How to Be a GURPS GM: Managing Expectations

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Willy

It would help if SJG even would add something like this " We search authors for a Yrth expansion, set in Caithness after 2005 ". The actual wishlist let´s lots of room for authors, which is great because it gives room to be creative. On the other hand this way you can only wait and hope that a writer feels inclined to write the projects you want.

I'm not sure how that makes any difference. Banestorm already has its own entry on the wishlist, after all. Moreover, all the regular authors know that SJ Games would be happy to see more Yrth books. We apparently just don't want to write them.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

What I really want is a well-supported, finely crafted setting made exactly to my personal taste. :-)

Yeah, but that's usually so specific that you'd pretty much have to publish it yourself.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I'm not sure how that makes any difference. Banestorm already has its own entry on the wishlist, after all. Moreover, all the regular authors know that SJ Games would be happy to see more Yrth books. We apparently just don't want to write them.

Well besides the fact that the Banestorm entry in the wishlist is among the most unspecific there and I wrote the example for a reason, Yrth has several adding up problems. First the last 2 books were written by 2 different pairs of authors, some of them now otherwise occupied, second you have to write according to canon ( which is quite detailed, and there are not many white spots on the map ), third the scenario has a tight timeline every writer has to either write about the past history or to work out the future of the whole gameworld there. Because it´s 15 years since writing, the Banestorm victims can change history, and the biggest problem it has 3 possible gamechanging questhooks in the last book ( Demon Emperor, Thing in the blackwoods, Gunpowder[ Bronwyn in Caithness] ), every last can and will change the way Yrth develops. The authors of the Classic wisely avoided such tripwires. Long story short a writer has to do more work than he is paid for if he writes in the Banestorm scenario ( and the offered word summary is to short for meaningful development ).

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Yeah, but that's usually so specific that you'd pretty much have to publish it yourself.

That´s a classic problem of bought scenarios / adventures, sooner or later you want something exactly for your tastes, and playstile, the only way to get it is to make it by yourself.

[Kromm]

Handholding writers by instructing them on the precise region, time period, and/or theme we want supported in an existing setting is troublesome for several reasons, including these:

• It discourages good writers (a capacity to figure out what you want to write is part and parcel of "good") while encouraging mediocre ones (a need to be spoon-fed is a yellow if not red flag for mediocrity).
  
  
• Despite the previous point, we tried to plan setting support in the past and no writers got on board. True, we did so in private rather than via an open call . . . but if we're going to do the work of approaching writers actively rather than waiting for them to propose things, then we're going to privately approach tried-and-true writers, because that gives the best return on investment (time = money).
  
  
• Speaking of work, we don't have the time or staff to do central planning of the line, much less each and every setting, so settings end up left to interested writers in any event.

—

I guess it's time for my quarterly (monthly? Annual?) rant:

The perception of GURPS seems to be that it's a huge part of SJ Games' business, that many staff members know the game's rules and style, and that many staff members are available to work on it. With that comes a belief that GURPS is centrally planned, and that we assign projects to writers according to some kind of internal "development bible." Associated with this is the notion that there's a budget for this dream.

The reality of GURPS is that it's a niche part of SJ Games' business, that only one staff member (me) fully understands the game's rules and style, and that at peak production, only two other staff members besides me work on it at all. Because my job is reviewing all the words and all the art, and making sure that every new rule and stat proposed isn't bad (and is hopefully good), I have no time at all for central planning, which comes with a huge overhead in mission documentation and writer-publisher relations. In fact, GURPS is purely submissions-driven, and writers pretty much decide what genres and types of content it favors via their proposals. There's no budget – zero, nil, nada – to reform any of this.

The perception stems in part from the size of the GURPS library: There are hundreds and hundreds of supplements out there. But the reality is that these were created during a 35-year stretch, by hundreds of freelancers, most of whom have written what they wanted to write and are done. And a significant portion of those were published during the Golden Age or at least Silver Age of RPGs, when GURPS was a flagship product and not a niche product; when I arrived at SJ Games in 1995, there was a whole room full of people (five or six at least), plus me via telework, devoted to the game. Since then, the market has toppled, leaving us in the reality we're in today.

So, it's fine to demand stuff, but please realize that demands that don't come with ". . . and I'll buy your entire back catalog and all your new stuff, too, and so will my 10 friends here in town" don't make the needle flutter. This is why we're holding so many Kickstarters: Like 'em or hate 'em, they provide an external budget to do more. They let customers put their money where their mouth is.

Yes, some will see this as all turned around: "Well, you have to do more to encourage people to spend." I'll confide that we tried – hard – in the early 2000s. That's when we learned where the market was headed, and lost lots of money for the lesson.

There are those who point fingers at other games, and all I can say is that we're not them. Also, I know insiders . . . most games work either because staff are willing to work 16-hour days and not get paid for their time, or because nobody is relying on them as their sole income stream. They're pretty and cool, but they're no way to earn a living. Except for D&D and its spinoffs – that was the first in, the trope namer, the eponym for RPGs. Like Coca Cola, you can't use its financial status to judge the industry it's part of.

—

Believe me, I'd love to be the big-picture guy, the mission planner, the dreamer who sketches out where GURPS is going as my full-time job. I'd love to have a room full of staff working for me. I'd love for those staff and my freelance writers to earn a great living working on GURPS. I'd love to earn even a middle-class income myself (hint: I don't), and to have a shot at paid vacations, travel, home ownership, and other mythic goals.

Instead, I'm an i-dotting, t-crossing editor who spends all day, every day reviewing manuscripts, fixing words, and putting out fires. I'm so close to the hands-on production of this month's release that I haven't the time or resources to think about the line globally outside of the three or four times a year when I update the wish list, which represents literally 100% of my planning budget. And what I do covers the bills but that's about it – there's no royalties or profit-sharing for me! I'd wager that most GURPS players are better-off than I am, which is why I find it hard to listen to complaints about prices and value, and to hear about piracy.

[TerryW]

When I see RPG players talk about the complexity of GURPS, there are three issues that come up again and again: The wealth and status rules (a constant favourite for discussions on this forum as well), the long skill list and modifiers to rolls, and damage types.

In this thread I see a lot of people saying they want more GURPS settings and adventures, but as Kromm and various writers point out GURPS is a niche product in a niche hobby. The resources just aren't there for Steve Jackson Games to produce a steady stream of products, let alone good products.

There might be a way to address all of these issues, although I don't know how viable it would be in practice. The current GURPS Lite PDF is 32 pages. If you add in options like abstract wealth, bang! skills and BAD, and simplified options for damage, that would get you up to 40ish. For a truly full-function generic rules set you'd probably aslo want the basic options for using advantages as paranormal abilities (magic, psi, chi, super powers), which would get you up to 60ish pages (very rough estimate, obviously). That's more than Fate Accelerated but less than Fate Core, and it's a flexible system with a lot of options for different genres. SJG could release this as Open GURPS or GURPS Tool Box or whatever, and let fans use that build their own adventures and settings for sale on sites like DTRPG.

This lets the community build support for GURPS, and lets SJG see which options new players prefer to use when they learn GURPS. It also means there's a stream of new GURPS products going to market, drawing attention to the core books. And it means those niche "I wish we had this for GURPS" requests can be fulfilled, without SJG having to draw resources away from its core products.

Obviously there's no quality control, which might look like a problem. But honestly, fans accept that there's going to be* a different level of QC and editing involved in professional products and semi-pro/fan works. No one blames EHP if someone releases a weak product under Fate's open license.

* There isn't always, but that's a problem with the company not the fans.

[Anders]

I think Steve Jackson has been more than clear that SJG is not doing an OGL deal. As I understand it, the OGL has created an IP snarl that will take a long time to unravel - if it can be untangled at all. SJG doesn't have the resources necessary to deal with that kind of stuff.

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I guess it's time for my quarterly (monthly? Annual?) rant:

The perception of GURPS seems to be that it's a huge part of SJ Games' business, that many staff members know the game's rules and style, and that many staff members are available to work on it. With that comes a belief that GURPS is centrally planned, and that we assign projects to writers according to some kind of internal "development bible." Associated with this is the notion that there's a budget for this dream.

The reality of GURPS is that it's a niche part of SJ Games' business, that only one staff member (me) fully understands the game's rules and style, and that at peak production, only two other staff members besides me work on it at all. Because my job is reviewing all the words and all the art, and making sure that every new rule and stat proposed isn't bad (and is hopefully good), I have no time at all for central planning, which comes with a huge overhead in mission documentation and writer-publisher relations. In fact, GURPS is purely submissions-driven, and writers pretty much decide what genres and types of content it favors via their proposals. There's no budget – zero, nil, nada – to reform any of this.

The perception stems in part from the size of the GURPS library: There are hundreds and hundreds of supplements out there. But the reality is that these were created during a 35-year stretch, by hundreds of freelancers, most of whom have written what they wanted to write and are done. And a significant portion of those were published during the Golden Age or at least Silver Age of RPGs, when GURPS was a flagship product and not a niche product; when I arrived at SJ Games in 1995, there was a whole room full of people (five or six at least), plus me via telework, devoted to the game. Since then, the market has toppled, leaving us in the reality we're in today.

Several points to make in response to this post.

1. I think your books are very well written given what you just told me. I am sadly getting used to low quality writing and especially editing. I feel GURPS is very well edited. Nothing is perfect of course but kudos for doing what you do so well. Given point #2 below, I am really quite shocked you maintain the standard so well.

2. I admit to being completely oblivious to your business model. I know that even D&D is really a small business compared to many big industries. So I realize GURPS can't be doing super big. I also realize when I go to many game stores and there are no GURPS books to buy that the market is limited. I also realize that based on posts to your Facebook page that Munchkin makes you a lot more money than GURPS does.

3. I believe that your current business model is pretty smart. I like the idea of a few major print books and a lot of pdf support for particular details. I also think keeping more pdfs at a lower price is better than bigger pdfs at a higher price. It's like potato chips. When they cost 5.99 or 7.99 you keep thinking you can get just one more.

4. I also want to say that having come from 3e and only very recently buying 4e (I wasn't just playing 3e GURPS I was playing other games and just owned 3e all that time), 4e seems even more like a toolkit and it seems better organized. Now I realize you are standing on the shoulders of 3e but I'm loving how advantages can be "built" custom using limitations etc... I also like techniques etc... I think the game just shows how long it's been in print and that fundamentally it hasn't changed at its core. It's just refinements based upon experience. That makes for a very solid system.

5. Last but not least, your peril or trouble is perhaps an opportunity for others. If someone does want to get published and does a good job they can find a chance at SJ Games. I hadn't considered writing anything and may not right away I need more experience but maybe one day I'll give it a try. I realize it's not the path to wealth but just being a published author would be cool.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anders

I think Steve Jackson has been more than clear that SJG is not doing an OGL deal. As I understand it, the OGL has created an IP snarl that will take a long time to unravel - if it can be untangled at all. SJG doesn't have the resources necessary to deal with that kind of stuff.

Pretty much.

We're gamers at SJ Games, not distant executives counting beans and talking about "units" and "customers," but there are areas where we can't avoid some business-think. An OGL would be excellent for fans (it would be a workaround for a lot of bottlenecks) but terrible for us (we'd be risking the loss of certain IP rights in exchange for . . . well, nothing we could eat or pay our rent with). Fan acclaim is wonderful, but it doesn't pay staff; centralized publishing, for all its flaws, does pay staff.

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I think your books are very well written given what you just told me. I am sadly getting used to low quality writing and especially editing. I feel GURPS is very well edited.

Thank you. We really, truly do try to be good at this – sometimes at the cost of turning things around quickly enough to keep fans happy.

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I also realize that based on posts to your Facebook page that Munchkin makes you a lot more money than GURPS does.

Far more. You can't even compare the two.

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I also think keeping more pdfs at a lower price is better than bigger pdfs at a higher price. It's like potato chips. When they cost 5.99 or 7.99 you keep thinking you can get just one more.

Regardless of whether it's a good sales model, it's a good creative model:

Writing a short item earns a writer far more per hour (we pay per word, but words take time to write), because they aren't bogged down checking the internal consistency of a vast work and propagating little changes through many chapters each time they have a brainstorm. Brevity also ensures focus and better writing: "Here's my idea, and I've pared away all the throat-clearing and topic drift that would eat into my word count limit!"

​The cost per word to edit a product goes up almost as the square of the number of words, due to the need to ensure internal consistency of more and more content and to check references to more and more sections.

Frankly, despite the laments of some fans who still prefer the old kitchen-sink worldbooks that ran to hundreds of pages, short PDFs are simply better written.

And thanks for all the rest you said, too.

I'll add that you mentioned Third Edition vs. Fourth Edition (not in a bad way . . . you just mentioned it), and remark that this is one of the things that makes my life interesting. People have nostalgia for a lot of things that, when I read them today, seem meandering and unfocused. Also, the lack of strict style and formatting rules is manifest; no two supplements seem like they were written according to the same playbook. Which is why I'm generally quick to jump to the defense of Fourth Edition – which, to be fair, represents 19 years of my life if I include the writing, while Third Edition was just 7.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Handholding writers by instructing them on the precise region, time period, and/or theme we want supported in an existing setting is troublesome for several reasons, including these:[LIST][*]It discourages good writers (a capacity to figure out what you want to write is part and parcel of "good") while encouraging mediocre ones (a need to be spoon-fed is a yellow if not red flag for mediocrity).

While I have no idea if I'm a good writer or not, I have tried (and continue to try) to get on the radar. There is however a constraint when trying to write for GURPS, and that's it's large back catalog covers a fairly large chunk of topics. This is where I glower at Turhan's Bey Company for the wonderful work he's done.;)

With that said the link he posted to the wish list got me thinking ...

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by (E)

While I have no idea if I'm a good writer or not, I have tried (and continue to try) to get on the radar. There is however a constraint when trying to write for GURPS, and that's it's large back catalog covers a fairly large chunk of topics.

The wish list for GURPS contains a lot of topics that have not been done, and that you know SJ Games is ready to look at a proposal for. Start there. For example, my proposal to do GURPS Furries came right off the wish list.

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'll add that you mentioned Third Edition vs. Fourth Edition (not in a bad way . . . you just mentioned it), and remark that this is one of the things that makes my life interesting. People have nostalgia for a lot of things that, when I read them today, seem meandering and unfocused. Also, the lack of strict style and formatting rules is manifest; no two supplements seem like they were written according to the same playbook. Which is why I'm generally quick to jump to the defense of Fourth Edition – which, to be fair, represents 19 years of my life if I include the writing, while Third Edition was just 7.

I agree. I noticed but then again I am probably the type to notice more than is typical.

I think 4e is unequivocally a better game. At first I was hung up on snapshot, but I came to realize the wisdom of 4e's decision. Why outlaw something? Anyone can try but their chances may not be good. So it made sense.

When I jump to a conclusion, I try to wait for a while and just hold it. Often after more experience I come to realize why something was done the way it was done. With GURPS I've had that experience a lot.

Now I love to brainstorm ideas as you may or may not have noticed with all of my posts. I'm definitely leaning into the collective wisdom of these boards BEFORE I jump.

I missed the fact that the smaller pdfs are easier to edit and thus will be better written. I will say they so far maintain the standard. I like more options that I can buy separately. A 20 or 30 dollar purchase often has to be "budgeted". Whereas a 6 dollar purchase can be an impulse buy. Of course after you buy 5 of them you might realize you should have budgeted :-).