I agree 100% with your sentiment about the quality and depth of supplemental books having sharply dropped off! I don’t know exactly where the turning point was for me… sometime around Tasha’s Cauldron and its variant rules for racial traits, maybe… but I definitely lost interest in anything new that they put out. I saw how thin Spelljammer and Fizban’s Treasury were, and thought… “that’s it?!”

If you don’t mind indulging me, could you elaborate on what you like better about GURPS? I tried to get into it, but was quickly put off by its extreme granularity. Character creation boiled down to (and I’m paraphrasing),

You can be literally anyone or anything!!! …as long as you meet the budget for points. However, this is a setting-agnostic system, so make sure you check in with your game master to see if your concept is actually allowed in their game. Also the primary attributes, skills, and point values of various traits could all be quite different than the default presented here because, again, they might not make sense for the setting of your game. So maybe your game master should hold your hand through character creation. But anyways, here’s a three-mile-long list of things you can spend your points on, go nuts!

The foreword also said something along the lines of, “here’s the most important rules, you can ignore the rest of this book and still play GURPS just fine” …but that sounds like the same thing you’re complaining about with D&D? That it leaves SO MUCH up to the game master to decide.

In D&D 5e, personally I appreciated having only the basic rules in the PHB. I felt that combat was complex enough without having called shots, flanking, speed factor, and lingering injuries presented as the default. But when we were ready to increase the complexity, we were quite glad to have all of those additional rules written up in the DMG in a modular format.

Likewise, when 95% of the game is focused on combat, social interaction, and exploring dungeon-like environments, I don’t see any need for the basic rules to include a fine-tuned granular system for downtime activities. “You can create 5gp worth of any item per day using the appropriate set of tools, given that you are proficient, and it costs you half that much in raw materials.” Boom, that’s super simple and it gets the job done for the majority of players who are interested in crafting during their downtime in between the actual adventures. For those hardcore outliers who desire a more fleshed-out set of rules for tools, Xanathar’s includes DC’s for a range of tasks to do with each tool, a list of specific components that are included in each kind of tool kit, and at least three examples per tool for how you can apply it in conjunction with a skill OR use the tool in a special way. It’s a lot more detailed than just “consider giving the player advantage and maybe an added benefit IDK.”

I know you’re frustrated that it’s buried in a supplemental text rather than the core rulebook, but I don’t know. Should the PHB also have the specific rules for large-scale army battles? Maritime navigation? How to play dragon chess? There’s only so much you can fit into the basic rulebook…

Edit to add: I hope I’m not coming across as combative. Your criticisms are definitely valid, and I think it’s a case of different players valuing different aspects of the game. I am genuinely interested to hear from someone who’s played GURPS and stuck with it; there has to be an elegance to the system that I haven’t had the opportunity to see, and I’d love to hear your take on it.

Unfortunately the DMG says that if a character somehow acquires the same feature more than once, only one counts.

This is the anwer. You could always homebrew your own game and try to balance it, and you’d start to find where the game breaks. Play 10,000 games like that, and patterns will emerge. Game developers spend a lot of time playtesting, and they still miss things. Just thinking of a new twist and asking why it doesn’t work is like asking why cars don’t have six wheels.

Why don’t cars have six wheels though.

I knew a wizard that had traded his soul for favors so many times he was effectively immortal. He never went adventuring any more, just oversaw research in our flying screened tower. Since old age was the only feasible way he was going to die, which would cause a war between all the outer planes over ownership of his soul, no one would cause his death. He was 218 when I met him, and he was over 5000 years old, and a demigod of secrets, when I met him again, because of a mixup we had while inventing portal magic. We ended up 5000 years in the past and I went back to the present, but he stayed behind. Pagiathrakatos was an interesting dude. Got a compliment from a dwarf on his impressive beard.

Or just play one of those systems. GURPS is great.

You don’t need that much traction on a high gravity planet and the two extra wheels become unnecessary.

On the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else where the gravitational acceleration is below 5 m/s², you want six wheels, because at least two of them will always not contact the ground due to poor traction and movement over uneven terrain.

Your fighter is gonna be very disappointed when they find out which level they get action surge at

If you don’t mind indulging me, could you elaborate on what you like better about GURPS? I tried to get into it, but was quickly put off by its extreme granularity.

Gladly, any chance I can get, tbh. The base system is very simple: for anything you’re trying to do, the GM determines what the relevant skill is, and what situational modifiers make that attempt easier or more difficult, roll 3d6 ≤ skill level ± modifiers. With the exception of rolling damage and a handful of other situational things (Reaction, Self Control, etc.), basically everything you do mechanically will be that same Success Roll (3d6 ≤ Skill Level ± Modifiers). All the granularity comes down to determining your Skill Level and relevant Modifiers.

The point buy character creation is awesome, it’s really it’s own mini-game. You have total control over what you’re able to do, and good at (within the confines of your specific setting). I got fed up with trying to build a character concepts within the D&D creation options. It got to where I was cobbling together races and classes and subclasses and feats and multiclass dips to try to approximate an idea, picking up all sorts of baggage I was never going to use and only halfway getting to what I envisioned, and even then only by the grace of a tolerant DM.

I like making exactly the character I want, and not worrying that it’s going to be some half-baked novelty or an overpowered munchkin. I got bored making D&D characters after like 7 or 8; they’re all either the same basic mechanic build with a personality swap, or basically useless in play outside very specific conditions.

The foreword also said something along the lines of, “here’s the most important rules, you can ignore the rest of this book and still play GURPS just fine” …but that sounds like the same thing you’re complaining about with D&D?

The difference is: D&D touches vaguely on a subject, or doesn’t touch on it at all, and tells you to fill in the rest ; GURPS gives you more options than you can ever use, and tells you to pick and choose whatever helps you in your story and setting. When considering value as a game system, I much prefer being given a selection to choose from than bare bones that I’m forced to expand on.

Again, it comes down to design, balance, and playtesting. GURPS gives you balanced mechanics to incorporate as you please, D&D forces you to come up with adjudication on the spot and pray that it doesn’t break anything. It’s the difference between being handed a tub of Lego, and a tub of clay.

I know you’re frustrated that it’s buried in a supplemental text rather than the core rulebook, but I don’t know. Should the PHB also have the specific rules for large-scale army battles? Maritime navigation? How to play dragon chess? There’s only so much you can fit into the basic rulebook…

Where do you find those rules in D&D? A bit in Xanathar, a bit in Tasha, a bit in Volo, a bit in Saltmarsh, a bit in SCAG, more bits sprinkled around.

GURPS has plenty of supplementals, but the organization and density of content is miles better. In GURPS, the basic stuff to build most characters, and the core mechanics are in Basic Set Characters. The advanced mechanics are in Basic Set Campaigns. The advanced rules for magic are in Magic. The advanced rules for melee combat are in Martial Arts. The rules for space stuff are in Space. The rules for sci-fi technology are in Hi-Tech. There are dozens of short supplementals for Mass Combat or Social Engineering or Psionic Powers. Everything is modular, indexed, and extensively cross-referenced.

If I want to use a special mechanic, I don’t have to guess where it is and go digging. I go to the book that makes sense and check the contents or index, and I can find an obscure rule within a minute. If a mechanic interacts with another, it’ll tell me.

Personally, I love the granularity. For as much as D&D focuses on combat, it’s so boring. Roll to attack, miss AC. Roll to attack, hit AC, roll damage. Some classes sprinkle some extra damage for certain conditions, and wizards get a little more creative utility, but otherwise that’s it. GURPS has superior mechanics for defense, grappling, targeted shots, tactical maneuvers, martial arts techniques, shock, wounds. All optional, but you do have options, and you can use that options creatively.

The main problem OP cited, not being able to multi-subclass, can’t happen because there are no classes. Choose whatever abilities and attributes suit your character concept, campaign setting, and budget. The only time it restricts you from doing something is when you try to take things that contradict each other (like being Wealthy and Dead Broke), or break the balance (like adding over 80% Limitations on a Trait to make it super cheap).

Oh yeah, Enhancements and Limitations, another awesome level or granularity that let’s you further fine tune your Traits to align exactly with your concept. Honestly, I could gush about this system all day. I could never imagine going back to 5e.

You don’t need that much traction on a high gravity planet and the two extra wheels become unnecessary.

On the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else where the gravitational acceleration is below 5 m/s², you want six wheels, because at least two of them will always not contact the ground due to poor traction and movement over uneven terrain.

Do you happen to read Brust? This reads very Brust.

More wheels is also good on low traction surfaces, or to reduce ground pressure. An extra axel can also reduce the chance of beaching on rough terrain.

Multiclassing because it’s fun even if it doesn’t work that well will always have a place in my heart. I’m currently playing a barely-functional monk/druid. I think I can get him to work, but right now his tiger wildshape is more of the paper variety

The joke’s on you: thanks to min-maxing, the fighter can’t count in the first place!

Why does this sound so familiar?

Warlock: I promised my soul in exchange for great power.

Rogue: To which great power?

Warlock: All of them. Let them fight over it when I am dead.

It’s really something that comes down to personal taste. I’ve played 5e for 6 years, and I’ve been playing a GURPS campaign for about 7 months.

It’s Apple vs. Android. Some people just want to pick it up and play. Some people need that level of customization or the experience isn’t enjoyable.

D&D is much easier to pick up. The book says pick a race (species now I guess), class, and background. It even suggests a background and starting gear. If you want, you can customize these two things as much as you like, and picking variant human means picking up a feat at 1 for further refinement. Plus you likely also have some spells or race/class traits to pick from. That’s a fair amount of customization at level 1.

Compared to GURPS, you have an OCEAN of options right off the bat. Even if you only have 40 character points, you could spend them in more ways than is possible to experience in a lifetime. The Basic Set alone is massive, and the system has more supplemental material than even D&D 3.5. You can pick some skills and not realize you’re missing very fundamental things like ‘will my strong fighter guy fail every jump attempt he tries’ or ‘can I even use any weapon besides a sword’ because I didn’t invest in that.

I love both systems, and neither one is perfect. Working around the limitations of 5E is actually a lot of fun, but so is making a mutant extra-dimensional spellsword ogre with color blindness, universal digestion, an honest face, and coitophobia.