What GURPS needs... now
 

Some time ago, there was a conversation (or a dozen) that had suggested that GURPS needed an introductory product like a boxed set. And behold, SJGames created just that! I, like many others, am eagerly waiting the DFRPG Boxed Set to arrive (and to see how well it does), but a few recent discussions here and elsewhere started getting me thinking about what else GURPS needs.

(I get that SJG is probably in a "holding pattern" as far as new products go, but hey, its never too early to talk about the future.)

One thing that I have noticed from quite a few people recently, is reflecting on how the 3rd edition basic set was more manageable. The 4th edition basic set is more expensive, more dense, and can be hard to parse for someone new. DFRPG is one solution to this, but gamers that are looking for a great universal system might skip a worked genre game.

There has been talk of reworking GURPS Lite (4th edition) since... well for a long time! I think Lite 4th is good... but the lack of magic and many other options makes it feel less than... "universal". And arguing that a free introductory product needs to eat away at staff time, is a hard pill to swallow.

So, my thoughts are GURPS needs a "Basic Set" that lives up to that name. Something more akin to Savage World's "Explorer Edition". A product with a price tag on it, with enough character traits to cover most genres, and the core rules without all the optional stuff.

I'd love to see a softcover "trade paperback" sized book for under $20 (a $10 book like SWEX would also be great!). Something like this would make it a lot easier to guide new folks to GURPS.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I'd say that GURPS needs more than Dungeon Fantasy in order to set it apart from the various D&D clones out there. A few suggestions:

A GURPS Monster Hunters boxed set, including a booklet consisting of RPM rituals, plus a bunch of adventure seeds.

A GURPS Space Opera And Mecha boxed set, including a stripped-down version of Spaceships designed for quickly putting together space opera type spacecraft, starfighters and capital ships alike. Leave aside the options that aren't standard space opera fare.

Come to think of it, I'd love to see Mailanka's Psi-Wars done up as a hardcover book, but I'm not sure it's "needed".

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I've been wanting something like that for years and years. My own thought was a series of GURPS Lite supplements but I can see how that might compete with existing products and undermine sales. I'm hoping Dungeon Fantasy is a success. I'm doing what I can to help it be a success. But I really think a core book that cuts out all the cinematic and non-mundane stuff would be a great resource for new players and GMs.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I feel exactly the same way about a GURPS book that cuts out all the uberdetailed combat rules and rosters of basically identical weapons.

Which is why I love that the game is modular and you can take what you want and ignore the rest.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I would have no use for a book like that. I can't imagine many players, especially new players, would as well.

I could see the opposite being much more useful: something that ramps up the cinematic, and really pares down the mundane. Most of the players I've encountered don't want to play Papers and Paychecks, they want to do something amazing.

To Andrew's point, most of the players I've encountered would rather see GURPS combat simplified. Sure, a GM with all of the important bits memorized can speed combat right along, but, for new players . . . something simple is better than something complex.

And I'm of a mixed mind about identical weapons. But, he's probably right about that as well.

I'm another voter for the power of the modular system. There are lots of things we don't use when playing. There are, additionally, lots of things we bring in from various places. I like how, in general, swapping things in GURPS doesn't, automatically, break the system.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

A 4th Edition of GURPS Magic...

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Oh, I certainly agree with this. But I think there are plenty of folks that prefer staring with a "base line" and building up. IMO, Basic Set for 4th edition is so modular, and so filled with options that it can be hard to establish what the "base line" is.

And I also think there are a lot of gamers that are turned off by the idea of spending $85 on two big dense books, just to ignore the 90% you aren't going to use.

I think an inexpensive "pocket edition", that gives a taste of the rules, but then points the way to Basic Set for the full enchilada... or to DFRPG for a worked example, could do a lot to get new folks into GURPS.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

The third edition was easier to manage because it was less generic. It assumed you were more or less humanoid and you more or less had no more than the traditional super powers one finds in many RPGs. It was less interested in catering to cinematic styles. It focused more heavily on combat than other activities. Anything outside these assumptions and focuses were put in add-on books.

The fourth edition generalized the game. It lays out rules for being just about anything, not just a humanoid. It gives rules for constructing your own super powers (though it wasn't entirely clear that this is what it does until Powers came out). Cinematic options are given much more attention, and non-combat activities gain ground (e.g., in the third edition, the equipment chapter goes pretty much straight into armor; in the fourth edition, it lays a groundwork for cost of living, legality class, and general goods before it goes into weapons).

With generalization comes complexity. Third edition's Toughness DR1 or DR2, which simply means your skin is tough, is now expanded to fourth edition's more general Damage Resistance. You can take it in as many levels as your GM will allow. You can use it to turn damage into character points (Absorption), it can be a Force Field, it can have an armor divisor (Hardened), and it can reflect damage (Reflection). It can be Ablative, it can prevent you from wearing armor (Can't Wear Armor), it can protect only from one direction (Directional), it can ineffective against blunt trauma (Flexible), it can be limited to certain damage types (Limited), it can be limited to certain hit locations (Partial), its ablativeness can be partial (Semi-Ablative), and it can leave you vulnerable to poisonous scratches and the like (Tough Skin). It can be taken in multiple layers.

If you want to make the fourth edition more manageable, take away the complexity due to generalization. Write up whatever advantages exist in your campaign, in a format easier for you to digest than what's in the book. You'll have to do this work yourself, though: I don't think SJG will be making "De-generalized GURPS for Realistic Humanoids" anytime soon. It's a "Basic Set" not in that it requires "basic" understanding, but in that it's the core of the game, and all other rules build off of it.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

D&D also asks you to spend $90 on two big books just to play. Sure, you'll probably be using a lot of those books, but all you can ever play with them is D&D.

What would you cut out? What would you put into a cut-down product to try to drive interest in GURPS? Anything you did would have to be a narrow-focus book, which would require multiple books to get decent penetration into the market.

Additional boxed sets, in the vein of DFRPG is a good start, in general. But, beyond that, I think a "pocket edition" would be too specific to actually be much help.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

On the other tentacle, this could be an interesting book.

A book that explains how to prepare and constrain your campaign. Both to help you focus your expectations and assist the GM in preparing to tell their story. Advice on the many options GURPS presents, what their intention was, and suggestions for using or not using them.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I'm not saying we need to get rid of the Basic Set. I'm not saying we need to change the forth edition (or that we need a new edtion). I'm just saying that a NEW, smaller, cheaper, more digestable product would help get NEW players into the game.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I have three things that I would like to see in GURPS right now.

1) A revised lite that incorporates magic and cleans up some of the detail in favor of generic task difficulty modifiers. This would help make GURPS more accessible, wouldn't require the huge time investment of rewriting an existing book, and wouldn't break backwards compatibility.

2) Quick start guides: a series of questions that guides GMs on what rules to use / what to avoid in running a game with a specific feel. I'm envisioning that these would be 2-4 page documents, per genre/game style. They would be the worked genre equivalent of How to Be A GURPS GM, and would be designed to streamline game and character creation. The PC creation element would look a lot like the worked genre books' list of appropriate advantages and skills.

3) Estimating guides: a lot of what I do as GM is ballpark things. How much damage should X do? How much is X limitation worth in this context? How many fatigue points should X require? I have developed a lot of cheat sheets that take canonical examples of X and put them in a chart so I can quickly skim and say, this armor should be more effective than Y but less protective than Z…I think it should have DR 4. I would find a lot of value in a PDF that gave advice and charts for ballparking all kinds of game details.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

The problem, however, with having both a Basic Set and a "Starter Set" in print, is that both cost resources to be kept in print. I don't believe we've reached the point where SJ Games can do a print-on-demand service for big books like the Basic Set every time someone orders one, at least not with good profit margins. So the Basic Set would have to be kept in conventional print, getting a bunch of copies made up in a batch, then warehoused until they were sold. And the same goes for the "Starter Set". And people would, I believe, generally not be willing to buy both the Starter Set and the Basic Set. People generally have a resistance to purchasing material they already own. So what you've effectively set up is competition between your own products. That could, quite easily, lead to a situation where it's not actually profitable for SJ Games to keep either the Starter Set or the Basic Set in print.

All this said, I do think that Basic could probably be organized in a different way, to make it more obvious what stuff was the simplest and most basic, and what stuff was more-complicated optional rules (yes, all rules are optional. But you see what I mean). For example, rather than listing all the advantages and disadvantages in the one big list, the ones useful for building, as Stormcrow said, "more or less humanoid" characters could be put first, then ones for building more alien physiology and psychology, then supernatural ones, and so on. More like the 3e Basic Set, I guess, although perhaps not subdivided into as many sections, and definitely all in the same book, not split into another one.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

1) D&D is also... D&D. Just because WotC can do something, doesn't mean that anyone else would be able to do the same and make a buck.

2) What to cut is a GOOD QUESTION. I'd say looking at traits that aren't typically found in in the most popular settings. Leave in enough support for modern day, "typical" fantasy, and general sci-fi. Support of supers would probably have to be dropped, as would many of the traits that only show up in supers.

Again, this isn't suppose to be a replacement for the Basic Set. It can't do all the things that Basic can do. But it might lower the bar of entry for a lot of people.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

That is a description of the DFRPG. Contemporary action and sci-fi are no less marginal than superheroes. I suspect that realistic contemporary action is actually significantly more marginal.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

But we already have that: GURPS Lite. You may not agree with the authors' choices of what to cut and what to keep, but this is the document that does exactly what you want: lower the bar of entry to GURPS by cutting out the complicated stuff and by being free.

I often hear people talk about starting up campaigns using GURPS Lite, usually in the context of "You don't have to own the rules or already know how to play." So someone finds it useful.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I'm a lot more likely to purchase well-crafted mystery adventures than additional or alternative rules. Pelgrane Press has put out a number of adventures (with an eye to aesthetics as well as meat & potatoes) to support their Trail of Cthulhu line and which serve as an excellent example. Sure, one can convert them, but it is a bother. Wouldn't it be nice to give aspiring or time-strapped GMs an easy way to run GURPS for their groups with some top-notch adventures in genres ranging from hard SF to high fantasy that show off the system to its advantage?

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Which would be how many products that most people want at most a handful of?

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

"Easy to translate" is one of the big selling points of GURPS in the Introduction, both to and from GURPS.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

We need an author/editor team that's willing to not only wade into the garbage fire that is Magic 3e but also to weather slings and arrows of discontent from the community when they fail to please everyone in any way at all.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

So here is icv2's list of top selling RPGs for Fall 2016:
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/vi...ames-fall-2016

They are:

1. Dungeons and Dragons
2. Pathfinder
3. Star Wars (from Fantasy Flight Games)
4. Shadowrun 5e
5. Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed

Shadowrun is doing quite well, and I ended up picking up the rules (I'll tell you why in a second)...and you know what? That is one crunchy game. It's success clearly belies the notion that for a game to be successful it can't be as crunchy as GURPS is because it will scare off new players. I found it way crunchier than GURPS.

So what got me to buy Shadowrun?
The Twitch Streamed Shadowrun Game: CorporateSINs. That stream lasted for over a year and I got all invested in the game watching the great players and GM...so I bought the basic rules. As a matter of fact, most of the games I've bought in the last few years (and it has turned out to be more than I have in a while), have mostly come from being inspired to pick up the game after watching it streamed on Twitch.

What I think GURPS needs now is not a new version of GURPS Lite, but less grognardism in the fan base and more visibility. I think a cool Twitch streamed game with fun players and a fun GM that could show that GURPS is elegant, fun, deep, and interesting...*that* is one of the things that GURPS needs to attract new people.

And because no two GURPS games are alike--in other words, my GURPS and your GURPS are not only not the same, but may not even be compatible--it would be best if there were multiple different GURPS Twitch streams. Maybe one run by a GM who is a member of the Cult of Stat Normalization, maybe one run by someone who love the high point totals and cinematics. Maybe one run by a narrativist, one by a simulationist, one by a gamist.

I'd also like to see a really prestige campaign book. Something like the Dracula Dossier. Something where the campaign book is big and impressive and written by someone like Ken Hite. Something that will attract new people who are excited about running an epic campaign...and since it is GURPS they'll run it in that. Sure, current GURPS people may not care about adventures, but we are talking about new people. I'd want a campaign book awesome enough that it could be nominated for an Ennie or an Origins Award. Something that will generate some good press and put GURPS back in people's minds.

In short, I think the game itself is good. I just think GURPS needs to be put back in people's minds as something cool and fun.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I think wilingness by SJGames to even attempt it is a more serious roadblock. I am sure there are freelancers who would take the project, I would, for instance.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I would agree. Personally, I'm significantly more interested in systems that can handle supers than cannot. I own, pretty much, every Super Hero game out there (notable exceptions are the old DC system that I never was able to find and Heroes Unlimited). Sure, I play GURPS, but I'm always interested in seeing how other systems handle things.

What GURPS really needs is for us to be out there, playing it in public places, so people can see us doing it, and having a good time doing so. It needs better PR and a positive reputation. If each of us, who are passionate about GURPS, takes a D&D or Pathfinder DM under their wing and teaches them the awesomeness of GURPS, then we will help the system immeasurably.

I'm already teaching it to one Pathfinder DM, so . . . up your game!

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

If I understand the implication, it is that this would not be profitable. Maybe, but I don't have that data. Clearly, Pelgrane sees the value in it for their line. I don't play ToC, but I have bought adventures written for it, because writing good mysteries is not my forte and their product hits the spot. Assuming that it goes both ways, if the adventures are good enough, the audience for GURPS-specific adventures is not just GURPS GMs, but any GM, and that is a much larger target client base.

High-value GURPS adventures are consonant with, though distinct from, Trooper6's recommendation of a "prestige campaign book." Both suggestions serve the established GURPS community while providing product that can cultivate new members in a way that more and more and more rules (even Magic 4E Revisited) don't. I think his suggestion of highly visible teaser material designed to interest non-GURPS players is also worthy of consideration.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Really, a lighter combat system is something that should have been implemented somewhere a long time ago. I love the detailed system but sometimes it's just too much.

I wonder if there's a way to handle penetration and damage type multipliers that hides them. I know from experience that it's one of those sticking points people have.

Like, maybe zombies just have extra hit points rather than a different multiplier. I suppose you could build the change in characters and set a points value.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I could see a boxed GURPS Cyberpunk set based off of Action or even Monster Hunters. Include a bit about how to incorporate Dungeon Fantasy information, and you'd have a ready-made Shadowrun competitor, which would encourage people to purchase both sets to pull it off.

I think a boxed Supers game would be too difficult to pull off (but cool), without going the City of Heroes route, and only having specific options (and now I've made myself sad, thinking about City of Heroes).

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

This is probably the only thing I could want more than the upcoming DFRPG boxed set in terms of tabletop gaming.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

It is pretty easy to run games that generally only use a few modifiers. If the typical combat is a firefight with issued rifles by regular troops on both sides then pi is probably the only modifier that is typically going to come up.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Something like the Dungeon Masters Guild for Dungeon Fantasy.

SimiOfficial support that encourages GMs to share their stories. What GURPS is missing is social support and media presence so a few good YouTube or Twitch games.

I know the board is a great source but a club would encourage collaborations and part of the recent growth of DnD seems to be partially due to this.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I was also thinking about Pelgrane Press's work. They are a small company, but they certainly get a lot of ENnie award nominations and people talk about them. They seem vital and interesting and their names are on people's lips. I would be overjoyed if ex-SJG contributors Ken Hite and Robin Laws would make some sort of prestige, high-quality, innovative, and experimental massive adventure. Then I could stream it on Twitch!

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

GURPS is fine, as is, it just needs exposure from both fans and SJG.

For what it's worth, our group has started to stream live GURPS games on Twitch, in an effort to increase the GURPS footprint. It's still very much in its infancy, but we're working on production quality and ways to make things more interesting. Hopefully we will get to the point where we have a good show going.

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/theronnke
YouTube archives: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCog...foShOVyXMbQugA

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

That's a false dilemma. For example, I played in a game that had absolutely no magic, no exotic abilities, no cinematic whiz bang of most any kind, but I don't think many people would call brutally realistic* medieval warfare "Papers and Paychecks."

* Some might say disturbingly realistic. One combat devolved into grappling, and ended when one fighter got his hand under the other's visor. And with no magic healing, eyes don't grow back.

Personally, my favored gaming style falls somewhere in the middle of all that, at what I would describe as optimistic heroism with a fair touch of grit.
I could see a lot of it being trimmed down with liberal use of the phrases "Use the same stats for X, Y, or Z" and "For an extra $A, add a B that enables C."

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I just followed your stream. I'll check it out. I currently stream video games twice a week, but I'm planning on adding a GURPS stream...at least just a 2-3 session test to see if doing it longer term will be viable. I want players with webcams, because I want viewers to be able to see the faces of the GM and players. I'm going to work on it.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Why wouldn't it be viable? Any GURPS is better than no GURPS.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Being able to point people to a free version of GURPS that allows them to experience what it's like to use GURPS for the most popular RPG genre would be very helpful. The lack of magic in GURPS Lite 4e is unfortunate.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I agree. Magic in Lite would've been great. However, just looking at what rules that are absolutely necessary for magic is actually a bunch of pages. Trimming all that down looks...daunting.

The big question: What spells do we give people? It's easy to drop the Gate, Necromancy, and Weather colleges. But what other colleges don't make the cut? Maybe Earth, Knowledge, and Meta? What spells don't make it? In theory drop Earth to Air, No-Smell, Predict Weather, Deathtouch, Wither Limb, Cold, Heat, Resist Cold, Resist Fire, Great Healing, Major Healing, Aura, Seeker, Trace, Mass Daze, Mass Sleep, Great Haste, Fog, and Shape Water....ugh, that leaves a ton and takes out some great magic-y things to do.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

If I were going to write a Lite system that is supposed to primarily be playable, rather than be a sampler for the Basic Set, I would have just used Wildcards instead of regular skills and you could make a pretty good one page magic system that way.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Remember there's a 20-page chapter on magic in Characters.

I'm not really sure how to shorten that further for Lite, but it already prunes down from Magic to just 93 spells that fit into 11-12 pages.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

For me, the things I need to work through are mostly technical. Can I work out technically how to get my game to look aesthetically pleasing for the audience? I'll be using Roll20, how is that going to work out for me? Will I find it fluid and comfortable? I'm doing a 2-3 session arena run because I want to test out all the tough stuff...mapping and movement and all that. One thing I'm especially interested in checking out is how drawing maps in the moment might work out because I'm pretty improvisational. Will drawing on the computer feel as fluid as drawing on my dry erase hex map? How I feel about the experience of doing this online will impact whether I think of this as viable. I also want to try out a few other systems online...what if I prefer those systems for online play than GURPS? I need to test out streaming to see if technically I like and can handle the experience.

Then there are the players. I need players who meet some requirements. I need someone who has a webcam and mic and is willing to be streamed and can meet at the time we can all meet. That is the basic. The Arena game also lets me see what the player plays like. I'm going to want people who are professional...but also match my GM style. I also would prefer to find people with good personality who will perform well on cam in order to better sell the game to viewers. If I can't find good players who meet those requirements, then it isn't viable yet.

I also would like to run the game on Fridays, but don't want to compete with another streamer I mod for. She doesn't currently stream on Fridays, but is planning on adding a Friday stream...so I want to see what time she'll be streaming.

So I'm going to do a quick short run to see how I feel about the experience and as a way to audition some players.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Here are my two cents about this very interesting topic …

Dungeon Fantasy RolePlaying Game Boxed Set will help GURPS to be more well known and really liked. And I’m sure such tool boxes will be designed for Action and Monster Hunters series … If DFRPG is bought a lot and some GURPS authors have time and money to make them.

Waiting for that time, do we need another GURPS Lite, a more streamlined Basic Set, more hints about how to handle GURPS for each specific genre?

In my humble opinion, no.

GURPS Lite is already a very good tool and it is hard to do something better – that is, a book which shows GURPS in a so simple, easy to read and fully compatible with the Basic Set manner … How to be a GURPS GM already gives amazing hints about how GURPS works and which rules to use for your own campaign. And Dungeon Fantasy, Action and Monster Hunters series are precisely books which explain how to adapt GURPS to those specific genres. We even have Adaptation, which describes how to translate your favorite fictions in GURPS terms.

So, what does GURPS really need to attract new people? Simple. What does other universal roleplaying system (those who are best sellers) propose?

Game worlds and adventures! That is, really ready to play stuff.

Do you want to try the BRP system for instance? Simple. Download Call of Cthlhu Quick Start Rules and you’ve got all what you need to play immediately. Rules and a ready to play adventure to start with. Or, if you prefer fantasy, do it with Runequest Roleplaying in Glorantha Quick Start. Here again, everything is given without having the least preparation to do. You just have to read and you can play.

Of course, GURPS offers some adventures here or there. You can for instance download GURPS Lite and play it with Caravan to Ein Arris, for free. But, first, these two books are not clearly linked together. And second, what will happen when you will want to go on with the same Player Characters? The Game Master will have to write new adventures and to design the game world for himself. While with Call of Cthulhu or Runequest, you’ve got fully designed game worlds and a lot of ready to play adventures and campaigns.

This is what frightens newcomers, in my humble opinion. GURPS is a very good game … If you’ve got a lot of time to do everything by yourself. Sure, GURPS gives you all the rules you want (perhaps even much more than you would like to), and a lot of hints about how to use them. But you still have to do everything by yourself. And if you look at official supplements, they just give more rules and more hints about how to use them … But no really ready to play stuff. Even game worlds very rarely give you a ready to play adventure!

Brief, GURPS is a very good game for those who love building their own world, writing their own adventures, or adapting ones from another roleplaying game. Thus, it is a very good game for experienced Game Masters, but it cannot really attract newcomers who just would like to try it.

At least, not before the DFRPG and other projects like that will be published out. And more there will be projects like that, more newbies will be able to see and understand how things work (so amazingly) rather than having hundreds and hundreds of pages to read just to know what to use or not to use … to build almost everything by themselves.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Gollum's "two cents" rocked. I say what Gollum said!

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I have to agree with you (with the caveat that, out here in the peanut gallery, I haven't a tenth the knowledge of what "GURPS needs" that SJG has).

GURPS LITE is a fine work as it stands.* However...

Over the years, the go-to description of GURPS, from both fans and detractors, has become "It's a toolkit, not a ready-to-play game." True enough. So it's not surprising that GURPS LITE turns out to be... a toolkit lite.

That makes LITE an honest introduction to GURPS, and I appreciate that. But for the newcomer looking to sit down and quickly play GURPS... There's a nice toolkit lite but still no ready-to-play game (other than that old Caravan adventure).

A handful of "lite" play supplements for use with LITE, each a combination of a brief setting and an adventure, sure sounds like a good welcome for newcomers. Just combine LITE with one of the play supplements, and boom, instant ready-to-play introductory game (with free built-in toolkit, too! : ).

==

* Small tangent on LITE: I'd like to see an updated LITE, and jotted down ideas here. I only suggest a freshen-up, though (the "current" LITE is 13 years old!), not a big reworking.

(In pondering improvements to LITE, anyone smart would have also looked at LITE for 3e for inspiration; I didn't think to do so until later. Turns out that LITE 3e packs in far more than I'd remembered! With no more pages than LITE 4e, LITE 3e managed to include more weapons, a bigger character form, a full-page sample character, basics on non-humans and animals, a Tech Level table, a little section on jobs – and the magic system! That's quite a feat!)

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

To expand my thoughts and piggy back on Gollum a bit, very recently it was free RPG day. I went to my FLGS and looked over the table of free RPGs. I picked up the new Runequest Quickstart (very exciting!) and I also got a book from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Was there any GURPS? No.

Looking around the Chaosium site (an old school company that has been doing really well recently (look at all their ENnie nominations!)...guess what I found? Last year they launched a six month campaign for their Organized Play program. They say: play it in your FLGS to get the word out about CoC! Play it on Twitch! Play it where you want! Why don't we have anything like that? We have MIBs (though when I emailed the contact to join years and years ago I never got a return contact...so my impression about the MIB program isn't that high) but we don't have some cool 6 month unfolding campaign that people can run in the FLGS.

Other companies are doing things to keep their name in people's minds and to offer people things they can just jump in and play. What are we doing?

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I'd just like to see enough in there to give people something playable so they can get an idea of how the default GURPS magic system works, like was done with Skills, Advantages, and Disadvantages.

We could start with the GURPS Lite 3e spell list, for example.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Thank you very much guys!

I’m saying that for a very long time, in many threads …

But I also understand the answer that has been made by GURPS authors until now:

Writing that kind of stuff requires time and money. And GURPS fans are mostly experienced game masters who love building their own game worlds and adventures. So, since GURPS doesn’t really sell as well as we would like, it is impossible to please GURPS fans with new books full of crunchy things and to do stuff for newbies at the same time.

But, after thinking a bit about it, I’m asking something: to myself as well as to others …

We are experienced GURPS game masters. We have time. And we already do a lot of work to build our own game worlds and adventures. Furthermore, some of us already have some audience on the web …

OK. My website doesn’t. But it’s my fault! I didn't post anything for months. Perhaps even years …

Official authors cannot spend time or Steve Jackson Games money to attract newcomers ... But maybe we can! For free. Just because we love GURPS. And because if more and more people buy it, there will be more and more interesting books ...

I’m not speaking about rewriting GURPS books like GURPS lite here! Nor about writing unofficial adaptation of other roleplaying games. We don’t have right to do so and since Steve Jackson Games are very respectful about others' rights (including ours), we have to follow the same guideline.

But we can write adventures with ready to play characters for GURPS Lite. With page references and rules explanations everything required. And we can put them somewhere on the web where newcomers will find them very easily.

The Mook already did something like that. Actually, his website is full of very interesting stuff for newbies.

Why don’t we do the same thing? … Why don’t I do the same thing? It would be better than complaining or contenting ourselves with writing here what should be done to our opinion …

OK. It's clear: I’m speaking for myself now! It will be my challenge. For the next year. Or the next couple of years. Because I’m very slow.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I think a spell list is the wrong way to go about magic for a GURPS Lite product. But, you could do a simple version of ritual path magic, noun-verb magic, or path/book magic within a couple of pages.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Is pulling from books beyond the Basic Set a good idea for GURPS Lite?

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

It's a fair question. I think it's well established that the magic system in Basic was one of the elements that was not as well converted as other elements of the basic system. I look at how complex the rules are for magic in Basic versus what we've learned about how to create magic systems since, and I think the tradeoff would be a net positive.

For some reason, Lite doesn't include task difficulty modifiers. It would be easy to make a version of Lite that does, and then explain e.g. path/book magic in terms of task difficulty modifiers. That's sticking close enough to Basic for me to feel comfortable. Others may draw that line at a different place. But, if Lite has to be fully compatible with Basic's magic rules as-they-are, I think it would be a much more difficult task.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I was going to suggest a Munchkin supplement for Gurps but I realized one is coming out (hopefully) later this year.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Well, play what? It looks like SJG is one of the few companies left that really focuses 90+% of its effforts on its core system. Most of the other "generic" systems sort of "emerge" from a few core lines (like Modiphius 2d20 system, or GUMSHOE) or have at least one core setting as its focus. HERO has Champions, D&D has the Forgotten Realms, Pathfinder has Golarion, Cortex has Firefly, BRP has Cthulhu.

GURPS has... Banestorm? Transhuman Space?

Versatility has always been GURPS' strong point, and I would assume that most of use here are because of that. But that makes selling it in the first place a bit harder, especially in these days when systems tend to recede a bit in the background.

Savage Worlds seems to have a similar system-first agenda, but a different complexity and pricing strategy.
FATE adds a different licensing strategoy on top of that.

The aforementioned Chaosium was a pretty close relative for a while. Making most of the money with other licenses (Cthulhu, Munchkin) and having a core generic system with a shoestring budget (BRP, GURPS).
After the recent takeover, they seem to focus more on their own IP (RuneQuest, Cthulhu), with the system being secondary…

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

In all seriousness I think the thing that brings many people to Gurps is a craving for a playable simulation type game. I think all the stuff from GNS theory a few years back has put a stink on simulation and gamist styles of play.

I think that not only does Gurps appeal to Simulation and Gamist styles but with little effort you can make it a narrative style game...I mean using points as narrative currency (within reason) could be great.

Let's face it, Gurps is the a game you play if you want an axe to work different from a sword. That doesn't mean you can't make it so the player can spend a point to have things go his way (there are actually rules for this but I don't have my books with me) for a roll.

Some people have a perception when they see a bunch of rules that they are all necessary or they need them to "game the system", maybe gamers are pedantic by nature but if there was a way to show how loose a Gurps game could be while still touching on some simulation and gamey things that might pay dividends for Gurps' long term future...

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I took a cursory glance at 3rd ed magic chapter. That's looks perfect for what we would want in a 4th Lite, IMO.
Since the 3rd lite didn't mention colleges, we could just ignore colleges all together (in 4th Lite) and just pick spells that would be useful adventuring and list their prerequisites as needed.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

The big thing that GURPS needs is marketing and visibility. If you're not on the forums or following the blogs/twitter accounts/et cetera of people working for SJ Games, you basically don't ever hear about new releases. Making more people aware that GURPS is still alive and that there are new releases for it coming out would help a good bit.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Infinite Worlds, Cyberworld, Autoduel and there are probably more which escape me at the moment.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Right on. A lot of positive discussion in this thread that I too agree with.

Very productive.

Like Gollum, I'm also inspired to write adventures, but it does take time to do it well. So solidarity on that point too.

Also I wanted to add the Ogre Universe to the list of existing Steve Jackson intellectual property to mine for settings/worlds.

I do not own the 3rd edition version of GURPS Ogre, but its on my list to check out.

I think it may be interesting to explore that world from the standpoint of technology that doesn't have to rise to tactical nuclear exchange. It seems like that would get expensive, and there must be plenty of paramilitary operations that don't warrant such high stakes.

In fact, look at the convergence of SJ settings around 2100: Ogre, Transhuman Space, and Car Wars (last I was in the loop.)

Again, I love how the attitude here is about what can be done rather than why it shouldn't.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

And this is where a problem shows up. This is where "GURPS can do anything!" becomes "GURPS can do nothing."

Players want to play a game. If the response to a new player or a new GM on what they can do is "Anything!" and they say, "Ooh! Like what?! Do you have a campaign I could run to see what it's like?" And you say,"Well we really can't make any adventures, because you can do anything..."

That is going to sound like "this is a system that has no practical application."

This is not the case with GURPS, but this is how it comes across with the discussion of creating adventures. If the professionals can't do it, what makes a new GM think they can do it?

While I love GURPS as a system--LOVE it, it is my favorite system--systems are secondary when sitting at the table. People don't play systems, they use systems to play adventures and tell stories and so on.

I'm intrigued my Chaosium's first OP campaign, Time for Harvest, that comes in 6 episodes, one episode released a month and distributed free to their version of the MIBs to be played in stores, on streams, etc. (They will be releasing it for sale some time this year I believe.

It seems to me, SJ Games could do this as well. They could create one OP campaign a year, released to the MIBs to play in FLGS's. And because GURPS is versatile, this could be used to its advantage. One campaign could be DF with 250cp cinematic heroes. The next here there could be a THS campaign. The year after that could be a gritty Old West campaign. After that could one of those gonzo cross-dimensional things some folks like. Each year could be a different sort of campaign focusing on a different sort of GURPS campaign. And after the period of MIB excitement in stores or online, the campaigns could be packaged and sold.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I know Basic Set magic isn't a favorite with a lot of people. But in its defense as an introduction for newcomers, the concept of "one spell = one fairly simple, defined effect" is easy to understand. It's also similar to the approach taken by classic D&D magic (and a lot of video games), something many GURPS newcomers will be familiar with.

I don't know that there'll ever be a new LITE with a magic system, but if there were, I wouldn't object to it using Basic Set magic (like LITE 3e did).

(Then again... Can an abbreviated RPM or other system be done well in a few short pages? I'd love to see someone show that it can!)

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

"Casting a spell is a skill roll. Buy each spell as an IQ/Hard skill. When you use the spell you must Concentrate for a number of turns (spell's Time to Cast in description, 1 second if not marked), you are fatigued and lose FP (marked Cost in spell description), and then the spell's effects happen right away. Most spells are Instant, meaning the results of the spell are indistinguishable from a version of the effect produced without magic - removing magic doesn't make healed wounds reopen, someone who's been eating Create Food suddenly starving to death, or gold coins turn to lead. Some spells have a set Duration, and the subject of the spell returns to its previous state once these durations expire; for spells like Armor meant to boost combat performance, Duration is usually one minute. In some places, called No Mana Zones, magic does not work at all. Magery is a Talent that adds to all spell skills, and some spells require Magery of some level to be learned."

Plus maybe a page or two of spell definitions. Full GURPS Magic has a lot of tiny fiddly rules to fine-tune balance of some types of spells, but you can easily fit everything we need in a small handful of paragraphs - even one page of magic rules and one page of spells. 3e's GURPS Lite has enough magic to be playable, even.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

It seems to me that GURPS is well suited to narrative style play even without such special rules. You can describe a character, an object, or a place in ordinary language, such as a storyteller might use, and it's fairly straightforward in most cases to turn this into GURPS traits. And there are consequences for characters' actions, which are the sorts of things that a writer might describe.

When I run a session of GURPS, most of the time, what I do is describe a person, a situation, or an event to a player, and asked, "What do you do?" And then they choose an action and I figure out its consequences. Very little of play involves fiddling with exact game mechanical calculations.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Out of curiosity I re-checked the length of the magic rules in LITE 3e: Basic magic rules + 14 spells in one and a half pages! That's impressive both as an editing feat, and as a statement of the simplicity of GURPS' basic magic system.

That said, I'm sure there are shortcuts taken that'll leave LITE players scratching their heads. In fact, unless I'm totally missing the relevant passage, I see one glaring oversight: There's no mention of the range of spells. Does it matter whether the target of my Daze spell is 2 yards away or 10 yard away? Can I cast Sleep on that Orc a quarter mile down the path? There's no answer in LITE.

Which is to say: Maybe a page and a half is cutting things too short. But a nice, playable magic system in two pages? Looks possible to me!

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I've redirected Gollum's link to the Downloads page so you don't have to go digging. These are pretty 'broad strokes'-style adventures, but there's a good variety and they've all had at least 100+ downloads, so somebody out there is interested in adventures. I have outlines for a couple more, which this thread is inspiring me to dust off and finish.

The nice thing about running so many convention one-shots is that, once the convention is over, I can just package up all the notes, characters, maps, etc. and share with others as seeds for their own groups.

Also, when I asked Patreons what they were most interested in seeing more of, the few that responded said -- you guessed it -- "more adventures."

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Like I said if you have a really open ended system you could easily put it on a single page. No spells, just effects. It would require a pretty loosey goosey approach to mechanics, but if you are running a light system you really should be expecting that.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I fully do agree with that.

This is, in my humble opinion, exactly why GURPS doesn't bring any amazing image to people's mind.

• Call of Cthulhu (BRP System) immediately brings amazing images to mind.
• Deadlands (Savage Worlds system) immediately brings amazing images to mind.
• Shadowrun immediately brings amazing images to mind (OK, that's not a universal system; but it is just for the example).
• ...

Now, what does GURPS bring to mind? A system. A realistic one. But just a system. Full of mathematical formulas ...

It doesn't really attract newcomers.

As others said it very well just above, a roleplaying game is designed to play stories. And to attract people, you need motivating stories.

But the worse about that is the fact that GURPS has a lot of really motivating game worlds! Discworld (1), Mars Attacks, Hellboy, Transhuman Space, Atomic Horror, Reign of Steel, Goblins ...

And If we really insist on preserving the generic and universal aspect of GURPS, it can even be done with another incredible world, full of that kind of amazing images which stimulate imagination and immediately give the desire to try ... Infinite Worlds!

Unfortunately, none of this worlds is really developed. You want to play them? Do all the job by yourself ... And don't forget to read the hundreds of pages of hints that will help you to do it easily ...

Honestly, if we didn't know GURPS, its amazing features, and if we wanted to try a universal roleplaying game, would we choose GURPS? Or would we first glance at Savage Worlds/Deadland, BRP/Call of Cthulhu, and so on.
_____

(1) The new edition of Discworld offers one adventure. It's a first step. But just a first step.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I would like to add a comment about this precise sentence. Don’t misunderstand what I want to mean (I’m sure that you actually don’t, but I still prefer to write it clearly) …

It’s not GURPS authors fault! Not at all. As said above, they don’t have enough time and money to please us, experienced game masters who already love GURPS, and to attract new players as well. They are a quite little team and do an amazing work. They just had a choice to make and they made it. And, actually, we appreciate the choice they made: we want more crunchy books to help us building or adapt our favorite game worlds … What would we say if they suddenly stopped to produce them and focused on books just designed to attract new players who don’t know GURPS at all?

As far as I can remember, the wish list is full of books that could attract newcomers. The problem is just that nobody want to write them. Until now. Let’s go?

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Thank you. I contented myself with the homepage because your whole website is very interesting for newcomers.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Well, this is sort of my point. I "chose" GUPRS with no exposure to the system, because the Basic Set (3rd edition) was relatively inexpensive. I've also picked up (or downloaded) Savage Worlds, BRP, d6, and others, because they were inexpensive. I picked up SW thinking that I would never actually run it... but at $10, it was hard not to get it. And sense then, I've run a few games and was player in a few long running games.

I get that arguing that GURPS needs to lower the bar to entry, when there is a free version out there, seems odd. But GURPS Lite doesn't sit on game store shelves. It doesn't show up on Amazon, it is something people have to be looking for to find. An actual book that can be sold through a variety of channels can increase exposure.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

No campaign showcasing GURPS? What about Banestorm? What about Infinite Worlds? Are these not kitchen-sink settings specifically designed to play to GURPS's universality?

But it's even better than that. In the standard magic system, spells are skills. They have special rules associated with them, but at heart they're just more skills. In D&D, skills and spells are fundamentally different things.

And when you remember that, then standard GURPS magic starts to make a lot of sense. Throwing a fireball is just a thing you learn how to do, like piloting an airplane or swinging a sword.

There's a reason for that. The third edition "basic combat" assumed "all attacks are at a fairly close range unless the GM rules otherwise..." Range and speed modifiers are not introduced until you're deep into the "advanced combat" chapter. The magic rules assume "that most campaigns will use some or all of the advanced combat rules," but they give simplified modifiers if you're playing without a map and the advanced rules that come with it. GURPS Lite, in ignoring ranges, is just going along with the lack of attention to range in the basic combat system.

The fourth edition doesn't have the basic/advanced breakdown of the third edition. Instead, it splits into the normal stuff that everybody was using all the time anyway and the tactical stuff that requires extreme detail that not everybody cares about. Since the "standard" combat system now includes so much more detail, any "lite" presentation is going to be cutting significant portions. Likewise with magic: adding magic to fourth-edition GURPS Lite pretty much requires handling details like range, because it's presented as standard and almost essential in the Basic Set.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

You just answered "campaigns" with "settings", those aren't the same thing.
That's sort of true, but there's a lot of special mechanics that go with spells as a class or sub-classes of spells, and then the effects of each spell can be highly idiosyncratic. It does tie into the general structure of skills, but it also has a similar amount of its own rules-stuff to D&D spells.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

They did release GURPS Lite as a print product when 4E first released. I'd love an expanded GURPS Lite book that is a perfect bound or PoD book that can be purchased or downloaded through e23 or in a FLGS.

I don't think the solution for GURPS is to release a new 'basic set' because like others have said what drives players picking up Savage Worlds isn't the system so much as it is a product that is powered by Savage Worlds. I purchased the Savage World of Solomon Kane not because I was interested in SW but because I am a big fan of the Solomon Kane books. Could I do all of that in GURPS? Absolutely. But, I really don't have the time to build this stuff like I used to.

I actually think the thing that will make GURPS most successful is more products like the Dungeon Fantasy box set. It is powered by GURPS and gives players an application of GURPS in one box. I want Space Opera Powered by GURPS box set. I want an Action! Powered by GURPS box set. I want a Supers powered by GURPS box set. If we hit the main categories of games that players actually buy and play in and show players how to use this great system to create games that they want to play in, I think GURPS can do really well.

The next step is then to build "bridge" products into the general line. That's where I think products like GURPS Lite, Infinite Worlds, and Banestorm need to be expanded and built upon. If my first experience with GURPS is through Dungeon Fantasy and I really like it and then I pick up Space Opera and really like that, it's not a far jump into "I can build games like this using this system I already kind of know how to play" and you bridge people in via settins like Banestorm and Infinite Worlds.

Last year at GameHoleCon I ran 4 GURPS games for people that were all basically brand new to GURPS. I ran one Dungeon Fantasy adventure (Mirror of the Fire Demon), I ran an adventure that Mook has on his site about the Lost Dutchman's Mine in Arizona and I used already pre-built characters right from the main book, the iconic characters they used and they were from different 'settings' but were in old west America and the players had fun. I also ran a heist event, and an intro event to creating a character and a sample combat using the basic combat rules from the main books. Players had a blast and the things holding them back is that they didn't have an entry to product to the type of game they want to play. If the Dungeon Fantasy box set was out they could go and pay their $60 (or whatever the MSRP) is and play.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

So wait. Is the complaint that there are no adventure paths published for GURPS? Or just that SJG's adventure-writing guidelines are strict, and they don't seem to be interested in publishing adventures? Or rather, more adventures (I count thirty-six books on that page available at W23, some of which have multiple adventures)?

And I return to the point that one of the purposes of GURPS is to be able to run adventures from different systems with a minimum of fuss. Surely, that helps answer the "What can GURPS do?" challenge.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Is that was this whole thread is really about? Are we talking about a hobby transforming into a pastime? Do people no longer make up their own stuff, but only play published products? I see the I don't have time anymore argument a lot.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Of course, experienced GURPS game masters have the possibility to design their own game worlds and write their own adventures. Or they can adapt adventures and settings from another RPG quite easily. When once really love something, he always finds time to do it ...

But the main problem is for newcomers.

They don't know GURPS. They even don't know if they will buy it. Or just choose another system.

So, the question is: is it as easy to try GURPS than it is to try the BRP system (for instance)? And is it as attractive?

The 36 books you mentioned are not easy to find. I play GURPS for more than 20 years now and didn't know half of them. GURPS Lite is not as easy to find as it could be. And GURPS Lite plus an adventure is not at all easy to find for a newcomer.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I think I wasn't clear enough when I wrote "If the professionals can't do it, what makes a new GM think they can do it?" I don't mean that I think that, I mean that is the message that new GMs/Players can get when there are no campaigns out there and when the question of adventures/campaigns is brought up in the forums, the response is, "Making a GURPS adventure is too difficult, because what sort of adventure would you make considering how different GURPS games are?"


Well first off I don't need a million crunchy books. I'm not a new GURPSer, by any means, but I would have been really excited to have spent the $125+ dollars I spent on the Dracula Dossier campaign to have had that campaign be in GURPS rather than Night's Black Agents. I, not as a new person, would be happy to give GURPS money for campaigns and adventures. But our current crew of freelancers don't seem to be inclined to write adventures...which is their preference, and that is okay. Certainly, one of us could write an adventure that conforms to the SJGames template (thought I don't think the Dracula Dossier would meet their template)...but I think what GURPS needs is not for one of us to write an adventure and pitch it. I think GURPS needs SJGames to recruit a bigger, more well known name in adventure creation (someone like a Ken Hite) and commission them to create an epic adventure that pushes boundaries. I think they need someone who will put out great product, but also generate buzz in the industry...someone with fans.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

The concern is more holistic. It is about getting new people to understand what you can do with GURPS and getting GURPS on the minds of new people.

You say, you play any adventure in GURPS! If I'm a new person who is seeing a new shiny adventure for Savage Worlds that looks fun on the shelves of my FLGS...why would I buy GURPS to run that adventure when I could just buy Savage Worlds to run that adventure?

On Free RPG day, I saw adventures and stuff from all sorts of games...nothing from GURPS. How is the new person even going to know GURPS is a current modern thing when it isn't doing anything for Free RPG day?

Chaosium set up an Organized Play campaign "A Time for Harvest" so that people can go to their FLGS, see people playing Call of Cthulhu and decide...hey, maybe I want to get in on this. GURPS has nothing similar to attract new people.

Now you linked a page with 36 adventures. I'm going to note, that only 7 of those adventures are for 4th Ed. And 4th Ed has been out for 13 years. 7 adventures in 13 years is not a good number. And They are all digital...which means, you aren't going to be a newer person browsing the FLGS and see the adventure and be drawn to pick it up.

GURPS also isn't getting ENnie nominations for Best Adventure to get its name out there in new people's minds either.

One of the things that really helped inspire me with my GURPS GMing was the campaign (what I suppose folks nowadays call an adventure path) GURPS Espionage: Operation Endgame. That was awesome and helped me out...but there isn't anything like that out right now for newer (or not so new) GURPS GMs.

The question is what GURPS needs...now...

I think it needs a prestige campaign (adventure path) written by someone with a biggish name that is put out in dead tree format as well as digital and gets a big PR push. I also think trying out something similar to Chaosium's OP campaign A Time for Harvest to get GURPS being regularly played in the FLGS would be a really good idea. I mean, I would try again to get into MIBs and run that at my FLGS for 6 months if something like that were provided.

I don't think--"hey new person! you can translate that Paizo adventure path to GURPS no problem! Buy GURPS!" is a) a way to get more people into GURPS, and b) is even true.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

My experience that it was considerably easier to get gamers going with the amount of material that was in the GURPS 2e boxed set than with 3e. The problem for me recruiting new players started cropping up after the release of 3e.

Since in terms of rule complexity there is little difference between the three editions, my opinion the issue is one of formatting and presentation. I think the DF RPG is a step in the right direction however as a intro it depends on it final pricing and still more "stuff" than the 2e boxed set of two 64 pages booklets.

Given the existence of games like Dragon Age/Fantasy Age that have core rules of similar complexity to GURPS. I think very possible to have a streamlined intro GURPS product that usable out of the box and still be GURPS 4e at the end of the day.

My concern is that despite the better presentation The DF RPG is still based on 250 points characters with the all the range of details that entails. The key in my view is to present the amount of stuff on the lists back to what it was in GURPS 2e.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Or closer still Dragon Age/Fantasy Age.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

I have to admit that Trooper6 said a lot of true things. Chaosium is very well known ... For its famous campaigns and adventures.

A new French Roleplaying game has been published quite recently. It is named Chroniques Oubliées (Forgotten Chronics). First developed for fantasy, it was then adapted to modern days and, now, to science fiction. A lot of adventures have already been published for it. The point is that well known french roleplaying game authors do stuff for it. And one famous novel author, Maxime Chattam, also did it and do it again. With such a publicity, this game is inevitably a best seller.

So, can fans like me really help to attract newcomers? I'm not sure ... But I will still try.

Some very famous writers sound to love GURPS. Like Maxime Chattam for Chroniques Oubliées, they may want to write something for it one day ...

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

The problem is that the entire process of writing for GURPS emphasizes a specific point of view on writing, layout and content. The staff and freelancers do excellent work it just that it all reflects one vision, GURPS is a toolkit for creating a game to run a campaign. The majority of the more active fans encourages this.

But now there there pending release of the DF RPG. Which does 90% of what I been advocating. Certainly not a generic toolkit for a referee to build their own game to run a campaign. So until it available stuff like this is pretty much rehashing old issues.


The thing is that it been done for other RPGs and other segments of the hobby and industry. There is a crazy amount of examples out there of stuff that worked and didn't work ranging from the slick professional work of Paizo to hand folded zines for AD&D 1st edition distributed through the mail.

For my part Scourge of the Demon Wolf started out and was initially playtested as a GURPS adventure that could be run in 4 hours. I plan to make a MiB version once the DF RPG is out and just give it to SJ Games or whatever site the MiB use under a creative common license. Similar to what I did with Blackmarsh for this forum. It won't happen right away as I will need to playtest it once or twice to make sure I have the Demon Wolf and other characters stated right.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Published GURPS adventures are not particularly crunchy unless they're Dungeon Fantasy, in which case they're already for the fourth edition. To my knowledge you can run anything on that list even if you don't know anything about how older editions differed.

Adventures don't age. They don't expire if they haven't been played after a certain time. So we've got at least thirty-six actual published GURPS adventures, more that may become digital later, and the likelihood of more Dungeon Fantasy adventures in the future. That's a lot.

So what I'm getting out of this is that people think GURPS needs to be visible to gamers—i.e., in print—and to convince gamers to replace their systems, or their potential systems, with GURPS.

SJG drew back from print products and made a conscious decision to go mostly digital. They are returning to print with print on demand, but you still have to order that online. Their strategy does not seem to include a game store presence.

As for trying to convince players to play GURPS instead of, e.g., Savage Worlds, I think this quote from the Basic Set introduction is telling:

Quite simply, I don't think shelf-visibility or convincing you to play GURPS instead of something else are goals of SJG's current strategy. Print costs are too high for store shelves and I don't believe SJG wants to "beat" another company. I think they lose money making GURPS, but they don't want to kill it because they think GURPS is great and ought to be made, so the strategy is to lose as little as possible without sacrificing the quality of the game itself.

It'd be awesome if you could go to a store and see the shelves packed with GURPS books like you used to. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think making the game "easy" for newbies to transfer from another system is part of the ethos of SJG. Making it easy for newbies who think it's too hard would be good, but there's the shelf-visibility issue again: they won't try out plug-and-play GURPS if they don't know it exists.

I do think that the Dungeon Fantasy boxed set is one way SJG is going for shelf-visibility. I would be very surprised if somewhere in the text there wasn't at least a suggestion to go find the GURPS Basic Set for more. (I imagine the situation somewhat like how MERP was a simplified version of Rolemaster, and the rules pointed this out to funnel you toward the bigger game.)

The ONLY way to make GURPS more popular in this environment is to go out and play GURPS in public. This topic comes up repeatedly, and this is always the conclusion.

Re: What GURPS needs... now
 

Indeed. To the limited extent that issues with GURPS sales can be solved with particular new products, I quite agree that it needs to move in the direction of more adventures and other campaign-specific material. As a set of rules, it's solid, but it's clear (to me, anyway) that something that's just a set of rules, no matter how brilliant, has a limited appeal. But this is in a way a significant philosophical issue for GURPS expanding into other kinds of products. GURPS can do basically anything, but when you sit down at the table, you're not playing anything. You're playing something in particular and in that moment of play, you discard most of the game.

Even the most successful attempt to be about a specific thing is quite generic. The DF series contains all the rules-bound specifics one could want: these skills and abilities are in-bounds, here are lists of monsters, and so on. However, it doesn't even try to address a specific place or setting. There's a vague cosmology (there are demons, Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, and multiple gods) and an even vaguer geography (there are kings, kingdoms, and towns with temples in them, and there's an East, from which ninja originate), but we don't get a particular world with its own complications. We don't get the Demon Lord X and its cultists, we don't get the Mad God Zxx'f'glphn'ph'zb'bz'zb whose sigil is a sure sign of madness and a lack of vowels, we don't get a war between the King of Ning and the Duke of Earl for PCs to get involved in or the Lost Empire of Loot whose ruins are a promising source of treasure. Even the GURPS DF line is kind of about playing a specific kind of game rather than a specific game. And to some extent, we see this through much of the line. Action is about action-adventure games in the modern world, but doesn't get into specific aspects of it or introduce its own novel groups, trends, or locations (for example, it supports being a spy or a criminal, but doesn't address the specifics of CIA vs. Mossad vs. UNCLE or the Mafia vs. Triads vs. SPECTRE). After The End is set after the apocalypse, but not a specific apocalypse. Indeed, it provides very nice support allowing you to build your own. That's great from a certain point of view, but it does mean that you're playing a genre rather than a specific game. And those works which do address a specific place largely fail to engage broad interest, particularly among the writing community. The Transhuman Space line is arguably an exception to that, but even there, it's so large and sprawling that they had to produce a book discussing just what you could do with it. It's a brilliant world, but apparently an unwieldy game. If there's going to be a popular setting or series of adventures, it's going to have to answer the questions "where are we?" and "what are we doing?" right out of the gate, which is something the GURPS line has struggled with in the past. The people who can come up with their own answers to those questions are already playing GURPS. This is for everybody else.

(It crosses my mind that a really good GURPS setting book/adventure series is one thing, but follow-up is quite another. Support following on the initial success of a big product requires buy-in from people who know GURPS well enough to write it, write well enough to publish it, and are willing to put up with the drudgery of publishing. We tend to have a freelancer community whose diversity provides good support for a a game that can do anything, but I don't know what central idea would garner enough interest to keep support up for something campaign/adventure/location-focused rather than rules-focused.)

Having said all of that, of course, there's only so much SJ Games can do. GURPS is what it is. A marketing coup which brings in a Big Name to write something brilliant would be lovely, as would a connected series of adventures (and it's been let slip that the second DFRPG adventure is a direct follow-up to the first DFRPG adventure which comes in the box, so that's something), but ultimately finding the right audience with the right product is essentially an act of black magic and rolling the (three six-sided) dice.

ETA:
What GURPS needs now
is love, sweet love...