I keep goofing around with GURPS shit and I never get to play.
If I am very lucky, I get one or two sessions when FuzzyGeff makes his annual pilgrimage to Florida to visit Marv and I.
I loved tabletop role playing games once.
It was my main social activity at one time.
Now?
I do some reality checks and make characters that will never be played.
I polish the cannonball of converting Twilight: 2000 to GURPS 4e.
And...?
It's a little depressing.
Especially when I learn how woke and TDS the people who make and sell the games I still love are.
Most of the people we used to game with are either no longer with us or have dispersed over thousands of miles. other than a few that never escaped Ames. I've heard that during Covid times some people were using things like Zoom or Google Meets to game. I've also heard there are some specialized desktop interfaces for remote table top gaming. I've been interested at various times about developing someting like that which would work with a video meeting service. It could have online versions of the rules that were viewable and searchable and maybe even offser some automation of rule keeping/game play.
ReplyDeleteSomething that would not be like a MMORPG, but borrow some aspects from that. Maybe with map editors and world design tools. I don't know. There's a lot of potential.
Unfortunately the last time I read anything from SJG, they were not interested in talking to any outside game designers. I'm not even sure how much of a company they are at all anymore. It seems like they're pretty small any more.
I can't remember if I remembered to sign that... -swj
ReplyDeleteSame reason I have designed or reworked the designs of over 150 Traveller ships. Because the fun is in the details.
ReplyDeleteIt allows you to do the part of the game that doesn't need social interaction.
I believe there was a good rules module for the Foundry VTT software. It is tacitly supported by SJG. You can also load in an plug-in so that when you type page references in the standard format (e.g. B123) it can pull up the relevant PDF page. It's not free, however. Preparing and running a game in this software is also a whole entire skill set. There are YouTube videos by Chris Normand that reach you how to use it.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the things that draws Gurps gms to the game is the endless ability to tinker.
Daosus
I really miss TTRPGs. The main problem I remember is settling on what to play. You and Geff wanted GURPS, Bill (RIP) wanted Cyberpunk, Kurt Wilcken wanted wacky humor, and I was interested in several different things.
ReplyDeleteGURPS wasn't a setting. I've used it for Twilight: 2000, Traveller, fantasy, WW2, WW2 fantasy, cyberpunk, nexus worlds, prohibition era gangsters, golden age of piracy, several sci-fi space worlds, and Raiders of the Lost Arkesque treasure hunters.
DeleteThe setting doesn't come with GURPS, but that's OK, because I kept hitting walls with other rule sets and things I wanted to do.
I've played GURPS Deadlands, among some other backgrounds.
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