The Generic Universal Role Playing System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system published by Steve Jackson Games. The system is designed to run any genre using the same core mechanics. The core rules were first written by Steve Jackson and published in 1986, at a time when most such systems were story- or genre-specific. Since then, four editions have been published. The current line editor is Sean Punch.
Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and the gaming magazine Pyramid.
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cognition, and well-being.
Transhuman, or trans-human, is the concept of an intermediary form between human and posthuman. In other words, a transhuman is a being that resembles a human in most respects but who has powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans. These abilities might include improved intelligence, awareness, strength, or durability. Transhumans appear in science-fiction, sometimes as cyborgs or genetically-enhanced humans.
A generic or universalrole-playing game system is a role-playing game system designed to be independent of setting and genre. Its rules should, in theory, work the same way for any setting, world, environment or genre in which one would want to play.
An infomorph is a virtual body of information that possesses self-awareness and sentience. The term was coined in Charles Platt's 1991 novel The Silicon Man, where it refers to a single biological consciousness transferred into a computer through a process of mind transfer. In the book, a character defines an infomorph as "intelligence held in a computer memory", and an "information entity".
GURPS Basic Set is a role playing game publication written by Steve Jackson, Sean M. Punch, and David L. Pulver. The first edition GURPS Basic Set box was published in 1986, a standalone third edition book in 1988, and a hardcover, two-volume fourth edition in 2004.
GURPS Traveller is a set of table-top role-playing game books by Steve Jackson Games, designed to allow game play in the Third Imperium science-fiction setting from the original Traveller using the GURPS rule system. Loren Wiseman wrote the core book for GURPS Traveller and served as line editor.
GURPS Monsters (ISBN 1-55634-518-6) is a 128-page soft-bound book compiled by J. Hunter Johnson and published in 2002 by Steve Jackson Games as a supplement for the GURPS role-playing game system. It contains biographies and gaming statistics for forty-eight monsters for various campaign settings.
Reign of Steel is a setting sourcebook for the GURPS role-playing game system describing a future world conquered by a conspiracy of artificial intelligences. It is written by David Pulver, who also wrote the Robots, Ultra-Tech and Vehicles sourcebooks - all of which are strongly recommended to get full use of this setting, though they are not required.
Many of the tropes of science fiction can be viewed as similar to the goals of transhumanism. Science fiction literature contains many positive depictions of technologically enhanced human life, occasionally set in utopian societies. However, science fiction's depictions of technologically enhanced humans or other posthuman beings frequently come with a cautionary twist. The more pessimistic scenarios include many dystopian tales of human bioengineering gone wrong.
GURPS Bio-Tech is a GURPS, the Generic Universal Role Playing Game, sourcebook that covers the implementation of biotechnology in the game. The first edition of the book was written for GURPS Third Edition, while the second edition of GURPS Bio-Tech was written for GURPS Fourth Edition. Both editions of the game are primarily focused on providing supplemental rules, campaign material, and examples of the uses of biotechnology for the players and game-master alike. The second edition contains two outlines for campaign settings but is primarily focused on providing rules and examples of devices that Game Masters could adapt for use in their own campaigns.
David L. Pulver is a Canadian freelance writer and game designer, author of more than fifty role-playing game rulebooks and supplements, including the award-winning Transhuman Space.
GURPS Shapeshifters (ISBN 1-55634-452-X) is a supplement by Robert M. Schroeck for the GURPS role-playing game system, third edition.
GURPS Planet Krishna is a role-playing game supplement published by Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in 1997 that helps a gamemaster design a GURPS campaign using the Viagens Interplanetarias science fiction setting of L. Sprague de Camp.
GURPS Psionics is a supplement by David Pulver, published by Steve Jackson Games in 1991 for GURPS.
GURPS Space Adventures is an adventure published by Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in 1991 for the role-playing system GURPS, and more specifically, for the science-fiction setting provided by the previously published GURPS Space.
GURPS Space Atlas is a supplement published by Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in 1988 for the science fiction role-playing game GURPS Space, which uses the rules of GURPS.
