This GURPS supplement deals with teaching, learning, and games based
on either or both.
Disclaimer: I received playtest credit in this book and
therefore did not pay for it.
GURPS is an unusual RPG in that it includes rules for long-term
learning: not just "I have hit lots of monsters, so now I'm better at
hitting monsters" but "I have been taking evening classes in Russian
for a year in between hitting monsters". As RPGs have evolved, there's
been a sense that campaigns may not last very long, so having a
character that's fun to play straight away is considered more
important than being able to develop a character over time. But
there's plenty of gaming potential in learning, and that's what this
supplement is about.
It is split into four parts: the first and largest deals with
learning, using the study rules in the Basic Set and expanding
substantially on them. There are quite a few options here, and it
would be a very unusual campaign that used all of them. There's the
deterministic counting of hours from the Basic Set, but there's also
the option of treating learning as a sort of job: the player makes
monthly study rolls (against Will, with modifications) to see how much
success the character has had. Learning from points, and from a hybrid
of points and study, and simply in return for money (with various
high-tech ways of infusing knowledge), are also covered.
There are some notes here on game events that arise from learning
(what are the teacher and the class like, how to use classroom scenes,
and so on) which are dealt with more in the Campaigns section.
Back to solid game mechanics: "What Can Be Learned" breaks down skills
into several categories, which are affected in different ways by the
learner's own traits. Things that aren't conventional skills can
sometimes be learned too: spells, techniques, languages, and so on,
but most interestingly to me disadvantages: sure, Pacificism
(Reluctant Killer) can be trained out of you, but education can also
bestow negative-point traits, such as Code of Honour or Sense of
Duty. Specific advantages, disadvantages and skills finish off the
chapter: everything that can affect learning is mentioned, from
Single-Minded to Unfit.
The second chapter looks at teaching: when the focus is on intructors
rather than students, how do their skills affect the process of
learning? There's some consideration of teaching methods (e.g.
real-time video links), and more on teaching in the game: heroic
learning ("you must all learn basic swordsmanship in the next few
days"), and dealing with reluctant learners. The chapter ends with
another quick run-through of advantages, disadvantages and skills,
this time considering how they affect a teacher's ability.
The third chapter puts the first two together and deals with
the bigger picture: how do you find a teacher or school, and how reliable
is the relationship? This can determine the attitude of the class or
of individuals within it. Academic organisations are statted as in
GURPS Boardroom and Curia, with details of facilities and
available information. There's more treatment of instructional
methods: apprenticeships, direct tutoring, classrooms, virtual
environments, drill, and so on, as well as relationships between
learners and others (academic communities, rival schools, etc.).
Thr final chapter discusses campaigns with an orientation towards
learning: campaigns about students, or about teachers, or about a
school as a whole. There's a long list of ideas that can readily be
used in school stories, and some considerations of how such campaigns
can remain interesting whether bound to the school itself (the
"cloister" model) or proceeding outside.
I didn't have any plans to run a school-based campaign, but now I'm
thinking about it. That doesn't say much in itself: every book I read
causes me to think about running new campaigns. But I think there's
potential here: consider a school staffed by retired adventurers (the
PCs), who want to help the new generation avoid the mistakes they
made, while also keeping them safe from outside threats… or a
space-naval academy prequel to the actual game of space-naval
operations, as a sort of extended character generation session.
Social Engineering: Back to School is available from Warehouse 23.
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