile of books to fix the system. 5E is notorious for shipping a basic tabletop game that requires a few thousand dollars' worth of add-on books to play the way you want. The grift is so high here that it is off the charts.

GURPS works perfectly, even with just the core books.

And it gives me greater satisfaction with fewer characters.

GURPS is the Better Game for Powers (and Combat)

When comparing GURPS and Mythras, I had that typical "is this better?" feeling in the back of my neck. Mythras offers several advantages, including an easy d100 system, 3d6-ranged attributes, and excellent combat special effects applied to either offense or defense. If you're familiar with BRP or Call of Cthulhu, you'll likely be familiar with Mythras. It is as easy to pick up as B/X in complexity, but it has layers of depth that surprise me.

The combats in Mythras are fun, with a level of unpredictability in the results and the combat specials you can stack up, or have used against you. This is dependent on relative skill levels, with lucky hits still possible for unskilled fighters, and everyone having low hit points, so every hit matters.

Mythras is an easy game to use when transitioning away from D&D 5E and the OSR, and it gives you a look into a "whole new world" of tactical possibilities. However, GURPS has greater depth to tactical combats, and marries that with a complete character and power design system.

In GURPS, you are much more "close to the metal" when it comes to combat specials, but you need to declare them before you roll. You need to know what is available, when they apply, how much of an attack penalty they give you, and you need to declare them before your attack. To players who like to control a character "down to every move," this is ideal, since they want to call for a trip and try that, and not have it come up due to a lucky roll with a high result differential.

If I am tripping someone, or someone is trying to trip me, it has to be declared, attempted, and rolled for. No randomness or stacking special effects due to an attack and defense total difference, please.

That said, Mythras is miles better than D&D combat, by far, and this is starting to kill my interest in my B/X games, OSE, AD&D, and Shadowdark. If a game offers a B/X level of simplicity but a far deeper combat system, that is a winner for me.

Mythras is a D&D and OSR killer for me.

If I were migrating recovering players from D&D-style games to Mythras, running them through the System to get them used to combat actions would be helpful and show them another world. If they liked that, we could stay here. Eventually, I would like to bring them into GURPS, where we have the most freedom. But showing them a world where it is more than just d20 vs. AC and roll damage would be an eye-opener. Even Shadowdark suffers from the d20 curse of bland numerical combat.

But what about GURPS?

Well, GURPS is the "everything else" killer.

To be fair, GURPS offers more combat options and a broader range of "combat specials" than Mythras, once you consider all the Martial Arts options and utilize a combat cheat sheet resource. One of the problems with GURPS is that many special combat actions are scattered across different books, making it hard to find them in one place for easy reference.

In Mythras, you get to "choose them from a menu" after a roll, and this is honestly easier for D&D players to start with to "expand their thinking" around combat. In GURPS, you'll need a cheat sheet to fully utilize the combat system's details. It's also a good idea to practice these moves a few times to get the hang of them, as many will change factors (like not being able to defend with all-out attacks). I added a cheat sheet section to the sidebar with a few of these, since they do come in handy.

Combat specials are easier in Mythras.

Combat options are better in GURPS.

It's not GURPS, but it is my MS Paint art. -Hak

Powers are the clear place GURPS wins. Suppose I have a monster with a special attack ability, such as eye beams, charm, confusion, entanglement, push back, blindness, darkness, stun, or any other special attack. In that case, this is far easier in GURPS than in Mythras or D&D. In those games, you just sort of need to "wing it" and "say what it does," but in GURPS, I will design that as a power, and guess what? 

Suppose a character gains an extraordinary power from touching a runestone, becomes corrupted by demons, is sanctified by the holy, acquires a power from an ancient master, passes on the legacy of the king, or experiences any other special campaign event. In that case, this can be just designed and added to the character, just like any other power.

GURPS makes the 5E-style "superpower abilities" almost stupidly easy to create, design, and balance with limitations and disadvantages. That demon corruption? That is a template package that also gives adverse social reactions and a "hunted by demon hunters" disadvantage. It is far easier to do this in GURPS since it has a power design system with full advantage and disadvantage support, and I can balance these powers right down to the last die of damage and special effect.

And, many of these powers come pre-designed with examples in GURPS Powers. Just drop them into a character or monster and go.

And GURPS works for any genre, so my superhero, Gamma World mutant, science fiction adept, fantasy wizard, air elemental, or kung-fu master can all use that "concussive air blast" power (GURPS Powers, p. 137). I can slap on a power source modifier there for magic, mutation, training, superpower, or wherever it comes from, and I am done. Any monster in any GURPS bestiary, or one quickly created using GURPS Ultra Lite, can have these powers tacked onto it.

My MS Paint art strikes again! -Hak

Yeah, this air elemental has super breath and can push all of you off the cliff. I know that is not in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, but hey, this is GURPS, and this air elemental is "The Windlord" and special. Boss monsters in GURPS can have superpowers, use special combat attacks, and have martial arts!

But that isn't fair in 5E! Air elementals only have a double slam attack and a whirlwind that throws in random directions. They don't have a line attack! Or throw an air blast area effect attack! Or blind people with dust! What is this thing? Stupid custom monster not in the Monster Manual and cheating DM! Play the game right and only use things we know!

I go by the Dungeon Crawl Classics theme of "Every monster is unique."

Have fun as I look up the falling rules.

In making a custom power for GURPS, I am not guessing, copying an existing spell, wondering how many times a day it can be used, or worrying if it breaks my game. I have the point cost in GURPS, and that keeps it relatively balanced. If something is overly powerful, I can either add a use limitation or reduce the damage; it's no problem. In B/X, Mythras, or other games, I am left winging it for monster powers. I have to borrow one, and then it is guesswork.

In GURPS, I have tons of powers in my books to use as-is.

Yes, if I am playing "dungeon games" with Mythras, I get those combat specials, but I lose so much character depth with what GURPS gives me for free that I wonder if it is worth it. I get "combat specials" in GURPS, but I have to preannounce and try them, closer to the metal, so I am not losing those, and the ones in GURPS are comparable (and more expansive) once you find a cheat sheet and print that out. It does take more system knowledge in GURPS to get what Mytras gives you for free, but in the end, it is probably a better feeling to have greater control of your combat options than to rely on the dice.

Mythras is still a fantastic game, mind you, and still an easy D&D replacement that drops right in.

However, if I want to tell the types of stories I envision, where the whims of a game designer, class designer, or someone else dictate powers and sources, GURPS offers me more control. With games that go beyond the ordinary, GURPS is far better when it comes to special powers, and lets me be the game designer.

Mythras and GURPS

Mythras is loved by its fans as much as GURPS is loved. I have been reading this lately and am surprised by how similar it is to GURPS.

• Deadly combat
• Skill-based play
• Hit locations
• Combat maneuvers 

The first three points are a given and can be easily seen. Getting into combat is a serious matter, so characters go out of their way to avoid it or take precautions. The skill-based play is fulfilling. Mythras has hits per location, while GURPS does full body hits. GURPS limits damage to the minimum required to cripple the extremity, so it sort of does have "hits per location" in a way.

The last one is combat maneuvers. This is where the games differ significantly.

With Mythras, the difference in success levels gives you several "combat specials" that you can apply to an attack, and these are things like damage armor, trip, choose location, and so on. You get these when there's a significant difference between an attack and a defense roll. With a greater difference in combatant skills, the number and severity of effects will increase.

There is a built-in "surprise factor" to Mythras combat dice rolls where a huge difference happens, someone picks the best combat specials for the situation, and the death spiral begins. This is where Mythras stands far apart from D&D, and provides "pool ball English" to the melee combat that so many enjoy.

With GURPS, you choose what "special attack" you make and roll for it. You decide ahead of time, know what you are doing, and hope your skill is high enough to overcome the negative modifier. You don't get "a number of them" to apply, since the combat round is shorter, and you have to pick the best one to make in the moment and try for it.

With GURPS, you need to know the combat system well to understand your capabilities. While there is a "list of attacks" you can make, you are not getting them as a bonus to a high-difference attack and defense. You pick the one you want, and you try for it.

Both of them have melee combat far better than D&D; they just get to the same place in different ways.

 

Like GURPS, Mythras does not convert the classic "D&D adventures" that well. If we are talking B2 Keep on the Borderlands and 40 Kobolds in one of the first rooms you enter, that is a slog of a fight in either Mythras or GURPS. Adventures in both GURPS and Mythras tend to feature smaller, more tactical combat encounters. D&D has always been a game about "shoving around mass amounts of monsters," and it suffers from over-relying on quantity of enemies and not quality.

Mythras adventures feature highly tailored fights that require you to use combat specials wisely to open up weaknesses and take advantage of them. A greater number of foes than the party begins to shift the action economy in favor of the enemies, and single boss monsters, once overwhelmed, will go down faster than in D&D or GURPS. This is due to the game's action economy driving the impetus of attacks and defenses.

In GURPS, having a low skill means you are not attempting anything special. In Mythras, having two low-skilled opponents, one rolling a crit and the other a fumble, a lot of cool stuff is happening. So there is a high degree of surprise in Mythras when it comes to rolls and the effects that occur in them.

Mythras publishes these mini-game-like "combat modules" featuring a few foes and pre-gen characters, and they highlight features of the combat system that players need to take advantage of to win the fight. These double as combat mini-games and player training, and I wish GURPS had these. Given that Mythras gives away its basic Imperative rules, a GURPS version of a product like this would need to rely on GURPS Lite, which would not have all the options required to train people on the system's finer points.

These are excellent books for Mythras, both serving as training and fun scenarios to use on a VTT as a standalone combat game. I wish GURPS had similar pre-gen characters and interesting combat encounters that featured tactics and strengths of the system.

GURPS is the more simulation-heavy game, with the one-second turn. The action economy is the ticking seconds on the clock. For the most part, everyone does one thing per turn. The action economy versus 40 Kobolds becomes a nightmare, and you need to start holding 75% of that force back just because the entire room would not act like "stupid video-game sprites" and rush the players all at once in the first second of contact.

Watch YouTube videos of firefights in war. Count the seconds soldiers stay under cover. Sometimes it is 1d6 seconds, other times it is more like 2-3d6 seconds of inactivity under cover. This is how most firefights go. In melee combat, nobody will pause that long when faced with a threat, but many will not all charge in on that first second of meeting an enemy, and many who will take cover or try to get into an advantageous position. Some may even stand there confused for a few random seconds before their brain kicks in and they act.

In GURPS, we think second-by-second. This isn't to say "make the kobolds stand there doing nothing," but make allowances for the chaos of combat, the relative skill of combatants, and a confusing melee where everyone may not have perfect information.

Even in Mythras, I will give the Kobolds a "training level" on a d6, and if a combat special comes up, using the "best one" will require them to check that first. Not every Kobold will fight like an elite fighter, always using the best option every chance they get. These special effects in Mythras are deadly when used against the characters. Untrained would be a 6+, and it would go down to elites on a 2+.

I may even do that for GURPS, since we tend to fall into this "videogame mode" when running monsters and optimize every fight to an unrealistic degree. In GURPS, it would be a d6 roll or lower.

But GURPS tends to be the game where you make more of the "combat maneuver" decisions before you commit to the attack. In Mythras, a higher skill difference will create more situations, but these can't be predicted. You will have more of these happen in Mythras since they do not reduce the attack chance, and the dice give them to you for free, depending on the difference in attack and defense rolls.

GURPS is more planned and conscious. A trip does not happen out of nowhere unless it is ruled by the referee or initiated by the player. Mythras has a level of randomness. A trip could happen at any time, as the opportunity arises and the player chooses to seize it.

Both games are very deadly and force players to take a step back before violence becomes the only option. Deadly combat increases the need for smart roleplay! D&D is becoming too much of a "numbers versus numbers" game, and the roleplay is not needed if a bandit stands there pointing a crossbow at someone. I have 40 hit points! What could he do? Even if I get hit, a 10-minute rest will "sleep it off." In Mythras and GURPS, you have a crossbow bolt sticking out of your character's eye.

There is no parlay and roleplay in D&D when it comes down to it. It is all a performative, fake, and pretend way to waste time. Nothing matters when you can kill everything in your path and take a quick nap to heal from a shotgun blast to the face. Look at the game from an MMO player's perspective. Roleplay "wastes time" to "get up the XP and treasure track." It is a brutal way to see it, but it is ultimately true if there are zero consequences to actions.

The GURPS and Mythras games are similar in deadly realism. Still, in combat, they have apparent differences in implementation, where GURPS requires a hard choice to be committed to and made before the attack. Mythras has a softer "chaos factor" where the skill difference creates more opportunities and options for a high-difference roll.