Narrativism in GURPS

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

Some people would consider it shirking my responsibility and overloading my wife with child-rearing. I would love to host, but my group is kind of far away. I would likely have to start a new group if I am to host consistently.

Yeah, if the parent most-likely-to-be-nursing doesn't play, and you're abandoning her to run off and game, that could -- to borrow MMORPG terms -- cause a distinct reduction in faction.

Mind, I've nursed a kid during a game (draped a cloth to keep the kid from being too distracted to nurse; my Big Shirt would've shown nothing of interest anyway), and I've even dealt with a "pay attention to me!" toddler when GMing, once, at a con.

(And I was once nursing a fussy baby, lying down as she insisted, and watching the screen for a text-based game I was GMing -- the spouse typed my responses for me. Go, go spouse-narration! Or something.)

So babies and gaming <I>can</I> go together, but if long car rides are involved and you'd be abandoning someone to the mercy of the small, needy, pre-sapient being (as opposed to "shoo, stop being underfoot; I want to take a nap with the baby")... I'd look into other tactics, such as perhaps the eyeball camera and speakers/microphone arrangement from Full Frontal Nerdity.


Oh, right, you had a different question... Narrativism in GURPS. Hm. Personally, from my experience tossing characters back and forth doing solo-roleplay with the spouse (not that kind of roleplay! for one thing, having a kid zonked out on one's chest (who will wake if one attempts to move it) crimps the style...), it's pretty easy to... just use the characterization stuff as a guideline. Maybe roll if you can't decide what would be most interesting. Maybe make a little chart for yourself -- something like

"If skill is 1-6, um, no, fail unless really dramatic and/or the dice love ya.

If skill is 7-11, player can choose whether success or failure will be cooler, and roll if GM disagrees with player's choice.

If skill is 12-15, assume success under most circumstances; player may choose to fail, GM should ask for a roll if the situation is kind of tricky or if the GM needs time to think.

With skill of 16+, failure is rare, will tend to be spectacular ("perhaps you shouldn't've cross-circuited to B with so much power in that jefferies tube, eh?"), and/or driven by narrative necessity. Roll if there is a really tricky situation.

In all cases, PC vs PC should be worked out gently between the players, with the above guidelines, but any case of the players sounding crabby should have the GM pounce in and say, "Let's roll dice for this one."

If the GM goes entertainingly purple on the prose, hopefully the players will get into the spirit of things and you can go, "He wounds you severely on the arm" and they'll clutch the arm and moan, "Augh! I've dropped my weapon, and can think of naught to do but fall to the floor, hoping to avoid getting the return swing in my throat! I shall grope for my fallen weapon, hoping it isn't kicked away in the scuffle!" (And the GM can go, "What's better?" in an undertone, and the player can go, "Ooo, kick it away! Kick it away!" Or maybe the other players will have a vote...)