This is it—the key that unlocks the riches of GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) and gives you a wealth of information on how to create your character and fine-tune your play.

Produced in partnership with Steve Jackson Games, the game's creator, GURPS For Dummies is the ideal companion to GURPS Basic Set, 4th Edition that explains the rules. It gives you insight into the choices you’ll make in everything from creating a fun, dynamic character using the allotted number of points, to playing in an adventure, to becoming a GM.

Whether you want to be an Amazon princess or a stalwart warrior, an old-fashioned swashbuckler or a modern investigator, a tough cop or a cat burglar, a sorcerer casting spells or a cosmic ranger, fighting lawlessness in the asteroids, this guide will help you:

• Determine your character’s basic attributes: IQ, DX (dexterity), ST (strength) and HT (health)
• Figure out your character’s secondary characteristics
• Choose advantages (including powers and perks) and disadvantages (including quirks and disadvantages with a self-control roll modifier)
• Optimize your points by using talents
• Select your skills based on functional area or the campaign setting
• Enhance your character with spells, magic items, magic staves, and powerstones
• Strategically purchase equipment for different characters, tech levels, and campaign types
• Create and manage a character sheet, write a character background, keep a character log, and more—all with samples
• Choose good combat techniques and play with your character

If you want to become a GM, this guide gets you going with advice on creating the adventure, managing the character creation process, managing combat, and interpreting the rules. There’s even a handy Cheat Sheet tear-out GM screen in the front of the book. There are tips throughout, plus advice on how to:

• Create your very own GURPS universe for your campaign, whether it’s dungeon-crawl, high-adventure, combat-focused, puzzle-focused, or masquerade-type
• Provide a basic write-up of the world for your players, including technology level, supernatural and supernormal abilities and powers, races, setting, character templates, cultural and social information, and limitations
• Create an electronic combat grid, a battle log, a tactical map, and more—with samples
• Do mapping, planning, and plotting
• Create memorable NPC (nonplayer characters), both good guys and bad guys

GURPS For Dummies helps you create more detailed, exciting, and interesting characters and take your game to the next level. That’s important whether you’re saving a princess or saving the planet…searching for hidden treasure or for secrets to eliminate disease… fighting crime or combating armies of evil robots…casting spells in medieval castles or destroying terrorist cells in modern day milieus.

With GURPS, the only limitation is your imagination.