This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Doug S. Machina: This
Something Positive arc (including the next three comics) is about Davan making a system from Christmas ornaments. Is it useful to illustrate this page?
Morgan Wick: Took out: Of course, since GURPS rejects the Metric System in favor of feet, miles, pounds, and so forth, its connection to the "real world" is debatable. because we don't need YOS starting any sort of cross-pond flamewar.
(random passer-by): This passage irks me:
"GURPS has been criticized as being very math heavy and overly complex, which are not entirely unfair criticisms. For example, the amount of number crunching needed to create all the possible statistics for a vehicle or Humongous Mecha can be intimidating."
I don't want to be a wiseguy and I'm not here to start a flame war. I would even agree that the GURPS vehicle rules are rather hairy, though I can also remember (circa 1990) seeing homebrew hybrid rulesets that helped a lot. For instance, it probably violated a raft of copyright laws, but I saw a homebrew conversion ruleset that brought Battle Tech mecha into a form usable with the GURPS rules.
But the game system as a whole is not nearly as math-heavy as the Hero System.
Back when I was into gaming, I could write up perfectly usable GURPS character sheets in half an hour with pen and paper, much less time with software tools.
I've never successfully finished a Champions character writeup. I lose interest and get a whanging headache before I can decide whether a martial artist character should get Autofire for kicks and punches or not, and if so whether Autofire should come as a discount because the attacks are melee range only, but wait, does it cost more if the attacks do extra Knockback?
Then too, it may be my own preferences that are in the way. The Hero System was built from the ground up to simulate four-color Silver Age superhero comics. Once upon a time I was heavily into gaming but preferred other backgrounds and other types of character, so it may be that I have a mental block about it.
Jefepato: The HERO System is math-heavier than GURPS, it's true, but GURPS is still very math-heavy compared to the vast majority of the RPG market. It's complex enough that most people I've coaxed into trying it gave up somewhere in the middle of character creation. "GURPS is overly complex" is still a valid criticism even if HERO is more so (although, of course, it's a matter of personal preference whether complexity is a bad thing).
(another random passer-by): The only math required during GURPS character creation is simple addition. There's more math required to create a character in BESM or 7th Sea than there is in GURPS, and those are commonly seen as entry-level RP Gs.
Game Fan: You need to be able to do exponentiation and division to calculate strength as well as add and subtract percentages if you want to use anything but the most basic abilities. It's still strange that people worry about the math, you'd be hard pressed to find a game that doesn't have software support these days.
Some dude with no handle: I would think GURPS would have much more troupes because of the sheer number of things it covers. also suprised that isnt an infinite worlds page.
Game Fan: it's actually on the Trope Overdosed page!
