Training Players, Training Characters

While planning for my current GURPS Fantasy homebrew, I realized that one of the biggest problems we’d run into early on was that only one of my players had any real experience with GURPS (and that was mostly 15 years ago) and four of them hadn’t been exposed to the game at all.  GURPS isn’t like most newer games out there that focus on simplicity or a specific gimmick (using playing cards, special dice, abilities that give players the ability to redesign the world, etc.).  GURPS is an attempt to codify the ‘real world’ in a rules set and extrapolate on that to allow for any genre of gaming.  Sure, the basics are pretty straight-forward: roll 3d6 and get below your skill or Attribute.  The permutations from there, however, can get a bit daunting.

Flash back a few years ago: I had a similar situation.  A friend was coming to visit from out of state who wanted to try some stuff with Pathfinder.  Rather than just put a couple of miniatures on the table and say ‘go’, I decided to set up a gladiatorial-style arena where they were pitted against different types of monsters.  While running that, it struck me that might be an interesting way to start a campaign, something different from the typical “you meet in a tavern at the invitation of a hooded figure” kind of fantasy trope.

So I started planning for the game to start out with the characters captured and enslaved, sent to the arena to die (which, of course, they didn’t).  We just finished out second game of the campaign, where the characters were transferred to the Ludus where they’re to be molded into real gladiators (or, in one character’s case, re-molded).  After some acclimation to their new surroundings (and their orcish trainer), we did a ‘training montage’, at the conclusion of which they got some points to spend on attributes.

The approach, I realized, was not dissimilar to how the old D&D boxed sets worked.  In the first boxed set, characters were level 1-3 and the rules focused solely on how to adventure in a dungeon setting.  All the monsters were subterranean, all the rules on movement, lighting, etc. were focused on being inside.  Only with the second boxed set, once the characters got to 4th level, did wilderness adventure come into play, with expanded rules on overland travel, wilderness encounters and the like.  Basically, the idea was to train the players on how the game worked in a controlled setting while the characters learned how to work together before giving them the liberty to pick a direction and go see what’s there.  While not nearly as contrived as the old D&D boxed sets were, this is basically why I decided to start this campaign in the gladiatorial arena.

The advantage to this start, restrictive as it is, is that it gives the players a ‘safe-ish’ place to learn the rules of the game, particularly combat (which is, admittedly, the most complex aspect of any game).  It also provides some free training to the characters, letting them increase some of their combat-oriented skills that will be useful later on when they’re released into the wild to make their fortune (and yes, at some point the characters will no longer be gladiators, but how that’ll happen isn’t so clear-cut).  So far, its worked pretty well, I think, as folks (particularly casters) have started figuring out tactics to use in combat and how they work (and how well they might work).

The negative to this method, of course, is that many advantages/disadvantages chosen during character creation are in ‘abeyance’ for now, particularly Status, Allies and Enemies.  And, well, the training is somewhat narrowly focused… those characters focused on social or mental skills/abilities are, essentially, being forced to bump up their combat abilities, which is something they may not have planned for their character (or, at least, not planned on doing for a while).  I stand by the idea that it will help them in the long-run with developing their characters towards action-adventure, but I do get it can be a bit frustrating for folks who planned to focus on social/mental abilities and skills.  And, of course, its extremely railroady… I tend to run very open sandbox style games where the player’s characters pretty much dictate where they go and what themes are significant, but this method pretty much traps them in a series of similar situations pre-planned by me.  I’m not crazy about that, but I think the trade-off is worth it.  Fortunately, I’ve a good, solid group of players willing to trust that I’m not starting out a campaign just to kill them off (not saying a character death won’t happen here or there… just that its not _intended_).

Anyways, I figured it’d be worth explaining why I decided to start this newest Feyworld campaign the way I did.  To give both the player and the characters time to train up in preparation for being let loose on the world and making their fame and fortune however they choose.

I can’t wait to let ’em loose to see what they do and where they go!

Excited and nervous

New tabletop game starts in Feyworld tomorrow… this time set in Dracia and using the GURPS Fantasy rules.  I’ve been working hard to convert things over from Pathfinder, which is a fine system, but a bit too high-fantasy for what I imagine Feyworld to be like.  I’ll be posting more musings soon, just figured I’d post a quickie post to get things rolling in the new vein.

I’m excited… I think I’ve a great group together for this game and I’ve a lot of good ideas, mainly from them.  I’m also nervous because I think this is going to be drastically different from what most of them are used to in a fantasy tabletop game.

…I hope it works.  I hope they have a blast.

More later (likely after tomorrow’s game).  I’ve still a lot of work to finish up before 2pm tomorrow!