I love GURPS...I really never feel comfortable with GURPS. Both statements are true. This is a post I have put off for some time, because it's complicated when I think about GURPS, which has been the case lately, probably in connection with The Fantasy Trip. It's all tied together. In this post I will try to sort out my thoughts and feelings about GURPS. If it sounds like a romance, it kinda is.
I believe it was the summer of 1978 when I purchased Melee (and maybe Wizard) at the local Tin Soldier hobby store in Centerville, Ohio (a suburb of Dayton). I quickly learned to play Melee as it was a clearly written combat mechanic using hex map and counters. The characters were referred to as figures, like in a miniature wargame. Compared to White Box, which I had been struggling with since Christmas, Melee was easy, intuitive and quickly mastered. There were solos for Melee as well, so I could actually play when my friends weren't around. One of the guys that refereed regularly for us started using melee in place of the combat mechanic in White Box with good success.
Metagaming tried to turn Melee and Wizard into a product line to compete with the new AD&D and it didn't seem to work very well. The Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard books didn't add much of value in my eyes and came as flimsy paper covered staple bound volumes (which creased badly on store shelves), hardly the physical presentation of TSR's hardcover volumes. Metagaming went under and with it The Fantasy Trip line.
Author Steve Jackson knew he had designed a good game system and when he formed his own company, Steve Jackson Games, started working on the system that is with us today as GURPS. I still see Melee in GURPS, but it's wrapped in a lot of additional rule mechanics. The 1st/2nd Edition boxed Basic Set (pictured above) doesn't have magic, neither did Melee. Magic gets added with another product, the Fantasy supplement for GURPS and Wizard for Melee. Still, GURPS Basic Set from the beginning was two volumes of rules, with an extensive point-buy character generation system built around Strength, Dexterity (and Intelligence) like Melee (Wizard) and adding skills, advantages and disadvantages in an effort to round out the character. GURPS came along in the mid eighties when we were all obsessed with realism is our game and GURPS tries very hard to be very realistic. It's transparent realism...stuff you can see, so there is lots of detail. It can be overwhelming, even in the 1st/2nd Edition rules. Third Edition added more and Fourth Edition (current) added even more. I wonder how "newbie" friendly GURPS is today? (I seem to be digressing)
The point buy system, all the skills, advantages, disadvantages, quirks, etc. that can add and subtract to the PCs total value make chargen almost a game in itself and the way to win at it is min/max power gaming the character sheet. The only way I know to prevent this is for the referee to closely supervise chargen. The wealth of supplemental material that has been written for GURPS makes for an almost limitless number of rule variations that are available. GURPS is truly a toolbox from which the referee can pick and choose to assemble the desired game system. So many choices!
Overwhelmed, that is what I can easily become. I have learned to fight the urge to master every supplement, even the "core" supplements. My approach to GURPS these days is to start really simple... Melee simple... and add things in as I find them desirable. It's my way of managing the nearly unmanageable. GURPS covers almost every genre in role-playing/adventure gaming, space, horror, fantasy, etc. It makes it easier for me that I am really only interested in fantasy.
Time to bring it all together, metaphorically. The romance started with a summer of Melee. I still see that beautiful simple game system when I look at GURPS. Now GURPS is all grown up and in its desire to be everything, it can be overwhelming. It can be what I don't want as well as what I do want. With work it will still gives me what I like, but it always feels just on the verge of getting away from me. And I am never satisfied with it. I keep wondering, "What if I try this?" or "I wonder if there is a better way to do that?" GURPS is always growing and changing, forcing me to grow and change too or feel left behind.
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