08-12-2017, 09:09 PM | #971 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Let me add to my last two comments that I think I'm seeing multiple agenda here.
* "I want GURPS to be a game that I can introduce D&Ders to and have them be willling to play it." * "I want GURPS to be a system that I can use to introduce new people to roleplaying, and have it be accessible." * "I want GURPS to be a system that someone who's never played in or run GURPS can pick up and figure out how to use for the campaign they really want to run." My ideal agenda is the second; in practice I sometimes have to go for the first. Obviously I don't go for the third! Those three probably call for different approaches. We might suppose that Dungeon Fantasy addresses the first, so how to address the other two is more the question.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
08-12-2017, 09:10 PM | #972 | ||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Quote:
This would never work for GURPS because the skill list is so much larger. Storyteller has, what, 30 skills broken into three groups? Call of Cthulhu has about 50 skills. GURPS has something like 300 skills, *NOT* including required specialties, optional specialties, or techniques. However, once those skills are down on the character sheet it is no more complex than CoC or WoD. Quote:
The most complex math in character creation involves multiplication and division, and then only in a couple places - calculating Basic Speed is the main one, though setting levels of attributes or (dis)advantages as well as optional use of Modifiers does require some multiplication as well. The rest of character creation requires nothing more complex than addition and subtraction. These are all 3rd grade math skills. Quote:
You will get a character about as simple as your average D&D character, with just about as much depth. Of course, in doing so you remove almost all of the customizability of GURPS. Quote:
The problem is that this will probably never happen. Adding options to character creation necessarily increases complexity - not complexity as in rocket science but complexity as in long grocery lists. And a good chunk of the genericness and universalism of GURPS comes from all the options it offers.
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. Last edited by ericbsmith; 08-13-2017 at 03:44 AM. |
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08-12-2017, 09:14 PM | #973 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Yep! I agree. I find new people are often much easier to get into a system than people who are really fixed with one game only.
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08-12-2017, 09:27 PM | #974 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Quote:
What makes D&D or Storyteller character creation so "quick and easy" to a lot of people isn't the simplicity of character creation, it's the familiarity with the system. Once people get familiar with making characters in the system things get much simpler, and using character concept, story, or campaign role can be ways of guiding that character creation in any game system to make it simpler. GURPS is more complex than those systems, but it isn't massively more complex, it can just seem like it because of the long list of traits and the indecision most people get when faced with too many choices. And offering streamlined and cut down lists of traits (ala Dungeon Fantasy or After the End or Monster Hunters) is certainly another way of dealing with the "too many choices" problem, however the guiding hand of the GM is a better one (and helps even if you are using templates).
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. Last edited by ericbsmith; 08-12-2017 at 09:59 PM. |
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08-12-2017, 09:39 PM | #975 | |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Quote:
"I want to be able to quickly run a game by having lots of available adventures"
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My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
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08-12-2017, 10:09 PM | #976 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
GURPS *has* templates, and lots of them. They're just scattered in various books like Dungeon Fantasy, Action, After The End, etc. I would argue that this is more scalable and efficient than having one big book of templates for all kinds of genres, which I probably wouldn't like very much.
Some of my "new-to-GURPS" players just went with a template (after all, that's pretty much what you do with class-based games like D&D!) and their characters were ready super quickly -- most of the time was actually spent going over what each stat does, and generally teaching the system. The problem I think has to do with the "buffet" aspect of GURPS rules (and other point based systems). It's too tempting to just flip through 300 pages of advantages, disadvantages, skills, etc. and pick whichever ones seem interesting. This makes character creation not only dreadfully slow, it also gives you a worse result, a character that's a hodge podge of useful skills and min maxed traits without much to bring it to life. I usually try to get players to _think_ about the character they want to play, and then I would point them to a template (if it exists) or to the traits they need to model that character... but of course, as soon as the players get the books in their hands the same problem pops up... so the GM needs to watch out for that, and potentially withhold the books as long as possible from the players' hands by making them create their character using plain words and sentences. It's like William said -- what's the character's concept, story, and role in the party. |
08-12-2017, 10:17 PM | #977 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Quote:
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
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08-12-2017, 10:17 PM | #978 | |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Quote:
I think a class type book (not aimed strictly at DF) would be a good idea. Something like Warriors that had various Templates, or at least indexed the relevant ones and had suggestions for building variations on that type of character. Also use Lens.
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My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
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08-12-2017, 10:19 PM | #979 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
But that one doesn't conflict with any of the three I proposed and doesn't distinguish one from another. Rather it may be a possible strategy for pursuing any of those three goals. It could also be a strategy for running GURPS for your established player group, if you have one.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
08-12-2017, 10:54 PM | #980 | |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: What GURPS needs... now
Quote:
__________________
My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
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