When comparing GURPS 4th Edition vs Risus, the Slant community recommends GURPS 4th Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best tabletop RPGs?” GURPS 4th Edition is ranked 10th while Risus is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose GURPS 4th Edition is:
GURPS can be as crunchy as you like, with rules available to cover any situation, but at its core, there are only about three rules you need.
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Pros
Pro Modular rules
GURPS can be as crunchy as you like, with rules available to cover any situation, but at its core, there are only about three rules you need.
Pro Great sourcebooks
GURPS sourcebooks are famous for being comprehensive guides to the settings/genres they describe, to the degree that even people who don't play GURPS find them useful.
Pro Option for Cinematic Rules
There is an option to make combat far less deadly.
Pro Long character creation creates a bond with your character
Spending a lot of time creating your character also helps with creating a bond with them. This way you will be more encouraged to keep them alive than going around doing dangerous things which would most likely end up killing them. Moreover, In depth character creation flushes out the back stories that enrich the role playing experience. Vampire also has a lengthy character building process for this reason.
Pro Character mortality
In GURPS, characters can be killed by a single blow to the head with a wood plank. For gamers seeking a more "realistic" level of mortality, GURPS is your game.
Pro Can be taught in less than 10 minutes
Risus has a very minimalist rule system that breaks down all actions to their core function. Risus comes with a super short, four page rulebook (available in many forms and formats) that's easy to read, includes examples and has a bit of humor thrown in to make the process or learning more enjoyable.
Pro Very flexible rules
Risus is not confined to a selection of pre-defined character-classes, settings or abilities. Characters are described via clichés such as Witch Doctor, Gambler, Musician with a number of dice assigned to each cliché that are then used in challenges that relate to the appropriate cliché.
Pro A large following that provides a lot of content
A large amount of adventures, artwork, characters, clichés as well as optional rules can be found for Risus. An excellent resource for all aforementioned things as well as many others is Risusiverse, a fan-made website of all things Risus.
Cons
Con Extremely Simulationist
Con Requires too much GM babysitting
Too many options with no setting structure and the freedom to do whatever is a liability, not a perk.
Con Boring rule system
Con Boring rule system
Con Core rules need two books
Con Long character creation
The lion's share of the work in GURPS is front-loaded: characters are built on points, pieced together with attributes, advantages, disadvantages, quirks, skills, powers, spells, cybernetics, and whatever else your game requires. Expect to spend easily an hour or more creating your character.
Con Option paralysis
Sometimes having so many dials to turn is not a good thing. It can be hard to create a game with so many options available.
Con Little guidance can be found for GMs and players
Some prior understanding of how an RPG is played and what is the role of the GM is required as the rules cover only the very core of the system.