GURPS IOU Help

tiggerkat · 03-20-2008, 07:17 PM

I'm running a GURPS IOU game and am having some trouble. So far in two sessions, pc's have complained the game is directionless. I'm not sure what to do.

Any suggestions for plot? I've tried the 'one card' one, but have had complaints by the one who got the thing.

I think I can borrow some from TFOS, but not really sure, so any suggestions would help. I'm more used to D&D type stuff, and not really humor based games.

Gold & Appel Inc · 03-20-2008, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiggerkat

Any suggestions for plot? [snip] I'm more used to D&D type stuff, and not really humor based games.

Go rent any iconically classic comedy set at a school. Start with Animal House or PCU, whichever your group's generation would be less familiar with. Now steal everything shamelessly, top with the signature trappings of IOU, reheat and serve!

roguebfl · 03-20-2008, 07:27 PM

W.U.S.E. Grad student co-op them into a blind test studiy, with out their knowledge...

quarkstomper · 03-20-2008, 07:38 PM

I've never run IOU, but I have run a couple successful TFOS campaigns, and my suggestion would be to build off the characters. Once you've had a couple sessions to let the players run around a bit, you can start coaxing plot hooks off of the characters themselves and build things off of ramifications from previous games.

But that won't necessarily give you a "direction". It sounds like they're expecting some big overall plot arc that they'll be working towards. Or perhaps some unifying theme. For the former, a useful plot might be: "Students Gradually Discover Dark Secret At University". (Although for a place as wacky as IOU, any Dark Secret would probably be overwhelmed by the background noise of all the other conspiracies, aliens and sorcerous hoo-ha flinging about). A possible unifying theme might be: "Students are Recruited for Special Purpose" such as the Prefectural Earth Defense Force.

pnewman · 03-20-2008, 07:43 PM

They're all taking the same crowded shuttle bus between classes. As more people get on the bus a Mad Scientist with Klutz drops his class project on top of the class project of a Mad Wizard. There is a large explosion, and the bus and it's contents end up elsewhere.

Very, very, elsewhere....

Now they have to find a way home. There are no professor types on the bus to take charge, it is up to the players to meld together the very diverse abilities of the bus passngers. If the bus could talk at IOU it can't talk wherever it is. If the bus couldn't talk at IOU it can talk here.

Oh, and there is a time limit - at the end of 24 hours IOU would normally just write them all off and just activate their clones - but that won't work this time because of the nature of the elsewhere. There is a morphic field linking the bus passengers to IOU that will cause the Health Insurance to fail, killling
both sets. [Or so the bus passengers believe, if they fail to return maybe that's not so, but this may cheapen the eppisode.]

Oh and one of the other passengers on the bus is a Gargoyle, I've got to get my old PC in there somehow.

Surllio · 03-20-2008, 09:30 PM

IOU is meant to be fun, not have a set direction. I mean, it can, but its not like the "rescue the princess/save the world" or "crawl this dungeon get treasure" type of setting.

If you need ideas, think way outside the box.

If they are freshthings, have something like a super powerful mundane show up and they have to deal with them. Or have the historical classes go back to some important place in time, only to screw things up and the students get stuck trying to get things back on track. Hell, have something escape from one of the departments. If they are upperclassthings, make them do the freshmen orientation.

Think outside the box. Be creative. Have fun. Thats what the setting is truly about.

Remember, IOU is about zany short adventures and off the wall situations.

selenite · 03-21-2008, 12:27 AM

Search for "IOU" in this page, you'll get half a dozen Pyramid articles with lots of good ideas.
http://www.gurpswiki.net/default.asp...dventures.html

Woodman · 03-21-2008, 05:42 AM

What type of chars did your players make for the campaign? I find it quite hard to think of cool one-fits-all scenarios for IOU because allmost evrything weird might be a possible player char.
As for a general direction, make them work for their graduation, let them think of creative ways to exploit their powers to accomplish coursework while attending as many parties as possible, create some minor faculty member for them to offend who will do whatever is possible to stop them from taking the easy way out of their work. Then start getting weird things in, like excursions to places man was not meant to see, getting a mandatory course by dooing just this "minor" favour for the course leader, finding themselfs somewhere even weirder then IOU campus while taking a shortcut to class ....

benz72 · 03-21-2008, 11:19 PM

The only makor story arcs I've ever thought were appropriate for IOU are, as Woodman (sort of) said, graduation and hedonism. If you want some theme to the impediments to graduation those will have to be tailored to your specific PCs.
If you want some plot lines...

1) You could give them an 'out of body' adventure. Have them zapped by a necroray and they have to live as ghosts until they can get resurected
(can't touch physical objects to take notes, write exams etc...)

2) Have the Archdean fake her own demise to trap another faculty member into admitting fraud/embezzelment so she can fire him. Uh oh, that vaporized professor was your academic advisor, looks like you're going to be here a while longer since your major is no longer offered. Pick a new one.

3) For a horror campaign, have one of the PC's girlfriends start carring an extra paunch on her tummy, craving fudjybars with mustard and suddenly stop drinking alcohol. She of course denies anything is going on (and it isn;t). Paunch is the freshman 15, fudjybars are a new diet fad and she's given up alcohol to sober up from Bacanal (or some such). If you want you can even have her get some... enhancement... (which of course sha has been saving up for) and have him catch her reading "What to do whan you're a new mommy" because her cousin is having a baby and she's going to be sitting in the summer.

dravenloft · 03-22-2008, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiggerkat

I'm running a GURPS IOU game and am having some trouble. So far in two sessions, pc's have complained the game is directionless. I'm not sure what to do.

Any suggestions for plot? I've tried the 'one card' one, but have had complaints by the one who got the thing.

I think I can borrow some from TFOS, but not really sure, so any suggestions would help. I'm more used to D&D type stuff, and not really humor based games.

Plot? Direction? Have these people ever been to college? If they're saying you're missing these things it seems to me your doing something right.

I agree with the suggestions about crazy school based movies. The videography in IOU is good. My personal fave from it is Real Genius, the suggestion of PCU is also prime.

If they didn't like the one card thing, try the Notankhaman (I probably butchered the spelling of that) adventure. It's available as PDF loads of places and I can email you a copy if you need. It might fit what it sorta sounds like they're looking for, maybe.

03-20-2008, 07:17 PM	#1
tiggerkat Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Clearfield, PA	GURPS IOU Help I'm running a GURPS IOU game and am having some trouble. So far in two sessions, pc's have complained the game is directionless. I'm not sure what to do. Any suggestions for plot? I've tried the 'one card' one, but have had complaints by the one who got the thing. I think I can borrow some from TFOS, but not really sure, so any suggestions would help. I'm more used to D&D type stuff, and not really humor based games. __________________ Local GURPS Fanatic

03-20-2008, 07:27 PM	#3
roguebfl Dog of Lysdexics Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Melbourne FL, Formerly Wellington NZ	Re: GURPS IOU Help W.U.S.E. Grad student co-op them into a blind test studiy, with out their knowledge... __________________ Rogue the Bronze Firelizard Gerald Grenier, Jr. Hail Eris! Rogue's Weyr

03-20-2008, 07:38 PM	#4
quarkstomper Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: The Enchanted Land-O-Cheese	Re: GURPS IOU Help I've never run IOU, but I have run a couple successful TFOS campaigns, and my suggestion would be to build off the characters. Once you've had a couple sessions to let the players run around a bit, you can start coaxing plot hooks off of the characters themselves and build things off of ramifications from previous games. But that won't necessarily give you a "direction". It sounds like they're expecting some big overall plot arc that they'll be working towards. Or perhaps some unifying theme. For the former, a useful plot might be: "Students Gradually Discover Dark Secret At University". (Although for a place as wacky as IOU, any Dark Secret would probably be overwhelmed by the background noise of all the other conspiracies, aliens and sorcerous hoo-ha flinging about). A possible unifying theme might be: "Students are Recruited for Special Purpose" such as the Prefectural Earth Defense Force.

03-20-2008, 07:43 PM	#5
pnewman Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Anchorage, Alaska	Re: GURPS IOU Help They're all taking the same crowded shuttle bus between classes. As more people get on the bus a Mad Scientist with Klutz drops his class project on top of the class project of a Mad Wizard. There is a large explosion, and the bus and it's contents end up elsewhere. Very, very, elsewhere.... Now they have to find a way home. There are no professor types on the bus to take charge, it is up to the players to meld together the very diverse abilities of the bus passngers. If the bus could talk at IOU it can't talk wherever it is. If the bus couldn't talk at IOU it can talk here. Oh, and there is a time limit - at the end of 24 hours IOU would normally just write them all off and just activate their clones - but that won't work this time because of the nature of the elsewhere. There is a morphic field linking the bus passengers to IOU that will cause the Health Insurance to fail, killling both sets. [Or so the bus passengers believe, if they fail to return maybe that's not so, but this may cheapen the eppisode.] Oh and one of the other passengers on the bus is a Gargoyle, I've got to get my old PC in there somehow.

03-20-2008, 09:30 PM	#6
Surllio Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Rossville, GA	Re: GURPS IOU Help IOU is meant to be fun, not have a set direction. I mean, it can, but its not like the "rescue the princess/save the world" or "crawl this dungeon get treasure" type of setting. If you need ideas, think way outside the box. If they are freshthings, have something like a super powerful mundane show up and they have to deal with them. Or have the historical classes go back to some important place in time, only to screw things up and the students get stuck trying to get things back on track. Hell, have something escape from one of the departments. If they are upperclassthings, make them do the freshmen orientation. Think outside the box. Be creative. Have fun. Thats what the setting is truly about. Remember, IOU is about zany short adventures and off the wall situations. __________________ The greatest of champions will always fall to the simplest of luck.

03-21-2008, 12:27 AM	#7
selenite Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Minnesota	Re: GURPS IOU Help Search for "IOU" in this page, you'll get half a dozen Pyramid articles with lots of good ideas. http://www.gurpswiki.net/default.asp...dventures.html

03-21-2008, 05:42 AM	#8
Woodman Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hannover - Germany	Re: GURPS IOU Help What type of chars did your players make for the campaign? I find it quite hard to think of cool one-fits-all scenarios for IOU because allmost evrything weird might be a possible player char. As for a general direction, make them work for their graduation, let them think of creative ways to exploit their powers to accomplish coursework while attending as many parties as possible, create some minor faculty member for them to offend who will do whatever is possible to stop them from taking the easy way out of their work. Then start getting weird things in, like excursions to places man was not meant to see, getting a mandatory course by dooing just this "minor" favour for the course leader, finding themselfs somewhere even weirder then IOU campus while taking a shortcut to class ....

03-21-2008, 11:19 PM	#9
benz72 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Chagrin Falls	Re: GURPS IOU Help The only makor story arcs I've ever thought were appropriate for IOU are, as Woodman (sort of) said, graduation and hedonism. If you want some theme to the impediments to graduation those will have to be tailored to your specific PCs. If you want some plot lines... 1) You could give them an 'out of body' adventure. Have them zapped by a necroray and they have to live as ghosts until they can get resurected (can't touch physical objects to take notes, write exams etc...) 2) Have the Archdean fake her own demise to trap another faculty member into admitting fraud/embezzelment so she can fire him. Uh oh, that vaporized professor was your academic advisor, looks like you're going to be here a while longer since your major is no longer offered. Pick a new one. 3) For a horror campaign, have one of the PC's girlfriends start carring an extra paunch on her tummy, craving fudjybars with mustard and suddenly stop drinking alcohol. She of course denies anything is going on (and it isn;t). Paunch is the freshman 15, fudjybars are a new diet fad and she's given up alcohol to sober up from Bacanal (or some such). If you want you can even have her get some... enhancement... (which of course sha has been saving up for) and have him catch her reading "What to do whan you're a new mommy" because her cousin is having a baby and she's going to be sitting in the summer. __________________ Benundefined Life has a funny way of making sure you decide to leave the party just a few minutes too late to avoid trouble.