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Old 07-04-2022, 06:32 PM   #11
Dalin
 
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Default Re: Seeking "An Argument For"

Like many others here, I have introduced a lot of new players to GURPS. I always offer to run an adventure premise and advertise that rather than the specific game system. If anyone asks, I can go into why GURPS is a good fit for whatever the premise is. I either create characters myself based on their descriptions or generate some good pregens.

J.C. Connors (aka Sage Thalcos) has a site called One Shot Adventures that includes a bunch of high-quality adventures for a variety of genres. You can pick one or offer a few options and let your players choose. I've run three of them in the past few months for new players. They're a lot of fun and include plenty of handouts and pre-generated characters.
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Old 07-05-2022, 05:09 PM   #12
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Default Re: Seeking "An Argument For"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Territan View Post
I think I want to start bringing people in, but now I'm in a group that knows nothing of GURPS, and the most vocal of the bunch doesn't see any reason why he should learn it, as he can always find a much simpler system (in trade paperback-sized books with ~48 pages, and I wish that was an exaggeration) to run whatever concept he wants to play in.
He might possibly be interested to know that there's a walkthrough for learning GURPS at https://www.themook.net/gamegeekery/.../new-to-gurps/ . It's a lot shorter than even the first book of the Basic Set, but covers probably most of what happens in an average GURPS game, complete with worked examples. He might still think it's too long, but he might not.
I was curious and copied and pasted all ten articles into a word processor document, and they actually do fit in less than 48 trade-paperback-sized pages, though of course that doesn't include the skill lists and advantage lists, which you still have to look up in the Basic Set.
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Old 07-05-2022, 05:23 PM   #13
Mark Skarr
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Default Re: Seeking "An Argument For"

If your players know how to play any RPG, they already know how to play GURPS. The mechanics are different, but they just tell the GM what they want to do, and the GM tells them what happens.

I have a couple of players who have no idea how the mechanics for GURPS work. They get 3d6, roll low, unless it's damage, then you want high. But, I tell them what to roll against, they look at their sheet and roll the dice and tell me what they got.

I ask them what character they want, and I build it for them. When combat rolls around, I ask them what they want to do, and they tell me, indicating any of the abilities we've worked out that they may want to use. I parse it into maneuvers and game rules and we go from there.

As the GM, I'm used to doing the heavy lifting. If it gets people into GURPS, I'm all for it.

I've also had non-GURPS people state that the character sheets are really ugly and look more like tax forms. To which I point out that I'd rather have a no-nonsense character sheet than the fluff sheets that I keep seeing.
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Old 07-05-2022, 06:42 PM   #14
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I think a lot of my personal approach was distilled in one gaming group by the "game of the week" notion, or where it seems that everyone wanted to try and run a game in a new system/setting they were excited about. Inevitably this would flub because the group as a whole--or at least the most vocal elements--would drag it back to playing one of three games: Amber DRPG (because, superheroes), Vampire: the Masquerade (because, superheroes with fangs), and Rolemaster (because... the major problem-player had a man crush on the GM of that setting).

Because of this, I have a general problem when getting involved in a game if the buy-in to that is to learn the entire darn system. Put another way, if the GM throws the system at me and says, "Have at it!" and expects me to parse everything about the system and their setting, I'm going to respectfully bow out and scarper as fast I can to the metaphorical hills.

So, what I do is deliberately not throw the book at the players. I do not ask them to read GURPS Lite, or the character generation section of GURPS Characters or whatever.

I have two primary steps:
  1. Setting: I describe the setting to the players, the style, themes etc. I'll leave some flexibility in there for players to tweak the setting dials, but this usually comes during the character generation.
  2. Question--"Describe your character to me." I ask for them to describe the kind of character that inspires them based upon the setting pitch. I ask for them to use qualitative descriptions that, originally, were derived from FUDGE but are now fairly well articulated in How to be a GURPS GM. Good. Average. Professional. Master. Exceptional. Apply these to attributes and skills that they have in mind. Describe their character in a sentence or two--evocative of Aspects in FATE distros.

Following that, I'll work with the player to craft their character into the GURPS mechanics that draws in their preferences, expectations, background, goals, and so forth.

We'll go back and forwards iteratively. If the players wants to know specifics, I'll give them incrementally.

Another step that I'll make is to try and run GURPS as "lite" as possible (there was a useful thread about this). Ignore the Range/Size table for most things and just use the range bands in Action 2: Exploits. Keep things descriptive. Ignore the 1 second round if you can, though if you cannot revel in it. Treat it as a form of bullet-time where you allow the player to control the minutiae of their characters actions.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Territan View Post
And I'm not sure how to sell him on something crunchier.
Some people are just toxic on the premise of crunch and, well, that's their choice. Different strokes for different folks.

For me, I love having the huge backdrop of GURPS available to me even while I try and run it as "grabbing it by the tail" as I can. K.I.S.S. and all that. (Which is truly ironic if you can see my trying to create a dedicated interpretation of my current setting in which I'm getting (rightly) accused of not-K.I.S.S. ;) )

If everything mostly comes down to Attribute+Stat against 3d6+mod, it's really hard to argue that's complex. And that's what I try and keep it to even if some purists will say that I'm not running the game RAW.

And there are so many sub-systems involved in many GURPS games that they become another fun thing for some players to get involved in. If you're familiar with Amber DRPG it used to have the premise of "Player Bribes", or the notion that players would come up with something in support of the game so that they could get a extra points during character generation for something special.

The options in GURPS are manifold.
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Old 07-05-2022, 06:46 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by Mark Skarr View Post
I've also had non-GURPS people state that the character sheets are really ugly and look more like tax forms. To which I point out that I'd rather have a no-nonsense character sheet than the fluff sheets that I keep seeing.
I like everything that you have to say, but on this point I'm not averse to creating new character sheets that evoke the setting at hand. It is, after all, about information exchange. So of I have a thematic break down of, say, elemental magic and attributes I'll port it into the character sheet.

Admittedly, I have the software that supports me to be able to do this. That might be too much of a buy in for other GMs and that's fine. Keeping it RAW also means that everything is familiar and where you expect it.
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Old 07-06-2022, 02:39 AM   #16
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Default Re: Seeking "An Argument For"

It is possible that someone who is really into (presumably) PbtA games just isn't going to dig GURPS very much, and that's fine.
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Old 07-06-2022, 10:44 AM   #17
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I have played with these people, however. One player, someone had to hand him dice, because apparently remembering what 3d6 was was beyond him.
Sorry the player had that problem.

I always brought a number of extra six-sided dice to conventions. So if someone didn't have any, I'd let them borrow three of mine. So each player had their three dice handy.
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Old 07-06-2022, 12:51 PM   #18
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Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade View Post
Sorry the player had that problem.

I always brought a number of extra six-sided dice to conventions. So if someone didn't have any, I'd let them borrow three of mine. So each player had their three dice handy.
This guy would have dice in front of him. He'd still sit there opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
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Old 07-06-2022, 02:34 PM   #19
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This guy would have dice in front of him. He'd still sit there opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
That's generally a good indication of someone who is not paying attention and/or is stoned out of their gourd. Typically, both. Players like that don't really function in any ruleset.
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Old 07-07-2022, 04:07 AM   #20
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That's generally a good indication of someone who is not paying attention and/or is stoned out of their gourd. Typically, both. Players like that don't really function in any ruleset.
Nah, I'm pretty sure this guy was just very neurodivergent.
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