Dragged kicking and screaming from the candy-store

[Agemegos]

Who here has induced a reluctant or sceptical gaming group to switch substantially from some other game (eg. That Other Game) to GURPS?

What did you do? What setting and genre did you use to tempt them across? What worked, what didn't work, what would have worked better?

How did it go? Are they all keen now? Are they using GURPS for their own games, or promoting it otherwise? Clamouring for GURPS, complaining about other games?

How long did it take to win the players over? What helped? What hindered?

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Brett

Who here has induced a reluctant or sceptical gaming group to switch substantially from some other game (eg. That Other Game) to GURPS?

What did you do? What setting and genre did you use to tempt them across? What worked, what didn't work, what would have worked better?

How did it go? Are they all keen now? Are they using GURPS for their own games, or promoting it otherwise? Clamouring for GURPS, complaining about other games?

How long did it take to win the players over? What helped? What hindered?

Weird this thread didn't get moving earlier; it's a great question.

I hadn't roleplayed for three years. A friend of mine who'd read but never yet played GURPS told me about the game, and I was less than enthusiastic--until I started reading the books. I had a galaxy I was working on and no gaming system I'd seen was both adaptable and broad enough to run it in; I had essentially given up and was thinking about designing my own system, but GURPS was exactly what I had been looking for.

I knew players who had played, you know, that old-timey fantasy game, and convinced them to try something different; space espionage. It went well. Then they decided to try fantasy in GURPS, and as far as I know only went back once to that old-timey fantasy game, then after that stuck with GURPS for fantasy, SF, Old West, Supers, etc.

The gaming group got too big, so we split it, then split it again. Then I started another group of SCA folk who'd never played GURPS--some had never roleplayed at all. It was weird because for a couple years I only played GURPS with people who had first been reffed by me or people first reffed by people who had first been reffed by me. We were somewhat inbred. I was actually a bit nervous the first time I played GURPS at a gaming convention, but it went well, and I got other people playing GURPS. Which led to some more GURPS groups.

All in all I'd say over a thousand people were introduced to GURPS through that original group and those that followed it. Probably well over a thousand.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Alden_Loveshade

Weird this thread didn't get moving earlier; it's a great question.

I begin to suspect that few of us have shared your success in converting gamers to the GURPS side.

[Mooncalf]

Just getting started. I think laziness (and warp 10 ADD) is what kept me from making the transition.

Anyway, I haven't RP'd in years, and the 4th edition of D&D has this garbage-y feeling to it, sooo here I am.


It's a lot to take in, but I think my wife will like it. She likes RP, but wasn't a fan of the dice variety. :)

[zorg]

Originally Posted by Brett

I begin to suspect that few of us have shared your success in converting gamers to the GURPS side.

I usually recruit people new to RPGs, so I never have that problem. The gamers I know who are invested in a specific system absolutely refuse to play anything else, so there's no point in me trying to recruit them (and I don't want to play V:tM with them, so...).

[Voren]

My experience has been pretty mundane, and it's usually something like this:

"I'm going to run a game next week. We're going to use GURPS."

"Aww, GURPS? I dunno..."

"If you want to GM something else, go for it."

"Nah, that's cool. Let's try GURPS."

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Voren

My experience has been pretty mundane, and it's usually something like this:

"I'm going to run a game next week. We're going to use GURPS."

"Aww, GURPS? I dunno..."

"If you want to GM something else, go for it."

"Nah, that's cool. Let's try GURPS."

This is my experience, too - as long as I am the one to do the hard work (GMing), people will be happy to try whatever system I propose to them.

Long campaigns are another matter, though - when we experiment a system, in most cases we'll just play a couple of sessions, then we'll move back to our "default" system (which happens to be GURPS, of course).

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Alden_Loveshade

Weird this thread didn't get moving earlier; it's a great question.

Originally Posted by Brett

I begin to suspect that few of us have shared your success in converting gamers to the GURPS side.

Either that or I am on a lot more "Ignore" lists than you are.

[Bruno]

The players in my group have never really been married to a particular game system. There was some negative GURPS reputation in group, but it was pretty trivial to overcome: "I'm starting a GURPS game in the Banestorm setting, I'm on the playtest list I figure I should run it. I have this old Harkwood minimodule, so we're doing that." Everyone: "OK".

We rotate out GMs pretty regularly so randomly starting something new and bored players showing up to it is how we roll ;)

One experience with it seems to have been enough to shatter the vague negative preconceptions and as a result I've got one enthusiastic GURPS fan in the group, another GM who runs GURPS games occasionally when it suits his concept, and everyone else, who are mostly neutral on the subject of specific game systems - game settings is a different subject ;)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Bruno

We rotate out GMs pretty regularly so randomly starting something new and bored players showing up to it is how we roll

Woah. If I were told that I could start a new campaign, but I couldn't count on more than two or three sessions because people might get bored . . . I don't think I'd ever do the kind of work I put into startup now. It would be like, oh, spending three hours building a GURPS character and having them die in the second session.

Bill Stoddard