Dungeon Fantasy & GURPS

I was redesigning some of the Pathfinder 1e iconic characters using Dungeon Fantasy, and I had this moment. The iconic Pathfinder characters are perfect in GURPS; they're shockingly good.

I am slowly getting system mastery over characters in this area, and I can express a lot of different weapon combos and fighting styles, along with quick draw options, special attacks, amped skills, advantages to support special combat moves, and armor training to increase protection.

I look at Pathfinder 1e, B/X, 5E, or even Pathfinder 2E. Why?

I feel like a computer programmer going back and being asked to use a "toy" programming language to complete a task. What do you want me to do, roll ability scores, pick a class, and roll hit points?

Why?

I can't do anything with this.

Merisiel was a good example; her bio says, "She isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer." But she solves all her problems with her knives. High DX, drop IQ for skills and abilities. Her IQ thief skills suffer, but her DX ones are great. Her sleight of hand, traps, concealment, and other IQ skills are below average. Her stealth, climbing, and escape skills are all 18-20. Her knife skills are equally high, giving her options for special attacks.

I don't get that in Pathfinder 1e; maybe she has fewer skill points. So what? Well, um, some of the DEX skills she could have bought with those skill points from INT, she can't buy - so she could be better at them. Sorry! INT gatekeeps DEX skills in this version! In GURPS, she buys points in skills linked to DEX. If her IQ is low, so are her IQ skills.

I can work on those and improve them or lean into DX and combat abilities. She may need to do social things. Perhaps she will learn magic? Does she go more dodgy or more armor-skills? I don't know.

The campaign will determine how she progresses.

And every campaign will be different.

She could progress a million ways depending on the story she goes through.

I am not looking at a thief progression chart and planning it all out. I don't know what's coming for her. She could get corruption and a disadvantage and gain dark shadow magic powers. She may lean more into thief IQ skills and need to disarm traps and do all sorts of smarts-thief stuff.

For solo play, this is super high motivation. Her starting character sheet is just that, a starting point. I will probably copy this starting character and use a duplicate for her first campaign. It is a good design that meshes with her gear, skills, and backstory. If I learn things, I can tweak her starting build.

She can go infinite ways, depending on the story's needs and how I will take her.

I look at 5E and B/X, see those build paths and skill progression charts, and sigh. There it is. It is all planned out for me. No imagination, story, or future experiences are needed. Follow the charts or the best build paths on some forum somewhere or multiclass away - you will be fine. You will have high DPS. Your passive perception will spot all traps. That old list of thief skills will always be 50% since modules scale in difficulty anyway.

I am not interested in soloing along a preset path.

I can't do anything with this.

I get this sad feeling that today's players think they know what roleplaying and character-building are. They think multiclassing, some broken class combo the play-testers never found, is "good character building." They don't even know 1% of the joy of building a character and not having a path to follow. The freedom of making your own build. Yes, there are broken things in GURPS, too, but once you find those, you can avoid them for the game's good. Or only dip into them a little and not lean so hard it breaks. But there are a million other ways every character can go.

In level-based games, my fighter will get 5 levels of roleplaying and story XP and somehow be better able to fight and kill. It doesn't even make sense. How did that happen?

If you don't have a say in your character builds, I can't say you are truly roleplaying.

You are just pushing a build along a level track predetermined for you.

And very little that happens to you matters anyway, since your character doesn't reflect those experiences.