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Looking back on a year in which I didn't think I posted much, I see that my output actually wasn't that bad! A review for those who missed the excitement:

New GURPS rules articles

The "Rules Nugget" series of small, simple rules saw a good handful of additions, with articles for adding "just a flesh wound" grazes, shield cover, and shield size considerations to combat. Two other articles resurrected and renewed older rules for a new ST-based damage progression and a revised Toughness stat that's perfect for action heroes.

Old GURPS articles refreshed

The old GURPS Diner provided fodder for the wizards out there: freshly-polished and 4e-friendly articles on Magic skill and magical languages. This site's old ESCARGO and FEND articles also got the 4e treatment. A very old bunch of miscellaneous house rules also came over to this site, although still in 3e-centric format.  

Miscellaneous new goodies

The biggie for me in 2009 was the appearance of the GURPS Range Ruler, in collaboration with SJG, as an e23 freebie download. My thanks to the good folks at Steve Jackson Games for turning this into a real GURPS tool! 

Ben Finney contributed MERC, a fresh look at what is and isn't important in dice rolling and gameplay based on modern-day game design advances. Go take a look if you haven't!

Other fun bits include an idle idea for GURPS Banestorm releases, a look at noted game The Riddle of Steel and the use of dice pool mechanics, a system for pricing skill breadth in GURPS (including Talents and Wildcard skills), a reworking of specialized throwing skills using COSH, and notes on designing dinosaurs and designing characters with tails. 

See the year's whole list of articles, in alphabetical order, at the end.

What's next?

If you're a gamer-writer, I guarantee you've got a frighteningly-long list of topics and projects you want to tackle... someday. Same here: both new gaming articles, and more outtakes and updates from the old stuff (especially the old GULLIVER). 

But recently I've been revisited by something that was long absent: that obsession to work on my homebrew Project T. Years in the vapor-making, it's something I've only tackled it in bits and spurts over the years. Thanks to the discovery of some great helpful resources, I'm keen to scribble and test anew – and I've learned very well that when the urge to work visits, it's best to chain it down and milk it for all it's worth. So that'll be my focus for as long as it takes to release the project.

That plan aside, your suggestions for updates, additions, and new features are always very welcome. Please visit a whole lot in 2010! Read more...

From the Quality-out-of-Control Department:

The embedded spreadsheet shot in Game design musing: Pricing breadth in skills had a big boo-boo that didn't match the text: base cost of skill was set to 1, not 5, in the image. It's now fixed.

I've made the sheet itself downloadable too in Numbers and Excel formats. It now sports easy-to-read rounded cumulative skill costs, so you can see at a glance how many skills you get for x points, given your chosen inputs. 

Please head to the article, re-read the text following the graphic (now that it makes sense!), and play with the spreadsheet if you like. Sorry for the goof!

SECOND UPDATE (09.08.27): Ack. You know, I generally do all right in working out the crunchy stuff, but then often go and write it up all wrong. I made multiple written references to the term (1/x) in the article text and once on the spreadsheet, when what's actually used in the calculations is the correct (1-(1/x)). Fixed now. Sorry again!!

Over the next few days, expect some new entries in the "Rules Nuggets" category of short-ish rules articles.

Or not-so-new entries. The first pair on the way are halves of a previous entry on shields, now cloven into two separate items: one on Shields and Size, the other on Shields and Cover. Two topics that play well together, but they are independent all the same, and each deserves its own entry.

While recycling old stuff isn't too exciting, it is a chance to further polish things and keep them up to date with GURPS 4e. (Note: Some of these entries will link to each other; forgive any non-working links to items that are still in the post queue.)

Other entries will include more bits liberated from old pages, plus some fresher stuff. Among the latter, there are a couple of topics that I'm still working out; I expect to post a forum topic or two asking for help in hammering out the ideas.

ESCARGO for GURPS 3e is now cleaned up as well; it should be much easier to read.

ESCARGO is a look at an unusual option for GURPS: skill and attribute costs that just go up, up, up. It looks odd, but offers a surprising number of nifty benefits.

If you have any interest in RPG design, or even just a deeper-than-average interest as a player, ESCARGO may provide some interesting ideas applicable to a number of game systems. Have a look!