Hey guys, I'm looking at getting into GURPS, but I have

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>>51486747
Download the free GURPS Lite and run that first. Then dive into the Basic Set, and whatever books meet your gaming needs (which will naturally depend on your campaign.)

>>51486747
Yeah you can do a lot with the free pdf, and a lot more with basic set. Beware of people telling you that you need books x,y,z to run a setting... the guys on the SJ forums do this a lot. Most of the time splat-books are cool inspiration but not really necessary. Caveats to this exist, like if you really want modern gunplay then High Tech is good.

If you get into it, what I would highly recommend is the paid character builder app that they sell. It really makes playing with different character concepts a lot easier and quicker.

>>51486896

That said, i've been GMing GURPS for regularly for more than 6 years...some of my unsolicited opinions about various books:

Ultra Tech: Fun for mining ideas but a bit out of sync with later books because it was published so early in 4th ed. Be very selective about what equipment you allow from it, don't just allow everything at a given tech level.

High Tech: Good for modern action games; but if you just want guns there are some good free resources floating around.

Low Tech: I love all the tools and equipment sections from this...but I find the author's approach to armor to be too granular. Some people jizz at the thought of individually tailoring suits of armor with flanges and coifs and shit; I am not one of those people. You have to manually work out how much they weigh and cost and remember a bunch of extra rules, but if you are a medieval scholar or military history nerd it is cool. You can find pdf's of suits of armor that people have created using this system online, that's good enough for me. I have used it for stats for low tech black-powder weapons, which are cool.

Martial Arts: Possibly the worst cover art of 4th edition? I don't really care about the styles...there are some fun new rules and if you want to make combat more granular then go for it. A good weapon list for a low tech game.

Magic: I really dislike the base magic system and don't use it, and so this is a pretty useless book for me.

Thaumatology: If you have the idea of making your own magic system, or copying the system from another RPG this is a great book. One of my favourite books, really like it.

>>51486747
check out the trove in /gurpsgen/, you can try before you buy that way.

>>51486747
> I'm looking at getting into GURPS
> I have no idea what to get first
> our lord Steve Jackson

anon I love gurps but at least be honest that you just want to make GURPS thread. No need to go with "I'm a new guy" routine

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>>51487866
I was tempted to start one, but I don't have the copypasta.
Either way, here's a character I tried making, at TL5, 100pts. I don't think he should have that much leftover wealth, though.

New gurpsgen?

At this point, I kind of want to do a "Super Western" campaign. Think "Wild Wild West" except even MORE high-powered. TL5, 500 point start...

>>51488823
Are you the OP?

Westerns are a lot of fun in GURPS, but I would be cautious about such a high point game before you know the system.

I'm GMing a weird western game inspired by the world of the Dark Tower books. You can build a pretty good supernatural gunslinger for 180-250 points and you won't get horrendous balance issues that you get at higher points.

>>51488881
I'm not the OP, I'm >>51488182
I was honestly going for a "Knights of Cydonia" kind of setting. Where the law of the land is Rule of Cool.

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>>51488908
Oh, all good then, have some weird west art.

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>>51488928

>>51488928
Nice art. But I do think I'll stick to 250, like you said.
On that note, Are there any rules on pricing for tech that's much higher than the native TL?

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>>51488945

>>51488947
nvm found it. Turns out a Laser Pistol costs 89,600 GURPSbucks in a TL5 setting.

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>>51488947
Well as always there are multiple ways you can do it.

Characters can buy up TL from the campaign default, and then take any equipment using the signature gear advantage. This tends to be fairly cheap in terms of points, so you might make them take an unusual background advantage as well.

You can also build the equipment as powers, and slap on a bunch of accessibility modifiers like 'can be stolen', 'requires preparation', 'limited use per day' , etc. This tends to be fairly points expensive, but you can kludge up some cool powers for 30-50 points to represent advanced equipment.

The biggest questions you have to solve are: Can the stuff be stolen or broken permanently? Can they run out of ammo\power cells\whatever? Stolen irreplaceable equipment can be a good plot hook, but players tend to get (justifiably) shitty if you take away the toys that they spent all their points on.

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>>51489059

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>>51489028
I tend to favor 'equipment as powers' over buying stuff that other players can't access with money, because you can exactly specify the conditions that apply to the tech in the power limitations.

But yeah, you could always just buy up crazy levels of wealth and take the 'unusual background: time traveler' advantage, or whatever.

>>51489059
>>51489138
I don't plan on making them pay for the laser gun, money OR points. I'm more planning for it to be a MacGuffin that they have to earn.
It's basically a standard TL5 game with a laser robot or twelve thrown in.

>people recommending GURPS

What a bunch of assholes. Any decent person would tell you to steer clear of the system.

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>>51489448

>>51486825

First post is best post. GURPS general gives you a lot of resources to sample.

I'd very much do the same thing. Start with everyone using GURPS Lite. Then you as GM buy the Basic Set and borrow SPARINGLY from it. One step at a time-- it's very easy to get ambitious and go overboard. GURPS gives you a lot of flexibility but there's no need to use it all.

Specific addon books give you additional ideas if you want them. Many don't actually create any new advantages or rules; they just explain to you how to use existing rules to create some specific game effect. Sorcery creates a whole new magic system, complete with spell design rules, without adding a single line of new rules. Psionic Powers adds very little in terms of new rules, just a way to apply existing rules in a new way and a ton of examples.

The two books you might want to take a look at initially are Social Engineering and Martial Arts. Power-ups: Impulse Buys is useful if you want to borrow their rules to create an equivalent to Shadowrun's system for spending Karma in play, or WoD's spending of Willpower points.

In many ways, this is an RPG creation set rather than a system.