The Third Time's The Charm

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The Third Time's The Charm

Globally, 2020 wasn't all that great. And 2021? Not exactly wonderful. I'm sure that 2022 will break the curse! But first, let's close 2021 by recapping December (a few days late because I was taking a much-needed break on December 31).

Recent Releases

December brought another pair of GURPS 2020 PDF Challenge items and something new.

 

 

How to Be a GURPS GM: Ritual Path Magic (December 2, 2021; PDF)

GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic is a very powerful and very popular freeform magic system. However, with great flexibility comes a difficult learning curve. The players need to figure out how to make the rules do what they want . . . and it's the GM's job to assist them (and to veto anything really troublesome!). This guide helps the GM navigate those challenges, making the game more fun for everyone.

GURPS Steampunk Setting: The Broken Clockwork World (December 16, 2021; PDF)

You may ask yourself, "Well, how do I actually use all those GURPS Steampunk supplements in a campaign?" Here's one proposal: An alternate reality where two worlds collide, bringing magic and steampunk together! With support for adding GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms, GURPS Infinite Worlds, and GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier to the mix.

GURPS Hot Spots: Sriwijaya (December 23, 2021; PDF)

Welcome to the Malay Archipelago! It offers great riches, haughty empires, dread pirates, deadly animals, an extreme climate with often scary weather, and terrain where one misstep can end you. And this supplement provides all the background, maps, and game stats you need to spin this realm into an adventure or an entire campaign – or simply to use it as the origin story of your hero from far away across the sea.

Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game Update
 
The final, corrected PDF of the Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game – the one that we sent to the printer for the upcoming hardback – is now available. Already bought it? Be sure to download the updated file posted on December 23, 2021. Don't have it yet? Go get it today!
 

Upcoming Plans

Given how the last couple of years went, it's probably best that we make no promises for 2022. Still, I suppose it's safe enough to name what's in the works. As usual, please bear in mind that while the list below does its very best to arrange things in the most likely release order, it doesn't come with any guarantees other than, "One of these days, we'll publish this!" Thanks for understanding.

• As noted above, the Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game hardback is at the printer.
• The Dungeon Fantasy Companion 3 Kickstarter is biding its time behind other Kickstarters. We have not forgotten about it . . . the last internal update was on December 9, 2021. We just prefer not to compete with our own campaigns.
• GURPS Infinite Worlds: Nightreign, by James Amaral & Joshua Lopez, is still being edited (much as it was before its editor took a holiday break!).
• Final drafts of Christopher R. Rice's GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves and Carolyn Stein & Stephen Kenneth Stein's GURPS Vehicles: Biremes and Triremes remain in the editorial queue.
• GURPS Fantasy Folk: Goblins and Hobgoblins (Phil Masters), GURPS Fantasy Folk: Winged Folk (Anders Starmark), and GURPS Template Toolkit: Spirits (Rory Fansler) are queued for playtesting, most likely in that order. Steven Marsh and I are aware that this is a conversation we need to have soon-ish.
• The latest first draft in the GURPS Loadouts series remains with author Paul Stefko for revisions prior to playtesting.
• First drafts of GURPS Fantasy Folk: Kobolds (Phil Masters) and something for the GURPS Hot Spots series (Matt Riggsby) await editorial review.

Five or six other titles are floating around, too, but they're not things we want to discuss at this time. The best place to look for security leaks is in the GURPS thread in my blog, updated Fridays.

Everything Old Is New Again Department
 
We didn't expand our GURPS on Demand or DriveThruRPG offerings in December, but don't despair – there's always more to come. In the meantime, be sure to check out those options if you haven't taken a look recently, because 2021 was a very active year for both!
 
While I have your attention: We're also working on bringing all the GURPS 2020 PDF Challenge and GURPS 2021 PDF Challenge content to Warehouse 23. In fact, all that stuff was recently added to our secret database.

Join Us! Join Us!

I cannot lie . . . our editorial and production resources are stretched thin. As I always recommend during times like these, please keep your eye on the Warehouse 23 Digital Wish List (updated November 4, 2021) and Warehouse 23 Wish List for GURPS (updated November 4, 2021) to find out what we want, and review the Submission Guidelines, GURPS formatting guide, and GURPS WYSIWYG template to learn how we want it. At least for the first quarter of 2022, the hallowed freelancers' tradition of getting in early and often is not the way to go. We'd prefer midyear proposals that look as if their writers clearly followed the above instructions.