I had a refreshing break from being the GM this past Saturday, a vacation I get once a month, and had the opportunity to play in a GURPS campaign. We've only been playing in this campaign for 3 months (so only 3 sessions) and it's been a tad slow, particularly in the story vs. tactics area. This last session, however made up for that in spades.
I'm playing an alcoholic ex-NASCAR driver in a shadowrun-esque near future game, who really just enjoys having fun and partying. Naturally I do have some combat skill, I'm a smuggler now, but not to the level that gunfights are something I'm comfortable with. I'm more of the guy that greases the wheels of information gathering and site access with copious amounts of alcohol. This past session we found ourselves in Toronto Canada trying to track down a person of interest for our current job. Naturally being inclined to having some fun I encouraged the party to join me at the hotel bar. With my masterful carousing and our party's "Faceman" playing off of each other, it was a perfect storm for a legendary party.
We spent a good 2 hours of our 4 hour session that night role playing our bar experience and it was an absolute blast. The real kicker, it had absolutely nothing to do with the current operation, it was just fun for fun sake. Naturally we've come to the conclusion that it may be more effective to use this activity to acquire information, over our ham-fisted attempts at extraction of desired targets. This was the experience I've been looking for, rules (and rolls) played only a minor part of the play, our GM just sort of let it ride. I figure we were having so much fun, he'd let reality dictate fiction in this instance (of course it doesn't hurt that I'd had a few beers prior to play to "get in character"). I'm looking forward to our next game and the many games to follow, including my next campaign - which is also using GURPS. I know it's not the system, but I'm thinking the change is just the revitalization I need to find the story.
Tags: GURPS Role Playing
