Going to be running a GURPS Infinite Worlds campaign in a few days. Any tips? Suggestions? General RPG ideas to steal?
I've run a number of one shots before based off GURPS Lite, and I've come to like the system and its versatility. So, I've taken the next step and drafted a couple interested players from the one shots into a campaign.
Essentially, it's a 150 point campaign in the Infinity Patrol setting, based one of the alternate timelines (Gernsback) developing world jumping tech, and the PCs being one of the first teams assembled from said world to scout out and investigate other timelines. The overarching plot is going to be them defending their world from incursions from Centrum and Homeline and building alliances with other parachronically enabled third parties, like Merlin. The main plot hook is going to be a series of kidnappings, by parties including the Homeline Mafia, Reich 5 Nazis, and Centrum. Because of the nature of their travel, all Quanta are accessible by the party, but not as easily as by projector/conveyor. The worlds they're going to be visiting run the gamut from high fantasy to hard science fiction.
Now that background info's out of the way, basically what I'm asking is: are there any interesting items, characters, or plot beats you've used or seen used in tabletop games that could fit well into this kind of story and setting? I want to put some originality into the worlds they visit so they all feel alive and memorable, and side quests and artifacts are a great way to do that. By no means am I interested only in GURPS stuff, the nature of the system makes it pretty easy to graft in stuff from others.
Disclaimer: I haven't played in a formal desktop RPG setting for a long time. My friends and I have homebrewed our own a number of times, and I'm not familiar with the GURPS.
However, in world building, the thing I find most influential to the feel and function of a world, is it's economy. The resources you can expect to find, the armaments and enemies, are all largely influenced by what that world considers valueable, which in turn determines what the party is willing to lug around, or build up around.
Are you going to focus on things like salt, or coinage?
I do remember on a particular play of a fantasy setting, with an Atlantis-like civilisation, I made air too valueable to that world. So my party got distracted from raising the city (a large and intricate quest I spent weeks designing), and started a trade route to carry empty Bag-Of-Holdings into the city, and tanked the economy, causing some minor civil war.
That's a really good idea that I admit I hadn't considered too deeply, I usually focus on making my games character driven more than anything. A decent chunk of the worlds they're going to be visiting are going to be higher tech and richer than their own, so finding something that they consider valuable enough to exchange could be a major plot point.
It's been 20 years probably since I played GURPS but it's a HELL of a system and I'm excited just by reading your description. We played mostly high fantasy and some modern so I don't have much advice related to the setting.
The only piece of advice I'd give is to consider now whether you'll be doing your rolling in front of the players or behind a screen. Behind a screen let's you fudge things if needed to drive the narrative (don't plot hammer!) or save a PC that made a terrible decision. Out in the open can be rougher on the PCs but can be seen as more "fair." And switching back and forth is just a "no" because it tells the players when you're fudging something or not. Just remember your job is to make sure everyone is having a good time, not winning.
I'd be very interested to read updates about how things go.
On a side note, Steve Jackson games has a interesting history and I love to share the story of the Secret Service raiding their company: http://www.sjgames.com/SS/
Oh I'm absolutely doing hidden rolls for that reason, I'm no stranger to fudging for narrative.
Don't even need to click the link, that Secret Service fiasco is one of the best/worst stories in gaming.