GURPS vs HERO

Distram · June 2007

I'm not sure if this topic has been discussed before but I would hear your ideas on which generic role playing system rules them all...

GABBO GABBO GABBO · June 2007

I've never played a HERO system game, but the times I played GURPS games were fucking great. It's a really open system. If I ever DM, I'm gonna try to use it.

Distram · June 2007

Good to hear...about your GURPS experience I mean.

I am leaning towards GURPS even though I alread own the massively-huge HERO System book.

Squashua · June 2007

As HERO / Champions has historically proven, any properly-balanced super-hero RPG system can be used to simulate any genre.

So if you really need a generic system, take a look at other supers games.

Of course, GURPS is very high quality.

Moridan · June 2007

I recently got into GURPS and haven't looked back.

GURPS :^::^:

Distram · June 2007

I flipped through the GURPS book at Borders. It appeals to me a bit more than HERO - at least judging from what I read.

Scooter · June 2007

Squashua wrote: »

As HERO / Champions has historically proven, any properly-balanced super-hero RPG system can be used to simulate any genre.

So if you really need a generic system, take a look at other supers games.

Of course, GURPS is very high quality.

Yea, one of the neat things about comics is they take pretty much every other genre - scifi, fantasy, mystery, western, horror, etc - and cram them all together. So any system that can cover all that should be able to do most anything.

thorpe · June 2007

GURPS has Transhuman Space.

I really hate stupid fucking tools who go "thread over lawl", but I'm going to leave a space below where you can imagine what I, if I was a stupid fucking tool, might be writing.

_____________

Auxiliary · June 2007

GURPS does low powered grit really, really well. I mean, it's f'n John Woo with more bullets. Then Knight Rider shows up and we have the Gatchamen fight GI Joe. It gives me a little math headache.

HERO is Superman tossing the Hulk through the Battlestar Galatica while fighting off the hordes of Jedi ninjas. Also it gives me a big math headache.

Sonar · June 2007

Gurps can be as low on the math as you want. It's skill plus modifier and a dice roll to beat it, that's the core game. Gurps starts to fail at high levels though and slows down a lot on super hero scale. For instance, the reason given on why he wouldn't use Gurps for supers any more a cohort said: "...Ok roll damage, that's 56 dice. Ok, total that up and knockback puts you through two buidlings. You don't take any damage."

Defense and offense can get a wee bit silly with Gurps.

It you want a fast paced game for superheros I suggest the Marvel Adventure Saga game if you can find it.

Squashua · June 2007

A good system for Super-Heroes is MEGS, which was the original "DC Heroes" (by Mayfair Games, not "DC Universe" by West End Games).

It was later purchased and re-published as "Blood of Heroes" by Pulsar Games. The ORIGINAL edition of "Blood of Heroes" was completely AWFUL. The suppliment, "Sidekick Sourcebook" fixed a lot of problems. The release of "Blood of Heroes: Special Edition" made up for the mistakes of the original edition, but the art is awful.

TLDR: Elegant super-hero system; terrible art.

Distram · June 2007

I'm actually planning on running a Sci-Fi game using whichever system I end up choosing.

GURPS has Transuman Space...

Also, RIFTS catches my eye as well as a neat system to run a game with...

Snake Gandhi · June 2007

I've been playing HERO for a long time now, and I have to say that the 5th Edition HERO Core book is a great buy.

With that one book you can literally play anything.

DVG · June 2007

I'd be interested to see how Mutants and Masterminds with the Hit Points variant would work for D&D style gameplay.

gurusloth · June 2007

Rifts is an interesting setting to play in, sadly crippled by crappy rule system. And Kevin Siembieda is pretty adamant about not letting people translate the Rifts world for other games, from what I hear, so if you wanted to run in the Rifts world using, for example, GURPS, you'd have to do most of the work yourself.

For sci-fi, though, GURPS is probably the way to go, even in you don't end up using the Transhuman stuff, there's a lot of books (mostly 3rd ed., but the changes between editions won't affect their value as source material) that you can draw from...Ultra Tech, Space, Uplift, War of the Chtorr, Lensman, Bio-Tech...I could go on, but needless to say, there's tons of good material for those willing to dig a bit.

gtrmp · July 2007

As has already been said, GURPS doesn't easily scale up to epic/superheroic games; HERO starts at that point and goes up or down from there. Where GURPS excels is in the settings and ideas - stuff like Transhuman Space or any number of historical books are full of great stuff that can and should be cannibalized into almost any game.

That said, the best superhero game is undoubtedly Aberrant (the original Storyteller version, not the d20 version). It's by no means flawless, but I've seen players who'd never played an RPG before create a character in fifteen minutes with Aberrant - good luck doing that in either of the other systems without an assload of character templates available.

gtrmp · July 2007

Snake Gandhi wrote: »

I've been playing HERO for a long time now, and I have to say that the 5th Edition HERO Core book is a great buy.

With that one book you can literally play anything.

Also: Can the GURPS Core Books take a bullet for you? My sources say no.

I've heard decent things about the HERO Fifth Edition Sidekick, but never actually seen a copy myself.

SageinaRage · July 2007

I've played HERO a decent amount, but not GURPS, though I do want to. I like HERO a lot, though it does take a good while to get a character customized as much as you want. Other than that I think it's great. I don't really get the complaints people have about the math headache. Once you get the characters built, there's not a whole lot of math, though there are some pretty large dice pools. That's not that different from something like Shadowrun or the White Wolf games though.

Aroused Bull · July 2007

I'm going to buy the GURPS rulebooks, with intent to use them at some vague point in the future. Asides from the basic set, is there any other book or rules supplement it would be a good idea for me to buy?

DE?AD · July 2007

First off, I'd suggest Getting 4th Edition. As far as supplementary books go, it really depends on what kind of campaign you're going to run. Personally, I'd get Basic Set: Characters, Basic Set: Campaigns, and Powers. Those will pretty much let you make damn near any character for any setting you can think of.
Depending on what you want to run, you may find Ultratech and Magic handy, but not necessary.

rayofash · July 2007

Go download GURPS Lite and read through it.

Or just go do what DE?AD said.

Either way you wont be disappointed.

Aroused Bull · July 2007

I bought the books about two weeks ago, actually. They're exactly the sort of universal books I was looking for, thank you.

SUPERSUGA · July 2007

Scooter wrote: »

Squashua wrote: »

As HERO / Champions has historically proven, any properly-balanced super-hero RPG system can be used to simulate any genre.

So if you really need a generic system, take a look at other supers games.

Of course, GURPS is very high quality.

Yea, one of the neat things about comics is they take pretty much every other genre - scifi, fantasy, mystery, western, horror, etc - and cram them all together. So any system that can cover all that should be able to do most anything.

Too true. I'm currently modifying Powergame to an Ancient Mythology style setting and in the past I got pretty far planning for an explosion-filled powersuit action-team saturday morning cartoon-fest. It's a very elegant, light system that's incredibly easy to modify.

What got me about GURPS was the seemingly huge character sheets but I'm sure they become less daunting when you know what everything means

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