Need Advice: Making GURPS Approachable For the Non-gamer/Non-geek

[Polkageist]

Also check out the Delvers to Grow books (https://gamingballistic.com/product/...re-book-print/), they are exceedingly streamlined and the supporting books (Strong Delvers, etc.) are stuffed with premade characters to give yet another leg up.

It's Dungeon Fantasy, so GURPS under the hood but trimmed and focused towards that particular genre.

[whswhs]

For a player who doesn't get the fantastic genres, a set of supplements aimed at helping to run dungeon fantasy is probably not an asset. It sounds as if she even has problems with action/adventure, which would make a campaign such as my nonfantasy swashbuckling campaign likely not to appeal.

I think my starting question would be, "Is there a genre of fiction or drama that she does enjoy?" GURPS is suited for at least some genres that aren't action-focused; I ran a mystery campaign where we could go months without anyone getting into a fight. There's even a supplement for that genre. GURPS Social Engineering has suggestions that are relevant to anything from caper films to courtship and marriage to high-level politics.

Of course, then the other question is whether the other players, the ones who do get the fantastic genres, can adapt to one of those genres.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

It is possible that this is a person who doesn't 'get' make-believe and playing the role of someone other than themselves.

And if this is the case, they're a lost cause. One of my brother-in-laws is this way. Anything remotely fantastical, even fictional, is utterly and totally lost on him. No matter the genre. He's so rooted in the real world that anything that departs from it is just gibberish, and while he understands in theory that other people may enjoy such things, there's just no force on Earth that will ever make him sit down to an RPG. He can barely watch movies.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

And if this is the case, they're a lost cause. One of my brother-in-laws is this way. Anything remotely fantastical, even fictional, is utterly and totally lost on him. No matter the genre. He's so rooted in the real world that anything that departs from it is just gibberish, and while he understands in theory that other people may enjoy such things, there's just no force on Earth that will ever make him sit down to an RPG. He can barely watch movies.

Yes, that's a possibility too. If that's how it is—if she doesn't like ANY fictional genres, rather than just not getting some specific genres—well, presumably she's an adult and knows what she likes.

[Inky]

Have you got around to asking her what she didn't like about it yet? :-D Lot of speculation in a void here.

[GameBuddah]

Sorry for the delayed update, but here goes.

Last week we got together and I talked through the setting (Banestorm), and talked about characters. I then asked the new player to look over the character templates in the book, and see if any of them appealed to her. She chose three, but ultimately picked the Bard (she had also considered the Courtier and the Merchant.)

We then asked her some questions to help her fill out the characters background, and I took the character notes home and plugged it all into GCA.

When completed, I'm going to give the PCs a copy of Mook's simplified character sheet and we'll be off to the races!

The party consists of

Ibn Al Kafir - A merchant from Al-Wazif who is also a magic user.
Freya - A Northwoman Bounty Hunter from the northlands.
Natalia - A Bard from Megalos with ties to Araterre

In addition, there will be the following recurring NPCs

Guy duMount - A Merchant for Araterre
Pippette - A female dwarf accountant, merchant, and generally Guy's foil.

The way that I'm structuring the game is that the party are employees of the "Compagnie Marchande des Mers," a chartered company out of a newly independent Araterre.

===

After talking to the players, I'm going to try to run a game which is equal parts social, sneak, and fight. I've even completely re-thought my plans on how to approach the game, and have dropped my original "dungeon of the week" idea with battlemats and minis for something more abstract and "talkie".

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, the game may not actually happen, but I'm still hopeful.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by MrFix

Because despite what a lot of people want to believe, or want you to believe, is that GURPS game, despite everything, is a game about GURPS. When you tell the tale about cowboys, they play cowboys in GURPS. When you tell the tale about fantastic wizard adventures, they play GURPS Wizards.

So when everyone gathers at the table, ALL must be clearly interested in playing GURPS, and the only way to sell GURPS to people is to make them want to play GURPS, a tabletop game. They must not just be there for the story, they must be there for GURPS.

I must respectfully disagree. When I first ran GURPS, neither I nor any of my players had ever played it. When I ran GURPS at conventions, I had over a couple hundred players who had never played GURPS. Some had never heard of it. Some had heard of it but weren't sure they'd like it--but they wanted to play that particular GURPS game because it was Space Espionage or Paranoia or Wild West or Supers or Horror High School or Gilligan's Island or Monty Python or....

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

I must respectfully disagree. When I first ran GURPS, neither I nor any of my players had ever played it. When I ran GURPS at conventions, I had over a couple hundred players who had never played GURPS. Some had never heard of it. Some had heard of it but weren't sure they'd like it--but they wanted to play that particular GURPS game because it was Space Espionage or Paranoia or Wild West or Supers or Horror High School or Gilligan's Island or Monty Python or....

I've hardly ever run games at conventions. But I've run many campaigns for a large circle of players to which new ones were steadily added, and in my case as well, the selling point was the nature of the campaign, rather than the choice of rules system. Just now I'm starting up a campaign about vampire slayers in 1830s Manchester, one about present-day explorers of a shared dream realm, and one about citizens of a future Martian city . . . and I'm sure the premise and theme mattered more to the players favoring those than the rules did.

[Gollum]

I fully do agree.

All what the players must know about GURPS (and this is something which is very attractive), is that it is universal and generic: you can play in any setting you want!

For the rules, when I play with people who don't even know what a roleplaying game is, I just tell them this:

“Like in real life, you are not sure to succeed when you try to do something. Will your favorite search engine give you the tittle of the book that an obscure author once wrote about ghosts in 18th century? Maybe… But maybe not… In GURPS, you use 3d6 to know if you succeed. You roll them, add their result, and compare the total with your ability (your skill or an attribute like intelligence)… If the dice result is less than or equal to your ability, you succeeded. If it his higher, you failed. Thus, higher is your ability, higher are your chance to succeed. And that’s all.”

Then, the players just have to describe what they want to do, and I handle everything else. Modifiers, damage, remaining hit points… Describing what happens in ordinary terms is much more fun: “The sword hits you and that’s hurts a lot.” Rather than: “You lose 5 hit points and have a -4 penalty to your next action.”

Of course, I give pre-generated characters, written in a very simple way. Creating a character with GURPS is awesome (you can do exactly what you want and fine-tune everything as much as you desire), but it is very frightening for beginners: all those abilities to choose and character points to handle!

Oh, one more hint. If you really want to be very simple, forget the brackets! They are just here to help creating characters but are useless during game. “Dancing: 12” is easier to read and more appealing than “Dancing (A) DX-1 [1]-12”.

What else to attract people? Precisely the fact that GURPS is generic and universal. So, when a newcomer doesn’t really know if he wants to try it, I just say: what is your favorite fictional world? Your favorite novel, movie, or TV series? I can make you live that sort of adventure.

Then I come up with a very short adventure. About one hour. Not more. Some people don’t like role playing games, even after having sincerely tried. That’s life. So, if the adventure is short, they will forgive you. They will even have a quiet good time and appreciate the effort. But if they like the game, they will want to play again: “That was too short!” It will be time to prepare a second adventure, longer and with more depth.

[SID]

Take this person to a game, and watch it together. You have to create a base for the knowledge.