Since the early days of tabletop RPGs, the idea of a generic rules system has been a holy grail. Many have tried, but most attempts evolved into a sort of house system rather than a truly generic and modular game system that could scale to run whatever kind of game you might dream up. In fact, for my money, only one system has ever succeeded in this: Steve Jackson’s GURPS (that is: Generic Universal RolePlaying System).
This is the third edition of the Basic Set rules, from 1989, one of many I have owned over the years. The cover art kind of delights me. Is that Rambo back there? The game first saw release in 1986 and was definitely an oddball at a time when most games were setting and genre-specific.
GURPS is exactly what it says it is – generic and universal. You can use it to run anything your heart desires. The system is simple. Characters are created by spending a set number of points across abilities, skills, advantages and disadvantages. Conflicts are resolved using 6-sided dice. The game scales nicely. If you’re running a realistic spy game, you start with less points to spread around than if you’re running a superhero game.
A lot of the appeal of tabletop RPGs lies in exploring richly realized fictional worlds. GURPS offers the opposite – an entirely blank slate – which I find incredibly appealing. Your GURPS campaign can be about anything you want it to be. You can let your imagination run wild and, thanks to the frankly massive line of GURPS sourcebooks, you just have to plug in the rules you want to use. Want to run a game about high tech time travelling rabbits hunting demons? GURPS has got you covered.
When I was a kid, some of my favorite toys were the knock-offs you would get at the supermarket. They resembled the designs of the big name lines, but they were obviously not “Official.” I loved these toys because they broke the narrative rules presented in the tie-in cartoons. In this way, you could have some Warduke as a lieutenant of Cobra Commander at the head of a squad of monster men from some Hong Kong line. How did that makes sense? It didn’t. And it was glorious.
GURPS is kind of like that.
