GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Then it needs somebody to write that stuff, too. I'm an improv GM; I don't "do" prepared campaigns. Even after 14 years of writing games, I wouldn't know where to start. A lot of my colleagues are in the same boat. As well, SJ Games' publishing schedule is proposal-driven: zero proposals means zero published campaigns. In truth, it isn't zero proposals, but proposals for campaigns never seem to come from established freelancers with significant work portfolios, and we lack the resources to clean up amateur efforts.

That is exactly what I was trying to say with my poor english. The problem doesn't come from the fact that SJG doesn't want to publish adventures, as we can sometimes read in such kind of threads... This is a wrong argument. A lot of us buy adventures, which means that ready to play adventures work very well for GURPS (as for any other roleplaying game).

The problem comes from finding authors.

Writing an adventure for some friends, when you are the GM, is easy. Writing a campaign for other GM - who wont ever see you and talk is you - is far much harder. Writing a good, original and interesting campaign ready to be published is even much harder.

And, of course, you want to know the author that will do it before spending a lot of time reading what he wrote.

Thus, he will have to begin with good one shots...

[mlangsdorf]

The problem with your suggestion is that you're suggesting SJGames spend a lot of money to implement. 5 genre books of the type you propose are going to cost them several tens of thousands of dollars. There is no real evidence from SJGames' internal numbers that spending that money would bring back tens of thousands of dollars. You say it would, they say it wouldn't. Since it's their money, it's a little frustrating for you to suggest you know how better to spend it.

I made a proposal to you that, if you're right, would both demonstrate that you're right and make you a pile of money. Why aren't you jumping on it? It's not even a lot of buy in for you. And if you're not willing to wager a little of your own money, why should SJGames wager a lot of their own?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

Thats it, Thats the suggestion. What is the problem? Yes, Im new, maybe I can give you the benefit of someone coming to this for the first time, without being told Im ignorant or uninformed or purposfully ignoring people.

How about that your advice might be useful if The Powers That Be were looking for internet strangers to advise them on how they should plan out a 5th Edition release?

Because, you know, 4th edition exists. There are major releases not out yet, to be sure, but I don't think they're looking for new big ideas on how to totally change the line.

Also, your proposal seems to misunderstand the purpose of GURPS genre books. Fantasy is not there to hand you a campaign (it does give you the Roma Arcana setting). If it were there to hand you a campaign, it would be worthless for what it's actually for, because there wouldn't be room to cover that.

If newbies looking for a pre-cooked scenario to run out of the box buy the Basic Set and Fantasy, they're doing it wrong, and should pay more attention. If they could buy the Basic Set and some book and have a pre-cooked campaign to run, well, that certainly wouldn't bother me. But demolishing the genre books is not a good idea.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

So what is a core story? I'm a little hazy on this, and would appreciate a brief lecture.

What I mean by a core story is a prototype adventure, or in T. S. Kuhn's language, a paradigm. A standard series of things that can happen in a story, in a standard sequence, and with a standard set of story elements that can enable them to happen: places, carrots or sticks, obstacles, adversaries, supporting characters, NPC motives.

If you look at GURPS Fantasy or GURPS Supers, both of them have sections that discuss core stories for those genres. GURPS Fantasy starts out with the Dungeon Crawl; GURPS Supers starts out with the short supers adventure centered on a fight.

Conversely, one of the big obstacles for selling Transhuman Space has been players and GMs wondering, "What do I do with this?" It's a great setting, with incredible and imaginative detail. But it doesn't jump right out at the reader what characters in that setting are going to be doing that will be interesting to roleplay, or why they will be doing it as a cooperative group, or what resources they'll use in doing it. I had to think about the setting for a long time before I hit on "private investigators dealing with informational crimes in a Fifth Wave milieu." The problem there was precisely the lack of a prototype THS adventure . . . and my solution involved coming up with such a prototype.

Classic episodic television shows have prototype stories in this sense. It was true of Dragnet; it was largely true of Star Trek; it's still true of House. Conversely, Joss Whedon's current project, Dollhouse, set up a prototype adventure in the second pilot episode . . . and then proceded to sabotage the prototype in the episodes that followed, more and more drastically. And there are also television series without an episodic rhythm, where the storyline continues through an entire season . . . for example, The Wire or Mad Men. (The Wire is an interesting example, because it started out as a police procedural, in exactly the same territory as Dragnet.)

Does this help any?

Bill Stoddard

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

Hmm. Well I see Im not making a lot of friends here. So be it.

A lot of people do agree with you. They don't write in this thread because they did in others about the same topic... And received the same answers... So, they stoped arguing now and think: "No matter. I will go on buying campaigns from other game companies..."

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

Forget scenarios for vampire bunnies, just because Gurps can do such settings, doesnt mean that it should support that kind of thing. There are around five major genres that require support. Five campaign books with good, solid and inspired scenario material taking up at least a third of the book page count, should do it. Sci fi, Fantasy, (Period or Modern) Horror, Supers and Alternate History (Steampunk, whatever), should be enough.

To my mind, all these books can be found in other companies. And some of them are so famous and well written, that it would be hard for SJG to do something as imaginative and original...

So, the best way would be to publish something that other game companies can't produce. Something that implies jumping from one universe to the other for instance... Brief something for Infinite World.

Most of us love jumping from one game world to the other from time to time (that is why we bought a universal system after all). Infinite World is definitely the GURPS typical and original universal. So typical that he is now in the Basic Set!

So, to my mind, it would be the best choice...

The problem is to find a good author. Someone ready to do a hard job, because writing a good adventure for others is a hard job. And someone who would agree with begining by writing little one shots, to learn to work with SJG.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

And, if you write for Gurps, and you dont accept that the system needs more campaign and scenario books, there is a HUGE issue.

What is the problem?

The problem is that writers have strengths and weaknesses, like everybody else. It isn't just that all writers do system, stats, NPCs, adventures, settings, etc., but have some favorite bits . . . Many writers do just one or two of those things. For instance, I only do character-creation rules and GMing advice; I'm worthless at designing adventures and settings, and I find writing up NPCs and encounters boring. These different writing tasks differ as much as driving cars and 747s, or playing chess and DDR. Saying "It's all games!" is a lot like saying "It's all vehicles!": That's superficially sensible to those outside the profession, but patently silly to those who do it for a living.

Historically, GURPS was designed with "adapting other company's adventures and settings, written for other game systems" as one of its core goals. Steve actually stated this in the intro to the first edition of the game. From 1986 on, then, GURPS focused heavily on giving gamers the tools to adapt third-party material – those tools being things like genre advice, rules, and stats. This was a deliberate design decision, and SJ Games preferentially hired writers capable of supporting it. Fast-forward to 2009, and the core of the game's writing talent are people adept at writing genre advice, rules, and stats.

SJ Games isn't opposed to adventures, campaigns, settings, etc. at all. But it won't lower its writing standards to let "newbies" create these things. Since our established writing pool leans heavily toward mechanics over fluff and setting, this tends to select for yet more mechanics. If a respectable, well-known writer of campaigns or adventures wanted to be paid to write an extended series for GURPS, we would probably jump at the chance. To date, nobody has shown even a little interest.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon

I would suggest that the Gurps line needs less setting and splat books, and more campaign and scenario books. And for this Ive been met with some abuse. And, people saying for near on 30 pages why it wouldnt work! ('Its been tried before!'). Well, pardon me, but thats just tosh. Of course it would work, there are plenty of successful rpg companies that do exaclty as I am suggesting. And, if you write for Gurps, and you dont accept that the system needs more campaign and scenario books, there is a HUGE issue.

I would take this complaint more seriously if you had ever acknowledged, and responded to, either my posts that discuss why the economic niche of Steve Jackson Games is a bit different from those of other game companies, or my suggestions on what might need to be done to accomplish something like what you want.

Bill Stoddard

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by Gollum

A lot of people do agree with you. They don't write in this thread because they did in others about the same topic... And received the same answers... So, they stoped arguing now and think: "No matter. I will go on buying campaigns from other game companies..."

To my mind, all these books can be found in other companies. And some of them are so famous and well written, that it would be hard for SJG to do something as imaginative and original...

So, the best way would be to publish something that other game companies can't produce. Something that implies jumping from one universe to the other for instance... Brief something for Infinite World.

Most of us love jumping from one game world to the other from time to time (that is why we bought a universal system after all). Infinite World is definitely the GURPS typical and original universal. So typical that he is now in the Basic Set!

So, to my mind, it would be the best choice...

The problem is to find a good author. Someone ready to do a hard job, because writing a good adventure for others is a hard job. And someone who would agree with begining by writing little one shots, to learn to work with SJG.

What genres do you feel have a high demand for one shots?

[PrinceYyrkoon]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

The problem with your suggestion is that you're suggesting SJGames spend a lot of money to implement. 5 genre books of the type you propose are going to cost them several tens of thousands of dollars. There is no real evidence from SJGames' internal numbers that spending that money would bring back tens of thousands of dollars. You say it would, they say it wouldn't. Since it's their money, it's a little frustrating for you to suggest you know how better to spend it.

I made a proposal to you that, if you're right, would both demonstrate that you're right and make you a pile of money. Why aren't you jumping on it? It's not even a lot of buy in for you. And if you're not willing to wager a little of your own money, why should SJGames wager a lot of their own?

Yeah ok. SJG should stick to what theyre doing, I dont know what came over me. Lets all sing songs in the bunker whilst the bombs whistle overhead. Sounds like a plan, huh?

[PrinceYyrkoon]

Originally Posted by Kromm

The problem is that writers have strengths and weaknesses, like everybody else. It isn't just that all writers do system, stats, NPCs, adventures, settings, etc., but have some favorite bits . . . Many writers do just one or two of those things. For instance, I only do character-creation rules and GMing advice; I'm worthless at designing adventures and settings, and I find writing up NPCs and encounters boring. These different writing tasks differ as much as driving cars and 747s, or playing chess and DDR. Saying "It's all games!" is a lot like saying "It's all vehicles!": That's superficially sensible to those outside the profession, but patently silly to those who do it for a living.

I agree with this somewhat. Couldnt it be though, that its just a question of resetting your aims? Talented writers are talented writers. I cant believe that you wouldnt come away from a well written scenario not feeling somewhat fullfilled by a jib well done.