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Old 10-27-2009, 03:50 PM   #81
Gigermann
 
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Default Re: GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

There's a lot of back-and-forth about D&D scenarios selling, and GURPS scenarios not selling—pretty obvious that both statements are true. So, perhaps a more constructive enquiry would be why? Is it really that the GURPS adventures are poor quality?—I doubt that; SJG has been pretty consistent over the years about putting out quality material. But when some wet-behind-the-ears GM-wannabe decides he wants to run next week, and needs some pre-fab material, why go to D&D instead of GURPS (excepting system bias)? Why is there a discussion here about converting D&D modules to GURPS in the first place?
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Old 10-27-2009, 03:52 PM   #82
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Default Re: GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

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Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon View Post
And, how do you know I am not experienced in the games business?
I don't. Indeed, I know nothing about you. Which is why I asked.

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Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon View Post
Wasnt it Einstein who said, 'Madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results?
Yep. And since they've published a number of adventures in the past and have had no big sales breakthroughs to speak of, that would suggest that going heavily into adventures would be madness.

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Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon View Post
Why cant Gurps have a supplement with a great storyline, classic character NPCs, awesome settings and great handouts? There is no reason.
Except that you can't simply tell someone "write something brilliant." If that were the case, there would be no bad movies or TV.

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Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon View Post
I dont buy the idea that Gurps is so far ranging that it is impossible to do scenarios for it.
Did you actually go back an reread that post I pointed to? The one ably setting out reasons to believe that it's unlikely that anyone's going to write an adventure which will appeal to a broad enough segment of GURPS players to make it sufficiently rewarding to write? Do you get that any given adventure, no matter how brilliant, is likely to appeal to only a very small segment of the audience? Do you understand that that supposition has been borne out by every published GURPS adventure to date?

To be clear here, I'm not saying "don't publish adventures!" It would be good if there were more. I'm saying "don't be so foolish as to think that adventures are the obvious answer." Because they're not.
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Old 10-27-2009, 03:54 PM   #83
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Originally Posted by PrinceYyrkoon View Post
I would venture that these people who 'dont like adventures' are often the same people who buy other companies adventures.
Maybe. I have no evidence to the contrary, just that GURPS adventures don't sell well. What is it about these other companies' products that sell well, then?
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Old 10-27-2009, 03:55 PM   #84
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Default Re: GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

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Originally Posted by Gigermann View Post
There's a lot of back-and-forth about D&D scenarios selling, and GURPS scenarios not selling—pretty obvious that both statements are true. So, perhaps a more constructive enquiry would be why? Is it really that the GURPS adventures are poor quality?—I doubt that; SJG has been pretty consistent over the years about putting out quality material. But when some wet-behind-the-ears GM-wannabe decides he wants to run next week, and needs some pre-fab material, why go to D&D instead of GURPS (excepting system bias)? Why is there a discussion here about converting D&D modules to GURPS in the first place?
I wouldnt dismiss GMs who like ready made scenarios as being lesser human beings. Not that I think you said anything of the sort.

Maybe its not the quality thats the issue. Maybe its the subject matter. The rpg industry is infamously fickle in its tastes.

I think licencing may be the answer, to be honest. As long as SJG maintain quality control, what would be the problem?
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Old 10-27-2009, 03:55 PM   #85
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Default Re: GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

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Originally Posted by mikeejimbo View Post
Or it could suggest that GURPS players, specifically, don't like adventures. Maybe players of other games like adventures.
it appears to me that the current customers of Gurps are those who are with the system for at least a decade. they got used to SJG, have fond memories and buy this stuff out of nostalgia. i for example have bought most hardcovers. (and countless 3rd edition worldbooks). how many have i played? a very very few.

the point i want to make is that there is a certain number of people who stick with Gurps because it is nice and cool (people like me, i buy their stuff even if i hate their policy, even if it is something i will most likely never play). but i guess there are only very few new players.

are there any statistics? how many people started Gurps with 4th edition and still stick with it?

the things that sell right now sell to their hardcore customers. people who buy this stuff to read it and put it in their shelves. But i am pretty sure that they dont get new customers with their current policy.
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Old 10-27-2009, 03:56 PM   #86
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Default Re: GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

We should probably reflect on what does exist while we're complaining about the lack of GURPS adventures. GURPS 3e scenarios are perfectly playable straight off the page under 4e; you don't need to spend ages laboriously converting them beforehand. If you're a complete novice with GURPS 4e you probably want to start with a 4e scenario like 'Caravan to Ein Arris', but you certainly shouldn't be worried about buying and using the 3e material.

On e23 we have:

4e
Caravan to Ein Arris
Lair of the Fat Man
Britannica 6: The Decorations on the Channel Bridge
Pyramid 3: Survivor's Moon
Pyramid 5: A Very Cold War
Pyramid 8: Air Devils of the South Seas
Pyramid 8: Into the Temple of the Hungry Star!
THS: Personnel Files 2: The Shalimar Slanders
THS: Personnel Files 3: Construction and Chaos
THS: Personnel Files 4: A Concert in Zulia
THS: Personnel Files 5: Field Trip

3e
Arabian Nights: The Tale of the Poet That Never Was
Black Ops: A Minor Emergency
Cyberpunk Adventures: The Medusa Sanction
Cyberpunk Adventures: Jericho Blackout
Cyberpunk Adventures: Jigsaw Incomplete
Fantasy: Fighters of the Purple Rage
Fantasy: Harkwood
Fantasy: Lost Inheritance
Fantasy: Mordag's Little Finger
Fantasy: Sahudese Fire Drill
Horror: Chaos in Kansas: The Dire Dreamer
Horror: Chaos in Kansas: The Cement Works
Horror: The Old Stone Fort
Horror: Zombietown, U.S.A.
IOU: It's Not Just a Game
Mars: Grendel
Mars: Rescue Mission
Martial Arts Adventures: Pawns of the CloneMaster
Martial Arts Adventures: Dark Arena
Martial Arts Adventures: Rightful Possession
Operation Endgame: Operation Endgame
Operation Endgame: Operation Loose Ends
Operation Endgame: Watching the Dragon
Operation Endgame: Sons of the Bear
Space Adventures: Rebirth
Space Adventures: Raid on Sterling
Space Adventures: Beware of the Health Police
Space: Stardemon
Supers Adventures: Jupiter Blues
Supers Adventures: Mark of the Kraken Part I
Supers Adventures: Mark of the Kraken Part II
Supers Adventures: Web of the Zyrani
Supers: School of Hard Knocks
Technomancer: Funny New Guys
THS: Polyhymnia
THS: Singapore Sling
In Nomine: A Very Nybbas Christmas
In Nomine: City On Fire
In Nomine: Feast of Blades
In Nomine: Strange Bedfellows
In Nomine: The Rats' Revenge
Weird War II: The Secret of the Gneisenau

That's 53 adventures. And I'm bound to have missed some. Now, I'm an old hand, and I want some new ones, but for people new to GURPS there is really quite a lot already there.

Graham
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Last edited by Graham; 12-04-2009 at 08:09 AM. Reason: Added "Funny New Guys", which I'd missed.
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Old 10-27-2009, 03:59 PM   #87
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Default Re: GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

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Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
Did you actually go back an reread that post I pointed to?
Yes, I did. I think there is a basic issue with the reasoning.

Pinnacle have proven that you can do adventure supplements for a generic rpg, right?

Paizo have proven that you can make money out of scenario supplements too, right?

The thinking in the post is a bit wonky, then, right?
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Old 10-27-2009, 04:00 PM   #88
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Default Re: GURPS Does It The Hard Way!

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Originally Posted by opposedToGravity View Post
it appears to me that the current customers of Gurps are those who are with the system for at least a decade. they got used to SJG, have fond memories and buy this stuff out of nostalgia. i for example have bought most hardcovers. (and countless 3rd edition worldbooks). how many have i played? a very very few.

the point i want to make is that there is a certain number of people who stick with Gurps because it is nice and cool (people like me, i buy their stuff even if i hate their policy, even if it is something i will most likely never play). but i guess there are only very few new players.

are there any statistics? how many people started Gurps with 4th edition and still stick with it?

the things that sell right now sell to their hardcore customers. people who buy this stuff to read it and put it in their shelves. But i am pretty sure that they dont get new customers with their current policy.
Possibly the majority of their customers are. I don't know. I'm not one. I rather recently discovered GURPS. Heck, I'm too young to be an old-time customer!
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Old 10-27-2009, 04:01 PM   #89
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So...what about the GURPS: Locations publications, Lair of the Fat Man, and THS:Personnel Profiles 2-5? Singapore Sling and Polyhymnia if you don't mind 3e THS material? Are those not exactly what you want? They're out there.

And none of them have sold 500 copies (To be fair, Action 1 isn't much past that mark on e23). Tower of Octavius, the leader among the 4e products, has scarcely topped 300. Most of them don't even make e23's top 100.
are these real scenarios? looks like npc collections to me.
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This espionage tale, set in the early 1980s, pits the heroes against each other as part of a multinational team called UNISTOMP. Can these super-spies trust each other and their cohorts' nations enough to save the world, protect their countries' secrets, and learn the truth about the Fat Man? GURPS Lair of the Fat Man is an oddball romp through super-spy cliches, in the style of 1960s espionage films that don't take themselves too seriously.
this is not what i play. maybe something with a broad audience might be a good idea. (and again) this could be fantasy because most gamers like it.
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Old 10-27-2009, 04:04 PM   #90
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The idea, also, that Gurps enables people to use supplements meant for other games is really weak. [...] And you know, world building is really easy, its the dreary time consuming mechanics that put people off. Conversion is NOT fun. I dont believe anyone who says it is.
I'm also a GURPS newbie. I first heard of GURPS about 6 weeks ago, through Google. I'm even a RP newbie in general. Before this weekend I had played GURPS once* and that's all of the RP experience I've had in my life except for some RPish NWN server and some hack&slash with The Dark Eye as a child ... but I tried to GM nonetheless.

So I pulled out my old Dark-Eye starter kit and played through that tiny dungeon crawl that came with it with my (very patient) girlfriend (who hadn't even read Lite). Now you can imagine that this was not the haute-cuisine of GMing with extravagantly creative narration or whatever. So let's focus on the mechanical part, please. ;)

I learned from these forums to not overdo the conversion and not to worry about full character sheets for NPCs, and it was extremely painless! I fixed ST/DX/IQ/HT on the fly, added some weapon skill, a suitable DR value, calculated defenses. Done. All monsters became unconcious below 0 HP or outright died. Most likely I will give that orc combat reflexes next time, but so what.

So ... really, I thought it was awesome how one can pull this off. What would be the point to give me fixed GURPS stats for my encounters anyway, if my party isn't fixed in stone? That adventure was written for a group of 3 to 4 fighters, but instead a lonely sneaky thief with a garotte was running rampant in that old cellar. I had to adjust the encounters anyway.

But what I need is not stats from certain NPCs/critters (and that's the only system-specific part in an adventure, I believe), but descriptions of them, how they live, react and fight. Beastiaries are also cool, but without the fluff, they seem pretty pointless, even if they include GURPS stats. Precise stats might be important for a system with XP, so you can say "A dragon gives 37 times as much XP as a goblin, and check it out, it is exactly 37 times as strong as a goblin." but that is such a stupid idea even there ...

So I really don't see why adventures or entire worlds from other systems shouldn't work with little conversion effort. It also seems like I could spent a fortune on adventure seeds on e23, plus the rules/settings books from GURPS. Besides, I'm sure I could convince my coworkers to give GURPS Firefly a try, and I don't expect any adventures for that from anyone anytime soon, so why should I be sad that GURPS makes it easy to play exactly this setting I would love?

So ... while premade GURPS adventures with stats for exactly my needs would be awesome, this would never be possible if it was more than a general idea of the story. But then it's not GURPS specific anymore. (And the heros' first wacky idea will not be covered by the book anyway.)

Setting books are a different thing, because settings let you share your world with other groups and other players, and that "common knowledge" certainly helps, I would think. But then again, settings can come from any shared source, including literature/arts/TV.

So, maybe I missed the point, but how can conversion be so annoying? Unless you're trying to convert the _rules_ of some other system exactly to GURPS, it seems straight-forward.

Regards,
Ts

*) Huge coincidence: I harassed my nerdy coworkers until they agreed to try out role-playing and then I bought the Basic Set from that large book-selling internet corporation. A few days later, we excitedly talked about GURPS at work and someone from a different group walks by, hears us and turns out to be a long-time GURPS player and agreed to GM for us. Awesome!
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