Some of the games of the 1990s were incredible, and being in the "OSR d20 haze" of D&D worship dulls your senses to how great we had it back then. Palladium and GURPS were two fantastic games that tore D&D apart in the 1990s, along with the White Wolf Vampire system.
With Wizards no longer cool and the company acting like it did in the 1990s, it is time to go back and relive those days when TSR went bankrupt because the leadership was morally so. Thirty years later, here we are again.
Where 2010 to 2020 was reliving the OSR 1980s, I need to move on. So it is time for 1990s throwback games! There were a bunch of greats back then:
- Palladium & Rifts
- Shadowrun & Earthdawn
- Vampire & Exalted
- Runequest
- The d6 Star Wars RPG
- Paranoia
- Call of Cthulhu
- GURPS
GURPS especially, this thing is a true gem among games. Even with the complex reputation, this game is like a Linux system. Complicated and arcane when you get started, easy to get lost in and screw up, but when you gain mastery - oh boy, are you having fun. You do not need to learn much; once you do, it all makes sense, and the mechanics are unified and sane.
This is a true "power user" RPG.
One book does what four shelves full of random games do.
The character creation is way better than anything d20 I have ever seen, and Savage Worlds comes close, but GURPS is a true beast of a character customization system. You do not do classes; you are 100% built from points. The only exception is the template system out of Dungeon Fantasy RPG, but even that game says you can break the template system if you want and "do what makes you happy."
And even if you do, the characters are still balanced, have legal designs, and don't break the game. I can design a character with any expansion book, put them in a "dungeon," and the game works the same.
No classes mean you create the character you want. Also, the advantage and disadvantage system means you can build stories into characters with mechanics, something you can't do in D&D. Do I want a thief with an obsession to steal shiny objects, even to my character's detriment? Do I want a tiefling cursed with an obsession to turn into a demon and constantly having to fight that compulsion? Do I want a Robin Hood-type character hunted by an evil sheriff and his goons but loved by the local population?
The game supports simulating these story elements through mechanics instead of a 10-page backstory nobody reads. Do you have something in a backstory? Use it to gain character points if it is a disadvantage, or buy it with points if it helps your character. All that is on your character sheet with mechanics on how it affects the game and story. You can gain new ones, or complete roleplaying objectives and overcome the drawbacks in your character's background.
In d20 games, all this is "soft" and handled "in roleplaying." It is fantastic if you want to handle it this way, but for solo play, it sucks and pushes you to oracles and eventual disinterest. If I have an 8- roll for my character to see if the Sheriff of Nottingham shows up with his men looking for my character, that is an "oracle" built into my character sheet that is very specific and flavorful.
In GURPS, the story is mechanics and central to character design.
Character design drives the narrative.
In most d20 games, you pick a character class, optimize it, and feel like cattle being guided through fences. Many games spend a lot of effort to allow you to customize generic classes, which leads to a lot of rules bloat and extra books needed to get a few options. The GURPS character book does more than my shelf full of 40 Pathfinder 1e books; it gives me more character design options, complete customization, and a greater degree of expression in my character designs.
With Pathfinder 1e, I constantly had to buy "another book" to get something I wanted, and 90% of the rest was mostly unused. I get the same feeling with 5E. The games feel like "90% filler," a massive problem today - predatory consumerism and environmental waste. Buy more books! Be good consumers! Subscribe! We will find more ways to keep you paying us money!
Yes, GURPS has a lot of books too, but they are all optional. This is different than selling you books filled with 90% filler just to get one or two class and species options per book. Many of these big-business d20 games are predatory and wasteful, relying on compulsive buying and power creep to force you to buy books. It ends in a broken game, a new edition, and rebuying everything in a wasteful orgy of consumerism and environmental damage.
So I am playing GURPS for a while to clear my head. I love this game, and this is a great time to dive in and experience gaming from a great retro lens and feel.
I am waiting for the "new OSR" games of the 2020s to arrive, and I will be checking those out as the "d20 curse" is finally broken, and imagination and creativity will build a new golden age of OSR gaming. Until then, we are doing 1990s throwbacks and watching the giant fall again.
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