Call for Playtesters: GURPS Furries

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

But good connotations or bad, Furry has more name recognition.

Pretty much this. It isn't as if we didn't discuss titles at length, but the only word all of those involved knew – setting aside their feelings about it – was "furry." Somehow, I think we'll be okay.

(I'd compare it to "dungeon fantasy": Yeah, it provokes off-color jokes about how well-equipped this dungeon you're fantasizing about is, and what fantasies come to life there, but in a gaming context everybody understands what it means.)

[Donny Brook]

I'll chime in and say I'm honestly confused by what is intended by the term 'furries' here. Am I right in assuming the book is about fictional adventures of anthropomorphic animal-like characters and NOT about people in the real world who socialize in animal-like costumes?

[Kromm]

The book is about anthropomorphic animals as characters in a fictional world that has such things, be they Egyptian-esque animal-headed humans, fantasy beasts that talk and walk upright, uplifted animals, "toons," or something else again.

[Blind Mapmaker]

Ouch, sorry. Didn't intend to hijack the thread. I just go by my non-native speaker usage and that might be biased by the rest of my hermeneutic background. And yeah Anthros is what I mainly hear, but it leads you into exactly the opposite direction if you are not in the know.

Originally Posted by Kromm

(I'd compare it to "dungeon fantasy": Yeah, it provokes off-color jokes about how well-equipped this dungeon you're fantasizing about is, and what fantasies come to life there, but in a gaming context everybody understands what it means.)

Good one!

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

Ouch, sorry. Didn't intend to hijack the thread. I just go by my non-native speaker usage and that might be biased by the rest of my hermeneutic background. And yeah Anthros is what I mainly hear, but it leads you into exactly the opposite direction if you are not in the know.

No worries. It was a fair thing to wonder about, and it gave me an opening to clarify some (and to drop a bad joke).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

Ouch, sorry. Didn't intend to hijack the thread.

I don't think you did. It's a relevant question, one that needed to be considered, and it's one we can discuss here without anyone having read the manuscript. No harm done.

[Phantasm]

I was a little worried at first, as I usually encounter the term "Furry" as being "people who socialize (and go farther than that) wearing animal costumes (usually homemade) and generally honestly believe 'I am an $animal* stuck in a human skin, and the fursona is the true me'."

As this will be covering more of the Bugs Bunny and Ninja Turtles types rather than Fursona types, all is good, and I may actually pick it up. Maybe. (Still a low priority, IMO.) If it adds traits like "retractable head", though, it may be more useful to me.


* Sometimes believing themselves to be fictional/mythological creatures such as unicorns and dragons Fsckin' furries

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I was a little worried at first, as I usually encounter the term "Furry" as being "people who socialize (and go farther than that) wearing animal costumes (usually homemade) and generally honestly believe 'I am an $animal* stuck in a human skin, and the fursona is the true me'."

You may have a broader set of life experiences than some other people.

I had no trouble at all decoding "Furries" to mean "anthropomorphic animals" perhaps because I was thinking in a fiction and rpg contest. Whereas "Gurps Anthros" makes me think of Margaret Mead in an Indiana Jones costiume.

You could call it "Boardroom and Curia II" so as to force anyone wondering what the book was about to read the blurb. :)

I certainly haven't thought of a better name yet.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I was a little worried at first, as I usually encounter the term "Furry" as being "people who socialize (and go farther than that) wearing animal costumes (usually homemade) and generally honestly believe 'I am an $animal* stuck in a human skin, and the fursona is the true me'."

(1) I have met people in that subculture. They're part of the target market for this book, in the same way that otherkin who think they are really elves are part of the target market for GURPS Fantasy. Their kinkier interests are not part of its subject matter; GURPS isn't that kind of game. On the other hand, there are people like me, who follow some furry fiction, comics, and animation and own some furry art, and who might also be part of the target market for this book, who don't fit the stereotype you're referring to.

(2) It seems to me that most readers can figure out that human fans of furry material neither need as elaborate a set of rules and templates to be roleplayed as anthropomorphized animals, nor are as likely to have adventures that most people would be interested in roleplaying; so they would be less likely to be the subject of a GURPS supplement.

[Michael Thayne]

IMHO "Anthropomorphics" might have been better, though it could have caused people to think it was about anthropomorphic personifications (e.g. Death from Discworld) rather than anthropomorphic animals.