From: seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc,rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Burn, GURPS, BURN!
Date: 22 Jan 93 15:28:55 GMT
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: seawasp@unixd3.cis.pitt.edu


	(Followups sent to rec.games.frp.advocacy, so don't flame me here)
In article <1993Jan21.174827.10057@news.vanderbilt.edu> talbert@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (Robert Talbert) writes:
>Well, no superhero game is going to accomodate a sci-fi campaign, or a spy
>campaign, or really anything else besides the genre for which it was created.

	I never had any problem, myself. I've run SF in a D&D game, fantasy
in a Space Opera universe, spies in CoC and superheroes, and so on.

	[I say]
>>	GURPS is the BASIC of gaming; it CAN do anything, and has provisions
>>to do so, but it can't do ANYTHING as WELL as a specific game designed for
>>the genre.

>The rule systems for a given game do not *do* anything. The action and the 
>modifications are done by the GM and the players. Nobody plays the rules for

	Well, then, you aren't discussing the rules, ARE you? If you assume
a good GM and players, ANY game can do anything.
	You're really grasping at tiny straws here. You know perfectly well
what is meant when people say "...the rules do x...".

	[I say]
>>	What it REALLY means is that if you want a fully rounded 
>>universal campaign, you have to spend your entire college fund in
>>order to get the stuff you want.

>What's a "universal campaign"? I usually stick to one genre at a time. 

	A campaign which has the potential for all genres within it at
any one time. Mine has been like that for many, many years, although I
tend to concentrate, along with my players, on one or two genres at
a time. Nonetheless, elements of all of the genres show up in all the 
games at some point or another.

>if there is any whining about the cost of the Basic Set, remember that only 
>the GM needs the whole book (which is only $20 (US) anyway in softcover); 
>the players can use the entirely adequate PLayer's Book, which runs a paltry
>$7-$10. At least with GURPS, it's money well spent.

	Since I am a GM *and* a player, and so are most of my group, everyone
would have the main book. Though I agree that $20 is pretty low compared to,
say, the recent Shadowrun hardcover reissue...

>>	450 spells a vast selection? Rolemaster's original release had
>>four times that many. GURPS is for Girly-men.

>Another thing about GURPS is that you can lift stuff from other games and
>translate them into GURPS.

	You can easily do the same thing with any other game -- at least
as easily as one can do it in GURPS. The effort of translation between 
any game system of any complexity and another of different kind but equal
complexity is in general far, far too great to warrant the effort in any
general area (lots of spells, lots of monsters, entire worlds).

>>	ALl those skills and advantages work precisely the same way.
>>Flavorless. There's no difference IN GAME between casting a fireball,
>>shooting a gun, controlling a mind, or flying a  ship. That was one
>>of my major gripes about Spacemaster's PSI system -- they took their
>>spell system and just taped  the word Psion over it.

>The rules for most games will not even get you a tenth of the way there 
>as far as creating atmosphere -- "Chill" and "Paranoia" may be exceptions.
>As a GM, *I* am responsbile for creating the suspension for disbelief. The

	You're beating the wrong drum again. Of COURSE the GM is responsible
for MOST of those things, but, given the same skilled GM, this is just another
little, annoying thing about GURPS that bothers me.

>>	Problem is people who can get, say, an 18 INT (not difficult in
>>a fairly powerful campaign) and then can do EVERYTHING AT ONCE. Hell,
>>their DEFAULT skills are as good as someone who was taught the subject.
>>Even if they have no experience in the field.

>It is hard to get an 18 in *any* attribute in GURPS. You have to spend a
>*hell* of a lot of points, or take some god-awful disadvantage. And yes, 
>this is realistic -- 18 on the bell curve for 3d6 would correspond to about
>the upper 2% or something like that.

	Here is where you're making a mistake. If GURPS numbers like the
stats are on the bell curve, I'm Queen Elizabeth. 18 is 1 out of 216. That's
a respectable intelligence but not all THAT impressive. If you use IQ scores
at all, that would put me out around 19 or 20. And *I* can't do anything like
all the things a GURPS *16* can do... and a 16 can be gotten fairly easily in a
reasonable power game. Get your 16, spend a few points on skills, and there's
virtually NOTHING you can't do, and do pretty damn well.

 People who are *that* smart (using IN
>for an example) generally *can* do lots of things, that or have serious 
>disadvantages (Stephen Hawking, for example).

	Hawking isn't in the upper *2* percent. He's somewhere in the upper
*.02* percent or better. 

>can earmark character points; for example if a player spends a whole adven-
>ture trying to survive in the jungle, the GM can say "OK, you can only spend
>these character points you got on Jungle Survival skill." It's not like,
>*poof* you're a nuclear physicist or anything.

	Yes, it is... when you make the character. You can create a character
who can do anything, and do it well, for relatively few points compared
to what such ludicrous combinations SHOULD cost.

	Yes, yes, I know, "It's the GM's responsibility to prevent" such
things.... but then, once more, you're not talking the system, you're
talking the GM. A good GM can run a good game with NO written rules.

>>	No, the inventors assumed that the average GURPS player would want
>>to  play certain kinds of characters. Consider the fact that in a high-tech
>>campaign, it is virtually suicide (pointwise) to make a physically strong
>In GURPS, in *any* genre, the point costs for attributes are the same! Creating

	That is precisely the PROBLEM.  In, say, high-tech worlds, physical
strength shouldn't cost the same. It's not as valuable, overall, as it is
in, for example, a swords-and-sorcery world.

>>	The much touted "balance" of GURPS is one of its major flaws.
>>Even in the books and movies that draw us into these games, the main
>>characters weren't all built on the same scale. Some people are lucky

>Yeah, but only in silly movies and books are there characters who can 
>do amazing things without having disadvantages to counterbalance them. 

	These "silly movies and books" are the ones that get many people
INTO this kind of gaming. We want to LIVE those kind of lives through the
characters. 

>Just how many times have you actually *played* (or ran) GURPS, anyway? 

	Five overall. Ran one person who preferred GURPS, so I let him
use his GURPS rules while most of the other people stayed in the semi-
kinda-warped AD&D/Arduin/Arcanum/AMBER crossbreed I run.

				Sea Wasp
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc