GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by opposedToGravity

then it gets rather slim:
fantasy: Fantasy: Fighters of the Purple Rage
Fantasy: Harkwood
Fantasy: Lost Inheritance
Fantasy: Mordag's Little Finger
Fantasy: Sahudese Fire Drill
and the Caravan.

Of these i have only Caravan. because it was included in 3rd edition basic set.
i remember fantasy adventures. it was a very long time ago. and it says it is out of print. i do not remember why i have not bought it that long time ago (must have been sometime after i got my 3rd edition basic set). of Harkwood i have never heard before. books that are out of print for years dont exactly count as available material.

The THS stuff: that was new. as soon as i see it in my friendly local game store, i will buy it.

Tower of Octavius isn't fantasy? It's a detailed layout and description of a wizard's tower! Sounds like a potential ready-made dungeon to me...

And, well, if you're going to wait for SJG to put modules on shelves, I think you're a bit out of touch. I could be wrong, but I don't think any of the things I listed are expected to see print.

[PrinceYyrkoon]

trooper6

Pinnacle have something called Savage Worlds and its a generic rpg. Theres lots of scenario material. What you say doesnt fly, really.

Graham

How do adventures become outdated? Simple. Overexposure to the genre. I wouldnt write a vampire scenario, for instance. Or a werewolf one. Or one where the main prtagonist is an insectoid alien that bleeds acid. Great ideas a while back, but a little dull noe perhaps?

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by opposedToGravity

good post.
and you almost exactly described my situation. i am GM, i would like to run a game at least every other week, better every week. i have real life things like family and work. so, the easiest thing is: pick some prefab material, read it through in the train or before sleep and then run it. Some prefab things are good, some are bad. doesnt matter too much, we have fun anyway.

why d&d? because there are enough fantasy prefabs available. and no matter what people here might say, i actually like most of their material. i like to play standard fantasy stuff.
it needs a little change here and there, but it is ok. (not talking about 4th edition though, havent bought any material yet, ppl say it is rather boring stuff). and it has ready-to-use opponents. open the manual and pick some critter. there you go.

You know, the last campaign I ran was Traveller: Interstellar Wars. I ran that game every other week. I also have real life things that makes lots of prep time difficult. But I didn't need pre-fab adventures...all of which would have taken time to read and then customize to my particular group of adventurers. I used one premade adventure and it took more time than what I regularly did which looked something like this:

Let's see, I know my overall campaign is based on the political struggle between hawks, doves, and neutrals and the way the PCs get caught up in that struggle. The PCs are in Dove space, but there are plots going on by the Hawks. Okay. That's my background. The players are going to arrive on a new planet next session...what will I run? The mechanic hasn't done anything really exciting in while. So what can I do?

Oh I know! There will be a hovercraft race. The three main racers will each represent one of the factions. And the Hawks will be trying to sabotage the Doves...no...the Neutrals and pin the blame on the Doves. Okay, so I just need to get the PC connected to the Neutrals.

I finalize a few other details, then I start the game. That took me 10 minutes. If we need a combat map I draw it at the moment. If I need NPC stats I make them up at the moment.

And the campaign was really good. The players still talk about it. If the adventure template wasn't so restrictive I'd work on converting it to something for publication...but you still wouldn't be happy, because that wouldn't be a fantasy campaign.

[opposedToGravity]

Originally Posted by trooper6

And here is the problem with GURPS adventure. There are adventures out there, but you don't like them, you don't like the genre. You say "most gamers like fantasy." Except to most GURPS gamers like fantasy? There are some fine GURPS fantasy adventures out there...and they aren't number 1 on the e23 sales list. So...it doesn't seem like your argument "if you make it, they will come" seems to wash...because people are not buying the fantasy adventures that are on e23 at the moment.

people are buying DF. this seems to imply that people like old school dungeon crawls. Gurps people that is. why not complete this with some dungeon crawls? or maybe even expand the dungeon crawl to a nice scenario? because, yeah, yeah, suddenly it wont sell anymore. ;-)
i dont think so.

Now, give me a month or two to free up some time, and I'd be very interested in writing a Paizo style longer campaign. But I'm not going submit it to SJG because I'm not thrilled with the mandatory adventure template.

i dont like that either. (as i said before, lets put my issues with the english language aside, this was the main reason why i didnt do it).

But also, I doubt you've be interested in buying it, because it wouldn't be Fantasy it would probably be Noir Detectives. And in the unlikelihood that I did decide to make a Fantasy campaign, it probably wouldn't match your idea of fantasy. It would be TL4 rather than TL3 and wouldn't really involve dungeons. So then you wouldn't be interested in it, nor would you buy it, then you'd continue to complain that there are no adventures.

youd be surprised. I focused on fantasy because it is a winning concept. Most gamers like it. It has the largest audience.
DF proofs even Gurps players like it. the countless D&D conversion guidelines out there proof that gurps players like D&D material.

And here is the problem.

D&D has one paradigm. As does CoC and WoD. But GURPS has an infinite number of worlds. Heck you take one genre: Fantasy, and even in that one genre, GURPS handles a wide array of versions of Fantasy, not all of which are going to be served by the same adventures. My first campaign was a no-Magic gritty Fantasy world with no dungeons. Would an adventure crafted for that world serve your campaign? Probably not. And you wouldn't buy it, and you'd still complain. A high magic dungeon fantasy adventure? Might fit your campaign, but wouldn't fit mine.

None of this speaks well for adventure sales.

the same old argument: it is impossible to write gurps adventures. how are sales doing? is Gurps still going strong? with about 1 or two HC per year.. well, that speaks for itself.
you (as others who use this argument) tell us about extraordinary backgrounds in which you played. this stuff wont sell. not at all. that is what i am talking about when i say that some generic fantasy stuff would be best because it has the largest audience. it could also attract new players.

[opposedToGravity]

Originally Posted by trooper6

You know, the last campaign I ran was Traveller: Interstellar Wars. I ran that game every other week. I also have real life things that makes lots of prep time difficult. But I didn't need pre-fab adventures...all of which would have taken time to read and then customize to my particular group of adventurers. I used one premade adventure and it took more time than what I regularly did which looked something like this:

Let's see, I know my overall campaign is based on the political struggle between hawks, doves, and neutrals and the way the PCs get caught up in that struggle. The PCs are in Dove space, but there are plots going on by the Hawks. Okay. That's my background. The players are going to arrive on a new planet next session...what will I run? The mechanic hasn't done anything really exciting in while. So what can I do?

Oh I know! There will be a hovercraft race. The three main racers will each represent one of the factions. And the Hawks will be trying to sabotage the Doves...no...the Neutrals and pin the blame on the Doves. Okay, so I just need to get the PC connected to the Neutrals.

I finalize a few other details, then I start the game. That took me 10 minutes. If we need a combat map I draw it at the moment. If I need NPC stats I make them up at the moment.

And the campaign was really good. The players still talk about it. If the adventure template wasn't so restrictive I'd work on converting it to something for publication...but you still wouldn't be happy, because that wouldn't be a fantasy campaign.

lucky you.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by opposedToGravity

the same old argument: it is impossible to write gurps adventures. how are sales doing? is Gurps still going strong? with about 1 or two HC per year.. well, that speaks for itself.

If you're familiar, again, with e23, you might notice that GURPS is hardly lacking in recent releases. It's not pouring out masses of hardcovers, but that isn't the same as not releasing product.

Of course, if you're unwilling to buy anything not found on a store shelf, you may not have noticed.

Originally Posted by opposedToGravity

you (as others who use this argument) tell us about extraordinary backgrounds in which you played. this stuff wont sell. not at all. that is what i am talking about when i say that some generic fantasy stuff would be best because it has the largest audience. it could also attract new players.

I'm going to let this play with its friend:

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

How do adventures become outdated? Simple. Overexposure to the genre. I wouldnt write a vampire scenario, for instance. Or a werewolf one. Or one where the main prtagonist is an insectoid alien that bleeds acid. Great ideas a while back, but a little dull noe perhaps?

So yeah...

[PrinceYyrkoon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

So yeah...

Doesnt add much to the discussion...

[Graham]

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

...

Graham

How do adventures become outdated? Simple. Overexposure to the genre. I wouldnt write a vampire scenario, for instance. Or a werewolf one. Or one where the main prtagonist is an insectoid alien that bleeds acid. Great ideas a while back, but a little dull noe perhaps?

Fair enough, if you're talking about old hands, but not for new role-players. But I concede the point. However, as I said in that post, as an old hand I do want new adventures.

Overall, PrinceYyrkoon, you're right. I too would love to see a full length GURPS campaign, with its own unique setting. Those arguing that no author would embark on that if they wanted to get paid a reasonable rate for their time are not decrying the idea so much as pointing out why it's not been done.

Pinnacle's a better comparison with SJG as Paizo is tapping into D&D. Are the Pinnacle scenarios of Savage Worlds profitable? I hope so. Maybe the way the game is marketed helps?

Graham

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by opposedToGravity

the same old argument: it is impossible to write gurps adventures. how are sales doing? is Gurps still going strong? with about 1 or two HC per year.. well, that speaks for itself.

How is GURPS doing? Better than a lot of other gaming companies. GURPS is still going strong and is still being published. Every week we get a release. That is pretty good.

Originally Posted by opposedToGravity

you (as others who use this argument) tell us about extraordinary backgrounds in which you played. this stuff wont sell. not at all. that is what i am talking about when i say that some generic fantasy stuff would be best because it has the largest audience. it could also attract new players.

And here is the problem yet again. I am a GURPS player just like you. I am a GURPS customer just like you. And generic fantasy doesn't interest me. I wouldn't buy it. You might, but I wouldn't. What makes you think you carry more demographic weight than I do? When I look at all the GURPS I've played in, or run, never has it been generic fantasy. And this covers a lot of people. Extraordinary backgrounds is one of the selling points of GURPS, and a lot of people are drawn to GURPS for that reason.

I've published 2 articles in Pyramid. I've worked as a Lead Playtester. I'm a person who actually would write adventures for GURPS. But I would you telling me that you like generic fantasy is not going to make me write any generic fantasy adventures...because I don't like them. I like dramatist/simulationist sandbox things with difficult moral quandaries. The kind of thing I'd be interested in is not what you are advocating for. If you really think there is a market for the sort of adventures you like, then you need to write them and submit them. Because what I'd submit would not be what you want.

Because really you think you are saying:
GURPS should publish adventures.

but what you are really saying is:
GURPS should publish adventures that cater to my preferences.

That is unlikely to happen.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

Doesnt add much to the discussion...

Read just one more line of context, maybe? I was setting your "No used ideas" next to opposedToGravity's "make it generic fantasy".