For a long time, I’ve maintained that GURPS, despite its reputation for complexity, is actually pretty simple in play. I was thinking recently that I should see if I can express the fundamentals of playing GURPS in a short, easily digested form, and so here I am.
This does not address a more general “how to play rpgs” for those who know nothing on the topic. How to approach GURPS, at that level, isn’t necessarily a lot different from how to approach D&D or TFT or any other RPG system. It doesn’t get into optional and campaign-specific sets of rules or equipment. Rather, this is stuff applicable to playing GURPS no matter what the campaign is. It also doesn’t address how to build GURPS characters, which is a vastly more complicated topic. Rather, this is about how to engage GURPS rules when you’ve already got your character sheet and are sitting at the table to play. It’s a trifle over 1000 words, which I think isn’t too bad.
How To Play GURPS
Most of what you’ll need to do in actual play in GURPS is making success rolls. Roll 3d6 and try to get equal to or lower than a target number when you try to do something or try to avoid something happening to you. But where do those numbers to roll against come from, and what are the likely limits of your ability to even try something? Most of that is on your character sheet.
The Character Sheet
Character sheets for GURPS characters have five sections of important characteristics.
Primary Attributes
These stats represent broad, foundational capabilities: how strong (ST), agile (DX), mentally capable (IQ), and resistant to physical hardship (HT) the character is. Sometimes, you’ll roll directly against an attribute. More often, you’ll roll against something else like a secondary characteristic or skill, but those values usually have some relationship with a primary attribute.
Secondary Characteristics
There are a number of stats which are derived in some way from primary attributes.
- Damage: Damage with unarmed attacks and muscle-powered weapons is derived from ST, further modified by the weapon. There are two values here, one for thrusting attacks and a somewhat higher one for swung attacks, which have the advantage of increased leverage.
- Basic Lift: How much characters can lift and carry is measured by their Basic Lift, which is derived from ST. Characters move more slowly based on how many multiples of BL they’re carrying.
- Hit Points: I think everybody knows what HP are these days.
- Will: Derived from IQ, this indicates resistance to mental and emotional stress. This is a value to roll against, rather than a limited resource like HP.
- Perception: Also derived from IQ, this is another value to roll against and indicates the ability to notice subtle details, like hearing stealthily approaching enemies or spotting hidden doors.
- Fatigue Points: Like Hit Points, this is a scarce resource which gets expended and recovered in play. But rather than being a damage meter, it’s a measurement of how tired the character is, expended in things like extreme physical exertion (weightlifting, long-distance running) or using some versions of supernatural powers.
- Speed: Derived from DX and HT, this is a measurement of general reflexes (in combat, turns go in order of Speed) and the basis for calculating movement.
- Move: How fast the character can move in yards per second, based on Speed but subject to modification. For example, Move is reduced for carrying significant weights. A character may have multiple Move values if they’ve got different ways of moving. For example, Ground Move vs Air Move for characters who can fly.
- Active Defenses: Typically, combat isn’t just about attackers making successful attacks. The defender gets a vote as well and can roll to avoid an attack. These are derived from combat skills rather than primary attributes, but as frequently used figured characteristics, they appear in this section.
Advantages
These are capabilities which not everybody has or other useful deviations from the norm: exceptionally good senses, high social position, additional physical capabilities like flight or breathing under water, access to supernatural/metahuman powers, and so on. The names are broadly descriptive, but it’s best to look them up in the book for specific effects.
Disadvantages
The flip-side of advantages, disadvantages are things which limit a character’s capabilities or choice of actions: physical impairments, low social standing, constraining relationships, inconvenient mental attitudes or habits. Many disadvantages come with a self-control number. For example, Greed (10). The GM may require a roll against the self-control number at such times as it becomes relevant. If the roll fails, the character must give in to whatever impulse that disadvantage indicates (for example, for Greed, demanding a larger share of the loot from a heist or going into a risky situation to retrieve more gold) or, if they choose not to, not receive any bonus character points for the session.
Quirks
These are essentially mini-disads. Quirks reflect small but distinctive habits, attitudes, and other small aspects of personality. However, they’re not obligatory or physically limiting like disadvantages.
Skills
Skills are focused bodies of knowledge and practice, representing the ability to perform specific tasks (ride a horse, analyze a chemical sample, fight with a sword). Published skill listings to look like this:
Merchant (A) IQ+1 [4]-12;
The important parts in play are the name of the skill and the number at the end. That number is the skill level, and it’s what to roll against when you want to use the skill.
Other Aspects of Play
In addition to what’s on the character sheet, there are a few other things to be aware of in play.
Modifiers
There are a lot of things which can modify a success roll: equipment quality, range and speed of target, time taken, and so on. In most cases, the GM will tell you what to roll against at what bonus or penalty. Still, it doesn’t hurt to have a general knowledge of what might be applicable. You can check out task difficulty, equipment quality, and time spent modifiers on p. B344-346 and a lot of combat modifiers starting on p. B547.
Combat and Damage Rolls
Combat potentially involves a series of rolls. First, the attacker makes a success roll against a suitable combat skill. The defender often gets a success roll against an active defense to parry, block, or dodge the attack. And if all else fails, there’s damage.
Damage is, on its face, a simple roll (listed in weapon stats), but there are a lot of potential modifiers. Armor, for example, absorbs damage. Damage penetrating armor is applied to the target’s hit points, but that might be modified as well depending on the damage type (also listed in the weapon stats). Things like blades, stabbing points, and large-caliber bullets get a bonus to damage which penetrates armor.
Contests
Contests are a special case of success rolls, used in cases where two characters are in competition, like gunslingers in a showdown, where it’s really important to know not just whether or not they fast-draw their guns successfully, but who, if anyone, gets their gun out a fraction of a second earlier. In a contest, both parties make success rolls, but then calculate the margin of success. That is, how far below their target number they roll. If a character has a target number of 12 and rolls a 9, their margin of success is 3. The one with a better margin of success wins the contest.
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