Bite-sized Review: GURPS Power-ups 10 – Skill Trees

Looks like it’s been way longer since I read this than I had thought, but since I’m using it for an actual project now, it’s high time to get back writing a review, especially since the Power-ups line has been exceptionally useful for rules-hackers so far. This one had me stumped. At first, I was thinking of things like Diablo’s supernatural skill system (Kromm has used this good old game as an inspiration when doing Dungeon Fantasy, after all). Instead it’s about restructuring, streamlining and increasing the accessibility of regular GURPS skills.

Cover of GURPS Power-ups 10 - Skill Trees

Facts

Author: Sean Punch (“Dr. Kromm”)
Date of Publication: 25/10/2024? (couldn’t find the announcement, but that’s my timestamp)
Format: PDF-only (Warehouse 23-only)
Page Count:  25 (1 title page, 1 content page, 1 introduction page, 1 index page, 1 page ad)
Price: $7.00 (PDF), $0.35 per page of content; Score of 6/10 (Attention: I have adjusted my price score for inflation here, resulting in a score of 6 instead of 3. I’m guessing ten years is a long time. No promises about when I’ll get around to retroactively correction prices and scores.)
Preview: https://warehouse23.com/products/gurps-power-ups-10-skill-trees

Review

As all my other reviews this one will be rated according to meat (rules, stats, game mechanics), cheese (setting, characters, story), sauce (form, writing, style, art) and generic nutritional substance (universal nature, adaptability). At the end you find a weighted average of those components and a value score that also takes into account price per page.

This is a very meaty subject, so I’ll discuss the structure under the next heading.

Meat (Score: 8.5)

The book starts off with talking about the new hierarchical tree structure that is imposed on the skills: trunks, branches, twigs and leaves. I thought it a little silly at first, but the metaphor is well-chosen. You don’t need to buy a trunk if you don’t want to, you can have leaves or branches sprouting out of the ground (or trunks or whatever as long as it goes from large to small).

Then it goes on explaining the trunks – over-arching skill categories like Plant or Scholar that are similar, but not the same as Talents or Wildcard skills. Rather these are closer to the good old skill categories of GURPS 3rd Edition and their advantage ist that they are easily recognisable and allow for overlap. This is followed by a long list of example trunks that fit the generic GURPS vibe quite well. Sean Punch goes on to explain branches (those are the “actual” skills), twigs (specialisations and some easier skills) and leaves (hyperspecialised knowledge like how to fly an F16). These mostly make a lot of sense, though I do take exception as denying Cooking its place as a full skill (no argument with Sports in most campaigns).

The second chapter starts off with costs: As you could have guessed trunks, branches, twigs and leaves also have different point costs per level with trunks coming in between small and medium Talents, branches being a little cheaper than skills and the other two just counting down. That makes leaves comparatively expensive, but if you always use the same vehicle that should still be worth it.

What’s radically different from normal GURPS is that levels are no longer a fixed stat to roll against. Instead they are a modifier. Let that sink in for a moment. What it does is to heavily encourage floating skills to other attributes. That is a good thing in the standard attribute system already, especially if you consider PER and WILL as attributes, but once you designed your own attribute system with GURPS Power-ups 9 – Alternate Attributes, it becomes a real game-changer. WillowVine and I have done something similar for the total conversion GURPS The Owl House using Wildcard Skills Lite, but this is a more organic and certainly a more GURPSy way of doing things.

Sean Punch then goes on to show his math and it checks out. Skills will become more expensive, but characters gain (narratively realistic) broad competence. You may know that the standard attribute setup is not my cup of tea and I’d like to give at the very least parity in mental and physical attributes, but… that’s a whole different kettle of fish. Suffice it to say I would have liked to see a bit more interaction between the Power-ups 9 and 10. There is a useful box on page 13, but in general Skill Trees is treated as an alternative to Alternate Attributes, which, to be fair, it partly is. There are detailed discussions of the costs of each part of the tree, so you can make your own mind.

The tight spacing of the costs on the branch/twig/leaf axis and the still relatively close branch cost, make it inefficient to raise more than two branches/skills before you maxed out the trunk and always inefficient to have more than one twig and leaf per branch. That’s where the nice metaphor breaks down. The problem (if you see it as such) can be solved by slightly increasing trunk, branch and twig costs and decreasing the in-built -5 penalty to all rolls. This penalty incidentally is only introduced in chapter 2 and elaborated in chapter 3, which I consider a rather bad placement. Best reading order is probably Chapter 1, 3 and 2.

Chapter 3 is mostly, but not completely about how to do skill rolls under the new system. Sean Punch introduces a clearer distinction of untrained and trained tasks, the former including those where training helps, even if it it not required. Skills with A lot of the rest deals with the many edge cases that always crop up in GURPS and a certain tediousness creeps in at times. Fancy Forestry rounds up the tree puns with a couple of optional switches that are generally very good.

A cheat-sheet with the generic trunks from chapter one and all controlling attributes rounds off the the book.

Cheese (Score 7.5)

What does all that mean for character-building and background creation? It does get vastly easier and newbie (or let’s face it, veteran) mistakes of missing one or more semi-crucial skills are greatly reduced. The trunks do act as a sort of archetype, though more in a “this is possible in this style of campaign” as in a direct character type. Gone are specific defaults and especially cross-defaults from other specialties, one of the system’s really unpopular topics. Likewise required specialties are no longer lock-outs unless you want them to be.

Skill Trees – once set up (or copied from chapter 2) – do make the skill system vastly more accessible with the only weird detail being that -5 on every roll, something that probably will come up again and again in play. Might be easier to throw an extra d6 in there and do away with the penalty (to borrow a concept from The Fantasy Trip), though that raises its own share of problems. Floating skills to other attributes makes skill matter, even for less obvious uses like perception-based weapon skills for checking quality. The system of adding modifiers is also more familiar to players of other games.

The only thing that could have been more detailed is how to tailor trunks to a setting. Having said that, a lot of settings probably don’t need that much tailoring. The default list is pretty decent and – unlike with Talents and Wildcard Skills – you can just drop all the skills that are inappropriate due to tech-level or setting background with no considerations other than maybe merging trunks that have got too small.

Sauce (Score 8)

While I am not quite sure what the cover image is trying to tell us, it is at least quite unified and does show off some skills and also trees. Form and function rarely come together that well for GURPS outside of very special titles. There are no fewer than ten new pieces of art inside the book and they are placed in good spots conceptually and help to break up the text. The editing is – as always – top-notch and the writing is very fluent and at time absolutely hilarious – if you like (mostly) plant-based puns that is. Would have gone even higher, but again the placement of that -5 penalty…

Generic Nutritional Substance (Score 9)

Skill bloat is often a problem in GURPS campaigns and Skill Trees solves it quite nicely. Not only that, but it also makes the whole system less opaque for newbies and allows for some degree of comparatively easy customisation. It’s hard to find a scenario where you could not use it, except when teaching standard GURPS. Still, it is a meta-layer that not every GM will want to engage with – even if it is compatible with pretty much all existing material (except for Talents and Wildcard Skills). You could even use it for revamping GURPS standard Magic.

Summary

Certainly not a book for people who break out in hives, whenever rule-modding comes up, but well worth the 2 hours it takes to read and grok. I’d use this setup if I ever wanted to run a pretty generic con game. Should simplify things greatly.

Total score: 8.275  (very good, verging on awesome)
Total score is composed of a weighted average of Meat (45%), Cheese (20%), Sauce (20%) and Generic Nutritional Substance (15%). This is a meat-oriented book. A “cheesy” setting- or drama-orientied book would turn the percentages for cheese and meat around.

Value score: 7.1375 (shorter books cost more)
Value Score is composed of the average of Total and Price.

GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.

Holiday TTRPG Worldbuilding: Fantasy Dungeons Meet the Real World 4 (Final)

Slight delay due to chores and game-mastering, but here’s the final part of holiday worldbuilding. Now, the last poll came out clearly in favour of Goblin Aristocracy with strong showings for Undead Healing Clerics and Gadget-using Thieves Guild. Thanks for everyone who participated in the polls.

This last poll was meant to determine the narrative of the setting and that means delving a bit into the background of the fantasy setting. The polls determined it’s peaceful and prosperous now, but that wasn’t always the case. Almost a hundred years ago, a massive fantasy war turned into a revolution, when the oppressed and decimated masses finally had enough of their corrupt aristocracies and ended the war and most of the illustrious noble bloodlines. The goblins were never at the forefronts of either oppression or war-mongering. Their role in the web of courts and alliances was mostly that of messengers, low-level diplomats, informal spies and liaisons with the guilds. While goblins tend to get carried away and confabulate a bit, they – especially their petty nobility – have a clear code of honour to answer truthfully whenever they are asked something formally. Most goblins pay at least lip service to that code, but the spies that exist naturally don’t follow it, unless it suits them.

Their mostly honest dealings – especially when compared to the haughty elven and bloody-minded dwarven aristocracy – meant they were well-placed when the revolutionary leaders decided they needed a network of trusted couriers and heralds to bring their splintered councils and farms together. Although the aristocracy was officially abolished, most goblin noble houses were allowed to retain their ancestral halls and warrens and even helped with extending them to a real relay network that enabled them to quickly transport messages, letters and small parcels. With the vast distances involved in travel between the different self-administering communities, goblin couriers became – over the course of decades – sought-after impartial arbitrators. This led to considerable power for the couriers, who – cautioned by the example of their former peers – decided to codify what a courier could and could not do. Sometimes this code interferes with their somewhat impulsive nature and often it forbids seemingly easy solutions, but most of the time it has helped with balancing out the imperfections of the localised communal government.

The holding of Heatherfarne that got transported underneath Cork’s (fictitious) Sandy Hill Street is a pretty standard aristocratic abode – by goblin standards. It started out in grey mists of time as a series of caves that were probably not of natural origin, but still enthusiastically used by a band of goblin raiders who preyed on elven trade after being forcefully ousted from their village to make space for another fancy necropolis that wouldn’t be used for another hundred years. Over the centuries the elven empire expanded and absorbed former enemies like the goblin raiders as retainers and eventually petty nobility, to whom all the annoying burdens of rulership could be delegated. The public-facing areas of Heatherfarne saw some heavy reworking into (cramped and skewed) imitations of elven rulership, while the actual living and storage quarters were massively expanded to the edges of the workable rock. The public side got a quick make-over after the revolution to remove the throne and other aristocratic features, but otherwise the warren – as it increasingly became called – stayed much the same, although population numbers increased quite a bit. This means the warren – while certainly no dungeon in the traditional sense – is kind of hazardous to navigate for outsiders. Every room and cavern not used for living quarters is stuffed full of supplies, tools, knick-knacks and mementos in sometimes hilariously precarious configurations.

The warren is mainly populated by goblins and some hobgoblins, but with an odd sprinkling of house-guests and retainers of other species. Both the Knocker and Glaistig might be useful, even though they’ve been written with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy in mind. The goblins could use the stats from the Yrth setting as is with the most exotic trait being really good night vision. For the hobgoblins it would be better to just use the same template and change the attributes to ST +2. You can find the template in GURPS Banestorm, p. 192 and GURPS Fantasy Folk – Goblins and Hobgoblins, p. 13. Otherwise just come up with something that emphasises smarts and quick reactions over strength for the goblins and a bit the other way around for the hobgoblins. Just don’t use Dungeon Fantasy templates for them, these lean heavily into the standard stereotypes. Goblins aren’t bad at using magic, but they are not one of the inherently magical species. In an “aristocratic” warren of at around a hundred people (kids, grannies and all), there should be at least two or three individuals who know some magic or even a lot – a couple more may know a spell or two, but be unable to cast outside of high-mana zones. To make things easier metaphysics-wise, I’d go the Banestorm route and rule that spell-casting priests are just religiously-trained mages. Otherwise you’d have to worry whether traditional clerics still get spells granted from their deity and what that means for the setting. This seems more clear-cut. There might, of course, still be some martially-minded folks in this, but they would be more on the level of caravan guards or enthusiastic hobby fencers since this is a peaceful world. Likewise you wouldn’t find any professional thieves in this warren, but folks good at sneaking around and hiding things might certainly be options for PCs.

The mentioned Code of Honour would be rather restrictive, but not universal. Paying lip service to a Code of Honour is merely a quirk. The actual codes would be Goblin’s Code of Honour: When pressed to answer a question reply truthfully if you can or say you cannot answer if loyalties or urgent need prevent you. (Note: That this technically prevents the character from lying to a murderer looking for their victim, though they can always disregard the CoH in such cases if they forego character point rewards for the adventure and are willing to potentially acquire a negative reputation). Always keep your word. [-10 points].  Goblin Courier’s Code of Honour: Same as above, but add: Make sure your messages and parcels get to their addressees. Do not abuse your position – especially do nothing to enrich yourself or your community when asked to arbitrate. Do not let personal feelings get in the way of arbitration. Do not over-rule local governing bodies. [-15 points].

The inhabitants of Heatherfarne will be quite dismayed initially to find their main entrance blocked and the first encounter with some strangely-clad humans might be very tense. The dynamics of the campaign, however, would centre on how to productively channel the goblins’ urge to build networks and help disparate communities (here different milieus in the city) without scaring the humans off or landing in some government lab. The Irish setting makes this a little easier since doing anything nefarious to them under government auspices would certainly bring the English in with force, so there’s a lot of incentive to keep things under wraps or at least just informally aligned with local governance, which would suit the goblins just fine. Also cue hilarious misunderstandings about the nature of the new arrivals. The goblins might be mistaken for leprechauns or – even better hard-drinking clurichauns – and pressured to reveal their most-coveted secret, making beer out of heather…

GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.

Holiday TTRPG Worldbuilding: Fantasy Dungeons Meet the Real World 3

The latest poll was a clear vote for IT / construction crew trying to restore internet access to a building. For me that’s a good indication for an urban adventure. Let’s go to Ireland’s second city for that: Cork, which has the added benefit that I’ve been there twice already. It’s a little hilly and not as flat as Dublin and has a pretty interesting countryside and wider environs – not a bad spot to site an adventure.

I’d imagine repairing the internet connection is very important for most businesses, but that’s kind of boring. We had no votes for the university option, so that’s out too. Sticking with what I know, I’d say the crew is trying to repair a big hostel’s internet connection that went down right with the rest of the neighbourhood’s. Stick it on the north side of the Lee not too far off from the centre and you can either pick a spot or make up your own neighbourhood. In order to not get side-tracked by excessive Google Earth surfing (GM’s tip, use that instead of Google Maps to get a 3D view of the environment you’re looking at, CTRL+drag is your friend), I’m making my own. The rather steep Sandy Hill Street complete with the blocky McCormick House Hostel, grey St. Bridget’s Church, Singhs’ Newsagents & Grocery and Crime, Romance and Cooking, a tiny bookshop owned by a little old lady. Since its two side-streets are cul-de sacs Sandy Hill forms more of an enclosed environment than usual, but except for pensioners and small kids folks spend most of their time somewhere else in town.

The construction workers have a workshop/storage building that’s a bit farther out, but live on Sandy Hill. One IT person is  from the same general area in Cork, the other is an immigrant who who moved into the Singhs’ spare room. The hostel cleaner and general handyperson has a small one-bedroom flat above the bookshop and the hostel’s owner sleeps on the premises.

What would be a good way to contrast and compare these? The generic fae creatures from a brugh under the hill can be fun if you play them a bit against expectations. These faeries would be of the house and garden variety (brownies, knockers, glaistig) and  mostly mortal if somewhat magical and need to make ends meet, struggle to keep fit, use make-up to cover up their acne and battle customers who are never happy with their faerie garments – a very working class experience. If instead we go for classical undead in an underground temple, we can also add a twist, namely these being good (if still light-averse) undead that don’t want you to shuffle off your mortal coil and instead offer healing magic – healers who can’t get sick are not to be sneezed at (and GURPS does make healing spells prerequisites for the cooler parts of necromancy). For something a bit more traditional we could look at an overcrowded goblin burrow, but instead of being dungeon cannon fodder these goblins are the nobility or at least an upper class that just never got around to building extensions to their caverns. Another option would be a band of power-hungry (in the magical sense) magic-users that have squatted in an underground grotto known for its magical resonance only to be transported, grotto and all, to another world. And for the last one (my Mastodon only has five poll options), we could have a look at one of the more legally dubious communities: a multi-ethnic thieves guild with a penchant for clever gadgets. Those should get on well with the IT crew – or not. Here’s the poll.

GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.

Holiday TTRPG Worldbuilding: Fantasy Dungeons Meet the Real World 2

A few votes did come in for the latest polls (I guess using hashtags instead of relying on steady interest from the earlier polls would have been better) and we’re doing Ireland and dungeons from a peaceful / nice fantasy world. That’s an… interesting combination I wouldn’t have picked myself, but that’s part of why one does these guided worldbuildings after all. (I’ll save Quebéc for another rainy day.)

Since the fantasy world is peaceful, the inhabitants have probably not stacked up on a lot of nasty / offensive spells, which is a something to keep in mind when picking a dungeon later on. What it means for magic in general is that I can easily use GURPS Magic (mostly as is) for the magic system. It does have some weird interactions with modern weaponry, but this will be a feature, not a bug. Since we don’t have to worry about them planning the conquest of the countryside, I’ll set the mana levels (area where magic works more or less reliably) rather generously. Everything inside the dungeon and a good-sized area around the entrance (couple of streets in an urban area, two or three kilometres out in the country) are normal mana with some low mana a bit further out – maybe some of the old mystical places in the area have been triggered to produce their own mana by the dungeon’s appearance.

Since things are peaceful and prosperous in fantasyland, the dungeon dwellers are unlikely to hide from an apocalypse, war or other big catastrophe. So the reason they’re underground is either cultural / biological (underground species and the like), social / commercial (biggest city in the area, a lucrative mine) or mystical / religious (place of power or burial site or maybe temple to cthonic deity). They could also be youngsters going exploring, but I’m thinking that will be better reserved for the human side of things – not quite sure yet.

As for the world at large, I’m not sure yet whether the dungeons are coming in all over the globe, but for this stage it doesn’t really need to be settled. I assume dungeons will slip in rather quietly with only subtle signs and portents (and heavily camouflaged or out of the way entrances). All the initial interactions could be quite low-key.

For the next poll, I’m asking who the dungeon denizens make first contact with. That could be the aforementioned youngsters with nothing to do (or too much of a penchant for mischief), a team of wastewater specialists from Irish Water (dungeons and sewers mix well) or the inhabitants of a remote farm. A mixed crew of IT and construction workers looking for the reason their web connection went poof would be another funny option as would be a university interfaith group stumbling over dungeon magic by accident (though it seems these are even more limited than in the UK).

The nature of the dungeon itself will be decided in the next part.

GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.

Holiday TTRPG Worldbuilding: Fantasy Dungeons Meet the Real World 1

During the Christmas season we often like to do some RPG worldbuilding. This time we let the mastodon hive-mind decide and even if it was technically a tie we settled on the above topic due to perceived interest in the comments. Victorian ET Investigators might be in the running again next year, as might be Fantasy World on a Bishop Ring / Banks Orbital.

At first I thought Fantasy Dungeons Meet the Real World would be more about real-world folks exploring dungeons that had suddenly appeared, but someone mentioned it being a popular reverse isekai trope and I think it might be interesting to focus on the dungeon perspective in the first place. How do we do that? Time for another poll? Not quite – first I’d like to set out a couple of constraints to the topic.

Most importantly, I want to focus on relationships and communities. Yes, you can do a “fun” romp of dungeon denizens terrorising the countryside or slaughtering low-lives who want to kill them and take their stuff, but that’s not the kind of game I want to tell (and neither do my players). I’m more interested in semi-comedic stuff about cultural / dimensional misunderstandings and weird physical interactions. I’d like to have a good helping of narrative realism (as opposed to bean-counting realism) in my roleplaying, but that comes second place after making the game fun. An extra portion of surrealism will be added to taste.

Not sure where on Earth to set it yet and not sure what to focus on fantasy-world-wise, but I’m thinking there are some neat options for both:

Germany for kafkaesque bureaucracy and dungeons hidden in weird locations, Quebéc for surreal dungeon-cooking and a mix of remote wilderness and city dungeons, Ireland for a faerie twist and mythical dungeons, the Baltic states for pagan roots and a nervous eye towards Russia, Egypt for a good long look at the ethics of plundering ancient treasures and two very different landscapes for dungeons.

The fantasy world could be undergoing an apocalypse of some kind (dungeons are good shelter against some of those), it could be beginning its own age of exploration (maybe sending ancient underground places of power to other dimensions  or using some sort of gate technology), it could also be in a peaceful state (at least compared to us) and has to improvise to defend its dimensionally unmoored homes / grave sites from those violent humans or they could be just here to trade (after having miscalculated rather severely).

All of these could conceivably change the physics side of the equation, so I’m going to wait for the poll results before I settle on how magic and other supernatural powers work. Same goes for technology in the dungeon and possible real-world correspondences.

Where we need a lot in the way of a game engine, I’m going to use my default option GURPS, but I’m also reading Robin D. Laws’ Hillfolk RPG and might incorporate bits and pieces as I go along.

GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.

Bite-sized Review: Pyramid 3/01 – Tools of the Trade – Wizards

Getting an eBook reader means I finally have some more time to read through my extensive (and mostly unread) collection of GURPS PDFs. Since it’s mainly snatches in public transport and before bed, Pyramid proves to be better for this with its semi-short articles. Let’s see how long I can keep it up

Cover of Pyramid 3.01 - Tools of the Trade - Wizards. The Illustration shows a wizard with a staff riding a magic carpet.

Facts

Authors: Matt Riggsby, Sean Punch, Steven Marsh, Andy Vetromile, Stefan Jones, Matthew Pook
Date of Publication: 21/11/2008
Format: PDF-only (Warehouse 23-only)
Page Count:  48 (1 title page, 1 content page, 2 pages ads)
Price: $9 (PDF), $ 0.2 per page of content; Score of 8/10 ($500 Pyramid 3 Bundle: $4.10, $ 0.091 per page, Score 10/10)
Preview: https://warehouse23.com/products/pyramid-number-3-slash-01-tools-of-the-trade-wizards

Review

As all my other reviews this one will be rated according to meat (rules, stats, game mechanics), cheese (setting, characters, story), sauce (form, writing, style, art) and generic nutritional substance (universal nature, adaptability). At the end you find a weighted average of those components and a value score that also takes into account price per page.

The first issue of Pyramid 3 starts off with only two GURPS features (and “‘.’ Is For Full-Stop Drum” only has a two “monster” stat blocks that tie it to GURPS), which is way less than in later issues, where often only the Recommended Reading and Random Thought Table weren’t explicitly for GURPS. Most of the articles have a GURPS-y slant though in that the authors did think of the way magic would impact the world or stories. In my definition that makes it more “cheesy” (fluffy) than “meaty” (crunchy).

Theme-wise it’s solid, even though you could argue that neither a guildhall, nor being mysterious is a physical tool of the trade – but that’s splitting hairs. The only odd one out is the Full-Stop Drum, which still ties into GURPS Alphabet Arcane, which sort of ties it back to the tools motif.

Meat

The main meat article actually deals with flesh – more specifically undead flesh. “Necromantic Tools” by Sean Punch (5 pages) shows aspiring death mages how to graft undead arms to their bodies, how to make skull-tipped wands and a better way to deal with the usual zombie horde as an ally group (incidentally providing a considerable upgrade to the lackluster zombie template from GURPS Magic). The staffs are a little on the boring side, but the rest has a lot of meaty detail.

Apart from that, there are just the monster stats from the “Full-Stop Drum” and a couple of hints scattered through the other articles. The living zombies and the giant badger are nice, with the former being more generally useful.

All in all, nothing bad, some really good stuff, but not a whole lot.

Meat score: 7

Cheese

This is where the issue really shines. Matt Riggsby’s “The Guildhall of the Hermetic Brotherhood” (10 pages) shows what a magical disputation society come regulatory body / research fellowship might look like in a quasi-medieval fantasy setting. Despite the title, the focus is evenly split between the organisation and the building itself with the organisation being quite a bit more interesting. Disregarding the fact that guilds were normally not kingdom-wide organisations, Matt’s take on the whole thing is quite realistic and interestingly written. The guildhall fits the quite mundane nature of the society. Alongside the six pages of text we get four pages of battlemaps with hexes for the guildhall (more about those under sauce). The only thing that’s missing for me are the cellars, but depending on the town that’s not unrealistic either.

Steven Marsh’s “Tooling with Curses” (5 pages) veers into the more immaterial toolbox of wizards and more on the GM’s side too. We get three interesting, non-debilitating and somewhat abusable curses and three boxes and a lead-in on the more general topic of when and why to use curses. A very nice and tight selection, even though I’d have preferred one more curse maybe.

Next we get an (uncredited) instruction of how to fold a “Wizard’s Letter” (5 pages) with steps simple enough for me to follow. The example letter ties things back to the Hermetic Brotherhood again, which is nice. The letter is a neat prop, but nothing extraordinary. I’m a bit mystified as to why they provided the blank back of the letter too, but maybe they thought it was a nice parchment-y colour for printing out. I think there are better options for that, but let’s not quibble about a first issue.

Andy Ventromile’s “Out of the Rough – Magic Gems in RPGs” (6 pages) is a short, but thorough system-neutral treatment of the use of gemstones in fantasy magic. It covers many aspects and, of course, the use of powerstones in GURPS makes this especially interesting to GMs and players in SJG’s house system, but everything is kept generic. Andy gets a little side-tracked in politics in the middle, but it’s still interesting stuff. Just would have liked to see such in a longer treatment. There are only six types of gems (and one of them is pearls) treated individually, so don’t come looking here for correspondences (you can find those in GURPS Thaumatology).

Stefan Jones’ “‘.’ Is For Full-Stop Drum” (3 pages and really awkward to quote something with so many apostrophes / quotation marks in a row) is the odd one out in this issue. It describes a clan-based swamp fisher society that while it uses magic and has some ancient magical history can really only claim a link to theme by way of being part of GURPS Alphabet Arcane. Spoiler: The eponymous drum is very much not a tool for wizards except in the sense of bringing about the apocalypse.

So how does it fare as a description of a society and its past? It’s a decidedly mixed bag. There is some interesting colour, but descriptors such as “savages”, a tradition of contests to gain more women and rigid separate gender roles weren’t en vogue in 2008 and certainly aren’t today. I’d charitably call it a homage to Lovecraftian and leave it at that. What can you do with the whole thing? Not much unless you really want to bring about or prevent an apocalypse, and not a very interesting one at that (but see the meat section).

“Random Thought Table – Seriously Mysterious” (2 pages) by Steven Marsh is thankfully quite a bit fresher and talks about why and how to make wizards look mysterious with a lot of useful tips on how to pull it off in game. Again, this is a generic article, but it’s quite easy to tie it in to GURPS and most systems that have skills. It’s more tricks of the trade actually, but it plays around with some common tropes, showing ways to subvert them. A very fun read.

The humour section was quite mixed again. Murphy’s Rules was fun (at the time) and it was nice seeing Frederick Brackin’s name in print again – a big GURPS fan and supporter, may he rest in peace. “Items Found in a Dead Wizard’s Satchel” made me chuckle, but the “Fnordplay” left me stumped – and I wasn’t the only one (title was fun at least).

For a second article Andy Vetromile gives us “Recommended Reading – Tools of the Trade” (2 pages), which at a first glance is more about wizardly boardgames, but the author does include some nice ways to use board-game materials in your RPGs as well as pointing out some interesting ways of working magic in Deadlands and Unknown Armies. Not an absolute must-read, but a nice little addition.

The second recommended reading “Wizards and Gaming” (2 pages) by Matthew Pook is about a (2008) review of wizardly TTRPGs (and a good helping of how wizards work in D&D, 4th edition). It hasn’t aged too well (e.g. even GURPS had a supplement about a magic school by now), but still has some interesting bits if you like older games.

“Last Words” (1 page) features an interview with Chad Underkoffler, which again gives some helpful characterisation tips – a nice way to close the issue.

All in all, there is some pretty good stuff in there with only five pages falling below average.

Cheese score: 8

Sauce

While the writing is above average to pretty good, the same cannot be said of the art. The cover is nice but was already seen in GURPS Fantasy. The humour page had one decent and new image and a tired old one and there are three more reused third edition illustrations that serve little purpose other than providing visual way-points. What else? There are the folding instructions for the wizard’s letter and while these are not especially inspiring they do serve their purpose better than many online tutorials I’ve seen. Then there’s the map of the Guildhall by Matt Riggsby. I’ve never been a big fan of his maps and this one looks straight out of a Campaign Cartographer 3 tutorial, but it does help with visualising the place. Also it can be used as a battle map. Minus points for not providing battle maps as an image file, though. Virtual tabletops were a thing back then too (and so were printers).

In the end this comes in slightly above average, which is still pretty good for GURPS standards, unfortunately.

Sauce score: 6

Generic Nutritional Substance

As far as roleplaying supplements about magic go, this one is pretty generic. It favours traditional fantasy, but not completely. Several articles can be used in many kinds of settings. It does pretty much require some sort of fantasy, though, being about magic after all.

Generic Nutritional Substance score: 7

Summary

I remember not liking this issue much, when I first read it, but that might have been due to the fact that I loved the online Pyramid with its weekly offerings and disliked the map a lot. I might not have read it from cover to cover, because my time for that was rapidly diminishing. Re-reading it now, I’d say it’s a  roughly average issue of Pyramid 3. Certainly not the best entry point in the series, but not bad either and a fine zine in its own right. It’s more generically useful than many of the later issues too – even outside of GURPS.

If you are planning on buying the Pyramid/3 Bundle for $500 you get an even better deal, but maybe grab some issues from the middle of its run first (or read them over a friend’s shoulder) to see whether it’s your cup of tea. Back in the day all of us online subscribers got this even cheaper as part of half-a-year subscription deal, meaning we paid less than $20 for $54 in product. I want to say that I still think this was extremely generous on the part of SJGames.

Total score: 7.3
Total score is composed of a weighted average of Meat (40%), Cheese (25%), Sauce (20%) and Generic Nutritional Substance (15%). This is a meat-oriented book. A “cheesy” setting- or drama-orientied book would turn the percentages for cheese and meat around.

Value score: 7.65 (8.65 as Pyramid/3 Bundle)
Value Score is composed of the average of Total and Price.

GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.

The Owl House RPG: Charakterbögen

Sorry, English-speaking folks. I don’t have English sheets or character synopses, but hopefully these are at least interesting to look at.

Hier die Charakterbögen für das Con-Spiel am 19.10.

Ari ist ein waschechter Geek wie aus dem Bilderbuch wurde Aris Leben durch die Scheidung der Eltern ziemlich auf den Kopf gestellt. Es fiel nicht leicht sich nach Chicago ans kleine Städchen Macomb, Illinois, und an die Lebensweise der ländlich geprägten Großeltern zu gewöhnen.
Aber Ari war schon immer neuen Herausforderungen gegenüber offen und die freie Natur vor der eigenen Haustüre hatte auch etwas Befreiendes. Mit der rigiden Organisation der Pfadfinder tat sich Ari aber etwas schwer und streifte lieber alleine durch die nahen Wälder. So kam es dann auch auch zu der verhängnisvollen Kollision mit einem Schnecken-rochen und einem geheimnisvollen Portal.

Ari Sherman:

Character Sheet – Ari ShermanHerunterladen

Jack A. Randa wuchs nicht weit von ihrer Mutter aus dem Boden. Der sonnige Platz am Rande eines kleinen Stroms am Schienbein des Titanen war jedoch einer der Lieblings-Müllabladeplätze einer gewissen dimeonsspringenden Hexe, so dass sich dort allerhand Comics, Groschenromane
und technische Handbücher ansammelten, die der kleinen Jack einiges an Wissen, aber noch mehr viel Interesse an der Welt der Menschen beibrachten.
Irgenwann lernen kleine Baumdämonen aber auch sich zu bewegen und ab da wurde es dann schwierig, die Erfindungsgabe der kleinen Jack unter Kontrolle zu halten. Die Mutter war doch recht froh, als Jack dann in St. Epiderm eingeschult wurde.

Jack A. Randa:

Character Sheet – Jack A. RandaHerunterladen

Sherlin Meldrake:

Als Nachkomme einer alten und ehrwürdigen Dämonenfamilie mit (angeblich) drakonsichen Wurzeln hätte Großes aus Shirlin werden können, aber schon früh zeigte sich, dass they überhaupt nicht mit dem Leben in der Stadt zusammen mit hunderten anderer Hexen und Dämonen zurechtkamen. Schweren Herzens entschlossen sich die ambitionierten, aber nicht kaltherzigen Eltern, das kleine Dämonenkind zu den Großeltern aufs Land zu schicken, die sich nach einer Karriere in den Zirkeln aufs Land zurückgezogen hatten. Dort blühte Sherlin auf und begann their magisches Talent zu entwickeln, das sich zum Glück nicht (nur) auf die Unterhaltung mit Pflanzen aller Art beschränkte. Auch der Wechsel ans Internat von St. Epiderm ging noch relativ glimpflich aus – selbst wenn sich Sherlin immer die Klassen mit den wenigsten Mitschüler*innen aussuchte und lieber im Gewächshaus als im Gemeinschaftszimmer schlief.

Character Sheet – Sherlin MeldrakeHerunterladen

Melodika Linotek

Als 7. von 9 Geschwistern (eines für jeden Zirkel) geboren war es von Anfang an klar, dass Melodikas Eltern komplett auf der Linie des Imperators waren. Jedes Kind sollte einen der neun Zirkel erlernen und den Eltern damit die nötige Anerkennung bringen um, endlich auch politisch mitmischen zu können. Nur doof, dass sie sich nie für die ihr zugeteilte Bardenmagie erwärmen konnte und damit aus der Reihe tanzte. Auch an ihrer früheren Schule, Glandus High, war das Mischen von Orakelmagie und Bestienhaltung nicht beliebt, so dass sie schließlich in Schimpf und Schande zu St. Epiderm wechseln musste und ihre Stellung als absolute “Queen Bee” einer Clique nicht wiederlangen konnte.

Character Sheet – Melodika LinotekHerunterladen

Errazas Gorthlaroth

In einer kleinen Dämonenfamilie auf dem Oberschenkel geschlüpft, entwickelte Errazas schon früh beim Spielen im Wald eine Vorliebe für Pflanzenmagie. Sie hatte wenig Schwierigkeiten auch die Namen und Eigenschaften der kompliziertesten Spezies im Gedächtnis zu halten. Sein Interesse an der Bardenmagie entdeckte er erst später. Errazas streift viel herum, woran sich deren Eltern aber inzwischen gewöhnt haben. Wenn per sich nicht in der Bibliothek verläuft liest sier gerne zufällig ausgewählte Bücher. In der Hexstein-Schule ist Errazas einer eher schlechter Schüler*in und versucht unauffällig zu bleiben, was them aber selten Bonuspunkte bei den Lehrkräften einbringt. Sie kann sich leider nur für ihre Lieblingsfächer begeistern.

Character Sheet – Errazas GorthlarothHerunterladen

Stig Glaes

Als Kind einer armen alleinerziehenden Mutter geboren, musste Stig schon früh mithelfen. Bald stellte sich jedoch heraus, dass der eher schwächliche Junge am besten durch seine Unterhaltungskünste Geld verdienen konnte. Trotzdem fiel es seiner Mutter Stunya schwer, die kleine Familie über Wasser zu halten. Das änderte sich erst, als Stig durch den Bardenzirkel entdeckt wurde und mit dessen Unterstützung besser bezahlte Auftritte an Land ziehen konnte. Mit einem Stipendium für die Hexstein wurde alles noch ein wenig besser. Stig lebt für die Bühne und ist nicht immer gut auf reiche Leute zu sprechen. Sein Respekt für Eigentum hält sich in Grenzen, auch wenn er selten etwas stiehlt. Er erforscht gerne Orte, an denen er nichts zu suchen hat.

Character Sheet – Stig GlaesHerunterladen

Malequi Tapcask

Als Kind einer brauenden Hexe (Bier und Tränke) geboren, deren Partner schon bald nach der Geburt starb, wuchs Malequi in prekären Verhältnissen auf. Ihre Mutter Hanaqi tat ihr bestes, um die Braugaststätte alleine am Laufen zu halten, was schon bald zu recht schmaler Kost führte. Als dann kleine Geldgeschenke an der Hintertür auftauchten, fragte sie nicht nach. Malequi fing mit sieben an regelmäßig zu klauen, mit zehn entdeckte sie ihre Vorliebe fürs Schlösserknacken und bald darauf hatte sie einen vertrauenswürdigen Hehler.
Die ganze Zeit über war ihre eigentliche Liebe aber das Tränkebrauen. Das war auch der Weg zu guten Schulnoten, aber dann kam da dieses Menschenkind und brachte ihre Glyphen mit….

Char – Malequi Tapcask 0aHerunterladen

Firmos Denz

Firmos wuchs in einer reichen Familie mit nobler Abstammung auf und wurde schon früh größtenteils von Lehrern und Bediensteten erzogen. Seine Streiche gegen seine Erzieher wurden nie groß geahndet und schnell zu seiner Lieblingsbeschäftigung. Das Erlernen einer “ehrbaren” Magieform wie Orakelmagie war ihm eher unangenehm, bot aber neue Möglichkeiten für Tricks. Illusionen brachte er sich selbst bei und beeindruckte damit selbst seine fernen Eltern. Diese gehen natürlich davon aus, dass er solche Spielereien bald aufgeben und einem Zirkel beitreten wird – etwas worauf Firmos überhaupt keine Lust hat. Daher begann er Auswege zu suchen, selbst wenn er dafür gegen den Imperator mit anderen zusammenarbeiten muss, ohne sie zu ärgern.

Character Sheet – Firmos DenzHerunterladen

Xarato Trifle

Als Kind des Buchhalters Yindex wuchs Xarato sehr behütet auf. So fielen Xaratos Probleme mit lauten und reizüberfluteten Situationen ersteinmal nicht so shark auf. Yindex gab seinem Kind fiel zu lesen, was auch begeistert angenommen wurde und einen Privatlehrer, was weniger gefiel. Auch wenn sich der Vater v.a. mit Geld beschäftigte, hatte er ein gutes Herz. Xarato wurde zu einer idealistischen Person, was sich nicht immer als hilfreich herausstellte. Schon bei der Einschulung fiel Xarato als naiv und mit Gruppe überfordert auf. Glücklicherweise hatte Xarato ein Händchen für die prestigeträchtige Abscheulichkeitenmagie und die nicht viel weniger angesehene Heilmagie. Vor allem erstere konnte man auch gut im stillen Kämmerlein lernen. Mit den Mitschüler*innen wurde Xarato nicht wirklich warm und zog sich, wann immer möglich zurück. Wie Xarato im C-Team von St. Epiderm gelandet ist, kann per sich immer noch nicht erklären.

Character Sheet – Xarato TrifleHerunterladen

The Owl House Fan RPG – Character Art

English version at the bottom.

Fürs das Rollenspiel, das ich am Winter-Kurt in zwei Wochen in Mannheim leite, hier schon mal die Bilder der Charaktere fürs Owl House Fan RPG (gemoddetes GURPS). Freut Euch auf Weirdoes wie Baumdämon*in Jack A. Randa, die Bardenmagie hassende Melodika, reptilienhafte Kräuterhexe Sherlin Meldrake und viele andere. Alle aus der Hand einer fantastischen Freundin.

I’m running a convention game in Germany in two weeks. Have some character art for The Owl House Fan RPG (heavily modded GURPS engine). Meet quirky weirdoes like the tree demon Jack A. Randa, the bard-magic-hating Melodika, the draconesque withc Shirlen Meldrake and many more. All done by an amazing friend.

Con Game: The Owl House RPG (Mannheim)

Update (2024/10/10):
Charakterbilder findet Ihr hier.
Charakterbögen findet Ihr hier.
Anmelden könnt Ihr Euch direkt hier (kostenloser Account bei Easy-Con wird benötigt, dann bei der Runde auf “view” klicken und dann auf “attend” – nicht ideal, ich weiß, aber Cons sind halt auf kostenlose Tools angewiesen).

Eingeben kann ich’s noch nicht, aber am Samstag, den 19. Oktober leite ich ein Abenteuer für das The Owl House Fan RPG (basierend auf der gleichnamigen Serie, deutsch “Willkommen im Haus der Eulen”). Das Ganze ist läuft auf einer schwer gemoddeten GURPS Engine, spielt sich aber sehr flüssig und vermeidet die meisten Nachteile von GURPS (außer Charakter-Nachteilen selbstverständlich).

Anmeldungen laufen ab dem 5. Oktober über den Kurpfälzer Rollenspieltreff. Gespielt wird im Jugendhaus Waldpforte in Mannheim-Gartenstadt (Waldpforte 67, 68305 Mannheim, Haltestelle Freilichtbühne). Gut erreichbar vom Hauptbahnhof mit der Linie 4 (nur Endstation: Waldfriedhof, Abfahrt alle immer um 02, 22, 42 – nicht der DB App trauen, die Umleitung ist aufgehoben und Ihr könnt direkt fahren).

Es gibt drei Online-Anmelde-Slots und zwei auf der Con. Ein Platz ist schon vergeben und zwei weitere werden auf der Con direkt vergeben, damit auch noch spontan Entschlossene die Möglichkeit haben teilzunehmen. In dem Fall bitte möglichst früh da sein, sonst geht Ihr eventuell leer aus. Für die Online-Slots natürlich die Bitte, dass Ihr Euch abmeldet, wenn es absehbar wird, dass Ihr doch nicht kommen könnt.

Eintritt zur Con ist frei, also auch durchaus etwas, das man sich auch ohne erfolgreiche Online-anmeldung mal anschauen kann. Dazu Kaffee-/Teeflatrate mit Con-Becher und Kaltgetränke, Kuchen, Snacks auf Verzehrkarte ohne nerviges Kleingeldsuchen, wenn mal schnell der Hunger befriedigt werden muss.

Ich poste hier schon mal die Pitch und im Laufe der nächsten Wochen noch Teaser für die Charaktere.

The Owl House RPG: Der Wettstreit des Imperators

***Achtung: Dieses Abenteuer geht über zwei Time Slots.***

Bitte beim Vormittag für BEIDE anmelden!

Start ist 11.15 Uhr, ab 10.00 Uhr steht die Spielleitung zur Verfügung. Ende gegen 18.30 Uhr.

Der Imperator hat einen Wettstreit ausgerufen und eine sagenumwobene Belohnung für das Team ausgelobt, das ihm aus den Dschungeln der Hand das Blut des Drachenbaumes bringt. Euch als C-Teams der Schulen von Hexstein und Sankt Epiderm traut kaum eine Hexe zu, dass Ihr das bewerkstelligen könnt. Aber unverhofft kommt oft auf den Brodelnden Inseln…

Das Abenteuer basiert auf der gleichnamigen Serie. Eine grobe Kenntnis des Settings wäre wünschenswert. Es wird aber auch zwei Charaktere geben, für die keinerlei Vorkenntnisse nötig sind. Wenn Ihr die braucht, bitte bis 10.30 Uhr da sein! Es handelt sich um eine etwas düstere / skurrile Fantasywelt. Rating ist aber PG, sinnvoll ab 13/14 Jahren, aber durchaus auch was für ältere Semester. CW: Hexen, Magie, Dämonen, Cartoon-Ekel, LGBT-Charaktere.

Fall ihr besondere Bedarfe habt, meldet Euch bitte vorher. Zwei Slots werden auf der Con vergeben, damit auch spontan Entschlossene eine Chance zum Mitspielen haben. Ein Slot ist für die Regel-Assistenz reserviert.

Instant House Rule: Lower Self Control Numbers

Whether it’s Curious, Compulsive Carousing or Impulsiveness, disadvantages with self-control numbers add colour to a character without crippling them (mostly! Looking at you, Berserk, Lecherousness and Gullibility!). However, most players take them at standard level or even at half cost. The end result is that they come up rarely and are often just taken to get some easy points. That’s because the standard probabilities of failures are

  • 15: slightly less than 5%
  • 12: slightly more than 25%
  • 9: slightly more than 63%
  • 6: slightly more than 90 %

The big discrepancy here are between 15, 12 and 9. Double points for six already seems pretty fair – you get a hefty chunk of points, but it will constantly be a problem. 15 would be a standard crit fail in D&D and seems far too good for anything but Berserk.

5-Minute Cooking Time: lower 15 to 14 and 12 to 11. The nice-looking progression in the numbers is ruined, but you get almost 10% failure chance for 15 and almost 38% for 12.

Season to Taste: If you can’t leave the progression alone, going 5, 8, 11, 14 doesn’t really ruin things either, but it makes 1.5 x cost pretty punishing at almost 75% failure chance. If you feel like shaking things up a bit, give from -3 to +3 depending on the severity of the temptation or repeated self-control rolls.