Infinite Worlds

>tfw you'll never play in an IW campaign with PCs as varied as the iconic characters off the Basic Set.

>>53797250
Because it's GURPS, and GURPS has never been hugely popular.

>>53797250
Too much effort for the GM.

You're already playing GURPS, and on top of that you're gonna throw the campaign between multiple universes!?

>>53797338
>tfw you'll never fight space nazis one session then catholic pirate orcs the next with your psionic caveman character

>>53797371
>GURPS is complicated meme
I was memed into thinking this for a long time. I've switched over from D&D recently and it's honestly easier to DM, since you can mostly make up anything almost instantly.

>>53797250
Because it's GURPS.

If it had been D&D, or even Shadowrun, it would have taken off.

>>53797437
Try convincing a D&Dbrainrot to plau gurps anon...
>determined full attack is good and breaks the system!!
>80guns
>I CANT HIT ANYTHING ZOMG!!

>>53797250

So what is this, basically a Sliders RPG?

Can I play Quinn, SingyBlack, Fatman and the Chick?

>>53798944
Not exactly. The basic premise -- that there are many different parallel universes and that it is possible to travel between them -- is similar, but that's about where the similarity ends.

Two of the alternate universes independently discovered technology to pretty reliably travel between universes. One of these worlds, "Homeline," is basically near-future Earth where the ability to grab resources from versions of Earth with no humans on them has driven an economic boom. The other, "Centrum," is an alternate history where the changes in history led to it developing a single planetary government that is at least authoritarian, if not totalitarian.

Other universes include "echoes," which are worlds following the course of known history, but at some point in the past. One of the major meta-conflicts of the setting is Homeline trying to thwart efforts by Centrum to to move echoes to different strata of dimensions, closer to Centrum (and thus easier to access) and away from Homeline. Centrum accomplishes this by changing key points in history, and it appears they've figured out fairly well how to make it work in their favor, although their record isn't perfect.

There also are worlds where there are major changes in history, leading to drastically different cultural landscapes. Worlds where humanity has been wiped out, or never developed in the first place. Worlds where the laws of physics are different, where magic works, where elves, orcs, and goblins live, where lizardmen fill the role humans have in the real world, one where Skynet with the serial number filed off happened, etc. And lots of worlds where the Nazis won.

One of those Nazi worlds, Reich 5, is developing its own form of cross-dimension travel. Fortunately, they are held back by the fact the Nazis are focusing on the occult, drugs, and genetic engineering to get it done, rather than technology.

>>53799226
A couple of standalone settings have also come out of Infinite Worlds.

Reign of Steel is the "Skynet wins" setting, and Banestorm is a pretty standard fantasy setting, except the world's humans were stranded in the setting from Earth (or its echoes) by dimensional storms. It's still possible for people to get to the Banestorm setting through dimensional travel, but cross-dimensional technology can't get you out of Yrth.

>>53799226
>known history
Known history of Homeline, that is. Our Earth isn't supposed to exist in IW.
And yeah, unlike Sliders, the worlds that aren't echoes are wildly different, there aren't a lot of "it's just like our Earth, except [minor difference]".

>"Homeline," is basically near-future Earth where the ability to grab resources from versions of Earth with no humans on them has driven an economic boom
Yeah and they also exploit planets with humans on them. See Johnson's Rome.

>>53799262
Basically all of GURPS' setting can be added to an IW easily. The only thing writers oppose is bringing settings with FTL or stellar empires to IW. IIRC they're not too fond of adding Transhuman Space either, though there's a timeline mentioned somewhere that's basically THS without the colonization of the solar system.

>>53799297
>Johnson's Rome
Yeah, I was just trying to keep my explanation relatively simple.

I singled out Reign of Steel and Banestorm because they are explicitly spelled out in Infinite Worlds material.

>>53797250

First, it's GURPS. Much like Windows and regardless of whether it's "better" or not, D&D/d20 won the RPG "DOS" war a long time ago. D&D/d20 and systems derived from them make up the majority of RPGs and most Gms/players are casuals or near-casuals who can't be bothered to learn anything else.

Second, IW is too big and provides too many choices. GMs and campaigns drown in it. Because the PCs can go anywhere, the GM must be ready for anything.

Third, the rationale behind the official IW campaign is poorly explained and the mechanism is left too vague. Homeline and Centrum are trying to move Echoes closer to themselves while preventing each other from doing the same. Echoes are infinite and neither side can even marginally exploit the ones they "control" now, so why dos it matter if one specific Echo out of an infinite number is "closer" to one side or the other?

Also, "moving" Echoes isn't explained at all. The PCs are given "blind" mission orders to do X or prevent Y so Echo Z moves or doesn't move. What's not explained is how any of that is figured out. The in-game "reason" is that it's computer projections by super-science and thus far above the players' heads, but if we don't know how it's done in even a vague sense, how the fuck are GMs supposed to create their own missions?

Without guidelines about moving an Echo works, the GM is left with concocting "randumb" missions that have no real heft.

You can play IW without moving Echoes at all and just have the Pcs undertake various capers on various worlds but in doing so the PCs never touch on the setting's central conflict.

>>53799670
>You can play IW without moving Echoes at all and just have the Pcs undertake various capers on various worlds
And that is how I would run a game. Forget about shifting echoes. Maybe even take that aspect out of the setting. Who needs it, when the players can hunt down Neo Nazis to keep them from giving an alternate dimension Hitler the atomic bomb? Or rescue an agent who got captured on some totalitarian world before his captors get the secret of cross-dimension travel out of him? Or track down a fugitive serial killer who got his hands on some cross-dimension tech (or stop him from killing every version of his ex-girlfriend's new fiance)?