On the back of GURPS 4th Edition it says, “Anything You Want.” Is this a blessing (as the cover blurb suggests) or a curse? My experience tells me that it all depends on who is being asked to choose.
If you have a clear vision for the kind of game you want to create and run, GURPS is an excellent toolkit and will allow you mix up any combination of elements to achieve the game you want. This is the extreme flexibility of a system that doesn’t prescribe but offers seemingly endless options.
If (like me) you are the kind of person who is drawn to ‘everything’ and cannot narrow down the choices to a clear vision then GURPS can feel overwhelming. While I used to believe that the sense of overwhelm arose from complexity, the reality is that there are (for me) too many choices. At this point, “Anything You Want” can feel like a curse.
It’s a well-documented phenomena that too many choices lead humans to a kind of mental paralysis. I’ve witnessed this when players are faced with too many choices – and not just with GURPS – and I’ve experienced it as the GM when given a blank page and myriad options.
One of the reasons to create “Simple Dungeon GURPS” was to solve this problem and do what GURPS prides itself on not doing: offering a prescription to create something that approximates “old school” dungeon adventuring powered by GURPS.
While creating those notes for dungeoneering with GURPS, I rediscovered GURPS 3rd Edition and the much more beginner-friendly toning down of the choices. Weirdly, I think the 3rd Edition back print headline is more friendly too: “There Are No Limits”. That statement seems to say, “Here’s the Basic Set but don’t let that hold you back.”
My belief is that beginning with a smaller palette is much kinder to the neophyte.
Instead of “anything” it becomes more of a “here, try some of these ideas” approach. Each GURPS 3e sourcebook added more options and choices but you were at liberty to take or leave them. Yes, after 20 years this became clunky and complicated (and led to 4th Edition tidying it all up)… but it was an easier on-ramp.
My biggest gaming regret might just be NOT buying GURPS 3e back in the 1990’s. I didn’t know what it was, really, and I was a cash-strapped post-graduate who was just trying to find work when I came across it the second time. When I did buy-in, in 1998, I was transitioning back into the hobby and drawn into playing AD&D instead.
Here’s my suggestion: if “anything” is too much, pick a genre and use the Basic Set plus just one relevant sourcebook. For example, given that I fancy some science-fiction, I am going to grab out the Third Edition “Space” supplement and see what I can do with that.
Perhaps, given my love of old Traveller, I could choose “GURPS Traveller” instead… but at least that narrows it down from “anything” to “these two things”… or even just, “this one genre”.
In the end, I can’t handle the offered blessing of “Anything You Want” because, frankly, I want everything, all at once, and now. Much better to start with something and recognise that “There Are No Limits” (even if the rest of the book’s back blurb is nearly identical).
Game on!
Roleplay Rescue’s Blog 
Che – I’d argue that what you are doing with Simple Dungeon GURPS is not only what you are claiming you have trouble with, it’s exactly what GURPS was designed to do. You have a vision of what you want the game to do, and you are using the tools that GURPS provides to accomplish it.
You’re absolutely correct that it’s important to have a strong concept in mind before you start building something in GURPS, whether you’re a GM designing a campaign, or a player making a character. Just browsing through GURPS without a vision of what you want will leave most people at sea. It’s one of the things I try to impress on people who are new to GURPS. I wrote about that and a few other things here: https://ajmanitt.wordpress.com/2023/05/22/some-tips-for-gms-new-to-gurps/
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Thanks, Andrew. You article was interesting and, at least for me, I’d agree the big appeal of GURPS is what you posit: “I believe that many GMs who use GURPS came to it because they love world-building and were frustrated by the limitations that other systems imposed, that kept them from matching the game to their vision of a setting.”
Sorry if you read my post as, “I am having trouble with GURPS.” That’s not the problem – the game is fine. The problem is the way I respond to, “You can do anything you want.” The challenge is that I don’t really know what I want to run next – a thousand ideas crowd in and I feel overwhelmed by that possibility. I love that GURPS can work for any and all of those ideas… I am the one who struggles to choose. I am not sure anyone can help with that.
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I didn’t take your initial post as “I’m having trouble with GURPS”. Like I said, it sounded more to me like you’re using GURPS just the way it’s meant to be used, and maybe not giving yourself credit for that. I was just trying to point that out, and that your issue with feeling overwhelmed by possibilities and alternatives when confronting GURPS 4th edition is not uncommon.
Personally, I have more (usually pretty vague, fleeting) ideas for worlds/campaigns than I could actually build, and certainly more than I could ever run. Part of my issue is that the world building and game design is a big part of the fun for me. I love the putting the pieces together to make a GURPS game. Once I’ve done it, I tend to start looking for the next challenge of what I can build with GURPS, sometimes even before I’ve run a session or two. I’d be chasing the next shiny thing all the time, if I had unlimited time and players who were willing to indulge that.
To keep things manageable, I try to wait until one idea gnaws at me more than others for a while. Then I’ll suggest it to the folks I play with. If I get a really strong positive response, I start the actual work of paring down and tweaking GURPS to fit the concept, sometimes with player feedback on what they like about the particular genre or setting to help focus me even more. Then I’ll run a one-shot or limited campaign. I balance that by keeping one long-running D&D-esque fantasy campaign going that I run about once a month. I find that having one stable, ongoing campaign at that lower frequency, and developing something new when I’m really inspired by an idea helps me avoid GM burn out.
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Great tips, Andrew! Thank you. I’m finding my way in… slowly, steadily. Each time I play some more, whatever it is, I learn and gain a deeper understanding. It’s a good set of rules.
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