Fallout co-creator Tim Cain has shared a discovery that rewrites the RPG's history: a handwritten note with the original GURPS system, discarded after a failed licensing agreement. Its lists include advantages, disadvantages, and skills that never made it into the final game, paving the way for the SPECIAL system we know today.
The ghost system that SPECIAL replaced 🎲
GURPS, the Generic Universal Role Playing System, offered nearly infinite customization with generic rules. Cain's note details attributes like Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence, along with advantages like Luck and disadvantages like Phobia. Bethesda inherited the SPECIAL system, which is more simplified and offers fewer role-playing options. This document is a time capsule of what could have been a Fallout with more complex and detailed statistics.
So SPECIAL won because of a paperwork error 📄
Imagine Tim Cain finding this dusty note, as if Vault-Tec itself had misfiled the project. GURPS was scrapped due to a licensing disagreement, and SPECIAL came to save the day. Now we know the game almost played with a system so dense you needed a calculator to decide whether to pick up a can of Nuka-Cola. Good thing the lawyer on duty messed up.