GURPS Is A Story Game

[sharps54]

With D&D our table standard is to level up after every (10 hr) session at earlier levels then drop off to every other session once the PCs have a few levels on them.

If I remember correctly Lion & Dragon uses a similar approach, leveling up after x number of sessions, x increasing as the character’s level does.

 

[Edgewise]

You're overlooking the significance of the stronghold in early D&D - it takes a steady supply of gelt to build, staff, and maintain a castle or a temple, or to conduct spell research and produce magic items.

But doesn't that make it even more metagamey? This means the XP-for-gold mechanics are not only encouraging a certain style of play now, but down the road as well. None of this has anything to do with getting better at swinging a sword.

Well, for starters, I disagree with the design of an adventure. I do not have a start point, certainly no plot building tension, and no conclusion in mind.

Situations exist. The PCs may or may not interact with them. The NPCs involved in the situations will react if the PCs interact.

What happens, happens.

Some of us still run sandbox games.

I strive for this sort of design, but to be honest, this kind of purism is hard to achieve in the real world. I make my adventures open-ended, but I'm definitely designing them with some thought as to the interesting situations that could arise and the creation of fun challenges. I definitely design hook, risks, rewards and dilemmas that I think the players will want to engage with. I just make sure that they don't have overly constrained "solutions" or responses, and I let the players deal with the situations as they please. I had to explicitly let one group of players know that they could literally walk away from a situation that they didn't feel that could succeed in.

If you're truly designing a player-agnostic world, then you either need terrific players to actively create opportunities for engagement, or you have to be a lot better than me at cueing the right kind of play style from your players. I'd love to know the secret(s).

 

[robertsconley]

I think people take early D&D idea of castle building becoming lords too literally. Domain building can happen at any level and the scope can be as small as building a inn to as expansive as becoming Emperor. To become a lord or magnate naturally falls at higher levels because of the connections and resources involved. So takes time, luck and opportunity to acquire all of which are more plentiful as the character survives longer.

Castle building and becoming lord is a relatively narrow interest. But expand it to a general idea of making a mark on the world and establishing oneself suddenly a lot of players are interested in the possibilities. Especially when examples of other players have done litter the setting.

 

[David Johansen]

So, during my 5e evil kingdoms campaign, at one point they decided they wanted to kill the king of Trondar. I said, "you know, this is D&D and a guy's not going to be king unless he's totally badass or someone would take it from him right?" Well, anyhow, they fought him 20th level fighter with a sword of lightning that does 5d8 damage, him talking all the time and not trying too hard. Even if the fight had gone badly he had a well payed if not loyal (evil kingdoms...EVIL KINGDOMS!) 20th level cleric and a 20th level wizard standing right there to bail him out. A sizable party of 6th level PCs were no real threat to him. Mostly putting on a show for his court. But after a couple of rounds the PCs were running out of short and long rest recharge abilities and suggested a break for lunch. By the end of lunch they were working for him. You don't get to be king of a kingdom that worships evil gods and where most noble houses have demonic blood in the line, without some Charisma and Intelligence right?

 

[Black Vulmea]

Domain management isn't something that comes in until late into a campaign and plenty of players just don't engage with the idea.

Plenty of players are welcome to sit at someone else's table.

But as for me and my house, we will serve as Lords.*

I guess you can view domain management as a mandatory part of the campaign arc with XP for gold as part of that system to help enforce it.

Have you read The First Fantasy Campaign?

But doesn't that make it even more metagamey?

It makes it gamey, which probably follows from the fact that it's, y'know, a game.


*With apologies to Joshua. And Yahweh. Especially Yahweh.

 

[Baulderstone]

Plenty of players are welcome to sit at someone else's table.

But as for me and my house, we will serve as Lords.*


Have you read The First Fantasy Campaign?

I have. That was a great read.

It makes it gamey, which probably follows from the fact that it's, y'know, a game.


*With apologies to Joshua. And Yahweh. Especially Yahweh.

That's really my main point. Maybe I could be arguing more clearly, but I am simply saying that XP for gold is a very gamey system. Not that there is anything wrong with that. As we seem to agree on the main issue, I am more than happy to concede on the points I made as supporting arguments.

 

[CRKrueger]

So, in a system with broad, abstracted class-based archetypes, how exactly do you model getting better at swinging a sword vs. riding a horse vs. casting spells vs. sneaking vs. climbing?

In an abstracted system, XP for Gold is a high level abstraction. The acquisition of gold indicates success. Success indicates you get better.

It’s an imperfect abstraction, which is why they later added XP for defeating opponents, XP for achieving specific tasks, XP for class appropriate behaviors, etc.

However, XP for gold is directly related to actions and results of the character. There’s nothing metagame about it.

 

[dbm]

I would say that it is the level-based system which is driving the disconnect. There is no reason why you can’t have a RQ-style ‘use skills to get better at those skills’ in combination with an archetype mechanism that dictates which skills you start off good at.

 

[Lessa]

XP for gold seems aimed at emulating a genre or particular stories to me. More than aiming for realism or trying to be interesting from a pure gameplay standpoint.

 

[robertsconley]

Interesting tidbit on the business of building stronghold. From Page 24 of Underworld and Wilderness Adventures.

PLAYER/CHARACTER SUPPORT AND UPKEEP:
Player/Characters must pay Gold Pieces equal to 1% of their experience points for support and upkeep, until such time as they build a stronghold. If the stronghold is in a wilderness area, all support and upkeep costs then cease, but if it is in a village or town not controlled by the player/character, then support and upkeep payments must continue.

So this means if a 9th level Fighter with 300,000 xp hasn't bothered to build a stronghold they have to pay 3,000 gp per month to support themselves.

 

[robertsconley]

So Page 18 of Men & Magic wasn't a model of clarity on how to award experience points. Before the Greyhawk supplement was released Gygax talked about XP awards in Strategic Review #2.

Experience: Low value should be placed upon magical items as far as experience is concerned, as such items will be highly useful in gaining stilI more treasure. Thus, in the Greyhawk campaign a magic arrow (+1) is worth a maximum of 100 points experience, a +1 magic sword with no special abilities is valued at a maximum of 1,000 points, a scroll of spells at either 500 or at 100 points per level per spell ( so a 6th level spell is worth a maximum of 600 experience points), a potion is worth between 250 and 500 points, and even a genie ring is worth no more than about 5,000 points maximum. Valuable metals and stones, however, are awarded experience points on a 1 gold piece to 1 experience point ratio, adjusted for circumstances -- as explained in D&D, a 10th level fighter cannot roust a bunch of kobolds and expect to gain anything but about 1/1Oth experience unless the number of the kobolds and the circumstances of the combat were such as to seriously challenge the fighter and actually jeopardize his life. For purposes of experience determination the level, of the monster is equivalent to its hit dice, and additional abilities add to the level in this case. A gorgon is certainly worth about 10 level factors, a balrog nut less than 12, the largest red dragon not less than 16 or 17, and so on. The referees judgement must be used to determine such matters, but with the foregoing examples it should prove to be no difficulty.

The Greyhawk supplement on Page 12 explained fully with a table how to award XP for monsters.

 

[opaopajr]

Honestly, I think this is all a ploy by David Johansen to get some long-pining-for GURPS talk in here at the Pub.

 

[dbm]

... I’ll drink to that!

 

[robertsconley]

Honestly, I think this is all a ploy by David Johansen to get some long-pining-for GURPS talk in here at the Pub.

I am always good to talk about GURPS.

 

[David Johansen]

Honestly, I think this is all a ploy by David Johansen to get some long-pining-for GURPS talk in here at the Pub.

shhhh...ixnay on the URPSGay

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Plenty of players are welcome to sit at someone else's table.

Yeah, this is always the right answer to "but some players won't engage with this".

I don't have any interest in running games that most players would be interested in. I'm interested in running the games that have stuff I think is cool, for players that agree that stuff is cool.

 

[Voros]

I am always good to talk about GURPS.

We always talk about GURPS in a broad way, which I guess kinda makes sense but I’d rather we had a thread dedicated to their many cool genre-specific supplements.

If no one else gets around to it I’ll do it, I’ve got the Cops and Cabal books.

First though I gotta review the copy of Dragon Raid Dumarest sent me!