Another week in the life of GURPS

[dr_kromm]

This week is named Burt. Though there are only four news items here, they represent quite a bit of keyboard-pounding for me:

• PK (peekitty) sent me some great review comments on the preliminary PDF of GURPS Zombies. I turned around the necessary fixes, which Nikki has already implemented in the working PDF.

• I finished the edit and administrative checks on one of my small writing projects, and sent everything to Steven (waitingforgo). All I can reveal is this item it's related to GURPS Social Engineering.

• David Pulver and I have hashed out a few of the rules issues holding up GURPS Vehicle Design. The final draft might not arrive until mid 2013, but we did solve some problems.

• I continue to work on another of my small writing projects . . . as all of the above permit, anyway. I can only tell you that this one is related to GURPS Thaumatology.

Comments

[dem0nsbane.livejournal.com]

"Related" to Social Engineering, "related" to Thaumatology . . . but no names. You always so secretive! ;)

Mid 2013?

[ian harac (from livejournal.com)]

Sigh... i've been waiting for that since G4 was released... I suppose I'll keep waiting, happy that it's coming at all (since it's pretty much a niche product for a game that is itself pretty niche), and that the time and effort put into it means it will kick serious ass. (PS: This is Lizard, in case you don't recognize my legal name.)

Re: Mid 2013?

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the editorial and auctorial load-to-dollars ratios are grim for GURPS Vehicle Design. The vocal fandom of the two previous editions of GURPS Vehicles might lead one to believe that it's more than a niche . . . but it isn't. The vast majority of gaming is done in fantasy, which doesn't much need vehicles, and SJ Games' audience has a disproportionate interest in conspiracy and horror, which aren't vehicle-heavy genres. If it weren't for diehard GURPS Traveller and GURPS WWII fans, I doubt there would be enough interest to support the book at all. And of course because those properties didn't exactly fill our coffers, we haven't focused on them of late, meaning that the overlap of interest between GURPS Vehicle Design customers and GURPS Fourth Edition fans is pretty small. If the GURPS Third Edition fans would just get with the program, we would probably have more of an incentive to push the book through.

Re: Mid 2013?

[ian harac (from livejournal.com)]

Meanwhile, *I'm* running a GURPS Fringeworthy campaign, which means I need anything from birchbark canoes to grav tanks. :)

Like I said, I know it's niche. Have you considered a kickstarter, to make sure you get the cash up front?

Re: Mid 2013?

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

Kickstarter would be the wrong tool for the job. The central holdup isn't "insufficient funds" but "insufficient manpower"; short of raising money to train new staff for one project, Kickstarter funds would be of no help. Moreover, the delay is as much on David Pulver's end (finishing the final draft) as on SJ Games' end (producing the book), and David's "work for hire" contract would be at odds with Kickstarter. You can't compare works for hire written by freelancers to in-house productions conceived as Kickstarter projects from Day One, like Ogre. Legally and conceptually, that's comparing apples to oranges.

Re: Mid 2013?

[jesse roberge (from livejournal.com)]

Lets get this last umph of techno-geekdom out before David Pulver dies or gets too sick, before the whole world collapses in flames as the people get dumber and lazier and the 0.001% get richer and more powerful and the central banks keep printing more and more money debasing all the currencies and pushing this world into WW3 and another dark age.

Re: Mid 2013?

[unachimba.livejournal.com]

But Spaceship design books sell so well?

I would have thought that those people would at least buy a copy. Though that might only be a couple of thousand sales though.

Re: Mid 2013?

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

There are lots of angles here:

• Futuristic spacecraft account for the majority of vehicles that gamers design, as there are essentially no real-world designs to research.
• Spaceships was one short book and later volumes were modular add-ons, while Vehicle Design will be huge and not amenable to publication in segments.
• There was no central decision to prioritize Spaceships over Vehicle Design anyway – our publication schedule simply isn't that planned.
• Spaceships series sales would imply so few book sales that we couldn't justify a monster like Vehicle Design on that basis.

Really, comparisons of the "Why did you do Book A instead of Book B?" variety are nearly always fundamentally broken.

Re: Mid 2013?

[jesse roberge (from livejournal.com)]

I hope this book is so realistic and geeked out that the Feds watched you during the entire process (as long as they don't actually raid), and Cyberpunk wasn't really all that super-detailed really. It is terribly outdated, attuned to the BBS days. It needs updating.

Re: Mid 2013?

[jesse roberge (from livejournal.com)]

GURPS Space 4th was the best. Simplified 7th-8th grade math and no more than a few lines on the calculator (and that's with the advanced sidebar rules). I think the main improvement is documenting in an appendix, addendum, or sidebar, how you determined some of the custom constants and research sources used for them and the process for simplifying them down (because the source material may be over my head, but at least part of the process might not be or may help me understand).