Narrativism in GURPS

[Azinctus]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

My wife and I are about to have our first baby, and I have little time before a forced hiatus into fatherhood. It looks like I have one more chance to run a game before my life makes a big change, so I decided to do a one-shot.

Congratulations. I've just had my second. But why does having a baby mean a pause in gaming? I missed a couple of sessions not more. The advantage of babies is that you can lob them in the baby carrier and take them anywhere (well anymore warm where people don't smoke).

Now I have a two year-old and a baby its getting more complicated. If the game isn't at our house we need a baby sitter. Three cheers for Map Tool and Skype.

Originally Posted by nanoboy

Spirit of the Century is a game that uses the Fate system (which is derived from the FUDGE "system--" I say "system," since it's not really a system but a way to make a system.)

Never played any of these "systems." but I have tried various free-form roleplaying games and exercises. GURPS normally seems like a million miles away from that.

Originally Posted by nanoboy

There are several ways that players can add to the game world. They can make up facts with the Academics skill, put Aspects (descriptive details that have game implications) onto places, make up weird gadgets on the fly, etc.

I have a player who does this in my Dungeon Fantasy game. Now we have the ground rules set I love it. He can't make up gadgets (too unbalancing because he's not a gadgeteer, though he can order stuff from in game gadgeteers). And he can't make stuff up about the other characters, but other than that he has a free hand. He's made up villages, added details motivations and lots of fun details. Often its just to crack a joke in play, but other times it becomes a major plot element (the PCs live in a village he made up).

I have no rules or system for this other than the ground rules I mentioned.

Originally Posted by nanoboy

These narrative mechanics get the players more invested in the game, take some work off of the GM's shoulders, and add more flavor to the setting. It's important to know that they are mechanics, too. They're not just fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants stuff. There are rules for how they work. [...] Basically, I'm wondering if anyone knows of good ways to elegantly work these ideas into GURPS.

Don't forget Serendipity; a game where all the players had Serendipity would feel very different from more realistic GURPS as every event of the plot was evaluated by the players: "Do I want this?"