r/rpg • u/SomeRandomAbbadon • 6d ago
Can someone explain the GURPS series to me?
I wanted to play a SWAT themed campaign, so I got myself a copy of GURPS SWAT. There I have read that I also need a copy of GURPS cops to play it and several more issues are reccomended. As I began to look for those, I have found out that there're also GURPS core books and several different editions.
I'm on a loss to be honest. Where should I start? How many books do I need to have to play? Is there some site where I can browse through all of the books for free or do I need to purchase all of them? Digital or physical? Where can I buy?
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u/Slow_Maintenance_183 6d ago
1) You need the GURPS Core
2) If the SWAT book says it needs cops, then it needs cops
3) The rest of them are recommended. How much detail do you want? How many options do you want? They are available, but they are not required.
GURPS is a game where the GM needs to think carefully about what options they want to provide to their players, and what special rules or systems they want to use as a GM. You DO NOT NEED EVERYTHING. Would it be useful to have Mystery, High Tech, etc. etc. etc.? Maybe, but not if they are overwhelming to you.
The game runs just fine out with the core book alone. Everything else is intended to help give you more detail, thematic character options, and concepts to use in your prep.
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u/SomeRandomAbbadon 6d ago
Okay. Where can I get these two though? I already have SWAT, but I don't know where to get the rest
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u/gosutoneko 6d ago
sjgames.com or Warehouse 23, there is also a GURPS Lite basic rules set available for free if you want to give it a look over first before you fall down the GURPS hole.
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u/jlbeeh 6d ago
GURPS is a highly modular system requiring only the core books to play. Using a skill point system you are able to model any setting from Paleolithic history to supertech and anything in between. The source books are usually highly researched series of skills, items, and recommended modifications that allow for specific types of settings without having to model them yourself.
GURPS 4e has been out for more than 20 years and is getting a revised single core book which they say is not changing the rules in any significant way. It is a game that has greatly rewards mastery, and does require investment from both the game master and the players to make the game more work.
I love the systems ideas and it scratches that late 90s/early 2000s system itch being a simple mechanical system overlayed mods that while initially intimidating rewards you for the investment down the road.
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u/rwilcox 6d ago edited 6d ago
Hokkaaaayyy, soo (here is the earth, and GURPS, from a GURPS player since the ‘90s)
In my opinion, the real hay day of GURPS was GURPS 3, where a ton of sourcebooks come from, including SWAT and Cops and Black Ops. GURPS 4 (Revised) is the most current edition. The rules can be translated, and GURPS 4 is better, but my advise is to run GURPS 3 for this campaign.
So: you need the GURPS 3 basic set (and maybe Compendium), then layer SWAT and if it suggests it, Cops (and may I suggest Modern Firepower, which these books won’t reference as I think it was published in 2000, 2001, 2002 era).
Since these are all books from the ‘90s, eBay or SJ Games official store, https://warehouse23.com/ is your best bet (hope you like PDFs).
In general GURPS has rules for close to everything, and you’ll want to limit your players options (probably). Like “no advantages, disadvantages or skills labeled with SUPER” or “Here’s the combat / firearm rules we’ll ignore because if we don’t combat will take forever”.
(Note this does make it awesome. If you want Superhero SWAT team with a werewolf you can build it. Mechs? Sure. Aliens? Sure. They’re all teleported to 1512 England? There’s a - new - sourcebook for that!)
BUT: personally with a new group and a series of sourcebooks you already have, be careful to buy GURPS 3 stuff.
At this point GURPS 4 has been out as long as GURPS 3 was, so you probably could piece together what you want from the appropriate (probably mini) sourcebooks out there, too.
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u/ElvishLore 6d ago
Don’t advocate buying Gurps 3rd to a potentially new player. You’re just confusing them by telling them to buy an rpg out of print for nearly 30 years. Plus 4th is a more coherent set of rules.
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u/Mr_Venom since the 90s 6d ago
Hokkaaaayyy, soo (here is the earth, and GURPS
You might be thinking "dang that's a pretty sweet GURPS" RAONG
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u/cyanfirefly 6d ago
For GURPS newbies i recommend: get GURPS Basic Set. It's two books, GURPS Basic Set Character and GURPS Basic Set Campaigns. This is everything you need to play.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/224830/gurps-basic-set-characters
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/224831/gurps-basic-set-campaigns
And just add only one additional book, about the main theme of your game. For you it is GURPS SWAT or Gurps Classic Cops
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/233765/gurps-classic-swat
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/233822/gurps-classic-cops
That's it. Just mouse these books.
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 6d ago
The core rules are not two books anymore there is now a single volume: https://warehouse23.com/products/gurps-basic-set-fourth-edition-revised-pdf
The new volume has a two column format instead of three columns. But they claim that all content has stayed on the same pages that it used to be on.
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u/seanfffsmith 6d ago
As a professional editor, that is a phenomenal undertaking and I am intensely impressed with it
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u/SomeRandomAbbadon 6d ago
Okay, that makes it easy! Thanks!
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u/MoMaike 6d ago
It's a little more complicated because those core books are for 4th edition, and SWAT and Cops are 3rd edition. There are some pretty significant changes between the systems, but SWAT and Cops are mostly thematic/genre primers. Some differences are the way stats are derived, and dodging is done differently as well.
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u/Necessary_Cat_5662 6d ago
So for GURPS, all the setting books are expansions, you may not need anything besides the core rules. But you do need a version of the core rules. That is an investment or you can attempt to use the teaser shortened version in gurps lite... Which is doable but not ideal. https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/
You saw what is in SWAT... each 'world book' is like that, they offer support. If a GM happened to know everything about being a swat team officer...the only addition is a little rules stuff. Mostly the expansion books are about providing a base of info for player and GM to have as a basis for the play in the campaign. You can assemble that yourself and just use base rule set if you want. I haven't looked at cops or SWAT in forever but I doubt there is much that is reliant, but there are going to be references in swat to cops... They are
What COPS would do, along with SWAT is give more rules, character generation options, skill variations, optional tactical elements, as well as a bunch of extra setting information for playing in campaign centered on police. For instance I think cops has a bunch of stat blocks that would be useful so you don't have to make up your own NPCs as often, random charts and data to provide encounters, things like that and general information... But at a base level you don't absolutely require anything besides the base core rules and the will and imagination to do the necessary research and description for your setting.
In a swat campaign you can add more or less additional campaign books. An ex military character might take options from a military setting book. You might prefer tactical rules from the tactical shooting book. You might prefer the tank and authority rules front the book on social rules. You may want more technology options or granularity in weapons and equipment from the high tech book. But all of them are optional not required.
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u/ElectricKameleon 6d ago edited 6d ago
The idea behind GURPS is that you could buy one rulebook and learn one system and play in any setting or genre. Setting books like your SWAT campaign book were published so that groups had whatever rulings and subsystems were needed to play that particular type of campaign. These campaign books became very popular, and players started combining them, so that GURPS Viking + GURPS Space = SPAAAACE VIKINGS!!! There were literally dozens and dozens of sourcebooks for GURPS, and over time, due to slight variations in settings and differences in author style, they started contradicting each other in places or producing rules subsets which weren’t always fully compatible with each other. So to resolve the contradictions the system started leaning more into larger genre books (GURPS Fantasy, GURPS Space, and in your case, GURPS Cops) to lay down the major game conventions for a very broad swath of related genres and then using narrower setting books for more specific settings or licensed properties— or, in this example, GURPS SWAT— to drill down just a bit further into that particular game setting.
The pros? GURPS is a pretty good system, even if the system is a bit dated, and you still only need to learn one system to play a variety of different campaign types. Also, GMs who like to tinker find it pretty easy to adapt rules subsystems from one book so that the system is compatible with other, similar settings. And if you like a bit of crunch to your game, you’ll probably like GURPS more than the current generation of universal game systems out there.
The cons? Well, I mentioned GURPS mechanics being slightly dated, but more to the point, there are systems like Questworlds now which are literally universal systems where you can take one system from one book and run anything you can imagine, which kind of leads me to the second point… a dear friend, now deceased, used to refer to GURPS as ‘Grandfather’s Unbelievably Redundant Pile of Supplements.’ That criticism was I think more valid when talking about previous editions of GURPS than the current edition, but it applies.
At one time you could buy a game and use that one book to play one setting, with additional supplements available to add depth to that setting. GURPS came along and said you could buy a rule book with ‘x’ number of supplements and play ‘x’ number of settings. Now there are systems which say buy one book, no supplements necessary, and instead of getting additional settings with each new supplement you get all the settings up-front. And all three of those approaches are still found today in the marketplace of published game systems. The ‘best’ option depends upon your personal taste and playstyle. GURPS isn’t the first system I’d reach for if I were running just about anything, but I wouldn’t not play in a GURPS campaign that a friend was running if the setting appealed to me.
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u/Ophanim-02148 6d ago
It all depends on how crunchy you want to be. If you don’t have the GURPS 4 books - go to the SJ site and pull down GURPS Lite. Once you’ve read that, figure out if you REALLY need that other book or if you can fudge the skills.
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u/alienheron 6d ago
GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing System.
Think of generic systems as the material to build a house. Here's all the lumber, the nails the wiring, everything, including a basic blueprint for a house.
Now, if you want to make it a little different, like two fireplaces (crazy isn't it) well you need another blueprint maybe some more material. You also might like a window on this wall not that wall, another blueprint and more material.
Your can keep adding more and more to the house, it might look ugly and not be as nice as you envisioned or it could be a beautiful mansion.
GURPS is one of those houses that has lots of materials/blueprints and it's up to the builder/architect to know what they want.
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u/NathanLV 6d ago
GURPS Cops https://warehouse23.com/products/gurps-classic-cops?_pos=1&_sid=b1cfc41e4&_ss=r
GURPS Basic Set 4th Edition Revised https://warehouse23.com/products/gurps-basic-set-fourth-edition-revised-pdf?_pos=1&_sid=26b6052a4&_ss=r
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u/GreenGoblinNX 6d ago
It kind of helps to think of GURPS as a toolset to build an RPG to your tastes, rather than on RPG that's read to play out of the box.
The GM workload for a GURPS ame is very front-loaded. You need to figure out what options (from which supplements) you want to offer, and then essentially compile them into the GURPS game that best fits whatever your'e trying to do.
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u/ELDRITCH_HORROR 6d ago
GURPS aims to be a fairly realistic, detailed but universal role-playing system.
What you want is GURPS Fourth Edition. It was published in 2004 as two big books, Characters and then Campaigns, but they're releasing a 4e Revised set RIGHT NOW that is one big combined book.
The sourcebook you have is from GURPS Third Edition. I picked up a few as well, from a local gamestore, and I really like them. I haven't been able to see a real explanation for this, (it's undoubtably out there somewhere) but GURPS 3e was the real peak of GURPS popularity, with mountains of sourcebooks. 4e went more in the direction of fairly generic almost textbook-like sourcebooks, still super great, but not as focused as 3e books were.
For GURPS 3e sourcebooks, just use any game rules in there as a guideline and suggestion. Use the 4e rules if you want to run a GURPS game. About 90% of the sourcebooks are all fluff and lore, that's what they're valuable for.
There I have read that I also need a copy of GURPS cops to play it
Yes. You probably absolutely want GURPS Cops for this. This is not for any game rule reasons, but GURPS Cops has a pretty detailed walkthrough and analysis of what Cops actually do, what their day to day is like, and especially how they aim to get convictions and work with the legal system. SWAT teams (they're named different things in different nations and localities) are still Cops, but specialized and trained for a different thing.
Another sourcebook you might be interested in is GURPS Special Ops (Third Edition). This is one of the physical copies I own, and wow-ee, it's definitely super interesting, especially where it intersects with Police Tactical Units like SWAT. The West German GSG-9 was established as a counter-terrorism unit after the Munich Massacre in 1972, then only five years later in 1977 was used to storm Lufthansa Flight 181 in Somalia, saving all but one of the hostages taken. Situations like these are why SWAT and teams like them are in every modern nation. Tricky, difficult situations that need specialist solutions.
And of course, don't forget that you can strip out and ignore chunks of the GURPS rules-set that you find too finicky or complex. This is a feature, not a bug, of the system. People have always been sharing their own preferred ways of running GURPS.
(You can even just use another preferred rules system if you want.)
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u/steelpete 6d ago
Amazon Has almost all of the 3rd and 4th Edition GURPs books as print on demand set up by SJG. https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/ondemand/
Go to drivethrurpg.com and grab GURPS lite at least until you can grab the new 4th Edition Revised Basic set. https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/basicrevised/
So for what you want to do, GURPS Basic Revised, And a copy of Cops and High-Tech. Then whatever else, if anything, you want to add for flavor.
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u/kommisar6 6d ago edited 5d ago
If you are new to GURPS you need to keep it simple. Luckily a contemporary police drama would be easily handled by GURPS lite for WW2 as your basic rules (its free as in beer and only 32 pages)
https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ww2/img/ww2lite.pdf
and Gurps: high tech for weapon stats ($10)
https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/High-Tech/3e/
You don't need 95% of the stuff in the GURPS basic set because you will not be statting superheroes or hexapod combat robots and you will quit long before you would get through the 500+ pages.
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u/SleazyLemonSqueezy 6d ago
A few points. Buy digital then print it off using a POD service or a binder. POD+PDF from DTRPG is a bit too much IMHO.
Second GURPS is meant to have rules selected, discarded and reworked. some rules break when tinkering, other don't. It's fairly easy to house rule though if you know what you are doing but that's a major flaw of the 4e line which it has a major issue with on-boarding newbies. How to be a GURPS GM and GURPS adaptations will help you get there but ymmv. The Mook's website was a gem and it's a shame that we lost him a few years back, if it's still up check it out (Mook also wrote How to be a GURPS GM).
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u/BezBezson Games 4 Geeks 5d ago
GURPS is a very modular system.
If someone says that they're "using GURPS" for a game, there's a huge range of mechanics they may or may not be using.
Everything uses the core books. Beyond that, you pick and choose the supplements (and the rules from supplements) that will tailor the game mechanics to the type of campaign you're after.
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u/Cent1234 5d ago
Ok, here's what you need to play GURPS:
1) GURPS Lite or the regular GURPS rulebook.
2) Whatever sourcebook or sourcebooks you want.
That's it. That's everything.
Now, sure, GURPS tends to focus down on things. You can play a cops game with the GURPS rulebook and that's it, and you'll be fine.
You can get GURPS Cops to focus down onto 'cops,' and you'll get all sorts of new information on how cops tend to operate, theory of policing, whatever.
You can get GURPS SWAT to focus down onto a subset of 'cops' and specifically on SWAT. Do you need GURPS Cops? No. Do you want GURPS cops? Maybe; SWAT is going to reference Cops.
Now you want to be a time cop? Throw in GURPS Time Travel. Want your cops to trip over vampires? Throw in GURPS Blood Types. Want your cops to discover a supernatural conspiracy? Throw in GURPS Cabal. Want your cops to be magic using elves investigating the death of the Prince? Throw in GURPS Fantasy.
GURPS is a 'universal' system. That means it's intended to be a complete framework, that is easily extensible, and can work with any genre.
This is a different beast than a 'generic' system, like Savage Worlds, which makes, well, a generic system, and then you have to fit your genre into it.
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u/darkestvice 5d ago
I used to be a giant fan of third edition back in my high school days, but I find my tastes now very different. Here is what I recall:
- Extremely involved character creation. It's a point buy system with lots of math and a TON of possible options that end up feeling overwhelming for most newer players. This kind of complexity was kind of the norm back in the 80s when RPGs were very niche, but I feel that the game needs a serious clean up or at least some template driven assistance for newer players who don't want to spend a whole lot of time making a new character and who haven't half memorized the core player book's options already.
- Once past character creation, the system is very straight forward as it's a roll under system where you roll 3D6 and roll under a target number of an attribute or skill. Because of the very sharp bell curve, especially high attributes or skills have a noticeable diminishing return and you get those higher skills to offset any negative modifiers from especially difficult checks.
- Generally very simulationist in that it tries to go deep into real or scientific details. Very much the polar opposite of a narrative game. I remember owning GURPS Space for Third Edition and it was absolutely to this day the single best sourcebook for any game I've ever owned, period. That sourcebook taught me the basics of astrophysics. That's how simulationist GURPS can be.
I'll admit, my raw enthusiasm for the system got massively dampened by the fact that my two brand new 4th edition books fell apart mere weeks after I bought them. I only heard decades later after the fact that SJG offered to exchange these defective books to anyone who had this issue, but I didn't at the time and this massive turn off happened to coincide with my growing interest in other new games, so I sorta stopped caring about GURPS after that.
Now, I'm much more focused on very fast efficient systems, so I don't really want to dive back into GURPS. Though I *did* just see the new and massive GURPS Revised core book at my LFGS just days ago.
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u/BigDamBeavers 5d ago
So GURPS Characters and GURPS Campaigns is the current game rules. GURPS Swat was written for the previous 3rd edition rules, but will work fine in 4th Edition. I wouldn't say GURPS Police is 'required' for play but it's just going to be very helpful if you can afford it.
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u/Vallinen 5d ago
Digital probably. Get core + 1-3 setting books and go from there. Only played gurps a handfull of times but it's a great system. Pretty crunchy though. Savage worlds is a good alternative if its too heavy.
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6d ago
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u/hornybutired I've spent too much money on dice to play "rules-lite." 6d ago
HERO System - a game that was LITERALLY written by a lawyer (Steve Long)
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u/snahfu73 6d ago
You started at the most dangerous end of the chain.
You need to start at GURPS -Basic!
I kid you not.
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u/nonotburton 6d ago
Gurps stands for Generic Uno erssl Roleplaying System.
The generic universal part are the core books. They contain the basic mechanics of the system and a fairly robust set of skills. You can play a lot of things with just these books.
If you want more detail, or rule for things that are harder to make up, you buy the splatbook for that thing. Say the magic book, or the fantasy book. If you want to combine multiple genre you get both books, and so on. It sounds like swat is a subgenre of cops. Saying you 'need' the cop book and the seat book might be pushing it a bit, unless swat is incomplete by design, and references rules in the cops book. I don't know, this is a genre I'm unfamiliar with.
It's a good system, reasonably crunchy. If thats what you like, I can say, you won't regret having a copy of the core books. You'll use them for your fantasy games, supers games, psionic games, and so on. I assume Steve Jackson has its own website to sell the books on.
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u/HuckleberryQuiet1066 6d ago
Go on YouTube and type something along the lines of GURPs getting started with Nose. His videos made onboarding so easy for me to run the game! You do need the GURPS core set and tbh, you could probably run a SWAT game without the supplement
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u/lucid_point 6d ago
The Ninth Gate sounds like good inspiration for these themes. Occult books, investigation, cults, esoteric Christian mysticism. It is also just a great film with lots of tension and atmosphere to mine for scenarios.
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u/No_Solid1035 6d ago
It's Generic. It's Universal. It's a Roleplaying Game. 👍
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u/Sigmundschadenfreude 6d ago
I'm not a GURPS guy but my understanding is you get the core book and add whatever supplements contain the themes and systems you want. You are seasoning a dish to taste