RogerBW's Blog

Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, was the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme – though for this final issue that's mostly "look at all the different genres we've covered".

Sufficiently Deranged (Phil Masters) systematises mad science by treating it, in rules terms, like a sort of magic: this covers two separate cinematic treatments of advanced science, the naïve approach that advanced technology can simply do amazing and unpredecented things if you know it well enough, and the slightly more sophisticated model that lets some individuals vastly exceed what reality will normally allow. So we get Magery (Mad Science), used as a Talent for Gadgeteering rolls; going further, it can drive syntactic Realm magic, using each science as its own Realm. There are plenty of examples for the GM to build this into a full "magic" system. I think one could have a lot of fun with this, and I'm filing it mentally in the steampunk campaign box.

The Undead-Hunter (Sean Punch) is a class package for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, with notes on customisations, an example character, and a conversion to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. No notes on tactics, which suggests that they should be fairly obvious.

Chevaliers and Commanders (Christopher R. Rice) presents two more GURPS Dungeon Fantasy templates, a specialist in mounted combat (which should perhaps have been called the knight, but that name was already taken by the "armoured warrior" template) and a leader of men. Both have customisation notes, a 50-point lens version for multi-classing, and custom traits.

Eidetic Memory: The Bouncers of Caradoc (David L. Pulver) presents a race of (unintelligent) psychic predators, and some other creatures which get a bit less detail; it's aimed at an SF setting.

British Rhodes (Matt Wehmeier) is an outpost of the British Empire, in a world lurching towards its version of the Great War. I find the world rather more interesting than the individual port-city, and it could definitely become a challenge for an Infinite Worlds game.

Native American Crusaders (Christopher R. Rice) extends the recent Monster Hunters 6: Holy Hunters by adding various Native American religious practices – and some new culturally-specific monsters for them to fight. I'm rather impressed with Holy Hunters and this seems like a decent supplement to it.

Random Thought Table: Final Thoughts (Steven Marsh) is a longer piece than usual, considering Steven's gaming philosophy: primarily, that we're all here to have fun, that the fun will look different for different people, and if things are going wrong one should try to fix them as soon as possible.

So on balance, some pieces that will be no use to me at all, and a few that seem likely to repay further development – which is characteristic of Pyramid volume 3 in general, really, though as a role-player who mostly isn't enthused by dungeon-bashing I realise that I'm a small minority in what's already not a huge hobby and catering to my tastes is no way to make money. Pyramid 122 is available from Warehouse 23, as are all previous issues.