Gaming Ballistic: Alien Menace: First mission wrapup: Wrapped up the first session of Alien Menace yesterday, in a special bonus session that had me forgetting to communicate with several of the…
Continue readingYearly Archives: 2014
The Hurt Locker: Magical Items From Cinema Part I
“Egg Shen: Can see things no one else can see. Do things no one else can do. Jack Burton: Real things? Egg Shen: As real as Lo Pan! Jack Burton: Hey, what more can a guy ask for? Egg Shen: Oh, the six-demon bag! Jack Burton: Terrific, a six-demon bag. Sensational. What’s in it, Egg? […]
Continue readingTriple Threat – Leprechaun
Leprechaun Leprechauns are a small variety of fae that are best known for their current image: the cute, gold-loving, rainbow-chasing, green-wearing Irishman. But this is a modern myth. Leprechauns are foul-tempered, chain-smoking, shoemaking, shillelagh-wielding, little sociopaths. They hate the compulsions of their race (making shoes) and happily take that anger out on anyone within range. […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes – Alternative Ritual Path Magic
Writing Alternative Ritual Path MagicIf you’re not a writer or game designer, you might not understand the following sentence (or at least not all of it): That article nearly ate my soul and stole my sanity. It started small, honest, four thousand words, but it started to grow. It was like a thing alive. I […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Starting Point Totals, Part Deux
In my previous take on this subject, I talked about how you might measure a campaign’s starting point total and touched briefly on cinematic characters and how they don’t exactly match up with the Basic Set’s listed total allotments. Today, I’m going to do something unusual and probably will cause a bit of infighting: I’m […]
Continue readingAlien Menace Session 2 – Musings
I’m going to keep this short, because I’m in the middle of a remodel project (I’m making my new room!) and moving out of my old room to the one I’m working on. It’s taken a LOT of effort, but I somehow managed to run run my GURPS game yesterday, then play in Doug’s game, […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Magical Styles – Spellslinger
Whoa, Black Betty, bam-ba-lam Black Betty had a child, bam-ba-lam The damn thing gone wild, bam-ba-lam Said it weren’t none of mine, bam-ba-lam – Black Betty, Ram Jam It’s a pretty established fact that I produce more GURPS material than I can possibly get published – there is only so much space in Pyramid and […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: I Know a Guy Who Knows a Guy
You know the character type. He knows a “guy” who knows a “guy.” He’s got friends in every city and every walk of life, and everyone bloody well owes him a favor. He’s the face man, but he’s also the fixer. He can find the guy you need for the job or the diamond-tipped industrial […]
Continue readingTriple Threat – Rat-Thing Swarm
Note: Rat-Thing’s are from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Rat-Thing Swarm Rat-Thing swarms are a writhing mass of normal rats and actual Rat-Things (which “control” them) – they are the epitome of fear for a musophobe. Eight or more Rat-Things (and hundreds of rats) constitute a swarm. Any Campaign Setting… ST: 8 HP: 48 […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: The Old Ways
Writing The Old WaysThe Old Ways was perhaps one of my favorite articles to date. I’d been writing pretty steadily at that point, but I previously had a gap where I didn’t submit anything or had written anything noteworthy. The last issue I appeared in had been Pyramid #3/49: World Hopping and I’d gotten my […]
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