What Genre do you use GURPS for?

[Highland_Piper]

With all the discussions about Original Settings and what Licensed material people would like to have I was just curious what people are actually using GURPS for.

Just write down Name and Genre of current games being played then maybe games in the works/development then maybe games your concidering but may never get to.

I guess I should start

Currently Playing
Arcane - Homebrew high fantasy Wuxia, playing three different game in this world.

In Development
GURPS Doctor Who
GURPS Battletech
GURPS Roma Arcana

Concidering

GURPS Robotech
GURPS Infinite Worlds
GURPS Homebrew Space or Firefly or Transhuman Space

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

Just write down Name and Genre of current games being played then maybe games in the works/development then maybe games your concidering but may never get to.

Those categories don't quite work for me. I have a large number of ideas for future campaigns, not all of which have definitely been assigned to specific engines. And I have run a lot of GURPS in the past.

So:

Old GURPS campaigns

Uplift, set in the world of David Brin's Uplift books and using the GURPS supplement
First Contact, set in the 1930s shortly after an alien civilization enters the solar system and makes contact with Earth
Oak and Ash and Thorn, set in a present-day version of the Faerie realms of the British isles and focusing on five adolescents who take a wrong turn one Midsummer's Even
Unmoved Movers, set in the world of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged ten years after the start of the novel, and focusing on the rebuilding of North America
Whose Woods These Are, set in a small American town "sometime in the 20th century" and focusing on some seemingly ordinary people who discover that Weird Stuff Is Going On and Things Are Not As They Seem
Whispers, a Transhuman Space campaign about private investigators in Fifth Wave Montreal

Just completed:

Salle d'Armes, focused on students at a fencing academy in 1717 Paris

About to start:

The Foam of Perilous Seas, set on the Pearl Bright Ocean of GURPS Cabal and focused on the privateer ship Heliobia sailing under Atlantean letters of marque
Sovereignty, set in an alternate present day where the 60 most powerful superbeings on Earth are legally recognized as sovereign states; the PCs are second-tier heroes who have been recruited by NATO as an emergency force to deal with rogue sovereigns

So: Three science fictional, one post-holocaust, one historical/swashbuckling, two fantasy, one weird

Bill Stoddard

[ClayDowling]

Running the first campaign now.

Black Cat Campaign Modern Fantasy, heavily inspired by The Dresden Files, Charlaine Harris, the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter books, and the TV show Supernatural. Plus any other modern fantasy that I pick up.

In a related note, is GURPS Fantasy relevant for a modern fantasy campaign? Having the author handy and all, I figure you can tell me the most.

[Taellosse]

I'm currently running a high-powered (starting point values of 400), epic fantasy campaign in my own setting. That's been going for about a year, and I expect it to last another 6 months to a year, barring complications.

That's the first campaign I've run, but I've played in a a homebrew RIFTS campaign, a lower-powered epic fantasy setting, a cyberpunkish (Shadowrun flavored)/Babylon 5-esque game, a space-based supers campaign, and a Lovecraftian-style horror, near-future dystopia setting. There's been talk of a Star Wars campaign at some point, as well.

I don't have any firm ideas for anything after my current campaign, but I've toyed with the concept of a traditional 4-color supers-style game, a White Wolf-style Mage game, and a low-power psionics setting (though the specifics of the setting haven't firmed for me yet).

[sotonohito]

Lessee, most recently I've done:

A semi-traditional fantasy type campaign set in a world a century or so after the end of a truly devastating war. TL 3-4, semi common magic, divine magic with its wielders needed for healing but distrusted because the gods were the cause of the war and responsible for around 60% of the pouplation dying when the war came to an abrupt end.

A world shifting adventure in which the players were inhabitants of a TL3 world into which had been dumped a corrupt and highly unpleasant police officer with a passion for old gunpowder weapons and a con artist with the unusual hobby of clock making. The cop wanted to set up a nasty empire based on conquest, secret police, and a Reign of Terror, while the players and the con artist find themselves allied against him. All with the threat of a Mongol type invasion of deadly horse archers in the background, and the *need* for the cop's gunpowder and knowledge of military tactics to fight them off.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Clay Dowling

In a related note, is GURPS Fantasy relevant for a modern fantasy campaign? Having the author handy and all, I figure you can tell me the most.

Yes and no. Its primary focus is on historical fantasy, and fantasy set in worlds where magic is an openly acknowledged reality, so that the GM needs tools for defining the worldbuilding impact of magic; and for consistency with the majority of overt fantasy, it mainly looks at TL1-4 societies. But it does talk about covert fantasy genres, about modern fantasy, and about general principles for dealing with magic and the supernatural, so there's a fair amount of useful content. It's just not a comprehensive "how to do modern fantasy."

Bill Stoddard

[trooper6]

Like others I'm going to include what I've done, not only what I'd like to do...I think that gives a better sense of what is acutally going on.

Historically, GM:
No-Magic Fantasy
Swashbucklers x2
Espionage x3
Cthulhupunk
Reign of Steel
Traveller: Interstellar Wars

Historically, Player:
Old West
Star Wars
Transhuman Space
Swashbucklers

Current:
None (I'm moving really, really soon)

In Development:
None (See above)

Considering:
WW2 French Resistance
Banestorm (either gladiators of Megalos, or young nobles in Caithness)
Old West (city-bases a la Deadwood)
Cliffhangers (a bit more noir than high pulp)
Scanners (Psychic powers and Michael Ironside...aw yeah!)

One thing I think is interesting about my GM'ing habits...is that I've almost completely avoided GM'ing Magic or other powers. I tend to go grittier than I do cinematic...and clearly I like to do modern day gritty espionage.

But one day my gritty dark dream of an RP heavy French Resistance game will come to pass!

[Crakkerjakk]

About to start:

GURPS Cthulhu: year-long(ish) campaign covering an expedition to the Antarctic.

Past:

GURPS Dark Sun: Post-apocalyptic fantasy a la TSR's old campaign setting. Fell apart due to lack of thematic focus on my part.

Considering at some point in the future:

GURPS Hell Boy: Medium-Low powered heroes circa WWII, fighting mythological monsters from various cultures.

GURPS Transhuman Space: Not sure what I'm going to do here. Maybe investigative journalists/cospiracy theories.

GURPS Seven Kingdoms: Fantasy China/Phillipines/Japan/India/Indonesia-etc. with Wuxia elements, alchemy, and sorcery to be constructed after careful reading of Thaumatology.

GURPS Malazan: Gritty High-magic campaign based off of Stephen Eriksen's Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

GURPS Freedom City: Medium-High powered Silver Age supers using Green Ronin's Freedom City setting for Mutants and Masterminds.

GURPS Golden Age: High Fantasy with multiple magic systems, test-bed for Thaumaturgy. Wizards with ritual magic and ceremonial casting with astrological correspondences, alchemy with the same astrological correspondences, clerics with threshold based spell magic, shamans with path based rituals and spirit assistance as optional, with no distance modifiers, herb lore as a cheaper and easier to learn version of alchemy, futhark rune magic modified so that one-shot items are easier to enchant, no finger tracing, syntactic realm based faerie magic with glamour, I think thats about it.

GURPS Shadowrun: Magical Fantasy + Cyberpunk meet, converted from FAFSA's excellent setting.


GURPS Deadlands: Wierd West, Horror + Wierd Science/Steampunk + Asian Martial Arts + Wild West.

There's probably more, but so far thats whats currently sitting in the back of my mind.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

With all the discussions about Original Settings and what Licensed material...

I don't give a hoot about licensed material; I play GURPS because it is the best help available for the GM who wants to use his own material. I have an academic interest in original material but it has to be awesome for me to run a game with it...the calibre of Transhuman Space.

Currently Running
Ring of Fire - pseudomedieval fantasy merc outfit

Currently Playing
Wider Sky - hard SF space opera adventure cargo
Wilder Shores - postapocalyptic steampunk with hints of horror

In Development
End of Evil - ultra-tech version of Ring of Fire above
Eulogy - submit a character description in the form of a eulogy; I'll write the character sheet from that, game will start after the funeral

Considering
Transhuman Space - but the Wider Sky campaign above will prolly scratch that itch
Otherwise, trying real hard not to consider, and to turn my creative energies to the End of Evil campaign with an eye toward eventual publication on e32

Historically
Super Galdiators - Mutants in Imperial Rome with Atomic Horror
Cyberweird - Fantasy cyberpunk inspired by Shadowrun, ran for years
Anglia - Low fantasy, my first GURPS game, still running as far as I know, but alas I have moved away
Pirates - We though it was pirates, but it was really Aztec Horror
SPRUGHammer - Warhammer FRP conversion; also a space campaign with the same GM reminiscent of 40k

GEF

[Lupo]

I am/was/will be a players in some of these campaigns, and a GM in others.

Currently Playing
GURPS Fantasy - a homebrew low fantasy, early medieval setting (with isolated castles, warring "nobles", ancient ruines and so on)

In Development
GURPS Greece, a short martial arts campaign focused on Olympic Games (PCs will be boxers, wrestlers, pankration pratictioners, disc/javelin throwers)

Considering
GURPS Swashbuckling
GURPS Firefly (the sci fi / "western" tv series)
GURPS Interstellar Wars

Past campaigns
GURPS Rivania - a homebrew low fantasy "medieval urban" setting (with merchant families, assassinations, plots)
GURPS WH40k - this short campaign was set in a isolated world in the WH40k universe, and was a somewhat cyberpunk/military game
GURPS Cyberpunk - various campaigns, mostly set in a very near future, dystopian Italy
GURPS Traveller - the campaign was soon aborted when we realized that cat-like and dog-like "aliens" make suspension of disbelief nearly impossible. The setting is very nice and detailed but some alien race are *too* silly for our tastes.