[GURPS Lite] First Time, Need Suggestions

[Mulsiphix]

I have finally done it. I finished GURPS Lite, am planning to play my first game ever, I only have one player (my wife), but was hoping to do this on Father's Day. My wife prefers the Fantasy genre but I will most likely be running our first campaign in a fantasy setting so I am open to other ideas for our first foray into GURPS. I was hoping you fine folks could offer up some suggestions or even ideas on what I should try my hand at first? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Raekai]

Well, I guess it depends really. Right now I'm working on building up some campaigns myself. The thing is that you are very limited with just GURPS Lite. So I would recommend with sticking to fantasy. Create some standard good guys and bad guys and just create a small quest. There are lots of resources available to you (again, they're a little hard to use without more books). This is a good resource for monsters. I'd make it some small quest. You're going after a legendary sword that will give you +1d6 fire damage when you use it. Now, I won't suggest getting more books though because GURPS isn't for all people. One of my good friends finds GURPS boring. I would say:

1. Go over character creation.
2. You both make a character.
3. Set up a few good guys.
4. Set up a few bad guys.
5. Find a small map for adventuring. Good example.
6. Don't worry about fleshing everything out.
7. Set up a goal.
8. Play!

[vicky_molokh]

Your first campaign as in, first campaign together and first campaign you run, but your wife played TT RPGs before
- or -
first game ever for each one of you?

[Mulsiphix]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Your first campaign as in, first campaign together and first campaign you run, but your wife played TT RPGs before
- or -
first game ever for each one of you?

I played a newbie-friendly game of D&D 3.5E for about six sessions about five years ago. I've done some play by post, no rules/story only roleplaying, browsed more than my fair share of p&p games and read hundreds of reviews for various systems and supplements. This will be my wife's first time playing, my first time GM'ing, and my first time playing with GURPS. I said "first time" as my past experience probably isn't going to be very helpful to me. Kind of a "clean slate" situation =).

[jacobmuller]

Don't worry too much about the rules - you'll get something wrong but the important thing is having fun.
You'll know your wife's personality - play the game the way that suits her.
First games tend to be about slapstick comedy and mayhem.

[Jeffr0]

My advice is to play and then keep on playing.

Play with little kids. Play solitaire. Set up a short play-by-forum game. Something. Anything!

If you're short on time, break things down into several mini-sessions of 15 to 30 minutes. Don't try to learn all the rules at once. Sit down to a session with a goal of using one particular thing... and then... between sessions think through how you could have done it better and whether or not doing it "right" would have added to the fun. (Sometimes the answer is "yes." Usually you can get away with bending or ignoring rules.)

Sometimes months can go by and you wonder why you haven't played. What I've noticed is... if I am ready to go at the drop of a hat, somehow I see that I have so many more gaming opportunities than I thought I had. And even if I can play exactly what I want to play, playing anything makes it easier to take advantage of opportunities when things do go my way.

[whswhs]

I'm fond of fantasy, but the magic rules are a bit much for a first time, and you don't really have any spells in GURPS Lite anyway. It would be like doing a supers campaign with no rules for powers.

That's not to say you couldn't run a game in a fantasy milieu, where the "magic" was special abilities of Enemies or Patrons, without detailed game mechanics, and the player character(s) had to solve the problem or defeat the threat without magic. But you could run the same sort of game in a historical milieu such as French swashbuckling or Old West, or a present-day spy or police procedural, or even a science fictional world.

The first rule of good design for campaigns, settings, and scenarios is consider your audience. What sort of character activities will your player think are cool? Swordplay, gunfights, fisticuffs, sneaking and stealing, social intrigue, witty dialogue? Is there a setting she especially likes?

You might try sketching out two or three options, a couple of sentences each, and see if one of them grabs her. That's what I do with my player pool, in a more formalized way.

Bill Stoddard

[jacobmuller]

Caravan to Ein Arris is free and a nice starter.

There might be a missing map (I have it somewhere, from 2nd edition) but it's just a hut, with a gate in front to block the road, being used as a customs duty collection point.

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by Mulsiphix

I have finally done it. I finished GURPS Lite, am planning to play my first game ever, I only have one player (my wife), but was hoping to do this on Father's Day. My wife prefers the Fantasy genre but I will most likely be running our first campaign in a fantasy setting so I am open to other ideas for our first foray into GURPS. I was hoping you fine folks could offer up some suggestions or even ideas on what I should try my hand at first? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Don't take this personally, and don't let it discourage you, but under these circumstances, your first session has a lot working against it.

GURPS isn't the easiest system to play or GM. I'm 31 now, but as a kid and preteen, I DM'ed Dungeons and dragons for years before trying my hand at GURPS (third edition). I taught myself the rules without the aid of the Internet and knew them quite well before my group made the switch. Even with my players and I having a few years experience with table top RPG's it was a rocky process.

Game mastering is a skill; a skill for which you can have exceptional talent, but a skill none the less. As a skill, it gets better the more you use it.

So, what I'm saying is, your first game is likely to be your worst.


The trouble with getting bucked off now is that this is your player's first rodeo as well. Even if you decide to get back in the saddle, your player may be less enthusiastic to do so.


My biggest point of advice it to keep your first session very simple and as short as you can possibly manage. You'll be making a PC as well, and that's going to be at least a little grueling for you both.

My suggestion for a first-session outline:

   Opening Scene
         |
   Quick Combat
         |
   Big Decision
         |
   ------------
   |          |
Choice 1    Choice 2
Outcome     Outcome
   |          |
Endgame 1  Endgame 2

Here are some tips:

1. The golden rule of role playing: have fun. More specifically, as the GM, it's your primary duty to make sure the players have fun. That's not just the end goal; it should be at the center of nearly every decision you make during the course of planning and game play.
   
2. Don't have a "pet" NPC (non-player character). Normally, this is some Mary Sue of the GM's design. The PC's (player characters) should be in the spotlight, not your NPCs.
   
3. Empower your players. Role playing is about making important, meaningful choices. The PC's aren't just characters in your story; you are refereeing the PC's story. Players shouldn't be railroaded or drug on leashes into making any decision. "Do you want to save the princess or not?" That's not a decision. "Do you want to save the princess or do you want to save the kingdom instead?" Now that is a decision! Make consequences, both good and bad, to the outcomes of real decisions.
   
4. Be descriptive. Your descriptions are what sets the atmosphere and immerses the player into the game. Constantly describe every detail you can. Describe every scene such the rooms in a dungeon or streets in a town. Fully describe every NPC the PC's meet: clothes, visible equipment, height, build, hair color, demeanor from body language, etc.
   
5. Don't be a hard ass. Don't try to be the "great and powerful" GM. Don't be difficult. Be lenient. Be flexible. Be generous. Err on the side of fun. Be a "yes" GM instead of a "No" GM. Players will have worlds more fun under such conditions and you'll be considered a much better GM.

Lastly, I'll make the same offer to you as I do to each new fantasy GM on this board: I'll be happy to run your through a round of quick, basic combat through a voice chat program such as MSN messenger or Yahoo messenger. It takes about two hours. We'll use pre-generated characters and a map I drew and just call it out turn by turn as if we were sitting at the table. This will help you immensely. PM me if interested.


Whatever you do, don't let your first session be your last. They get better as they go.

Good luck!

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Stripe

So, what I'm saying is, your first game is likely to be your worst.

I definitely wouldn't make a big problem of his inexperience, mostly for a simple but very important reason: She, the player, has no experience at all, thus everything is new and interesting, hopefully exciting, too! :)
The expectations on the player side are a very deciding factor, of course if the players are experienced you need much more skill to fulfill their requirements! At least he has played a few sessions already, IMHO that's really sufficient for that situation.
When I think back to the days when I was a first time GM (and very young, too, many years ago), we just started playing a classic fantasy game without any experience with some guys in school. Looking back from the perspective of an experienced GM we obviously made everything "wrong". But guess what? We had a lot of fun! :) And as I had no one to give advise these days, we didn't even notice our mistakes in the beginning. But who cares if everyone has fun? ;) The requirements increase with time and experience...

So, use the help you find here, but don't be worried about doing anything wrong, just make it and have fun! :)