We're playing in a GRUPS: Forgotten Realms campaign. Where do we start? For me, I started with the gray-boxed set back in AD&D, so that is where I will start. A few ground rules are needed.
The only campaign material we will use is AD&D, first edition, Forgotten Realms books, campaign settings, and adventures. By the time AD&D 2nd Edition came out, the floodgates opened, and power gaming started. In the 2nd Edition campaign setting material, we get Planescape, Spelljammer, and a bunch of linked mini-campaign settings mixed in here.
Another reason to put a gate on the 2E adventures and material is that this is when the huge novelization push began, and the 2E books begin to creep towards a high-magic setting and power level. I do not want the modern-day Forgotten Realms, especially the world of Baldur's Gate 3, and I don't want the world to feel like the pen-and-paper version of a video game. Larian did an amazing job, but that is not the world I started with back in the 1980s, nor is it how I see D&D.
It does pain me to see where this world went today. It is everyday modern fantasy, with magic that isn't special, power is handed out for nearly free, and nobody fears death. Combat isn't even a serious choice; it is the default one. Something feels deeply wrong with that.
This isn't to say some of the 2nd Edition material fits or would be perfect, and there was more good than bad, but if we want a solid foundation, we will stick to AD&D 1E and stop there, with 2E material only on a per-book basis.
We want to begin in a low-magic, grounded, family-and-kin-matter, feudal world where people die for their kingdom and lords. Monsters are the spawn of chaos and demons; the gods are distant and disconnected from the world. No more gods and their entitled children walking around here! That ruined our world when we took it to 2E, and the GMNPCs from the books flooded our game and killed all interest in this setting.
Monsters are at the gates of civilization, and the armies of the Realms are battling to clear lands, establish forts, and spread civilization as other lands fall to the hordes. A major, established city that "has never ever been touched in lore" could (and should) fall during a campaign. Sorry, Arabel or Waterdeep, you are paid for and could be burned to the ground. The refugees will start flooding the roads, and the entire map will be turned upside down.
I do not care about IP or "this goes against lore" - back in 1987, the lore we all point at and hold as sacred on the golden altar of Wizards IP was never written down, and the setting was very much up to us to write the history for.
So, why GURPS? Couldn't you do this in AD&D 1E or an AD&D 1E clone, such as Adventures Dark & Deep? Couldn't you do this in 5E? I can't do this in 5E without the bad habits forming and the world instantly turning into high magic at level three. With AD&D or Dark & Deep, I have more time, and while the game has deadly, realistic grit, it would also feel very authentic.
But still, at higher levels, we start down the high-magic road. We also go into a place where a fighter can have 50 hit points and shrug off arrows and repeated stabs from longswords. I get it: the heroic fantasy genre needs these conventions, and they make it easier for players to engage with the world. Still, even 1E, with all its deadly, save-or-die, low-hit-point, limited magic, starts to pull away from the grounded reality I want. By level 5, the game is fighting me again; magic isn't mysterious and special, and we are moving back into high fantasy. By level 10, with several magic items on each character, there is little thematic difference between that and a 5E starting character.
I want a world where one arrow from a 25-point goblin can kill a 500-point combat master. Maybe the arrow has poison on it, or it will infect a wound; they are nasty creatures. This is why they are wiped out to the last one, and that is the world that these types of settings are based on. Back in "real history," things were brutal and savage, and there was no room to leave monsters alive for the good feelings and positive vibes. They would be back next year to burn the village and take slaves. And do worse.
Should that be in games? It is my choice, so it is. If we divorce our fantasy games from the reality they are based on, I feel we lose something, and the Disneyfication of the entire genre begins. D&D these days is so far down that road that the game is unrecognizable.
I also want suspicion. People in my version of the world will be suspicious of magic. Shocking, I know, coming from today's fantasy games. Elminster will be accused of selling his soul to demons to gain power, and other mages will do the same, taking the fast road to arcane knowledge. Of course, he should stand as an example of how to study magic the correct way, but even he isn't such a cut-and-dried character. Mages have to make sacrifices and deals to reach that next level of power.
GURPS lets me do that. An OSR game does not.
GURPS also lets me define divine power and create real tension between different gods and the populations that worship them. The followers of gods on modern-day Earth don't always get along, so why should Fearun be any different? With distant gods, we are keeping the divine mysterious, miracles rare, and faith powerful. The less power divine magic holds, the stronger it will be in the campaign. Faith and religions matter. Elves that worship the moon goddess will be seen as strange, dwellers of glades where no sun shines, and emerging at night to pray to their goddess. Other elves may shy away from them or think they are strange. Some may feel they are a bit too close to the Drow for comfort.
Real tension exists here! This makes a moon elf faction a serious and interesting group in the world. Where they hold land is a meaningful, powerful, and important faction. This isn't "just a background choice in the player's handbook," but a choice with real weight and meaning behind it. Those moon elves are different and a bit strange. A goddess gives them real power. They are taken seriously. They don't like dealing with outsiders, and they don't tolerate sun gods or their followers in their lands.
How all these new fantasy games turn meaningful cultural backgrounds into supermarket cheese choices makes me tired of them all. Do I buy cheddar or Swiss? American or provolone? It doesn't matter; it is all cheese. Give me my strong cultural backgrounds tied to the map, a god, and a culture. Putting XY and Z together and saying, "here is my fantasy shape," devalues the entire world and every choice you make in it.
Oh, and we are tracking loads and encumbrance here. You would do that in real life, too. Set your combat load, what you are dropping in the backpack, and what is on the horse. You would do that in real life too, if someone asked you to walk 4 miles out of town to investigate a hole in the ground. Modern gaming makes you lazy and puts your mind in dependency mode, where the game tracks encumbrance for you.
But to be fair, if you put in the effort, I will give your gear superpowers and not make you roll to pitch a tent or use a rope in a normal situation. Your gear will exist to "instantly solve problems," and you will not have to make that roll. If you have a tent and camping supplies, guess what? You can make a camp. I won't be a pain about it, and I'll give you that rest (as long as encounters are rolled for). Bandages? Food? Water? Mirrors? Poles? Chalk? Oil? Spare bowstrings? Spikes and a hammer? That gear list has a huge list of "gimmies" if you spend the time tracking and storing them on your character.
Tracked gear is free superpowers. Treat it as a part of your character build.
I need to break from the OSR and 5E thought chains. I need a system that forces players to rethink magic, combat, skills, and power. I need my world to focus on family, faction, religion, king, and kin. Even the OSR comes with a set of baked-in assumptions about power and combat. A level 8 fighter can shrug off a good number of shortbow and dagger attacks. In GURPS, that is never the case. You will get a resurrection spell at this level. In GURPS, I can make that spell as rare as finding the Holy Grail.
GURPS makes escaping the matrix of "modern fantasy groupthink" effortless. Everything changes, and you can't take anything for granted. Playing GURPS in the Forgotten Realms feels like "putting VR goggles on" and actually living in the world.
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