"In a nutshell" the quickstart of the VI·VIII·X KUP RPG

Very quick description of the book I'm currently working on.

The origin of this book (unforseen in the original project) is a comment I gathered from several communities about the fact that an approach to an RPG with a non-light set of rules like VI·VIII·X is difficult nowadays. A kind of introductory book would smooth the difficulty to approach to such a game and allow more people to know it.

Therefore... here we go!

The book, is now under construction! I have not yet clear the complete table of contents as I am building it along the way... this means that it is not yet clear what I will include in it. My overall goal is to add in there only pieces of the core book that allows players to have a quick approach (i.e. fast and simple) and avoid the more complex ones... This will be done for the sake of the players. For the GMs I will at least leave them a summary of the more complex rules in order to foster their curiosity and if they want to dig further on them.

How I am going to do this, well... that's the real question! I have never built a quickstart and I have never run one (apologies but I used to read all the rules and then play... old style, absolutely outdated!). Anyway, I picked up an old tournament module I wrote together with some friends for a small D&D convention we held in our town back in 2004 (wow! it's nearly 20 years old!!!): I kept the backbone of the module and changed it in the details in order to have a one-shot adventure where the players can taste what a KUP approach is.

By doing the changes at the module, I tried to have a step-by-step explanation of the rules. The quickstart therefore should be built in this way:

  • first an overall part where the fundamentals of the game are explained (character features and main concepts of the game);
  • then the adventure starts (there are 4 levels in it) and for every part of the module I will add both the adventure description and the rule explanation which is used in that part for the first time;
  • a final part with some recap tables and maybe more details on the rules described beforehand;
  • last but not least, there will be an handouts booklet with all the stuff for the players (PC sheets and background which is the most important part of the adventure!)... I plan to prepare this booklet both in English and Italian so that many Italian fellows with be happy!
This however implies that I will not add all the rules of the game because it'd otherwise be a reshuffled (and extended) version of the core rules! For sure all the parts referred to character creation won't be part of it: having pregen PCs it would be redundant... and along with it, I found several other parts that can skipped without losing completeness for a quickstart! 

I am now in process to complete the revision of the adventure! Then I will approach the overall part and complete the adventure with the 'spot-on' rules for every event in it.

The title of the book is already defined: "In a nutshell"
(I already know that it won't be appreciated but I like it...)




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