Since yesterday’s session, I’ve been sensing a growing personal confidence with both the world of Fellmyr and the use of the GURPS rules. While looking for some creatures to populate the realm with danger, I remembered the excellent Monster Index of the Generic Universal Eggplant. While there, I read some words on his blog that deeply resonated:
GURPS, being a skill-based system that is simulationist by default, actually can produce believable worlds that feel real. There are no arbitrary limitations, such as classes, levels, challenge rating, “adventuring days,” action surges – your character just gets thrown into the game world, and the world doesn’t bend backwards to make sure you feel challenged and experience a great story that the GM has in mind.
In GURPS, you achieve immersion even before the game begins. The system makes you think about who your character is and not about what he can do… GURPS allows you to have the exact experience you want. It does it so well, that it actually may ruin other games for you.
enragedeggplant.blogspot.com/2024/07/an-ode-to-gurps
This morning, after updating some character sheets for the players, I sat down to review their notes and found myself busily making my own notes on the Gamemaster Characters (GCs) we have introduced so far. For one particular GC, I was looking for a cool ability to explain their position in the world.
My first inclination was to look for something in the rules but then, this being GURPS, I realised that I can describe whatever ability I want them to have and then put it into the rules. Instead of my usual habit of looking for a Spell or cool Feat, or whatever, and letting the rules dictate the ability, I realise that I get to describe it first.
Being new(ish) to GURPS, that can feel daunting but it’s also genuinely liberating. I don’t need to know all the options in the Dungeon Fantasy RPG (which we are currently using) because although all that stuff exists, GURPS also gives me the freedom to make up stuff of my own without fear of breaking the rules.
That’s when it struck me: I am becoming confident with shaping the game rules to fit my world. Instead of forever having my world shaped by the game mechanisms and choices of the game designer, I get to make those decisions. As the Enraged Eggplant writes:
Yes, GURPS takes a lot of effort, but everything good in this world does. While other systems rely on premade content made by the publisher, GURPS relies on the GM to make his own content… It may seem like a waste of time to most, but it’s a hobby for me – something I do for fun when I have free time. GURPS is something you get invested in for life.
enragedeggplant.blogspot.com/2024/07/an-ode-to-gurps
This has brought me to a place of joy (once again) and I am grateful to both the blog post I read but also to my players and friends who have helped me get here over the past few months. I’m ready to loosen the reins of creativity, steal good ideas from wherever, and work to shape Fellmyr into being the kind of fantasy world I will enjoy running for a long time to come.
Game on!
Roleplay Rescue’s Blog 
Your point about describing your character first, then putting it in rules reminds me of advice from Chris Normand. He argues the you shouldn’t look at using the system of advantages with enhancements and limitations in GURPS Basic and GURPS Powers as ‘building’ abilities or powers with the rules. You should decide/describe what the ability does and how it works, then use those rules to figure out how much it should cost in Character Points. https://youtu.be/uKjl_ZEnY2U?si=RZWAvyeSVrFu0qZ2
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love it, mirrors my experience with GURPS. After a long campaign a few years ago I have to actively remind myself that there are other systems out there when I have a creative spike. BTW thank you for your hard work, your podcast is fantastic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s very much how it works for me, too. However, there can also be a bit of motion in the other direction. The Advantage Shadow Form and the Power from 3E GURPS Supers called Animate Shadows inspired my character Umbra, while the Power of Void from GURPS Powers: The Weird combined with a story titled “Sailor Nothing” and other influences led me to making a “dark magical girl” character called Cure Nihil, both characters in my metahumans game that didn’t last nearly as long as I’d have liked it to. That said, both of those characters started from those pre-written elements and gained power writeups that arose from thinking about what they could do in the game setting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
GURPS is a great game indeed… still I find myself always struggle between this game and Mythras, which is one of my favorite. I think they both fill the same and are very similar in the concept, or at least I feal that. My problem woth gurps is that you can go very detailed and I got bogged down wanting to know and use every rules… Sometimes in the future I will try gurps with this approach and see where it goes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
GURPS is a toolkit and it took me a very long time indeed to realise what this means. You don’t need all the rules available, only those pieces that both fit your World and Characters plus you feel you need to run the kind of game you desire. Figuring out what is needed is a subtractive process in my experience. Enjoy!
LikeLike