Let’s Roll: GURPS Old West

Next up on Let's Roll, Siskoid and his players Daniel Ouellet and Alexandre Hébert discuss GURPS Old West, where the latter two played brothers, and Siskoid started a cross-genre story that is sure to get more play on future episodes. But for now, what is GURPS? How do you role-play a western? And in the GameMaster Advice column, how much should you plan, and how much can you improvise?

Relevant images and credits in the Let's Roll Supplemental.

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8 responses to “Let’s Roll: GURPS Old West

  1. I’ll be very interested to hear about a group that actually engaged in one of the oft-touted premise by Steve Jackson Games that involved players (and GMs) adventuring through infinite worlds using GURPS! I had some GURPS books, but never got play it, and found character creation to be dauntingly boring (back when I was 15 or so), therefore I’m looking very much forward to further installments of the Shiftworld Saga! Roll on!

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    1. Look at the bottom of the post, there are tags there. If you click Let’s Roll, it takes you to all posts that have that tag.

      Funnily enough you can do this with any show or FW Presents feature!

  2. Fantastic episode! GURPS is one of my favorite RPG systems. And Old West was such a cool supplement. I have such Gamer Envy of your experience . I don’t know that I’ve ever listened to group describing their game and wanted so badly to have played along. This was a delightful show. I’m going to go polish up my dice and see if any friends want a session!

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  3. GURPS- love it- Supers was my jam for obvious reasons- as the guys I used to reenact old west stuff with did not play table top games. I don’t think I ever read this book. In fact despite lots of time travel GURPS games I don’t think the “old west” had much presence in our games. Probably because Apple Valley Ca. was almost still in the old west so not much of an escape to pretend to be there or from there.

  4. GURPS is another system that I’ve heard about, but never picked up. I love the idea behind your Shiftworld campaign, and look forward to future installments. Also, I genuinely hope you guys are able to find a way to wrap up that campaign someday. If you do, then please let us know how it goes.

    I liked your GM tips on GM prep work, and striking a balance between open-sandbox and railroad track adventures. A related tip I heard is that, if your group decides to go completely off script, and you’re not comfortable improvising an entire session, then it’s okay to tell them, “If you really want to do that, then I could use a little time to prepare. Do you mind if we hold off on that till our next session?” To give credit, I believe I picked that one up on Web DM’s YouTube channel.

    As a personal testimony, I recently introduced my daughter to D&D, using a premade adventure. Of course, as soon as she left the starting village, she decided to take off in a direction I hadn’t expected. I am not a great improvisor, and it took me a while to regain my footing, but we still had a fun time. So, I agree with Siskoid, don’t be afraid to let your players wander off the beaten path.

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