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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dbm" data-source="post: 7613521" data-attributes="member: 8014">As it happens, I am doing this right now. We are about 10 hours into a GURPS campaign, and my group predominantly plays D&D 5e. The real question here is ‘how do you get people to pick up a new, crunchy system’ but I will stick with the specific example   [MENTION=6685730]DMMike[/MENTION] picked.First, GURPS is the proverbial elephant that you don’t eat all in one go. I am sure this is also the case with other complex systems, but for a generic system this is even more so as there are rules you will never need in the campaign you are running. So, as the GM, step one is to pare back the rules to what you will actually need. For GURPS specifically there are series aimed at this: Dungeon Fantasy, Monster Hunters, Action!, After the End and Steam Punk. You can go a bit further with GURPS, too, in that there are a couple of completely stand-alone games ‘Powered by GURPS’. We are using the Dungeon Fantasy box set which both pares down the rules and builds up templates and specific options. So, in the DFRPG box set there are advantages you can buy for your character and you just get the total cost. Traditionally, a GURPS product would give you a breakdown of the components and modifiers the make up the cost.So: initial set up is to decide on the rules and options in play.Next, help the players make characters. Given the D&D baseline of ‘pick one of these N options’ where N can be somewhere between a dozen and 50, new systems may be more or less complex. That is worth keeping in mind: their game of choice may already be big and complex, just with a different set of parameters that they have already internalised.In play, the GM needs to be operating the system more than usual as the players don’t have the personal knowledge to run everything themselves. This is especially important when a new game runs on a different set of parameters or assumptions than the usual game. Interestingly, I think that GURPS is potentially easier than many, here, as it is baselined on real-world as much as practicable. An example: the party faced a creature that was an animate cloud of poisonous gas. It was absolutely kicking their butts, so I pointed out: you can just hold your breath and fight it. This wouldn’t necessarily work with all noxious effects but it was definitely an option. This didn’t even enter their heads as something to try as it isn’t a factor in 5e, for example. If they had been playing old skool where personal creativity was expected, or had no experience of gaming at all they would perhaps be more likely to try these things.Even in the space of just 10 hours at the table we sped up on the process for a combat turn dramatically, including calculating range penalties, hit location penalties and so on. As the GM, the biggest load was remembering what the special features of a monster meant (things like ‘unliving’ or ‘homogenous’) since the effects are not spelled out with every monster and it takes a while to internalise them. (I am rusty as a GURPS GM)By the end of the session the guys had much better appreciation of the options available to them and were making better decisions in-game to address the problems in front of them. And that is just in a dungeon crawl context. As the game widens out, the bigger set of tools available will allow me to add detail and drama to a wide range of scenarios that aren’t necessarily addressed by other games or which are addressed by a simple, universal process. Universal processes are something my group really dislike. We like a degree of crunch and we like it to be relevant to the task at hand. We really didn’t get on with the high level of process streamlining that Fate brings to the table, for example.So, in summary:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">GM needs a good grasp of the rules</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Pick a game premise you are confident the players will enjoy</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Help players make good characters for the game at hand</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Help players make good choices in-play based on the options the game presents</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Aim to highlight the strengths of the new system in a way that will produce a fun game.</li> </ul>If the players are enjoying the game, the rules will come to them pretty quickly in my experience.</blockquote>

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