I earlier took a look at three dungeon planner products for mapping out fantasy adventures, and added thoughts on what I’d pack into an ideal planner for a game like Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG). Let’s look at a similar product: the character journal. Picture a slim notebook that includes all the offerings of a full-featured character sheet, plus more space for back story, adventuring records, artwork, and… hmm, what else? That’s the topic. Why a journal? Nothing’s wrong with the old way of maintaining your adventuring alter-ego: character sheets! Purchased in pads, photocopied from books, downloaded and printed out, scrawled at home, it’s all good. Plain old sheets –…
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Books we want: The perfect dungeon planner (plus three dungeon planners: A review)
Steve Jackson Games (SJG) recently dropped two nifty dungeon planner products, one for its (GURPS-derived) Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG) and one for its (GURPS-spawning) The Fantasy Trip (TFT) system. Around the same time, a Kickstarter campaign let me pick up a system-agnostic adventure planner from a different (but not unrelated) source: the Dungeon Crafter’s Sketch Book by Philip Reed, CEO of SJG and launcher of many personal RPG products on Kickstarter. Dedicated planner books, for a task that graph paper and any old notebook have always handled just fine? Let’s see what these products bring to the table. And after that, let’s indulge in unhinged thoughts on creating the…
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Books we want: The big list of everything (GURPS/DFRPG)
Here’s an evergreen topic in gamer conversations and in SJG Forum threads: What titles would we like to see next in the huge and eternally-growing library of GURPS (and DFRPG) supplements? My wish list follows. Common-sense disclaimer: This is not some deranged plea for SJG to drop everything and make these supplements, nor a suggestion that these would be successful supplements, nor even a claim that they’d be good supplements. This page is just a place to drop ideas for our mutual amusement. (And I’m not even going to include Vehicles for 4e. That’s been much discussed, and the Powers that Be have made clear that the work would face…
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Books we want: An updated GURPS LITE
Do we really need a new GURPS LITE? No. There’s nothing about GURPS LITE that demands a new version. It has always been, and still is, a well-made and perfectly playable introduction to GURPS. A read through the work, though, suggests a number of ideas for small improvements, additions, and, yes, subtractions. Even if none of those are pressing, LITE has been out there for a whole bunch of years. With LITE as the first GURPS that many people will see – and the only GURPS they’ll see if they aren’t impressed – isn’t it worth revisiting the book once in a while to make sure it’s putting the best…
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Dungeon Fantasy: The Musical! (feat. Bards)
Ooh, look! Yet another “They oughta write a book” article from me! Because it’s so darn easy to lay out the work that someone else should do for my amusement! You know the still-nascent Dungeon Fantasy: Denizens sub-series of books, each showcasing an adventurer archetype? The next installment ought to be Bards. Actually, when the sub-series first launched with Denizens: Barbarians, I thought Bards would be next. You see, I drew on my knowledge of game industry publishing, brought the full breadth of my intellect and reasoning skills to bear, examined and analyzed all relevant factors, and arrived at a deduction: “Bard” comes after “Barbarian” alphabetically, so that should be…
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Books we want: How to Be a GURPS Player
The first time I suggested “There oughta be a book” was here, with a suggestion for more mini-books on Yrth cultures and societies (because, hey, I like Banestorm). Time for another suggestion! How to Be a GURPS GM by Warren “Mook” Wilson is a great book. It’s packed with invaluable advice and insights for gamemastering GURPS. Well, with the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game set to ignite (?) an explosion (??) of demand (???) for our favorite game system, perhaps it’s time to release a dedicated guide to playing GURPS. A book that would fill three roles: In short: Let’s have How to Be a GURPS Player! (Sounds like a fine new idea…
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GURPS Banestorm idea: Enclaves
In my review of GURPS Banestorm, I briefly mention one of the points that intrigues me about its gameworld: Unexplored pockets of diverse Earth cultures tucked among Yrth’s dominant European-, Middle Eastern-, and Asian-descended cultures. From page 9: … African, Chinese, German, Indian, and Slavic groups popped up across the continent. Dominant local cultures quickly absorbed most of these smaller ones, but even today travelers can find isolated villages where almost all the inhabitants have black skin, worship Krishna and Vishnu, or speak undiluted German. This is an opportunity for the GM to create any sort of interesting micro-culture that he can envision, as long as it is well off…
