From: davidc@bilby.cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake)
Subject: Re: Vampire and GURPS
Keywords: Vampire, GURPS, stereotypes
Organization: Dept. Computer Science, University of Western Australia.
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 10:31:57 GMT

	I have just read the large number of GURPS vs. Vampire posts, and I
feel that people are definately getting carried away with the pros and cons of
both games. And people are definately posting some blatant flamebait (Thanatos
springs to mind, and various peoples use of unpleasant Freudian jargon).
	GURPS is a good game. Vampire is a good game. They ar both a lot better
(in different ways) than a lot of games on the market (IMHO).
	GURPS specifically does not give you a lot of background information for
roleplaying. It is a multi genre system. It attempts to give you rules that 
cover all common situations with some realism and playability, and the rules
encourage role-playing (with mental disadvantages) but do not enforce  it. That
is as it should be. You might be wanting to use the rules for non-roleplating
intense games (a lot of us like to do that once in a while, the odd one night
session of 'Aliens', etc.) so it shouldn't force you too hard.
	The GURPS rules seem to be very complete, I have not heard any really 
bad things about them, and some of the supplements are of excellent quality
(like GURPS Illuminati, which I thought about buying despite not owning GURPS
because it had no game specific info at all that I saw). Small games I have
played in are OK.
	Vampire is the opposite. It has not many rules. Most of the rules are 
rather incomplete, or not terribly good from most reports. It does, however,
have an enormous amount of background information. This background information
looks to be of high quality. 
	Why don't I play Vampire? Partly I don't like the rules much. If I 
don't like the rules (like I don't like Twilight 2000/DArk Conspiracy, or 
Rolemaster) that is a good reason not to play, as I would want to change the 
rules a bit before play.
	The other reason is exactly the reason that Vampire has received 
criticism about its roleplaying aspects. I think the background is too limiting.
I don't find vampires (and the exploration of the lack of humanity, and the 
idea of parallel societies to humanity, etc. ) that interesting. I like to
explore different themes with each major scenario, character, or story arc. The
humanity system is limiting in this way. I find the clans system very 
interesting, but to interact with more than be a part of. I find the lack of
detail given to non-vampires (and the incredible power of vampires relative to
humanity) to be encouraging this focus on a few themes. And worse on a more
practical level, the rules for the other (potentially very interesting)
creatures/people such as ghosts, diabolic forces, magicians, werewolves are
each going to be contained in another very large book, complete with repetitions
of the rules, lots of general roleplaying advice (largely repeated), and worst
of all, a huge price tag. When the whole Storyteller system appears, it will
cost hundreds! Similar criticisms could be levelled at one of my favourite
games (Pendragon) but that has a richer potential (IMHO), and more importantly,
cheaper supplements and better rules.
	The system does not have much to do with wether you roleplay. Some 
systems encourage/discourage it, but a good GM can cope with anything. I know
a combat centred A D&D game that has good roleplaying all the time. I know of
power gaming Pendragon games. I certainly know of power gaming Vampire games.
Just relax, Vampire players, how many times does it need to be repeated that 
good GMs are more important than rules, and a rules system that your GM is
happy with is more impoertant than anything else (system conversion is pretty
easy). 
	Sorry this got so long.
	Oh, and Christine, don't let the Amber players see your .sig, I 
suspect thems fightin' words :-)

						Dave Cake


-- 
David Cake		|life is easily understood as bit strings with logical
[WLM] Weird Little Man	|depth greater than their length - Rebis, Doom Patrol
Cognitive science, UWA	|..think about a government entirely of fish - JBC				
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc