RogerBW's Blog

Pyramid 119: After the End II 12 September 2018

Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's post-apocalyptic material, and more for The Fantasy Trip.

Moon of Silver, World of Dust (J. Edward Tremlett) is a supernatural post-apocalyptic setting: some large fraction of the human population became werewolves, some larger fraction got killed, and now there's the Silver Land and its alien ecology, slashing across the northern hemisphere. (The southern is, alas, ignored.) I'm afraid I don't find much appeal here: if I want a post-apocalypse with an active enemy, Reign of Steel seems to have more to offer. Additional material here.

No Place Like Home (Chip Limeburner) is a short, generic post-apocalyptic scenario: the party has to shelter in a house with Something Nasty in it. There's nothing particularly distinctive here; it feels a lot like a cheap direct-to-video horror film.

The Knowledge of Our Forebears (Nathan M.M. Meluvor) goes beyond the limited dungeon-bash gameplay of After the End to consider books recovered in a post-apocalypse: this is mostly about how fragile or degraded they are and what will degrade them, with some notes about linguistic differences. There are some solid references here, though not much immediate applicability.

Eidetic Memory: Whispers From the Wastelands (David L. Pulver) gives three travellers' tales, and a possible truth behind each of them. There are (what appear to be) a vampire lair, some zombie lords, and a troll bridge. Reasonable ideas here, if nothing amazing.

Random Thought Table: New Ways to Open the World (Steven Marsh) looks again at sandbox gaming, and things to add to it other than the canonical blank map in order to give PCs things to explore. In particular, there are some radio noises, documents and other small items, and a calendar with one or more Significant Dates marked on it.

That's it for the regular GURPS content, but this issue also squeezes in three articles for TFT (the Kickstarter for a new edition has recently finished). The page count is about the same as usual, so there's less GURPS for your money.

Building Character: Funnels in TFT (Jack Sinnott) implements the idea of a character funnel, an introductory game that starts with lots of characters per player and lets them get killed off until only a few are left.

Monies of Cidri (William F. Hostman) is essentially GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 1 - Glittering Prizes writ very small and without the more interesting bits.

Lessons From Darbo Delver (Guy McLimore) is two short pieces of game-inspirational fiction.

I like the material on books, but otherwise there's not a great deal for me here. Pyramid 119 is available from Warehouse 23.

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