Reaching Out to Potential and New GURPS Gamers

[trechriron]

Originally Posted by Tinman

I think the biggest challenge to new GURPS players is until you play a bit it looks very overwhelming, intimidating, and rules heavy. Getting players into a game is the best way to get them into GURPS.

I would suggest more ready-to-play already-set-up games. Keep the options simple. I believe that once you start playing, it's pretty intuitive. So, we can help eliminate the intimidation factor for the GM (our likeliest enthusiast) to encourage a group to pick it up and try.

Not everyone has time to prep these days. This is why I really wish GURPS had a content creator program. Restricted to settings and adventures. This would allow enterprising GURPS enthusiasts to "share the prep" for those who really just want to pick something up and play. It would bring in a little extra revenue to SJGames and give a little incentive for creators to use GURPS. More frequent releases on DTRPG creates more buzz and helps redress the perception that GURPS is not active.

This would ideally include the option to offer VTT resources for these settings/adventures as well. The GURPS Foundry VTT work is awesome-sauce on toast. Making things more accessible to time-strapped GMs is key to increasing GURPS popularity (IMHO).

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by trechriron

The GURPS Foundry VTT work is awesome-sauce on toast.

Yes, yes it is! Definitely something worth promoting. And in a related link, GCA and GCS - because although they have a bit of a learning curve themselves, for a lot of people it would be very helpful to get characters put together easily (and, of course, you can upload them to GURPS Foundry VTT).

Also, things like GCA and GCS help to suggest additional material that might be interesting - you see an advantage and want to know more, so you see what book it's from and...maybe a purchase occurs :-).

[Emerikol]

I found the twitter account and followed. It took a while to show up it seems.

Thanks for doing this Chris.


I know this may sound counter intuitive but ...

Maybe some campaign setting / adventure path / character templates provided type books. A complete setting and adventure. Most GURPS people want more than this but it might be a way to pull people into the game. The setting would not have to be gigantic. And the adventures in the "path" wouldn't have to be linked too tightly. Just put in enough that a GM and players can start day one playing. The GM maybe has a weeks prep.

I've thought about putting my own campaign out as a website when it's finished for others to use. It would be fantasy setting. I'm a computer programmer by trade and far better at that than I am at writing so I think I can do it. The issue is just getting the world to a point I'd consider it public worthy. That is a lot more work than sufficient for me to use.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

The setting would not have to be gigantic.

Maybe about the size of the articles in Pyramid, or a little bit more.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

Maybe some campaign setting / adventure path / character templates provided type books. A complete setting and adventure. Most GURPS people want more than this but it might be a way to pull people into the game.

Meh.

I think the emphasis on GURPS being able to pull in more players if it just had this one right product is misplaced. People have been saying for years that this one thing, with a range of values for "this one thing," is the key to making it all work, but as those products have appeared it never has. I say that as somebody who has, in fact, written a published setting for GURPS DF and all four of the entries in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventures line. I've got a stack of products out there for people who want pre-made places to go and things to do, and they haven't exactly set the world on fire.

Granted, those adventures don't exist specifically in the form of a connected adventure path (thought they're quietly all part of the same campaign world, the Wellsprings of Creation setting outlined in the Pyramid Dungeon Collection), and I've got...ideas in that direction, but that's ultimately not what's going to get people into GURPS as the game actually exists. For those who want pre-made settings, we've got those in abundance: Cold Shard Mountains and Transhuman Space and Yrth and Reign of Steel and so on. Adventures? We've got some of those was well. But at heart, GURPS is a toolkit. That sells to people who want a toolkit. Can we sell adventures and settings to people who want to buy products which engage them with a setting rather than mechanics? Maybe, but that's a different market, even though I also feel like the toolkit is full enough that we need to look beyond those toolkit players a bit. But ultimately it's not a question of having the right products. We've got those. It's a question of finding interested players and connecting them with the products they want.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Tinman

I think the biggest challenge to new GURPS players is until you play a bit it looks very overwhelming, intimidating, and rules heavy. Getting players into a game is the best way to get them into GURPS.

This is my thought. I was an fairly experienced D&D GM who wanted to do more than D&D land, and found gurps (Courtesy of David Morgan-Mar, if it matters). I wasn't sure how to run it. I went to the play-by-post forum, found a game, and played in it for a while. That taught me what I needed to run Gurps myself.



How do we turn this into actual recruiting? I'm not quite sure. The Con-like idea has been suggested, though that's very labor intensive. There are some "Gurps Actual Play" videos on youtube, but not a ton, and that might be something to look at.



As a side note, my experience is that Gurps Players are easy to find, but Gurps GM's are hard, even moreso than in some other systems.

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Meh.

That is true in most rpg games these days. Adventures haven't done as well. But how do you get people to adopt a game built for experienced people. That is the bottom line. Having to do a bunch of "campaign" design is great for people like me, in fact that is a major reason I wanted to use GURPS but am I normal relative to a new gamer? I don't think so.

And I am not talking about complexity at all.

Perhaps if that wouldn't work and it might not. Most game stores don't carry GURPS. All my local stores and there are three in my vicinity, don't carry a single GURPS product. So how do you get the word out except through your GMs.

So if we decided to be mercenary and just go for experienced GMs and forget complete neophytes what would we do then? It would be a different strategy for sure.

I was trying to think of a way to get totally new players and a GM not far behind them to adopt GURPS. It may be impossible. I don't claim to have a guaranteed approach. But I do feel like the rules are a barrier to entry for totally green newbies. So what can we do for them? Run games? Go to the local game store and run a GURPS campaign for people you don't know? That starts to be work if you don't synergize with those people.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Sidenote: If I had someone who could process the video and make it, you know, free of umms and ahhs and silent spots I'd put my games up in a heartbeat because I just don't have time for that.

The problem with GURPS and how to reach out is pretty apparent if you read this thread: everyone seems to have a different idea. That's because GURPS is a toolbox about half the time and it's an example about the other half. With a tiny sliver of setting/campaign in there. Personally, I think it needs all three: Show new gamers how to make a campaign and then have the campaign playable for those who want to use it, but otherwise have it as an example mde with tools from the toolbox.

[Opellulo]

It may ruffle some feathers but, at least in my experience, the main problem in selling GUPRS to new player is that its "interface" is old.

While I think it has solid basic mechanics in its core, the ways in which you interact with it is very old fashioned. Modern RPGs have evolved: now you have different styles, formats, audiences and any hybrid you can think of in between; but all share a common trait: the "friction" to get into the game has been greatly smoothed, while with GURPS you crash against a 300+ pages PC Rulebook full of references, cross-check, exceptions and intertwined rules.... And this even without engaging with the GM Manual or you fool! This forum!

To recycle an image: GURPS is like that old man living at the outskirt of the village; nobody wants to talk to him because he is verbose and curmudgeon, often speaking nonsense but don't dare challenge him! He is still a ninja master able to defeat any new dandy samurai in town... If only he could be a little friendlier, you know, bathe ever once in a while, wear some more modern clothes, bother to play more with the kids, there is no need to be such a grump.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

Having to do a bunch of "campaign" design is great for people like me, in fact that is a major reason I wanted to use GURPS but am I normal relative to a new gamer? I don't think so.

Something that could do for setting/campaign/adventure creation what Delvers to Grow does for character generation could be amazing, but I'm not certain it's all that feasible.