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GURPS RPG

RPG Name: GURPS

Description: GURPS RPG Steve Jackson Games - - Generic - Gurps is an acronym for"Generic Universal Role Playing System"

What are your reviews for this classic role-playing game? Would GURPS play by post work well? If you have actually used this system please give your reviews both as a player or game master.

Played As: GURPS PBP RPG? or See more RPG systems

RPG GURPS

GURPS, or the Generic Universal Role Playing System, is the brainchild of Steve Jackson Games. It lives up its name, presenting a comprehensive system that plugs into virtually any setting. It is a point buy system, with a heavy focus on skills. With the core book, you can create a character for any setting I can imagine, from stone age fantasy to far future sci fi. It includes mechanics for magic and psionic powers in the core rules, and supplements provide many, many options for customization, at both the character and setting levels. Character generation can take a while, but once it's done, its done. Advancement is also point based, with experience point that translate directly to character points to buy things with.
My experience with the system stopped at fourth edition, but all editions cross pollinate very well. The updated systems usually just streamlined mechanics and offered more options at game start, although some of the costs for things did change, most notably attributes.

Depending on how many optional rules one chooses to use, game play can bog down sometimes, especially if you try for a more realistic tone. Also, while their supplements are some of the best researched in the entire field of Role Playing Games, they tend to lack tonal color, leaving that to individual Game Masters. That being said, the game is heavily supported, with LOTS of supplements out there, and since each edition plays well with all other editions, they are all still valuable resources.

The system uses only D6s, and unlike some systems keeps the number of dice controllable. It would work fine for play by post.