Questions about Dynamic Campaigns

[Entropicurity]

Hello All!

I've mostly been on here and there reading but not posting too much, and at one point I lost my password and didn't know how to retrieve it, but thankfully my second attempt has allowed me to do so without creating another account (yay me, I feel silly now.)

I was curious, has anybody had much success working with the Infinite Worlds campaign setting for GURPS? And if so, has anybody had much success creating using a setting similar to this to allow multiple players to take turns hosting a different world, but using the same characters across settings?

With the system as truly generic as it is, I've found that its often an aspect of the system thats overlooked a LOT with the group I'm with.

And with enough creativity, any GM can provide a unique experience that takes full advantage of most skills, and even provide advantages for TL Skill familiarities and unique world qualities that provide temporary skills or even advantages that help any type of character adapt to any given setting.

This would of course require a certain level of understanding of which skills are most adaptable between TL's, as well as what skills are most flexible given unique environments.

Not only that, but to fit in any style of game, a modular advantage would need to be implemented so the GM can allow the players to "flex" to their setting without having to change their core concept too much.

I'm sure all this is possible, I'm just curious how many people have played in a setting like this, if at all, and how much fun they felt they had? Again this is something that would need to be designed to fit into just about any world with the only restriction being that they all have to tie into a larger story arch or theme similar to the Infinite Worlds setting.

Thanks for any responses, they are greatly appreciated!
- Christopher

[ed_209a]

Originally Posted by Entropicurity

...to allow multiple players to take turns hosting a different world, but using the same characters across settings?
- Christopher

This reminds me of TSR's Amazing meta-setting. You made a core set of stats, representing your general niche, then customized that core to a particular setting.

The most interesting facet of the system is that you could use CPs (or whatever it's called in-system) to upgrade your core instead of that setting-specific character.

For example, you are in an Aliens-like setting. You upgrade your Space Marine machinegunner's core, rather than the "costume". As a result, your Fantasy Barbarian, Steampunk detective, Technothriller Commando, and Space opera Star Knight all get upgraded too, along with any future character made from that core.

It's an interesting concept. Never played it though.

To bring this back to GURPS, perhaps you buy stats/skills/etc at 2x or 3x price to apply it to the core instead of the shell.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Entropicurity

I was curious, has anybody had much success working with the Infinite Worlds campaign setting for GURPS?

Well, I am running it fortnightly, and the players have not rebelled yet. The problem I find with it is splitting my plot up into appropriate fragments and dispersing them over the worlds in a manner that makes sense to the players, without railroading. And since many of them read this forum, I'll stop here.

And if so, has anybody had much success creating using a setting similar to this to allow multiple players to take turns hosting a different world, but using the same characters across settings?

It is clearly possible, but there are practical difficulties, with the PCs of the GMs and with any overall plot in use.

And with enough creativity...

I'm not sure I have enough of it. Grand ideas like this tend to be hard to implement in practice.

[Entropicurity]

Thanks for the response!

What I was thinking was having the players start with a pool of 150-250 points, and they can purchase cosmic stats (where stats are 2x the normal cost) as well as cosmic advantages (also 2x normal cost) but skills would be "purchased" in pools or as tiers.

For example, a player could purchase a pool X number of skills that are purchased at A points each, and Y number of skills that are purchased at B points each, until they use up all their points.

Disadvantages of course would be worth 2x the normal reward as they would also be cosmic. The only thing I'd have problem with is quirks and perks, as some of those change depending on the style of character being played.

Also, the players could possibly have cosmic Spells/Psionics/Powers that would require the additional purchase of a unique background (possibly costing an additional 10 to 50 character points) but I would wager this could get really expensive really fast.

I would possibly even go as far as allowing the purchase of an Advantage pool that is GM or World specific, where the player purchases a pool of points that the GM specifies for them in each game, which can be purchased in different ranks determined by the group (Possibly 5/10/15/25/50/100 respectively). Dynamic pools of Disadvantages could also work at a 1 for 1 ration, but again this is something that would limit choice for sake of gaining more points elsewhere.

This above option would require some level of testing, and would probably need to be limited in some fashion, or, for any points extra the player has they can use that in the form of "luck" so that they can spend extra character points to change the result of rolls in each game session where the player uses that character. This other option of course would also probably need to be limited to some extent.

GM's could possibly take it another step further and come up with unique templates for the "core" archtypes (Aka heavy stats, heavy skills, heavy advantages, hybrid, JoAT, etc). And as each game master plays through their adventures, the players would be able to mix and change their points around, but still be able to try new character ideas without much need for rewarding character points, which can potentially get too inflated if going through a Multi-GMed setting.

It seems like it could work, and would be fun, though I'm still interested to find if anyone has ever tried that before or not and if so what level of success the game had?

[Entropicurity]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Well, I am running it fortnightly, and the players have not rebelled yet. The problem I find with it is splitting my plot up into appropriate fragments and dispersing them over the worlds in a manner that makes sense to the players, without railroading. And since many of them read this forum, I'll stop here.

I can understand that, and thank you for sharing it with me.

I'm still trying to understand GURPS adventure construction, assuming such a thing exists, and creating challenges that both makes sense and posses a reasonable challenge for the players, while still giving them options and still reducing the amount of planning and crunch time on my part, is still something I personally have yet to master.

I just want to have a means of having a character that I can make that is designed to cross multiple realms but still provide a decent amount of flavor and solidity that it can fit in just about any timeframe or local that any GM can use. Might just be trying to get too much out of the system, but the Infinite Worlds seems like it would be a nice way of doing it...

Originally Posted by johndallman

It is clearly possible, but there are practical difficulties, with the PCs of the GMs and with any overall plot in use.

It would definitely require a level of cooperation and collaboration on the players part, but I'd imagine with how diverse and flexible the system is, even some level of collaboration would still provide a level of suspense that the players could enjoy with each turning of the GM table.

I'd also go as far as to eliminate entirely the use of Character Point rewards, and instead the players get a chance to play through one of the other GM's stories, and being able to have the experience of having a single character spanning multiple adventures, where the advancement is the story and not the character points?

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm not sure I have enough of it. Grand ideas like this tend to be hard to implement in practice.

Yeah, I agree, it would definitely require a certain level of understanding across all players and GMs, and the point level progression would have to be something thats eliminated all together. Also each GM would need to have a pretty decent understanding of the system for it to work. Creativity would need to be king, and all the players would need to have a general idea of whats going on over the large scheme of things.

Possibly a solution would be that each player is considered a "Mastermind" and would be in charge of their own evil organization or NPC's that all have a hand in the grand scheme of things, and it can become a fun "Who's your bad guy like?"

[Delvidian]

I've been playing in a weekly Infinite Worlds campaign since the 4/e books published (search under GURPS-NYC to find us). Here are some bullet points:
- We rotate GM duty among those who like to run (GM duty is optional).
- The premise is that we are an ISWAT team name Team Weird. This name came about because a preponderance of characters had Weirdness Magnet.
- GMs share some common reality. Our characters are stationed on a home base called Mt. Olympus in an undisclosed location.
- Each GM runs their own world/s. At Mt. Olympus, there are separate World Managers who are in charge of specific worldlines.
- We started with 250 point builds but are now up to 350 point builds so new players aren't too underpowered.

I think this campaign works because we take a cinematic approach. It takes a bit of hand-waving to resolve the different sources of power. For instance, we've had to create a substance called Spirit Glass that projects a limited mana field so mages wouldn't be completely crippled on no-mana worlds. One of my characters is a Deadlands-style huckster who coerces demons into performing magical effects. But how do we know that these demons can cross over to other worlds? In the long run, the hand-waving is worth it so our huckster, near-goddess, gadgeteer boy genius, hard-as-nails military man, rogue gypsy and mystic pulp monk can fight side-by-side versus a wide array of multiversial baddies. Infinite Worlds is a great setting!

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Delvidian

I think this campaign works because we take a cinematic approach. It takes a bit of hand-waving to resolve the different sources of power. For instance, we've had to create a substance called Spirit Glass that projects a limited mana field so mages wouldn't be completely crippled on no-mana worlds. One of my characters is a Deadlands-style huckster who coerces demons into performing magical effects. But how do we know that these demons can cross over to other worlds? In the long run, the hand-waving is worth it so our huckster, near-goddess, gadgeteer boy genius, hard-as-nails military man, rogue gypsy and mystic pulp monk can fight side-by-side versus a wide array of multiversial baddies. Infinite Worlds is a great setting!

Since you bring it up: While I agree that your game sounds like a lot of fun in general (I get the blow-by-blow because my RL BFF plays in it), I've always been critical of the above approach in particular. We've had a couple of conversations in which I've tried to convince her that a (short) trip to a real-deal No Magic At All And I Mean It Buddy setting might be a really fun and different RP experience for you guys if handled properly, and that she'd be perfect to GM it because her PC would be the only one not screwed by it, but sitting out for the week. From what I gather of her opinion, she's afraid that the rest of you guys would be really mad at her if she tried it. Any thoughts?

[Delvidian]

I think that kind of No-Mana Fish Out of Water setup would be fun if ALL the characters were affected, but it quickly becomes problematic when only some of the characters are rendered impotent. Players pick their characters based on their shiny bits; take them away and they're just...normal. Once you've bested uber-nazis, demons and an alien menace, it's hard to get jazzed about fighting a giant rat. As a change of pace, it might be refreshing, but how do you make it more fun than frustrating?

[nuulak]

My group has done this pass the dagger campaign twice were we would pass the task of gm'ing and world building the first time we did this we had great luck with the one rule you have to get along and work together. But we only have 3 hours 2 times a month.

This was successful in part because the gms would discuss with each other on pass off and would make sure that if we were going to use each others stories that we were not completely killing our future plans. This was the core on why I thought it was successful. the second time around was not the same case because we required persons to gm and we had set schedules that took some from it. This was at the core what killed it.

Main thing I can say about it is don't dwell on your plans to much with this style because they will be changed from one session to another. Also with infinite worlds being largely modular it will make it real easy to keep each other more separated. Unless you have a world jumping psycopath.

[Entropicurity]

Thanks again all for all your responses!

I now have a general idea that yes, people have tried it, and with enough understanding between GM's as well as enough knowledge of the system with a touch of creativity a game can host any number of cinematic characters in any given setting, particularly the Infinite Worlds Setting.

I'll have to give some more thought on it and pass it by my group to see if they are even interested in sharing GMing duties as apposed to having to create new characters all the time.

I'm hopeful that this can turn out to be something that can be a lot of fun when implemented and performed correctly!

Thanks all!