RogerBW's Blog

Notes on Mongoose's Bayern 1: The Wanderer 10 December 2024

This is part of an ongoing series about the preparations I've made to run Mongoose's revised edition of the Bayern campaign for 2300AD. Spoilers for Interlude 1.

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Notes on Mongoose's Bayern 0: Setup and Character Generation 07 December 2024 - 4 comments

I've recently started to run Mongoose's revised version of the 2300AD campaign Bayern, after having obtained it in a Bundle of Holding. Here are some notes I've made to add to the published materials. There are no spoilers here, though there may be in future instalments which deal with specific scenarios.

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The Path of Cunning Issue 5 02 December 2024

The fifth issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.

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The Goals of a Universal System 29 November 2024 - 5 comments

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?

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Cthulhu Eternal WWI 23 September 2023 - 1 comment

I've localised another SRD book for Cthulhu Eternal.

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Summer Stabcon 2023 27 July 2023 - 4 comments

Back to the Masonic Hall on a hot weekend.

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The Path of Cunning Issue 4 04 July 2023 - 1 comment

The fourth issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.

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Playing the odds in En Garde! 10 June 2023 - 3 comments

One of the more complex aspects of En Garde! is gambling, and correct choices are not obvious. So I worked it out in detail.

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GURPS Space Atlas: Grissom 15 April 2023

Even more stuff by me that you can buy! Unless you have it already.

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Cthulhu Eternal WWII 27 February 2023 - 2 comments

Also known as "more stuff by me that you can buy".

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Multiplied Dice 24 January 2023 - 5 comments

Here's a core game mechanic with no game wrapped round it. It might be useful for someone, or I may use it myself some day. Have fun.

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ConVocation 2022 05 October 2022 - 3 comments

A return to Leeds for my favourite RPG convention.

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Summer Stabcon 2022 13 July 2022 - 3 comments

Well, the convention restarted a while ago, but this time I actually felt reasonably happy about going.

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Virtual Tabletop on the cheap 28 November 2021 - 2 comments

I don't generally use maps much when I'm role-playing; my games are fairly fluid, such that it's not very clear where things are going to be happening until the session has started, and exact tactical distances don't matter much. But since the pandemic began, particularly because I can't easily sketch something and hand it round the group, I've been experimenting with something a bit more sophisticated.

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YSDC Games Day 10 (ConVocation 2021) 09 October 2021

Tenth in this series of one-day conventions, and my first in-person RPGs for quite some time.

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End of an Era 27 September 2021 - 3 comments

The longest, and I think the best, RPG campaign I've ever run has reached its end.

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Yet More Kicking 09 July 2021 - 3 comments

Another thing of mine is on Kickstarter. Buy now! Or something.

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What Sort of Gamer Are You? 28 June 2021 - 6 comments

When the GM asks "what day of the week was your character born on", do you respond:

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How to Break a Glass Door 30 May 2021 - 8 comments

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.

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Logarithmic scales for RPGs 23 May 2021 - 14 comments

Over the years quite a few RPGs have used logarithmic scales for various purposes. Why aren't they more popular?

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Automatic Fire in Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition 18 May 2021 - 2 comments

Call of Cthulhu has a spotty history with automatic fire; it's one of the few rules that changed quite a lot between editions before the complete rewrite that was 7th. I don't think 7th has improved matters.

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Relative and absolute ally values in GURPS 15 May 2021 - 4 comments

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.

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Exciting Choices in Gaming Typography 18 April 2021 - 10 comments

Someone sent me a link to a fan-made Traveller setting based on a USSR-derived interstellar power. And it's pretty interesting, except for the Cyrillic Thing.

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More Kicking, More Starting 19 January 2021 - 4 comments

After last year's GURPS PDF Challenge, there's more of my stuff now being funded on Kickstarter.

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The Path of Cunning Issue 3 17 November 2020 - 7 comments

The third issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.

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Twilight 2000: Survivors' Guide to the United Kingdom 03 November 2020 - 6 comments

This 1990 RPG supplement by Peter Phillipps portrays a Britain after World War III. Well. Up to a point. It is a famously bad book.

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Genesys Core Rulebook (part 5, GM toolkit and conclusions) 22 October 2020

The final major section of the book is the GM's toolkit.

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Genesys Core Rulebook (part 4, GM advice and settings) 17 October 2020

That's more or less the players' part of the book. The rest of it is advice to the GM.

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Genesys Core Rulebook (part 3, combat and other tasks) 15 October 2020 - 4 comments

You now have a character. Now let's break it.

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Genesys Core Rulebook (part 2, mechanics and character generation) 11 October 2020 - 3 comments

So given that universal resolution mechanic, what's the rest of the game about?

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Genesys Core Rulebook (part 1, initial thoughts) 09 October 2020

This universal RPG system suffers from conflicting goals, but ends up producing a pleasantly fast-moving game.

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YSDC Games Day 9 (ConVocation 2020) 02 October 2020

Ninth in this series of one-day conventions, which this year of course happened on-line.

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Read the Sky 31 July 2020

My first adventure for Reign of Steel is now available – at least to Kickstarter backers.

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Start the Kicking 06 July 2020 - 2 comments

Something of mine is on Kickstarter. (Well, sort of.) Gosh.

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Arking Time 06 May 2020 - 2 comments

I've been running a small Discourse forum for role-playing and boardgaming for a while now, ever since UKRolePlayers shut down. It's suddenly got much bigger.

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The Path of Cunning Issue 2 17 February 2020 - 1 comment

The second issue of the GURPS fanzine The Path of Cunning is out.

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Stabcon 2020 25 January 2020 - 1 comment

This long-running games convention had another instance at the start of January. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Printing PDFs with Lulu 22 November 2019 - 1 comment

I've recently made hardcopy books of some of my role-playing PDFs, using Lulu's print-on-demand service. Here are some tricks that might be helpful for anyone else doing the same thing.

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Thoughts on The Lightless Beacon 10 November 2019

The Lightless Beacon is an adventure by Leigh Carr with Lynne Hardy, released to commemorate the death of Greg Stafford. I recently ran it for Whartson Hall. Spoilers.

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GURPS High Tech: Electricity and Electronics, William H. Stoddard 23 October 2019

This GURPS supplement is primarily an equipment catalogue, listing electrical and related equipment from Galvani and Volta to the present day.

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YSDC Games Day 8 03 October 2019 - 2 comments

Eighth in this series of one-day conventions in bustling metropolitan Baildon (suburban Bradford).

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GURPS Social Engineering: Keeping in Contact, Kelly Pedersen 24 September 2019

This GURPS supplement deals with contacts: how to use them, how to customise them, and a wide variety of examples.

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GURPS Monster Hunters Power-Ups 1, Christopher R. Rice 18 September 2019

This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series offers improved abilities for some of the standard hunter templates.

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GURPS Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits, Rory Fansler 09 September 2019

This GURPS Powers supplement provides mechanical support for characters aided by totem spirits: something less than gods, but still more than human.

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Announcing The Path of Cunning 05 September 2019

I have committed myself to a fanzine. Not just that, an RPG fanzine; not just that, a GURPS fanzine.

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How to Throw a Cat 06 August 2019 - 4 comments

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?

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GURPS Steampunk 3: Soldiers and Scientists, Phil Masters 08 March 2019

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.

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Dudley Bug Ball 2019 25 February 2019 - 1 comment

I often heard about this RPG convention when it was running some years ago, but it stopped before I got round to attending. The organisers have started it again, so I went along to find out more.

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The Dark Times 4 13 February 2019

The Dark Times, edited by Lee Williams, is a fanzine that follows on from Demonground and Protodimension in dealing with "the horror-conspiracy-weirdness gaming genres", beginning with Dark Conspiracy and drifting into nearby areas.

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GURPS Action 5: Dictionary of Danger, Sean Punch 27 January 2019

This GURPS Action supplement lists hazards from the real world (or at least the cinematic world) for use in action games.

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How to Choose a GURPS Magic System 11 January 2019 - 8 comments

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?

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Pyramid 122: All Good Things 26 December 2018

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".

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GURPS Monster Hunters 6: Holy Hunters, Jason Levine 22 December 2018

This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series models real-world religions to give their monster-hunting adherents appropriate game effects.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 4: Dragons, Sean Punch 18 December 2018

This fourth Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book deals with the traditional Ultimate Fantasy Foe.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 2: Tomb of the Dragon King, Matt Riggsby 09 December 2018

This second Dungeon Fantasy Adventure book deals with an expedition to the long-abandoned (yeah, right) ruins of a draconic monarch's palace.

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Dragonmeet 2018 03 December 2018

Back to Dragonmeet, since it was happening (and I was being paid). All images are cc-by-sa.

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Pyramid 121: Travels and Tribulations 24 November 2018

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.

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GURPS Steampunk 2: Steam and Shellfire, Phil Masters 04 November 2018 - 1 comment

This is the second of the new GURPS Steampunk supplements, updating and extending the old book; it is primarily a book of equipment.

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Pyramid 120: Alternate GURPS V 24 October 2018 - 5 comments

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.

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Whartstock 2018 12 October 2018

Whartstock is the best gaming convention that you aren't invited to; it's the annual-ish gathering of the Whartson Hall Æthernauts.

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YSDC Games Day 7 02 October 2018 - 2 comments

Seventh in this series of one-day conventions in bustling metropolitan Baildon (suburban Bradford).

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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.

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Pyramid 118: Dungeon Trips 21 August 2018

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.

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The End of Pyramid Volume 3 15 August 2018

It has been announced that Pyramid volume 3 is to cease publication at the end of this year.

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Pyramid 117: Hot Spots 05 August 2018 - 1 comment

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.

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GURPS Hot Spots: Renaissance Venice, Matt Riggsby 30 July 2018 - 1 comment

This historical GURPS supplement deals with Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries.

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Summer Stabcon 2018 17 July 2018

This long-running games convention had another instance at the start of July, on a very very hot weekend. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Mythical Orichalcum in GURPS 15 July 2018 - 2 comments

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.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Settings: Caverntown, Sean Punch 07 July 2018

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.

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Pyramid 116: Locations 29 June 2018

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.

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GURPS Magic: Artillery Spells, Sean Punch 23 June 2018 - 5 comments

This supplement adds to the standard GURPS magic system, with spells designed to destroy hordes of minor opponents.

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UK Games Expo 2018: Sunday 17 June 2018

Sunday was mostly a demonstration day as the show wound down; it was much less crowded than Saturday.

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GURPS Encounters: The Harrowed Hearts Club, Jon Black 15 June 2018

This first GURPS Encounters book is a tavern/bar/club sourcebook combined with four short adventures.

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UK Games Expo 2018: Saturday 13 June 2018

On Saturday I was mostly out in the show rather than at the table, because there was a team of extra demonstrators coming in just for that day.

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UK Games Expo 2018: Friday 09 June 2018

Friday at UK Games Expo was a half-day of demos, followed by meeting friends.

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UK Games Expo 2018: Thursday 07 June 2018

UK Games Expo expanded again this year, and either it sorted out most of its organisational problems or I managed to shift to doing the things which it's good at.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic, Christopher R. Rice and Antoni Ten Monrós 03 June 2018

This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with a new style of magic.

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Pyramid 115: Technomancer 29 May 2018

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.

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The Dark Times 3 25 May 2018

The Dark Times, edited by Lee Williams, is a fanzine that follows on from Demonground and Protodimension in dealing with "the horror-conspiracy-weirdness gaming genres", beginning with Dark Conspiracy and drifting into nearby areas.

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Pyramid 114: Mind Over Magic 21 April 2018 - 2 comments

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?

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Pyramid 113: Dungeon Fantasies 24 March 2018 - 1 comment

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.

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Pyramid 112: Action II 19 February 2018 - 2 comments

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.

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The Dark Times 2 03 February 2018

The Dark Times, edited by Lee Williams, is a fanzine that follows on from Demonground and Protodimension in dealing with "the horror-conspiracy-weirdness gaming genres", beginning with Dark Conspiracy and drifting into nearby areas.

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Pyramid 111: Combat II 20 January 2018 - 2 comments

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.

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Pyramid 110: Deep Space 25 December 2017

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.

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GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms, William H. Stoddard 10 December 2017

This supplement for campaign design deals with portal fantasy, specifically the sort in which people from Earth find thsmselves in a fantasy world.

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Dragonmeet 2017 03 December 2017

Back to Dragonmeet, since it was happening. All images are cc-by-sa.

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GURPS Fantasy-Tech 2: Weapons of Fantasy, Sean Punch 28 November 2017

This GURPS Fantasy-Tech supplement deals with upgrades, plausible or otherwise, to low-tech mêlée weapons.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 1: The Pagoda of Worlds, Matt Riggsby 23 November 2017

This first Dungeon Fantasy Encounters book deals with an abandoned (but monster-infested) tower offering portals into other worlds.

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Pyramid 109: Thaumatology V 18 November 2017

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.

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Pyramid 108: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game III 11 November 2017 - 2 comments

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.)

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The Dark Times 1 29 October 2017

The Dark Times, edited by Lee Williams, is a new fanzine that follows on from Demonground and Protodimension in dealing with "the horror-conspiracy-weirdness gaming genres", beginning with Dark Conspiracy and drifting into nearby areas.

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Reflections on Ten Years of the Second World War 20 October 2017 - 5 comments

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).

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Pyramid 107: Monster Hunters III 26 September 2017 - 2 comments

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.

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Pyramid 106: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game II 31 August 2017 - 1 comment

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.

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GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances 17 August 2017

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.

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Squaddies in GURPS: Equipment 08 August 2017 - 1 comment

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.

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The units program as a command-line calculator 28 July 2017

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.

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Pyramid 105: Cinematic Magic 25 July 2017

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.

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Summer Stabcon 2017 20 July 2017 - 3 comments

This long-running games convention had another instance at the start of July. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Pyramid 104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game 28 June 2017

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.

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High point value campaigns in GURPS 15 June 2017 - 1 comment

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?

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UK Games Expo 2017 06 June 2017 - 3 comments

UK Games Expo continues to expand; the trade hall was still in NEC Hall 1, but all the tournaments which had shared space with it were pushed into one of the other halls at the back. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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GURPS Hot Spots: The Silk Road, Matt Riggsby 04 June 2017

This historical GURPS supplement looks at the Silk Road during the peak years of its importance, between roughly the second and tenth centuries AD.

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Pyramid 103: Setbacks 24 May 2017 - 2 comments

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.

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Pyramid 102: Epic 07 May 2017

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".

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Pyramid 101: Humor 18 April 2017

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.

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Pyramid 100: Pyramid Secrets 23 March 2017

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.

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Pyramid 99: Death and Beyond 06 March 2017 - 3 comments

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.

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Pyramid 98: Welcome to Dungeon Fantasy 18 February 2017 - 2 comments

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.

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GURPS house rule: completion time 03 February 2017 - 2 comments

This is a small extension of the GURPS rules to generate the time taken for tasks of variable length.

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Stabcon 2017 31 January 2017

This long-running games convention had another instance at the start of January. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Pyramid 97: Strange Powers 12 January 2017

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.

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2016 in GURPS 29 December 2016 - 4 comments

The GURPSDay bloggers suggested a series of questions about the year in GURPS, so…

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Pyramid 96: Tech and Toys IV 18 December 2016

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.

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Pyramid 95: Overland Adventures 27 November 2016 - 4 comments

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.

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GURPS Steampunk 1: Settings and Style, Phil Masters 13 November 2016 - 2 comments

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.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3: Born of Myth & Magic, Peter dell'Orto 05 November 2016 - 7 comments

This third Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book deal with monsters of known mythic origins, and expands on the popular "magical mistakes" category of monster.

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YSDC Games Day 5 30 October 2016

Fifth in this series of one-day conventions in bustling metropolitan Baildon (suburban Bradford). All images are cc-by-sa.

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Pyramid 94: Spaceships III 12 October 2016

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).

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GURPS Adaptations, William H. Stoddard 22 September 2016

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.

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Pyramid 93: Cops and Lawyers 11 September 2016

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.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 18: Power Items, Sean Punch 03 September 2016

This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with magical items that store spellcasting energy.

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Failing to Fix Operation Hard Sell 25 August 2016 - 2 comments

Operation Hard Sell was the adventure that convinced me I should stop running Torg, at least for a while. Spoilers for this adventure follow.

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GURPS Magic: Death Spells, Sean Punch 15 August 2016

This supplement adds to the standard GURPS magic system, with spells designed not just to injure or curse but to kill.

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GURPS Power-Ups 7: Wildcard Skills, Sean Punch 07 August 2016 - 3 comments

This supplement clarifies and gives comprehensive examples of Wildcard Skills, a relatively under-used element of GURPS 4th edition.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures, Sean Punch 30 July 2016

This Dungeon Fantasy supplement gets away from the cycle of dungeon to generic-town and back again, and moves adventures into the great outdoors.

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Pyramid 92: Zombies 20 July 2016 - 2 comments

Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's zombies.

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Summer Stabcon 2016 16 July 2016 - 1 comment

This long-running games convention started off as a Diplomacy gathering. These days it's a blend of board-gaming and roleplaying. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Back to School at Dartmouth in space 14 July 2016 - 5 comments

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.

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Pyramid 91: Thaumatology IV 10 July 2016

Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's magic.

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UK Games Expo 2016 06 July 2016 - 4 comments

UK Games Expo continues to expand, and this year moved the trade hall into the NEC for the first time. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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On Distinguishing SF from Fantasy 30 June 2016 - 3 comments

One might naïvely suppose that this would be an easy distinction, for both books and games. Fantasy has dragons; science fiction has spaceships. But there is a set of ideas, loosely correlated with the SF/fantasy divide, which to my mind make a greater difference to the feel of a story than do trappings like those.

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Pyramid 90: After the End 21 June 2016 - 3 comments

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.

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More Torg Redesign 15 June 2016 - 3 comments

I wrote a while ago about how I'd redesign the Torg world to keep a similar feel but make it a bit more interesting. Now I want to consider how one might change that feel by changing the rules. (Like those world modifications, this would break the existing campaign, so players in my GURPS Torg game need not worry that this will apply to them.)

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 2: Epic Treasures, Matt Riggsby 04 June 2016

This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with "special" treasures: not just the big hauls, but something truly unique.

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Taxonomy of the Occult Secret Service 13 May 2016 - 13 comments

John Dallman invented the term Occult Secret Service to describe the Laundry novels of Charles Stross (from 2001) and the Broom Cupboard novels of David Devereux (from 2008). It's become popular in other fiction and in role-playing games. Is it useful to analyse it further?

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Disasters: Meltdown and Fallout 06 May 2016 - 1 comment

The observant will have noticed the tag "Project Woolsack" on various of my review posts, and a certain subject matter bias associated with them.

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Pyramid 89: Alternate Dungeons II 05 May 2016

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.

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Robots After the End Designer's Notes 22 April 2016 - 1 comment

I had an article in Pyramid #3/90 linking the general ideas of After the End to the specifics of Reign of Steel.

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GURPS Powers: The Weird, William H. Stoddard 14 April 2016

This supplement deals with powers that break the rules, for Lovecraftian aliens, superbeings, and weird lone genius inventors.

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GURPS After the End 1: Wastelanders, Jason Levine 07 April 2016 - 4 comments

This initial supplement in a new line deals with dwellers in the world after the end of civilisation.

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Pyramid 88: The End Is Nigh 17 March 2016

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.

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Pyramid 87: Low-Tech III 10 March 2016 - 2 comments

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.

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Nuclear Legacy Designer's Notes 25 February 2016 - 9 comments

I had an article in Pyramid #3/88 dealing with abandoned nuclear reactors and other sources of radioactive fun.

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Fixing High Lord of Earth 17 February 2016 - 7 comments

After a couple of shorter adventures, the campaign moved on to High Lord of Earth. Mostly it worked. Mostly… Spoilers for this adventure follow.

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Titansgrave season 1 10 February 2016 - 3 comments

2015 fantasy, 10 episodes. In a technomagical world, four heroes will hunt down the resurgent Prophet who was responsible for the last great war.

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Pyramid 86: Organizations 04 February 2016

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.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 17: Guilds, Matt Riggsby 28 January 2016

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.

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Stabcon 2016 26 January 2016

This long-running games convention started off as a Diplomacy gathering. These days it's a blend of board-gaming and roleplaying. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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GURPS Aliens: Sparrials, Elizabeth McCoy 13 January 2016 - 2 comments

This supplement updates and expands the Sparrial race, from the original GURPS Aliens, to fourth edition.

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Pyramid 85: Cutting Edge 26 December 2015

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.

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Dragonmeet 2015 20 December 2015 - 2 comments

On a chilly December morning I went to Dragonmeet again. All images are cc-by-sa.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 1: Glittering Prizes, Matt Riggsby 18 December 2015

This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with the thing closest to a dungeon-delver's heart: money.

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GURPS Transhuman Space: Bio-Tech 2100, Phil Masters 07 December 2015 - 3 comments

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).

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Pyramid 84: Perspectives 22 November 2015 - 3 comments

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.

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GURPS Action 4: Specialists, Sean Punch 10 November 2015

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.

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Pyramid 83: Alternate GURPS IV 31 October 2015

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.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens 1: Barbarians, Peter dell'Orto 15 October 2015

This GURPS Dungeon Fantasy supplement expands the Barbarian archetype with new options and powers.

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Pyramid 82: Magical Creations 11 October 2015

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.

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GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery, Jason Levine 05 October 2015 - 6 comments

This GURPS supplement explains how to convert spells from the standard GURPS magic system into power effects.

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YSDC Games Day 4 28 September 2015 - 4 comments

Fourth in this series of one-day conventions in bustling metropolitan Baildon (suburban Bradford). All images are cc-by-sa.

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Pyramid 81: Horrific Creations 14 September 2015

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.

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GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School, William H. Stoddard 04 September 2015 - 2 comments

This GURPS supplement deals with teaching, learning, and games based on either or both.

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Pyramid 80: Fantasy Threats 20 August 2015

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.

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Characters I'd like to play 28 July 2015 - 2 comments

I seem to end up GMing more than I end up playing. Here are some ideas and game mechanics I'd like to use in one of my characters if and when the opportunity arises.

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Summer Stabcon 2015 06 July 2015 - 3 comments

This long-running games convention started off as a Diplomacy gathering. These days it's a blend of board-gaming and roleplaying. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2: Icky Goo, Sean Punch 03 July 2015

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.

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Campaign Ideas 20 June 2015 - 2 comments

A game-related post for Free RPG Day. These are not "campaigns I plan to run", just ideas that someone could do the hard work on to turn into a game. I might run them at some point if the players are enthused; I would be nearly as happy if someone else took inspiration from them and ran something related that I could play in.

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Pyramid 79: Space Atlas, edited by Steven Marsh 13 June 2015

Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. "Space Atlas" covers places to take a campaign… in space.

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GURPS Monster Hunters 5: Applied Xenology, Jason Levine 07 June 2015 - 2 comments

This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series tweaks the game to allow the foes to be aliens rather than supernatural monsters.

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Pyramid 78: Unleash Your Soul, edited by Steven Marsh 02 June 2015

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.

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GURPS Zombies: Day One, Sean Punch 25 May 2015

Eight zombie campaign frames sketched out in moderate detail.

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Pyramid 77: Combat, edited by Steven Marsh 09 May 2015

Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's combat: fighting of all sorts.

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Fixing the Forever City 23 April 2015 - 4 comments

The Torg adventure The Forever City didn't need as much fixing as The Possibility Chalice, but there were still some tweaks that made things work better.

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GURPS Boardroom and Curia, Matt Riggsby 05 April 2015

This supplement is not called "GURPS Organisations", but it might as well have been.

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GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses, William H. Stoddard 21 March 2015

This specialised GURPS supplement deals with unusual sensory powers, from the reasonable to the cinematic.

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Stabcon 2015 05 January 2015 - 2 comments

This long-running games convention started off as a Diplomacy gathering. These days it's a blend of board-gaming and roleplaying. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Given by the Mighty Hand of God 17 December 2014 - 2 comments

The players in my Second World War campaign have gathered various information about the interaction of atomic power and magic. Here's a quick summary of what they think they know.

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Fixing the Possibility Chalice 14 November 2014 - 8 comments

The Torg adventure The Possibility Chalice was published in the far-off days of 1990, when information about mysterious lands across the ocean was hard to come by, especially in a small town in Pennsylvania.

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Faking the Moon 09 November 2014 - 4 comments

I run a lot of role-playing games set in the real world. (As Ken Hite points out, the background material is much richer and has had more people working on it, even if it's sometimes less plausible.) One surprisingly easy technique to add consistency and a sense of realism is being able to say what the moon is doing.

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YSDC Games Day 3 22 September 2014

Third in this series of one-day conventions in bustling metropolitan Baildon (suburban Bradford), and a shift to a new time of year. All images are cc-by-sa.

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RPG a Day: part 3 01 September 2014 - 3 comments

Continuing with David F. Chapman's RPG a Day. Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here. I've also talked about these at greater length in the latest episode of Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice, a role-playing podcast which you should be listening to.

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RPG a Day: part 2 21 August 2014 - 3 comments

Continuing with David F. Chapman's RPG a Day. Part 1 is here.

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RPG a Day: part 1 11 August 2014 - 3 comments

David F. Chapman came up with the RPG a Day idea: one question about one's RPG experiences to be answered each day during August. That makes for short posts, though, so I'm going to group them together a bit.

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Summer Stabcon 2014 07 July 2014

This long-running games convention started off as a Diplomacy gathering. These days it's a blend of board-gaming and roleplaying. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

[more]
YSDC Games Day 2 23 March 2014

Yesterday was the second one-day convention organised by the yog-sothoth.com crew.

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The Same Page Tool 10 March 2014

The Same Page Tool is a series of questions to try to get players and GMs onto the "same page" in terms of the sort of behaviour they expect in a game.

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RPGs on-line: how I do it 02 March 2014 - 6 comments

Douglas Cole asks about experiences with RPGs played on-line and/or with virtual tabletops.

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Will and Fright Checks 18 February 2014 - 3 comments

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".

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Keeping and Improving your kit 29 January 2014

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.

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Explosions in GURPS 4th edition 18 January 2014

Explosions in GURPS confuse many people. Here's how they work, broken down at greater length than was available in the rules.

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Rapid Fire and Shotguns in GURPS 4th edition 15 January 2014

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.

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Alternative Invaders in Torg (part 2) 13 January 2014 - 2 comments

OK, we've taken out American and European industry. We still need to deal with China, which the original game completely neglected, and Japan. I'm wondering here about a blend: wuxia action with conspiracy thriller in the style of some modern Asian action films.

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Alternative Invaders in Torg (part 1) 10 January 2014 - 5 comments

I'm running Torg at the moment. Because I didn't want it to turn into a research-fest, I'm running it pretty much as it was written.

But this raised the question: what would be a more representative, and more interesting, set of worlds to choose as invaders? One of the original ideas of Torg was that the worlds should be representative of popular role-playing genres, but this doesn't seem to have made it into the final game -- cyberpunk may well have been big, but lost-world fantasy with dinosaurs? Really?

[more]
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