GURPS is becoming the only game I'll run

[Grom]

I Have to admit, I am a roleplayer now of 25 years, and I've played many systems ( AD&D - D&D - Tunnels & Trolls - Call of Cthulhu - Warhammer - Paranoia, well lets just say the list goes on a long way ), my point is that until Feb of this year when I met an interesting young man from my local gaming club, I had never played GURPS. Truthfully I never wanted to, I hadn't read the rules or then again even bothered to look at the cover of a GURPS book, But all this changed when he asked if he could run an adventure he wrote using the GURPS rules, so reluctantly, myself and my RPG group said OK.

Well to cut a long story short, I haven't enjoyed playing any other RPG's since then, I just cant get enough GURPS, I dont care what the genre is, it always works with GURPS. So now I play mostly GURPS ( but still play a little AD&D ) and am in the process of getting the GURPS 4ed core rules. I never realised I could like a system so much, but it's just sooooo bloody good.


GROM

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Learning how to do that gives me more options for finding just the right rules system for running a particular game. GURPS is a great engine, with a lot of flexibility, but there are things that other systems do better.

"The fox know many tricks. The hedgehog knows one."

Well, sure, the lack of time is usually a disadvantage.

On the other hand, it's not like I were choosing arbitrarily a system -and I wouldn't recommend that to newbies! To nobody, actually. I remain open to experimentation with rules but it's not the same strong interest I had years ago. The rules, to me, need to be OK for letting me to concentrate for going deeper into other aspects of role playing, so 'flirting' with different systems just out of curiosity became very secondary for me. Also I'm not interested in each branch of modern fiction that is reflected in the role playing market. Yesterday night I saw Solomon Kane, the movie, and it was OK as a movie, but I wouldn't be interested in role playing in such setting (licensed to the Savage Worlds system), and the same happens concerning the Hellboy setting (licensed to SJG), or Star Wars, and a long etc.

After creating an insane amount of homebrew systems and GM/playing many different published role playing games and settings (AD&D 1º/2º/3.5º -Vanilla, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Eberron-, Aliens, Dark Conspiracy, Cyberpunk 2020, Rolemaster, GURPS, MERP, Mutantes en la Sombra, Aquelarre, Paranoia, The Call of Cthulhu, Vampire, FUDGE . . . I don't remember all of them), of course I know more than a single trick.

So I finally found the right rules system for my current goals concerning role-playing.

Earlier, I quoted FUDGE because sometimes I find myself missing such free-form way to looking at (and handling the) things. My best results with it were making introspective modern day role playing, without action nor violence, almost with no rules at all.

[quarkstomper]

I'd like to run other games, but every time I suggest the idea of, say a CHAMPIONS campaign, or one of the oddball setting I have in the attic like Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, or even an old fashioned AD&D dungeon crawl, my wife Lute makes puppy eyes at me and says, "Couldn't we just run it in GURPS...?"

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by quarkstomper

I'd like to run other games, but every time I suggest the idea of, say a CHAMPIONS campaign, or one of the oddball setting I have in the attic like Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, or even an old fashioned AD&D dungeon crawl, my wife Lute makes puppy eyes at me and says, "Couldn't we just run it in GURPS...?"

I wish I could get folks to give me that look. I get an idea for a fantasy game, I get folks asking for D&D4, which I don't have a copy of. I get an idea for a sci-fi space pirate game, I get links to a ton of PDF-only systems that I can't afford and have never heard of. Or I get asked to run it in MaidRPG or BESM3... neither of which I have in dead-tree (PDFs make me go crosseyed, and my printer is low on ink as it is), or some other obscure system I'd have to learn.

Basically, it's impossible to get a game going in GURPS in my usual circles. I need a better IRC gaming group, or find a group out here in the middle of nowhere (I'm 10-20 miles from the nearest 'town' in any given direction).

[BlackLiger]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

I wish I could get folks to give me that look. I get an idea for a fantasy game, I get folks asking for D&D4, which I don't have a copy of. I get an idea for a sci-fi space pirate game, I get links to a ton of PDF-only systems that I can't afford and have never heard of. Or I get asked to run it in MaidRPG or BESM3... neither of which I have in dead-tree (PDFs make me go crosseyed, and my printer is low on ink as it is), or some other obscure system I'd have to learn.

Basically, it's impossible to get a game going in GURPS in my usual circles. I need a better IRC gaming group, or find a group out here in the middle of nowhere (I'm 10-20 miles from the nearest 'town' in any given direction).

I've spawned a GURPS channel on Goodchatting. irc.goodchatting.com #gurps

Registered to me, but if any SJ games official reps want to take control of it, they are welcome to. I'll need someone to spawn a dicebot into it, and such, but that's presumably something the community can do.

[the_seeker]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Basically, it's impossible to get a game going in GURPS in my usual circles. I need a better IRC gaming group, or find a group out here in the middle of nowhere (I'm 10-20 miles from the nearest 'town' in any given direction).

I empathize.

GURPS is my favorite system. Whatever the setting, I would almost universally prefer to play in it using GURPS as the system. Unfortunately, most of the gamers I know who live in my home area either know GURPS but dislike it or do not know GURPS and are very reluctant to try it. For various reasons I won't bore you by listing, finding new gamers in my home area who know and like GURPS would not be cost effective. My choices are either play using a system I dislike, learn a new system or don't play at all. I opt to not play at all. As the saying goes, "no gaming is better than bad gaming."

Life's just like that sometimes. <shrug>

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by the_seeker

GURPS is my favorite system. Whatever the setting, I would almost universally prefer to play in it using GURPS as the system. Unfortunately, most of the gamers I know who live in my home area either know GURPS but dislike it or do not know GURPS and are very reluctant to try it. For various reasons I won't bore you by listing, finding new gamers in my home area who know and like GURPS would not be cost effective. My choices are either play using a system I dislike, learn a new system or don't play at all. I opt to not play at all. As the saying goes, "no gaming is better than bad gaming."

With me, it works the other way. I hand around a list of campaign ideas, including systems I might run them it. People can assign them priorities. But anything that's not on the list is something I'm not offering to run. If they don't want to play anything on the list, they can do without me as a GM.

I'm not recruiting them as "GURPS players"; I'm recruiting them as "Bill Stoddard players." Anyone who games with me knows that they'll play in different systems over time.

My sales point is always, "Here's this idea for a campaign I'd like to run."

Bill Stoddard

[the_seeker]

Originally Posted by whswhs

With me, it works the other way. I hand around a list of campaign ideas...

Having read many of the abbreviated campaign prospecti you've posted as well as anecdotes from some of your campaigns posted by you and your players, I can and do say without hesitation or reservation that I would probably enjoy playing in a campaign you ran. If I didn't, I'm almost certain I could withdraw from play amicably. I am certain that I have thoroughly enjoyed every GURPS product you've authored.

[SolemnGolem]

I think system choice (especially for a GM) is like forms of art. Some GMs will be good at looking at different systems, mastering them, and becoming fluent enough with them so they can run good, fun campaigns with them at a decent level of proficiency.

Then you've got GMs who, whether by personal choice, financial constraints, or competency levels, only want to subscribe to one system and get to know that really well.

I don't think there's anything wrong with either decision, and it's entirely up to the GM to choose which approach suits them best.

Just like there are artists who can sculpt, paint, sketch, and watercolor - but others who just pick one specialty and stick with it. My response is the same: the fact that you're doing something with an eye to doing it well is far better than doing nothing.

Likewise with GMing. It's not an easy task and the very fact that you're willing to do it even for just one system is already rare enough, in these days of computer RPGs and video games. I can't fault anybody for deciding to just pick one system and sticking with it.


Hell, in 2008 I specifically interviewed a dozen different systems so I could escape from d20. GURPS was one of three finalists and it turned out to be the best. The exercise gave me a passing familiarity with all those systems, but I specifically made the choice of sticking with GURPS for time, cost, and intellectual focus reasons.

[Poppyseed45]

Originally Posted by SolemnGolem

Hell, in 2008 I specifically interviewed a dozen different systems so I could escape from d20. GURPS was one of three finalists and it turned out to be the best. The exercise gave me a passing familiarity with all those systems, but I specifically made the choice of sticking with GURPS for time, cost, and intellectual focus reasons.

Yeah, while I didn't do this consciously, it's what has happened over the years. I've GMed over the last 4 years about 8-9 different systems, and for the last three games, I thought of switching it to GURPS, and for the last two, I actually DID switch it over to GURPS.

This doesn't put down the systems I ran, it just means GURPS is more of what I want. And, as you say, putting my money, time, and intellectual focus on GURPS will, in a way, produce guaranteed "profit" in terms of what I get out of it.

As I said earlier, this isn't to say I'll never run another game again. I want to run Paranoia at least once for this new group I've got forming. My old group absolutely loved it.