Alsmost missed GURPSday and What's Next GURPS Deep Star

I have decided what GURPS game I will be running next.

GURPS Deep Star which is simply Star Trek style space exploration in a TL 9 setting using TL 11 "Alien" Star Ships

Like the last campaign, this game is designed to be episodic and to allow for player walk on and offs.

Inspiration include Ancient Aliens, UFO Folk Lore, a little X Files ,  Star Gate SG 1, Aliens 1-4, Outland , a tiny dash of Solider and Blade Runner, Runaway ,  Star Trek (of course) and the Tri Tac RPG Incursion 

PC's will be 255 points with a 15 point duty (all the time  hazardous) one of Code of Honor, Sense of Duty or Honesty and one 5 point disadvantage if desired. No points will be given for disdvanatges as they are worked into the point base.

Character types can be a a mixture of astronauts, specialized scientists and a few military personal. Most shoudl come from the Anglosphere and for any that do not, English at native is a requirement

House rules will include Doug Cole's  reduced hand weapon damage system and possibly Technical Grappling though this is unlikely to be used.
Whew.

Well that should be everything. Next week, maybe some crunch.

Till then. Good gaming.

My next plans regarding GURPS for 2016

I'm polishing up running a Pathfinder  game . I ran epic 6 (levels cap at 6 , get a feat  each session after) and it its been fun but on the whole I  found out that not Pathfinder is far from my ideal playstyle . Good fun  but not a great game.

Not only I'm I settling for a game that doesn't suit me well  that I am neglecting my old pal GURPS.
Well not any longer

So my "GURPS in 2016" will be another campaign. I don't know which setting but its going to be Action driven and to carry the fluid excitement that Pathfinder simply doesn't deliver

What I hope to accomplish aside from simply being fun is to introduce new gamers like the many walk-ins and drop ins at my FLGS who join our PF game for session or two  where we game to how great GURPS is

Get a little space in their head for GURPS and a taste for the game and we can grow the play base

It may never be as big as D&D, probably won't but there is lots of room to grow and I plan to do my part.

Its GURPS Thursday so a bit of personal history and making GURPS bigger

Well its becoming a custom in the community to post about the game on Thursday and though I'm not calling Thor's Day GURPSday seeing as how I've been part of the community for a very long time I figured I ought to contribute with an article on my personal history with the game

I've owned  GURPS since Man to Man and been a playtester and for a while it was the only RPG  I bought anything for or owned. 

For all that  I've only played or  run it a handful of times,. 

I've played a ton of games but  run mostly 2nd thru Pathfinder editions of D&D, some games of Marvel Superheroes and a lot of GURPS's cousin Unisystem (Buffy/Angel/All Flesh Must Be Eaten) 

And there is a reason for that. Lack of players and GM's  

In my experience not  many people at least in the US actually play GURPS or gravitate to it given a choice. 

There are a lot of reasons for it, perceived complexity , lack of flavorful rules (GURPS is workmanlike not exciting) too realistic for personal  taste and so on. 

Back in the heyday of print books and  mostly before the Internet was ubiquitous  this didn't matter much. Most GURPS books were bought as source books anyway. Some of them were well written enough you crib nearly an entire high school level maybe  college Freshman paper  from them.

Even the ones that weren't that dense were pretty much almost everything you need for gaming that setting style. 

Now though times have changed, 

Don't get me wrong, GURPS is not ill its in fact as healthy as a horse and in raw terms has more support than it ever had in the print book days. You can count on getting something cool every month and htis doesn't seem to be going anywhere   

But what it does not have is space in  the average gamer's mind. GURPS is a bit invisible to most being limited to a few hundred sales of its best stuff and maybe the core books on the shelf (my FLGS has them) 

That can change though and it is where we come in. 

If we want GURPS to be something more than a tiny niche for gearhead gamers , we the GURPS fans have to make it happen. 

We have to run them, encourage others to play and put in the hard work needed to make the game newbie friendly. Make the pregens  master the rules (easier said than done) and make the  game smooth as butter 

Its not always easy since most of us have lives, jobs, careers but if we are willing to say put in a few hours over a weekend we can make it happen. 

I'm in. Are you? 

RIP David Bowie

Sad as all heck that a mere few days after I post some David Bowie music, he passes on.

Thanks for all the music and entertainment Mr. Bowie. Heaven at least will be a bit stranger.

Same David Bowie

In honor of last nights rather humorous Pathfinder game. Random David Bowie as Goblin King appearance , very random musical number and one epic fail all on a night in which the GM was not on top of his game.

I Like My Magic Mundane Thanks

I've seen a lot of "weird" style gaming lately , Into the Odd , Middenmurk and of course Lamentation of the Flame Princess on my sidebar and you know there is nothing wrong with it if you are finding it fun.

What I don't get though is why some many people think magic ought to be weird, "mystical" or outright incomprehensible or that magic used to solve mundane problems is somehow "dull or pedestrian"

Not to put too fine a point on it but magic isn't very magical, its historically and in folklore  been nothing but a non linear means of solving mundane problems.


Let me give you two examples.

First up is the Hávamál,

This is a gnomic instructional poem kind of advice for Vikings and others from Odin. What makes this so germane is that it had eighteen spells listed and what they are for.

Let me go over the list from my favorite online version here

 #1 a blessing, #2 healing #3 protection from weapons #4 unbinding limbs for escape #5 Stop arrows

#6 counter curse #7 stop a fire in the hall #8 calm hatred #9 sooth storms at sea #10 stun witches , this one is a bit enigmatic but my understanding is its counters soul travel #11 battle blessing 

 #12 speak with dead. This is the only spell that is actually weird since it uses a hanged man  

I know the twelfth:
if I see up in a tree
a hanged corpse swinging,
I carve
and colour the runes
that the man moves
and speaks with me. 

of course if you know Norse myths and a it how sympathetic magic works in folkore, its stops being so strange since the ritual reenacts what happened to Odin on the world tree and very possibly some kind of shamanic ritual as well.

#13 consecrates the young as warriors and #14 is less a spell than a lore chant, like the great art of memory


A fourteenth I know: if I needs must number
the Powers to the people of men,
I know all the nature of gods and of elves
which none can know untaught.

This is again quite practical since such beings as the Land Vettir, Wights, Alfar and in some cases even the gods  can be interacted with, bargained with and negotiated  with . In a pinch such knowledge extremely and pragmatically  useful in the Norse  world view. 

#15 is a craft charm #16 and #17 love charms and #18 Odin isn't saying.

Now I don't know if ordinary folks could learn these either in some fashion in a part of the poem that's lost, from Odin or by dint of practice but even though its a God speaking of them these charms are outright practical, mundane and not very weird. You could make most of them with any edition of D&D , even the love charm (friends in 1st edition or charm person)

and this kind of practicality is not limited to Norse magic but its common in Goetia, Roman Magic and many other traditions.

Also DungeonMastahWieg kind of pointed me in the right direction here so kudos, when we look at it we even see the same practical spirit with the  magic-tech in Ghostbusters   detect ghost and supernatural , capture ghost/supernatural entity, contain ghost or supernatural entity (PKE meter, Proton Pack and Ghost Trap respectively )

Its not terribly different than a "Root Doctor" "Conjure Man" or "White Witch" might do when they weren't handing out herbal remedies.

And yes I'll note that folklore is short combat spells other than curses, if such spells were  thought possible its not doubt in my mind grimoires would be filled with "Lightning Blast, Fire Bolt and Mage Armor" too.


So what does this lead too, well 1st its not a criticism of Weird. Weird can be fun  Weird can be refreshing in small doses but it doesn't need to be an ethos.

Just as I like my armor like real armor, weapons like real weapons I like my magic mundane within the context of the game world and humdrum spells seem more immersive to me.

of course as with anything YMMV and   if there is one universal rule in gaming  its "If everyone is  having fun you are doing it right"

Magic!

In honor of an upcoming and much overdo post, Magic from the Ghostbusters Soundtrack