[GURPS Lite] Creating My First Adventure, Maybe Converting?

[Mulsiphix]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Has your wife made a character yet?

Nope not yet. I will read her the story and we'll make her character in a couple of hours (sooo excited!).

[Refplace]

Cool. One more bit of advice. You do not have to flesh it all out before hand, especially fi your good at improvising. A lot of times things go in unplanned directions so just take notes and make the best choice and idea you can a the time and the notes will help later with consistency. Also if a player comes up with back story a lot of times you can mesh that in and make things more personal.

[Mulsiphix]

I've got to go out of town for the week. I wont be back until Sunday. We still plan on playing our first game tonight (been busy getting ready for the trip) but I wont have time to post our results until I get back. Thank you all so much for your help with this. I am really excited to run this first session for her and I am confident all will go off without a hitch! I'll update you next Monday folks. Have a great fourth!

[Mulsiphix]

Alright folks it has been awhile since I last posted. The reason for this is that the wife and I have been in serious discussion about how to move forward. As soon as we returned from our vacation (turns out we had no time to play while on holiday as planned) we sat down and started to create the background for her character story. This turned out to be a heavy collaborative effort that turned my previous plans completely on their head.

Using the story I posted previously, she decided she wanted to make a gifted character. But where things got tricky is she started by first defining her parents. Her mother was gifted, an Alchemist. Her father was a gifted, an Engineer and her brother, while not "gifted" was one of the first recruits for the town militia. Her mother had been orphaned young and was taken in and raised by Fiasmeir, the most talened and gifted Alchemist in Lyrian history.

She gave quite the story for her mothers upbringing. Eventually her mother married her father and they moved on to lead a simple life. Before that her Father was somewhat of a savant when it came to engineering. Both have spent their life teaching her the arts, though her character has always favored Alchemy above Engineering. Her brother has trained her well though she is far from a master per say as she lacks real world experience in true combat. Along the way her character was also trained by Fiasmeir himself.

The story is rather complex and was the result of many hours of discussion. But needless to say I had a lot of questions and issues on how to move forward giving her a standard fantasy experience when the character she created was nothing short of a demi-god of talent among her people. My wife also heavily petitioned me to flesh out the world and make this a bona fide year long (maybe more) campaign. She was quite taken with my starting fiction.

This left me with many problems. First off my wife is more into Fullmetal Alchemist versus standard real world or literary alchemy. In my opinion such alchemy is a mixture of alchemy, ritual magic, symbol magic, and syntactic magic. Obviously a custom design that was created for onscreen effect and originality. I discussed the differences between the two and she verified Fullmetal Alchemist magic was far more exciting and useful for her desired gameplay. Though she didn't want that specifically as that form of alchemy usually requires high personal sacrifice. So I was left needing to create a brand new custom magic system.

Next was the issue of how she would survive is we played vanilla GURPS. Combat would have to be sparse, enemies weak, enemy numbers low, and she would have to spend a great deal of her character points on ensuring her character could survive basic combat alone. We talked in depth about different ways to go about ensuring her survival without having to just fudge deadly rolls and situations to her characters benefit. She was unhappy with just about anything I threw her way. She felt that nerfing the world wasn't exactly a real fantasy experience. Despite her lack of party or fellow gamer help she was adamant that we could make this work.

So after much thought and discussion we have decided that we are going to go with a cinematic approach. The character she built is already larger than life and I figure as she gains real world experience in the field I will slowly ramp up the game difficulty and her capability. I am going forth with designing the world, I have abandoned GURPS Lite and am now focusing on GURPS Basic and many supplements. I will be building the world from scratch, though I will only be seriously fleshing out the immediate area (probably a couple of months worth of gaming) before we start our play sessions.

I found a local GURPS player who was interested in getting into BattleTech at my LFGS. We traded portions of our library and I made a few purchases myself. Most of these are digital versions I purchased when the product first came out. I have long followed GURPS but never taken the plunge. I'm just happy to have some hardback versions of some of the more common reference books! These are the books I will be using to reference, build, and populate my game world:

1. Creatures of the Night, Volume 1
2. Creatures of the Night, Volume 2
3. Creatures of the Night, Volume 3
4. Creatures of the Night, Volume 4
5. Creatures of the Night, Volume 5
6. Social Engineering
7. Powers
8. Magic
9. Magic - Plant Spells
10. Magic - Spell Charts
11. Thaumatology
12. Thaumatology - Alchemical Baroque
13. Thaumatology - Magical Style
14. Thaumatology - Urban Magics
15. Fantasy
16. Dungeon Fantasy 01 - Adventurers
17. Dungeon Fantasy 02 - Dungeons
18. Low-Tech
19. Low-Tech - Instant Armor
20. Low-Tech Companion 1 - Philosphers and Kings
21. Low-Tech Companion 2 - Weapons and Warriors
22. Low-Tech Companion 3 - Daily Life and Economics
23. City Stats
24. Alphabet Arcane
25. Alphabet Arcane - Lost Serifs
26. Power-Ups 1 - Imbuements
27. Power-Ups 2 - Perks
28. Power-Ups 3 - Talents

I will be creating new threads here on GURPS as I need them. My first thread has already been created. If anybody can contribute any advice to that thread I would be most grateful. I know this isn't the plan that anybody would likely recommend to someone in my position but it is the path I have chosen for us. It also doesn't hurt that we are moving in a month and a half and we have to pack up the house. My wife wants me to stay out of it for the most part and wants me to spend my free time on achieving this goal. So it all works out in the end =D

[Blind Mapmaker]

As for the brand-new magic system that can be pretty tricky. GURPS Thaumatology offers help, but it is mainly about how to adjust spell magic to work slightly differently. It is kind of hard to offer significant advice without knowing the Full-Metal Alchemist setting, though.

I would first try and make sure what your wife wants to be able to do and where she would want her character to have limits (moral, energy, material and other restrictions) and what kind of enemies she would prefer. I would work on from that. Spell magic in itself is a restriction, but also a something that breaks the system of regular GURPS rules fairly often. I definitely wouldn't see spell magic as your only option. With only one larger-than-life PC point balance is not very important and you can easily make a "magic as powers" approach work. Just be sure to add a lot of arcane modifiers for magical materials, ingredients and astrology.

[Kuroshima]

Personally, I have a FMA inspired character in my Supers game, and we did it with Realm Magic. Mind you, I'm not recommending you to use Realm Magic for your first game! Still it probably is the best way to represent what FMA Alchemy does. Mind you, FMA Alchemy has certain quirks, and depending on how you model it, the cost for the Realms would change greatly. Still, Realm magic is costly, and you'll probably need to give her upwards of 500 points for her base concept.

You're in for a bumpy ride though. Why don't you tell her to build a simpler character (I suggest a warrior/thief in the spirit of the Conan novels, NOT the movies), and you both go through Caravan to Ein Arris as you "training wheels"? It's a rather balanced with all sort of situations. Give her 250 points, as she has no party to help her, and explain that she's playing a larger than life character, again akin to young Conan or Red Sonja, though obviously not as larger than life as those characters eventually became.

[DoctorRomulus]

this is soooo kool.

This should be expanded into a Dungeon Fantasy book.

:D

Originally Posted by trooper6

I think my advice is for making your first adventure...don't make the adventure yet.

This is what I'd recommend.

1) Come up with an idea of the location of the campaign...this could be a city, a kingdom, a small town, etc. Don't go too crazy. But it should be something that has a bit of potential (or actual) conflict built in. For example, "The game starts in the March of Silverpoint. Silverpoint Village is a small community in the foothills of the Ironbridge mountains at the southern most edge of the Kingdom of Garland. The Ironbridge mountains are home to monsters of all types and the Marquis of Silverpoint line of defense protecting the rest of the kingdom from monster invasion. (this sets up D&D sort of kill monster quests). The current King of Garland is well liked, but has been quite ill for some time. He has two children, a daughter and a son. The daughter is older and is well regarded throughout the Kingdom. The son is an irresponsible wastrel, yet he is the heir. Neither is married...and there is concern that if the King were to die the kingdom would fall into Civil War (this sets up some political adventure possibilities). Recently, gold was found in the Ironbridge foothills and Silverpoint Village is finding itself flooded with gold seekers wanting to venture into the monster infested hills to seek their fortune. (This is sets up some financial/trading quests, gives justification for outsiders to be in the village, and can set up some more conflict).

So you have given a really basic sense of the world with some big overview conflicts built in. Then...

2) Have your wife make her character. Ask her, after telling her about the world a bit, what sort of character she'd like to make. Make the character with her and ask her questions that will get her to think about her character's background, motivations, and goals. Ask her about her character's childhood...who her parents were. Ask her about what she loves and hates and fears. Ask who here friends are. Just get her to get a character connected to the world and that is interesting. I would discourage you from going for the D&D standard "adventurer" who has no connection to the world...who just adventures with no particular motivation.

Let's look at two character concept possibilities.

a) (your wife needs a lot of coaxing).
Her: Um...I want to make a fighter!
You: Okay, do you want to be a noble? a Knight? a Squire? a Sellsword? a soldier of the Silverpoint village guard?
Her: Hm. Can I be someone who came because they hear about the gold?
You: Sure, so you are a prospector. Where did you come from and why did you come?
Her: Can I be an escaped Gladiator? ... And I think that if I can strike it rich I can pay off the bill for my freedom...and maybe also the bill for the freedom of my...little sister who is still enslaved?
You: Sure. Okay, so you are from the neighboring Lightning Empire--they are expansionist and very authoritarian. They have a very strict caste system with slaves at the bottom and the five-headed God at the top (they are a five person council) Slaves, if they can escape, will often escape to the Kingdom of Garland.

Now this is enough for you to start off with some stuff. The character has motivation: get money to buy self and sister out of slavery. That is good motivation. Also, there is some conflict in there. You can have slave hunters come after the character, you can have people recognizer her as a gladiator and think she is awesome, or want to challenge her. So there is some stuff to do.

Option b (wife doesn't need much coaxing)
Her: Oh, I want to be the daughter of the Marquis. Can I do that?
You: Sure.
Her: I want to be skilled at fencing and riding and all the courtly skills. I bit of a tomboy growing up, but good looking and charming. My father wants to marry me off to the Prince...but I want to stay and run the March when my father dies.
You: Okay...but you are not yet betrothed to the Prince...that is something that your father wants.
Her: Sure! I want to be good at leadership and intrigue.
You: Do you have any siblings?
Her: No, I'm an only child, which is why I want to stay here. Oh, I have an idea, can I be in charge of the village watch?--Captain of the Guard sort of thing?
You: Sure.

By now, you have enough for this character as well. But your wife might have more ideas to deepen the character.

Once the character is created, then you think about the adventure.

For the first one, it looks like she wants more straightforward fighting so I'd probably do something like: The character starts off in town gathering supplies and hearing gossip. Give some gossip, but also talk about how some prospectors have been going missing. The PC goes off into the hills to start prospecting. While looking for a good dig site they come across a cave complex. (Small). Have some bandits in the caves. They have been robbing and killing prospectors. So the PC goes through the cave and kills the bandits (hopefully) and rescues someone interesting (the hook for the next adventure).

For the second one it looks like she wants a bit more politics, so maybe I'd go with something like--maybe the PC is invited to participate in the Spring Tourney--or something like that. It is a series of three events that would test the skills of all the young nobles--a melee event/joust for strength, a Grand Ball for Grace, and some third thing for Intelligence--maybe some sort of scavenger hunt with clues. At the event I'd have her competing against both the Prince and the Princess as well as some other nobles. What would be the most interesting? Maybe she learns that whichever of the two (Prince or Princess) to the best match will become the heir...and maybe this Tourney has got a lot of people angling to impress their Highnesses. And maybe it turns out the Princess is really quite terrible...a cheater and ruthless and dishonorable. So now what will she do? The adventure will basically be the three events, but throw in some court intrigue. If she ends up liking the Prince then throw in some problems...like the Princess tries to sabotage her, or she has to rush home because her home is being invaded by monsters from the mountains.

The adventure itself should be small. 2-3 things to do. But it should be tailored to fit the sort of character & skills your wife makes. And it should connect to the larger world and it should open up things to point to further adventures based on the outcome of this one.

It doesn't have to be complicated.