GURPS vs Tricube Tales
Compare GURPS and Tricube Tales side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| GURPS | Tricube Tales | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal | Universal |
| Tags | Crunchy, Simulation, Character Building, Classless, Skill-Based, Modular, Toolkit, Tactical, Grid-Based, Strong GM Support | Rules-Light, Player-Only Rolls, Narrative, Toolkit, Beginner-Friendly, Family-Friendly, CC-Licensed Rules |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 3d6 at or below a modified attribute or skill to succeed. Quick contests compare margins of success or failure. | Players roll one to three six-sided dice against a difficulty of 4 to 6 and succeed if any single die meets or beats it. The pool comes from the archetype: 3d6 when the character's trait fits the challenge, 2d6 when it does not, and one die fewer when the task falls outside their concept. Succeeding on two or three dice is an exceptional success, and rolling all ones is a critical failure. Players make every roll, including defense, so the GM never rolls dice. Karma tokens lower a difficulty by 1 or fuel a perk, while declaring a quirk raises it by 1 to earn karma back. |
| Dice | 3d6 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very High | Low |
| Accessibility | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Medium |
| License | SJ Games Online Policy | CC BY 3.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — SJ Games Online Policy | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Steve Jackson Games | Zadmar Games |
| Year | 2004 | 2026 |
| Languages | English, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese | English |
| Best For | Groups who want detailed character customization and consistent simulation across different genres. | Tables that switch settings often and want one ruleset to cover all of them, or groups introducing children and first-time players who need rules with no arithmetic. |
| Highlights | Point budgets let players build characters around chosen strengths and limitations. Optional rules let the GM tune the level of detail for a campaign. Maneuver choices give combatants trade-offs between attacking, moving and defending. | Players roll to attack and to defend while the GM never touches the dice, which keeps the GM focused on describing the world rather than resolving it. Declaring a quirk raises a challenge's difficulty but refunds a karma token, giving players a mechanical reason to drag their own flaws into a scene. Eleven optional genre modules cover magic, superpowers, vehicles, and mass battles, so one ruleset stretches across settings without a second book. |
| Considerations | Selecting and modifying character traits takes time during character creation. Detailed combat can require several rolls to resolve one attack. The GM must establish which abilities and optional rules fit the campaign. | The GM assigns every difficulty and adjudicates what each perk can do, so outcomes rest on one person's consistency rather than on written rules. Characters are built from a single archetype, perk, and quirk, which leaves little mechanical distinction between two PCs who share a trait. Gear grants no bonuses and exists only to justify what a character can attempt, so equipment choices never change the dice. |