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The LONG wait ends - 'Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game - Powered by GURPS' has been released!

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
Phil Foglio seems to like SJG

And, to be clear, there's a lot to like about Steve Jackson Games.

GURPS is okay for some sorts of games. A friend of mine who was a historian and folklorist ran a game set in 1000 AD (so, the Dark Ages), that was intended to be far more historical than what you normally see in D&D, and GURPS worked as a good engine for that.
 

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Tantavalist

Explorer
As I said in my post above- there are some things that GURPS does well. I just don't see Girl Genius as being one of them. Historically accurate Medieval Europe? Sure. I had a good experience with using it to run Traveller.

But for both this and Discworld (and probably Goblins) a more narrative engine would probably have done better.
 


Voadam

Legend
I have a ton of GURPS books that I enjoy as resource books even though GURPS is not a system I would generally pick for playing.

Girl Genius will fit in with Hellboy as GURPS books I am a bit interested in picking up for the narrative sourcebook information and not the GURPS system information.
 


Despite the name GURPS is very much not a universal system. There are things that I've found it does reasonably well but light-hearted action comedy isn't one of them. I thought it was the wrong system for Girl Genius when the game was first announced and I was sort of hoping the long delay meant it was never going to happen and something else would be used for the license.

Having read GURPS Discworld and seen what a mess that was as it tried to make Pratchett's world fit the GURPS rules... No, this won't work. There will of course be GURPS fans who claim otherwise and insist they're making it work fine just like they have with GURPS Discworld. And as with Discworld they just won't grasp that they're so familiar with GURPS the system has become transparent to them and doesn't really register in play, and that the fun they're having was in spite of the GURPS system and not because of it.

This isn't specifically a dig at GURPS players because I've seen it with other crunch-heavy systems too. People who play them regularly are so familiar with them that the mechanics no longer slow play down and it runs like a rules-lite game for them. And they can't see why anyone else would have trouble and not be willing to put in the effort to get to that same point or that there might be a system that does anything better than adapting what they like. All GURPS writers and GMs seem to be in that category for GURPS.

Sorry if this turned into a rant. I'm just anticipating the responses that experience has taught me GURPS fans will have whenever someone says that GURPS isn't the right system to run something.

Depending on the price I may end up getting this anyway. Despite my feelings about the GURPS ruleset I've got a fair number of GURPS sourcebooks because they tend to be pretty well researched and written, making them ideal reference material for running a game with another system.
$30 USD for the PDF, TBA for the Hardcover, but $50 USD seems likely.

For the record, their sourcebooks are usually $25/PDF, but since this is meant to be useable all on its own...
 



MGibster

Legend
And, to be clear, there's a lot to like about Steve Jackson Games.
GURPS was one of the first RPGs I played back in the 80s and I ended up purchasing a lot books for 3rd edition. I even bought GURPS Ice Age for some unknown reason. And I can't forget Car Wars which was one of the games along with Battletech and Star Fleet Battles that my friends and I played regularly. I don't purchase a whole lot from Steve Jackson Games these days but they're good people and I get the warm and fuzzies every time I see their games on the shelves of my local game store.
 

Argyle King

Legend
GURPS was one of the first RPGs I played back in the 80s and I ended up purchasing a lot books for 3rd edition. I even bought GURPS Ice Age for some unknown reason. And I can't forget Car Wars which was one of the games along with Battletech and Star Fleet Battles that my friends and I played regularly. I don't purchase a whole lot from Steve Jackson Games these days but they're good people and I get the warm and fuzzies every time I see their games on the shelves of my local game store.

I mostly play 4th Edition, but I still buy some of the 3rd Edition stuff. It's very easy to convert.

I've heard rumors that the game Revolution! Will be reprinted. I hope so. It's one of my favorite SJ Games games.

For rpgs in general, I like the combination d12/d3s that you can buy from SJ Games. I also like using the color hex bases for cardboard standies; it makes highlighting different groups of foes simpler.

Reading through the concept of "gaslight fantasy" has prompted me to give Girl Genius a closer look.
 

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