The fifth issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.
The universal system, the one RPG that could handle any setting you could throw at it, was a popular idea in the 1980s. Why then, and where has it gone since?
The fourth issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.
Even more stuff by me that you can buy! Unless you have it already.
The longest, and I think the best, RPG campaign I've ever run has reached its end.
Another thing of mine is on Kickstarter. Buy now! Or something.
From a conversation on discussion.tekeli.li came the challenge: if you want to break into someone's house by throwing his plant pots through his (glass) patio doors, how do you go about it? In GURPS, obviously. Do not use this as a guide for actual criminal acts, or if you do at least delete any trace of your having read this post before they catch you.
GURPS 4th edition changed the way the cost of Allies and Dependents is calculated. I think this may be considered an error, or at least that more sophistication is needed.
After last year's GURPS PDF Challenge, there's more of my stuff now being funded on Kickstarter.
The third issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.
My first adventure for Reign of Steel is now available – at least to Kickstarter backers.
Something of mine is on Kickstarter. (Well, sort of.) Gosh.
The second issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.
This GURPS supplement is primarily an equipment catalogue, listing electrical and related equipment from Galvani and Volta to the present day.
This GURPS supplement deals with contacts: how to use them, how to customise them, and a wide variety of examples.
This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series offers improved abilities for some of the standard hunter templates.
This GURPS Powers supplement provides mechanical support for characters aided by totem spirits: something less than gods, but still more than human.
I have committed myself to a fanzine. Not just that, an RPG fanzine; not just that, a GURPS fanzine.
In a recent game using the World of Darkness system, a situation arose in which someone picked up a cat; then, later, they wished to clear their hands before engaging in combat, so they threw the cat at someone else. This needed a certain amount of improvisation from the GM because the rules had little to say about it. But surely GURPS can do better?
This is the third of the new GURPS Steampunk supplements, updating and extending the old book; with genre and technology already covered, this volume deals with character generation.
This GURPS Action supplement lists hazards from the real world (or at least the cinematic world) for use in action games.
GURPS 4th edition has a lot of magic systems, as well as rules for designing your own. How can you choose which one(s) you should use in your new campaign?
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".
This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series models real-world religions to give their monster-hunting adherents appropriate game effects.
This fourth Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book deals with the traditional Ultimate Fantasy Foe.
This second Dungeon Fantasy Adventure book deals with an expedition to the long-abandoned (yeah, right) ruins of a draconic monarch's palace.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's travel, and its perils and adventurous possibilities.
This is the second of the new GURPS Steampunk supplements, updating and extending the old book; it is primarily a book of equipment.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's rules that amend, replace or extend what's already in the books.
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.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's tied to one recent and one upcoming release: the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and The Fantasy Trip.
It has been announced that Pyramid volume 3 is to cease publication at the end of this year.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a tie-in with the recently-released Hot Spots: Renaissance Venice, dealing with areas on a slightly larger scale than last month's Locations issue.
This historical GURPS supplement deals with Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Orichalcum is a term that shows up in Plato's Critias, particularly in association with Atlantis, as a signifier of the decline of civilisation. For role-playing purposes one can do more with it.
This first Dungeon Fantasy Settings book deals with a town - in other words, the very thing that Dungeon Fantasy tends to skim over lightly, as merely a place to heal up, sell loot and buy supplies.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a set of four locations, with some effort made to blend detail with broad applicability.
This supplement adds to the standard GURPS magic system, with spells designed to destroy hordes of minor opponents.
This first GURPS Encounters book is a tavern/bar/club sourcebook combined with four short adventures.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with a new style of magic.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's GURPS Technomancer, the magic-as-technology world inspired by Magic, Inc., Operation Chaos and The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the combination of magic and imagination. Will that be different from the Thaumatology issues we've had before?
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's back to the dungeon, looking at both the Dungeon Fantasy RPG and the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy series. OK, not really an exciting theme for me, but let's see how it goes.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the Action series, a set of rules for streamlining GURPS to fit the sort of story one finds in action films.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's fighting – not a theme I find particularly compelling in RPGs any more.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the exploration of space, as distinct from alien planets.
This supplement for campaign design deals with portal fantasy, specifically the sort in which people from Earth find thsmselves in a fantasy world.
This GURPS Fantasy-Tech supplement deals with upgrades, plausible or otherwise, to low-tech mêlée weapons.
This first Dungeon Fantasy Encounters book deals with an abandoned (but monster-infested) tower offering portals into other worlds.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a return to thaumatology, looking at magic and what to do with it.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the last of the three issues promised during the Dungeon Fantasy RPG kickstarter. (It's well timed, as hardcopies of the books were reaching Kickstarter supporters as it came out, and they're now available to the public.)
My alternate-history World War II (with magic) game has now lasted for ten years of real time, something over 100 sessions (we play roughly monthly and sometimes skip a month).
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's another batch for the Monster Hunters setting.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the second of the three issues promised during the Dungeon Fantasy RPG kickstarter.
Vehicles aren't the defining image of steampunk, but they're certainly one of the important aspects of it, whether it's personal carriages or massive airships. This book lists a number of historical, speculative and fantastic vehicle designs, with stats for use in GURPS.
Squaddies is a series (two so far) of short military SF scenarios from Astronautilus Production; I've been a proof-reader on them. They're designed for fairly near-future interstellar settings. How can they be used with GURPS? Pretty easily, I reckon. This post deals with equipping the troops.
The units(1) program is available on many Unix systems (though rarely installed by default). Most people think of it as a simple interactive converter. It's actually much more powerful than that.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's magic inspired by large-scale filmic stories. Is it just going to be a rerun of #102 Epic? Not quite.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's one of the three issues promised during the Dungeon Fantasy RPG kickstarter.
Thomas Thornberry posted, and Douglas Cole forwarded, a plea for information about high point value campaigns in GURPS: how can they be made to work, when skills become so high that failure is highly unlikely?
This historical GURPS supplement looks at the Silk Road during the peak years of its importance, between roughly the second and tenth centuries AD.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's things that go wrong for player characters.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's things to make the players say "that's amazing".
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's humour, something I've always found tricky in RPGs.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a celebration of 100 issues of Pyramid, and various articles that wouldn't fit well elsewhere.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's death, and what might follow.
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.
This is a small extension of the GURPS rules to generate the time taken for tasks of variable length.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the loose idea of bizarre phenomena and, well, strange powers.
The GURPSDay bloggers suggested a series of questions about the year in GURPS, so…
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's high technology and the things one can do with it.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's wilderness adventures and travel in a fantasy, or at least low-tech, setting.
The original GURPS Steampunk was published in 2000: both GURPS and steampunk have moved on since then. This first of what's planned to be a new series of PDF supplements does not replace that book, but "updates and extends" the GURPS treatment of this genre.
This third Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book deal with monsters of known mythic origins, and expands on the popular "magical mistakes" category of monster.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a third issue on the general theme of Spaceships (the GURPS subsystem as well as the overall concept).
This supplement is not about a specific world, or an area of GURPS rules: it's about how to convert a fictional setting for use in a role-playing campaign.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's police and legal systems.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with magical items that store spellcasting energy.
This supplement adds to the standard GURPS magic system, with spells designed not just to injure or curse but to kill.
This supplement clarifies and gives comprehensive examples of Wildcard Skills, a relatively under-used element of GURPS 4th edition.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement gets away from the cycle of dungeon to generic-town and back again, and moves adventures into the great outdoors.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's zombies.
For my latest RPG campaign, Wives and Sweethearts, I've been trying something a little different, making extensive use of the rules from GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's magic.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time, tying in with the After the End series again, it's a grab-bag of articles about the post-apocalypse.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with "special" treasures: not just the big hauls, but something truly unique.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about alternative framings of the dungeon again.
I had an article in Pyramid #3/90 linking the general ideas of After the End to the specifics of Reign of Steel.
This supplement deals with powers that break the rules, for Lovecraftian aliens, superbeings, and weird lone genius inventors.
This initial supplement in a new line deals with dwellers in the world after the end of civilisation.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about the end of the world, linked to the upcoming publication of the After the End streamlined rules set.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a variety of ideas broadly intended for pre-gunpowder campaigns.
I had an article in Pyramid #3/88 dealing with abandoned nuclear reactors and other sources of radioactive fun.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about organisations, following this year's releases of Boardroom and Curia and Dungeon Fantasy 17: Guilds.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals not just with guilds but with organisations that interact with adventurers: the congregation, the cabal, organised crime, nobles, and the like.
This supplement updates and expands the Sparrial race, from the original GURPS Aliens, to fourth edition.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the near now, things that are just barely possible or not quite possible yet.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with the thing closest to a dungeon-delver's heart: money.
This GURPS Transhuman Space supplement gives an overview of biotech, dealing with all the fiddly bits that aren't bioroids or smart uplifted animals (which were in Bioroid Bazaar).
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a collection of unusual ways of looking at things.
This GURPS Action supplement expands character creation with greater flexibility in power level and skills, while keeping much of the simplictiy of the Action series.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a grab-bag of alternative and house rules for GURPS.
This GURPS Dungeon Fantasy supplement expands the Barbarian archetype with new options and powers.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about items one can make with magic.
This GURPS supplement explains how to convert spells from the standard GURPS magic system into power effects.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about created, and creative, creatures in a horror context.
This GURPS supplement deals with teaching, learning, and games based on either or both.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about things that threaten adventurers in a fantasy game: some monsters, but also societal menaces.
The first Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book dealt with all sorts of creature one might find while kicking in doors and killing the things behind them. This one is more specialised, dealing specifically with slimes.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. "Space Atlas" covers places to take a campaign… in space.
This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series tweaks the game to allow the foes to be aliens rather than supernatural monsters.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's religion, particularly of the actively supernatural sort. This isn't something that tends to come up much in my games, so the applicability of this issue is relatively low for me.
Eight zombie campaign frames sketched out in moderate detail.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's combat: fighting of all sorts.
This supplement is not called "GURPS Organisations", but it might as well have been.
This specialised GURPS supplement deals with unusual sensory powers, from the reasonable to the cinematic.
Broadly speaking your resistance to intimidation, magical and psionic effects, and frightening and stressful situations, is determined by your Will stat. By default this is equal to your IQ; you can buy it up or down for five points per +/-1, and may find this referred to as "strong will" or "weak will".
There are various ways to get and keep good equipment in GURPS, other than just laying down money for it. Here are most of them.
Explosions in GURPS confuse many people. Here's how they work, broken down at greater length than was available in the rules.
GURPS 4th edition introduced a completely new mechanism for the resolution of attacks with rapid-firing and automatic weapons, and uses the same one for shotgun pellet hits (which are after all a similar sort of multi-projectile attack). Here's how it works.