With a game like GURPS, where are the guidelines for designing adventures?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Azgulor

I still find it mind-boggling that with a game as comprehensive as GURPS, such advice isn't already in print. YMMV (& that's cool, too).

But...it is already in print. With a specifically combat bent, but all the basic ideas are there IIRC.

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by zorg

Which is incidentally why I wouldn't ever use AD&D Kobolds versus my PCs. While a single Kobold might be wimpy, en gros these critters can lay and build traps, set ambushes, use snipers and utterly annihilate even PCs which are individually far more powerful.


EDIT: Ninja'ed, even about the fricking Kobolds...

This is pretty much exactly what happened in both a game I was running and a game in which I was player where a similar thing happened.


In the game in which I was a player, I witnessed an Ogre PC get trapped in a chamber he was too big to get out of while the kobolds pelted him to death with slings.

[Anders]

I ask Kromm about this in one of the now deceased fnordcasts... he said much of what has been said here. He also added that there are two kinds of monsters - the Mighty Glacier and the Fragile Speedster (although he didn't call them that).

The Mighty Glacier has high ST, DR and HP, low DX, Move and Dodge and low-to-average combat skills. He doesn't hit often but what he hits, he kills. A T-Rex is an excellent example of this, but note that their is nothing to say that a Mighty Glacier has to be stupid.

The Fragile Speedster has low ST, DR, and HP, high DX, Move and Dodge and high combat skills. His trick is to attack many times, and from awkward positions, bypassing his enemies defences with sheer skill and speed. On the other hand, he doesn't do much damage - he wears down his enemies. Someone like the Flash is an example of this.

Combining the strengths of the two, like in a traditional dragon, is an excellent way to kill an entire party.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

The Fragile Speedster has low ST, DR, and HP, high DX, Move and Dodge and high combat skills. His trick is to attack many times, and from awkward positions, bypassing his enemies defences with sheer skill and speed. On the other hand, he doesn't do much damage - he wears down his enemies. Someone like the Flash is an example of this.

I played one of those in the playtest campaign for GURPS Supers. With DX 19, Dodge 16, Basic Speed 12, Extra Attack 1, and Enhanced Time Sense, La Gata Encantada could get away with utterly crazed stunts. It was a lot of fun being the combat monster for the campaign.

Bill Stoddard

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by Azgulor

However, comparing 4e GURPS to AD&D just reinforces the idea that it's an oversight. RPG design has come a loooong way since AD&D (as evidenced by the GURPS rules).

I don't think it's an oversight.

Combat in D&D is considerably more predictable. Character and creature design are both guided by the idea that as things become more powerful they should do so in a well-rounded way; thus, not only does the 8HD monster have more HP than the 2HD monster, it also has better armor, more special abilities, a higher chance to hit, does more damage when it hits, resists things like magic and poison better, and so on. Also, the game is geared toward combat, with a minor emphasis on things like sneaking, spying, and exploration.

Consider the examples people have offered where the 100-point sniper with the high Guns skill kills the 1000-point emperor. That kind of thing doesn't happen in D&D: a low level chracter would be incapable of having a really good chance to hit, and the emperor would have enough HP to render the sniper an irritant rather than a deadly assassin.

GURPS doesn't, and can't, rely on the sorts of broad assumptions that D&D makes with ECL and Challenge Ratings. Even even D&D gets it wrong (see: sneaky kobolds).

I'm still not convinced that it can't be done. I agree it's probably not easy to do. However, most of the examples cited are not limited to GURPS - I could pick the scenario and port it into almost any other RPG and still have the same tactical scenarios or possible variances. Yet other RPGs can provide guidelines, rough as they may be. Perhaps more importantly, they see the reasons for needing them.

GURPS was originally intended to be a system that you could use to run other published settings and adventures. This strongly implies that it was not expected to be someone's first RPG. And if you polled a large group of GURPS players, you would probably find that for most of them it was not their first RPG. That means that by the time people are playing GURPS, they already have an idea how to design and balance encounters and adventures. Sure, there's an adjustment period while they learn the system, but it's not the same as being a total RPG virgin and trying to figure everything out at once.

None of this is to suggest that GURPS is intended to be "off-limits" to new GMs. However, it would explain why there's less GMing advice in Campaigns than you wanted, and why most of the people in this thread are basically okay with that.

I think a lot of the posts in this thread saying "you can't do that" (including mine) are based on the idea that you already have a basic understanding of encounter design in an RPG, and that you want something more specific like D&D's ECL and CR that you can use to slap together foolproof encounters. Yes, you can't do that. But as you've noted, it's possible to apply more general guidelines, and I think if more people had realized that was the kind of thing you were looking for, they'd have been less negative in their responses.

I'll stop trying to speak for everyone now ;p

[Wraithe]

I'll just toss in that, having whipped through this thread, maybe there is a place on e23 for the "GURPS Dungeon Master's Guide", if you take my meaning.

A LOT of it would be in the form of the advice that has been given here. Basic (Campaigns) isn't it. Campaigns really is the perfect GM counterpoint to the Characters book, but it presumes you understand a LOT about GURPS that you may or may not understand.

A perfect example is the whole "screw CP after you make the PC's" concept. That threw me for a loop when I read in the forums and, while it makes complete sense, I'm left with the feeling that it should be printed in 72pt type on the first page of Campaigns. :)

As people have noted, balancing the game is about skill levels, etc. It's also important to remember that the advice that works in my 6B.C. Mayan CyberMage campaign may not work in your Victorian Pixie Zombie campaign, but there are definitely basic concepts that could be compiled into a whole.

Personally I think someone could scavenge through the forums here and create such a document. Notice I'm not volunteering, although it's a tempting idea, I suspect someone else could do it better than I.

[Anaraxes]

like D&D's ECL and CR that you can use to slap together foolproof encounters

Not that the D&D CR system is itself foolproof. Our longtime d20 DM actually laughed at that notion, and replied that he has to adjust it to fit the party, change the way the monsters fight, and pull his tactical punches when he overestimates -- all suggestions given for GURPS in this thread. One recent example had him put in six stone giant types. Turned out later that the adventure (a published one from a major source) called for four, but he knew better. The battle turned out exactly right for the intro battle that it was, with players able to demonstrate their kewl powers, taking a bit of damage, the town getting beat up a bit, but still a victory. But the foolproof CR system was off by 50%.

There's no substitute for experience, judgement, playtest if you've got the time, and adjustments on-the-fly in any system.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Seems like Im typing this alot lately.

I did a thread on those topics here and here

There are even handy dandy tables and links.

Perhaps you should put some of those links in a signature file?

I'm not sure how much help it will be to inexperienced GMs, but there's a somewhat intimidating adventure submissions outline (101K .doc file) linked from the Wish List that lists a lot of things that could be considered when designing an adventure.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

The new edition of GURPS has a chapter on GM'ing and adventure design in the second volume of the Basic Set (Campaigns).

The OP has mentioned that section (pp. 500-504) at least twice in this thread.

One thing is to pre-test your bad guys. You have a sense of how good the player characters are, what their tactics usually are, etc. So run a sample combat between "them" (what you think they'll do and how they will do it) and the draft version of the bad guy. If one side mops the floor with the other side, and that's not what you wanted to happen, then it's back to the drawing board.

One guideline I've seen is to start with equal numbers of opponents who are slightly less skilled than the PCs, and adjust up or down depending on the results. Unfortunately, that goes right back to the problem of a GM who hasn't got time for experimenting to test balance.

[DocRailgun]

Except it could, in the Eberron setting. One of the strengths of the setting (as far as I was concerned) was the idea that player characters were pretty much the only "heroes" on the world. NPCs are almost always incapable of taking PC class levels, and often don't rise very high even in NPC classes (like warrior, aristocrat, etc.) So, instead of every barkeep being a retired 15th level fighter or the King being a 20th level Paladin (or even a 20th level Warrior), the King is instead a 4th level Aristocrat/1st level Warrior.
Of course, that was in 3.5 and 4th edition has taken this good idea away from the setting.

Originally Posted by Xplo

I don't think it's an oversight.

Consider the examples people have offered where the 100-point sniper with the high Guns skill kills the 1000-point emperor. That kind of thing doesn't happen in D&D: a low level chracter would be incapable of having a really good chance to hit, and the emperor would have enough HP to render the sniper an irritant rather than a deadly assassin.



I'll stop trying to speak for everyone now ;p