Best sourcebooks?

[kyonshi]

I am not very fond of GURPS the rules, but I love the sourcebooks they
put out and I use a few of them all the time.
What would you say are the best ones?

Lets see, the first coming to my mind are
Discworld
Old West
Cliffhangers
Cyberpunk
Biotech

[Laurens Kils-Huetten]

kyonshi <gmk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am not very fond of GURPS the rules,

That's what many folks say, but I've repeatedly been amazed at how
intuitively and swiftly the game flows, once it's up and running.

> but I love the sourcebooks they
> put out and I use a few of them all the time.
> What would you say are the best ones?
>
> Lets see, the first coming to my mind are
> Discworld
> Old West
> Cliffhangers
> Cyberpunk
> Biotech

My favourites would be:
Vikings
Horror (the revised one for third edition by Kenneth Hite)
Time Travel
Mecha
Planet Krishna

--
https://social.sdfeu.org/@lkh
IRC: lkh on Libera.chat and others

[Bonko]

On Jan 7, 2024 at 5:58:15 PM EST, "Laurens Kils-Huetten" <l...@sdf-eu.org>
wrote:

> kyonshi <gmk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am not very fond of GURPS the rules,
>
> That's what many folks say, but I've repeatedly been amazed at how
> intuitively and swiftly the game flows, once it's up and running.
>
>> but I love the sourcebooks they
>> put out and I use a few of them all the time.
>> What would you say are the best ones?
>>
>> Lets see, the first coming to my mind are
>> Discworld
>> Old West
>> Cliffhangers
>> Cyberpunk
>> Biotech
>
> My favourites would be:
> Vikings
> Horror (the revised one for third edition by Kenneth Hite)
> Time Travel
> Mecha
> Planet Krishna

My group started out with the GURPS Lite rules because we needed a more modern
system and there was nothing out there at the time. We got into it and bought
the rules just as 4th edition was being released.

Discworld, and Cliffhangers are favourites, and the two Wild Cards books were
great in you were into the Wild Cards universe.

[kyonshi]

On 1/8/2024 3:44 PM, Bonko wrote:

>
> Discworld, and Cliffhangers are favourites, and the two Wild Cards books were
> great in you were into the Wild Cards universe.

Considering Martin's clout a few years ago, I really wonder how Wild
Cards did not manage to take off the same way as Game of Thrones. There
was the whole rise of Superheroes as a cultural touchstone, and somehow
Wild Cards got the shaft.

I guess the rights are not as easy to handle as Marvel or DC,
considering all the contributors.

[Laurens Kils-Huetten]

I recently got the original 1989 GURPS MAGIC Supplement by Steve Jackson
off of Ebay. It's got really all you need for some nice fantasy gaming:
the usual spell lists, rules for magic items (read: treasure), but
also character types like various magicians, dwarves, elves, gnomes,
halflings, reptile men, orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, minotaurs,
and a host of "monsters":

Various were-forms:

- Werewolves
- Werebears
- Wereboars
- Weretigers
- Were-Eagles (!)
- Were-Snakes (is that you Thulsa Doom?)

Randomly generated Demons, Elementals, Familiars, Golems, Zombies,
Skeletons, Mummies and Skull-Spirits. Really, what more would you need?

To me that's genious level gurps on 110 pages.

Cheers,

~lkh

--
"Know it or not, man treads between twin abysses a tightrope that has
neither beginning nor end."
-- Sheelba of the Eyeless Face [Fritz Leiber]

[Bonko]

No problems with rights. They have a consortium that shares the profits and
also controls how the writers can handle the characters created by other
members (which is why Croyd still appears in the books).

The big problem is that the series keeps getting optioned and then languishing
in developement hell until time runs out for developement. Melinda Snodgrass
was even tapped to write the screenplay for that last attempt.

It seems they keep trying to turn this into a series of movies instead of
doing a TV series. The same thing happened with the Sandman comics until
Netflix let Neil Gaiman do what he wanted. (I think Gaiman has written dozens
of treatments in the past).

[kyonshi]

Just seems like a waste. But well, by now the best idea would be to make
it into a sort of historic series, a bit like Watchmen.

I just think it would be a great setting for some more RPGs as well, but
somehow people don't even realize it exists.

[kyonshi]

On 1/11/2024 10:21 PM, Laurens Kils-Huetten wrote:

> - Were-Eagles (!)

What, no Were-hawks? Considering the 80s release I'd assume that would
be something on everyone's mind.

> - Were-Snakes (is that you Thulsa Doom?)

But is he really? He always seemed a bit more complex than that to me.
How was he statted for GURPS Conan?

[Bonko]

On Jan 12, 2024 at 3:52:11 AM EST, "kyonshi" <gmk...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/11/2024 10:21 PM, Laurens Kils-Huetten wrote:
>
>> - Were-Eagles (!)
>
> What, no Were-hawks? Considering the 80s release I'd assume that would
> be something on everyone's mind.
>
>> - Were-Snakes (is that you Thulsa Doom?)
>
> But is he really? He always seemed a bit more complex than that to me.
> How was he statted for GURPS Conan?

The Conan source book was another really great book. I lent it to friends
running their D&D Conan games because it was a better source for looking up
quick data (pre-internet).

Thulsa Doom wasn't statted up for the GURPS books as far as I can tell.

[kyonshi]

On 1/12/2024 2:32 AM, Bonko wrote:

>

> No problems with rights. They have a consortium that shares the profits and
> also controls how the writers can handle the characters created by other
> members (which is why Croyd still appears in the books).
>

I actually haven't followed Wild Cards for a while. I haven't heard
anything about new novels lately. Is it still going?

[Bonko]

Yes. There's a new book every few years, plus occasional graphic novels with
new stories. They restarted the series after a gap of a few years with new
characters as well as many returning characters.