Guest Post by +Asta Kask aka Anders Starmark What if magic returned? What if it never went away? How would magic interact with the post-apocalyptic world? Are magic and technology antithetical or are they capable of enhancing each other? The most important thing to figure out is probably what magic system to use – GURPS has a […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: Optional Rules for Terminally Ill
In GURPS there’s a disadvantage for seemingly everything. Are you nuts? Take a Delusion! Do you take damage when exposed to green rocks from space? Take Weakness! And so on and so on, GURPS is modular enough that you can represent just about any sort of negative (or positive!) trait with a little ingenuity, even inevitable death. […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: The Adversary
One of the things that shocked me the most when I was talking perspective players for Aeon was the completely lack of knowledge regarding using the rules for having a Adversary (see p. B493). Mind you, it’s only a couple of paragraphs, but when I first read GURPS 4th edition this was a eye-opening passage. The thought that […]
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 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 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 readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: A Novel Approach to GMing, Part IV: A Matter of Character
Guest Post by Scott “Rocketman” Rochat “Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.” –Anton Chekhov I’m going to start with something basic, but true. Your players can’t see your characters. I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock. It’s a problem every author has. […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: Magical Tradecraft
This one was another one of those things that was a blast to write. I mainlined Burn Notice for several days, while taking notes for cool feats of skill or times when magic would have just been insanely useful to have. I then watched a few spy movies, made a few more notes, and then […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: A Song of Many Worlds
Another article that started out a campaign material and then I whipped into shape to become something more publishable. Like most of the articles I pull directly from my campaigns I had very few pieces to cut because it was so concentrated. This was also the article where I fixed what I viewed as a […]
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