Across The Equinox
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Across The Equinox
It's autumn, and certainly feels like it where your loyal GURPS Line Editor lives. The Harvest Moon (when y.t. was bitten by a cat) is behind us, and the Hunter's Moon (when y.t. hopes he won't turn into a cat) will appear before the next report. But work on GURPS knows no seasons, and like the new moon, is there even when you can't see it.
Recent Releases
September blew in with one new GURPS goody:
GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees (September 26, 2024; PDF)
Many gamers like the fact that GURPS is skill-based. That doesn't always equate to enjoying hundreds of skills, arbitrary difficulties that don't make a difference in play, a discontinuous cost progression, and the complexity of defaults, specialties, and techniques. This stuff can swamp new players – and "fixes" such as Talents and wildcard skills tend to get added to the heap, rendering matters more complicated, not simpler. This rules hack replaces all of the above with a unified, telescoping "skill tree" system that also helps focus character concepts and reduce the temptation to inflate attributes. As it totally transforms the game for GMs and players alike, it's better for new campaigns than for existing ones, but it's worth a look if you've ever had players complain that they can't understand skills.
Upcoming Plans
Behind-the-scenes progress was excellent in September! In rough order by how far along projects are, here's the status of everything I'm allowed to talk about. As ever, remember that these are informed guesses, not firm promises. Somebody could always turn into a were-cat.
- GURPS Monster Hunters Adventure: The Face of Fire, by J. Edward Tremlett and Christopher Rice, is through editing and in production, and on target for October.
- GURPS Loadouts: Starship Crew, by Paul Stefko, is laid out with art and a final review, and looking solid for December.
- My two How to Be a GURPS GM volumes are both laid out with art and final reviews, while my Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game adventure isn't far behind. All are in the pipeline for 2025.
- I edited GURPS Magical Styles: Traditional Styles, by Phil Masters, moving it into the 2025 lineup, too.
- The editorial queue presently consists of two items by y.t.: GURPS Power-Ups 11 (I can reveal only that it's sort of a companion to GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees) and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 24 (no hints yet, but it's sure to be controversial).
- GURPS Hot Spots: Istanbul, by Matt Riggsby, and GURPS Infinite Worlds: Gotterdammerung, by William H. Stoddard, both moved into peer review.
- The playtest queue now consist of GURPS Banestorm: Whispers of Tohrent, by Thomas Pugh, and GURPS Martial Arts: The Bolognese School, by Nathan M.M. Meluvor.
- Anders Starmark hopes to have GURPS Fantasy Folk: Fishmen revised and into the playtest queue by December.
- And the editorial review queue consists of just GURPS Locations: Faculty Library, by John Shimmin, which is now in my sights.
Then we have the Sekrit Projekts I can't discuss, of which there are 12. If something moves from "Can't tell you yet . . ." to "Now I can gossip!" during October, you'll read about it in the GURPS thread in my blog, updated Friday mornings.
Join Us! Join Us!
While the 2024 and 2025 schedules are looking full, we aren't closed to the idea of more supplements if they're rules-light and either 12 or 21 pages long. The Warehouse 23 Digital Wish List (updated August 6, 2024) and Warehouse 23 Wish List for GURPS (updated August 6, 2024) explain what we're most interested in seeing. As usual, we expect query letters to show awareness of our Freelancer FAQ, Submission Guidelines, GURPS formatting guide, and GURPS WYSIWYG template. With accepted proposals being for late 2025, if not sometime in 2026, there's no excuse for not taking extra time to inform yourself!