[Diatribe] Bringing the GURPS

[mehrkat]

I'm making several moves to encourage GURPS as a system of choice with those I game with.

GURPS lite +
I've been creating a fantasy addon for GURPS lite for my gaming group.
It works like this. The players can choose templates that use all the books I own and they can use any other advantage and disadvantage from GURPS lite. There is a powers based magical path system that the characters can choose from as well. The add-on is about 10 pages and allows characters to play in a specific fantasy world vaguely designed to imulate magic found in many video games and fantasy novels. (Designed to encourage my son to try his hand at playing games more seriously and possibly form a game with some friends).

Converting my primary gaming world to GURPS (it was a generic DnD world and I'm working to convert it to a playable world for GURPS)

Using GURPS ultralite for most of my pickup games
GURPS ultralite gets players used to a be thinking about the dice dynamic in GURPS and makes a good starting point to step them up to GURPS lite.

I have decided that I will create lists of usable advantages, disadvantages and skills when creating games as well page references. If its not on the list you can't have it. They will probably all be organized like the skill category chart.

I will create templates groups that separate out attribute costs but tell the minimum but are relatively low cost and combinable. So that say if you purchase the warrior and the mage template you are a warrior mage. But if you purchase the warrior template base and improve the skills attached you are a more scary warrior.

Some of these are done some are not but I'm trying.

[shawnhcorey]

Originally Posted by trechriron

If there is simply no way to "Bring the GURPS" to you; if you are set on not playing it. Then this thread is obviously not for you. No need to tell me. I can read about that in a million other posts you will inevitably make here and elsewhere. I must repeat; I am not saying your opinion is not welcome or you shouldn't have it, I am just asking that people pitch their ideas on what we can do as fans to Bring the GURPS. Saying, "GURPS can't be Brought" and the generalizations of "combat doesn't work", "magic is all or nothing", "Character creation takes too long" et al are not helping or even remotely constructive.

You are wrong; I did make some suggestions on how to improve things. They got ignored.

And that's what I mean when I said magic is all or nothing. As soon as you say "magic" everything else gets ignored. If you place restrictions on magic, they get ignored. If you try to enforce them, you get, "Lighten up, dude, it's just a game." In other words, they get ignored. You either get the whole chapter on magic or you don't do magic at all. It's all or nothing. Everything else gets ignored.

[trechriron]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

You are wrong; I did make some suggestions on how to improve things. They got ignored.

And that's what I mean when I said magic is all or nothing. As soon as you say "magic" everything else gets ignored. If you place restrictions on magic, they get ignored. If you try to enforce them, you get, "Lighten up, dude, it's just a game." In other words, they get ignored. You either get the whole chapter on magic or you don't do magic at all. It's all or nothing. Everything else gets ignored.

Weird. I don't remember that coming up in this thread. I guess this must be a general gripe against the forum. So, I didn't say that. What ya got?

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

You are wrong; I did make some suggestions on how to improve things. They got ignored.

And that's what I mean when I said magic is all or nothing. As soon as you say "magic" everything else gets ignored. If you place restrictions on magic, they get ignored. If you try to enforce them, you get, "Lighten up, dude, it's just a game." In other words, they get ignored. You either get the whole chapter on magic or you don't do magic at all. It's all or nothing. Everything else gets ignored.

If your players ignore the guidelines you set up for character creation that is a problem with your players, not GURPS. You don't have to use the whole chapter on magic. There are a whole bunch of ways to limit magic, from the simple (No one may have more than Magery 2, or one-college spell casting only, or you have to get your spell list approved just like everything else, because some spells don't exist in this world just like some skills don't) to the more complex (like creating your own Magical Styles). Just like nothing else in GURPS is all or nothing, neither is magic. Just like I would never allow a player to get a machine gun in my TL2 Historical Roman game just because he told me to lighten up, I'm not going to let him have a form of the magic system that isn't the one I've planned for the game.

Players ignoring GM guidelines for character creation is a player problem, and a big one...but it would be in any game system.

Oh and on two the other thing you don't like Combat, 3e named their two big combat flavors in the Basic set Basic and Advanced, they decided to ditch the nomenclature because some people were offended or confused. Those two flavors are still in 4e...Ch 11 Combat is basiclaly 3e's Basic Combat and Ch 11+12 (Tactical Combat) is 3e's Advanced. If you want 3e Basic combat in 4e, you just use Ch 11 without Ch 12. That is the same system.

Generally GURPS is about options. It is a modular system. You, as a GM, decide which parts you want to use. As with Magic, so with combat. And yes, GURPS is a bit more simulationist that other games, but you can choose not to use most of those options. Just use Ch 11, no map, no hit location, don't use anything from Martial Arts.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Mylon

I live in Tampa,

Darn. 2 hours away by car (Titusville-Cocoa area) is too far.

We probably have even fewer gaming shops than you do. For most purposes everyone I know who games is in "post FLGS mode".

[zorg]

Originally Posted by The Final Door

We need a pre-assembled package that anybody, here or elsewhere (as in, someone new to GURPS) can just unpack and start playing.

Do we? I'm not sure.

I know that I can set up a Gurps game with what I got. I can't help people I've never seen or even talked to to get a game running. If someone pops a question on the forum, I can try to help out; but I doubt that me preassembling a package will actually help anyone. Anyone smart enough to grab that package is also smart enough to search the forums, or start a thread asking for advice.

In practice, I think it's a bit tougher, or it would have succeeded already.

Again, I'm not sure I agree. I do play Gurps with my current group, and have played Gurps with other groups in the past. I would like more frequent game sessions, but real life is a bitch. /shrugs/ For all practical purposes, I have succeeded quite well in Bringing The Gurps to those I game with. Since I'm not that special, I guess that others can do the same.

[shawnhcorey]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Oh and on two the other thing you don't like Combat, 3e named their two big combat flavors in the Basic set Basic and Advanced, they decided to ditch the nomenclature because some people were offended or confused. Those two flavors are still in 4e...Ch 11 Combat is basiclaly 3e's Basic Combat and Ch 11+12 (Tactical Combat) is 3e's Advanced. If you want 3e Basic combat in 4e, you just use Ch 11 without Ch 12. That is the same system.

No, Advanced was combined with Basic, simplified, and just called Combat in 4e. Tactical is a specialized form like mounted or vehicle combat. Unless you are using figurines or a hex map, it is not applicable.

If all the players don't want to play with the GM's creation rules, then it's the GM who must adapt. Forcing players to do something they don't want to do means they'll just drop out. Then were would you be?

[zorg]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

If all the players don't want to play with the GM's creation rules, then it's the GM who must adapt.

I disagree. When I GM, I offer several options for the players to pick from. Some of the details are open to discussion, other's aren't. If my players don't like that, then someone else can GM. If I state that my setting X comes with the optional rule Y and the restriction Z, then that's how it is.

I mean, in the same way a player can't just stat up a PC in Shadowrun with 76 Essence, or a WoD Vampire with Celerity 12, or whatever. It's just not on the table (unless the GM puts it there).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

If all the players don't want to play with the GM's creation rules, then it's the GM who must adapt. Forcing players to do something they don't want to do means they'll just drop out. Then were would you be?

When I hand out a prospectus, I include a brief statement for each campaign of what kind of characters will be suitable for it, and of what system I'll be using. Players consent to those choices when they vote for that option; they can indicate "I'm not willing to play by those rules" by giving it a 0.

And my ability, as a GM, to say what is and what isn't acceptable is critical to my ability to run the campaign I promised. If I'm running a Transhuman Space campaign, should I be required to let the PCs have magic, or psi powers? If I'm running a campaign set in the astral plane of GURPS Cabal, should I have to allow automatic weapons to work? If my concept for the campaign involves teamwork, do I have to allow a player to run a sociopathic loner who hates his teammates and is willing to betray them? I think not. I will spend as much time as is needed to help a player build a character that they like within the constraints of a campaign's premises. But if a player doesn't want to accept that as GM I have the right to do that, they are welcome to find another GM.

"I don't think that rule is the best way to achieve the campaign you said you wanted" is a legitimate argument. "It's in the book, so I should be allowed to take it" is not. GURPS is a system designed to run games in many different settings and genres and styles; for any given campaign, there are rules that fit it like tap dancing shoes on an octopus. Choosing the appropriate options is part of the GM's job.

Bill Stoddard

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

If all the players don't want to play with the GM's creation rules, then it's the GM who must adapt. Forcing players to do something they don't want to do means they'll just drop out. Then were would you be?

Where would you be? Not running a game for people who won't cooperate. No gaming is better than bad gaming.

If the players all want to play a game where they are evil and torture and kill innocents, and the GM doesn't want to run a game like that, the GM doesn't have to adapt. If the GM is not okay with that game, and the players refuse to play something different, then the player and the GM are not compatible and the GM should find players he is compatible with.

GURPS, more than many games, is based on the idea of GMs making choices. Because the game gives multiple options, and many of them are mutually exclusive. Gritty realistic and supernatural silly don't work together, so the GM has to be able to limit choice to get a game that works. If your players refuse to accept any limitations on the standard magic system at all and you, for some inexplicable reason, want to continue playing with them, don't use the standard magic system. Use Path/Book or Symbol Magic, or Magic as Powers.

Part of being a good GM is creating a world framework. Part of being a good player is accepting that framework. Is there negotiation sometimes? Sure, but it doesn't sound like your players are negotiating, they are demanding to do whatever they want.

And really this is not just a GURPS problem.

In D&D, GMs are within their right to say, No Evil characters...or we aren't using any splat books, only stuff in the basic three books.
In Vampire I regularly had storytellers that said, Camarilla only. Or, no...you can't play a werewolf.

Players who won't accept that in this game world these spells aren't available...or only what in the Basic set...or no, you can't be a Psionicist in this game...or no you can't be a cop in this mafia game or whatever...those players are problems.