GURPS 4e Entry Point

[DeDiceManCometh]

This thread is to unload some tangency off of the GURPS/4E... could be more attractive? thread. It is to discuss the challenges, options, and goals of creating a product beyond the current GURPS Lite that lowers the bar for new players.

I'll kick off the discussion by asking, what form should this product take? Boxed set? Microgame, a la Melee? Mini-game with a couple of cheap plastic minis? And three dice? A card game that somehow includes the basic combat mechanic? A game like Zombies with all of the aforementioned, but with the dice mechanic of GURPS? (Dudes, I am brain dumping here. Most of this is absurd, but you know, keep trying...)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by DeDiceManCometh

This thread is to unload some tangency off of the GURPS/4E... could be more attractive? thread. It is to discuss the challenges, options, and goals of creating a product beyond the current GURPS Lite that lowers the bar for new players.

I'll kick off the discussion by asking, what form should this product take? Boxed set? Microgame, a la Melee? Mini-game with a couple of cheap plastic minis? And three dice? A card game that somehow includes the basic combat mechanic? A game like Zombies with all of the aforementioned, but with the dice mechanic of GURPS? (Dudes, I am brain dumping here. Most of this is absurd, but you know, keep trying...)

I once proposed a set of what I called "Self Contained Scenarios." Adventures or mini-campaigns that could be played with only either Lite or the Basic Set (this was before Basic 4e came out), and would be enhanced greatly by possessing ONE 128 page 3e book.

Thus, for less than $50 you could be up and playing in a particular genre very quickly.

I sitll think there's an e23 outlet there, and I do like the idea of Lite being able to handle a basic Scenario. Asking for $70 as a barrier to entry is a bit steep. But the good news is, once you do that, these pre-gen adventures are all VERY accessible even without extra $35 books.

[Doktor Teufel]

Originally Posted by DeDiceManCometh

It is to discuss the challenges, options, and goals of creating a product beyond the current GURPS Lite that lowers the bar for new players.

Why is such a product necessary? It is not difficult for an educated person to read the Basic Set, and GURPS Lite is free, which allows a potential new player to assess the core mechanics of the system in advance. In addition to that, there are countless reviews and articles online available for research prior to purchase.

I myself started learning GURPS, 4th Edition for the first time just a few months ago, and I never learned 3rd Edition. I now am familiar with most of the system, and can find anything else in the rulebooks fairly quickly.

I see no reason to create something simply as eye-candy to attract players who cannot be bothered to research a system, read a couple of rulebooks, or understand that style does not equate to substance. That's just my opinion, though.

[Polydamas]

I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, DiceMan, but I have always been hoping for some GURPS adventures to be published. I would prefer them to use the full Basic Set, but even ones based on GURPS Lite might do. We now have two major settings out for 4e (Yrth and Infinite Worlds), both of which ought to be popular enough to have some hope of selling adventures. I know that adventures sell poorly, and profit margins are small. That is largely why modules are mostly a D&D thing, because so many people play D&D and almost all play in settings where most generic adventures could be inserted. But is this not a self-reinforcing phenomenon? There are lots of people (like me) who own GURPS and rarely play it. Partially this results from a lack of gaming groups, or gaming groups more interested in other things. But going from playing and GMing D&D to GURPS is hard! An experienced GURPS GM can easily invent adventures, or develop them from outlines in Pyramid and other places. But before a GM gets experienced, it really helps to have something to learn from and model on. While it remains hard to learn to run a good GURPS game the number of players will remain small, and so will the potential profits of selling adventure modules.

[DeDiceManCometh]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, DiceMan, but I have always been hoping for some GURPS adventures to be published.

Actually, adventures are not an entry point to a product line (they fall into the category of support for a product). However, that said, I have long wished for more GURPS adventures and long understood completely why the economic model for SJG was not optimal for them to invest in them. I have posted elsewhere that I hope the e23 distribution model changes this.

But that's tangential.

The real point is: Is GURPS Lite bringing in lots of *new* players? I don't see it happening at any of the FLGSs around here. GURPS 4e is supposed to be scaleable from easy to difficult, but for those who want to use it way over toward the easy end of the spectrum, there's precious little incentive to do so.

You can put out a huge tome, replete with options and complexities, say "Hey, you only really need to use a tiny bit of this, if you like," and guess what? You still have newbie players staring at a product on a shelf that looks like a huge tome, replete with options and complexities.

GURPS Lite does not step in and solve this IMHO, because it has no genre stuff in it (esp. Magic, ipso facto, no Fantasy, which is something like 75% or more of the market). It does just what another post in this thread says: It allows an experienced RPGer to browse the core mechanics and give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Fine, if that's all you're looking for.

[Doktor Teufel]

Originally Posted by DeDiceManCometh

You can put out a huge tome, replete with options and complexities, say "Hey, you only really need to use a tiny bit of this, if you like," and guess what? You still have newbie players staring at a product on a shelf that looks like a huge tome, replete with options and complexities.

*sigh* I hope you don't think I'm an @$$hole, DiceMan . . . but if people are too lazy and/or simple-minded to dive right into GURPS, maybe it's not the system for them. Anyone who feels intimidated by a couple of rulebooks . . . how will they make it through college? How did they even make it through high school, for that matter? How can someone look at a game book and say to themselves, "Wow, I can't handle that. I need something that's simple, easy, and has lots of pretty pictures."? What does that say about a person?

I memorize (more-or-less) new systems all the time. Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Blue Planet, Alternity, d20, GURPS, Nobilis, The Burning Wheel . . . how hard can it be? Am I some sort of a genius among my kind? Not likely!

It's ludicrous, simply ludicrous. Every gamer who's been playing more than a couple of years will know what GURPS is. If they need big, bright, low-page-count pop-up books with fuzzy dice to get interested, I wouldn't want to play with them anyway.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, DiceMan, but I have always been hoping for some GURPS adventures to be published.

Your wish is granted. There are several available on E23 and in the archives of Pyramid.

Originally Posted by Doktor Teufel

I have ADHD, and when I was 12, I would've eaten this up . . . but there's no accounting for tatse, I suppose.

Then why didn't you?

Originally Posted by TGryph

I don't how how practical this would be (not a marketing major or anything), but would it make more sense to bundle a printed copy of Lite with the Characters book, with maybe a blurb about "If you are new to Gurps and / or Roleplaying, start with this and add on as you grow more comfortable with the basics?"

Lite is free, FLGS can give it away with any product if they want.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Your wish is granted.

Long live Jambi!

heh

[Doktor Teufel]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Then why didn't you?

Why didn't I what? Check out GURPS when I was twelve? Well, for one thing, I hadn't heard of GURPS at that age, nor had I noticed it in any hobby shops (trips to which were few and far between). I had to ask my parents before they would make any such purchase on my behalf, and a "yes" was also something of a rarity.

Simply put, I just never had the opportunity to try GURPS for a significant portion of my life. You should also understand that for all of high school, I attended a military boarding school. Had I been given the opportunity to do some reasearch on GURPS, read a few reviews, and had I had enough money and the opportunity to purchase it, I would have done so.

If you're wondering whether the size of the book or its lack of bells and whistles was a factor in my ignorance of GURPS at and around that age, you are certainly barking up the wrong tree. I was reading 1000-page Stephen King novels by that time and eating up every game book I could get my mitts on.

[Paul]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I once proposed a set of what I called "Self Contained Scenarios." Adventures or mini-campaigns that could be played with only either Lite or the Basic Set (this was before Basic 4e came out), and would be enhanced greatly by possessing ONE 128 page 3e book.

That's an interesting idea. Alternatively, you may be able to condense Lite to *just what was needed* for the scenario, and make the whole thing fill 29 pages of a 30 page download. (The 30th page would be a list of the books you'd need to expand the scenario into a campaign.)

I'm seeing some interesting ideas in this thread -- keep it up!

Also: for the purposes of this thread, let's assume the need for a low-cost, low-complexity product is real. Debates against the need for such a product really belong in another thread, just to keep the discussions flowing.