At any rate, here it is. I ' m satisfied that GURPS is the most realistic, flexible and 'universal' system ever developed. It was five years in the making, and this Third Edition is the product of another two years of development and player comment after the initial release. I hope you like it. — Steve Jackson. Telemecanique altivar 08 manual english.

Where We've Gone This is the twentieth review in my series on the evolution of. The first nineteen reviews are: Preamble GURPS third edition was a resounding success. By mid/late 1993 it reportedly was the third best selling RPG in the United States (after AD&D and the World of Darkness series). It had cracked the major book reseller chains and had been translated into several languages besides English.

All the major genre books had been produced, culminating in in 1991. There were well over 100 official GURPS books out. By any measure it was a success.

It was also a bit of a mess. The cumulative weight of so many expansions, each with their own new advantages, disadvantages, and skills that were often repeated from book to book as all strove to only require the basic set, had made a revision desirable, if not essential.

Problem was, there was a LOT to cover. There was also too much material out there to obsolete in just a few years after it had been published. GURPS thrived on the goodwill of its players -- upsetting them with a new edition so soon could potentially be catastrophic. So an interesting decision was made.

The Basic Set would be revised to take the most crucial pieces and add them. To maintain compatibility with all the existing published adventures and world books, the page numbers in the basic set would not change. All references in other books would still be valid. The new material would replace a sample adventure ('Caravan to Ein Arris), and only take up 18 pages.

Then, the vast majority of the material would be released in two additional books, and future supplements (and reprinted old ones) could drop all the material contained within these volumes, allowing them to be expanded as well. It was a bit of a patch job, but no other solution allowed the piles of existing material to still remain viable. So in 1995 GURPS Basic Set Third Edition Revised was released. The Product The revised 3rd edition of GURPS Basic is 272 pages; the formally separate 16-page 'Instant Characters' booklet that contains most of the removable bits from the prior editions is now integrated into the book. The first 231 pages and pages 250 to 256 correspond content wise exactly to what was in the 3rd edition basic set.

However, the book has been completely re-typeset, and the art thoroughly revised. The books look considerable different both inside and out. And combined their talents to do this, and the result looks far more coherent than prior editions.

However, it's also harder to read as the pages are far busier. To their credit, the pages line up word for word. I tried several pages at random of a hardbound version of both the revised and non revised editions and the body text was essentially the same (in at least one case, some had been re-arranged, but it was still all on the same page.) Ok, so what's actually in it? For the most part, exactly the same thing that's in the original 3rd edition basic set. Some sidebars were removed -- but nothing critical (e.g.

'A note on dice' mentioning GURPS only uses d6's, some other stuff that was obsolete), and some additions were made (e.g. Metric Conversion), but by and large the material remained the same. Almost all the changes are in fact in the Appendix on pages 232 to 249. The section starts with a note explaining what's included and the scope of the problem. The goal was to include what was truly generic and not genre specific. Things that took up too much space (e.g.

Mass Combat) had to be cut -- there just wasn't space. So what appears is, as one would expect, the basic advantages, disadvantages, and skills that can be used anywhere. Power Cells for Tech Level (TL) 8+ campaigns are included, as are rules for more detailed hits to vital organs, super strength, and society control ratings (that is, how restrictive are the laws on personal freedoms within a society). The Glossary is updated slightly and the new material is integrated into the index. So is it any good?

Yes, but it's mostly the 3rd edition basic set, so it couldn't be bad. However, the more pertinent question is. Was it necessary? Yes, those rules belonged in the basic set. However, they are all also contained in the two volumes of, so the material is redundant.

Plus, having to look in two separate sections for Advantages, Disadvantages, and Skills is a big pain in the ass. It's better to just bite the bullet and get the two compendia and be done with it. That said, this did come out first, and it did tweak the rules for the additions, in some cases substantially. Getting these critical changes into the hands of the players as quickly as possible was nice.