Having spent far too many years searching for the One True System(TM), collecting endless sets of RPG rules and rejecting most of them as either too loosey-goosey or too-tight-and-inflexible, my arrival with GURPS has unlocked an excitement and curiosity to explore that I’ve not felt since I began the hobby.

It’s not that GURPS is the One True System(TM) – such claims are the source of far too much division and tribalism in the RPG community already – but rather that GURPS is a game that is neither too-loosey-goosey nor too-tight-and-inflexible for my taste. It’s a Goldilocks System(TM) – just right for me, especially with the Third Edition.

As a consequence of this (re)discovery of GURPS Third Edition, I have a new roleplaying game project that I want to pursue: a cross-worlds multiversal setting which allows me to draw together all of my disparate existing and potential Worlds into one grand unifying Universe.

This is the game I have been wanting to play for more years than I can remember. I spoke about it publically for the first time when I recorded Roleplay Rescue Season 3 Episode 7, “The Game I Really Want To Run” back in June 2019.

The game I really want to play doesn’t fit the rules. It’s a world in which fantasy rubs shoulders with science fiction. In which dinosaurs run rampant and laser pistols get fired. It’s what a lot of people rather insultingly call “Gonzo”. I’ve used the term myself and I have come to loathe it. It’s up there with words like “fluff” – I hate those terms. They are too simplistic and ever-so-slightly snobbish.

Genre is too limiting for me.

I want to travel to far off worlds in my starship and fight aliens, loot ancient tombs from long lost empires, and ride wolves. I want to fire guns, do karate kicks, and sweet-talk beautiful Princes. I want to wade in the mud and discover how it feels to live on a war-torn battlefront as much as I want to stride through chromium streets paved with the blood of corporate sponsorship. I don’t want to stay in genre. Magic and technology fascinate me. The alien and the familiar intrigue me. And I want to bring this creative freedom to the gaming table.

Looking at my gaming shelves, I find myself wondering, “When will I ever play all of these different settings and worlds?” The answer is simple: we can begin now. That’s the power of the Generic Universal Roleplaying System. And not just the GURPS books but also all those worlds from games with systems I don’t enjoy.

Five years ago I was criticised for my suggestion that an approach to breaking gaming friends out of their comfortable unimaginative tropes was to, “take them on a journey.” Inspired by Campbell’s Monomyth and the Hero’s Journey, I proposed starting a game in the same old staid manner and then, slowly, opening up the possibilities by gently breaking the tropes. This, I was told, was manipulative and deceptive. Perhaps.

An alternative is to build and play this solo. I’ve come to realise that this is the best option to begin such a game. But I’ve also come to understand that once a game is underway, especially when I play solo and I talk about it, people start asking to take part. It’s the “build it and they will come” approach to the hobby. This is the project that I am beginning today.

Here’s the elevator pitch:

The denizens of a seemingly unending variety of worlds believe that their place and time is the one-and-only reality of the universe. Some live in realms that would strike others as dystopian nightmares and accept it as normality. Others live in galaxy-spanning empires of star-faring wonder and could not imagine a life confined to one small continent on a single planet.

But the truth is weirder that they imagine: there exists a multiverse of reality populated by sentience that seeks to bring order out of chaos. Not only are there many different worlds in a single universe but there exist numberless echo realities and shadow realms which answer the question, “What if one event in our reality was altered?”

The truth is that some people know the secret which they hope only the smallest number of beings ever discover: there exist other worlds, other realities, and many alternatives which, through either strange magic or fractures in whatever fabric this multiverse is constructed from, a very small number of people can travel. You are about to discover this secret and your life will never quite be the same.

Game on!