dr_kromm | Another week in the life of GURPS

This week is named Arthur, for obscure reasons to do with ferrets. The GURPS news he bears in his weaselly little paws includes:

• We released Pyramid #3/36: Dungeon Fantasy. You can read all about it here. For the curious: Matt Riggsby (

wombattery) and I truly had no idea that we were both working on articles about gunpowder in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.

• Nikki sent out the production PDF of GURPS Power-Ups 3, by y.t., for review. Its secrets should be revealed in the relatively near future. I'll name-drop one random section title for people to worry about: Alternative Benefits.

• Nikki also sent out the production PDF of GURPS Low-Tech: Instant Armor, by Dan Howard, for review. You'll soon be able to buy bits and pieces of armor without having to design them – just read the stats off the tables and you're done. You'll get a few cool bonus rules, too.

• The revised first draft of GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling, by Doug Cole (

douglascole), arrived in house. We're now planning the playtest. We won't really be requiring broken limbs as proof of subject-matter expertise on the part of the playtest candidates. Mostly.

• I reviewed the first draft of GURPS Power-Ups 4, by PK (

peekitty). Naturally, that's a secret, but I'll do the name-dropping thing again: Godlike Tricks.

• I submitted my first draft of GURPS Power-Ups 5, so here's one last name-drop: Open Your Eyes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Squee, I say. Squee. I am outed on my first real project.

You should start doing discount bundles. RPGNow does this (the one I bought was the Sci-Fi Gamer's bundle - Astrosynthesis 3 + Fractal Mapper 8, discounted about 25%) as. At least on your completed series. Spaceships bundle, dungeon fantasy bundle, etc...

While I see your point, it isn't my decision. Our software back end doesn't support that at all at this time. We certainly want the capability, but obtaining it requires resources that we cannot spare at this time. As the saying goes, "Wait and see."

Also, for those following these comments, I should point out that we have no "completed series" at this time. Anything that goes to 2 could go to 200, if sales support it. This is definitely true of Dungeon Fantasy (we have no intention of stopping at 14), and might well prove true of Spaceships (while the contract covered 1-8, we're open to 9+).

I'm eagerly awaiting GURPS Vehicle Design. I'm hoping you guys get Vehicle Design out while David Pulver is still around (Gary Gygax isn't around anymore) and while SJ Games is still even paying any attention at all to GURPS. Munchkin is very popular, even some non-geeky people at work know about it and some have some sets of the cards. Spaceships 1 is fairly cool. 2-8 I find mediocre. Better off as a larger, more integrated, book. Vehicles expansions were awesome though. I am a crunchy type that likes to design hyper-realistic vehicles (especially starships) for fun. Don't need to cripple the math in GVD to upper middle school / jr-high level like in GURPS Space. Go all the way up to precalculus or even some simple calculus in the extra-crunchy sidebars (no complex calculus). Just make sure you define all the symbols very well and provide background on the phsyics / engineering / geometry and provide some refreshers on the math for those that may have gotten rusty. Don't hold back the superscience. Just mark it. Supposed to be imagination, plausible imagination with superscience (or in low-tech, magic, or a bane in the harry potter world, technomancy).

I'm eagerly awaiting GURPS Vehicle Design. I'm hoping you guys get Vehicle Design out while David Pulver is still around (Gary Gygax isn't around anymore) [...]

Don't worry . . . David is roughly a year older than me. Neither of us is especially in danger of kicking the bucket! Of course, I suppose that anybody could be hit by a truck, a submarine, or a runaway F-35.

[...] and while SJ Games is still even paying any attention at all to GURPS.

That isn't my call. Certainly, from a job-security point of view, I wish GURPS was still our flagship line and getting a dozen full-length books a year. But the company has to publish what makes money.

Go all the way up to precalculus or even some simple calculus in the extra-crunchy sidebars (no complex calculus). Just make sure you define all the symbols very well and provide background on the phsyics / engineering / geometry and provide some refreshers on the math for those that may have gotten rusty.

That would be a book we couldn't sell. Most people – including most gamers – are conversant with pre-high-school math at best. Given that GURPS isn't still our flagship line and can't move a dozen full-length books a year, we again have to publish what makes money. This means something that appeals to the broadest cross section of gamers.

Don't hold back the superscience.

I wouldn't worry about that. We've never been especially concerned with avoiding the impossible in our publications!

I suppose that anybody could be hit by a truck, a submarine, or a runaway F-35.

GAH.

"I suppose that anybody could be hit by a truck, a submarine, or a runaway F-35."

Yeah, just look at what keeps happening to John McClane.

If you're in to crunch, have you checked out "the most infamous Pyramid article of all time" (as reviewed by Jeffr0): The Deadly Spring, in Pyramid #3-33? If you're into heavy math, boy do I have the article for you. :-)

Looked at the preview. I think I will like "The Deadly Spring" very much.

btw I have 4 copies of GURPS Space (2 hard, 2 soft), 2 copies of spaceships 1, plus legit PDFs of both. I have legit PDFs of spaceships 2-8 but won't buy those in hardcopy. I also have 2 copies and a legit PDF each of Ultra Tech and Bio Tech. I have 1 hard copy each of all the remaining GURPS hardcovers and legit PDFs for the basic set.

Thats great news. I look forward to more ACTION someday.

Another week in the life of GURPS

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