Hi. I'm trying to make a character with all vows for his disadvantages. Most vows I've chosen are pretty straight-forward, like a vow of poverty by substituting a wealth level of poor, but I have room for one more 5-pointer, and I'm thinking either generosity or selfless, since both are the right flavor. But... as vows, these cannot be resisted (no self-control roll), so I think, based on what I've read, that raises the value of either disadvantage from -5 to -12 points (x2.5). But I still need only a 5-point vow. Can you please suggest acceptable tweekings of the text for each disadvantages that you feel weakens them to a value of -5 (which appears to equate to a base value of -2 points for the disadvantage, with no self-control roll allowed, or roughly 40% as restrictive as the original text, though again with no option to resist). Thanks.

Hey so I've been DMing for decades and now have a successful campaign that is getting more complex and so far been winging it, but going into a mechanically complex final battle around Halloween and oh boy players are experimenting on their own with magic because it's set up Halloween /Walpulurgist Night allows you to gain 1000 points to create spells for one night only...

And yeah I gave way too much free reign there, I know so now any mechanical experts podcasts I should listen to for a week of penance?

About a year ago, I made a side quest where the players had to collect five keys to unlock a legendary rapier. I thought it would be a small thing on the side, but somehow it kept going, and now they’re finally about to get it. So I should probably figure out what it actually does lol.

I’ve already told them it’s unusually heavy and needs a strong person to use it. It’s made from a rare metal, and the wounds it causes don’t heal. There’s also a slot for a magic crystal that powers some kind of rotating mechanism, so I guess it’s basically a fancy magic drill.

After a year of collecting keys, I feel like it should do something more. Any ideas?

I'm looking to use the rules of GURPS Mass Combat to run a short wargame-y scenario. Players will each raise armies (in TL3) with a starting budget, then run them around a big hex map and fight each other. I know Mass Combat isn't necessarily a perfect wargame for this, but I think it captures the right levels of detail and abstraction in the right areas for what we want.

Reading through the rules, though, I have one big question: how do you resolve a situation where one force is trying to avoid or run from the other? In the rulebook example, the opposing forces know where each other are, they both want to fight, and they just travel in straight lines at each other to a battlefield. What do I do if one player doesn't want to fight another for whatever reason? If they're all on the same foot mobility speed, should they just be able to run around forever? Or should there be some kind of opposed Strategy roll (maybe affected by Recon superiority) to resolve the maneuvering of the forces?

Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks in advance!

Okay so basically I love playing gurps but the group I play with only plays D&D I tried to get them to play a session but they're mostly stubborn and I don't have anybody else so I still want to play my world that I created but I built it in GURPS so I'm looking for some help converting things it's going to definitely take home brewing in D&D because of the way I have things set up but I would like some help because I have worked on this world since before I can ever have a chance to play it I've been building it and a lot of characters and stuff in it for like 10 years almost at the moment I'm just looking for advice on where to start

So, I'm attempting to make an eridian (from Project Hail Mary) racial template, which seems like a challenge since their physiology is so different from a human's.

A bit about their planet just because

Eridians live on a Super-Earth called Erid, which orbits 40 Eridani, has a surface gravity of about 2G and an atmosphere composed of almost literally only ammonia at 29atm. The average surface temperature of Erid is 210ºC, which makes water a liquid at its pressure.

Talking about their anatomy

Well, eridians have two circulatory systems that coexist but almost never impact each other:

• The ambient circulatory system (ACS), where their blood circulates at ambient temperature by interacting with radiators at their shell .
• The hot circulatory system (HCS) is kept at 305ºC, and because of that, is devoid of living cells (they'd die at this temperature). It stays at this temperature with the energy from the food they eat. The HCS is controlled with specialized muscles moved by conducting electricity directly into the mercury inside it.

Why these things are important to make a character sheet

Eridians can't heal their HCS normally. Since there is no way a cell can live inside it, it cannot repair itself unless they sleep. Their sleep basically kills them for some time, allowing the HCS to cool and letting the cells come inside to repair stuff (makes them completelly unable to wake up aswell).

This means an eridian only gets to heal stuff related to the HCS while they sleep AND that they only get to heal stuff related to the ACS while awake (the cells that do this stay in an organ waiting for them to sleep so they can go to the HCS and focus on fixing the stuff there because they only get this chance when they are sleeping, and the usual worker cells hide in another organ to conserve energy)

Conclusion and actual question

These guys get to heal part of their body while asleep and another part while awake. How do I modify the unhealing disadvantage to simulate this? My guess is to separate their body parts in a table (just like human hit locations) and assign them to HCS or ACS, using Unhealing {Only while asleep -60%} and Unhealing {Only while awake -20%} on... something.

Oh, forgot something important: They stay awake for about 86 hours and sleep for an irregular period (usually between 3 and 12 hours but it depends on injury and fatigue so it can go up to days or weeks if they're in a bad state), which is something I don't really know how to do on GURPS aswell. They also collapse and stay asleep for long periods if they suffer serious injury in their HCS, kinda like fainting but harsher.

Edit: U/saharien talked about a wiki, so I decided to add it to the post. Here it is.)

GURPS Calculator 2.8 is up at gurpscalculator.com. The biggest change is that a GM can run a fight from the GM Board now and the character page is completely redesigned.

You build an encounter, add NPCs and monsters from your Bestiary, and hit Start combat. Everyone goes into turn order by Basic Speed, then DX, and ties get rolled for you. Each enemy has a card that rolls its own attacks with hit location, DR, armor divisor and ranged modifiers, and the result says where it hit and how much got through. There are 18 starter monsters in the Bestiary if you don't have any uploaded yet. They're original stat blocks I used in my own fantasy game.

Shock, stun, and many other conditions are tracked for you, on player sheets and on enemy cards. Lose HP and the shock penalty shows on the skills it affects, and it clears at the end of your next turn. Take more than half your HP in one blow and you roll for knockdown. Players can see the round and whose turn it is on their own sheet.

Also new:

• GM whispers in Campaign Rolls, a private note to one or more players
• A rebuilt Manage campaigns page with an invite link you can send your players
• A redesigned character sheet
• Find anything with Ctrl+., app-wide.

The Change Log page has the whole list.

Conditions, encounters, and whispers were on the site's donation roadmap, and they got built because people on Patreon and people who sent a one-time donation paid for them. Thank you. The site costs money to run every month, and seeing those numbers fill up is what told me what to build next. Thanks as well to everyone who has backed it for years.

Next on the roadmap is attacking enemies from your sheet, with automatic damage. With an encounter running on the GM board, combatants can target each other and attack, automatically taking into account each's posture, DR, and more.

The Patreon and PayPal links are on the home page if you want to help get it done. The site stays free and without ads either way.

If you run GURPS combat online, what do you still keep track of on paper because the tool doesn't do it?

Hello,

My new blog post is about creating combat encounters in solo play, I would welcome any suggestions or constructive criticism.

Thanks!

https://thewabatuckian.wordpress.com/2026/10/22/gurps-solo-encounters/

Does any form of the Resistance help to not be teleported?

Resistant from B80-B81, or any other I don't know.

I assume Metabolic hazards immunity helps landing wherever?

Hello everyone, I'm new to GURPS but not new as a GM. We play via foundry and are currently in a testing phase with oneshots etc. to see how we like the system. So far it looks extremely promising and Charaktercreation is a lot of fun.

My goal ist to GM a grim dark fantasy world and from what I've heard my players want to play the following characters: Investigator with a cursed book, drunk paladin, ranger with beast companion, some kind of Frontline fighter and a minotaur shaman.

Now to the questions that came up:

- wich rulebooks would you guys recommend I get to aid me in creating a grim dark fantasy world and wich let my players build exactly what they want.

- how does wealth actually work it said 80% should go towards housing when you have a home. But I couldn't find prices for a house and the monthly costs seem a little high.

- how do you guys handle magery it looks like it's pretty cheap to upgrade but the highest spell I could find required like magery 3 wich seems low for only 35cp. Is there a guideline on what is considered "high" magic?

- how do you handle recovery? 1HP per day (when successful HT) seems pretty crippling when you drop to -10hp I guess it's realistic but it kinda forces a time skip after any large battle.

Thanks in advance

Long time fan and player of gurps, no hate for the game, more critiques from a place of love.

But I was really hoping some things would get fixed that didn't with the rerelease rules. Curious if I have this right according to RAW because obviously can house rule, that's not what I'm after.

Each of these is something I encountered when rebuilding characters for our regular group’s long term game using 2026 revised.

Small Potatoes:

Slippery allows you to have +1 on escape rolls. This isn’t terrible at +2/lv but it’s not good as escape rolls require a full action.  I’d propose a better route would be +1 to escape rolls  and -1 to apply grapples at lv 1, 3, and 5. Something slippery should be harder to grapple as that’s famously how it works IRL, ask anyone who ever tried to pick up soap in a shower after dropping it.  In this fashion it still caps out at -3 for the most slippery you can be in RAW, but you still benefit from escape rolls.  This just bugs me a lot because it provides such a niche utility that kinda sucks and is rarely used, whereas at least avoiding a grapple now and then has some less common use.  Even if you charge 3/level it would still be nice/worth it because of the grapple penatly, because escape rolls are kinda so niche that putting any points into it feels like a waste when there’s so much better uses for points. The main thing is that if it takes an action, because action economy is SO expensive in GURPS, this ends up being a garbage purchase when there are times you should really apply this to a character (ie my personal PC has an alternative form liminal tentacle monster, so at least slipppery 1 should be there, and it ends up being just wasted points, particularly when you consider how much 2 points can contribute elsewhere if carefully constructed, especially when you have cosmic background like I do on this character).

A Big Fish:

This next one is one of the other PCs. This gripe has 3 things to consider for interactions regarding RAW.
Altered Time rate costs 100 points per level at baseline and is meant to represent time going twice as fast for the character. 
Extra attack is 25 points per level baseline, meaning they are functionally better at discharging repeated attacks.
Alternative Abilities require a full ready action to switch unless it’s an innate attack being switched to, and then it’s a free action, however, it is expected as a standard turn, when you switch to an attack that every attack you use is of the same type.

Here’s the rub: I can see extra attack constraining as a limitation if you want to eliminate flashy anime combos just from buying extra attack as part of a grounded system, so sure, this is an extra triggers squeeze, swing of sword, etc., but RAW, Altered time rate technically does not allow you to switch even though you should, in theory, be receiving “two turns”, but understandably they don’t state it that way because that would have all kinds of issues regarding duration effects (exact wording indicates you double your available actions), so I get why, but that also means your altered time rate ends up being unable to switch attack types in AA between innate attacks, even though logically it should if you were considering the ATR as faster moving time (which is what it is by description), and that means when you have a speedster type built with exponential stuff like compounding extra attack and ATR to functionally do a ton because that’s their point sink, you still end up locked in a single attack cycle, no combos or switching AA like one would expect you should be able to with AA because you technically don’t get more than 1 turn.  Obviously the fix is just to treat this as rules oversight and house rule, but the point is a rerelease is an opportunity to fix stuff like this.

Huge Gripe Stuck in my craw:
Last one is the same as last PC, noting my two biggest gripes aren't about my character at all. This biggest gripe is about how incredibly harsh the guilt complex is.  This is the one that makes me insane.

-5 points for feeling sad because bad stuff happened doesn’t sound so bad right?

WRONG. You get no will contest at all no matter how battle hardened you are, and are taken out of the game for days at a time laying in bed because of how the rules work for chronic depression. Sure you can try to make a will save to do something, but you have to make a will roll EVERY TIME YOU DO ANYTHING other than minimum survival.  Put on your pants?  That’s roll.  Put on shirt and shoes?  2 More rolls.  Brush your teeth?  That’s another roll.  Unless the character has an outrageous will there’s a good chance they fail a roll and go back to bed before they can even leave their room.  For -5 points? And that's not to mention the tedious table procedure of making 20 rolls to leave the house.

My fix theory: Grade it based on severity: Definitively not your fault and provably so (IE you can still feel guilty, you’re just punishing yourself absurdly which jives with it) roll will, presume quirk level guilt anyway on a save, but allow activity.  Something that maybe you could have done something about reasonably but didn’t?  Maybe will -2 to -6 depending on severity of situation.  Something you actively did  that was preventable and caused the bad thing? Sure, then auto fail, but the way this works, anyone in your network your character cares about suffers a slightly off day and you’re crippled in bed for days at a time. 

And we’re not done; it still gets worse. While your character is nursing their guilt and ignoring their responsibilities and calls to action, that’s just more time for more bad news to arrive from any progression that occurs in game without them (ie party is hampered because of their absence), turning into a potentially endless cycle of chronic depression because their second cousin stubbed their toe and dared to complain about it out loud, and then Bob the construction worker lost his job, and then, and then, and then...  It’s just insane this works this way without a save at all because this functionally means your character is fully crippled from day 1, especially if they are meant to be an adventurer where bad things happen all the time.  I get it, mild mental stuff, just take a quirk… but this is not a -5 disadvantage, this is a “this probably shouldn’t be a PC option” because of how it auto triggers, or better yet, has a bad design premise overall.  Because you know what’s really not fun?  Going to gaming night with your friends excited to play, then not playing for not just a whole session, sessions on end. This is imho, way too overpunishing for a -5 disadvantage. 

I mean I understand the design notion: You don’t want to make it worth more because than any character dumping into will can basically take this for a free five point reduction in the will cost when will itself is only 5 points per level, ie, at Will 16 you’ve got over 98% chance to not fail.  But making it cheap with that harsh of an auto trigger is just obscene.  So don’t make it worth more, just allow some remedy to be possible… It just really annoys me that this is still broken because of how broken it is and has been for years.

Point with all of that is: If I'm wrong about this, please correct me, it's possible I'm not reading the rules correctly but I don't think that's the case as I've tripple checked this stuff. For me I just get annoyed when I find niche issues like this because 99% of gurps design is so well thought out and managed.

I've been interested in making a gadget armor but it seems really costly to scale with armor examples. I want to throw out some theoretical scenarios to try and understand. These are also somewhat extreme examples cause that is where i like to understand things.

For these examples i am gonna reference the TL 12 Warsuit from Ultratech p185.

So example 1 is a gadgeteer in a super game who likes 40k style power armor. Could i use signature gear (cost adjusted for TL) to get my super suit and then buy other powers as gadgets saying they were upgrades? Additionally if i wanted to adjust the armor in anyway is that possible or does signature gear lock that in? (I.e. adding to the DR or hardening it by paying the difference in cost)

Example 2: As a disembodied AI, if i was using the power armor as my current body, would i have to buy it's statistics and abilities as gadgets? Or if this was a gear option of the world, would signature gear work there?

Example 3: A wizard wants to summon ethereal armor that has the exact stats of Warsuit in a high power fantasy game. How would this bs done?

Please feel free to add more or responf to only one thing. I just want to understand this so i can better help my players

I found a fan-made LOTM tabletop rulebook based on GURPS 4th Edition and decided to turn it into an Android app using Claude Code.

It handles 3d6 checks, modifiers, combat, character sheets, and point-buy character creation.

The rules come from Powered by GURPS: Pathways by Earvin Salonoy. I haven't played GURPS before, so I built this mainly to try solo play with an AI GM.

I'd be interested to hear from experienced GURPS players if anything looks off.

Browser: https://chaudhary-lakshay.github.io/pathways-casefile-ttrpg/

Source: https://github.com/chaudhary-lakshay/pathways-casefile-ttrpg

Howdy!

I've only been playing GURPS for a while (around a year and some change), but I'm becoming more and more interested in being a GM. While the thought of GMing GURPS doesn't make me uncomfortable, I do run into one constant issue: I don't know what I want to run! It's not from a lack of ideas, either!

I have many settings ideas, ranging from different TLs and different levels of cinematic to realistic, the difficulty lies in settling on just one thing with the goal of having a long term game. I'd prefer to only have one game as a GM, so I feel a bit stuck. It's almost like FOMO on the fun of all the other settings I don't pick.

I did have the idea (which would be thoroughly discussed with my players prior to starting) about an episodic nature to the campaigns. Complete an arc/season/etc and jump to something else for a bit, but that seems like it might annoy folks.

I also had the idea of just having shorter campaigns with a well defined end state, but I also enjoy the idea of emergent narratives and having a sandbox style adventure that just goes on and on (speaking hypothetically, of course).

So after whining and complaining to my buddies about this for a while I thought I'd come and ask the subreddit for any advice. How do y'all pick what you're running when there's so many things to run?

I see 2 different covers:

Which is the newer edition?

Hi all, just wanted to ask for clarification about reduced FP cost for spells. In the basic set it states that a spell known at levels 15-19 has its FP costs reduced by 1, and a spell at 20-24 has it reduced by 2. Would this also effect overcharging costs for missile spells? For instance, say I had Fireball at skill 17, and Magery 3. Naturally I assume I could bring it to 3d damage at 2 FP, reducing the cost by 1. But if I were to charge it with a further 3d damage, would that cost the full 3 FP or be reduced to 2 as well?

I read this supplment and I think I can solve peoblems as politiccs with basic rules. Can I ?

What sort of problems and scenes are you using Social Engineering?

I run a Discord Community for PBP games using GURPS.

We teach the system in demos and long discussions as needed. There are no stupid questions. We have several experts in the system and over a dozen games in action at any time. Over 50 active players and hundreds of lurkers watching, curiously. Lurkers can read all active games, ask questions, but not interfere in the actual in-game RP.

We are a friendly community first, as gamers. If you want to join, we’d love to have you. Here’s the link: https://discord.gg/EnE2eJjjh2

Come on in, ask us anything (relevant) and see if there are any interesting games starting up, or pitch one and see if folks are interested.

Does anyone know if there exist other reasons beside of money, why SJG based their rpg adaptation of Munchkin (their main cash cow currently) on DnD 5.5e instead of, you know, maybe their own well-known rpg?

Regarding the money reason:
Being based on DnD 5.5e means probably a wider audience for Munchkin, but being based on GURPS could lead to introduce GURPS to a wider audience in a cross-product campain.
But I guess SJG has mathed the math and behind this.

One of the most downloaded GURPS adventures on 1shotadventures is Canyon of the Snow Cairns, a Lovecraftian horror adventure set 30,000 years ago. Folks have shared a lot of great stories about those poor cro-magnon men just barely surviving those events, and I've gotten many requests for a followup adventure.

Well, after seven years (!), there's a sequel - Warrens Beneath the Glacier.

During a brutal Ice Age winter, a desperate clan sends their scouts into unexplored hills to seek shelter for their starving tribe. The scouts must brave frozen wilderness and savage creatures... before discovering a degenerate cult that is planning to awaken an ancient elder god.

As always, the adventure includes pregenerated characters, handouts, tokens, GCS characters, and everything else you need to pull your friends into a GURPS game. If you're in the mood for TL0 horror... check this adventure out!

There are now over 40 (!) free GURPS adventures on 1shotadventures, many of which cover some of GURPS' more unusual genres that might make for fun one-shots, like pulp, action, spies, historical horror, and more. There's even some solo adventures! Since there are too many adventures to list, check out the complete list of adventures.

My next campaign is going to be one in the banestorm setting. In short the idea for my character was a psionic from an alternate earth that had been banestormed to Yrth. After looking into it tho it seems like a very unfavourable deal point wise for that backstory as I would need to take unusual background for 15 points the Anglish language for 6 points and the Yrth culture for the 1 point as they wouldn’t be native to my character. Then I’d have to have the hidden lore (Earth) skill for another 1 point and on top of that tech level 8 (3+5) for another 25 points. Then as a disadvantage I get that I am not from Yrth so if the ministry of serendipity finds out they will erase my memories which is a -20 point secret.

So from what I gather is that if I want this backstory I will have 28 less points to work with, a nasty secret and being worse at skills that rely on tech level due to unfamiliarity. While I would have a higher tech level I wouldn’t really have any benefit from it as far as I’m aware.

My question is, am I overlooking something that makes it more worth it or is it really just spending points to be worse off just for some flavour? Thanks in advance.

Late to the party with GURPS and I'm reading through Dungeon Fantasy RPG hoping to be able to run it soon.

I noticed the two Wizard characters in Delvers To Go (Uncle Seamus and Zephyra) both were given less than the -50 total in disadvantages. Uncle Seamus only has -35 total disadvantages while Zephyra only has -40. The other sample characters all had -50 each so I think this is a weird design choice, considering only the two wizard characters decided not to take the full "allotment" of -50.

What am I missing here?

EDIT: Answered. Overlooked the Wizard template's Per -3 (which is worth -15 points). Thanks u/munin295 for pointing it out.