GURPS is pretty simple for players, except those who genuinely want to know every trivial detail and nuance of the rules (on the other hand, most of them love the level of complexity AVAILABLE, if optional, for them.) It taxes GMs though, because trying to cover all possible game worlds produced relatively complex rules and, while players need know nothing more than how to count up their skills, GMs must know most things, and quickly find then apply the rest on short notice.

It is still simple at its core: Every character has 100 points (though GMs can bump that up or down as they feel appropriate to the campaign; Supers characters tend to be in the 200-250 point range.) Those points may be spent on three basic things: Stats, Advantages and Skills. I typed out a relatively long overview of those before realizing most of it covered by the 4 page Instant Character sheet below linked.

Various situations require checks against one of the 4 stats, modified or otherwise. Each is made by rolling lower than the target on 3d6 (GURPS uses d6 exclusively, to avoid added expense from dice; EVERYONE has 3d6 lying around.) A 3, 4 or target-10 is always a critical success; 18 is always a crit fail, as is 17 for targets<16 (in which case a 17 is only a normal fail.)

ST covers what you would expect (encumbrance is a factor of ST in lbs., starting at 2XST for unencumbered.) It also covers fatigue, (mainly important for spells) and damage from melee and missile weapons. A friend once made a faun with 7 ST then yelled at ME when he realized it was almost impossible to do damage against light leather armor with a staff; as I said, dump stats are ill advised in GURPS. Surprisingly, ST is usually the closest GURPS comes to a dump stat.

DX covers all physical skills, which is the majority.

IQ covers all mental skills, which are the remaining, and a fair number in their own right. It also covers Will/Fright checks.

HT covers hit points; characters must make a stat check when HT<0 to stay conscious, to stay alive at -HT, and die automatically at -5XHT. At -10XHT there is not even enough to resurrect. Even if GURPS had a dump stat, this would not be it. (HT+DX)/4 is also Speed and Movement (the latter rounded down.)

Advantages are various traits conferring specific benefits for specific cost (e.g. Toughness provides pain immunity, Acute Vision/Hearing aids spot checks, Magical Aptitude gives spell casting abilities in three levels.) DISadvantages similarly inhibit characters, but provide more character points to spend elsewhere (and flavor.) Characters are limited on playability grounds to either 40 points in disadvantages, or a single disadvantage of any value. Additionally, up to 5 "quirks" worth -1 points each may be assigned before or after character creation.

Skills... this is where GURPS gets complicated, because they tried really hard to provide a skill for every contingency. An important note is that most common skills have "default" levels present with no training; many also default to other skills (e.g. Broad/Shortword are both Physical Average skills defaulting to DX-5, but also default to each other at -2.) Skills are either Physical (DX based) or Mental (IQ based,) in varying levels of difficulty (and thus cost.)

Spells are Mental Very Hard, but fortunately each of up to 3 Magical Aptitude levels is added to IQ to determine skill. Spells may be cast indefinitely, but cost fatigue each time, though high skill slightly reduces that. Ideally, spell casters want IQ 14+ and Magical Aptitude 3 (or equivalent combination) so a single point (the minimum for spells) raises skill to 15, where fatigue is reduced 1, and a 1d fireball (or equivalent) can be cast at no cost.

One wrinkle is that non-humans invariably cost points (and have unique dis/advantages.) Elves, for example, cost 40 points for the advantages DX+1, IQ+1, Unaging, Magical Aptitude 1 and Combat Reflexes, plus the disadvantages of ST-1, Sense of Duty to Nature and Code of Honor: "Always behave with style and elegance."

That is basically it, though it takes experience for GMs to become familiar with all the various Dis/Ads and Skills and when/how to apply them. The original GURPS 3rd ed. Basic Set was 256 pages long (though it included one solo and one group adventure in the back,) and the revised edition (which removed the group adventure) expanded that by 20 more. On the other hand, the linked Instant Characters PDF below is only 4 pages long (though it only lists the names and costs of dis/advantages and skills, without descriptions.) Character creation is usually fairly quick once you know what you are doing, because you have a good idea of where you want most of your points (DX and IQ) and the must fun/useful dis/advantages and skills.

The skill system discourages hyper-specialization, because raising multiple skills (especially physical) many times is invariably more expensive than just raising the stat on which they are based (and thus ALL skills based on it, present or future, along with all stat checks,) then spending only a few points on the skills. For example:

Say you have a character with 12 DX and want Broadsword-16, Riding (Horse)-16 and Bow-16, plus a couple points apiece in six other physical skills (e.g. Acrobatics, Fast Draw, Knife Throwing, Wrestling, Swimming and Sleight of Hand.)

Broadsword is an Physical Average, so raising it to DX+4 costs 24 points, and the same for Riding; Bow is Hard, so it costs 32, a total of 80. Alternatively, 10 points raises DX to 13 and suddenly it only costs 56 more to raise those three skills to 16 only costs 56 points, plus the six minor skills all go up a point, too! You can do that two more times before reaching marginal returns, and instead of a somewhat agile character with three 16 level skills and six others around 11 or 12, you have a VERY nimble character whose skills are all 14+, with three at 16—you even have an extra point to get an EXTRA skill at around 14. Only one skill cost as much as 8 point, only two others cost 4, and the rest got 1 or 2 each; how specialized is that?

That may seem long, but for an overview of an entire game system covering every campaign from Clan of the Cave Bear to Star Wars, it is not bad at all.


See, but that is just it: Levels and other advantages should not matter for a naked fighter outnumbered 12 to 1. Max the Guard in the Basic Sets solo adventure is probably equivalent to at least 3rd level (50 point character in a world where PCs are heroic at 100 and 25 is average,) but a new average ST character swinging a broadsword has a good chance of removing half his HT if he hits (and Maxs loincloth provides no armor,) forcing a check against Maxs 12 HT to avoid stunning; if he fails, he probably drops next round.

If the shoe were on the other foot it would be all the same, even though the PC has twice his experience. Max has high ST, too (12 or 13 IIRC,) so his scimitar does at least 2d, enough to kill average characters outright on a good roll. Even an average roll forces a stun check for anyone who did not spend 100 points raising HT to a superhuman 17. Fortunately, most characters can raise Parry or Dodge fairly high even if they do not bother with a shield (helpful tip: Staves and fencing blades pary at 2/3 weapon skill; the rest parry at 1/2; buying Broadsword (or whatever) to 16 is actually worth it since your parry will only be an 8, though even minimal armor will add a point or two of Passive Defense, and absorb a point or two with Damage Resistance.)

Still, it is alarmingly easy for combat to kill even the very experienced in GURPS—and real life. Around Tech Level 5 (Industrial Age) the best you can say of GURPS combat is that hitting a limb cannot do more than HT/2 damage; strangely enough, that is about the time duels fell out of fashion in the real world.