Okaaay... (Help with newbies and Yrth needed)

Jürgen Hubert · 02-24-2005, 05:29 AM

So I wanted to introduce some of my co-workers to role-playing, and they have been fairly enthusiastic about it. I had envisioned a D&D Forgotten Realms campaign, since this is as close to "plain vanilla" fantasy role-playing as it gets, and thus should be easy to get into.

The problem started when I mentioned the polytheistic cosmology of the Realms to one of my prospective players, who happens to be a practicing Sunni Muslim. He was weirded out by this and was close to skipping out entirely.

In desperation, I mentioned the setting of Yrth, which uses real-world religions in a fantasy world, and he was much happier with that.

So now we will likely start a campaign on Yrth, using GURPS, with three total newbies to role-playing (and perhaps one guy who has played a different RPG ages ago). I don't really want to start the campaign in one of the predominantly Muslim lands, since I would get too many things wrong that my co-worker would immediately spot (and he also objected to the idea that the Sunni would be "more accepting of magic"...).

I also want them to fight more "monsters" (including monstrous humanoid) at first, instead of humans, and keep the intrigue at a minimum - that might be better to ease them into gaming.

So, can anyone here suggest a good campaign frame for this - one that is accessible to newbies and fits into the world of Yrth?

Oh, and any advice on how to introduce GURPS to people who have never played an RPG before would help as well!

zorg · 02-24-2005, 05:40 AM

Pregen some characters! If you go through the character creation process with all the new players - each time explaing the rules - you will frighten them off. Design some more character than you have players. Then, type a short summary on a sheet, omitting any game data, but including a description such as "very good swordsman, gallant towards women". I had success with adding a picture of each character (using Google picture search and using a famous Hollywood Star for each character - Bruce Willis was the Tough Guy, of course).
Then, they can read the description in maybe a minute, choose a character and that's it. Then, you explain the BASIC rules (Skills: high is good, what do to when the GM says "roll against Stealth"). That way, they don't have to learn the mechanics and can concentrate on the roleplaying.

Besides, I'm not surprised at all that your coworkers wanted to roleplay. You're all natural scientists, aren't you? In my experience, that's the main recruiting area for roleplayers.

giffyd · 02-24-2005, 05:47 AM

I think you should locate your campaign in the city of Thedroy. As I remember Thedroy is the a place where the different nations "share" a single city.
Its a place where all the different religions and nationalities exits and tolerate each other.
I've played Yrth years ago (our campaign was located in caithness), and I have forgot a lot of the details about Yrth, but I'm really sure Thedroy would the best choice if you have a muslim player in your group.
Greetings
giffyd

Jürgen Hubert · 02-24-2005, 05:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by giffyd

I think you should locate your campaign in the city of Thedroy. As I remember Thedroy is the a place where the different nations "share" a single city.

I've considered that (and I have recently purchased GURPS Tredroy from Warehouse 23), but since it has a large Muslim population, it means that there are many things I can get wrong when portraying them. I'd like to stay away from that until the players have a good grasp on playing and trust me as a game master to know what I am doing...

NorthSaber · 02-24-2005, 05:56 AM

If you're worried that the rules and mechanics and details may frighten away the players, you could make then alternate character sheets where everything is described verbally. Instead of saying ST 12, you could say "considerable strength", etc. You'd have the actual numbers at hand, and when they roll the dice, you simply tell them the result. More work for you, perhaps, but it might be easier to them to just take the role-playing concept first, and the rules-stuff later.

Jürgen Hubert · 02-24-2005, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zorg

Pregen some characters!

I'm not really happy with this approach, since this should be about role-playing the characters they want. I'll probably start with GURPS Lite only to keep things simple, but I want to give them as much control as possible over the character creation process.

Quote:

Besides, I'm not surprised at all that your coworkers wanted to roleplay. You're all natural scientists, aren't you? In my experience, that's the main recruiting area for roleplayers.

Actually, I am the only "proper" natural scientist - one has studied Engineering (and is now our sysadmin), two have studied computer science, and one is still studying it...

zorg · 02-24-2005, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorthSaber

If you're worried that the rules and mechanics and details may frighten away the players, you could make then alternate character sheets where everything is described verbally. Instead of saying ST 12, you could say "considerable strength", etc.

That was more or less what I had in mind. But if Jürgen is unhappy with Pregen, that's that. :)

zorg · 02-24-2005, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Actually, I am the only "proper" natural scientist - one has studied Engineering (and is now our sysadmin), two have studied computer science, and one is still studying it...

Come on, Computer science is Natural Science as far as I am concerned! ;) As is Engineering. Talking from the point of a law student, of course...

jSarek · 02-24-2005, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

I've considered that (and I have recently purchased GURPS Tredroy from Warehouse 23), but since it has a large Muslim population, it means that there are many things I can get wrong when portraying them. I'd like to stay away from that until the players have a good grasp on playing and trust me as a game master to know what I am doing...

It sounds like you may not have a whole lot of choice in the matter. It seems like this one player may pretty much force your hand in addressing Yrth's Islam in one way or another.

So, instead of avoiding it, tackle it head-on. Do some research, ask your friend plenty of questions beforehand (and some questions during play, if necessary), and just do your best to get it right.

Also, don't be afraid to point out to your player that, despite the fact that Islam is pretty clear on a lot of points, there have been plenty of times in history where Muslim *nations* drifted from their ideals. Islam is Islam, but Al-Wazif and Al-Haz are *not* Egypt and Iran.

giffyd · 02-24-2005, 06:32 AM

Then locate your campaign in Caithness.
In the west you have the usual suspects *ähm* Orcs and the like, in the southwest you have the land of the djinns (where you can do nearly everything) and in the south there is the great woods with the elfs.

If you want to keep things simple and give the players as much freedom as possible then I would suggest that you don't use the normal rules for creation of characters (counting points can be boring) but to give your players some "points" for attibutes and some "points" for skills and a like.

I mean, tell your player he can have -lets say- 6 points for the attributes (for example 13/12/10/11 or 10/13/12/11) and 4 skills with +3 on the attribute and 4 skills with 2+ ....

Don't care that the values of the resulting characters might be different for each player. Its a game anyway. If your players knows GURPS better you can let your players using the normal rules and counting points...

This way the character creation will only take some minutes and you can start gaming!

Happy gaming!
Greetings
giffyd

02-24-2005, 05:29 AM	#1
Jürgen Hubert Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Oldenburg, Germany	Okaaay... (Help with newbies and Yrth needed) So I wanted to introduce some of my co-workers to role-playing, and they have been fairly enthusiastic about it. I had envisioned a D&D Forgotten Realms campaign, since this is as close to "plain vanilla" fantasy role-playing as it gets, and thus should be easy to get into. The problem started when I mentioned the polytheistic cosmology of the Realms to one of my prospective players, who happens to be a practicing Sunni Muslim. He was weirded out by this and was close to skipping out entirely. In desperation, I mentioned the setting of Yrth, which uses real-world religions in a fantasy world, and he was much happier with that. So now we will likely start a campaign on Yrth, using GURPS, with three total newbies to role-playing (and perhaps one guy who has played a different RPG ages ago). I don't really want to start the campaign in one of the predominantly Muslim lands, since I would get too many things wrong that my co-worker would immediately spot (and he also objected to the idea that the Sunni would be "more accepting of magic"...). I also want them to fight more "monsters" (including monstrous humanoid) at first, instead of humans, and keep the intrigue at a minimum - that might be better to ease them into gaming. So, can anyone here suggest a good campaign frame for this - one that is accessible to newbies and fits into the world of Yrth? Oh, and any advice on how to introduce GURPS to people who have never played an RPG before would help as well! __________________ GURPS Repository • Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles - translating German folk tales into English!

02-24-2005, 05:40 AM	#2
zorg Experimental Subject Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: saarbrücken, germany	Re: Okaaay... (Help with newbies and Yrth needed) Pregen some characters! If you go through the character creation process with all the new players - each time explaing the rules - you will frighten them off. Design some more character than you have players. Then, type a short summary on a sheet, omitting any game data, but including a description such as "very good swordsman, gallant towards women". I had success with adding a picture of each character (using Google picture search and using a famous Hollywood Star for each character - Bruce Willis was the Tough Guy, of course). Then, they can read the description in maybe a minute, choose a character and that's it. Then, you explain the BASIC rules (Skills: high is good, what do to when the GM says "roll against Stealth"). That way, they don't have to learn the mechanics and can concentrate on the roleplaying. Besides, I'm not surprised at all that your coworkers wanted to roleplay. You're all natural scientists, aren't you? In my experience, that's the main recruiting area for roleplayers.

02-24-2005, 05:47 AM	#3
giffyd Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Munich	Re: Okaaay... (Help with newbies and Yrth needed) I think you should locate your campaign in the city of Thedroy. As I remember Thedroy is the a place where the different nations "share" a single city. Its a place where all the different religions and nationalities exits and tolerate each other. I've played Yrth years ago (our campaign was located in caithness), and I have forgot a lot of the details about Yrth, but I'm really sure Thedroy would the best choice if you have a muslim player in your group. Greetings giffyd

02-24-2005, 05:56 AM	#5
NorthSaber Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Helsinki, Finland	Re: Okaaay... (Help with newbies and Yrth needed) If you're worried that the rules and mechanics and details may frighten away the players, you could make then alternate character sheets where everything is described verbally. Instead of saying ST 12, you could say "considerable strength", etc. You'd have the actual numbers at hand, and when they roll the dice, you simply tell them the result. More work for you, perhaps, but it might be easier to them to just take the role-playing concept first, and the rules-stuff later. __________________ Vampires vs. Werewolves >=)

02-24-2005, 06:32 AM	#10
giffyd Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Munich	Re: Okaaay... (Help with newbies and Yrth needed) Then locate your campaign in Caithness. In the west you have the usual suspects ähm Orcs and the like, in the southwest you have the land of the djinns (where you can do nearly everything) and in the south there is the great woods with the elfs. If you want to keep things simple and give the players as much freedom as possible then I would suggest that you don't use the normal rules for creation of characters (counting points can be boring) but to give your players some "points" for attibutes and some "points" for skills and a like. I mean, tell your player he can have -lets say- 6 points for the attributes (for example 13/12/10/11 or 10/13/12/11) and 4 skills with +3 on the attribute and 4 skills with 2+ .... Don't care that the values of the resulting characters might be different for each player. Its a game anyway. If your players knows GURPS better you can let your players using the normal rules and counting points... This way the character creation will only take some minutes and you can start gaming! Happy gaming! Greetings giffyd