What GURPS needs... now

[lordabdul]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Honestly, I don't think that every setting necessarily needs to revolve around one core conflict or one core mission.

I don't think so either. But I think it helps greatly if the setting comes with one optional but fully fleshed out core framework, along with several adventures and a couple campaigns that revolve around that framework. As a publisher, you can then start publishing other types of adventures that go with secondary campaign frameworks that seem to be popular...

OTOH, if the world setting is not going to include a single core conflict then it behooves the author to work up a few sample campaign frameworks which include the core conflict or core mission for that framework that a GM and his players can quickly pick up and run with.

Isn't that what Transhuman Space did? Offer no "default/core" framework, and instead just throw a few campaign seeds of a couple paragraphs each to the reader? That's not something that a GM and their players can "quickly pick up and run with" (unless you're really into improvisation, which I occasionally do, but that's a different topic).

I think the key element here is not only a more developed campaign framework (a whole chapter, like the IW chapter in Basic Set), but a fair amount of adventure books in this framework being published as a follow-up. My previous (superficial) research seems to indicate at least 40% of adventures vs. sourcebooks would be recommended.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by lordabdul

I think the key element here is not only a more developed campaign framework (a whole chapter, like the IW chapter in Basic Set), but a fair amount of adventure books in this framework being published as a follow-up. My previous (superficial) research seems to indicate at least 40% of adventures vs. sourcebooks would be recommended.

For Call of Cthulhu, it is more. Maybe 60% or 75% of adventures. And, in my humble opinion, it is better. Because adventures - especially big campaigns - give a lot of information about the world, how to use a given rule, and so on ...

[lordabdul]

Originally Posted by Gollum

For Call of Cthulhu, it is more. Maybe 60% or 75% of adventures. And, in my humble opinion, it is better. Because adventures - especially big campaigns - give a lot of information about the world, how to use a given rule, and so on ...

It's way more actually -- above 90%. See this previous message of mine :) But I think it's probably because it doesn't need too many "world books" since the world is mostly the real world (whatever you need to know about a specific place/time is generally included in the adventure). For more fantasy settings set in a complete different reality, I think the ratio is closer to 50% (I'd have to look at a few more popular settings to confirm the trend).

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by lordabdul

Isn't that what Transhuman Space did? Offer no "default/core" framework, and instead just throw a few campaign seeds of a couple paragraphs each to the reader?

Not that I recall, but it's been years since I read it. If it did offer "campaign seeds" they certainly didn't jump out at me, but YMMV, all IMO, etc. And there's a big difference between a "campaign seed" and a "fleshed out campaign framework."

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by lordabdul

It's way more actually -- above 90%. See this previous message of mine :)

Oh, yes. I forgot that one. Sorry.

Originally Posted by lordabdul

But I think it's probably because it doesn't need too many "world books" since the world is mostly the real world (whatever you need to know about a specific place/time is generally included in the adventure). For more fantasy settings set in a complete different reality, I think the ratio is closer to 50% (I'd have to look at a few more popular settings to confirm the trend).

Yes. It may also be due to the fact that Call of Cthulhu is a game of investigations: writing an interesting mystery is harder than designing a dungeon. It's very hard (or maybe impossible) to improvise the good dosage of clues, wrong tracks, and so on, on the flaw.

So, Keepers of Arcane Lore (and other investigation game masters) need more ready to play adventures than Dungeon Masters.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You're envisioning something quite different from what I do.

Most basically, I accepted decades ago that I couldn't get adults with jobs and lives to show up every week for a game. But I didn't accept having people show up sometimes and not others. Rather, each campaign meets once a month, the same day every month, with a fixed set of players. And I ask players to commit to show up, over a span of two years (usually; I've run six-month mini-campaigns). I can adapt if a player is unavailable, but I ask them to notify me if possible; I had one player who missed two or three sessions without getting in touch, and he'll never play in another of my campaigns.

In a sense, this is your "small but fairly stable" groups. But the stability of a group lasts only as long as a single campaign. When the campaign ends—and all my campaigns end at once—I had around a prospectus listing from half a dozen to fifty campaign ideas, and put together groups of players who liked the same idea. There are some groups who often play together, but there's always some turnover. And that also makes it easy to invite in new players.

A typical campaign has from four to six players. I can adapt if one is missing; if three are missing, I'll usually cancel.

So, for example, where trooper6 started gaming with me, he was in Whispers, a Transhuman Space campaign, with three other players (at the start; a fourth player signed on later). But I also was running Manse, a Big Eyes Small Mouth campaign about an isolated community ruled by five magically gifted clans, with each player running a senior mage, an apprentice mage, a member of the guard, and a servant. And I was also running Boca del Infierno, a campaign about vampire slaying in Spanish California during the Napoleonic Wars. Boca del Infierno was the high-action campaign; Manse was the high-roleplaying campaign; Whispers was the "other" campaign, though it also had a fair bit of roleplaying and a lot of conceptual exploration. That series was unusual in that all three campaigns were doing so well that I gave them an extra year.

Really, I think one of the secrets to this is that I had a large crowd of players who totally loved the chance to tell their characters' stories and do intense roleplaying. They could see that showing up regularly made that possible for everyone, and also it was worth it to them to make it a priority to get that specific experience. And I think you might say I got a bit spoiled by having this wonderful high-end player population.

Oh, and also, I invite players to play occasional guest roles in other campaigns. For example, when Onofrio in my current campaign went to call on his aunt Tiziana to ask if the spirits would bless his marrying Livia, I asked my wife C (who knows all the players!) to come down with me that weekend and play the part of Tiziana.

A useful idea to consider.

[lordabdul]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Not that I recall, but it's been years since I read it. If it did offer "campaign seeds" they certainly didn't jump out at me, but YMMV, all IMO, etc. And there's a big difference between a "campaign seed" and a "fleshed out campaign framework."

"Campaign Themes", page 26.

But yes, there's a big difference indeed. Looking at the various themes offered in that chapter of the book, I would propose the "bounty hunter/xoxhunter" theme as the "core campaign framework" if there had been one -- probably set in the belt for the couple startup adventures. It's a framework with broad appeal (chasing criminals is an immediately familiar framework, and chasing xoxes summons memories of Ghost in the Shell for most geeks), it has a certain procedural aspect to it (each adventure is a "case" to close) which means it's easier to write for it, and each mission can be as action/research/social/whatever oriented as you want (one could be a giant chase scene while another could be the equivalent of a noir detective story for instance).

[dds_ks]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

Our experience with fan-based translations just of GURPS Lite was very mixed. For a translation of the full Basic Set, we would absolutely want to work with professional translators and almost certainly a publisher with ties in that language community. There isn't the market share for us to do that work ourselves. We outsource our Munchkin translations, too, and Munchkin has considerably more shelf presence than GURPS right now.

So if you don't start this yourselves and you don't support fan-based translation, this means "It won't happen at all."?
Well, in that case I don't see a chance to attract more foreign players, especially, as there are some "strong" German RPG systems.

[dds_ks]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Which is what most GMs I know do. I've honestly never played with a GM who uses printed adventures right out of the book. At best they took inspiration from them, or just made up their own adventures.

It's one of the reasons why SJGames said they stopped making adventures years ago, because most people don't buy them.

Well, I do buy adventures, and then I take them for inspiration and make my own adventure "vaguely based on" the bought adventure.

However, this means that it's not important which system the adventure was made for. And as my party doesn't know "what gift to make to somebody who already has everything", every birthday means that I get some adventures from different RPG systems. So in fact I just have two GURPS adventures...
... as they usually buy something in German.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by dds_ks

So if you don't start this yourselves and you don't support fan-based translation, this means "It won't happen at all."?

No, it means if there's an existing publisher who wants to work with us, we're happy to talk numbers. We definitely do not have the resources to create translations in-house.