Open Quest Redux, and GURPS

Open Quest has put Mythras in storage. This is just the more accessible and complete game, especially compared to Classic Fantasy Imperative and the base Mythras book (still too small type to read easily). I want Mythras to rock, but as they convert to the ORC license and get material reprinted and cleaned up, it does not feel like either Mythras or Classic Fantasy is there.

Open Quest stands out for its simplicity and directness, a design choice that sets it apart from other games. Its most intriguing aspect is the absence of traditional classes, which paves the way for a unique gaming experience. This is akin to the fun and diverse play options offered by GURPS, where the lack of classes opens up a plethora of exciting possibilities.

The one thing that keeps me from using 5E for many stories is classes. I will have a more social or story-based campaign, and a character that should not be "becoming more and more of a killer" is suddenly becoming one and not improving social and story skills. I like the concept of a character "falling behind" in fighting power because they aren't getting into fights and having to go back and train to compensate for the lack of combat ability.

All of this is slowly pushing me back into GURPS. Open Quest is a great game, one of the best BRP-style dungeon games on the market. But for how I play, it would still fall short. It would be better than 5E for me, but GURPS is the king of character builders. GURPS also lets you design a 1,000-point historian with zero combat power; in that element, they would be the best in the world.

I get it; 5e is fun from a "structured play" aspect.

But when I tell stories, they are never structured. Do you mean to tell me that if my mage spends six sessions in social situations, talking, solving problems, and not casting a spell - the XP will be enough for them to get a level and be a better killer and user of magic?

I didn't even use one spell!

Now I know more?

What is even dumber is that I have zero social skills and problem-solving abilities. Here is some killing power! Thank you for being social and solving all those problems!

I have a game in which I am doing X, Y, and Z, which gives me more power to do A, B, and C.

That sort of "no reward play" leads me to quit. I will never get rewarded for XYZ (social and problem solving), never do ABC (combat and killing), and at every level, it gets worse. Nothing helps me do XYZ, and I get worse at it as my combat power goes up like some JRPG character on a preset, hardcoded into the ROM progression track. They will never be good at anything other than making a damage number go higher and higher.

Some classes force you into killing. My fighter isn't given many social skills since the game has a built-in death bias towards some classes. This bias is lame and has been the fatal flaw in D&D and class-based games for 50 years.

This is why we left D&D in the 1980s for GURPS.

If the king sends my character to stop two warring tribes, I can approach it however I want. I could get history books, spend character points on specialized history skills for each tribe, and come at them knowing everything they are about. Your tribe did this 300 years ago, but this tribe still holds your sacred hunting ground; let's make a swap and figure this out peacefully.

Or I could go combat, get tactics and battle leadership skills, pick a side, and wipe the other out.

I could go stealthy and subterfuge.

I could go 100% diplomatic.

I could use history against them.

Anyway, there is a skill that can support my problem-solving.

You get a typical 5E module, and it is either an OSR-like "dungeon atlas" to kill through, or all of the above solutions have to be "thought of" by the writer of the adventure and put in there as options they choose for you - since 5E characters kill first and think later. 5E Adventures presents killing as the first solution and has to go out of its way to show a few non-violent options (if they do at all, since combat is "fun," just like a video game).

Open Quest would do this style of play nicely in a d100 BRP-style framework. You control your advances. Thus, you control the areas in which your character improves.

GURPS is still the master of this style of play. It has everything Open Quest doesn't, but in some ways, doesn't need. However, I still like being able to design characters down to the point, buy advantages and disadvantages, and specialize in skills most games would dismiss as "needless, pointless detail."

If I am playing a game where needing to know specialized things matters?

It matters a whole lot.