[Diatribe] Bringing the GURPS

[Xplo]

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.

Is this the thread of disillusioned GURPS attempters complaining about how they couldn't make GURPS work for them, or what?

Who's ignoring you? The forums are generally open to magic variants, or at least tolerant of them. The company put out an entire book full of rules and ideas for tweaking the standard magic system or replacing it entirely. If it was your players, that's not the game's fault.

[baakyocalder]

The biggest trouble I've had with getting people to play GURPS is the buffet of options for building characters and campaigns. The strength of GURPS as a toolkit is its weakness as a system for new RPG players, or players new to GURPS.

With proper GM oversight and support, that's not as much of an issue as the people who have been complaining about GURPS make it out to be.

GURPS 3e had no templates until around the Compendium days, so you just had 'a knight will typically have these advantages.' GURPS 4e has templates in all the major setting books that are easy to use as is and easy to modify. For example, the swashbuckler in Banestorm could easily move over to a historical Golden Age of Piracy (17th century on Earth) game, or be given a force sword and more high-tech transportation and become a space pirate. With templates, mathematically-challenged players and players who aren't sure what a particular character would look like in GURPS get a great deal of help. GURPS GMs should also be able to help, because as whswhs points out, when planning a campaign the GM knows what they want to run and can guide the players to making characters that work more effectively in that campaign.

I have had players make characters the old-fashioned way and use templates for ease of use and I did narrative character creation where the players basically answered questions and I then made the characters based on that. Narrative was best, but mainly because I know the system and the players had characters in mind. I also left a little room at the end for tweaking, just so in case my interpretation of player input was off.

Thus, character generation isn't that hard in GURPS, provided one knows what the campaign is about.

That brings me to the second problem people have with GURPS, GMing it. These problems break down into three areas: rules, available settings and available modules.
1. rules: GURPS is a universal system with a lot of rules. HackMaster 4e, another rules-heavy game, is set for ultraviolent over-the-top old-school adventuring (while it could do less over-the-top adventuring, as a licensed AD&D product it has many of the limitations of that product). GURPS is actually better than HackMaster on the rules. GURPS has a design philosophy that it is a toolkit compared with the HackMaster mandate that all rules, however ridiculous they are (and there are several really bad rules), must be played to play the game right. GURPS also keeps the rules simple by having them be consistent. A -6 penalty to skill should be about the same for all skills, not some crazy modifier for a skill here and a second skill as in other RPGs (3.x.y D&D has this issue). Players need to know far less of the GURPS rules to play. Honestly, having your skill lists and knowing to roll 3d6 with simple math given to you by the GM covers you in GURPS for skill rolls. The combat rules, even though they were made more complicated between 3e and 4e GURPS, are still pretty simple for players to grasp. We've also seen the introduction of range bands in Action, vastly speeding up combat through reducing the time the Speed/Range table is needed. GURPS combat does not take substantially longer than combat in most other RPGs. If you use mook rules or the Army of One rules from Supers, it's quite quick with decisive players.

2. Settings: GURPS has a huge number of worldbooks from 3e that are digitized are cheaply available in dead tree (paper) format. The newer 4e genre books are indeed more like toolkits than prefabricated settings. FREX: Supers tells you how to build Supers worlds and gives you a number of examples but the sample worlds are a few paragraphs each. However, one should consider that few RPGs really have detailed settings. Even the 'By Night' series White Wolf did had small amounts of information on one area. Unless you have a long-running setting like Forgotten Realms or one with a great deal of fiction around the whole game is based such as Dragonlance, well you probably get a few specific setting pieces. Even attempts to build a setting from the ground up, such as the fine Kingdoms of Kalamar setting by Kenzer & Company leave huge amounts of information for the GM to develop (and that setting laid out a good amount of material in the campaign book, has two books to describe one city in detail, and its race books are more fluff than crunch. . .). If a GM needs that level of detail, well they probably won't find it in GURPS. However, with all of the information GURPS collects, much of it systemless, it's easy enough to mine GURPS for information to build your campaign.

3. prefabricated adventures, aka modules: these adventures sell poorly for almost every company. They tend to be fundlosers, instead of fundraisers. What the bulk of the complaintants forget in their analysis is that adventures are short and easily written. With the rise of electronic publishing and the release of the TSR back catalogue on PDF (sadly unavailable now in WOTC's anti-piracy campaign), adventures suddenly became widely available in the past few years for fairly cheap. However, prefabricated adventures always require the GM to adjust them. Prefabricated adventures vary widely in quality-the HackMaster version of Against the Giants, Annihilate the Giants. has far more potential for roleplaying and is far more detailed in setting a mood than Against the Giants. Against the Giants is a classic TSR adventure, so when it seems to be just a bunch of rooms and encounters, well you can see how difficult it is to write an adventure that works for a number of groups. What the smarter complaintants have noticed is that there are few adventures to help one new to writing GURPS adventures. This is true of many game systems-introductory adventures tend to be weak. A GM learns best by doing and very few modules could, without extensive notes, help a new GM with design.

That being said, having some introductory adventures for DF and for Action would help new players. Those are two easy genres for most players to understand and if one were demoing GURPS, two good ways to quickly get players into the game.

However, I don't think Steve Jackson Games should worry so much about the lack of introductory material. GURPS is a toolkit and it does its job very well. Unless I really want the over-the-top hack-n-slash of HackMaster or the alt-history West with the Shot Clock in Aces & Eights or some Car Wars car-on-car action (also by SJG), I'm playing GURPS or running GURPS. There's enough cheese in Dungeon Fantasy for all the 3.x.y players. ..

So, I don't see the need to make others unhappy by ranting about how GURPS is so awesome. Those who don't get GURPS just want to play with prefab construction kits instead of using the ultimate adventure construction set. . .

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by baakyocalder

Those who don't get GURPS just want to play with prefab construction kits instead of using the ultimate adventure construction set. . .

I think the people who demand prefab would never be attracted to GURPS in the first place. Which is fine. But there are people who do want to play GURPS who raise some of the same issues again and again: how many points to build NPCs on, how to balance combat encounters, how to challenge highly skilled PCs, how to keep combat from dragging down when nobody can get through anyone else's defenses, how to build characters quickly with so many options to choose from.

The GM advice chapter in Campaigns has a lot of high-level conceptual advice about GMing, but maybe doesn't delve into the nitty-gritty enough to help new GMs who understand the high-level concepts but lack enough familiarity with the system to know how to apply them in terms of rule choices and NPC design and such. I wonder if it would be a good idea to revise that chapter (or, given the limitations of editing and pagecount and the fact that old material would have to be cut to make room for new, maybe a separate online supplement would work better).

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Xplo

I think the people who demand prefab would never be attracted to GURPS in the first place. Which is fine. But there are people who do want to play GURPS who raise some of the same issues again and again: how many points to build NPCs on, how to balance combat encounters, how to challenge highly skilled PCs, how to keep combat from dragging down when nobody can get through anyone else's defenses, how to build characters quickly with so many options to choose from.

The GM advice chapter in Campaigns has a lot of high-level conceptual advice about GMing, but maybe doesn't delve into the nitty-gritty enough to help new GMs who understand the high-level concepts but lack enough familiarity with the system to know how to apply them in terms of rule choices and NPC design and such. I wonder if it would be a good idea to revise that chapter (or, given the limitations of editing and pagecount and the fact that old material would have to be cut to make room for new, maybe a separate online supplement would work better).

I think a GMing Tips for GURPS would be a great product. Ideally (well, my ideal) it would include a chapter from Kromm about that combat crunch, but also have chapters from other style GMs about how to GM in other styles...like how to GM really gritty, how to GM for method actors, how to GM at really high powered levels (2k+), how to GM for hack'n'slashers, how to GM for the rules lite, etc.

[The Final Door]

Originally Posted by zorg

Do we? I'm not sure.

I'm sure. It's what I get from everyone who pays interest to GURPS (or any other new system, for that matter). "Do you have something ready to run?". Handing them a stack of notes is like handing them a bowl of melted ice cream, they understand the gesture but can do nothing with it. If everything is in one easy packet, I could kick off playing groups like a franchise.

I can't help people I've never seen or even talked to to get a game running.[...]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.

And anyone who understands skills can make their own and the background, so who needs any books, really. Or a system, for that matter. Books exist because there are writers who can convey ideas without face-to-face time. Pre-assembled packages help many people. Not everyone wants to make learning a new game a treasure hunt. I think there lies the flaw of many arguments in threads like this: We need to reach the people who are not hell-bent on GURPS uber alles. If you only need a free PDF to play, more will venture in. If you need to argue with tons of rabid fans to do a session, I'd walk out in an instance, and so would, and do, most who look at GURPS (from my personal samplings).

I do play Gurps with my current group, and have played Gurps with other groups in the past.

You're the choir, as are we. It's Other People that need to care. If we don't care, they don't care, and you can't introduce the game to hundreds of players on your own dime (I presume). Neither can I. A quick'n'dirty solution is needed. If they never get that, most will never enter our world, where we can actually talk to them about the game. Bye-bye new players, hello existing and diminishing group. Bye GURPS.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by The Final Door

I If you only need a free PDF to play, more will venture in. If you need to argue with tons of rabid fans to do a session, I'd walk out in an instance, and so would, and do, most who look at GURPS (from my personal samplings).

GURPS Lite and Caravan to Ain Arris.
All free PDFs and all you need to play.

[zorg]

Originally Posted by The Final Door

"Do you have something ready to run?".

Interesting. My own experience is quite different; I know barely a RPer who has ever ran a ready-made adventure. This doesn't prove anything one way or the other, of course, except that we have a different gaming background, you and me :)

If you need to argue with tons of rabid fans to do a session...

Do you mean the forums here? I don't see people asking for advice get trashed, usually (even though I think that using the Search function before asking a question should be obvious; but that's a different issue).

...you can't introduce the game to hundreds of players on your own dime (I presume). Neither can I. A quick'n'dirty solution is needed.

Good heavens! What would I ever do with hundreds of new players?

Seriously: all I can do is recruit new players to my group, and to spread the love to those I know. This is, as I understand it, Bringing the Gurps, in a very practical and useful way. I, personally, can do this without a special, dedicated supplement.

Why should I bother to introduce people I'll never game with to Gurps? This is not a trick question; I'm seriously not getting it. As far as I can see, my only concern is, and can be, to get enough players to run a game. I'm not earning money with Gurps, so I don't see how convincing strangers does anything for me.

Originally Posted by trooper6

GURPS Lite and Caravan to Ain Arris.
All free PDFs and all you need to play.

That, too, of course.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by trooper6

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.

<snip>

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.

Right on!

Antediluvian RPGs tended to over-interpret the element "-master" in "gamemaster" and "dungeonmaster", and gave GMing advice more suitable to running a gulag than to playing a game. That was wrong, but it's also wrong to lean over backwards. A GM is not a master, but he's not a servant either, and he is (typically) under no obligation to put himself out to amuse the character-players.

[The Final Door]

Originally Posted by zorg

Interesting. My own experience is quite different; I know barely a RPer who has ever ran a ready-made adventure. This doesn't prove anything one way or the other, of course, except that we have a different gaming background, you and me :)

It's almost traditional for me. Novice GMs want it so they feel more confident, veteran GMs want it to check out the system or just because they don't have the time to do everything themselves (I sympathize). It proves nothing in the grand scheme of things, but IMO it proves that there is a need unfulfilled out there, which turns people away.

Do you mean the forums here? I don't see people asking for advice get trashed, usually (even though I think that using the Search function before asking a question should be obvious; but that's a different issue).

He, didn't come out right. I didn't mean trashing, I meant that walking into a new 'social club' of veteran gamers is daunting, and many do not feel up to it. Especially young GMs seem to want to figure things out for themselves. Not that I should blame them, I refuse by default to read manuals before something starts to actually burn :D People usually don't want to buy something with the metaphorical sticker saying "to use properly, go online and talk to non-staff support". I wouldn't for anything I buy, nor do I think would anyone but the most veteran open-source supporter (I am an OS supporter, and even I dislike doing it).

Good heavens! What would I ever do with hundreds of new players?

Hehe just got mental image of people swarming you (and I only have your avatar to imagine as you, making it even more odd). No, you don't need a hundred players. But GURPS needs hundreds of new players to grow to a sufficiently(!) profitable level again, or at least that is my take on the whole "boost GURPS" schtick. GURPS needs a broader fan base to support it, in strict financial terms (more sale = more books & more available groups around). And exactly because none of us need nor probably want a gazillion players, GURPS needs something to lift it without us in charge all the way. I need to know that when I get someone interested in GURPS, I don't have to do everything to keep them running. They need something to keep them going until they do it like second nature. And even after decades, 'second nature' is more than I'd call my game, or that of anyone I know (GURPS or otherwise).

Why should I bother to introduce people I'll never game with to Gurps? This is not a trick question; I'm seriously not getting it. As far as I can see, my only concern is, and can be, to get enough players to run a game. I'm not earning money with Gurps, so I don't see how convincing strangers does anything for me.

And that, once more, is where I think there is a mentality issue that divides people here. I am not saying anybody is right, but I am saying that we, in here, have far more different views on this than we seem aware of. You and some others (I have no idea how many) see "Bringing the GURPS" as showing love and support for the game. Theoretically, that takes nothing more than enjoying playing it. I and some others (again, no known number) see it as providing an actual growth in supporters, so that the game can grow and maybe become profitable enough for the "4 books per year" once expected (don't we wish). It's a numbers thing. Personal fun is personal gain, but gain as a group requires growth, because GURPS is shrinking, and we don't want it to (I am not one of those who actually expect it to compete with D&D or WoD).

That's why I have asked people now and then about what they're actually thinking when they want to Spread The Word, Bring The GURPS, Boost The Fans, or whathaveyou. Want to show the game some love? Want to raise game awareness? Want to create a non-SJG resource network? "Bring the GURPS" is a nice slogan, but as all slogans, it's horribly vague on the actual goals.

[The Final Door]

Originally Posted by trooper6

GURPS Lite and Caravan to Ain Arris.
All free PDFs and all you need to play.

Not enough. Not even by a mile. Ein Arris is a small adventure, it will only sustain a brief test. If you want something to kick ass (and face it, if GURPS is to grow, ass-kicking is needed in this market), you need more than a quick sample. I try plenty of samples of tons of things, they don't hook me. If there is something that can start me up and give me some experience with it, chances increase dramatically.

One adventure for a RPG is like promoting a webcomic with one free strip.