Cross-Post: GURPSDay Summary and Reflections

Government Accountability has
never been so kawaii.

In like a lion! GAO! Here's the Weekly summary and my meta-post on GURPS in blog world.

What's New (ish?)

Orbital Vagaries

Looks like the very start of a new campaign blog in a sci-fi, not too far into the future with a bit of space travel and the like. Kinda neat to see a campaign blog from the beginning; I've always been late to watch one so maybe this will be insightful to keep track of for me. (that 100 question interview with one of the PCs seems like a good idea... might see about touching that up a bit.)

The Red Mouser

Seems like there was a hiatus for a bit, but new to the blog-roll it looks like. It's little bits of everything, like reviews, advice, observations on going-ons, similar to the kinda content I post here, but in different concentrations.

Into The Storydark

A combination of setting building and content posting, currently working on a series on building a planet in the Infinite Worlds setting. Posting is sparser than some Blogs, but the content and prose is a treat to read.

Just Roll 3d6

A blog focusing on GURPS and RPG neophytes, trying to explain GURPS in a more accessible way. Interested to see where this goes, as I don't consider myself an expert yet either.

Other Observations

In GURPSWorld proper, a new franchise (is that the right word? series?) has started for post-apocalyptic gaming. In a meta-sense, I'm pleased because it is a really popular genre and it is something that a lot of people like to use GURPS for because it is something that it can handle better than a lot of other systems, so it seems like a pretty sharp strategic move. On a personal level, kinda meh about it, because the genre doesn't appeal to me specifically. There are probably a lot of useful bits I can cannibalize from it though, specifically, I like stuff on surviving the elements, which I'm sure will be an important element in the series.

Dungeon Fantastic has been making a lot of post recently that are right down my alley, I specifically like the one on negotiation and the one from today about build advice for overcoming certain problems. This Gear List post was something of an eye opener for me as well, in a more meta sense. Really liked this from Ravens N' Pennies too, some helpful meta-advice on using what your player's character sheets give you.

Self Reflection

Well, I've said it in a comment somewhere else, so I'll just copy-paste that bad boy over here, and reformat a bit to fit the format.

I'm pretty close to the end of the current series, but I think my next goal is to go take another step through the backdrops and add some more details. I like to stick to a theme while writing, but while writing terrain set piece posts, sometimes I realized that I felt my good ideas were just outside the border of the theme I was shooting for.

For example, I was writing this series so I could brainstorm things that would be useful in the immediacy of a several second long fight in GURPS in specific backdrops, but I kept thinking of other things like interesting obstacles that might span an entire dungeon rather than seconds in a fight, or interesting monsters that would work well in a particular backdrop, so I almost think I want to go back and do a little bit on both of those.

I have recently resolved to GM harder; I've been kind of a bit forgiving when it comes to permanent negative consequences, but I think that this might prevent characters from having a chance to be awesome despite themselves. So if my players actually read this, be prepared ;3. On the flipside, I got some advice on how to handle giving out things that I think my players should get, but they won't invest in, so there's that too.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm wasting people's time if I'm not posting stuff that can be immediately useful or novel, but surprisingly, one of my most popular posts is simply a page index of melee weapon modifiers that took me maybe twenty minutes. On the other hand, I made this system and a spreadsheet for calculating sophisticated point costs for elemental weaknesses and resistances, without requiring a user to do any of the work except naming the elements and saying how many elements each are strong and weak against. It took me hours, it was entirely mechanical, and (mostly) RAW, but mostly ignored. The point I'm trying to make to myself is this: some people have different opinions and likes and dislikes, and there's no telling what's interesting and what isn't until people get a chance to look at it.