Pathfinder or GURPS? Help for a newbie?

Hi! Hi! I hope this is the right place to post this, if not I'll try to take it down, I just didn't want to take up space on the "New to Roll20" thread, sorry! Hello! I’m new here and I've never actually played a tabletop RPG before. It’s something that I've wanted to do since I was a kid, but there wasn’t really a place/time for me to play, so the prospect of being able to play an online tabletop is rather exciting. I do have experience with rping/video game rpgs, so playing along with storylines isn’t foreign to me, but something more structured sounds pretty good after a while. Anyway, I've been trying to decide on what the best system would be for me to jump in with. Money and time are sort of a factor (working nights means I can’t invest much of either) so, y'know, I wanna make sure I invest in something that fits what I'm looking for? I've done a lot of research over the past few weeks, (save for buying the sets) and I’ve narrowed my choices down to Pathfinder & GURPS. Rule Heavy/In-depth games aren’t really intimidating for me, in fact I like a lot of detail, which I know isn’t recommended for newbies, but what can I say. I like GURPS mostly because of how open & detailed it is, at least as far as how you can create/combine sourcebooks regardless of theme, but I do know it’s seen as being almost /too/ open/detailed? Like I can see how it could get to be too much for a GM to corral, or a player to work with without the structure afforded by other games. Plus, it seems to be played a whole lot less, which sort of defeats my whole purpose of wanting to play with other people. Pathfinder would be my second choice if not for the aforementioned downfalls of GURPS, but with that in mind, it’s almost more intimidating for me because of the structure? I know that contradicts what I said about being comfortable with heavy rules, but it’s more that I worry I won’t be happy with my options in Pathfinder if I invest in it. This may be a completely unfounded fear, it seems to have just as much room in character creation/world building as GURPS. I’d probably be happy with either, I just over worry sometimes. TL;DR: Trying to decide between GURPS & Pathfinder. Which would you recommend for someone just starting/looking for a fleshed out experience? I know D&D is another option, but I dunno it just doesn’t appeal to me for some reason? If you have any other recommendations though, I’m all ears, there’s just so many these days it’s a bit overwhelming to read up on them all. Anyways, thank you!!!!

The mods will probably be by shortly to tell you that this isn't appropriate for the roll20 forums as it isn't specific enough to Roll20, but before they get around to that I'll throw my 2 cents in. I'd take advantage of the fact that you pretty much don't need to buy anything for pathfinder unless you're GM'ing or want something outside of the OGL. Use d20pfsrd.com or the archives of nethys as they have essentially all of the rules, feats, classes (including 3pp in the case of d20pfsrd), spells, magic items, alternate rulesets, and on and on and on. I'd also take advantage of Roll20 to get into a game, say a one-shot, for each of the systems you are interested in before you buy, and see how you like them (although I personally feel that whether a game is enjoyable or not has more to do with your GM and fellow players, and how they play/GM vs. your expectations for a game than the system).

From what I see on the forums around here, you might have better luck getting into a game of GURPS, because there are so many people trying to get into a D&D or Pathfinder game. There are so few DMs on Roll20 that the clamor for players seems to frustrate some people. That being said...you might want to see if you can get into either game and then make your purchases. One other option to consider would be Savage Worlds. It's popular enough that there is usually something going on (it generally makes the bottom ranks of games played on Roll20 before getting lumped in with "others"); it's a universal system (meaning any genre can be supported similar to GURPS), and the Core Rule book is only around $10, so a lot cheaper than GURPS.

Well a mod got around to it Scott so :P but really this topic should be discussed in another forum as it does not pertain to the useage of roll20. This thread is going to be closed and archived. From the Roll20 Community Code of Conduct : The Roll20 Forums exist to discuss topics directly related to the use of the Roll20 program. Anything that more fittingly could be discussed on another website SHOULD be discussed there. Here are some good places to discuss this topic: /r/rpg G+communities (to many to link to)