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Old 10-30-2020, 09:01 AM   #1
Anders
 
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Default What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

How much information do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

Does it look like one of the worked examples (Action, Dungeon Fantasy, etc.) which I assume is how Kromm prepares his campaigns? Available traits? Templates for races and professions? How much setting details do you include?
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Old 10-30-2020, 09:27 AM   #2
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

To me, the prospectus isn't the players' manual for the campaign. It's the elevator pitch. So, a paragraph or two that gives an idea of the setting, what typical PCs might be like, the feel, themes, activities that would take place. Conveying flavor and the hook matters the most to getting players to decide "would I more enjoy playing this game or that one?"

The point of the prospectus is simply to collect enough interest to know that it will be worth spending all the time to design details and write them up. A campaign pitch will be competing with two or three or six other possibilities, so writing them all up in detail would be even more work than it sounds like.

In practice for us, "Session Zero" (and more likely, email discussion) handles character creation without the need to actually type up lists of allowed and disallowed traits, while most of my group is experienced enough that templates don't add a lot of value either for conveying the game concept or guiding players. So it's not like we need a stack of paper to get started.

The thing I miss most when making new characters for a new game is enough of a feel for the setting to know what sorts of characters might grow out of such a world. Templates are too detailed; it's the concepts, not the mechanical details, that's the question. That usually comes out of discussions with the GM more than a pre-written textbook.
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Old 10-30-2020, 09:29 AM   #3
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

For a prospectus, I try to keep it short and to the point, invoking the "feeling" of the game.

I don't consider Dungeon Fantasy, Action, and the like to be prospectuses. Those are instructions to GMs on how to configure GURPS to run certain kinds of games. I also doubt that Kromm writes up quite so much when he decides to start a new game; I imagine much of it is in his head, and he only gives to players the things they need to get started — templates, lists of equipment, and so on.

Once I've chosen a campaign (the prospectus is past), I only write up something akin to the Campaign Planning Form. I usually don't restrict myself to that form, but I try to cover all the bases it does. I'll skip the stuff that obviously doesn't apply, and I'll usually organize what I do include more thematically — e.g., all the social traits will go together, not split into game-mechanical distinctions like advantage and disadvantages.

I have learned to heartily dislike character templates. I will instead include a list of character types and their suggested traits the way GURPS did before character templates became a big deal. In my experience, players adhere too strictly to character templates no matter how much you insist that they're optional or modifiable.

I usually run tech-heavy games, but I am not myself a gear-head, so curating an equipment list is a bit cumbersome. I'll write a list of the most obvious equipment, but give general guidelines (TL, CR, society, theme) for choosing other equipment from the appropriate tech books. On the chance that I run a tech-light game, I'll just stick to the Basic Set and set TL and CR limits and handwave anything else.

The most important thing is to keep it short. I have experienced the dread of receiving a novel-sized list of campaign-specific rules from a GM, and this is a situation I do not approve of.

Last edited by Stormcrow; 10-30-2020 at 09:33 AM.
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Old 10-30-2020, 10:22 AM   #4
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

What do you mean by a prospectus?



I can think of two things I use that you might mean. The first is a sales pitch describing the basics of the campaign as best as I can. Its meant to tell players if they want to play or not. It generally includes short descriptions of the setting, the player's objectives, the type of play that will be emphasized, and the types of characters I expect to see. I try to make them so three can fit on a page. They go either in a recruiting post online or as part of a short list for an established group to choose from.



The second document is a more proper document, and gives about a page in character creation rules and guidelines, two or three short pages of setting primer, and one or two pages on highlighted tech and or magic.
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Old 10-30-2020, 10:59 AM   #5
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

I've done this several different ways, the written prospectus typically following talking about the campaign. Here's four ways I've used:

1) First GURPS campaign: I talked to potential players, "Hey, want to be futurist spies in outer space in another galaxy?" Then my roommate and I had a barbecue for the players and I handed them a multi-page, detailed background on the galaxy and the campaign.

2) Gaming conventions: in the in-person days when most people had never used the Internet, it was a very short thing in the convention game booklet, i.e. GURPS Horror High School run by GM (name specified).

3) Game book: Something like "Say, you want to play a campaign set in Tredroy on Yrth?" Followed by "buy the book" and "here's the Campaign Planning Form" (linked below).

4) Other campaigns: it's a spoken description followed by a filled out GURPS Planning Form. I find this a very useful tool not only for the players, but for me as the GM to make sure I didn't forget anything.
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Old 10-30-2020, 01:25 PM   #6
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I can think of two things I use that you might mean. The first is a sales pitch describing the basics of the campaign as best as I can. Its meant to tell players if they want to play or not. It generally includes short descriptions of the setting, the player's objectives, the type of play that will be emphasized, and the types of characters I expect to see. I try to make them so three can fit on a page. They go either in a recruiting post online or as part of a short list for an established group to choose from.
I do this, but it's shorter. I can typically get four to six on a page, and sometimes more.

Quote:
The second document is a more proper document, and gives about a page in character creation rules and guidelines, two or three short pages of setting primer, and one or two pages on highlighted tech and or magic.
I do this, but it's usually longer; character creation guidelines in particular are likely to be longer than that. I don't call it a prospectus; I call it protocols.

For example, when I ran Gods and Monsters (a "hidden supers" campaign), there were 1.5 pages of general themes; 3 pages of character creation; 1.5 pages of "how do I . . .?" 2.5 pages of combat mechanics; .75 page of character development; half a page of metaphysics; and a very short bibliography.

Here is what I said about the GURPS campaign I've been running since 2015:

___ Tapestry. Historical fantasy. Run in Big Eyes, Small Mouth or GURPS.
Set in a GM-defined fantasy world inhabited by a number of intelligent humanoid races, each with its own magical style, culture, and preferred habitat. Technology will be mainly bronze age; magical traditions will be largely spirit-based. Player characters can belong to any race, or can be of mixed ancestry, though hybrids are rare and often sterile. The point of departure will be one of the world’s first cities, from which player characters will go out on quests, which they should be competent and motivated to undertake. The main focus will be on exploration, encounters with other races and cultures, and magical traditions.
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Old 10-30-2020, 01:49 PM   #7
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
To me, the prospectus isn't the players' manual for the campaign. It's the elevator pitch. So, a paragraph or two that gives an idea of the setting, what typical PCs might be like, the feel, themes, activities that would take place. Conveying flavor and the hook matters the most to getting players to decide "would I more enjoy playing this game or that one?"
Very much this. I usually go with a very simple format; if it's more than three lines, it's pushing it for length. It always includes setting & situation ("In a world..."), characters (you are X), and core activity (who do Y). If applicable, it includes some explanatory stuff about the system.

My last prospectus was very simple: "It's Fallout in a D&D-style world; you're survivors exiled from a "Vault." Since all of my players are familiar with both Fallout and D&D, that's all I needed: they knew it would an exploratory, post-apocalyptic game in a dungeon fantasy world with wastelands, strange monsters, and isolated settlements in need of help. Plus probably a big overarching quest that they would discover in play.

A more detailed prospectus was something like: "It's Victorian London, and you're junior members of the Cabal, a conspiracy of mages and monsters. You are tasked with defending the British Museum from supernatural threats, and preventing meddling mortals from discovering the supernatural nature of some of the collections - or the Cabal itself."
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Old 10-30-2020, 02:51 PM   #8
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

There is also Kromm's "Expanded Campaign Planning Form" from the back of "How to Be a GURPS GM." It's three pages long (one for the campaign prospectus, two for character creation guidelines), and none of my fingerprints are on it. I believe it's the one (or based heavily on the one) he uses for home campaigns.
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Old 10-30-2020, 03:11 PM   #9
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

Here's one I posted a while back that covers everything I think should be put in one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
Lucky 13
Genre: Military/Horror
Setting: Germany, Spring, 1945
Fidelity: Brutal
Combat Frequency: High
Power Level: 150 points
Description:
Following Hitler's decree that nothing of value would be left on Reich territory for the Allies to capture, occultists of the Ahnenerbe and the Thule Society unleash Hell... literally. Just as they prepare the final assault into the German heartland, the Allies are faced with a mass of German soldiers and civilians, not attacking, but fleeing. PCs will be members of the 13th Infantry Regiment and stragglers, civilians, even former enemies picked up in the chaos, fighting against demons for survival and the fate of the world.
It give a short but clear explanation of the scenario at the start, and an expectation of who the PCs will be and what they will be doing.
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Old 10-30-2020, 10:22 PM   #10
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Default Re: What do you include in a GURPS campaign prospectus?

Similar to others, my prospectus format is short. (It also owes much to Bill Stoddard and other posters here.) I like including inspirational media to help invoke the desired flavor or feeling of the campaign:
Quote:
The Rogers Agency
Inspirations: Leverage, Burn Notice, Sean Punch's The Company, Ronin, Nikita
Sketch: Gritty modern white-hat black ops - an elite team works undercover performing hostage and prisoner rescues worldwide, where governments can't or won't go.
Sourcebooks: High-Tech, Martial Arts, Tactical Shooting, Social Engineering
Likelihood of Weirdness (psi, vampires, aliens, etc): low
1 or 2 PCs per player, 200-250 pts starting, time-based advancement

Apollo's Bones
Inspirations: Old-school megadungeon crawl, Tolkien's Moria.
Sketch: When Apollo was murdered, his divine corpse fell to earth in southern Gaul, carving a crater into the earth and uncovering a forgotten underground city. Even more cursed and undead-ridden than most of the world, the area has reverted to a haunted wilderness, but ancient treasures and divine vis attract the adventurous, the desperate, and the unscrupulous.
Sourcebooks: Low-Tech, Magic, Divine Power
1 PC per player, 150 pts starting, advancement during downtime only
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