[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?

[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.

[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

[Mulsiphix]

I know Temple of the Lost Gods is for 3E but how hard would it be to convert to 4E and adapt to a 1 or 2 player game (she could play two PC's). I also came across Lands Out of Time and the one-shot Lair of the Fat Man. I don't own either of these so I was hoping somebody who is familiar could give me their thoughts.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Mulsiphix

I know Temple of the Lost Gods is for 3E but how hard would it be to convert to 4E and adapt to a 1 or 2 player game (she could play two PC's). I also came across Lands Out of Time and the one-shot Lair of the Fat Man. I don't own either of these so I was hoping somebody who is familiar could give me their thoughts.

I don't see a point in making two PCs. But generally, much depends on how comfortable/familiar you are with converting concepts instead of specific numbers.