Should these GURPS questions have an edition-specific system tag?

Question

We have a gurps tag and a gurps-4e tag. We do not have a tag for other GURPS editions, e.g. a gurps-3e tag does not exist.

The following questions appear to be asking about subject matter which could be edition-specific, but they don't have a tag indicating which version they're from. In particular, many of them are mechanical questions, and I presume mechanics can differ between editions. In the D&D and Fate areas of the site, using some kind of version-specific tag would be insisted upon. Should some of these have a version tag?

• How to use Shape Earth spell
• Is GURPS Dungeon Fantasy compatible with Banestorm?
• Will there ever be GURPS PDF series as compiled books?
• Does the Critical Hit threshold keep rising as skill goes up?
• Advice on setting up a campaign for a new GM?
• Alternatives to inapplicable critical-hit table results?
• Are there maneuver options for non-combat skills?
• What counts as a critical on defense?
• What are some ways to increase melee damage?

Disclaimer: I'm not active in this site's GURPS community, and I haven't played GURPS. (I picked up the 4e manual once and almost reached the point of playing a game.)

I am asking this so those who do play GURPS can work out what to do.

Answer 1

Probably not. Being specific about edition is something the GURPS community itself doesn't often bother to do, and we try to keep our tag folksonomy reflecting community usage.

Mxyzplk said it well in the related question:

In GURPS, like Call of Cthulhu and many other non-D&D games, there's not a lot of change from version to version. For rules wonks, answering for D&D 1e vs 2e vs 3e vs 4e is a completely different thing. For many of these other games, it's a lot more correct to say "I have a GURPS question... It's 4e if it matters, but it's not likely it will."

GURPS, like BRP and Hero and (somewhat less) Savage Worlds and many other generic RPG systems, don't change substantially between editions. (There are about seven editions of Call of Cthulhu I believe, but we only have one tag for it, because the difference never matters.) GURPS does contain rules changes between editions, but the changes tend to be small and specific. The changes between 4e and 3e in particular are relatively small. The 3e to 4e change represents more of a traditional literary edition change—an effort by SJG to reorganise their game line, and meanwhile make a few minor corrections in the process—than an "edition" in the sense that D&D has redefined the term in RPG circles.

Furthermore, because of this continuity in the rules, very few new GURPS editions "leave people behind" the way games that change radically between editions can, so there are only a few people who have stuck with 3e, and the number of people who have stuck with any earlier edition is vanishingly small to the point that it may as well be zero. Further furthermore, the "left behind" 3e players aren't actually left behind, since they can use 4e material unchanged the vast majority of the time.

As a result, GURPS players rarely bother to specify an edition when they're looking for help, even rules help. It's almost always 4e, and when it isn't and it's relevant, people say so. (And those case are very rare, as indicated by our lack of a GURPS 3e tag.) Folksonomy-wise, the GURPS community treats edition information as being only rarely relevant to say up-front, and often it's never relevant in the problem-solving process. That's reflected in the apparently "sloppy" way the tags have been used on this site. As the related question indicates, the gurps tag is the primary tag and most often used, while gurps-4e gets added when it might be conceivably relevant. Meanwhile gurps-4e only gets used alone when the asker does believe the edition matters.