07-04-2022, 06:32 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
|
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. |
07-05-2022, 05:09 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
|
Re: Seeking "An Argument For"
Quote:
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.
__________________
Looking for online text-based game at a UK-feasible time, anything considered, Roll20 preferred. http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=168443 |
|
07-05-2022, 05:23 PM | #13 |
Forum Pervert
(If you have to ask . . .) Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Somewhere high up.
|
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. |
07-05-2022, 06:42 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Virginia, US
|
Re: Seeking "An Argument For"
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:
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. 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. |
07-05-2022, 06:46 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Virginia, US
|
Re: Seeking "An Argument For"
Quote:
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. |
|
07-06-2022, 02:39 AM | #16 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
|
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.
|
07-06-2022, 10:44 AM | #17 | |
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Hmm, looks like Earth, circa CE 2020+
|
Re: Seeking "An Argument For"
Quote:
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.
__________________
Kerry Thornley: Dwarf Planet Eris, Discordianism, and The John F. Kennedy Assassination Without Thornley, there would never have been the Steve Jackson Games edition of Principia Discordia Top 12 Clues You're a Role-Playing Old-Timer My humorous (I hope) article that also promotes SJGames/GURPS GURPS Fantasy Folk: Elves My first GURPS supplement Last edited by Alden Loveshade; 07-06-2022 at 10:49 AM. |
|
07-06-2022, 12:51 PM | #18 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
|
Re: Seeking "An Argument For"
This guy would have dice in front of him. He'd still sit there opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
|
07-06-2022, 02:34 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
|
Re: Seeking "An Argument For"
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.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul |
07-07-2022, 04:07 AM | #20 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
|
Re: Seeking "An Argument For"
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|