RogerBW's Blog

Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time, to support the forthcoming Dungeon Fantasy RPG, it's all about dungeon-bashing.

You All Meet at an Inn (Matt Riggsby) is an introductory adventure: assorted misfits spend the night at a remote inn, and have to work together to fight off waves of zombies, presumably coming out of it as a party. It's all pretty straightforward stuff.

The Monstrous Monstorum (Christopher R. Rice) offers fifteen new things to bash, from the Bandit-Snatcher (seemingly aimed squarely at the "Can Be Stolen" gadget limitation) to the Windroot (a new kind of roper). Well, you can bash them, and that's about it. Though I'll probably steal the night-soil elemental.

Eidetic Memory: Grave of the Pirate Queen (David L. Pulver) is a short adventure with a sea-coast theme. Rumours, caves, monsters, treasure, you get the idea.

Building a Long-Term Dungeon Fantasy Game (Peter V. Dell'Orto) is a condensed version of some of the advice Peter's given on his blog: start small, expand only as needed, and make sure every character has something to do. Also, keep the focus on the dungeon, with limited interaction with the outside world. Peter specifically advises that the GM keep things dungeon-bound rather than moving over to more complex plots… since getting away from the dungeon-bash paradigm and doing more interesting things is exactly what I like about most of the games I now play, I'm obviously not going to agree, but it works for him and his players.

Random Thought Table: Back to Basics (Steven Marsh) recommends various ways of keeping games manageable: a cheat-sheet listing all abilities (I sometimes do this for my convention games, at least for advantages and disadvantages, but Steven takes it further with skills and history as well), and various sorts of token for ways of keeping track of hit points, fatigue, time, and so on.

I may find some of the monsters usable, but there's nothing here I really expect to bring to the table any time soon. Pyramid 98 is available from Warehouse 23.