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.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2300ad 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech bayern beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1