If GURPS did a Kickstarter what would you want it to be?

[Prime Evil]

What about an updated deluxe edition of the 4e Basic Set incorporating all current errata? I'm sure that a kickstarter would raise enough to incorporate awesome new art and pay for the amazing production values required of a premium product?

Or how about a limited-edition collected hardcover edition of Dungeon Fantasy and / or the Spaceships / Action series as stretch goals?

And how about funding a new version of GURPS lite designed to bring newcomers into the system?

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Prime Evil

What about an updated deluxe edition of the 4e Basic Set incorporating all current errata? I'm sure that a kickstarter would raise enough to incorporate awesome new art and pay for the amazing production values required of a premium product?

Or how about a limited-edition collected hardcover edition of Dungeon Fantasy and / or the Spaceships / Action series as stretch goals?

And how about funding a new version of GURPS lite designed to bring newcomers into the system?

Art and colour are great stretch goals. Give us $$$ we can afford colour. Give us $$$$$$ we can spend more on art. Even just give us $ and well let you have the art outakes can be nice.

Ive thought for a long time GURPS Lite being updated is an essential for GURPS. I just hope that gets done. Id even love it if some well meaning GURPS enthusiast just updated it themselves pro bono and SJ Games just dealt with the lay out, editing etc

[muduri]

Hardcover Vehicles!
Hardcover Dungeon Fantasy!

(Those are expressions of excitement by the way, not bang skills.)

And honestly I would pay more, especially for Dungeon Fantasy, to have them not in color - imagine DF with the equivalent of finely-hatched Trampier illustrations! Quentin Hoover maybe?

[Michael Cule]

Well, unless GCA5 contains a program for generating world-book files without having to type them in as text I wouldn't bother backing it. That's been my gripe from the start and all other issues (the instability and so on) are secondary. I want to be able to create a personalised worldfile for my own campaigns without having to read a huge manual that describes the programming details. I know there are hobbyist programming types who delight in doing this (I'm lucky enough to have one in one of my groups) but I am not such a person.

Otherwise, I'd like to see a series of books I would call ENCYLOPEDIA YTARRIA. A series of setting books for the nations of Yrth. TREDROY and HAWKWOOD get updated and we get new books for Megalos, the Arabian Lands, Sahud and Bilit Island. That even has a series of Stretch goals built in!

Oh and 4th Edition CABAL.

[cptbutton]

I was going to say either Suppressed Transmission volumes 3-10 or The Collected .sigs of John M. Ford, but I suppose neither of those is technically a GURPS product.

[Tomsdad]

KS works best when alot of the work has already been done and the issue is finishing and covering the cost of the finalised product (putting it together*, editing it* and producing it*), so accordingly my vote would go for GURPS: VDS.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

The company is already prepared to stump up the cash for VDS. It's not shortage of seed capital which is delaying publication.

KS isn't necessarily about seed capital (well not for an established publisher). But about easing resource allocation and the publication pipeline. I think of it as an advance on income, and conformation of sales, one that eases the final steps. It allows the publisher to prioritise completion of projects by demand and know how they'll cover the bills, it also allows them solid figures to base their costs on. You get 1083 backers for a physical book, you know to make your print run 1200.

Too Many KS are of the "give me money and I'll write this" type, and they have habit of disappearing into vapourware, because real life gets in the way.

Originally Posted by lachimba

You know I just supported Feng Shui 2. It 'only' got 3000 or so supporters. It was only after $8000. Guess how much it got? $180,000+. And I only picked the $10 option, if we had all done that then that would be $30,000. Its the extra content, bonus items and so on that pushes people in for more $$$. And if that particular KS had only had a thousand supporters and raised $20,000. Its not like it wouldnt have happened.


So in the hypothetical world of the SJ Games forums if we want to imagine a $3000 KS with stretch goals all the way up to $100,000 and supporter amounts from $1 to $1,000 thats cool.

The problem is with extravagant add-ons is that they can kill the project's profitability for the publisher as ill thought out add ons given in the heat and excitement of the moment (and the increasing commitment figure) are often regretted at leisure later in the fulfilment process.

My advice on Add ons would be if they are extra content best of you already have most of it (stuff that was hitting the editors floor to reduce page count, or reprints of OOP stuff is classic one here).

But don't accidentally get yourself involved in a business you don't know

"T-shirts" everyone thinks, "T-shirts are easy I'll add on T-shirts," ..... hilarity ensures


Classic knock on effect of add on's, = P&P. You've already committed to your P&P charges and fixed your P&P income, so adding extra stuff can really hit you hard


*Such a short sentence to describe something so potentially huge! I'd Imagine the reason why VDS has taken so long in two fold:

1). it may not have that much appeal (I know posters slather for it when ever it's mentioned here, but that's not the same thing)

and that uncertain demand is matched with

2). Given it's inherently complex and detailed nature getting to ready is going to be an involved process.

[Tomsdad]

Also comparing KS it tricky, take the example of Feng Shui 3rd,

Your potential audience for that is 'Roleplayers who like Feng Shui or the idea of it'. Either way it is a complete game (And one with two pre existing versions to build off for both writing and fandom).

An 'add on X' for GURPS has a potential audience of 'GURPS players who want that add on'

These are very differently sized sections of the RPG Venn diagram

That venn section gets even smaller when it's an add on X for sub category Y of GURPS

[DocRailgun]

Disclaimer: I disagree with many of the people who seem to think a total revamp of the system is necessary.

That said, if there was a GURPS Kickstarter, I would like to see the money spent on Kromm, SJ, and PK working full time on a complete review of the system and see what might be crufty and could be changed - especially the Basic magic system. The remaining money could be spent on a new edition including whatever changes they feel are necessary.

Stretch goals? A new Magic book which would include things we've seen since then. A hardback _Madness Dossier_ which becomes the default setting. A series of adventures, each for different genres: fantasy, space opera, Autodueling, a zombie apocalypse, hard sci-fi with aliens, modern spy/action, steampunk, cyberpunk, super heroes, modern (WWII and later) warfare, and so on. A really expensive stretch goal: SJG promised to release X number of books in the next two years depending on how much money the KS makes and if that money will keep the company from eating large losses if printing said number of books.

Originally Posted by lachimba

Or two, a reprint new edition of an existing book where once again the initial goal is just a hardcopy reprint, but if there is buzz text updates, rules updates etc become possible. So eg something like 'ok we will reprint DF 1 to 3' (once again an example could be GURPS anything that is popular) as a single book with stretch goals that might make the text get reworked to include 'GURPS Light' and page references to the other books etc

[Tomsdad]

I think given we're still waiting for a few things for 4th ed. I'd like to see them first before we see a 4.5th ed. or 5th ed.

However what might be good is a GURPS: Tweaks book, with suggestions for adjusting some aspects of the system.


I've always thought one GURP'S strengths is it ability to be tweaked, a book showing this might be good.

It would probably contain some of Pyramid's greatest hits (and also owe something to the "10 things we wish we'd thought of in the Basic book" article from the Pyramid 10th anniversary edition)

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Click and type in the number? That confused you?

It didn't work. I saw no sign that clicking in the field was having any effect.

Originally Posted by Langy

Yeah; you can either directly edit the attribute, or you can use an Increased (Attribute) advantage found in the advantages library (useful if you want to modify the price of the attribute).

I'm not sure how much simpler modifying attributes can get:/

That latter way of raising or lowering Attributes was the only was I found, but that was so unbelievably clumsy that I felt sure I was missing something.