GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

[Woodman]

Settings with integral campaigns attached. NPCs, region maps, floorplans, bestiary, specific setting rules, scenarios, that kind of thing. So the option is there for lazy GMs, or uninspired ones maybe. Its like looking at a blank piece of paper in a way.

All of the setting books i've read so far contained NPC stats, bestiary if it made sense, maps and special versions of advantages and skills for the setting, but the books you mentioned are not setting but genre books, they are meant to support you in building your own setting in a given genre. Most settings also included a lot of adventure hooks wich can be expanded into a campaign, and for me this format works way better then complete adventures where most of the details wouldnt fit the characters of my players.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Cybren

http://e23.sjgames.com/wish_list.html#gurps
Unless they haven't updated it, they do seem interested in getting adventure submissions.

Exactly! SJG want to publish adventures... But there are obviously very few authors who want to write them.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

That said, given the generally poor sales of those adventures which have been published, it would seem clear that people who want published adventures for GURPS are very much a minority.

Not such a minority than the authors who want to write them!

;-)

More seriously...

To my mind, there is a problem with the published adventures. They do not belong to the same campaign. They even do not belong to the same game world!

This is an especially big problem with GURPS, because in GURPS, creating a character is quite long. So, if a player takes that much time to create a detailed and interesting character, he will expect to play this character in more than one adventure... But what will his game master find after running Caravan to Ein Arris? Or after running Lair of the Fat Man? Nothing. These are just one shots...

I think this is the main problem with GURPS adventures. Either you create them yourself, either you create the continuation yourself. No matter what you choose, you will have a lot of work to do.

Too my mind, adventures taking place in the same setting, a famous one, like Infinite World, for instance, and even making a campaign together, would attract much more buyers...

But, here again, the problem is not the fact that SJG don't want to publish this kind of adventures. It is the fact that nobody want to write them...

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Woodman

All of the setting books i've read so far contained NPC stats, bestiary if it made sense, maps and special versions of advantages and skills for the setting, but the books you mentioned are not setting but genre books, they are meant to support you in building your own setting in a given genre. Most settings also included a lot of adventure hooks wich can be expanded into a campaign, and for me this format works way better then complete adventures where most of the details wouldnt fit the characters of my players.

They work very fine... If you have a lot of time to spend building your own adventures...

Another solution is to buy adventures from another publisher, for another game. Since GURPS works very well with any "clealy written adventure" (as said in the Basic Set, third edition), it is the solution I use. It works very well.

But, of course, this make me buy less SJG's books and more books from other companies.

[sgtcallistan]

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

snip
But, you know, Im coming to the conclusion that it is the lack of scenario material.
I know its an old issue with Gurps and Im sure people have mentioned it lots of times before I have.
snip
What you get is a black shiny toolbox. You want monsters? Make 'em yerself! You want storylines? What, ya lazy or what? Get workin'! Yer a Gurps player now sonny! You can forget all that mollycodlin' in future!
snip

Something I learned after I left DnD behind; any and all published scenarios from any game may be played with GURPS with suprisingly little work; then I found I enjoyed making gameworlds myself.

Adapting an old SF short-story to make a whole campaign based on a set of planet=to=planet teleport boxes? Check. Took about an hour. Character creation took longer.

Conflating Dune, Star Wars and the Cordwainer Smith animal-folk into Knights of the Star? Check. Took a few days work, spread over a month.

Using all of our ADnD scenarios (the hole in the head gang) to GURPS? Check. Took no time at all, as character generation was all that was needed.

A Scooby-Doo / Cthulu / Jason Voorhees crossover? Check. Took no time at all; it was improvised on the spot, mostly from player's memories.

I have never needed to convert a monster, named or otherwise. Nor have I ever needed to stat a mook, orc or dragon. They do not need stats, or they can be eyeballed / winged based on perceived difficulty.

I hope this helps.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Woodman

[...] and for me this format works way better then complete adventures where most of the details wouldnt fit the characters of my players.

To my mind, this argument is not a very good one. In every roleplaying game the characters can so different that published adventures shouldn't work.

In D&D, for instance, a Dragonborn Paladin can work with a Tieflin thief? These two characters are very different and wouldn't normally agree to take part in the same mission. But D&D adventures still works very well.

In Call of Cthulhu, players can choose to create an old university teacher, a prostitute, a rich dilettante or a hobo... characters who are not used to work together. Call of Cthulhu adventures still work very well.

It just requires a few imagination... But much less than creating a whole adventure when you don't have the time to do it decently.

[sgtcallistan]

No-one wants to write game scenarios?

A Meeting on the Road: TL3+, magic as to your taste.
Your group are travelling from the last job to a town to get needed supplies.

The number of your group + two mooks appear in clumsy ambush (IQ, ST, DX, all 10; weapons skills 9 or 10; low-quality swords and spears, leather armour jacks showing signs of being repaired), attacking from trees at narrowest part of path a mile outside town.

Survivors can tell that they heard / were told you wanted to attack their town.

In town:
A single fighter (Leadership-12, Bard-13, weapon skill 13, better armour (by one type-level) than most of the group) has got villagers in spear-groups, defending against all outsiders. He does not want you coming in to see the defences.

Time for role-playing, as the next town is three days away.

Complications:
No-one wants to sell the group anything but simplest foodstuffs.
You are expected to stay and defend the town against a vague threat.
Several townies refuse to speak with or aid the group as their relatives have been killed/injured by them.
Some young people are insisting on learning how to fight, and want to come with you when you leave.
Guards disappear in the night, leaving weapons behind.

Threat revealed:
Mercenary group wish to recruit cheaply some new blood. They are living in the nearby woods and kidnapping people. There is currently no war, but they run short on food and may have to sack the town anyway.

Charismatic merc:
Stats 12, Charisma, Leadership 13, weapon skill 14, good chain armour suit, sword and shield.
Mercs: (your group size times 1.5) Stats 10 to 11, weapon skill 12 to 13, Tactics -12. 3 have quality crossbows, skill 13.

Treasure:
Leather, chain armour, plate helms and breastplates. Silver coins x15 to 20 in each merc's pouches. Some food, tents, wine in kegs, useful items for travellers and adventurers.

[opposedToGravity]

Originally Posted by trooper6

(being on your own with Gurps)
That's not true.

There are numerous settings with NPCs and maps, etc. And also a number of adventures. Heck after my first homebrew game that I ran, I GMd an espionage game that used the Operation Midnight 4 adventure campaign. Pyramid has had adventures, too.

There is a free Fantasy adventure you can download, Caravan to Ein Arris. You could download GURPS Lite and Caravan to Ein Arris and play GURPS for no money.

Yes, it is true. There is Caravan to Ein Arris, and thats about it.
When i look at other systems, i go to my friendly local game store, pick an adventure, read through it a couple of times and run it.

When Gurps is concerned, i read a world book, get an idea, do some npcs, critters, dungeons, intrigue, post various questions about rules most concerning abilites, enhancements, limitations... . and after months i can sit down and play. this is not good and i totally understand new players complaining.

the lack of support of ready-to-use material is staggering.
i dont want another game world, just more material for existing ones that spare me all the work. the idea of the GM sitting in his room by himself preparing most of the time is not what roleplaying is about.

i even thought about polishing up one or two scenarios and sending them in, but (lets put issues of the english language aside) after downloading the writing guidelines with their forms i didnt want to continue. they dont suit me.

[opposedToGravity]

Originally Posted by Brett

Maybe, but the poor sales only strictly imply that the people who want any particular published adventure are in a minority. And I think that is the problem that is reflected in the contrast between the strong demand for adventures that we see expressed in threads like this and the feeble actual supply of adventures.

Result: no actual adventure is going to sell to more than about 5% of the GURPS market. A majority wants adventures, but hardly anyone wants any adventure.

And most of us will sell much worse.

i dont agree. apparently world books sell. apparently DF sells or it would have been cancelled long ago. apparently banestorm sells or it would not have been published for 4th edition.
why is there no support for adventures for these worlds? there is an audience (potentially all the people who purchased these books), but they are on their own.
if on the other hand there would be more support for these worlds i am pretty sure that sales of those world books would also increase. personally i have no interest in yet another world book when i have to write all the scenarios myself anyway. better to use a detailed background from another system with detailed scenarios and do tedious conversions.
if however there would be Gurps support for actual roleplaying (and not just GM preparation) i would be persuaded to dive into a new world.

[Woodman]

It just requires a few imagination... But much less than creating a whole adventure when you don't have the time to do it decently.

My experience in adapting adventures is, that i am better off mining them for plot ideas and create the rest myself in a way that fits my campaign, trying to tweak an adventure usually took at least as much work as rewriting something with a similar plot, especially if i had to adapt the stats from another gamesystem.