New category for GURPS

[Refplace]

In answering yet another "GURPS needs more adventures!" post I identified some of the problems and wanted to post some potential solutions.
What about an Adventure Path category?
Not the right name for my idea but the best I have for now.
World Builder, Adventure Builder, etc are other ideas.
Difficulties in building a good adventure: Maps, inspiring story or plots, balancing, monster stat blocks, setting info, chaining paths.
According to the GURPS adventures page we have 9 published adventures for 4E.
We also have Pyramid and other things like the Locations series.
My idea here is a building block approach.
Create a line with sublines by genre and items in each subline can include map books, monster or NPC books, adventure seeds, and fully worked adventures.
Part of the goal here is to raise visibility by organizing them together, including some other W23 product such as maps, cardboard heroes, etc.
A prospective author could write an adventure that uses a map from another product and the same with monsters and even NPCs.
Obviously you have the concern of buying more than one book for an adventure and things need to be labeled as to what else might be required to use them.
The counter to that though is an author does not have to be as good at so many things to produce an item. An author could just say use the Inn from X, dungeon from Y and monsters from these books. Also include substitution suggestions.
Also customers have a more modular approach and can mix and match to reuse stuff but with faster game prep than doing it all from scratch.
And this does not stop specific fully fleshed out adventures or Locations from being written.
One issue I feel is that some people overlook published material because GURPS is so big and it can be hard to find things.
A web page like Adventures and Locations that listed these items could help consolidate. And I think including maps from W23 that are not GURPS would help here as well.

What do you think?

[ericthered]

I think the hardest part of producing content for Gurps is getting writers.



Yes, I've tried writing an adventure for Gurps in the past, and I ended up putting it down. Its pretty hard.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Heck, writing in general is hard.

[Gollum]

In my humble opinion, those who demand adventures don't want yet another book (or series of books) to build their own adventures, no matter how good and useful it can be.

One of the main problem of GURPS is that it is already a huge library. To play, you have to read GURPS Lite, GURPS Basic Set and a plethora of books which explain how to use all that stuff to fit to your own game world and campaigns. All those books are very good, well written and very useful - no problem with that. Some of them are even essential if you really want to understand GURPS and avoid make things go wrong (with such a universal and generic system, it is very easy to get a heroic game while you wanted a realistic one, or vice versa, for instance) ...

But, precisely, that make things very hard to do. A beginner has hundreds of pages to read, if not thousands ... Just before having hours to spend to design his own adventures.

So, those who want adventures like me really want ready to play adventures. Not another compilation of how to do things ... by themselves. Even if it is very easy to do ...

It is at least my opinion. And it may only be my opinion. I cannot be sure for others.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Gollum

One of the main problem of GURPS is that it is already a huge library. To play, you have to read GURPS Lite, GURPS Basic Set and a plethora of books which explain how to use all that stuff to fit to your own game world and campaigns.

To play GURPS, you only need to read the Basic Set, and only those parts that you want to use. If you don't think you'll be using magic in your game, you don't need to read the magic chapter. If you think you're going to be running an all-human campaign, you can skip over the many, many exotic advantages and disadvantages. If you're not going to run a combat-heavy campaign, you don't have to read the chapters on Special Combat Situations or Tactical Combat, and you only need to look at the former in cases where the basic combat rules refer you to them and you're interested.

All the other books are totally, completely, one-hundred-percent optional. You may not be able to perfectly reproduce some specific setting using only rules written for you if you're using only the Basic Set, but you'll get pretty darn close. The huge library for GURPS is not "stuff that should have been in Basic but there wasn't room and you can't play without it."

If the Basic Set doesn't have something you feel you need, JUST MAKE IT UP. That's what you do in role-playing games when play goes beyond the given rules.

All those books are very good, well written and very useful - no problem with that. Some of them are even essential if you really want to understand GURPS and avoid make things go wrong (with such a universal and generic system, it is very easy to get a heroic game while you wanted a realistic one, or vice versa, for instance) ...

It's easy to get cinematic instead of realistic if you're not paying attention. The Basic Set does address this, but people often don't notice. That doesn't mean a book about controlling this is "essential." The Basic Set has all you need to understand the essentials. The supplements give you MORE, but they're not essential.

But, precisely, that make things very hard to do. A beginner has hundreds of pages to read, if not thousands ... Just before having hours to spend to design his own adventures.

There's no reason — except lack of confidence — that someone new to GURPS can't read the Basic Set, omitting unneeded parts, and start making up adventures right away. No, no book has told them about the details of Viking social structure or the various options they can add to blasters, but you don't need that to make up your own adventures. If you LIKE that sort of thing you're in luck, because SJG has a whole bunch you can buy! But at this point the player or GM WANTS to read more, so "look at how much reading they have to do!" is no longer an argument.

So, those who want adventures like me really want ready to play adventures. Not another compilation of how to do things ... by themselves. Even if it is very easy to do ...

I'm always interested in seeing new ways to put together adventures, but I wouldn't buy a whole book on the subject simply because it had GURPS on the cover. Adventures are adventures, whatever game system you're using.

As for ready-to-play adventures, there should be more, but I don't think we should expect SJG to make them. I'd rather see more fan-effort on that score. But the thing is, it's so easy to just take an adventure from another game system and play it in GURPS, I hardly see the point. At best, published GURPS adventures are either attempts to demonstrate how GURPS works (Caravan to Ein Arris) or attempts to kick-start a particular supplement line, showing what quality adventures SHOULD look like.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Refplace

What do you think?

I'm inclined to think this is likely overcomplicated. The fewer things you require the customer buy, the better. I've already gotten complaints about the number of other books some of the stuff I write recommends, and that's just stuff out of the basic DF line. I love synergy between products, but there's the counterbalancing concern of making people think they have to buy dozens of books before they can even start.

I suspect that the way to do an "adventure path" for GURPS is to follow the model set by I Smell a Rat and Against the Rat Men: link products, but make the link optional. There are options for following on from the first one, and assuming the first one already happened but to other people. Or, should someone write a sequel to Mirror of the Fire Demon, that sequel could do the same thing, or it could happen somewhere else entirely but involve recurring entities in the background (say, the oracle and the big bad demon lord could be involved somehow). Basically, one could build a path, but with many ways in and out. Caverntown or the Pagoda of Worlds could be treated as home base for an adventure, but for those who don't have or don't want them, there could be a bit sketching out the kinds of places they need to be to fill their role in the adventure. This lets each adventure stand on its own rather depending on everyone liking product A enough to buy product B, but still serve the interests of people looking for a pre-made campaign of connected works.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

To play GURPS, you only need to read the Basic Set, and only those parts that you want to use. If you don't think you'll be using magic in your game, you don't need to read the magic chapter. If you think you're going to be running an all-human campaign, you can skip over the many, many exotic advantages and disadvantages. If you're not going to run a combat-heavy campaign, you don't have to read the chapters on Special Combat Situations or Tactical Combat, and you only need to look at the former in cases where the basic combat rules refer you to them and you're interested.

All the other books are totally, completely, one-hundred-percent optional. You may not be able to perfectly reproduce some specific setting using only rules written for you if you're using only the Basic Set, but you'll get pretty darn close. The huge library for GURPS is not "stuff that should have been in Basic but there wasn't room and you can't play without it."

If the Basic Set doesn't have something you feel you need, JUST MAKE IT UP. That's what you do in role-playing games when play goes beyond the given rules.

I'm coming to think this is much less intuitive than people seem to think it is.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

There's no reason — except lack of confidence — that someone new to GURPS can't read the Basic Set, omitting unneeded parts, and start making up adventures right away.

I'm afraid this is quite wrong. There's lack of time, a major obstacle for a lot of people but particularly us older ones who have to balance our gaming with full-time jobs, kids, family, and other hobbies and obligations. There's lack of ability; some people's talents simply lead them in different directions, and if I know, for example, that I'm good with rules and terrible with structuring adventures, I'm being perfectly reasonable if I'm willing to spend money to have the publisher shoring me up where I need help. And there's a lack of inclination, with some people simply wanting a fun evening of gaming and not wanting to do all the ground work themselves. GURPS does not physically prevent people from making up the necessary bits, figuring out what rules to use and which ones not to, and all that sort of thing, but you must understand that this is something which some people, perhaps many people, simply find not-fun. If somebody tells you what they need, like pre-built adventures or something like that, please believe them. They almost certainly know what GURPS is capable of, and they have reasons which are good and sufficient to them for not doing it.

[DouglasCole]

I'll also add one more bit of perspective here.

1) GURPS is still a small market; a very large fraction of it has to buy your stuff for it to be profitable. (Such is currently the case on the DFRPG kickstarter currently underway; I'm STUNNED at the response, in a great way). If you have a hit in the OGL 5e or OSR world, both are bigger than GURPS and its sub-lines.

2) From a writing perspective, I never thought the 5e spell and skill list were small and puny until I started looking at all the bloody options contained in the DFRPG. And that list is whittled down. GURPS is DEEP, and covering the bases in a way that don't result in "I cast a quick 1 point spell and ruin your plotline" (as a fantasy-trope overly-simple example) requires no small amount of system mastery or help.

It's doable. I'm doing it. But one thing I won't say is that it's EASY or FAST.

It is, however, proving to be great FUN.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I'm inclined to think this is likely overcomplicated. The fewer things you require the customer buy, the better.

I prefer standalone modules that I could connect if I want myself.
What I was going for was breaking up the workload.
That way an author who is not good at maps, hates stat blocks, or just cant come up with a bunch of new monsters can rely on others who prefer those things. Another option would be getting a co author I suppose and we have seen some examples of that, with at least one more coming.