Carpe Blogiem: All Hail The Line Editor

Sean “Dr. Kromm” Punch is celebrating a birthday this week and seeing that he’s the architect of my favorite game engine and my oft-times boss I thought I’d talk about some of the things he’s done that I’ve enjoyed or just random anecdotes.

Anecdotes
Here comes the random

• When I was writing GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic with +Antoni Ten Monrós one of the more amusing bits on the notes he sent back was stop the “semicolon abuse.” I have a t-shirt pattern for this somewhere I really need to get printed.
• Kromm’s always been the ludicrously thoughtful guy who goes out of his way to answer questions about his writing and GURPS in general. There are too many times for me to pick just one, but I think the most useful was when I asked for an explanation of how Reprogrammable worked and he gave me a huge email back answering my questions fully. It must have taken him 20-30 minutes to write. If you’re a new author to GURPS or just a constant blogger you could do worse patterning your behaviors off of his in this regard. 
• Not GURPS-related, but Kromm is a mixology enthusiast – once upon a time I was a bar back when I wasn’t working the door of the bar I was employed at as a bouncer. I picked up a lot. I enjoyed the work and if I had stayed there I might have become a bartender. Kromm is one of the only people I’ve met since then who share the two hobbies and while I’m not as advanced in skill as he is – it’s really fun to talk drinks with him.

Favorite Books or Articles
There are way to many to name or post here, but a few of my top picks would be:

Just about any of the Power-Ups series – those books are a bit revolutionary in many regards. They turned a flexible system into something you could pretzel into any shape you like. While +Pk Levine wrote two of the more useful volumes, but Impulse Buys changed how I ran campaigns.

GURPS Powers is something I reference all the time. I’ve had that book over a decade and I still find new things in that book. It’s amazing.

GURPS Action and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy both of these lines are pretty amazing. The first lets you recreate just about any contemporary action flick in absurd detail, while the latter does Dungeons and Dragons better than Dungeons and Dragons.

GURPS Zombies is a one-of-a-kind resource in the gaming world and something I find myself turning to in just about every game I run.

Picking Over the Bones
Overall, Kromm is the kind of person you want to be the captain of the ship of your favorite game system. You know he’s going to put serious thought into any action he makes or allows others to make for the game line. He keeps stuff straight on the forums and is pretty responsive with questions on how the game should be played regardless of how you contact him. Basically, y’all – All Hail the Line Editor. +Sean Punch thanks for doing all that you do and just being an awesome guy.