Gurps 4th Ed. Review

I have recently bought some 4th edition Gurps books. I have decided to write a review of the new Gurps Basic Set: Characters. For those of you who don't already know, the Gurps Basic book has been divided into two books; the Gurps Basic Set: Characters and the Gurps Basic Set: Campaigns. The Characters book combines the character creation rules from the 3rd ed. Basic Book and Compedium I. The first half of the new Basic Set is 336 pages long.

Overconfidence is now only 5 pts

The differences in the game rules are pretty interesting. Literacy as an advantage is gone. Now it is bought in stages as is the language it is based on. For example; you must pay points to be able to speak a language at broken, accented, fluent, or native, and you must pay points to read and write the language at these levels as well.

Some advantages and disadvantages have been tweaked to give the game more balance, overconfidence is now only 5 pts, and new advantages have been added such as talents, which are cool. Some skills have been modified and new ones added. Overall, I like and agree with almost all of the changes. I really like the fact that certain options in 3rd ed., like using ST for hit points and HT for fatigue, are now standards.

One of the things that I was really looking forward to was having a hardback book that didn't fall apart. Well, at least it is a hard back book... I really suggest either being extremly carefull with these books or having them rebound in a local shop. The binding is truly horrible, even worse than the 3rd ed. paperbacks. The artwork still sucks as well. Gurps artwork has always sucked. All they really did was to make it in color this time. I still think that D&D has the best artwork... Oh well.

I really like the fact that certain options in 3rd ed... are now standards.

Another point of dissention that I have with the game are the sample characters. In the 3rd edition the sample characters were all fantasy characters. With a Generic Universal Roleplaying System, you'd think that they'd show more of the system's flexibility. You know; a fantasy character, a cowboy and indian, a mordern day martial artist stunt double for Jackie Chan, Luke Skywalker, or something. But no, they stuck with standard fantasy characters. However, I must admit, the sample fantasy characters, like almost everything else that Gurps puts out, were relatively well thought out and crafted.

4th edition tried to make up for this lack by creating a timetraveling party with characters from different timeperiods and dimensions, fully showing the capabilities of the game system. You have a fantasy fledgling psionic, a cyborg deathbot (my term), an elven something or other, and four or five other characters of little note.

While these characters are well thought out and interesting, they really don't fit into anything other than an extremely high powered time travelling campaign. The old sample characters could be thrown into almost any existing (fantasy) campaign with little or no modifications. These new characters can't. I would like to see a wider range of sample characters, but I think it would be better if they were a little more genre specific.

Overall, the upgrades given to the 4th edition of Gurps work. The book is laid out and color coded so that finding a given section is simple. The information is clear and easy to understand and imput.

Overall I'd give this Game a 4.5 out of 5.