From: PCHEM14@Zeus.unomaha.edu (FALL88)
Subject: Re: What's Wrong with SUPERS?
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 21:35:28 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11

<34ZBTXQ@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> writes:

>What is it that so many people hate about GURPS Supers?! I admit, it ain't
>Champions, but it's not a bad supers game!  ...  It's not a meta-system like
>Champs, which reduces flexibility somewhat, but mainly for munchkins, as far
>as I can tell; I've played and run it, and found it quite enjoyable.  ...  I
>haven't yet found a hero concept that I can't build with Supers, and the
>injection of somewhat more "realistic" effects is interesting. So what's the
>problem?

First, I hardly hate it.  It's one of my 3 favorites, Champs, DC and
GURPS Supers.  There are things about it I find annoying.  First, when
reading thru the rules book, I got sick and tired of references to
GURPS Aliens, GURPS Psionics, GURPS Fantasy Folk and GURPS Magic. I
already shelled out $20 for the basic set, and $17 for supers.  To be
referred to 4 other books for stuff like basic alien heros, improv
magic, interesting psionics and whatnot is a bit annoying.  When I
first bought GURPS, I did it for the promise of a good Supers game.  I
didn't want to buy $100 of GURPS equipment to play one game.  

Another thing was the lethality, and the lack of sensible rules to
help fix that problem.  As noted in previous posts, GURPS Supers has
stun rules.  I have big problems with them.  If you use them, then
attacks that do killing type damage (go to HT) are as many as 5 times
as effective for the same amount of points.  Not to mention that it
mixes HT and stun damage very poorly with damage reduction.  The same
character will always fall unconcious from lack of stun at the same
HT level.  Further, it's not clear to me that a certian amount of 
many types of damage should do HT just becuase they managed to do 
stun.  They have a certian lethal factor to them, true, but doing HT
just becuase you did stun is wierd.  Of these two problems, the former
is a real problem, the latter could be fixed.  I have considered making
the damage reduction rule apply to base damage, not damage after DR.
Of course, this makes it very "Champions-like" in effect, taking BODY
and STUN against defenses separately, but it solves some problems. 
The former, lethal attacks in a game with stun damage, is a *real* 
problem.  It makes attacks that are considered lethal, like guns, or
any attacker that chooses to do lethal damage, much more powerful.  It
is like a Champions game where the killing attacks cost 5 pts per die,
and not 15.  The same total roll is being taken against a much smaller
value (HT), when it was built for a larger attribute (stun).  Quite an
advantage, no?  These rules *reward* playing out of game concept, 
which I don't agree with.  (Honestly, the stun rules look like a quick
hack to get it in there so the game can say it's 'non-lethal' too.  If
they worked as well as the base rules, I'd be happier.)

The rules like to tell you how they are being realistic about this and
that.  Like Rat, I hardly find the rules realistic.  I'm more concerned
about simulating the powers I want in game terms than worrying if they
are realistic or not.  Others will put more stock in this and therefore
the 'realism' factor will mean something to them.  However, if you don't
care, you get sick and tired of the Basic GURPS rules telling you how
realistic they are.  It wears thin after about the third or so time.
If I wanted gun realism, I'll play Pheonix Command, which is sickeningly
realistic.  (Ick.)

The game comes real close to realizing it's potential as a very nice
game in flexibility but often turns it's back just short of the goal.
The absorb/drain powers are just short of realizing thier full potential
like Champs drain/transfer powers have.  I'm a bit annoyed about having
to read about a basic attack power under fireball, flame jet, frost jet,
ice spear, ice sphere, laser, lightning, stone missile, vibratory blast,
water cannon, water jet, wind blast and wind jet.  It would have been
so much cleaner with ranged attack (either direct or jet) and just apply
the appropriate modifiers.  (Like ice spear was just an impaling version
of this.)  The blind/deafen/flash structures are not as powerful as the
Champs equivalents (flash/transform), which are more flexible.  I like
the total flexibility of Champs.  GURPS has a lot, don't get me wrong,
but it stops just short of going all the way.

Speaking of simulating powers, I find that GURPS Supers falls down a bit
on about 1/3 of my ideas.  Not tremendous, but enough that it is quite
disturbing.  I attribute this to not opening up the powers fully like
Hero does and controlling the special effects more tightly.  It's really
hard to have good claws unless you are very strong, becuase they don't
simply add a lot of damage.  Thus, Wolverine is virtually impossible.

Another problem I see is the large numbers of straight costs.
Duplication is a straight (75 pts) cost.  It's pretty clear to me that
duplicating John Q Normal (25 pts total, +75 for dup) is not as good a
deal as duplicating Blue Demon (1000 pts total, +75 for dup).  An extra
normal isn't as much help at munching supers as an extra Blue Demon (or
most any other 1000 pt character).  A similar thing is with 'Buzzsaw',
which gains free impaling damage if you buy 6 levels of it.  A straight
bonus at a certian level, again a problem.  Especially in games of very
different point levels.  Straight costs really begin to fall apart in a
1000 pt game, where they are a truly wonderful thing to have.  (BTW, 
the ultimate in straight cost problems is invulnerability, especially 
in a high-point campaign...)

Most of the enhancements are really strange in cost.  Impaling is silly,
to say the least.  It actually reduces your damage.  You paid extra for
that?!?!  Increased knockback is not only too expensive, but on a wierd
scale (subtracting from the denonator).  In fact, if you buy 3 levels
of increased knockback, you do the same knockback as an equal point 
attack, only less damage.  How worthless.  However, if you buy 7 levels,
you do monster knockback (that last level *doubled* your knockback for
+20%...)  Hotshot is pretty silly, when I can go off and simply buy more
dice and always have them, and not have to spend extra fatigue for it.
No obvious effect, at +20%, appears to be too cheap, as well as affects
substantial.  Continuing damage at the +100% level is silly, as your
attack suddenly becomes unstoppable!  (Isn't anyone immune to it?)  The
area effect enhancement bothers be that there is no real defense.  In
a previous discussion of it, someone mentioned 'wear armor or die.'  
How silly.  Attacks without fair defense bother me, especially this one
becuase it says there is no place for the not-so-tough but quick martial
artist.  I kinda wonder if all powers should have 'instantaneous' built
in, since that seems to be the proper base for a power, and make 'takes
time' a limitation instead.  I would have appreciated it if the author
had cranked the math on a few of these.  Impaling, as mentioned above,
is crocked (worthless) but the author got Cutting right.  Go figure.

Another thing that bothers me is having to constantly ask 'why' about
certian rules.  For example, if it is really true that eidetic memory
reduces the cost of mental skills, why doesn't it reduce the cost of
mental super skills?  If defaults are really a good idea, when why are
they limited to a stat of 20?  These end up being balance issues, but
I feel speak to a couple of problems GURPS has in it's core rules.

A few things don't make any sense to me.  Like unusual background.  In
a supers game, why is this here?  The point is to be a super, not to
see if you can encourage someone to play a normal with a large (50 to
250 points) point bribe.  If the cost of the powers are right in the
first place, then why is this necessary?  It also leads to a cute 'ol
paradox: I am playing a street supers game, where the players are the
only supers of thier type.  250 pt characters, the rules recommend.
Well, unusual background is 250 pts, leaving players with 0 pts.  So
are you going to play 0 pt supers or 250 pt super-normals?  The real
solution is simple: I, the GM, approve every character.  No matter if
you can 'afford' it or not, you only play characters that fit in my
world.  Simple.

So, my ultimate reason for why it's not #1 in my book is that it takes
too much modification to play.  Powers and enhancements have to be 
played with a lot still, as well as the damage system in the stungame.
I don't want to have to sink $100 into it just to buy the stuff the
Supers genre needs.  I don't want to have to ask 'why' about everything,
or have to look so much up becuase there are honestly more exceptions
and things to look up than in Hero.  And, finally, I want all the
flexibility that should be inherient to the system.  I can't have that
without heavily modifying things again.  These things to me, drop GURPS
Supers down to #2 or #3 with DC Heros.  A good game, but not as fully
capable as it could be.

In a world of mostly 3rd class games, GURPS Supers strikes me as 2nd
class: not bad.  But it just doesn't, for the reasons above, compete
with Champs in my mind.  I well recognize that those that value this
'realism' (and buy into SJG's version of it, which has problems too)
will have a better appreciation of GURPS Supers becuase the problem
with the stun rules mean nothing to them.  And, heavy GURPS people
probably don't mind needing 4 other books to enjoy the game as much
as you should, becuase they already have them.  But if you're into
superheroes like me (I own no less than 15 super RPGs), then you want
the stun rules to work (genre emphasis) and don't want to have to pay
$100 for a game.  Finally, if you love GURPS, and love to modify it
a lot, then GURPS Supers is even better than ever, becuase it gives
you a lot to think about too.  So I can see why it is the preferred
game for some people, as thier personal preferances make the things
I'm citing as limitations of the system irrelevant to them.  However,
at the same time, I think I've illustrated why other people, with a
different mindset, don't appreciate it fully.

-james