Happy GURPSDay, everyone! It’s the best day of the week that doesn’t include sleeping for 12+ hours and no work, so get out there and read some GURPS!
Today’s post is a scattershot, a sort of smorgasbord of topics all worth mentioning but not really needing a full blog post to themselves. Hopefully you’ll find at least a few nuggets of cool in here to take with you.
I am a man of rituals — my brain finds it soothing to do the same things, at the same times. So, each morning when I get home from a night’s work, the first thing I do is open my “Daily RPG” bookmarks to catch up on the last 24 hours of gaming goodness. I love knowing what’s going on in the world of games, new releases coming our way, developments to old lines, new tricks and tips and resources and story ideas and on and on and on. The internet is the gamer’s best friend.
One thing I notice in a lot of online gamer communities is frequent complaining about people putting forth GURPS as the answer to any question asked, whether it is an appropriate answer or not. I’m not saying that never happens — I’m sure there are some GURPS players whose passion sometimes clouds their judgement — but I think more often than not it’s a misunderstanding of the fact that, yes, GURPS really is the answer (or legitimately can be) to a huge percentage of gaming questions.
It’s not just that nearly any genre can be represented in GURPS, it extends to play style as well. Including 3rd Edition materials, there are scores and scores of books supporting all manner of genres: fantasy, near-future, far-future, Conan, anthropomorphic animals, “The Prisoner,” cyberpunk, Old West, Vikings, World War II… I mean, the list feels endless. But in addition to that, I’ve run games with multiple layers of rules and meticulous attention to details, games that were basically “roll 3d6 and let’s see what happens!”, and everything in-between.
I wish more people would understand that when we answer a post with “GURPS can do that by…” or “In GURPS, you could just…”, we’re not just blindly reacting and trying to cram a square peg in a round hole. GURPS really can do that, and that, and those three other things, and even that one thing you were sure it couldn’t. That’s the appeal of a universal system… it’s literally the reason GURPS even exists: to address the widest possible number of gaming questions and problems with a single flexible system. It’s only natural that it would be a possible fit for many more situations than any single-genre/single-play style set of rules.
Since we’re on the topic of online GURPS resources, I have to give another shout-out to the wonderful “GURPSDay” movement. In just a few short months it has grown to be an incredible resource, bringing together GURPS-related posts from 50+ blogs every single Thursday. It is an absolute avalanche of material, and I’ve discovered a lot of cool content I’m sure I would have otherwise missed. Absolutely worth checking out.
To say I’ve been overwhelmed by the response to “How to Be a GURPS GM” since its release a couple years ago (yikes, really?!) doesn’t even begin to cover it. I sincerely couldn’t have asked for more– the praise has been humbling, the critiques have been measured and helpful, and it has maintained constant sales every month in the low- to mid-teens.
The past few weeks in particular brought a number of comments that I really appreciated:
As if that weren’t enough, when I sent a quick thank you to the forum poster above, he replied with:
Reading that was completely heartwarming and uniquely moving. I may never read another review of anything I write that fills me with the same joy. 🙂
This YouTube video by the Shane Plays radio/podcast was posted a couple weeks ago, in which long-time GURPS GM Tony Dutra brings the host through character creation along with a ton of commentary and explanation of the game. There has long been a dearth of audio/video GURPS resources, so it’s always nice to see more.
I joined them for a follow-up video wherein Tony ran Shane through a 4th Edition version of the classic “All In A Night’s Work” adventure (Tony did all the heavy lifting, I just threw in commentary here and there). I’ll be sure to post a link in a few weeks when that one gets posted too.
As you know, a GM’s Kit is never finished. I’m always tweaking around the contents, looking for new useful items or “upgrading” existing ones. Here are the last couple of additions.
First, these 100 blank white PVC cards for about $12. Primarily useful for Fate (which goes through index cards like crazy), they’re also great for any RPG where it would be handy to have stiff, dry-erase writable cards for keeping track of things (which is to say, pretty much every RPG). Write on ’em, pass ’em around, then just wipe off at the end of the game and return to the pile. Awesome!
Second, a Game Geekery reader named Tom suggested this USB-rechargeable fan to replace the much bulkier, D-cell powered one I already had in my kit. I brought this to the last convention: it’s much less bulky, doesn’t require that I pack batteries, and isn’t any louder than the one I was already using while producing the same airflow. The perfect upgrade! Thanks, Tom.
Finally, here are a few of the things I’ve got on the ol’ back burner, hopefully to see the light of day in coming months.
That pretty much covers the state of my GURPS thoughts this week. As always, thanks for checking in. I’ll see you next Thursday — get out there and roll some dice!
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