Who plays Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition in here?

[Sharpe]

I hope it's not antisocial or poor netiquette to say so in a thread about D&D, but I play GRUPS 4e.

If you're still reading, I'm surprised.

I played 1st and 2nd ed. D&D when I was a kid and loved them. Then, I found GURPS 3e and never bothered with what I call "pencil and paper video games" again. If I wanted to play something like D&D 4e, I'd play World of Warcraft online or whatever.

I'm more interested in the role-playing aspect of our table-top sessions. D&D, the system, just seems to be all about killing monsters and "gaining levels" and systematic meta gaming to me. In my opinion, it doesn't seem to represent any type of fantasy -- heroic or historical -- that I've ever read or watched on TV or in the movies very well at all. It just seems to represent a specific video game and that video game is called D&D.

I'm a full-time police officer and a part-time firefighter (was on a vehicle extraction team). I box a lot and spend a lot of time in what I'll simply call an MMA gym. I've had some pretty good training with a knife (as in, how to use one more effectively against an unarmed opponent). From my point of view, I'd say GURPS 4e does a great job representing combat and injury in a realistic yet fun way -- the best I've seen out of the dozen or so systems I've played.

GURPS' biggest problem is its staggering learning curve. At first, the system is mind boggling. But, I taught it to myself living under a rock in a vacuum (before the Internet) when I was in the eighth grade, so its steep learning peak can be summited without a teacher. Certainly not without difficulty, though.

But, whatever your group likes and has fun with is great with me. Using your mind and imagination is much better than watching TV or playing video games on the computer or console any day!