One-Line Advice for new GURPS GMs

[simply Nathan]

Always put in more treasure than you think your players will need.

There is no shortage of ways to waste money, nor of projects and luxuries for players to want to invest in. But if adventurers are losing money on expedition after expedition, they'd might as well retire and get boring "day jobs" instead.

[mook]

Use the fewest number of options you need for the game you want.

Similar to a lot of what's already posted, but it's important enough to be said as often as possible. Seriously, it sometimes feels like 90% of the people who have a bad first (and thus, often only) GURPS game, it's because someone tried to use the entire book and every rule because they felt like "they had to."

[trooper6]

Don't listen to the people in the forums, you don't *need* anything more than the Basic Set.

We have a habit of telling new GMs they *must* have a gazillion books. They don't.

Have a campaign frame which guide character creation that you articulate clearly to your players.
D&D has an imbedded campaign frame: Everyone will be dungeon delvers. But the campaign frame is often not explicitly stated, just understood. So when moving away from D&D, people often don't think to come up with a campaign frame for their GURPS campaign. "Fantasy" is not a campaign frame. "Create characters who are all young nobles about to compete in their first tournament"--that is a campaign frame. "Sci-Fi" is not a campaign frame. "Create characters who are part of a team of space bounty hunters in a gritty sci-fi future."

[evileeyore]

Know how to play before you try to learn how run.

[trooper6]

When I first ran GURPS, I'd never played before because there were no GURPS game in my area. As the resident GM for many of the groups I've been a part of, I was often running games I'd never played before...it is just the nature of being a GM sometimes. So I'd say:

Do character creation with your players (one-on-one or in a group) and say no to anything that doesn't fit the campaign frame or would be disruptive.

Keep copies of the players character sheets

And then!

Do a few practice combats on your own between the players' characters and the bad guys you have come up with before you run the game for the players.
It gets you familiar with the rules and it lets you see if your bad guys are potentially too powerful or too weak.

[mehrkat]

Don't get bogged down in the rules. Its all about fun for the group. If you don't know a rule its ok to just wing it. Toss 3d6 eyeball a difficulty.

[ArchonShiva]

You don't need more than the Basic Set, you need less than GURPS Lite.

This isn't D&D, you won't end up with "incomplete" characters or games.

Start with a one-shot, ask the players for a concept and make the characters yourself.

We're talking "merchant", "heavy fighter", "alcoholic detective" here. Turn down details that seem to depend on system expectations (e.g. two-weapon fighter).

[Rocket Man]

Disadvantages are your friend.

These are your hooks into the character's story and your means to tie that story to the larger campaign. They tell you what kind of game the players want to play. And they are potentially your greatest source of entertainment.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by trooper6

We have a habit of telling new GMs they *must* have a gazillion books.

"Citation needed." I'd say it's exactly the other way around. The usual advice from the forum is to start small and grow only when and if needed. See this very thread, for example.

People will certainly recommend other books that might help an outlined campaign concept. Even then, they usually do so in tiers, from "gotta have it" to "would be nice" and "maybe A, B, C if you want to do X, Y, Z".

People asking specific questions might be directed to nearly any random book that happens to have the answer to that question, regardless of how core-ish it is. But that's still not recommending a "gazillion" books. It's recommending one. A gazillion questions might garner a gazillion recommendations, but that's to be expected.

[Phantasm]

Know your genre more than the rules.

The rules are pretty flexible, but that can be a curse as well as a blessing when it comes to character generation and in-play options. You and your players can get swamped easily. So long as you know the genre, you can adjudicate whether something is viable in a game better than.


Don't be afraid to wing it in-play and look it up later!


Be sure you and your players are on the same page regarding the game!

This I cannot stress enough. All too often myself, I'm told one thing regarding a game or go into one expecting it to be, for instance, "swashbuckling or rooftop-running" or "light-hearted superhero with black-and-white morality", and it turns out the GM wanted "dungeon crawling" or "gray-and-black morality super-powered government agents".


And, finally:

KEEP IT STUPIDLY SIMPLE!

When making rulings in-play, the simplest solution is often the best.