GURPS 3e the old faithful. Years ago when I was “playing in a bubble,” the same friends year in year out, GURPS became our “standard” system. Why? Because, the truth be told, we all started out as tacticians (as defined by Robin D. Laws). Of course we told ourselves that it was because it was a good system, the best available we thought. But then real life took over; late of course, we are after all uber geeks. Responsibilities kicked in and worse we began to analyse what we were doing. “We have seven basic scenarios”  we said (pity we lost the list I could do an article based on it). On reflection, lets just meet for the talk and cut the gaming, and so it happened.

Now we’re 17 years older and we’ve reformed, the Internet and Maptool (our software of choice) has ripped away the 6 hour journeys, travel expenses and above all hours and hours of time that were incompatible with a family life. So what system do we try, well GURPS 4th Edition (4e) naturally.

I’d bought the Basic Set a few years ago, not thinking I’d game again but just wanting to keep in touch with the hobby. I read it and the tactician in me admired the nice polished rules, the elegance of it. On a re-read now part way through a Space campaign (look up Star Trader) after reading other modern games and having played them a number of times at a local games shop I’ve a better picture of the system and how it “fits in.”

First it’s a tactician’s system that works as a unified whole. Things in the game work in that understatement of “fictional reality” way that tacticians like. Second it is a roleplayer’s system, if you want a reason to motivate your character and present lots of potential plot hooks this is the system for you. Then as it says on the box it’s a universal system in as far as any type of fiction can be accommodated within its rules, or at least those roleplayers pick as milieu for their games. The essential mechanism is simple, and in play bookkeeping is low.

So what’s not to like? The claim that you can run other games’ scenarios doesn’t bear a reality check. As a one off maybe but there’s a natural point at which translating to GURPS is simply the GM re-writing an entire rules system as a series of GURPS books they can’t sell. In any event if you want to match the monsters, spells, and probabilities in the given game you need a source system that has the openness of the d20 3.5 SRDs and a GM that can speed read  . And that brings us to not only the lack of scenarios for GURPS, but the relative shortage of prewritten settings. Out of the 17 GURPS 4e hardcovers I have, only 5 have settings and at the time of writing I have all the hardbacks available in the UK. Of course they claim you can use 3e books, however many of these are out of print or only available at collectors’ prices. Someone once said that imagination is putting yourself in worlds of your own creation, fantasy is putting yourself in worlds of someone else’s invention. As business-people S J Games should know that most gamers indulge in fantasy not imagination, not through a lack of the facility but simply through the expedient of time. PDFs  go someway towards to addressing the situation. However some of them like Transhuman Space work only as an upgraders path, referencing 3e books this UK citizen can’t obtain. Having said all that, if you have your own imaginary universe that you want to run a game in, look no further than GURPS. Lastly, the continuous exclusive use of the male pronoun is by UK standards archaic, chauvinist and offensive.

The verdict, we play G4e as our standard system but buy other games when we want to explore their settings or the GM wants a lighter workload. GURPS still rocks!