The 2021 GURPS PDF Challenge

 

Oh good, a thing I can blog about.  All the cool kids are doing it!

SJGames just unveiled their latest GURPS Kickstarter: the 2021 GURPS PDF Challenge. This looks to be a follow-up on the success of last year's PDF challenge.  If you're interested, you should definitely go support it!  Since people have been complaining about it on my discord, I thought I would offer my thoughts on it too.

Pyramid 4/3 Sci-Fi/Tech Review

 Last, but definitely not least, we have the Sci-Fi issue of the Kickstarted Pyramid Trio.  As usual, I'll give a TL;DR of my final thoughts first, and then a break down of each article.

Overview

Rating: 5 stars

Look, this shouldn't be a surprise; I like SF, so the SF pyramid gets the best score, right? Well, it's more than that.  First, there were several articles that spoke to precisely what I've been working on recently and so are directly relevant to me.  That's sort of unfair, as you're working on something else and so different things will be pertinent to you, but it's still relevant, because if one person is working on something, chances are more people are working on something similar.  Second, a lot of this stuff is just good.  There are two I've noted as NA.  Perhaps they should be one star, I don't know, but it feels more like a deep interest mismatch than necessarily a quality problem.  But in my opinion, this had the best material, and some of the most engrossing articles, of the three pyramids, so it's my favorite.

My only complaint is we FINALLY have a new tech pyramid with no new Ultra-Tech. What's up with that?

Pyramid Kickstarter!

 

In case you're unaware, the next GURPS kickstarter is up, this time for three new issues of Pyramid. Yes, I've backed it, and you should too.

I'll be honest, this kickstarter makes more sense to me than the last one.  Pyramid was always the ideal place for little "mini-supplements" like we got in the last Kickstarter.  A grab-bag of wild and woolly ideas that wouldn't quite fit into a full book is exactly what I look for in Pyramid, and it's what we'll be getting.  Given the material I cover on this blog, I'm naturally looking forward to the Sci-Fi pyramid (though I'm a little surprised nobody took the time to write up yet more ultra-tech!), but there's a lot of stuff in all of the pyramid issues.  There are several of the already-unlocked articles that I'm looking forward to.

Toxic Grimoire: I have some issues with GURPS Magic, but it's a good old standby, and it's often filled with neat ideas.  An expansion of it with additional spells is always fun.

The Secret Masters: Psi-Wars tends to focus on conspiratorial play even at the more modest Action levels, so having more support for that will be nice.

Reign of Action: Reign of Steel is one of those GURPS settings that I desperately want to love, but feels unplayable.  Combining it with Action already looks like a no brainer: rather than playing desperate survivors slowly and horrifically dying to genocidal robots, why not play cigar-chomping badasses that are slowly reclaiming earth? Sure, less realistic, but much more satisfying!  Roger Burton West already proved his skill with the excellent Read the Sky supplement, so this looks like a marriage made in heaven.  It will also likely prove a valuable resource for when I start to explore the Cybernetic Union.

Three Steampunk Monsters: Phil has been on a steampunk kick lately, and while I panned his Broken Clockwork World, there's a part of me hoping that at least some of these monsters are from his BCW, because the problem with that work was that it lacked crucial details necessary to make it playable.  A few monsters would fix that.  Of course, even if they're not, steampunk is definitely the sort of setting that could do with a few horrific creations.

Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes: It's always nice to see a Sean Punch article, but I salivate at the thought of this one.  I'm literally working on cultural elements for Psi-Wars right now, so the thing I want more than anything is stupid sports and games for space opera. Don't disappoint me!

The Demonic Temple of Felltower: Peter Dell'Orto writing for Pyramid instead of his blog? I'm game.

Into the Forbidden Zone: Shades of Places of Mystery, one of my favorite 3e supplements, as my well-worn copy can attest.

More Options for Metatronic Generators: Unsurprisingly, I'm happiest with Christopher Rice's work when he's writing stuff I'll use in Psi-Wars, as a lot of Psi-Wars comes from him.  I suspect I'm one of the few people to make regular use of psychotronics, which are one example of metatronic generators, so I have no doubt this will expand the technological repertoire of ancient Ranathim technology and frightening Eldothic toys.

While I backed the GURPS Challenge to the hilt, I think it's format hurt several of it's works, and there's only been a couple of those PDFs that I've actually, practically used.  This feels like a better format, if this is the direction they want to go, so I hope this is a success (and it looks like it will be), and that they do more like this, but I really miss Pyramid.  It released some of the best GURPS material to dat and the GURPS lost some of its luster when Pyramid closed its doors for the third time. So it's nice to see it come back for at least one more hurrah!

I backed the GURPS DF Monster 2 Kickstarter

I've never backed a kickstarter before (don't have a credit card) and while kickstarters have been shakey, I do believe the "kickstarter then PDF long tail" is the future of PDFs, and it's nice to see SJGames beginning to rev up into that direction, especially since the sense I get from SJGames is that the Munchkin bubble may have burst and their attempts to navigate the dawning era of whatever the 2020s will be for gaming has been expensive and dangerous, so hopefully they'll come out of this ahead.  So I backed the kickstarter. You can back it too if you go through here (assuming you haven't already).

So why am I posting this?  Well, to preen, of course, and to earn your admiration for my good deeds. But I want to make a few points about GURPS Dungeon Fantasy based on some comments I've seen elsewhere, try to explain some of my logic and to give you some context.

I backed the $95 version, which nets me a printed copy of the DF boxed set as well as a printed copy of DF Monsters 2.  If I'm honest, I could care about DF Monsters 2. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I can buy it in PDF eventually.  What really interested me was the reprint of the boxed set of DF, as I really regretted missing that. 

Why DF?

The internet often asks what my favorite dungeon-crawling fantasy RPG is, and I have a few answers, but the deepest and most correct is usually Dungeon Fantasy not just because it's GURPS, but because what I look for in a fantasy game, DF provides in spades. For example, I often complain that fighters in D&D aren't interesting enough ("I hit! I hit again! When I gain a level, I'll be able to hit three times!  So exciting!"), that magic is too focused on combat effects, and this can be said of a lot of the mechanics of the game, that races are too samey and not particularly nuanced, and that I have a hard time really differentiating my character and I feel I lack a good variety of options. Gaining levels feels pretty rote, rather than watching the organic growth of my character. And look, DF addresses all of this out of the box simply because it's GURPS: fighters get to play with techniques and a great host of highly specific combat options that make combat feel visceral; mages get tons and tons of non-combat options (and arguably lack decent combat options, which frankly feels better to me than walking artillery platform), I can build characters however I want, and blend together multiple classes how I want or just build a character from scratch, races have a ton of mechanical nuance, and I can shift the focus of my world however I want.

Having a DF boxed set makes it more of a pick-up game, which is really what I need to show some of the newer players how GURPS works, and GURPS actually works really well for new players, which will shock a lot of people who aren't a fan of GURPS, but it's true.  GURPS is hard to learn to run, but it's not especially hard to learn to play.  What you need most is something to focus on (rather than the deep oceans of "Anything you want!") and DF does that nicely, with a familiar arena. That makes it a great entry way to the rest of the GURPS world.

I've been interested in another game called Numenara for a bit now, ever since I picked up the whole set on Humble Bundle and I was looking at buying a copy of the basic books: Discovery and Destiny. These together came to $120, plus shipping and handling.  D&D 5e, if you want the player's handbook, the DM guide and the Monster manual, comes to $150.  $95 gets me the DF boxed set.  Oh, and Monsters 2.  It's a steal, so much so that I'm worried that SJGames may have undercharged for their product.  They seem to often underestimate the production costs of their products and walk away from successful kickstarters taking a loss, and I hope that doesn't happen this time.  Regardless, if you want a complete dungeon fantasy product, you're not going to do better, bang for buck, than DF unless there's some other dungeon crawling product that I don't know about (Dungeon World maybe?), certainly not at the level of detail and support that GURPS DF offers.

"But I like Science Fiction"

So this was the comment that made me re-evaluate my position in the first place (and seeing the boxed set available finally convinced me to take that last step).  Given that I haven't run Dungeon Fantasy ever, and that I've only played in a couple of games, why should I even bother paying for it, given my focus on Sci-Fi, one that isn't likely to change (not out of a lack of interest: I'd love to do some urban occult stuff too, but because I sense a void in the market that I'm trying to fill), why bother to fork over this kind of money.

Because you shouldn't think of Dungeon Fantasy as Fantasy, but as GURPS.

I'm a big fan of math and literature ("English") and I get frustrated when I see kids who ask things like "Will we ever use this in the real world?" as though unless the world were a series of tests (such as strangers lying in wait at street corners to pounce you with algebra questions), the exercise is useless (this sort of reflexive mindest can leak its way into gaming and it causes problems there too, but that's a post for another time).  In fact, math and language skills are tools.  The same people who ask if anyone will ever actually use algebra in the real world are the same sort of people who recoil from GURPS Vehicles as "too hard," not realizing that engineering a real world vehicle is even harder. The world is a sandbox full of possibilities that are easier to tackle if you have communication and STEM skills (determining the shortest route between two places; accounting and coding complicated things into your spreadsheet; working out why gambling is always a horrible idea, especially lottery tickets; dazzling a lovely lady with wordplay; articulating why people should follow your proposed policy; getting your kids to listen to you, etc).

GURPS is like Math and English: it's not there to solve a specific problem, but is instead a great toolbox to let you build your own solution to whatever gaming problem you have.  And just because it labels a particular product as belonging to one genre doesn't mean it's useless to you for another genre.  Let me list just a handful of books that aren't in the sci-fi genre that apply to Psi-Wars:

• GURPS Action
• GURPS Action 2
• GURPS Action 3
• GURPS DF 3: The Next Level (especially for its races)
• GURPS DF 16: Wilderness Adventures
• GURPS Powers: Divine Favor
• GURPS Thaumatology
• GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles
• GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery
• GURPS Horror

There are quite a few that are, genre-wise, on the borders of generic enough, or I would start to get repetitive, but all of these have played fairly key roles in the design of Psi-Wars, which is a sci-fi setting.

"But is it really, Mailanka? Isn't it more space fantasy?"

Personally, I dislike the term space fantasy. I don't know why "space opera" isn't good enough anymore, but fine: the structure of DF has informed every campaign framework book that has followed it.  It provides numerous ideas on how to handle specific elements, like henchmen, races, power-ups and load-outs, in compact and useful ways, discarding superficial elements to get what you want.  I got started on this sci-fi kick by working on a GURPS Captain-and-Crew set up that has evolved into all of this, and I got started with that after seeing Dungeon Fantasy.

Yes, the line does eventually begin to get into more specifically pertinent material.  Rather than fantasy templates, you want sci-fi templates, rather than fantasy henchmen, you want sci-fi henchment, and so on, but the innovation begins with DF, which sells, and only after, does it spread to the rest of the frameworks, and even if it never does, all of GURPS is mutally compatible.  This is not The Fantasy Trip they're selling, or Munchkin, but GURPS.  Even if they never produce any more sci-fi than they already have, their DF line would continue to provide plenty of "how to" inspiration for you to build your own sci-fi game from it (and they will continue to build more sci-fi content).

So that's why I backed the kickstarter, even though it seems counter to my interests.  My interests are broader than just space opera and even if they weren't, they're still well served by GURPS continuing with DF.

Dragon Heresy Kickstarter

I've wanted to do a special series on this, but my job situation suddenly turned (in a good way) and I spent a lot of time these past couple of months handling that, traveling all over the country, diving into a lot of interviews and getting acquainted with my new work.  I offer this as an excuse, because I really want this to work.

Those of you in the know are aware of Douglas Cole and his work with GURPS, including some of my favorite Pyramid Articles: the Last Gasp and the Broken Blade.  Now he's got a kickstarter going for Dragon Heresy, a viking-themed D&D Open License game.  As of this writing, it has about 2 days left to get in on the action, and has already kickstarted, but I would be proud if I could help him jump over the $10k mark.

Alright, you say, why should I back this?  If you're a typical reader of my blog, several things are true about you.  First, you like detail, you like GURPS, you like rich settings and you don't mind fantasy.  You're probably not a D&Der, so why should you back a D&D game?

First, D&D is the lingua-franca of the RPG world.  Everyone speaks it, and so if you're with a group that's not super into GURPS, or you're trying to branch out, having access to some flavor of D&D is highly useful.  I have a copy of 13th Age sitting on my shelf, for example.  So if you're not a D&D fan, it should be noted that it's worth learning and worth getting into.

Second, most GURPS fans I know really appreciate the level of detail that GURPS has and tend to dislike the level of abstraction found in D&D.  Well, Douglas let me take a look at his rules and I did my usual thing of trying to tear it apart and to break it.  And I was surprised how well it worked. 

For me, I want several things out of a game, any game.  First, I want it to be able to handle all levels of play simultaneously.  For example, in Cherry Blossom Rain, I wanted our Big Damn Heroes to face off against hordes of minions (while still being threatened by them) or  facing off against equal foes in interesting fights.  I want to be able to play as a warrior or martial artist and have it be more interesting than "I hit him.  I hit him again."  Dragon heresy managed to do all of this. 

While the site might give you the impression that it's "Just D&D themed with vikings," it has in fact bloomed out of Cole's desire to bring more reasonable, "real-world" tactics to D&D.  I don't mean this in the sense that Cole is an actual martial artist who practices HEMA (though he is) and he wants to bring his superior knowledge of those techniques to D&D but rather in the sense that he wants things like shields to feel more like they really would, to give you a better sense of what's actually going on in a fight.  In so many D&D games I've played in, I've done something and it did damage and that was good enough, I suppose, while in GURPS, I can articulate precisely what I'm doing and see it play out in the game.  Dragon Heresy brings D&D much closer to the latter.  For example, he articulates the difference between vitality and "Hit points," with the latter representing Gygaxian "Luck, effort, focus and ability to effectively parry" and the former representing actual, physical integrity.  Thus, if you attack you succeed and do "some damage" to my hitpoints, what's really going on is that you're forcing me on the defensive.  But if you make an attack I cannot reasonably defend against (ambush me from behind, shoot me with a crossbow bolt), I'm forced to either make an extreme defense (losing more HP), or I suffer real damage, damage that can kill me.  Meanwhile, armor reduces actual damage, which creates interesting tactical trade-offs.  Where in classic D&D a well-armored character and a skilled swashbuckler both effectively have the same AC, here, a swashbuckler is harder to hit and thus harder to damage, while the armored character is easier to hit, but cares about it less because he can afford to ignore your light attacks that will glance off of his armor.  Likewise, different forms of defense bring different advantages with them that feel right, like having a shield to block arrows.

What made Douglas Cole famous, though, is his Technical Grappling, and he brings that with him into Dragon Heresy.  Grappling is famously bad in D&D, as lampooned in Darths and Droids here, but Douglas both manages to simplify it and make it tactically satisfying by using the same control points concept he offered in GURPS: success in a grappling roll results in points that can be spent in an effort to force your opponent into particular positions and situations, which makes it both quick and simple, yet enjoyably complex at the same time (Incidentally, if this alone interests you, check out his other work, Dungeon Grappling)

Finally, Douglas dives into deeper detail in your common races and common character tropes, encouraging you to think about your place in the world, and about the world itself.  While I didn't dive as deeply into this part as I did the rest (I was more concerned with combat mechanics and I've had limited time), what I saw looked impressive.

If the combat mechanics interest you as much as they interested me, it's definitely worth backing him for at least $5.  If you want the whole kit and kaboodle, it's a mere $20, which isn't bad at all.  Consider it, please.  Again, that link is here.