Lancer

I was just wondering if GURPS 4th edition renders my 3rd edition collection obsolete. Are the Compendiums, GURPS Bio-tech, Ultra Tech I and II, Robots, Space..etc still compatible? Or do I have to dish those and wait for the 4th edition counterparts? Is GURPS Fantasy 4th edition compatible with 3rd?

No, they're demi-humans, so like elves they would tend toward the fighter/class multi-class. Though I do believe there were rules on TSR's site that said they could be cleric/mages, which is relevant. Never came up, though, since the PCs all hate them after they kicked the elves out of Alfheim. I give characters the choice of classes, though. So while OD&D elves were always fighter/mages by AD&D terminology, I don't see why they can't be whatever they want to. I've had elven thieves and bards in my campaign... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I had struggled with this because AD&D says that only human characters can dual-class yet in OD&D rules shadow elves progress in a manner that is most similar to how an AD&D dual-classed character progesses. I do have Monte Cook's AD&D shadow elf conversion with the multi-classing solution. Although, the multi-classing rules are a bit broken and it is a very different class from the OD&D one. It is unfortunate that the elven classes (and the halflings) are nearly impossible to convert faithfully to AD&D.

Well.. it is expected that you are only changing it a little bit at a time over the years and not all in one sitting! lol. It seriously.. hasn't been THAT bad. Most of my time was spent on converting things like priesthoods and Immortals over to AD&D than fixing rulesets. And its things like this that you still would have to do even when you do go to another system (unless you simplify things greatly) not to mention somehow convert the entire AD&D magic system over to something else. You will still end up re-writing everything ANYWAY! So, the way I look at it, at least stick with something that you are *ALMOST* done revamping rather then starting all over again with another system.

Agreed. GURPS has the most kicka$$ character creation system on the planet. I its extensive skill lists.

@ J.E. Sawyer And I learned interesting new tidbits like new details about GURPS 4e's skill lists and the MMB list.. (I had always used MML).

We're all even more firmly anchored to our beliefs now, than when we started? " <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes! :D

I love your interrogations! Well... I understand even more clearly than ever before why skill-based advocates dislike class-based systems so much. The reasons do vary from person to person and I can see why some wouldn't like the AD&D core rules... particularly in the realm of character creation. It is true that the general character creation options in the AD&D core rules are inferior to those of some other games.. And if you don't do any of your own devious tweaking then , of course, it doesn't provide as much flexibilty. But this is still no reason why with products such as Player's Option and a bit of DM creativity you can't even the odds... Even with a class-based system. In regards to combat.. I would say, though that I do prefer the AD&D combat system (barring house rules) than say CoC's or GURPS. One of the main things I learned is that it seems that people who are not happy with AD&D are the ones who a) either didn't fiddle with it enough and lost patience with it or b) never got it customized to their liking. If you stick with it, however, you can make even AD&D a truly rewarding system.

No.. It is to learn and be challenged! And I love to learn and to be challenged in my personal viewpoints.. I know I have been forced to re-think my view on matters in this discussion and learned a couple of interesting tidbits. Definitely hasn't been for naught. And who knows you might even be able to get someone to agree with you. Admittedly, it doesn't happen too often (look at politicians) but not beyond the realm of possibility. EDIT: I know I haven't been dismissing anyone's comments as just crap. I do seriously read and consider what everyone has to say.

If you really believe it's just a matter of opinion, why discuss it at all? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> We discuss opinions all the time here on the boards. That's exactly what forums are for. For one, it is great to hear other viewpoints. It is when people mistake opinions for facts that peeves me. Also, why even discuss and dispute "facts"? That would be a total waste of time. If it's a "fact" then there would be no need to discuss it because everyone already knows it to be the truth.

CoC is too *simplistic" for me. You mention the lack of traits/flaws.. And the combat simply is too bare-boned to be enjoyable. It is more taste (I know you hate it when I bring this up ) than anything else but I don't really like the fact that the PCs efforts really don't make a difference in the long run. I know it has its fans and it is considered one of the best RPGS ever made.. But it is just not for me. That's interesting though that you imported another combat system. Admittedly, the original CoC combat system needs major help IMHO. True.. But doesn't a word document summarizing all your changes in one little place help? I do own Spells and Magic, however, up to this point I haven't really used it. Just C&T and S&P. Well. I don't use dual-classing just because OD&D Mystara didn't... Unless, you consider the OD&D shadow elves class to be a dual-class.

Speaking of GURPS. I haven't gotten 4th edition yet. I understand though that it is remarkably similar to 3rd edition. Does it render the 3rd edition books like the Compendiums, and GURPS Bio-tech, Robots, Space..etc obsolete or can I still use these if I get the GURPS 4th ed. Basic Set?

One of the things I disliked about the AD&D core rules was its NWP system. Many, many years ago I had totally revamped the NWP system so that skills would improve realistically (i.e. your character doesn

Damn... I am missing a bracket or two in there..

Which one you have in mind? GURPS Fantasy? Really? Is it really worth the effort to translate 200+ spells to a different system? You said yourself that countries like Alphatia and Glantri would be particularly difficult to address. Nice way to hide the fact that there still were many alternatives when 2ndEd came out. 2ndEd came out in '89. Meaning you must have started in '89 or '90. A lot of other games were out in '89/'90... including your beloved GURPS. The operative word in the phrase "type of RPG" was "type." I know you were not advocating a specific RPG but you were advocating skill-based systems in general. You have stated that they are inflexibe and rigid.. but meaning what exactly? I am curious. Yes you merely stated that they are rigid but didn't give details. I love details. *sigh*..I didn't quote you. I merely was giving an example and you misunderstood it as quoting something you had said. Sorry, if it wasn't clear because I was rushing towards the end. The point was that yes, you have stated on numerous occasions that you dislike AD&D because of its "rigid" classes but I don't ever recall you ever elaborating on this. Which is what *I* would like to know. Something like that then would be something worthy to debate about.

It's all in the eye of the beholder. :D Haha! That was actually funny. As long as what I have now works.. It is fine by me. Right.. right.. I had mentioned how simple CoC in a previous post and forget to mention it now.. Yes, it is indeed easier than AD&D only because it is barely a ruleset at all. You would need to explain the mechanics (above) in addition to explain the skills for a skill-based game. No they are nowhere near as fixed as you say. Just off the bat: Look at the AD&D priest class, Player's Option, and the "archetypes" in Planescape's Planewalker's Handbook that are similar to the templates of skill-based systems, and of course the imported OD&D paladin class , Ahhhh man.. you see? Why do you even bother with dual-classing? That's opening up a can of worms.

Utter blasphemy. Heresy... She should get excommunicated

I maintain, though, that there is nothing you can't do in AD&D with just a little thought. Going to another system is not the most sound advice unless that other system is 100% perfect(which is never the case)... or else you are back to doing the same thing you did with AD&D.. making house rules. I also guess from your posts that you're excessively picky and find grave faults with any system... I imagine no matter what system you change to you will always be finding defects and will never be satisfied unless you make your own.

Nonsense. No alternatives? You must have been playing since 1990 (give or take a year if you have been playing for 15+ years) and by then d6 Star Wars was out, Palladium, GURPS, MERP, Rolemaster, Robotech, Battletech, Cyberpunk 2020...etc. But you chose to stick with AD&D.. Maybe it was simply you just didn't know better at the time or didn't have a good game shop at the time? Instead of what you have been claiming.. that there were no alternatives? You can't revamp an old shoe. I didn't say things can never be good or bad. I am just saying that preferring skill-based over class-based games is an opinion.. not a fact... In much the same way that someone might prefer Planescape Torment over Baldur's Gate..Or prefer McDonald's over Burger King. Whereas another would instead think that Baldur's Gate is better than Planescape Torment or BK is better than McDonald's. Who is right? Well both and none. I personally prefer Planescape Torment and Burger King but even I recognize such sentiments as what they are.. opinions and not fact. Although I can give reasons why I prefer the above two things even I don't pretend to think that BK is inherently better than McDonald's. I don't mind you (and Ender) giving your opinions on why skill-based is better than class-based but when you broadcast these things as fact and imply that others that enjoy AD&D just "don't know any better...." (in your own words) that irks me... And claiming that one system is inherently superior always puts a smile on my face... Depends on what you mean by rigidity and inflexibility? My AD&D game doesn't feel inflexible to me or my players. There is no reason why skill-based systems wouldn't evolve further in the future.. But for now I have never run into a skill-based system where character creation was as choreless as AD&D. Although a template would take away the need to know EXACTLY what character you want to play. It doesn't take away the fact that the player would need to know bare minimum all the skills the template uses (which could take hours) in addition to all the different modifiers that each skill will most likely have. And I already mentioned in an earlier post, how many skill-based systems either don't have templates or if they do they have them only on a few limited archetypes. You don't need to do any of this in AD&D. It literally is as simple as picking a character class, point buy(in my game) and you are done aside from character history and motives. Am I the one with the limited requirements (from all the house rules I have accumulated over the years I seriously doubt this)or is it *you* that is being inordinantly nitpicky and unneedlessly worrying about every trivial detail? No. There is a key difference between you and me. You never got AD&D working the way you wanted it to and/or probably never really liked the system that much to begin with. I always *loved* AD&D from the moment I got and I still love it. And with a little thought and imagination was able to fix the few problems I *did* have with it. It is no wonder that you seem disgruntled with it, whereas I am not. And cast AD&D aside? Why? Why not play that alongside other games? Haha.. Hardly! :D I am not the one trying to convince other people to play a particular type of RPG I like. I could care less if you or others play AD&D or not so I don't feel compelled to provide any arguments on why AD&D is a good game. You, OTOH, seem to have taken it upon yourself to convince people just how "great" skill-based systems are. Oddly, through all this you have yet to give any specific examples about what is so bad about AD&D? I'd be especially interested in the following...Just what do other systems do so much better that you couldn't do with AD&D with just a bit of thought? Remember.. Ender has brought some specifc *problems* with it and I already countered those. When you also bring specific examples about what is so bad about AD&D, I'll be glad to provide counterarguments although I feel it will be in vain because nor you or I will ever convince the other. <_< .. This is because the very same things that you dislike about AD&D are exactly what I like about it. It is like a PS:T hater telling you he didn't like it because you have to read too much. Well.. How do you argue against that? He don't like to read. You can point out facts like Planescape Torment has better character interaction, and more roleplaying than Baldur's Gate all you like and you can get him to agree with you there possibly... But how can you convince him that he should care more about the story than the combat? Well, you can't because he prefers the combat over the story. It's that simple. That's his subjective preference and it is very hard to change that. But really, all you have been arguing (and Ender) all this time were about subjective preferences based on "why your tastes are better than everyone else's" rather than concentrating on facts such as: "AD&D can't do this but my system can even with these tradeoffs.. And no matter how you tweak this and that in AD&D it just wouldn't work and here is the *proof*..etc." Now, THAT would be something worth debating. Flat comments like "skill-based is better than class-based just because you have to go with the times and it is more flexible" just doesn't cut it.

Just a minor correction: It is "LA VIDA TIENE SABOR" not "LA VIVA..."

It can't be that bad if you played it for 15+ years. What I am wondering is if AD&D is *so* hopelessly awful how the heck did you end up playing it for so long? I wasn't talking about quality here. You were saying how you hear more about home-brewed house rules with AD&D than other systems. The point with bringing up AD&D's popularity compared to other games is that it is much more widespread... Always has been. Since there are many more D&D/AD&D players than players of other games, you will hear correspondingly more complaints, and hear more about people making house rules in AD&D than other systems. This is not saying that people who play GURPS or WoD hardly ever make house rules, it just means that in AD&D this is more outspoken since so many more people play it than the other games. This is nothing more than simple probability. Furthermore, saying a system is poor quality is just your subjective opinion and not fact..Though it is an opinion I strongly disagree with. I dunno. 3e seems radically different to me from previous editions. I wouldn't say D&D has remained stagnant. In fact, it has changed much more than GURPS, d6, WoD or many other "modern" systems that have more or less retained the same rules over the years with relatively minor changes. That's the question.. If AD&D sucks so bad why do you continue playing it? I am less biased than you because I can acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of both skill-based and class-based systems and recognize that both are good (or bad) in their own way. I, however, have yet to hear one positive thing in defense of AD&D (or class-based systems) from you. This is strange for someone who has played it for so long. Everything you have said has been very one-sided in support of skill-based systems hence my comment about you being biased holds some truth. Regardless, I still maintain that AD&D is still a great game for beginners for reasons I have discussed in another thread. It is great that you might not like AD&D anymore (for whatever reason) but saying that other people can't enjoy AD&D because you don't happen to like it (hard to believe if you are still with it after 15 years) is overgeneralizing...just a little. You are assuming that people are looking for the same exact things in an RPG as you are. But, again, people are different and hence when people look for RPG systems they want to play-- they come in valuing certain things differently. Believe it or not there are people out there that *do* prefer AD&D even after trying out other systems. And as for people not knowing any better.. It is the player's decision to try other systems or not. Nothing is certainly stopping them. I would say that the "D&D haters" are so vocal in their discontent about AD&D/D&D that the rest of the world *does* know about it. Hearing such discontent over time (as justified or unjustified they may be) would make the average D&D player curious enough to try out other systems. I have. Although the experience more like opened my eyes to the realization that many other "modern" systems are just as flawed (if not worse) than AD&D. It might not have the same effect on everyone since everyone looks at the world through different eyes.. But that was the effect on me. I can't speak for you, but I can certainly speak for myself. For one, I don't play AD&D out of nostalgia (though you routinely admit you do).. I made this clear in an older post. If I were truly nostalgic, I would play OD&D or d6 Star Wars only and never have bothered with 2ndEd since OD&D and d6 were what I played first well before even trying AD&D. The reason I play AD&D is because it has the perfect balance of detail, simplicity of rules and quick combat resolution that I like for my favorite setting (at the time: Mystara).. It also has tons and tons of support material giving me many design possibilities. Couple this with the fact that I have been able to fix the few things I disliked about the system to my liking leaves it a no-brainer as to why I remain with it. This is just totally untrue. Back when I started with OD&D in '92-'93 I was concurrently playing d6 Star Wars. I also remember there being GURPS, Battletech, Palladium, Robotech and a whole slew of other games. I still preferred AD&D/OD&D to everything else at the time though. But the fact of the matter is that there *are* many D&D players that play other games (I certainly do!).. I don't see the other systems as being any better than AD&D though.. Different, maybe more streamlined, but not necessarily better (i.e 3e vs. AD&D). The "restrictions" of AD&D have never bothered me nor gotten in the way of roleplaying. I have never had problems with the typical things that bother you people: hit points, classes, levels, spell descriptions..etc. Quite the contrary, these things were part of what made it fun to play. You could claim also that many of the modern games are better than AD&D, but I would disagree strongly. But it is so hard to argue this since this is more a matter of taste than anything else. You are beginning to sound a little like Mark Hughes A good retort to Mark Hughes inane statements can be found here:Why AD&D rules rant I am sorry you feel the way you do about AD&D. I am sorry that you are not able to get the rules to work exactly the way you want them to. But this is not to say that others can't enjoy AD&D nor get it to work the way they want it to.

Funny, seems we all like this "my own" system best Not surprising since there hasn't been a system where I was completely 100% happy with *all* its rules as written. There is always going to be some potential re-writing (at least in my experience) of rulesets to one's liking... Ranging from partial rewriting of a given ruleset to a complete startup from scratch. I am glad that I am not the only one.

There are *much* simpler systems than d20 out there. Savage Worlds, for instance (a new universal roleplaying system) was specifically designed to benefit GMs with a life and family by making it much easier for the GM to set up adventures and combats so that more time can be spent running/fleshing out campaigns. It is meant to be quick, efficient, and fun as heck. Hence its motto: Fast, Furious, Fun! It is one of the best systems out there and I would check it out. And, yes, it even has a conversion chart from d20 to Savage Worlds.

Yes, but isn't that just an indication that something is flawed in the system, and that the flaw is so obvious that any player realizes it must be fixed? It occurs to me that it's usually D&D players who arrive at this conclusion, and they usually change the same things. I don't nearly as often hear of rule-tweaking in GURPS or Storyteller or several other game systems. That's not to say they don't occur, but they are far less frequent, and far individual (i.e., the players change different things in their games). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> D&D (AD&D) in all its incarnations also happens to be *by far* the most popular and played RPG on the market. In fact, it happens to be for many the first RPG they play. Whether you like it or not it is still seen as the standard (regardless of how much better you perceive other systems to be)much like what McDonald's is to fast food and Kleenex is to tissue paper. The same way you hear about McDonald's receiving the lion's share of critcisms (whereas second place BK enjoys not getting hit nearly as much despite having similar food)about how unhealthy the food is, is the same way you hear proportionately more people complain about AD&D than other far less popular systems. Sometimes being #1 hurts. AD&D/D&D still is the "grand-daddy of RPGS" and as such it is no surprise you hear about rules tweaking in D&D/AD&D more than anywhere else. But if you take the time to open-mindedly see the rulesets of other people who play GURPS or WoD, or whatever in their games.. The scenario really isn't that much different. You can even see this in a websearch. You dilsike the AD&D/D&D ruleset and so are biased against it.. and that is fine. However, you can't deny the fact that many millions still enjoy it.

The Vampire:Requiem and Dark Ages: Vampire sourecebooks go into more detail describing the clans (and some of them were even left out of the CRPG) but they are the same clans.. yes.

It definitely *is* like that for all systems! Man.. Where did you two (Grizz and Magena) with the brilliant statements come from? Thanks for breathing some sanity into this conversation.