When I am building a travel bag for GURPS, something I can keep packed and quickly grab should I need to travel, my first thought is to share my laptop bag with the books. My gaming laptop and tablet should fit here, along with the core GURPS books I will be using: the GURPS softcover Characters and Campaign books. The tablet will be for most of the other PDFs, and the laptop will have my character sheet programs. I will also have pencils, paper, erasers, a journal, and dice here. My chargers and power supply will also be along for the ride.
GURPS is one of those games where I could say, "All you need are the two core books, and that is decades of play." This is really all you need to travel. There is no need to haul around a dozen books if you have the PDFs, and having the corebooks in a bag is all you need to do most anything.
Forget 5E and all these other games, Kickstarters, and endless promises made by YouTubers.
GURPS is all you need.
The corebooks are handy if you are in a hotel room and want to take a break from a screen, holding something real and tangible in your hands. When you are in a hotel, just the feel of a book in your hands and some dice can bring you back home with that tactile feeling in your fingers, in a world where little is real. To have a piece of home in your hands is an indescribable feeling, bringing you back to places you miss and want to be again. The cold, hard feel of dice in your hands, with the adventures these cubes can unlock with a story and a few rolls, is powerful.
Nothing beats a real book.
If you have a tablet, is there really a need for other books? If I were playing with others, I would definitely include a second Character's softcover book in the bag, just to use as the table copy. I don't think there's much need for other GURPS books with a tablet, unless this is something like one of the "tech" books that could also serve as a reference guide. Plus, if you are talking about a gaming laptop, that is already a lot of weight, and adding more books would make this bag far too heavy.
I recently had to stay in hotels and carried my Cepheus books in a mini-tablet bag. They were nice to have, but I missed GURPS dearly. I also would have played more if I had GURPS with me, as the Cepheus books, while fun, were not as compelling to me as a full GURPS game.
GURPS makes you want to play the game and experience it. The immersion factor in GURPS is super high and addictive. I can entertain myself for hours with GURPS; in other games, they are lucky to last 30 minutes to an hour, at best. When you are bored in a hotel room looking for distractions, GURPS will give you much more entertainment per hour than the alternatives. Some of the rules-light games are not as compelling as a full game, and you will end up ignoring them for other distractions.
A 2d6 game? No self-control rolls, no designing characters, no disadvantages, and no immersive feeling. You roll a random person, and go through random situations. GURPS feels closer to me, like my investment in designing a character and accepting their drawbacks is a big buy-in. While I can dismiss a 2d6 game, I can't dismiss GURPS as easily.
GURPS is hard to ignore if you have it ready to go. This is a game that begs to be played.
One issue with the Cepheus games is that they are still pretty genre-dependent. One is needed for Fantasy, another for science fiction, another for the Old West, another for Noir, another for pulp adventure, and all of a sudden, I need two mini-tablet bags instead of one. One little mini-tablet bag with an extra digest-sized book is fine, two get to be very clumsy, and I need to rethink my bags and games. These are great games, fun and fast, but they begin to get bulky after a few books on different genres.
Two mini-tablet bags? Now I am getting looks as I walk through the hotel lobby. Put the GURPS books in my laptop bag, grab a full-sized tablet, and ditch the mini tablet.
If I wanted flexibility to play any genre, GURPS is the better choice than the 2d6 games, even with full-sized books. With one genre, the 2d6 games are lighter and easier to carry. With GURPS, you get any universe in two books. For a little extra size and weight, you are getting any universe you can imagine.
If the gaming laptop isn't needed, or you carry it in another bag (or backpack), then you have a little more weight to play with. Then again, measure your total carried load, and make sure the size and number of bags you carry for clothes, computers, toiletries, pills, and other daily needs are sufficient, and that you can also carry the dirty laundry you will generate daily (which is heavier due to moisture).
Many jobs require a dedicated work laptop, so you may find yourself carrying around two computers, plus a tablet, and a thin-and-light option becomes a must-have for your personal device. Also, remember that devices need to lie flat in airport bins, so you may find yourself with two or three bins for devices, plus another bin for the backpack, and another for the carry-on bag, and you will be unpacking and repacking all of that in the security check-in line.
If you travel enough, you may want to practice your packing and unpacking procedures to ensure you can do them quickly and without mistakes in a mad rush.
A good tablet with a large screen for PDFs is a good addition to the bag. It doesn't have to be expensive; just make sure it has enough local storage for the PDFs you want and a large screen for easier reading. The local storage and preloading of the library are good ideas, since hotel Wi-Fi and even 5G connectivity are never 100%. I had a hotel block the 5G signals, and I was stuck on LTE, which was impossibly slow. Preload that GURPS library at home, and if you are converting another system, grab those PDFs for reference as well.
The above case is water-resistant, but that is a lot different than waterproof. In the desert, I am not too worried about water, but if I were in a wetter climate, I would definitely switch to waterproof if I were carrying books and forced to use mass transit, where long walks in the rain would be possible.
The question arises: if I were carrying other books, what would they be? If I were doing a conversion game and using a version of the Cepheus rules for my starship combat, planetary generation, trading, and vehicle design systems, that would be a good book to take along. Where GURPS gives me the "ground rules," the other game provides the "added systems" and "flavor" of the setting without adding too much weight to my case. Having this as a reference guide to pull a weapon list from or flip through to design a starship would be nice, without having to load a PDF onto my tablet, so I can keep GURPS Space open on it.
GURPS will run the game engine, but some of these other books will provide the extra bits. GURPS can be converted to a 2d6 system's skills easily:
- GURPS 3-6: -4
- GURPS 7-9: -2
- GURPS 10-12: +0
- GURPS 13-15: +1
- GURPS 16-17: +2
- GURPS 18-19: +3
- GURPS 20-21: +4
- GURPS 22-24: +5
- GURPS 25+: +6
Using a chart like this, you can run Cepheus ship combats using those rules while keeping your characters in GURPS. There are times I want to keep the original game's mech, ship, or vehicle combat systems since those games work so well or have a great style and flavor on their own (Car Wars, Battetech, Traveller/Cehpeus, etc.), and there is no point in converting everything into GURPS. This way, I can take my GURPS character, throw them in an OG Car Wars game (the one with the counters and 1/4" grid), have a Gunner/Machine Guns skill of 16-minus, and say that is a +2 to-hit in my 2d6 Car Wars game with that double MG turret.
I get the best of both worlds with minimal conversions. Why give up decades of great vehicle designs, the entire design system in Car Wars, all of the maps, and the incredible game of 2d6 Car Wars for a forced conversion into GURPS? Sure, it is more detailed and realistic, but I grew up playing OG Car Wars in summer games lasting days.
Similarly, if you had a favorite campaign setting book, such as the original (TSR-era) Forgotten Realms guides, with all the locations and NPCs, those are also very useful to carry if you are going to use them, and they form the core of your campaign. You will have a few "personal favorite" books that are either information-heavy or give you "campaign reference" and will be must-haves.
And the above book was taken out of print again. These legacy reprints are being sold on a scarcity model, and it sucks. This is no longer about game preservation; it is about profits. Why do I even bother? Just play GURPS and make up your own setting.
A copy of Basic Fantasy for a few reference bits on fantasy gear, magic items, monsters, and costs is handy, too. It is light and offers inspiration, so it goes in the bag. Converting between BX systems and GURPS is super simple, and this gives me a lot of data to pull from for a quick fantasy game.
One nice thing about a GURPS bug-out bag is that you don't have a shelf-full of 5E books nearby begging you to "play me, we're official!" If all you have is a Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and your GURPS corebooks, that is what you are playing. You have a clarity of purpose and gaming the fewer books you have. You also lose a lot of distractions from junk hardcovers sitting on shelves, boutique versions of 5E screaming to be played with, and all sorts of other fantasy heartbreaker systems you don't really need and end up letting you down.
With fewer books, you have only GURPS, and with just the best setting guides and reference books in your bag, you stay focused and happier with your gaming. Less is more.
Books like Ultra Tech, High Tech, the bestiaries, and any of the more "data-focused" GURPS books would also be nice to take along. If they have a chance of being needed as a "pass-around reference" or to flip open and grab a few numbers from, that is also a good reason to pay a little extra in weight to have that available at any time, rather than needing to open the PDF and search. I can flip to a page by hand much faster than a PDF search can find something, and you multiply that by the number of times per game you need to do these references. All this is very campaign-dependent; if you are not playing science fiction, you won't need the books, and another book may be a better option.
The GURPS Dungeon Fantasy books are very small and light, and are a complete GURPS implementation if you are playing fantasy. You don't need the entire boxed set; just the books are a very lightweight, fantasy-focused version of the game. If all you want is a lightweight fantasy game, these books are ideal, give you a focused GURPS experience, and won't add much weight to a bug-out bag.
Then again, weigh the GURPS core books, which can do any setting, against the fantasy-only Dungeon Fantasy, and decide here. If you only play fantasy, go Dungeon Fantasy. If you want to play a wider variety of genres, the core GURPS books will be a better use of the space they carry. Every pound matters!
I wish we had the core Dungeon Fantasy game books in a soft or hardcover, without the box pieces, just as a "gaming on the go" guide. If the companions could be collected, or even the other twenty or so "GURPS Dungeon Fantasy" PDFs printed in softcover books meant for the core GURPS game, all the better. All you need to do is collect these together and print them PoD, Steve Jackson Games! I would buy them!
Fantasy, without Dungeon Fantasy? Then we start wanting a few more books in our bag, such as GURPS Fantasy, GURPS Magic, GURPS Thaumatology, GURPS Powers, and a few of the bestiaries. Once you start adding support books, the weight of your bag adds up, and you are hauling around a library. You will have a lot of flexibility, but some of these are better suited to a PDF reference than to carrying a shelf of books around on your already sore shoulder.
GURPS Powers needs a special callout here. This is a highly useful book if you need a special power and want all the rules in one place. This is one I would consider carrying around like a tech book, and it is great for fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and many other campaign types.
A similar thing may happen with science fiction, and you find yourself hauling around pounds of books that are better suited for PDF reference. If it's just one or two, then fine, they are worth the weight. But you need to be choosy and ask yourself if the extra pounds are justified. If it is a book on equipment, a bestiary, a power book, character design, or another book you will need to open up multiple times per game, consider carrying it around to speed up play. If it is a referee-focused book more for creating campaign worlds, it is better suited as a PDF for reading on a tablet.
Speed-of-play and frequently referenced books are the ones you should be hauling around. Everything else can live on the tablet.
