GURPS?

I recently discovered The Film Reroll Podcast. If you're not familiar with it, they play through movies but use GURPS to see how things would go differently. I find it hugely entertaining. I'm not familiar at all with the system, but what little I have learned, it sounds like a lot to start out but can do whatever plus they make it sound really fun on the podcast.

I see there's a solo game and one other game on GP using GURPS - but 1920s horror isn't something I could see me playing. The system doesn't seem that popular, so I'm assuming it's because of the popularity of D&D and other such games. Something that struck me as a good thing as I'm listening to The Film Reroll Podcast is how there are mechanics connecting to roleplaying: Fright checks, roll against Curious, etc.

So I thought I'd pick the brains of the hivemind here and see what's up with this system and people's impression/willingness to play/run it.

Oh, I haven't listened to Film Reroll in so long. Such a good podcast, though. (Not that that helps you, since I don't actually know GURPS, but thanks for reminding me of them!)

It is good! I learned of it because one of my favorite content creators guested on their Rogue One reroll. I'm now listening to many of their previous episodes. Was just wrapping up their retelling of Home Alone last night.

Home Alone was a fun one. I think my favorite was their Bill & Ted game. But they had a bunch of really good ones. Friday 13th was also pretty good

I agree with what they said about them being perfect for the roles of Bill and Ted. Very fun episode.

So about GURPS? I first heard it's name several years ago from a former coworker. I wasn't interested in hearing about it at the time. I get that it's one of those seeing agnostic systems that can "do anything" but besides movies, I'm wondering how well it runs other things.

GURPS has been around since the mid-80s, and was indeed one of the first (and some would say best) generic RPGs. It's quite crunchy and simulationist in nature, which some folks love and some folks don't. Lots of rules can be considered optional, but at its heart the system really wants to model reality as closely as it can, with carefully constructed point-buy characters, bell curves and modifiers, with very realistic equipment lists, with *loads* of skills, advantages, disadvantages, and quirks. And perhaps most of all, with TONS of setting and genre books, all of which 'tune' GURPS for the material at hand.

I used to be an enormous fan and ran many, many GURPS games in the 90s. It's not my jam these days because I've changed as a gamer and can get the experience I want out of lighter systems, but there's no denying how solid the game is. Not surprised at all people are using it to model reality / scenes from movies.

Thanks Harrigan! That indeed tells me a lot about the system. I think I know why I haven't heard much of it thinking about who I've gamed with in my life.
I think I'll keep an eye out for any new games just in case a GM is willing to run with a total newb.

I enjoy GURPS, but it can get very math intensive, simply because it is so realistic. GURPS can be (but need not be) painfully real. I tell my players that if we're playing GURPS, they want to avoid firefights because someone will get hurt. Slashing attacks routinely lop off limbs and bullets drop targets in a single shot. None of this "twelve arrows to the chest and still standing" crap. But that is what attracts me to GURPS; the realism. If I want to play a gritty war scenario or maybe a cop scenario, I turn to GURPS. That isn't to say that it isn't good for high fantasy as well, it totally is, but realism is where GURPS shines over other systems.

As a classless system, your character's capabilities are defined by your skills, advantages, and disadvantages. If you want a wizard that swings a sword, GURPS can do that! You want a rogue stalking about in plate mail? They won't be very effective, but GURPS can do that! You want a hard sci-fi campaign that evokes thoughts of Asimov's writings? GURPS. Do you want a science-fantasy game that makes Star Wars look human-centric? Look no further. Want to pit cyber-enhanced dinosaurs against Native Americans in the ruins of civilization? Yeah, we can totally do that.

One of my favorite GURPS cinematic rules is Bulletproof Nudity. The less you wear, the harder you are to hit! And as for mashup games, people have come up with some really interesting ideas!

Geez. Sounds like what my brother told me about Rifts where you can do literally anything. Thanks WhtKnt. That definitely does paint a picture of what GURPS can and can't do for a game

GURPS is probably the game I've played the most over the decades. I don't have much to add that Harrigan or WhtKnt hasn't already said. I still really enjoy the system and use the GURPS worldbook supplements for other games because they are thoroughly researched but can be a bit dated considering when sobe if them were written.

One of the major stumbling blocks to playing GURPS is trying to come up with a character since the options are so wide open.

That's a great point, witchdoctor. Other systems give you a more narrow view of character concepts/options, but if anything is possible for your character, coming up with one could be quite the hurdle. In that case, I would have to think of where in the party and story my character would fit. LOL Never tell me every conceivable option is open to me, for I will never be able to make a decision.

GURPS was one of the first systems I bought and yet have never brought it to the table. In fact the oldest game in my collection I've never played. It seems pretty straight forward in play but as other have mentioned we just got decision paralysis trying to make characters (had the same problem with Hero system). So we put it back on the shelf and went back to a system with class and levels.

Perhaps this is why it seems less daunting in the Film Reroll Podcast. Characters are made prior to the episodes and the character just has to be transcribed from what we know of them in the movie and put onto paper. Still, I'm sure that's a tedious task.

I'm wondering what sort of game/setting would go best with GURPS if one is accustomed to a class system...

GURPS is one of the three big games I always hear about but have never tried. It seems intimidating and almost no one runs it anymore.

GURPS can come off as intimidating because of the sheer scope of what's available and private cause the sourcebooks actively try not to handhold you by limiting the scope of the game. That's generally a feature, not a bug. These days, a lot of the flexibility of GURPS has been subsumed into more rules-lite systems like PbtA.
It doesn't get payed a lot these days, especially via PbP, because it's a BIG undertaking for a GM to present a game and a big ask for a handful of people to come up with a cohesive group of PCs that don't derail the adventure via accident through character design.

FalconLoft offered to run a GURPS Fantasy game a while back and it was a lot of fun. GURPS does get run on GP but not often. What kind of game were you looking for, Exemplar?

Honestly, I wasn't looking for a game quite yet. Currently, the game I run right now takes up most of my free time. This was more an exploration of the system as it is viewed on GP and whatever other insights I could glean from this discussion. In the future, I may be interested in a GURPS game, but I don't know what exactly I would want to play

I've heard folks mention Savage Worlds as a kind of spiritual successor to GURPS, and while that's true to a minor degree (both are generic, do-anything games), GURPS generally plays way closer to the bone than the high-flying, pulpy Savage Worlds. Both games can be tuned, but both, IMHO, are at their best when you let them do what they were designed for.

GURPS is awesome at modern adventures that aren't too high-flying, at gritty and deadly low fantasy, and at historical adventures. Once you have a setting and theme chosen, the open-ended character design becomes a lot less scary.

Having said that, there really are some lighter generic systems out there that are a LOT easier to get to the table...

I love the Film Reroll Podcat. Their episode on Stand By Me was *chef kiss*!

I love GURPS too and how kind of flexible it can be. You can pare it way down to a few skills and attributes or all the way up and be very simulationist. One of my go tos for running games. At least it used to be, character creation can be kind of intense for both players and GM.

Their Stand By Me episode was very good, yes! So far I have enjoyed all I've heard from them (with only mild enjoyment from the Pokemon episode). The discussion here and hearing more from the show has taught me the system takes a lot to set up.

Yeah… a lot to setup, but once it’s done it’s all there on the character sheet. And it has a really nice character building program you can pay for and several free ones.