YouTube: Nosh Solo, Keep on the Borderlands

 

Nosh Solo is doing a fantastic series of solo plays on YouTube, going through the classic Keep on the Borderlands with GURPS 4e. We get seven 100-point characters, built off Dungeon Fantasy templates, going through the adventure. This started a few weeks ago, and it rocks. Let's show our YouTube creators some love and support this weekend!

This is like listening to a fantasy adventure podcast for GURPS, and it inspires me. This is so well done, and it needs more views, comments, likes, and attention.

This is like a look into an "alternate universe" where Steve Jackson Games got the rights to D&D and used the GURPS rules for the game. It is such a different experience, much more story-based, much more gritty and realistic, and a far better "narrative game" than even the "narrative-focused" games we have in the hobby today.

Grounded, gritty, realistic, historical, and hard-hitting fantasy? GURPS does it the best.

And this is one of the best solo plays in GURPS, and it is currently being developed! This hasn't ended yet, and it is time to jump in, follow along, comment, and join in the fun. We have seven so far, and catching up is not that hard and quite enjoyable.

If you start a podcast or live play series this weekend, definitely make it this one.

Western Realm Atlas, Worldbuilding

I like converting campaign worlds to GURPS, but I often feel the original systems were just "made" for them. My current campaign is set in the Aquilae world, which is an extraordinary setting over on DriveThruRPG, which is a system-neutral setting where you can do anything you want. It's just maps, roads, towns, cities, kingdoms, ruins, and terrain, and you fill in the rest. For creative people who want to fill in "what goes where," this setting is a fantastic canvas. Those who want a fully developed setting will find this lacking. I love worldbuilding given a set of parameters, and having a setting where I can just "fill in what I am given" is endless enjoyment for me.

Aquilae is sort of like a "paint by numbers" campaign setting, where you are given a premade picture, paints, what color goes where, and you fill in all the rest. True artists will hate these, but they can be fun projects that are relaxing and low-key chill. It doesn't matter if it looks different than the picture, as skill varies and people may make other choices. Do you want to put in a fluffy cloud layer in the middle ground? That is your choice, go watch a few videos on how this is done, practice, and add that to your masterpiece. Want to blend colors and create a pretty shade of green (for color 45) with a hint of blue and purple? Go for it! The guidelines are here, but you can be infinitely creative within them. In the end, you will have something you made by hand, with your own personal touches.

Everyone can feel like a world builder, just like everyone can feel like an artist.

Yes, GURPS: Forgotten Realms is fun, and it plays very nicely, but a part of me will always see that as the AD&D world, before all the novels, that it was in our campaigns. The same with Dark Sun or Greyhawk, those will always be tied to one version of AD&D or another. GURPS versions of these are fun, but I feel at home in them with a decent first-edition game, such as Adventures Dark & Deep, or even Castles & Crusades.

Also, other settings that were designed to fit a theme are fun, such as the Conan-inspired Savage Thule, but if I am playing GURPS, I am playing GURPS Conan. Some of the "flavored" 5E settings are very well detailed and make fine GURPS settings, but given a choice, I will play GURPS: Vikings over a Viking-themed 5E setting. While these are fun, they are more "best of" and "tribute" settings when GURPS can give you the real thing.

And Harnworld is also a fantastic GURPS setting, one of the best. This is my dream GURPS setting for a serious, meaty, political game. It is not so much a "dungeon" setting as it is a "Game of Thrones" one. I could put dungeons on the map, but the world is far more interesting to explore and meet the people of. Everything you can ever want in a classic Middle Ages setting is here.

Something keeps me coming back to the very strange and almost quirky Aquilae setting, a system-neutral setting by design, that lets you fill in all the blanks. It is nothing more than a giant hex map of cities, roads, and optional GM's information on ruins and other secret places. You do with it what you want. Harnworld assumes "you read the books," where this setting "has nothing." 

That is a freedom I like, since there is no required reading (while fun), and if I want this city to be one thing, and that another, I can just have it. This kingdom in the middle can be the evil one, and the two on each side are good, but weaker. There are plots and motivations in my head. If I need NPCs or taverns, I have plenty of random charts. Maybe the evil king has a black dragon he rides and sends on missions. There are ruins and dungeons out there, and I get to make them myself.

It is much more of a sandbox canvas for my ideas than it is anything else. It gives me a map and names, and I do whatever I want with them. Another thing I like is that the world does not rely on a set of monsters being the villains; I can use whatever I like, the monsters from Dungeon Fantasy, some of the excellent GURPS bestiary conversions on the Internet, my B/X converted monsters, or any other monster I want. Also, there are no assumptions on fantasy races here; if I wanted this to be all human, I could have that. I can put the standard four here, or go all out with the modern mix.

Anything I want, I can have.

Just like GURPS.

The Weird Fantasy Genre

With weird fantasy, one of the best games that tries to dive into it is the great Dungeon Crawl Classics game. The dungeon is not supposed to be "the normal," as entering the dungeon is more like Alice stepping into the looking glass. This is the upside-down world, where nothing should work or seem normal, and a place apart from reality, like a near-death perception-altered experience.

D&D 5E turns dungeons into video-game levels, boards in a strategy guide to clear. This comes from D&D 4E, which is why modern Wizards D&D is not D&D. The classic D&D experience is defined by that "Beyond the Looking Glass" dungeon crawl, of a dungeon master using their twisted imagination to create an out-of-body experience in other players' head spaces.

I have had my 5E groups go through a dungeon without fear. All my AD&D groups had fear.

Making D&D into "influencer fantasy" with slavish influencer art and the yoke of nostalgia guts the game's spirit and power. Wall Street has stripped D&D of its identity. D&D 2024 is not D&D. It is a tabletop game influenced by Diablo IV.

Is it fun? Yes. Like a video game is fun.

Dungeon Crawl Classics tries to achieve this by using strange dice and random charts, but the charts ultimately define and limit the experience. True out-of-body existential discovery and horror cannot happen if everyone knows the results on the charts.

The charts will prevent you from truly discovering and realizing what we all once knew with these games in the 1980s. The Satanic Panic happened because more and more people were being enlightened (look up the late-80s enlightenment movements, like crystal therapy, and so on), and AD&D 2nd Edition was created to put the genie back in the bottle. Wall Street stopped mass spiritual enlightenment in 1989 when D&D was at its height of cultural influence.

Note: This is not what I actually believe, but to get in touch with the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, this is where your thinking has to go. A game is a game, but many in spiritual movements latched onto AD&D as a transcendental tool. Religious groups responded to this and pushed back. 

To get into the proper gonzo mindset, you must free yourself from the idea that tabletop games are simple replacements for video games (2000-2020) or consumer-driven, identitarian lifestyle gaming (2021-present). When you feel "the game is more than just a game," then you have the proper mindset. 

All that sounds crazy, but trying to understand that concept and theory will put your mind in the correct mode to run weird fantasy games. This is not just a video game with goofy stuff or some superhero power fantasy where you are "meant to kill the monsters." Kitchen sink fantasy, while fun, ultimately leads to "videogame-ism" and puts you into a mindset where you will never reach this higher state of enlightenment.

Wall Street took over D&D and made it "safe" again. Even DCC refuses to go to some places, and keeps itself safe for every audience. The collection of things considered to be in "kitchen sink" fantasy shrinks as controversial topics are bleached from the genre, such as half-races and succubi. And stale and controlled is what most of today's "gonzo fantasy" becomes. It is a commoditized fantasy, featuring goofy elements like silly hats, big mustaches, talking bananas, and strangely drawn art. You get the visuals right, but not the heart and soul.

With kitchen-sink fantasy, I love how familiar it is, but the world it creates feels like any version of D&D. Gonzo goes a step beyond that. For me, it is a starting place, a doorway to that more enlightened, mind-altering, and almost spiritual place. It is the "normal" from which we jump into the "abnormal."

True gonzo fantasy is like stepping through the Looking Glass.

Part of me dislikes the kitchen-sink genre since it leans too hard on D&D's tropes. Our games become nothing more than "D&D simulators" compared to our stories and imagination. Yes, they are D&D simulators coaxed in realism, but GURPS can do so much more than power a simulator.

Shadowdark does a little better, and it "gets" what the dungeon should be, if in an abstract form, where "the dark" is a powerful, evil, irrational metaphysical force that wants to consume the party and all that is good. We are making progress, but we are not yet where we need to be.

However, Shadowdark also begins with a more humanistic and ordinary world. We can't enter an altered state of heightened perception if we start out in that "101 fantasy races eating cupcakes in a town" mess of fantasy art we get in D&D 2024 these days, which looks more like a Target ad than it does D&D art. We must start with a more "our world" humanistic, grounded base to get that stark difference and experience that perception shift.

These people playing as anthropomorphic dragons or gentrified orcs will never experience a heightened reality because identity swapping dulls their experience and senses. You are so focused on your new self that you never see the outside or witness the stark differences between realities. If a human begins to change into a dragon, that is special. Who cares if you get to start as one and be the same as everyone else?

In GURPS, we have tools to help us journey towards true, authentic, pre-1989 weird fantasy thinking. One of the best is GURPS Cabal, designed for more conspiracy-minded campaigns and urban mysteries. But trying to imagine all these strange planes and dimensions intermixing with a medieval world where they don't even know science yet...

They can't even explain combustion or bacteria. How will they understand a strange point in space where two dimensions cross and the rules of how the world works are entirely different in one or more ways? What happens when a figment of a reality comes close to our own and only affects one aspect of mental perception? There could be a place where you try to write in your native language, and all that comes out is strange alien gibberish.

This place will never be explained, and you will never tell the characters the real reason why. They may never figure out the worlds they inhabit. We have enough trouble in this world trying to figure out the unexplained. Imagine a world of myth, trying to make sense of it all.

Of course, players forget history in modern gaming, and fantasy worlds are just Ren Faire-dressed modern worlds. Of course, these worlds have scientific knowledge because ...magic! GURPS players know about and respect Tech Level, so you will find a player base here with a more profound understanding of history and the progression of technology.

Another great resource is GURPS Powers: The Weird, which initially explores the concept of weird science. However, the later chapters touch on topics discussed in the Cabal book and delve into this genre's power types and sources. You get some great power ideas that places, people, or monsters could have, such as illusions that can heal or harm, scale adjustment, and other strange, mind-altering ones that break your perceptions of reality.

Mix all this with GURPS Fantasy (or Dungeon Fantasy), and try introducing "the weird" into a game world. Don't make "everyday magic" a part of the world; keep wizards and other casters mysterious and rare. Magic is not understood, accepted, or a technology metaphor. It is not used in everyday life by everyone. Magic can be feared as "something that steals your soul" - even if you rely on it for convenience. Wizards must keep their work secret for fear that someone may stab them in the back for being a devil worshipper.

Then, introduce the weird.

Make the population fearful. Make the strange happening truly strange and not reproducible by "simple magic." Something else is going on here. You will begin to experience the reality warping sensation of seeing characters deal with something they can't explain, and their players can't either. What do you do next if you can't explain it, dispel it, understand it with divination, go into a dungeon and turn it off, or wish it away? D&D assumes you have perfect knowledge and control of your world, and that everything on the spell and power lists will be able to solve every problem in the universe.

This is how it was with AD&D for us, of which the excellent Adventures Dark and Deep is my stepping stone. When we entered that dungeon as characters, we felt like we were stepping out of this dimension and into another. There was a transcendental experience that was more than playing a video game or running a simulation. The dungeon door was the portal to another universe. Today, the above game carries on that mantle.

GURPS was created in that era. When we played GURPS, we stepped out of this world and into another on a different path, but it was there. This was when we stepped into another world entirely, created using the alchemical parameters of the game, and felt like we were somewhere else. While in AD&D, the dungeon served as a metaphor for moving into another reality, in GURPS, entering a world nobody had ever seen before was referred to as a "dimension shift."

GURPS is the more mind-expanding game, and it doesn't need the dungeon metaphor for the shift.

But you still need to build the grounding metaphors, establish the parts of the everyday world to relate to, and then contrast the differences between the world we perceive and the one we cannot.

GURPS: Everquest

EverQuest is one of those games that is more of a setting than it is a game. The MMO has been going on decades, and the definition of "what a class is" and "what classes have what powers" is a subject really only for the hardcore players, and even then, the endgames is where the action is at, and the numbers are so high damages are in the billions these days.

It is an easy setting for a game like Dungeon Fantasy to simulate, and you can get away with all of the standard Dungeon Fantasy templates as the standard EverQuest classes. Not many will really notice, and to most, a fighter is a fighter in this sort of setting, and the setting is why they are playing. This is almost the opposite of D&D, where people will play more for the classes than the setting, but here, you give me a Dungeon Fantasy wizard, and yeah, that could be an EverQuest wizard easily with very little suspension of disbelief.

The only notable must-haves for this world is Dungeon Fantasy 3 (The Next Level) for shadow elves and other backgrounds you may wish to reskin, and there is also the unholy warrior here for a nice shadow-knight template. Dungeon Fantasy 9 (Summoners) is good for beast-lords  and necromancers. To be fair, these are more "advanced classes" for a game like this, and you can add these in later as needed.

Playing in the classic EverQuest setting is the huge appeal here. There is also an alternate timeline for EverQuest II, and all that really changes is the map and current events. They are both pretty much well interchangeable except for the story and the places you can go.

Monsters are pretty well much standard fantasy monsters, and there are fewer than most OSR games when you start. A lot of these will be goblins, orcs, gnolls, skeletons, giant rats, fire beetles, spiders, and your typical MMO creatures. If you want to simulate the special dungeons you will need a strategy guide with maps and monster lists.

Plenty of online resources exist for EverQuest.

You can "wing it" pretty easily in a world like this, and inventing new dungeons in this world will be pretty simple, as you can just say there are forts, caves, villages, evil temples, and other places not in the main game that are in your world. If you are trying to do a "Guk-like" dungeon, just makes it a twisting maze of hexes with evil frogs, trolls, and other swamp beasts living in there. No one is going to call you out for things not being perfect, they will be happy to play in the setting and not worry about the specifics.

Close enough in Everquest is just fine as long as you get the major cities, locations, and places correct. You can play a "softer lore" setting and include other fantastical races not normally playable, like the Minotaur-like Tizmaks, or the otter-like Othomirs, and be just fine, too. Again, it really does not matter much how closely you play the lore to the game, the game as it is today is very little concerned about lore outside of the RP communities.

You can run an entire campaign out of one of the major cities and be just fine, with limited visits to other locations. Your players, their experiences with the game, and their interests will drive where you need to focus on. There will be factions, conflicts, and races that will play the starring role here, and there are some great ones. The dark elven city of Neriak, the good city of Qeynos, and the evil Freeport are all amazing locations, and they don't really have to be "lore accurate" in terms of maps and locations. If you get the flavor and feeling right, that will be great for most players. These locations have changed over the years, and even during each game's lifetime, and there is also the limited part of the city each game can simulate - so you are free to expand and make up as much as you like about these places.

If you ever played these games, the maps are pretty primitive, so anything you imagine will definitely be an improvement. EverQuest 2 has a few more "interesting points of interest" so you may run into those expectations, but for the most part you will be fine, or the players can help you with lore. Most hardcore fans will be thrilled to play in this setting, and will be more than willing to help out fill in the details.

These games are also free-to-play, so if you needed to log in and see a place, it is certainly possible.

The normal Dungeon Fantasy magic items are also "good enough" for this setting, and you don't need a complete magic item list for the game out of a strategy guide, unless you really want to, or have a favorite item you want your character to get their hands on. Dungeon Fantasy (Magic Items) is a good resource to have here, and you can do some fun items, like making musical instruments as "casting items" (or bonus items), and you can outdo the original game pretty easily. Dungeon Fantasy 8 (Treasure Tables) is also an excellent resource for creating treasures and magic items.

I like this conversion since there isn't that much pressure to "rebuild the MMO" in the GURPS rules. Bog-standard fantasy will cover most of the pieces you need, and you really only need a few flavor locations, gods, and foes to get the feeling right. The games have progressed decades of expansions, and it would be impossible to recreate everything exactly how it exists in the game.

This feels different than kitchen-sink fantasy or B/X conversions since there are more current expectations there that you have a near-complete set of conversions of monsters, magic items, and the standard tropes. We have a feeling that we need to be "much closer to the rules" with B/X conversions to GURPS than does a setting like EverQuest, where in all honesty, if it played and sounded like an "EverQuest the streaming TV show" it would be more than fine in most player's eyes.

This feels more like a novel of TV show conversion than a "game into another game" conversion, which makes the work a lot easier, and sets the expectations bar pretty low. The "realistic feeling" of GURPS will also be a plus here, and put a more realistic lens on the setting than a typical d20 or 5E game, and yes, there was a D&D 3.5E game for this world. 

GURPS will do the setting far more justice and give us some hardcore "grind and simulation" which is what the original game was all about back in the day. I don't want 3.5E "bags of hit points" for this setting. I want realism and drama, and that movie-like feeling that GURPS does so well.

GURPS in 2025

I am starting a few new GURPS campaigns in 2025, but the end half of 2024 has been tough. Right now, I am cleaning out 40 years of games and putting things in storage. I will unbox a game, put it on a shelf, see if it interests me, and then box it up and realize I don't have time for it or I have better.

Some never go away and never get boxed up. GURPS is one of them.

OSRIC and first-edition dungeon gaming are another. The entire D&D concept has been warped into an unrecognizable state today. This isn't even the same game I remember. When I go back to basics, this is where my inspiration and truth lie.

There is one fork of modern D&D that I like. It started in D&D 4th Edition for us, with the "tabletop dungeon board game" playing a central role in the game. This fork started in D&D 3.5E, went to D&D 4E, and today, it lives on in Pathfinder 2E. The whole "figures, dungeon tiles, and d20 gaming" only exists in that form here, and to be honest, the genre is very close to GURPS' hex-based adventuring.

Pathfinder 2E is a sister game to GURPS. It has pre-chewed character options and adopts polyhedral dice as randomizers. If you want it "on the table" and like that tactical hit, play GURPS or Pathfinder 2E and forget everything else exists.

Everything I like about gaming is lost when you go to the rules-light or theater of the mind games.

Also, a lot has been "done for me" in a game like Pathfinder 2E, and I can spend weeks converting it to GURPS with time I don't have or just open this and play for a while, exploring what the designers did with the game. They have good ideas and fresh takes here, improving the characters I build in GURPS since I have external inputs and things to reflect upon.

GURPS, for me, with the fantasy genre? I am still reflecting on what I like about it. There is a "thing" there, a place I want to be; I just haven't found it yet. I don't want to simulate kitchen-sink fantasy, nor do I want to convert endless spells and monster lists. GURPS can do much more than emulate; it can create something new. If I play GURPS in the fantasy genre, I want magic to be strange and mysterious, something that reflects the person. I want monsters to be myth-like representations of human weaknesses and sins. GURPS tells those stories much better than it does, emulating other games.

At least for me.

I am also playing the excellent American Truck Simulator (ATS) on my PC over the holidays and reflecting on how stupid the "Traveller cargo model" is. Science fiction RPGs have been stuck with this 16th-century "the captain buys the cargo and sells it somewhere else" model of merchant campaigning, and compared to ATS, it makes the entire "space game cargo model" seem stupid.

In ATS, you aren't randomly buying air conditioner units in one town and taking them to another, praying somebody wants them. No, a company is hiring you to haul them and get them from place A to place B intact because they need these units there, and they need them there now. You can see why when you drop these cargoes off at job sites, factories, food processing plants, truck dealerships, and every other location in ATS.

You are a part of a larger economy.

And all the while, you are dealing with the little things that could mess this up: fuel, sleep, idiot drivers, produce inspection stations, weigh stations, local laws, what lanes trucks can drive in, and how fast, hazardous cargoes and getting certified to haul them, trailer types, jobs that are just not available, or there are too many good ones, and you need to pick and choose your destination, repairs. You learn the terrain and the skills required to get across it safely. You know all the things truck stops and garages do and need to keep this truck running well.

Even using mirrors, lights, and turn signals is essential knowledge.

And you get to run a company with drivers, and you need to manage garages and trucks.

If you are into space gaming, and your merchant campaigns fall flat because they fall into the "roll cargo, fly somewhere, and sell," play this game to the point where you buy a truck and learn the game. Learn how to back up. Learn how to repair your vehicle. Learn when to gas up and rest. Obey the rules for weight stations and produce inspection stations. Learn the laws and read the signs. Learn how to navigate.

You could "work" for just a company in this game, take their loads, and learn how it feels to be a company hauler. In a space game, if a company is terraforming a world, that is an almost insane amount of cargo, machinery, construction equipment, habitation pods, and other "stuff" that isn't made locally in that target world. And terraforming operations can last hundreds of years, and the "flavor" of the cargo will change over time.

You could just play that as a part of a single campaign and get to know the drop-off points, who lives there, the local space militia and law enforcement, what problems they have, what they need, the company managers on-site, and you will build this world in your mind as you haul there.

Many of today's science fiction games have this "hop around" mentality where "new backdrops are fun!" While ATS has "varied backdrops" in the places you go, it focuses on more than one part of that experience, changing how I think about science fiction gaming.

Just replace the trucks with starships, and you have an excellent science-fiction game.

GURPS would do this type of game exceptionally well, and you don't need Star Trek or Star Wars to support it. Fantasy, for me, is the same way. I don't want D&D to prop up my GURPS Fantasy game. I want to find something GURPS can simulate well, without emulating anything, and focus the experience on that.

GURPS also has "fine-grained" skills, and I will need a crew to cover what I don't know but need. GURPS Ultra-Lite can fill those NPCs just fine, and I don't need to spend days creating a crew. Are we hauling hazardous materials? Let's hire a hazmat specialist for this trip only. Do we know any, and are they on-planet? Would hiring them as a permanent position make sense, since we haul these high-paying loads often?

Let's do the math.

For me, this is where GURPS shines. I get a world model and concept built in my head, like, "What if ATS was a space trucker game?" GURPS makes that dream come alive. However, the idea for the game comes from the outside and doesn't originate in emulating other games. The entire ATS concept "in space" is mind-expanding and strong, especially diving into the level of detail this game forces you to think about.

To me, the kitchen sink fantasy is like the Traveller cargo-hauling model. We assume "it works there" so "we can port it in" without looking elsewhere and asking, "Can't we do better?" ATS has forever changed my mind on merchant campaigns and cargo hauling. Better models exist that can tell better stories. Recycling other games is not how we find them.

I want to find that in the fantasy genre, which must come from outside of "fantasy roleplaying."

Games Other than GURPS: OSRIC & S&W

I have been on a GURPS break and am working on writing and immersion in a few other games. I know, "Why play other games when you have GURPS?" Sometimes, I want to relive things, play games where a lot of work has been done for me, explore the systems I have out, and sort through the ones I consider "core" in my library. I am drawing down my library size, so games will revisit a shelf for a while, and I will ask, "Do I really want this?"

The first I have been pulling out and exploring is OSRIC, which is, at its core, first-edition AD&D, but OSRIC is "just the rules." The first edition is likely the "greatest version of D&D ever written," it invalidates most everything that came after, even the 5th Edition. Sometimes, I want to go back to the start to "rebase" my gaming expectations, but it does not get much better than the original.

I use OSRIC because this is the community-supported version of the game, and it is still open and free to publish expansion work with. The AD&D books sit nearby, just to absorb Gygaxian wisdom, but the 
"rules engine" is all OSRIC, along with a few BRW Games expansions.

AD&D was there when GURPS started, so this game, being one of the inspirations to "make a better mousetrap," is strong here. I can see why GURPS is the way it is when I go back to race and class combos. There is an unmatched sense of freedom in GURPS. The divergence came when GURPS started adding skills and rules, and the game grew away from that "simple core" in the earlier editions.

That sense of freedom that GURPS gives is tempered by a "why?" when I read these rules. Gygax was trying to build a game and world model, almost like a video game, where mechanical balance was created by limitations and allowing some combinations by not others. In GURPS, there are no limitations, and it is as mix-and-match as a modern game, such as Pathfinder 2's near-infinite combinations, though on a far more finely granulated level.

Those choices create a mini-game inside of character creation. There is a "game" here where you are trying to figure out "why Gygax was going for." with these combos and limits, which is more than just slapping arbitrary restrictions everywhere. The racial abilities "in the dungeon" were supposed to play a more significant role in the game, almost like the superpowers we see in 5th Edition, and that "in the dungeon" experience was not supposed to be abandoned or marginalized at high level. There were supposed to be "20th-level dungeons," almost like a video game.

AD&D changed more in the second edition into a story game supporting the novels. They are mostly the same game, but the tonal shift is significant. GURPS is better suited for story gaming since its skill list does much more than several games in the dungeon genre.

Combined.

There are stories I can't tell in the first edition or any B/X clone that GURPS makes simple. When I am just "rolling polyhedral dice in a dungeon," OSRIC works fine. OSRIC keeps me out of the market for newer games and the endless stream of B/X clones, which suits me just fine. Why have the rest when we have the best? The only exception is Swords & Wizardry, which is quite likely the best B/X game ever written.

Still, OSRIC and S&W can't tell the stories that GURPS does. It isn't close.

The first edition was harsh, and characters died regularly. This is just like GURPS, but in this game, creating a character was fast, so you cared, but it wasn't a huge setback. In GURPS, I can spend a few weeks designing a character, both a blessing and a curse.

The first edition I love also has a "survival game element," which is also in GURPS. I love the idea of a harsh world standing in the way of "getting to the dungeon" and "going home." You get a lot of people in the hobby who bemoan "wilderness encounters" as "resource-wasting elements" that "insert RNG into encounter balance inside a dungeon." I hear "video gamers complaining about video game things," which is the optimizer thing again, and "the game is programmed to be won" crowd back at it.

First-edition and many original role-playing games weren't "written to be won"—they were written to challenge a party of a certain level range and present things "as is." The massive push for "encounter balance" wasn't until the Wizards came in with D&D 3.0 and started turning the game into a card game.

GURPS isn't "written for balance" either; it is "written to simulate reality," which gives the game a flatter power level and makes it easier to balance. After a few combats, it gets simple to balance GURPS fights, which are usually over quickly (unless you make dodge and parry insanely high).

The "dungeon games" do "dungeon gaming" the best. GURPS does "everything else" the best. When I use GURPS to run fantasy game worlds, it isn't dungeon gaming, and the stories are much more varied and textured. The stories are better. But the focus shifts. Dungeon games (OSRIC, S&W, etc.) are like handheld game consoles that do that experience the best. GURPS is my PC, which does every other experience so well that nothing else competes.

When I try to "limit GURPS" to do SRD-style fantasy, I always lose more than I gain. I feel constrained to the concepts and rules "from other games" than what GURPS allows me to express. It isn't GURPS but "trying to be AD&D using GURPS." I don't want to be "designing a fireball or magic missile spell" inside of GURPS, but having magic be that strange, unknown, powerful, and "magical" force it is in novels and books.

"Using GURPS to simulate other games" is a lose-lose situation, at least for me. GURPS does a lot more and a lot better, and trying to design "other game stuff" limits your imagination and storytelling capability. So many games are moving away from the SRD and OGL and getting better for it. In my experience, moving away from "SRD magic" makes the entire concept "of magic" a more compelling, strange, and mysterious thing.

Can I simulate the SRD using GURPS? Yes, and it works well.

Do I want to? Not really. The fantasy books I read that present magic as a strange and unknown force don't follow SRD mechanics. GURPS does that well, and this is how I use it. I don't want players "expecting a converted SRD" in my games; I want them to use their imagination and weave together strange effects and powers that aren't possible in any other game.

Again, GURPS tells that "story of magic" better than any other game.

Tying myself to an SRD world limits my ability to tell it.

I want to "express the impossible," not "design inside the limits of another game."

Even the designers of Pathfinder 2 are discovering that tying their concepts too tightly to the old ways limits their ability to create new classes and magical traditions, and adherence to SRD concepts limits their freedom. They have a playtest of their new necromancer class that was impossible with the old SRD wizard concept hanging out there as a junk drawer saying, "I can do that!" This is a counter-example, but it shows how an assumed concept can limit designer freedom.

Why do I like the first edition? It was my first game. This also expresses "SRD mechanics" in their simplest form. While limited in scope, it tells that "dungeon story" well enough.

Having OSRIC out and giving that my "SRD gaming" fix allows me to use GURPS to tell the stories I want it to tell and the ones I feel it does best. OSRIC is also a fantastic GURPS reference if you want to go that route, with plenty of inspiration.

In some ways, this is the fight between Dungeon Fantasy and GURPS over the game's "identity" - at least regarding the dungeon genre (and, by extension, Fantasy). Before DF, we did things the GURPS way. After DF, there is a DF way of doing the genre.

GURPS and the OSR

I read a few comments about a few GURPS players who left for the OSR, and I can understand why. Yes, you don't get the fantastic character designs and total control that I love in GURPS. The combats are bland in d20 systems, and GURPS combat is much more tactical and satisfying. GURPS is learning once and running anything.

The OSR, the other hand, is a treasure trove for those who prioritize classic adventures over intricate character designs. It offers a class and level system that point-design games don't. However, this comes at the cost of limited choices, a less robust skill system, and the absence of advantage and disadvantage systems. Character customization is also more restricted.

The games are the way they are to facilitate group play at a table more than a simulation. Having classes makes creating a character and fitting in a party role easy, whereas, in GURPS, you can get a table full of random and unique character concepts with no role to fit into a party structure. Unless you pre-plan the party and pick roles beforehand, of course. Still, an OSR game is faster to pick up and play, providing a sense of reassurance and confidence in your ability to enjoy the game.

Many OSR games are unique prepackaged experiences: one book, one game, and infinite fun. Some are highly random, like Dungeon Crawl Classics. Others are throwback games to a particular time or version, such as Swords & Wizardry or OSRIC. Recreating all the tables, chaos, options, spells, and monsters in these games is a tremendous amount of work, and it is easier just to play the game as-is to experience what it has to offer. Unless you have a conversion system, like my Basic Fantasy mod for GURPS.

Still, there is fun in just turning off my desire to point-design everything and playing a party-based game with clear character roles. I don't mind "plugging into" an OSR game for a while; it is like playing a console game to change things up and experience something new. Games where I can run a character on a 3x5" index card are fantastic.

Part of me wishes GURPS was as plug-and-play as an OSR game, where the character choices were simple, the skill system did not have a few hundred choices, and what you had to write down and choose were a small number of easy options. You can do this through templating, but the framework behind the scenes is still heavy unless you just used GURPS Lite, which is 100% possible.

Most of my GURPS gaming never goes beyond GURPS Lite, and that framework can drive most games. Even Ultra Lite is a fantastic set of rules for NPCs and quick encounters, and you often only need a little more detail. A giant spider? Give it an "entangle and web skill" and use opposed rolls to avoid the effects.

This is also why I like Dungeon Fantasy. It is nice to have a self-contained game focused on one genre, something I can pick up and not be distracted with "other stuff," and I can have a focused experience in the books. I am not dealing with laser pistols or superheroes in the core GURPS book; this is just fantasy. My mind can focus on that, and the book immerses me from cover to cover.

The huge failing of Dungeon Fantasy is that it goes straight for the superhero fantasy experience with 250-point characters, cutting out the entire zero-to-hero run. That zero-to-hero experience is a part of the fantasy genre, as are the fantasy superheroes! That "growing into a character" and "learning the rules through growth" keeps the OSR games compelling. Dungeon Fantasy is very difficult for a newcomer since the 250-point characters are complex, and nearly a full page of GURPS skills and rules to learn on that character sheet.

The Delvers to Grow books are excellent patches for that problem, but they are third-party books fixing a problem the base game has. Still, not only do you have to learn GURPS, but you also need to learn 250-point characters. Then, you can go back and do these starter templates and finally enjoy that experience. This was my experience with Dungeon Fantasy, and it felt the same as being handed a 15th-level character sheet in 5E and told to learn that first before being able to start a 1st-level character.

Part of my frustration with the "kitchen sink" fantasy in GURPS is that it is way more complicated than it should be. What should be a genre where you get a 50-point noob and go turns into a massive project of learning the rules, endless conversions, choices on top of more choices, and becoming a "fan total conversion project" rather than something where you can pick up a book and play.

In a way, the core GURPS books are more accessible for the zero-to-hero fantasy genre than the Dungeon Fantasy game, which feels like the advanced version of the rules for expert players only. In some ways, Dungeon Fantasy is like a GURPS mod for the genre, and while it strips away the parts of the game you don't need, you get a lot of stuff, and it feels like Dungeon Fantasy is a solution that is a part of the problem.

My ideal version of "Fantasy GURPS" would be more the base GURPS core book but focused on the fantasy genre. But that is Dungeon Fantasy?! Yes and no. The core GURPS game standardized starting levels at 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, etc. When players pick an archetype role, such as "fighter," they get the 50-point template, a disadvantage or two, and they get playing. You could offer higher starting point packages for each role if players want more at the start. The book would have every rule needed to play, including combat.

Even the premade character sheets could be pre-filled in at each starting package deal. Print it out, pick or roll disadvantages, and you are playing. A new player does not need to open the book to sort through lists of choices. They should not. Hand them one character sheet and play.

Yes, I can do all this myself with what I have. But that is not the goal. I would love a GURPS book with the utility and ease of use as an OSR game. Even to the point of standardizing combat around GURPS Lite and making most of the combat rules optional advanced rules. The complexity and design of GURPS are not the problem, and mastering GURPS is a lot easier than mastering 5E.

The game needs to be focused, present experiences that players expect to see, and offer enough options to make it feel right.

It is an accessibility issue, and OSR games do that very well.

Updating the B/X Conversions Page

As I delve into my GURPS fantasy game, I've updated the B/X conversion page. The guiding principle is 'zero design', relying solely on conversions from B/X-like sources. I've opted for Basic Fantasy, a straightforward, ascending AC system that provides all the 'base data' I need for a robust conversion. Its simplicity and solid implementation give me confidence in the design choices.

Versions of the d20 fantasy game past the original B/X, BECMI, or AD&D do not convert well to GURPS. Everything past the video game-like D&D 3.0 scaled the hit point scale and eliminated the concept of hit dice, which are essential for the original numbers to work. Even AD&D 2nd Edition has very high hit points for the more enormous monsters, and they messed with the game's secret sauce when they changed the original damage scales.

An ancient red dragon with 660 (D&D 3.5E), 362 (Pathfinder 1e), 1,390 (D&D 4E), and 546 (D&D 5E) hit points shows you how much they scaled damage up to attract video gamers. In AD&D, S&W, or OSRIC? 88 hit points? BECMI? 90 hit points. OSE or B/X? 59 hit points. Even AD&D 2nd could have been better at 104 hp, but this is where it started. Fighters did not multi-attack in earlier editions of the game, which is what all damage scaling is based on. That 1d8+X longsword can still hurt a dragon in the earlier games, and in all later editions, that "basic attack" became a joke, along with most martial characters.

GURPS? The dragon has an HP of 50. This is an adult dragon, so an ancient red dragon would likely be 80 or 90, putting the GURPS HP scale directly in line with B/X games. GURPS was designed around the time of AD&D, so the numbers in the same area do not surprise me. The only real difference here is the curve, with B/X having a very weak low end, a sizeable middle distribution, and a longer high hit-point upper range. GURPS HP is primarily linear (since HP = ST in most cases) with a floor, starting at the default human 10 HP.

For me, the original B/X, BECMI, and AD&D games are not just fantasy; they are richly defined micro-settings, each inspired by a blend of Vance, Howard, Lovecraft, Leiber, Tolkien, and, surprisingly, the Bible. With their classic 'good versus evil' theme, these games are the authentic roots of the fantasy genre, a stark contrast to today's games that often dilute these classic conflicts with distractions and mass-media influences. They evoke a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for the origins of our beloved genre.

The fantasy genre is not the fantasy genre without biblical influence. Try to remove it, and it is AD&D 2nd Edition all over again.

Why not use Dungeon Fantasy monsters? I want to play the original adventures and directly use the statistics of the monsters and creatures in those books. The characters in Dungeon Fantasy are the heroes, while the converted monsters are the world's foes. It is an odd combination, more like GURPS characters in a strange, almost video-game-like reality, semi-based in the GURPS simulation, but with that classic dungeon-crawling feeling.

Yes, a goblin can have 1d6+2 HP. That is way less than Dungeon Fantasy's 12 for goblins and 14 for orcs. But using a hit-die scale lets me say, "These orcs are level 3 fighters; they have 3 HD." Suddenly, they are 18 HP beasts and have 14-minus skills. With armor, those are fearsome.

The base 1 HD versions of the monsters that serve a crucial role in the game-they are 'minions.' Dangerous in numbers, and with lucky hits, they can be taken down with one solid hit. Their presence adds a thrilling element to the game, making every encounter a strategic challenge.

Realistic characters in a B/X reality are the essence of the game. This means some monsters will be 'boss monsters' that a party needs to take on, while others will be more minion-like. Some monsters may be so formidable that they require modern weapons to defeat them or teams of twelve or more heroes at significant cost. This balance between realism and gameplay ensures that every encounter is immersive and challenging, adding depth to the game.

So, this is different from a typical GURPS game. The monster half is uninterested in simulation and presents that "hit die progression" where monsters start as minions and gradually outclass character power. The character side is 100% GURPS in living in a reality like that.

Kitchen Sink Fantasy and Slowing Down

When I convert kitchen sink fantasy games into GURPS, I always emphasize the need to slow down and deeply consider the implications of the information presented. Many games provide 'lists with little thought' to fulfill specific criteria and offer content. However, the detailed and immersive game content truly excites and makes us eager to explore.

I am always careful around games with huge lists. They tend to prioritize quantity over quality, and they have ruined many of my games.

Let's take the archetypical 'giant ant' as a prime example. Most games would present a stat block and move on. However, a more thorough exploration of this creature, delving into its ability to crawl on walls, burrow, and carry its body weight many times, can significantly enrich our understanding and appreciation of the game world. This kind of in-depth exploration is what keeps us engaged and intrigued.

Okay, that is good to know, and while some games will tell you, "The referee is free to add that," they are.

But feeling required to give hundreds of monsters in a game means a lot will be lost. What happens when giant ants create a nest in a community? How fast do they multiply? Will they haul away every animal, crop, and person as food for the hive? How fast do they spread underground? Do they burrow into the basements and root cellars first? Is there a queen and an egg chamber? Can fire drive them away? What happens when you flood a nest?

All the above information mentioned takes a little thought to work through, but many games just rush right past that and move on to the next monster in the 'A' section. This rush can lead to a lack of depth and immersion in the game. Please slow down and consider the implications of game elements, as this can make us feel more thoughtful and reflective. In some fantasy worlds, the giant ant (especially like the above) is more of a monster suited for horror or even 'monster movie' games. I may not want that in a lighthearted fantasy game.

Some games assume that "everything is in every world."

Again, slowing down on lycanthropy can give you some fantastic games. Reading up on the myth of lycanthropes, we can go well beyond the "werewolf in the room protecting the chest of silver and healing potions" and get into mysteries, which person the werewolf is, and lots of social roleplay exploring the concepts of "monsters who live among us" and the suspicion and paranoia that can cause in a community. When the full moon approaches, a sense of dread and fear takes over the community as doors and windows are barred shut. When players are in the barred tavern and hear the first screams, what do they do?

Again, I may not even want lycanthropy in some worlds. The concept does not fit well if I don't wish to have those themes in my world or feel they would be distracting.

The lycanthrope entry should give sample adventures and hooks like the above. Instead, many games rush to the next monster, moving on without giving me anything to spark my imagination.

Orcs are another great example, and also a topical one. Assuming they are just another "marshmallow shape in the character options box" does them a great disservice. Can we give them a culture? Why do so many worship Orcus? What happens when they are added to a world? Do they have massive armies that take over land? Do they have so much infighting between tribes and factions that it constantly sabotages their efforts? What magics do they know, and did they come up with unique ones? 

Again, a great referee will create an excellent culture for them, show them respect, and give their kin a specific "gravity" to make them essential players. They don't have to be evil in every world, but just because they aren't, it doesn't mean they are just "another anybody in a fantasy clip art picture." They have a culture, a history, and a place in the world. Slowing down and giving them a place in the world gives them the respect they deserve.

What weapons would lizard people use? Long spears that could get caught in underwater vegetation, or short blades that they could use in underwater combat easily? What sort of missile weapons do they like? Blowguns? Slings? Do they cover themselves in mud as camouflage? How does an ambush work? I know they won't be showing up to a fight in full plate with English longbows, and they will adjust how they fight to the swampy environments they prefer to live in. Can they be trade partners? What gods do they worship? Do they raise alligators and other swamp animals for defense and food?

Slow down! Imagine. Take your time.

Make them live in the world.

Show them respect.

This is why I am careful around "games with lots of lists." They put me in a TLDR mode, where too much information is fire-hosed at me, and I don't care about any of it. Some games go, "Yeah, we have gem dragons; here are the stats," and never explain why they are here, what they are, where they come from, or what they represent in a fantasy context. They can't answer why they are essential to a fantasy world other than as a novelty in a list of other novelty monsters where only a few are compelling.

Some games hide efforts to control your world through copyrighted and trademarked content. Sure, some of these things are fun, but I stick more to the classic, public-domain, open-source monster lists than games run by big corporations. I like to write about my games, share, and write novels about them someday. I must be careful around copyrighted content to ensure "what I create is mine."

I am a big fan of gamers owning their own ideas so they can build on them and eventually monetize them. Copyrighted fantasy IP prevents that or creates a lot of work in replacing things.

Some games overload you with too many options, which should be better thought out. Yes, you can pick and choose, but there is a point of overload when a game has over a thousand monsters, many with nonsensical vanity variants, like "lava gnomes."

The concept of a "monster" reflects humankind's mortal failings. A dragon's horde represents the sin of greed and the power of the rich; the lands around him are likely impoverished. Old-style orcs were wrath, brutality, and the insanity of war. The giant ants represent uncontrolled nature and the failure to plan and defend communities from those ravages. Fighting these things should connect on a deeper level.

You aren't fighting monsters; you are fighting the weaknesses of humankind.

The mayor ignored the ants in the woods. The town's crops are ravaged, and starvation will occur during the winter. Was it caused by pride? Greed? Envy? Or just hiding the problem and pretending it didn't exist? A human failure caused this situation.

The characters can now step in and be the heroes the town needs them to be.

Games with enormous lists and little inspiration and thought could be better. They check boxes and don't deliver inspired choices. GURPS does a great job in its sourcebooks slowing down and providing inspiration on narrow subjects, which is why I love the game. Our few books on monsters are great (GURPS Dragons and a few others). When I run a fantasy game, I carefully go into the same detail on a subject to make it come alive and give it the respect it deserves.

We don't have "GURPS Orcs" or "GURPS Slimes" guides, but if I include a monster, I like to think the creations that I put in my game came from a book like that. A great moment happens in games when the players realize, "Hey, wait, there is a lot more here" about a monster. Their eyes are open wide, and they know they are playing something special. Are the orcs not just doing things like the orcs of other games? Do the slimes have a science to them? What?

A condensed list does not put me in that mindset. Yes, this is the job of a great referee.

But when I convert something into GURPS, I pull it from one of these lists and feel there are many missed opportunities to make monsters special and unique.

Breaking the Mass Market

The unique aspect of GURPS and fantasy settings that I find compelling is the freedom it offers. I can break all my crayons, take a world, and do what I want. It's not about creating 'the standard world' with 'all the monsters ', but about crafting a unique and personal experience.

Oh! Are you playing fantasy? Here is a list of the things you need:

• Gnolls
• Trolls
• Goblins
• Orcs
• Bugbears
• Kobolds
• Dragons
• Centaurs
• Fifty types of Elves
• blah, blah, blah...

Who says? The OSR, 5E, Pathfinder 2, and many other games are guilty. I opened a typical fantasy gaming book, and it was more about packing the supermarket aisle with "fire gnomes" and "pyrite dragons" than giving me a set of rules that let me build a sandbox experience. Even the character options in many of these games are nonsensical, choice paralysis, and funny shapes for the marketing department choices rather than anything that means anything to a world or story.

The games become "who has the bigger lists" than "providing a play experience."

Starfinder 1e was one of the worst offenders. I opened a book, and they listed about 50 new weapons on a half-page chart. "Here is a chart with some more content. Have fun."

The word "content" is like the poop emoji. In the age of AI, where computers can endlessly churn out content like a poop emoji factory, our games suffer with zero thought, more content; here are another 500 poorly thought out options, and we will patch it later; who cares to? Buy another book with mass-market fantasy content.

I miss the days when a designer carefully designed one option to be great. I have been in game design, and we designers sometimes fight with other designers about a single choice. We are passionate about making a single choice meaningful and fun.

I miss a world where artists did the art.

GURPS starts with a "zero-based" world. There is nothing in there but the standard zero-point human. You can create a world with a massive sheet of blank hex paper. No company forces you to put cute kobolds or football-headed goblins in there for their marketing department to own and "brand" your game world. You don't need to include androids as character options or 101 planar races so Wizards can shove its foot in the door and say, "Your world is a part of ours. We own this."

What is happening to fantasy is what happened to the lore, stories, and myths we pass down to the next generation. Disney remade all the classic childhood stories, and they now "own the myth." Of course, our copyrighted cute cartoon animals were always in these stories! They end up owning the childhoods of everyone in the world. You must now pay them for your myths, legends, and stories.

And the price keeps going up.

Mass Market Fantasy does the same thing but for a slightly older audience seeking escapism from a world where everything is bought and sold. These "huge lists" of "content" are supposed to define your ideas of a fantasy world. You don't have mimics in your world? What are you, some sort of anti-fantasy freak? The monster is on the list! Include it!

Yes, your game is yours, and you can include anything you want or exclude an option. But in many cases, you can't. You get on D&D Beyond, and the company gives you the choices you must accept in your game. Any character a player can build is legal and should be accepted. In fact, the system recently eliminated all the data for the 2014 books, and now the spells, items, and other choices only reflect the 2024 versions.

Welcome to the memory hole of live services, everyone.

Those options never existed.

((Update: This decision has been since reversed, but it highlights a disturbing trend of companies "memory holing" their products and treating their legacy as a problem to fix.

Yes, GURPS is a sometimes awkward, confusing, slow, contradictory, messy, complicated game. But everything I build inside is my idea. My world is mine. I don't need vast lists of 500 monsters to have a fantasy world. I don't need lists of 10,000 magic items. Yes, the options are good. But too many options are the tool of an oppressor seeking to crush your imagination. They also force you to use "live service" systems to "manage all your choices." Why wasn't the game designed cleanly with a few meaningful choices? Ones that everyone can use and understand without needing a website to sort through them?

Look up choice paralysis.

It is a real thing, and it can also be used against you. A company can create a confusing and complicated aisle of products with too many choices for our brain to process, so we go to an option that is presented standing on its own (and has a higher price). Hidden in that aisle was what we wanted and right for us. Instead, we took the thing the company wanted us to choose.

Oh, that's why.

The game was designed so that you need the website to play it. Forced dependency is another issue in the corporate world. The choice is good, everyone! Look how many options we have! The truth is, 99% of those character options, monsters, magic items, and other options - you will never use.

In my GURPS Fantasy game, I am figuring out what is out there. I am not sifting through a 500-page book and converting monsters. I don't need to. The "monsters" could very well be other humans in this world. The GURPS books give me a few animals and other standard things to use as a yardstick, but I am free to create everything else.

Ask any optimizer for any 5E class; only very few choices on the list for each class are good. The rest are garbage. This is the "West Coast" design theory; they ship a ton of garbage choices with one or two best options hidden in there. They have been doing this since D&D 3.0, the MtG card printing strategy. 90% of the cards are junk and useless in serious play. Then, they tell you, "Options are good."

I will pick a game that always puts freedom and my ideas first.