Falling Into Autumn

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Falling Into Autumn

Here in the Great White North, leaves have started to change color and fall from trees. Overhead, V-shaped skeins of geese fly noisily south. Days are still fairly warm but also short; evenings are cool enough to require a coat. It's my favorite time of the year! In the realm of GURPS, we had no new release this past month, but rest assured that we're working hard. Speaking of which . . .

Recent Releases?

You have doubtless noticed the slow pace of GURPS publication in 2025. It even led to a forums discussion. As transparency is one of my highest values, I would like to account (not apologize) for the situation.

We produce GURPS supplements according to a process I explained here. There is minor variation, but the majority of the stages I described fall under either "creative" (all steps that deal directly with game content: outlining, writing, reviewing, playtesting, revising, editing, etc.) or "production" (all tasks required to turn game content into PDFs or physical books: layout, pagination, filling art and quote boxes, and generating endpapers like the title page, table of contents, and index). Both of these categories exist within a third, overarching framework that we could fairly call "administrative" – budgeting, contracting, scheduling, sales, marketing, and everything else with close ties to money.

Different people handle each of these broad classes of work. For example, I'm considered creative staff, as I'm a rules expert and editor who evaluates outlines, answers writers' questions, reviews manuscripts, edits final drafts, and (if time allows) writes. Nikki Vrtis is production staff; she turns final, edited drafts into PDFs, whether to sell "as is" or to send to printers for physical books. Administrative staff are people at the management and executive levels who tell the rest of us what to do, how much time and money we have to do it, and when we'll release what, for what price, and with what advertising. It's exceedingly rare for personnel to cross between these three silos.

Individual creative staff are associated with specific product lines; e.g., I'm the GURPS Line Editor, so in addition to having no production or administrative authority, I have no reach outside of GURPS (barring emergencies where I write marketing text or lift crates at conventions!). Production staff, however, work on whatever projects need to be turned into finished products; all lines share them and, when cash flow demands it, their priorities are set by projected return on investment (ROI). Who decides that? Administrative staff, whose focus is the company, not individual products or lines . . . they hire and fire, budget, set prices, make projections, deal with licensors and lawyers, and do everything else that emphasizes the "business" in "the games business."

Anyone who isn't living under a rock is aware that the economy is sagging right now. This has a direct effect on games, and if you're interested in how that works, I outlined a number of effects here. So, we're in the "cash flow demands that production staff prioritize high-ROI projects" regime. An unfortunate side effect of GURPS being generic and universal is that it's rare for its entire fandom to want everything – they tend to pick up only support for favorite genres, settings, and play styles. Moreover, pouring formatted rules and stats, and dense text, into a layout is more work than, say, putting art and short blurbs onto cards, and cards sell to almost all fans of the associated card game. Thus, GURPS manuscripts are landing in production . . . and waiting.

You might think that reallocating tasks or hiring new staff could solve the problem. But first off, those are administrative tasks, and our administrators have bigger fish to fry. All the economic factors are examples, and then there's stuff like the June deadline for the European Accessibility Act – which affects us, even if most gamers have never heard of it. As well, executive staff have lives; Steve moved in March and Meredith left in April, so we're short on people with the authority to make decisions about these matters. Finally, with the economy in its current state, hiring isn't sensible and in fact many of us are on reduced hours, exacerbating the human-resources shortfall.

In summary, fewer staff on shorter hours are spreading their energy more thinly among all of our product lines, the lines with the best ROI have priority, and GURPS isn't one of those lines, so it's getting neither the production hours necessary to move projects past the editorial stage nor the administrative hours to firm up its schedule. Fortunately, Steven Marsh and I have proposed a publication schedule that should make 2026 a better year for GURPS, and we've front-loaded low-workload, high-general interest items to improve its odds of being approved. Until then, all I can say is, "Thank you for your patience."

Upcoming Plans

So, let's look at what's waiting for the resources needed to move out of various holding patterns and into your hands. For reasons that should now be very clear, nothing here is a firmer promise than "eventually" unless I've attached a date. As always, remember that in interesting times, things can change overnight.

• Bill Stoddard's GURPS Infinite Worlds: Gotterdammerung is slated for October.
• David Pulver's GURPS Guns is looking firm for November.
• For 2026, Steven Marsh and I have prioritized several edited items that are now in production: Phil Masters's GURPS Magical Styles: Modern Magic, Nathan M.M. Meluvor's GURPS Martial Arts: The Bolognese School, and my GURPS Action 10, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 24, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 6, GURPS Power-Ups 11: Roll Your Own Skills, GURPS Template Toolkit 5, and remaining Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game adventure.
• Anders Starmark's GURPS Fantasy Folk: Fishfolk is edited and awaiting production.
• I am editing Thomas Pugh's GURPS Banestorm: Whispers of Tohrent as Sekrit Projekts allow.
• John Shimmin's GURPS Locations: Institute of Metaphysics Library is next on my editorial "to do" list.
• Matt Wehmeier's final draft of GURPS Infinite Worlds: Psionics should show up before my next update here.
• GURPS Ring of Fire, compiled by Bill Stoddard, has been playtested. Bill is also the editor, and is aiming for a late autumn delivery.
• Alden Loveshade's GURPS Hot Spots: Victorian London just entered playtesting.

Beyond that are seven Sekrit Projekts, two of them newly contracted in September. For breaking news, hints, leaks, etc., be sure to check out the GURPS thread in my DreamWidth on Fridays.

Join Us! Join Us!

The Warehouse 23 Digital Wish List (updated May 5, 2025) and Warehouse 23 Wish List for GURPS (updated May 5, 2025) are up to date despite no changes over the summer. If my longwinded exposition about the state of GURPS hasn't given you pause, remember that we're looking mainly for 12- or 21-page, rules-light supplements. Since time really isn't of the essence here, consider reading the Freelancer FAQ, Submission Guidelines, GURPS formatting guide, and GURPS WYSIWYG template to learn our preferences. Thanks for reading!