Source Books

Sooo many source books to read.

I suppose that's the problem with picking up a new system like GURPS. You've got all the material to go through.

Dungeons and Dragons (3rd edition and D&D 3.5) was made easier by having the starter set that was in shops before the Dungeon Masters Guide and the Monster Manual were released. Soon after buying and playing the starter set, I was eager to get my hands on the Player's Handbook and start creating some proper characters, scenarios, etc. I also skipped reading the sections on magic, spells, and magic items until I had gotten to grips with skill checks, challenge ratings, combat, feats, and gaining multi-classing.

WFRP and Dark Heresy turned out to be very easy to learn as well. Perhaps because I already knew how orcs, goblins, skaven, lizardmen, vampire counts, the Empire, and Bretonnia worked, I could focus on learning the rules for combat, skills, roleplaying, and advancement. A lot of the rules for WFRP are very similar to the rules I had learned for Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. Dark Heresy is pretty much Warhammer IN SPACE, which I suppose rings right, but the system doesn't actually translate properly. Warhammer's magic is not the same as 40k's psychic powers, but Dark Heresy does not differentiate between them. With a setting so grim and dark, Dark Heresy makes it extraordinarily difficult to die unless you're fighting orks or daemons.

Maybe I was just too nice to my players. I've never had the GM vs. PCs mentality for my games.

Call of Cthulhu bears a slight resemblance to WFRP and Dark Heresy in that the system is based around percentile dice rolls. Also; humanity's hopeless doom and powers beyond mortal comprehension.

From my perspective, GURPS seems to take aspects from the games I've already played. That makes it at once easy and difficult to learn. It's easy because I've seen a lot of these concepts before. It's difficult because I'm having to unlearn and relearn what I already know.

I'm getting into the swing of it now though. But I've still got a lot of reading to do before I can think of running a campaign or half-decent adventure. I've read through the GURPS Basic Set: Characters book (which you could liken to D&D's Player's Handbook), and I'm half-way through the Campaigns book (similar to D&D's Dungeon Master's Guide).

However. I do love my sword-and-sorcery, so I've got the Fantasy, Magic, and Thaumatology books to get through as well. Then I have to implement them.

I'm sure I've said this before, but GURPS is by design a very versatile system. You can run any sort of game you want with it. Whatever you want the players to be, and whatever you want their adversaries to be, it seems that you can do it with GURPS. Gunslingers in the old west; pirates on the Spanish Main; private eye detectives in a dystopia hi-tech city; six-limbed aliens with faster-than-light travel that fight with muskets and daggers; intelligent birds of prey with psychic powers; robotic masterminds with legions of servitor thralls... the limit lies with your imagination.

If those source books weren't enough, my mum bought me the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z for my birthday. I have not finished the final book of Eisenhorn either, but Dan Abnett doesn't portray the 41st Millennium in the way I've ever viewed it. I flew into a nerd rage when I read that Eisenhorn's power sword was just a thinly-veiled lightsaber.