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Old 02-15-2016, 01:46 PM   #71
Kalzazz
 
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Default Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post

Oddly, I am also a programmer by profession

One important programming lesson drilled into me is 'never write a program from scratch, find something similar and modify it!', if I want a program that say scrolls, reads table, updates table, and checks security for user access, I can probably find an already existing program that does most of these things, and modify it (starting from a fully working program that compiles clean) into another program by changing things around

Back in 3e, books like GURPS Wizards which had a whole slew of fully statted out, named, described etc Wizards I could use, and things like the Animal Allies section of DF 5 Allies for instance prove hugely useful to me, as I can take the fully realized ready to use character and kludge something together

What is thus much more awesome in my mind than a template (I admit, I hate templates) is like SEALS in Vietnam style where 'look! We have 3 fully statted out characters you can look at!'

Though the idea of comparing campaign design to programming is weird to me, I can see similarities, but definitely feels odd . . . . . if I was trying to approach campaign design like programming I would hmm, well, one of the key things of programming is trying to reduce the dinosaur into a whole bunch of different bites, and then address each bite in detail . . . I have never tried to do that with a campaign.

I would definitely see (if for some reason I was concerned with templates) trying to design template one all the way to production ready, copy template 1 and modify it into template 2 and so forth, since once you get part of a program (or 1 program in a system of programs) worked out, the rest then follow from there, like getting a corner of a puzzle worked out

(of course, oddly enough, my traditional method of campaign design maps quite well to programming. When risk is low (running a campaign risk is fairly low), slam something together as quick as possible and as soon as it compiles clean, move it to production, let the Deities above and the Users at it, and fix what breaks. That is pretty much what I would do 'okay guys, make 300pt 'I cant believe its not Star Wars' characters, as soon more than half of us have characters game starts, go!', and then if things break down during the game, patch them on the fly and roll on)

Anyway, probably a long way of saying that while templates can be well and good, example characters can also be a very good thing, which I really consider one of the weak points in GURPS currently . . . 10 bazillion templates, but very few 'here is a character you can use as is, or use as a starting point, off you go!' (note, both 3.0 DnD and some versions of Earthdawn were awesome at this, they had example NPC builds of every class in the book, as a DM was an immense help), in 3e I made several characters by starting with an existing character from a book, or used (often with tweaks/serial numbers filed off) them for badguys etc, in 4e I tend to make characters purely from scratch
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Old 02-15-2016, 01:48 PM   #72
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As a note, based on our discussion in this thread, I did use a variant on the cannon fodder rules recently in Zombies and Loincloths, when the bold hero tackled with a troop of bandits, and was hitting them for hearty high teens to low twenties sorts of wallops, I decided 'You know, based on discussion of cannon fodder rules, if a bandit is going to need a KO check, 1-2 death checks, and then a check for stunning, we can instead just say he is down'

It did actually seem to make the game speed up a little, and there were no player complaints
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Old 02-15-2016, 10:58 PM   #73
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Originally Posted by Kalzazz View Post
Oddly, I am also a programmer by profession
Set aside programming for a second, and think about software engineering instead. We've done the "copy an existing program" thing, and now we're designing a new one. Design means you need to understand how something works, at its core, and then once you've mastered it, you can rebuild it.

Campaign Frameworks are like that. By the time I'm finished with one, I can usually give you three reasons why each skill exists and why the templates are built the way they are.

Personally, I think Campaign Frameworks, at least in broad outline, are requisite to an excellent campaign, though there's a reason I'm building Psi Wars in the way that I am. The first step, what you describe, was Iteration 1. We can just cobble together some characters and go. Arguably, we can skip past the templates too, but by thinking our way through the the Psi Wars equivalent to Action 1 and 2, that can help shape the future steps, so it's a useful exercise (and also a reason to not do all the templates in one go, since I will certainly revisit all of them, and too much refactoring will get heavy)

But here's why campaign frameworks are so important: What happens when a player builds a cook for your space opera game? How do you fit that into your plans? Well, the classic improviser says "Well then, make your space opera game about cooking", but what if someone makes a cook and another player makes a soldier? How do you challenge both? How do you give both interesting ideas and directions in which to take their characters? It can be done, of course, all after the fact, but if you want to do a lot of that work up front, in a way that's pretty compatible with what everyone else does, it's useful to have a consistent design up front, and a campaign framework provides that. We know that Psi Wars will be about war, primarily, and action-style adventures, so a commando fits, and a fighter ace fits, and a spy fits, but a cook (in the sense of deep detail into cooking and dealing with restaurant logistics and hunting after the perfect souffle recipe) does not.

With Cherry Blossom Rain, I did your approach: I simply designed characters, though there was a framework behind it in the sense of a list of important skills for particular challenges, but I had no specific templates guiding design, and what I found was that the game ran great, but I had no way of explaining the logic of the characters easily to other people. Loads of people have asked me for my CBR notes and how to run their own CBR game, and short of running it with the same exact characters or fussing with some rough notes on "These skills are kinda useful." Thus, I learned the importance of template design is less "This is important for this campaign," and more that it is important for other people's campaigns
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Old 02-15-2016, 11:07 PM   #74
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Day 2 of the data dump: the Fighter Ace!
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Old 02-16-2016, 12:06 AM   #75
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In retrospect, I should clarify something.

I work this way because I work too hard. I like to explore mechanics as much as a campaign concept, and I've learned that my material, if sufficiently worked out, can serve your campaign as much as mine, so I tend to push for a campaign framework build.

This is not "good campaign design," it's good game design. Most GMs don't need to design a game, they need to design a campaign. Understanding some concepts like "core activity" and knowing how your mechanics will work once you actually start running the game are good principles. Designing templates is usually overkill. I mean, I just released the Fighter Ace and the Commando. What if nobody wants to play a Fighter Ace? Or what if everyone wants to play as pilots in a rebel squadron and nobody wants to play as a commando? Then I've wasted effort. Templates are only worthwhile if you intend to revisit a campaign over and over again... or let someone else play with your notes.

As my blog will be read by others, and (I hope) used by others, templates are a good idea. But for your personal campaign, take heed to my "You don't need to do this" comments.
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Old 02-16-2016, 09:02 AM   #76
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So many programmers play GURPS, gotta be a reason for that =)

Loving the Psi Wars stuff, Milanka, just tossing that out there.
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Old 02-16-2016, 11:15 AM   #77
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So many programmers play GURPS, gotta be a reason for that =)

Loving the Psi Wars stuff, Milanka, just tossing that out there.
I appreciate it. I've been keeping an eye on your blog as well. I have a cross-post I'd like to make. Hopefully soon I'll have the time to make it.
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Old 02-16-2016, 05:48 PM   #78
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Yeah, my approach is

1. Describe vague concept to players, give them general chargen instructions
2. Players make characters
3. Once people (or most of people) have characters, take a look at the characters, figure out something for said characters to be doing, and off to the races

My most detailed campaign writeup in 20yrs of DMing just barely got past 1pg of setting details/chargen instructions etc

However, I did provide a rough sketch of sample character so players could take a look
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...v4A/edit#gid=0

One thing I am trying to say (and perhaps failing to do so), is to me, worked example characters are waaaaay more useful than templates, and I think the lack of worked examples is a huge flaw in the DF/MH series. 3e Wizards for instance is awesome, as is Shadowrun 3e, and the DnD 3.0 DMG, because are full of full blown worked examples

Admittedly, making worked sample characters is not something I practice when I'm DMing, I like RPGs, but I like the actual 'now we roll dice and kill things' aspects of it, and discussing RPGs on message boards and such, my tolerance for campaign prep and chargen is extremely low
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Old 02-16-2016, 05:55 PM   #79
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Originally Posted by GodBeastX View Post
So many programmers play GURPS, gotta be a reason for that =)

Loving the Psi Wars stuff, Milanka, just tossing that out there.
++
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Old 02-16-2016, 11:11 PM   #80
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Day 3 of the Data Dump: Surprise! It's a Space Knight! Well, a possible version. The final iteration of the Space Knight will likely change, but I wanted to explore a particular concept. Check it out.
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