I’d originally conceived Eastern Adventures as a one-stop-shopping for Dungeon Fantasy GMs who wanted to run games in “the Mysterious East”, but that quickly became nothing but wishful thinking. I was effectively trying to squeeze three books into one article. That just was not happening. I quickly trimmed my outline down to templates, races, a few power-ups, and […]
Continue readingMonthly Archives: March 2016
Triple Threat: Crocoroach
Crocoroach That’s right. It’s part insect, part reptile. It’s all nightmare. Maybe a wizard did it. Maybe a mad scientist. It doesn’t matter who did it you got to deal with it now, and really, that’s just not fair. The size of a small cat, the crocoroach is a consummate omnivorous scavenger. Usually found only […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Subtle Sorcery
I had a burst of inspiration hit me (thanks O Lady Muse) over the weekend regarding the kind of campaign I wanted to run for my face to face game. I got my players involved and they’re game for it. Originally, I wanted to run a full on high-powered supers game. Force blasts, people changing […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Making Every Action Count
So +Douglas Cole talked about “time dilation” and importance of actions on your turn in this blog post. And he brings up a point that I think every GM should be aware of: never, ever, ever make your players feel superfluous or useless. IF YOU DO YOU WILL REGRET IT. Just don’t. Seriously. Now some of you […]
Continue readingGURPS101: Extra, Extra Effort
GURPS Powers introduces a new rule: Godlike Extra Effort (Powers, p. 161). This effectively allows you to enhance the effectiveness of your ability to drastic degrees and is only limited by your FP. GURPS Horror introduces rules for corruption (see Power Corrupts in Horror, pp. 146-148). Finally, GURPS Thaumatology introduces Threshold Magic (pp. 76-82), a form of magic […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: GMing Danger Sense
After a somewhat extensively long conversation with +Douglas Cole last night we got to talking about Danger Sense. His character, the Commander had it and we both forgot it at crucial points. Between the two of us we discovered that’s actually fairly common – the other fairly common in-play is the player who constantly abuses it. I like a […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: Heroes on the Mass Scale
This one was a fairly quick put together, but revisions were hellish in the extreme. Even the editing (the part I always have the hardest time with) took less time than the near constant revisions I did to make this thing work. Considering its progenitor system (“It’s a Threat!” from Pyramid #3/77: Combat) was specific […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Magical Ability Defaults from Skill
Sometimes I have entire rules or systems download themselves into my head. This usually happens while I’m asleep or getting there. This came to me last night after I was trying to figure out how to make Thuamatology: Sorcery-style magic have a more urban fantasy/realistic feel. (No, I’m not using Ritual Path Magic – I know, a […]
Continue readingGURPS101: Expanded Long-Term Fatigue Rules
So the wildly anticipated and long awaited GURPS After the End by +Pk Levine is finally out. +Douglas Cole has a review up here that’s rather good. But I want to concentrate on one particular aspect of the book: Long-Term Fatigue Points. The concept is simple: don’t eat, don’t sleep, don’t drink, etc. and you lose the ability to […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Necromantic Sorcery Spells
Sorcery is quickly becoming one of my favorite magic systems – though it’ll probably never eclipse Ritual Path Magic. This is mostly due to the fact that Sorcery as a new system is the same as the old system. It uses the standard advantages and disadvantages to create a workable, cohesive frame of magic. What’s more, it’s fairly […]
Continue reading