Re: [BNW] GURPS Brave New World (long post)

["Poetic" <poetic@iprimus.com.au>]

>
> Converting BNW to GURPS is kinda messy at best. As a person who was
> involved in another multi-genre RPG (West End's late, beloved TORG) I
> know what a mess a "generic" system can be. No matter how simple the
> rules may be, to fine-tune the universe for a specific genre, you
> have to add on additional rules and geegaws, and the whole mess
> becomes unwieldy. Plus, the GURPS system is not well regarded
> nationally. (The way I hear it, Steve Jackson is so disliked by some
> game authors, they call the company "SJG" so they won't have to say
> his name.)
>
This may well be the case but as a Guide I have a commitment to my group for
them to enjoy the game they devote valuable hours each week to play. So
after trying out the BNW system both myself and the players were not
enjoying the seemingingly unbalanced nature of some power packages and
having a Speedster & a TK in the group only made it worse because their
tricks (based on sucesses on a dodge roll) couldn't be fixed to my
satisfaction or theirs. So the choice was stop playing (and have me waste
all the time & money I spent in creating and purchasing all the books) or
find a system we could all live with. GURPS was the system we decided on.

> The games that were adapted to GURPS, such as "Traveller" and
> "Vampire: The Gorehound's Best Friend," have not done well since.

having no actual sales figures to go on I can't say whether this is the case
but I would suggest that SJG would not keep pumping out book after book of
Traveller material if the stuff wasn't selling.
>
> And on a mechanical basis, the 3d6 rolls have a top limit. If you
> roll 18, that's it. No add-on rolls, unless you want to add a new
> mechanic to the game system and gain the hatred of regular GURPS
> players.
>
GURPS doesn't rely on high rolls. The idea is to minus the target number
from their skill and then have them roll under it. Personally I think the
mechanic is much cleaner than successes & raises.

> In addition, GURPS already has a superhero worldbook, "GURPS Supers,"
> and a specific universe, "GURPS Supers IST - International Supers
> Teams," with a whole world background. With all that - and a
> superhero system that makes more sense than "Champions," where you
> spend a week to generate a character - it isn't popular, in a field
> where BNW is arguably the most successful superhero game in years.

GURPS Supers IST is their four colour high powered Supers campaign but they
also had Wild Cards which was the lower powered more "realistic" level
Supers world. Sadly this is now out of print. But either way this may be a
concern if I was writing it with the aim of SJG buying it but I am just
doing this for my group and maybe if I see a demand to publish it on the
web.