Saturday, March 9, 2013

In Which I DO Recommend GURPS

In a couple of places (G+, for one, and in an article I read elsewhere) people have talked about good "intro" games for kids. Basically, a starter RPG.

Me, the starter RPG I recommend is full-on GURPS. Why? Because if you join my group, I'm going to run it for you. It's not that hard, although you can make it so. With a GM running it, much of the complexity can happen behind the scenes. Video games work exactly this way - does it matter to me if the tank game I'm playing calculates cross-wind and reduces my accuracy if I just point, click, and it says if I hit or miss? Nope. It doesn't matter in an RPG if you roll a 9 and I say "you hit!" and that's the whole extent of your participation in the rules.

But, my answer for people who want to start an RPG without a teacher - say, you want to gift it to a kid and have it be essentially read-and-play out of the box, well, my opinion will be different. I'd probably go with GURPS Lite, but if it seemed like they really needed a pick-up-and-play game I might go with Labyrinth Lord (if "free" is what I want) or Basic D&D (if it doesn't matter). Here the issue is the book needs to tell them everything they need to know without reference to a teacher. They'll Google stuff anyway, but you want to ensure they don't actually have to do much besides figure out to start, and then start.

But except for very young kids, I don't think rules complexity is an issue. Even for learning to play. When I was 9, I was playing and running Basic D&D. I did need someone to show me how to play, and how to read a map key (sorry, I wasn't born reading maps), and confuse me by adding in AD&D rules to the mix without telling me they didn't mesh flawlessly. But I learned. By 10 I was running AD&D. By 13 I was running GURPS and Rolemaster (I did get one chargen issue wrong in it, though) and other games.

I can't possibly be unusual in this respect. I don't think kids need things simplified for them. Very young kids, yes, I think it helps to simplify the larger game-world concepts and story elements (killing a PC and doing an endzone dance is funny when you're all 40, not so much when you're 7 and dad does it to you.) But rules? I don't think it's necessary.

So yeah, starter RPG? I'd hand someone GURPS in a second, and I'd run it (and frequently have run it) for people brand new to RPGs. It's not necessary to shield new players from potential complexity, because the obstacle is "Is it fun?" and not "Does it have a lot of rules?" At least to me it isn't.

13 comments:

  1. From having run for my two girls, one almost 5, the other 7, one thing that D&D gets wrong is a lack of defense rolls. If you don't have them (I added them into Dagger to run Keep on the Borderlands), kids will walk away from the table when it is not their turn and you'll have the damnedest time getting them back. GURPS gets that right. I've heard a number of folks with little D&D experience complain about the lack of a defense roll; it just feels weird to them coming from another RPG.

    The biggest obstacle with kids and RPGs isn't supposed rules complexity but rather reading ability, IME.

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    1. You know, I've never considered defense rolls from a "you get to do something on your turn" standpoint. That's very interesting. It might be why I can keep people's attention - not just kids, but adults. You can't do something and then walk away until your turn comes. You're constantly involved.

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    2. One guy who was a Rifts fan was very perplexed in a D&D game I ran that he didn't get a dodge, even after we pointed out to him that he was dodging, and the roll was assumed to be 10+Dex+Armor. He just didn't feel like he was doing something to avoid the blow.

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    3. I could see that. It's passive, so you don't feel involved. "He hit? What can I do about it?"
      "You already did that."

      It's abstract and if you want specific decision-based defenses, it's going to feel weird.

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    4. That happened to me after a LOT of GURPS, stepping back into DnD back in 93-97 timeframe. Granted, first level, but some foe crossed a huge amount of distance, hit me, and killed me, one shot, dead, and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't play DnD again for something like a decade.

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    5. One way to do it in D&D is that you attack monsters as usual, and when it’s the monster’s turn, you instead »save« from the monster’s attack. This replaces the monster’s die roll.

      Example:
      Let’s say you have AC 3 and a 4HD monster hits you. The monster would need to roll a natural 13 or above (in LL). Instead, you say the monster attacks, and you can “save” by rolling 9 or higher. You subtract whatever the monster would need to hit from 22.

      By replacing the attack roll with a save roll, you’re not meddling with the (admittedly probably already wonky) math of the game.

      I came first to gaming with systems that allowed a defense roll such as GURPS dogding, but after trying D&D I liked the one-roll→one-result style. Because of that, I’ve experimented in GURPS with rolling a bunch of dice at the same time. Three bigger D6 for the attack roll, three smaller light D6 for the defense roll, and a number of smaller dark D6 for the damage. The dice hit the table and it takes a bit of time to sort out. I haven’t timed it yet but I think it still be faster than rolling three separate rolls, especially if your dice are really different but still clear.

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  2. As a GURPS newbie, I have not found it at all difficult from a player perspective. Being GM seems a bit more complex, but I have not found the player aspect difficult. Easier than the first time playing D&D 3.5 by a long shot.

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    1. I think with any game, the GM can fairly easily make the player-facing rules pretty light. It's more complex if you're all new and need to share the load of course. And I can't think of a way to make 1st edition Champions seem rules-light, at least not off-hand. ;)

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  3. I wholeheartedly agree with you. I run a game with my 5 and 10 y.o. girls using GURPS. My 10 y.o. has joined my grown up game yesterday and did very well. Everyone wanted to see her join, so it wasn't an issue.

    As a gift, I think that the intro to RPG GMing shouldn't be in a generic system, but a focused one. I learned with Red Box D&D. It was soon time to move on, but I think that it was the right intro into the idea of roleplaying.

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  4. I can corroborate this. I just started my 8 year old boy on Dungeon Fantasy, which is a perfect "starter RPG" IMO. I basically ask him what he wants to do and translate it for him into game terms, but I make him do the math (I credit years of RPGs for a functional mental calculator). He's already catching on, which became obvious when he had a friend over and they played DF together (if you aim for the skull, you might miss!)

    What's funny is I tried to teach him Star Wars Saga Edition (a d20 game I actually mostly like) and it was far more frustrating for him. I think some of you already mentioned why, but GURPS let's you describe what you want to do and, for the most part, actually do it. Including trying to dodge and stuff. It's VERY unsatisfying for a kid to announce "I DODGE!" and you have to say "well ok, let's see if the bad guy rolls higher than your AC/Reflex Defense!"

    Anyway, I never thought GURPS would be a good "starter game" but I was totally wrong. Kids are smart enough to learn it, and it's simply not that complicated a game.

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  5. Actually, there is a relatively easy way to allow the players to "actively" dodge in d20 - style games, if what you mean by "actively" is "I get to roll.

    Assume the attacker rolled 10, and let the player roll d20+AC bonuses to beat it.

    That said, I agree with Jake about descriptive play. One advantage about the way GURPS simulates stuff is that it is fairly easy to translate plain English into GURPS. In practice, that means GURPS games only really need the GM to interpret.

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    1. Yes, there is a dodge rule, and it's even in the 3e DMG. (I use it with Dagger/Basic for my kids.) It's just that it's not standard, and as OSR folks like to remind us, modern D&D players just don't like to go against the printed rules. (Though the OSR folks don't like using that rule either.) My best time running D&D 3e was when I tried the Players Roll All the Dice option in Unearthed Arcana, since the players stayed in the game more (and I had less to roll).

      But I second both you and Jake on descriptive play, and GURPS facilitating that. My wife had a much easier time getting what was going on with GURPS than with D&D. With small children, however, you have the limitation of being able to read the character sheet. I'd say at about ages 9-10 you should be able to get kids into GURPS (and Pathfinder and full D&D) without too much trouble; a few kids earlier than that.

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  6. I think some things are very complex, and difficult, in GURPS. The magic system in Monster Hunters (called RPM) for example.
    You need to make both judgements (is making someone fly “altered traits”? Which paths is it?) and several arithmethic operations.

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