What GURPS needs... now

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

"The real world" is not the core setting for Seals in Vietnam - the Vietnam War is the setting, and as a setting it has an immediately graspable core struggle. That the setting is part of a larger world where that struggle is largely unimportant doesn't change the fact that the games setting is the Vietnam War. You don't play Seal in Vietnam and play a farmer growing hay in Kentucky or a Cop on the beat in Boston - you play a guy who became a Seal and went to Vietnam. Any game that takes place in the real world will, like "Seals in Vietnam" pick out a much smaller piece to be the games setting and to base its struggle around.

Something like the conflict on Europa would be like the Vietnam War.

Originally Posted by JMason

The point is, THS lacks an immediate concept of what players do. It lacks a "campaign" as knarf defined it:

Or it had so many that some people couldn't see them. I don't have a problem coming up with Transhuman Space campaigns (just find me some players please!).

Personnel Files has several, including a pregenerated party for each. Changing Times has several. Wings of The Rising Sun has one in extensive detail.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Transhuman Space is the world, not the campaign framework.

And that's why it failed as a roleplaying game, IMO. Without a campaign framework it's just a piece of fiction. Campaign frameworks, OTOH, make nice place to frame a roleplaying games in.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Seals in Vietnam is the campaign framework, not the world.

On that I disagree. The Vietnam War is a setting as much as anything else can be called a setting. It is a setting set in a larger world, but it is still the setting for Seals in Vietnam. And as a setting it has a core conflict that is easily grasped onto.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The conflict on Europa would be like the Vietnam War.

Maybe. I don't know. I didn't care about Transhuman Space long enough to find that conflict.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Or it had so many that some people couldn't see them.

And that's why I said "perhaps it lacks a core conflict?" The concept of having an immediately graspable core conflict is important in RPGs, and even to fiction, because it gives people new to the setting something they can hang their hat on while they explore the larger setting.

[JMason]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Or it had so many that some people couldn't see them. I don't have a problem coming up with Transhuman Space campaigns (just find me some players please!).

My problem is that if I have too many idea, it is almost worse than having none. When I'm looking at a new setting, I want to have a clear concrete idea of what the PCs will be doing. I might change that when I actually run the game, but when I'm looking to BUY... I want one clear idea. I want to know, "if I get this book, I can right away run a game where X happens." Too much stuff creates "noise" that makes it a lot harder for me to get to that.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by JMason

My problem is that if I have too many idea, it is almost worse than having none. When I'm looking at a new setting, I want to have a clear concrete idea of what the PCs will be doing. I might change that when I actually run the game, but when I'm looking to BUY... I want one clear idea. I want to know, "if I get this book, I can right away run a game where X happens." Too much stuff creates "noise" that makes it a lot harder for me to get to that.

Yeah, I totally understand that, this is one of the reasons I think Maddess Dossier is absolutely the best GURPS setting supplement (but not the only reason).

ETA: While I think that while having some more clearly outlined campaign frames in Transhuman Space would have been a good idea, I think tying the setting to one frame would have been a mistake.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

GURPS Fourth Edition overspecifies NPCs. The third edition didn't do this. Here's how it should look:

Skills: Dancing-12; Fast-Draw (Knife)-14; Knife-14; Leadership-15; Politics-16; Savoir-Faire (Catho)-15; Savoir-Faire (Lantara)-13; Stealth-11.

(Though that's not how the Savoir-Faire skill gets specialized.)

When I get a character in standard GURPS "wall of text" format, I do a find-replace of sections like skills replacing "semicolon-space" with "carriage return," and then format the list in two or three column format (usually two) with bullets. So, so much easier to read.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

And that's why it failed as a roleplaying game, IMO. Without a campaign framework it's just a piece of fiction. Campaign frameworks, OTOH, make nice place to frame a roleplaying games in.

I don't see that THS failed as a roleplaying game. It took me some time to figure out how to fit a campaign to it; but on the other hand, it was the only published setting I've ever used for a second campaign. On the other hand, while I like the premise of Madness Dossier, I really can't envision a campaign I would run in it. And, yes, Madness Dossier has had a book of its own brought out since 4/e, but then THS has had multiple books brought out: Changing Times, Transhuman Mysteries, Wings of the Rising Sun, Shell-Tech. . . .

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by JMason

The point is, THS lacks an immediate concept of what players do. It lacks a "campaign" as knarf defined it:

I don't necessarily tell my players that. I may tell them "you are all A; pick something you want to do." That's given me some of my better campaigns.

[AOTA]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yeah, I totally understand that, this is one of the reasons I think Maddess Dossier is absolutely the best GURPS setting supplement (but not the only reason).

Some thing I would love to see is an adventure written for Maddess Dossier something that I could introduce the the world to my players.

[CraigM]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't necessarily tell my players that. I may tell them "you are all A; pick something you want to do." That's given me some of my better campaigns.

I usually go with "the world is like A; characters ranging from B-P would comfortably fit, but if you want something outside that range I'll see what we can do to make it work. Some compromise may be required if you want something extra weird."

After the first few characters are made, the existing PCs become part of the context of A.

In my current game, it started as just "it's an Yrth game; here's a summary of what Yrth is like; note how it's designed to make room for a wide variety of archetypal characters. What do you want to be?".

After the first couple of players opted for wandering adventurer types, the game was set onto a dungeon-bashing rootless mercenary path. The influence of a few serious roleplayer types stopped it from getting overly murder-hobo, along with a bit of careful dungeon design (i.e. provide lots of golems, automatons and undead for guilt-free slaughtering).

Now that a few of the PCs are deceased, the replacement characters look likely to swing it towards an urban intrigue focus for a while. Possibly leading into some larger political La Resistance action, depending on how things turn out.

There's an epic save-the-world background plot, but that's designed to accomodate flexible pacing; it can stay as a quiet menace whenever the party is having fun with something else, but provides an option to spice things up if the story begins to slow. Kind of a Buffy-esque structure; episodic adventures with a slow-developing big bad in the background.