Lessons from making Caravan to Ein Arris Pregens

Gurps has a free adventure named Caravan to Ein Arris. Its pretty well known (by people who've heard of Gurps), probably because it is the official free gurps adventure. You can get fan made stuff, of varying degrees of quality (though I have to call out 1 shot adventures as having both lots of stuff and a high production quality), and there are a few adventures you can buy, but Ein Arris is the most famous.

"Caravan" lacks pregens. Which is a shame, because gurps sheets are hard. And when you ask people for pregens, they kind of shuffle around and give suggestions but don't ever have actual sheets for you. I've tried a few times to make sheets for Ein Arris, but I've never really finished it before. I've finally sat down, and I'm 80% of the way done with 15 characters. And I've come to some discoveries about Ein Arris in the process.

• The Ein Arris Skill list is comprehensive
• The Ein Arris Advantage List contains Traps
• You don't need Great Non-combat skills
•  Ein Arris Combat is Scary
• The Party should be a Bunch of Warriors
• Dungeon Fantasy Henchmen is a Great Base

The Ein Arris Skill list is Comprehensive

When I first read the module, I thought that the skill list was a "Must have" list. Its not. Its a "Everything that might show up" list. If the skill isn't in the list, you probably aren't going to use it. Which is kind of nice to know. Also, its kind of weird that it lists oxen and cattle as two different animal handling specialties.

The Ein Arris Advantage List contains Traps

The character creation list has a list of languages, and a couple of Patrons you could take. One of the languages suggested will never be useful. Another language comes for free with either of the two obvious languages to take (the one at your starting point and the one at your destination). The white sword is said to show up fairly often, but it never really has an effect. Meanwhile, the merchant's guild is said to rarely intercede, but all sorts of little perks from being a member are sprinkled through the book.

You don't need Great Non-combat skills 

All of the non-combat rolls are pretty low, or have minimal consequences. Falling off your camel is embarrassing, and might do a little damage, but you have time to heal. same for getting hit by a skunk, or even completely bungling the first two tasks you are sent to do. And 12's and 13's will give you most of the success you need. Even when trying to out smart or sneak around the thugs, a 12 will give success most of the time.

There is one exception, and it would have been better served by saying "GM fiat says you can't catch the bandits on horseback.". Because that's what it is. What thug has riding-18?

Ein Arris Combat is Scary

Different groups have different styles. Some emphasize combat a lot more than others. In my games, combat is an obstacle that finds you and you defeat, evade, or survive it on your way to winning via negotation, exploration, and research. This is not how Ein Arris is built. Ein Arris will lightly punish players for relying only on their blades, but by and large the adventure is about combat.

The opponents, the notorious Fighters I, II, and III, are really tough combatants, boasting weapon skills of 15 or 16, and ST scores to match. 

The Party is a Bunch of Warriors

Seriously. Maybe I've been playing the strange low-combat mode that I love about gurps for too long and I shouldn't be surprised by this, but the Ein Arris party should be a band of formidable warriors with a little bit of discretion and various tricks on the side. That's the group that will do well and feel like they accomplished something in the end.

Dungeon Fantasy Henchmen is a Great Base

Given the emphasis on combat, and the 125 point budget, Dungeon Fantasy Henchmen is a great base for characters. I saw this suggestion, blew it off, built my own characters, and then found them woefully lacking and converted them to DF:13 standards, basing them off specific templates. The results look really good, over-matching the NPC  Fighters by a point here and a point there. I made heavy use of the Skirmisher, Squire, Agent, and Archer. The Cutpurse and Brute each showed up once. I don't think I'd mind using it again. Just remember that you're building a desert character, not a generic fantasy warrior.

In Summary

So if you're going to build Ein Arris characters, I'd say to pull out DF Henchmen, and make sure to pick up survival(desert), riding (camel), and animal handling (camel), at least at low levels. That's all you really need. 

Good games occur when GM's communicate what the game is about to the players. This is especially important to get right when running someone else's adventure, because the GM needs to make sure the players don't get blindsided, and the GM hasn't loaded the entire adventure into their heads via creating it from whole cloth.

If you're interested in running Ein Arris, you should check out this review by 1ShotAdventures. He's got some good advice about running the adventure, and some comments about things that could be done better or that could be tweaked. He's also got a whole site of free adventures with pregen characters, and if you're interested in this, you're likely to be interested in that.

I hope this helps people build their own Ein Arris characters, and run their own Ein Arris Games. And I hope to have a bunch (15!) of pregens for the game on this blog soon.