3 comments about GURPS Horror: The Complete Guide to Horrific Roleplaying.

1. This is the GURPS source book no GM should be without. This well researched companion is an unending source of inspiriration for any kind of campaign.



2. The very first sentence in the introduction to GURPS Horror sums up the problem with the book. "Horror roleplaying, or, more accurately, supernatural roleplaying..." The book spends little of its time on horror, and fails to live up to its name. Substituting for useful advice on generating an atmosphere of horror in a role-playing game, we find the "Random Monster Characteristics Table," and the equally-random "Things Man Was Not Meant to Know Description Table." Of the 128-page book, 36 pages are devoted to monsters, but unfortunately the descriptions generally do not evoke horror or excite the imagination. The low point is the inclusion of the Australian folk animal, the bunyip, described as a "very shy" creature, with apparently a bit of an environmentalist bent. Spooky! Try to ignore the reference to Orcs here.

   Fully a third of the book is devoted to campaign settings, with chapters on Victorian England, the "Roaring 20's," and the modern day, plus capsule descriptions of other times and places. The book would have been better with a single sample setting, with more space actually devoted to horror and not backdrop.

   On the whole, the gamemaster wishing to run a horror campaign in GURPS is far better served by GURPS Creatures of the Night, Blood Types, Cthulhupunk, Illuminati, or even Atomic Horror or Warehouse 23, than this lightweight treatment of the topic. Its one redeeming quality is an excellent annotated bibliography and filmography in the appendix, but that's hardly enough to save the book. GURPS deserves a first-rate general sourcebook for horror roleplaying, but this is sadly not it.




3. More than anything, I thought I'd give an opinion since I am between the two extremes of the two existing reviews. This edition of GURPS Horror (there is a new edition I have not yet looked at) is a good reference on the genre, but does lack something. I agree that having three example campaign backgrounds is more than enough, if only because there simply isn't enough detail given in each to make them really informative of how to set up and run campaigns in each - you simply must find other material if you're going to seriously run a "Horror" campaign.

   I found it most useful as an extra reference for my campaign. I was running a "realistic" campaign and wanted to throw in horror aspects, and for this it was helpful. It gave me ideas on how to add just enough to keep my player's guessing, and allowed me to keep the campaign from drifting into high fantasy as I've seen/heard other campaigns do when adding in occult overtones. As such, I would have been much happier if it skipped on monster descriptions and focused more on setting tone and atmosphere - I mean, how many different books do I need describing the stats of a vampire or werewolf?

   Ultimately, it's biggest problem is the shotgun approach SJG is taking to the genre - there seems to be a plethora of books aimed at the occult and paranormal, such as this book, the recently published Spirits, Voodoo, Authentic Thaumaturgy, and others, with no attempt to unify them.

   I can recomend it, as a extra but not primary reference.

2 comments about GURPS Cliffhangers 2nd Edition.

1. GURPS Cliffhangers, like almost all GURPS books, is a gamemaster's delight. The book gathers handily in one place almost all the information you will want on the history and background of the 1920's - 1940's in one place. It not only covers the events and the background information for North America, but for almost all of the world. The layout is clean and well organized, and GURPS-specific rules are, as with all GURPS sourcebooks, confined to one chapter. This means that the book is easily usable as a source for GM's running campaignes set in the Cliffhanger era using different rulesystems. Several pages at the end are reserved for a very thorough bibliography of othe sources - not just books, but comics, films, and other games. If you're looking at running a cliffhanger/pulp style game, you can't do wrong by using GURPS Cliffhangers as a starting point.



2. This sourcebook is designed to help you build a campaign along the lines of the pulps of the 30's and 40's. It gives a lot of history for the period and a few character types, but I found it to be incomplete. It doesn't give enough information for running a game. For example, if you want to run an Indiana Jones type game, you'll need to buy the WWII sourcebook for information about Nazis. If you want to do the Mummy, you'll need to buy the Egypt sourcebook for information on mummies and pyramids. If you want to steal jewels in an ancient Aztec temple, you have to buy the Aztec book. The list goes on and on. If you have a good idea of what kind of story you would like to play, it would be better to get the sourcebook directly related to that story. If you feel like playing a pulp-style game, but you don't have any story ideas, then this book may help you think of a few.

No comments about Gurps Time Travel Adventures (Voyages Through History...and Beyond!).

2 comments about GURPS Cabal.

1. I really like the concept of this book. It creates a world where life seems "as normal" but behind the scenes is a group called the Cabal that are full of sorcerors and mythical creatures. It also includes planar travel and ancient Gods. This book also provides a recounting of history starting from Ancient Eygpt, with what "really" happened and to what extent the Cabal was involved. Another nice feature of this book is the detail of Hermetic magic, which helps to make ritualistic magic more focused in the game. This book also gives several campaign options whether to be with or against the Cabal.



2. The worst parts of this book are at the beginning. The first chapter has a history of the Cabal that bored me to tears. I don't know what the author was talking about. Then, at the end of the first chapter, he mentions a guy named Dr. Selden Graves, and that was interesting.

   It gets better as you go along. The next chapter covers the structure of the Cabal. That was a little too dry. It's basically just as you imagine it, with concentric circles of higher power, ranks, and lodges that work together and sometimes against each other. I could have written that part myself without research; so could anyone else interested in the subject. Then he goes on to cover hermetic magic, which is nothing more than a series of spell-casting skill modifiers based on conditions. It's simple and effective, but not creative.

   The chapter on other planes has the same problem. On the one hand, it's just right. It fits the Cabal and hermetic magic. On the other, it's predictable. You can travel to the astral plane where you'll see astral beings, some of which are analogues for things in reality. Okay. I've seen that before.

   When the author gets to the characters, campaigns, and monsters, you get the goodies. The new advantages and disadvantages are good. The creatures are good. The set of defining characteristics for the campaign is good, too.

   This is a professional, predictable GURPS book. It describes what I expected. I didn't get anything new from it, but I don't feel ripped off because the author wrote exactly what he was supposed to.

   I would've given this book two stars, but . . . well . . . believe it or not, I was originally contracted to write this book years ago. But I just couldn't do it; I couldn't figure out how to write it. Kenneth Hite did something I couldn't do, so he gets an extra star.

No comments about Super Scum (GURPS Supers RPG).

No comments about Deck Plan 1: Beowulf-class Free Trader (GURPS Traveller).

No comments about GURPS Humanx: Roleplaying in Alan Dean Foster's "Humanx Commonwealth".

1 comments about GURPS Conan.

1. Black-haired and sullen-eyed was Conan, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth. Cycles of legend revolve around his name, glimpses of a world before history, where evil wizards performed dark sorcery, and where the fate of an empire turned on the strength and skill of a single sword.

2 comments about GURPS Who's Who 2 (GURPS: Generic Universal Role Playing System).

1. As in Who's Who 1, note that these are 66 of the 'most intriguing', not necessarily 'most influential', although many of them were pivotal historical figures. These are characters that might be fun and interesting in games - not just 'remove this person and the world would change forever'.

   The book lists them in chronological order. In alphabetical order, they are: Archimedes, Attila the Hun, Augustine, Barton-Wright, Aphra Behn, Bernadotte, Byrd, Charles I of England, Cheng Shih (pirate queen of the Kwangtung Confederacy), Columbus, Dante, Roger de Flor, de Champlain, Churchill, Captain James Cook, Custer, Ninon de Lanclos (courtesan), El Cid, Cleopatra, Goddard, Goethe, Grant, Grace the Gambler (pirate queen of Connaught), Hannibal, Hardin, Hemingway, Hitler, Houdini, Robert E. Howard (as in Conan), Genghis Khan, Li Po, "Lucky" Luciano, Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon), Maria Sibylla Merian (female 17th century naturalist), Napoleon, Nebuchadrezzar II, Admiral Nelson, Isaac Newton, Nzinga, Pinkerton, Marco Polo, Oda Nobunaga, Pythagoras, Matteo Ricci, Richard III of England, Rommel, Theodore Roosevelt, Saint-Germain (non-vampire version), Sargon II of Assyria, Shield Jaguar Lord, Stalin, Suleiman the Magnificent, Sid Vicious, von Neumann, von Richthofen (the Red Baron), William Walker.

   On the front cover of this edition are shown (clockwise from upper left, starting below the title): Hannibal, Suleiman the Magnificent, Goethe, Pythagoras, Newton, and Sid Vicious.

   Each character is profiled at a specific point in his or her life, with character generation information as well as a brief (usually 2-page) biography. (Custer, for example, is profiled as he was on the day of Little Big Horn, Pinkerton at the height of his powers as spymaster of the Army of the Potomac.) The authors are careful to note which statistics need to be modified if the character is to be younger or older, or if you choose to use a different spin than GURPS did. A sidebar is generally included as well, speculating on how tampering with this character would change history.

   For instance, the basic profile of Hemingway is set for his Parisian days, about 1926 (age 27). For his later life, gradually phase in Bad Sight; after 1928, add Area Knowledge of Ketcham (Idaho), Key West, and Cuba, as well as Bullfighting and Powerboat; during WWII, add Contacts in the French Resistance, Intelligence Analysis, Leadership, Strategy (Land), and Tactics; in 1953 - 1954, increase Reputation +1 for winning the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes, but remove Fit and add Hard of Hearing.

   Maimonides' skills, to take a different example, do not ramp up so much over time. Instead, he is a great candidate for the Common Sense advantage, and has the Skeptic quirk. He is profiled as he was at age 50, in 1185 when Alfadhel became Saladin's vizier in Egypt. Maimonides' job as Alfadhel's (extremely good) court physician was less influential, though, than his work in Jewish law, theology, and philosophy. At this point, he had written the _Mishneh Torah_ (1180), but not _Guide for the Perplexed_ (1187). Removing him might not affect Saladin, but would alter Judaism drastically, with a ripple effect on other great thinkers affected directly or indirectly by his work (e.g. Muslim philosophy, Thomas Aquinas).

   The GURPS basic profiles here are fairly neutral and objective (for instance, while they'll tell you how to put an Illuminated conspiracy-theory spin on a character, the base profile statistics don't make that kind of assumption). St-Germain, for one, is a perfect character for an Illuminated campaign. The profile treats him as a con artist. (He was also a gifted composer - Bach kept a copy of one of St.-Germain's compositions in his notes - but the big con was his true calling). GURPS notes his quirks of always dressing in black and white, eating/drinking little or nothing in public, and speaking of history in the first person. The sidebar notes Yarbro's portrayal of him as a vampire, but GURPS doesn't attempt to set up the statistics that way. Instead, they note how to weight the statistics to the Illuminated view of him as a Freemason (not proven) and to add even more languages, as well as an eidetic memory (which he probably did have). He appeared in several countries during very troubled times, and had many aliases - in addition to which, Casanova, among others, borrowed his identity on occasion and added even more color to it.




2. GURPS: Who's Who 2 - the second volume of a (currently) two volume set of some of history's greatest and worst characters, make 52 more people from history come to life for your GURPS and gaming campaigns.

   Although another reviewer has listed all the characters that are covered by this book, it should be noted that they are not in alphabetical order in the book. Rather, they are in time period order, making it slightly harder to find a specific character unless you already have a good idea of when that character lived. Admittedly, there is a good Table of Contents and a good Index should you wish to find specific people who were written up using the GURPS RPG system for this book.

   The book covers people who lived in the Ancient World and Dark Ages, The Middle Ages and Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industry, and the Twentieth Century. There is a small appendix in the back that covers a few other characters.

   The strength of this book is that these people were more real people from history. It is very illuminating to see how real people are seen when measuring up to GURPS standards. Most people, when making themselves as a PC or NPC, or when creating historical NPC's for campaigns, tend to overestimate the amount of points that would be necessary to create that character.

   There are also adventure seeds for each character, as well as a small group of people who never were that changed the history of their worlds. These "alternate earths" make a wonderful addition to this book, showing how history could be changed in strange ways by only one person.

   I'd highly recommend this book to GURPS GM's that have historically based campaigns, and recommend this book to any student of history that might want to try to recreate a historical figure for another campaign. Non-GURPS GM's wil find the character stats fairly easy to convert to their favorite systems.

3 comments about GURPS Who's Who 1: 52 Of History's Most Intriguing Characters (GURPS: Generic Universal Role Playing System).

1. This is another great resource book for GURPS. You know, if you are a medium-time GURPS player, it is often intriguing to figure out a normal person or even a historical one in atributes, advantages and disadvantages, skills, etc. This book just hands you out lots of information on those historical figures so you can know how much you should fear them (or not!). Well, anyway, i just loved this book, and i sure would advise you to seize the opportunity!



2. Note that these are 'most intriguing', not necessarily 'most influential', although many of them were pivotal historical figures. This book is interested in characters who would be fun and interesting in games - not just 'remove this person and the world would change forever'.

   The book lists them in chronological order. In alphabetical order, they are: Akhenaten, Alexander the Great, Alexius I, Aristotle, Boudica, Tycho Brahe, Aaron Burr, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Byron, Julius Caesar, Chaucer, Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, Clive of India, "Two-Gun" Cohen, Constantine the Great, Cortes, Cromwell, Cyrus the Great, Darwin, David ben-Jesse, da Vinci, John Dee, Catherine di Medici, Alberto Santos Dumont, Einstein, Elizabeth I, Harald Hardradi, Ibn Battuta, Joan of Arc, Justinian I, Kipling, Leif Eriksson, Lovecraft, William Marshal, Mata Hari, Lola Montez, Mozart, Emperor Norton, Paracelsus, Peter the Great, Richelieu, Bartholomew Roberts, Shakespeare, Sei Shonagon, Tesla, Theodora, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Harriet Tubman, Vlad the Impaler, Xenophon, Shaka Zulu.

   On the front cover of this edition are shown (clockwise from upper left, starting below the title): "Two-Gun" Cohen, Ahkenaten, Lovecraft, John Dee, Bartholomew Roberts, Mata Hari, ?, ?, Kipling, and Justinian.

   Each character is profiled at a specific point in his or her life, with character generation information as well as a brief (usually 2-page) biography. The authors are careful to note which statistics need to be modified if the character is to be younger or older, or if you choose to use a different spin than GURPS did. A sidebar is generally included as well, speculating on how tampering with this character would change history.

   For instance, the basic profile of Akhenaten just states that he's ugly. (The picture on the cover is incredibly flattering, compared with some statues.) Some of the alternate possibilities then listed are: Marfan's syndrome (add Bad Sight), Froelich's syndrome (add Sterile and figure out who fathered his children), a woman (add Secret, account for the kids), eunuch (possible Secret, again account for the kids). If you've never heard of him, he is the legendary heretic pharaoh, husband of Nefertiti; Tut succeeded him. If he had never lived, or had died young, Egypt might have continued as a strong empire for a much longer time, but the history of the world's religions might be quite different.

   The GURPS basic profiles here are fairly neutral and objective (for instance, while they'll tell you how to put an Illuminated conspiracy-theory spin on a character, the base profile statistics don't make that kind of assumption).

   Other books that might interest you:

   - For examples of a *really* Illuminated Burton and Ch'in Shi Huang Ti, try Robert Doherty's _Area 51_ novels.

   - For Emperor Norton (the first and only Emperor of the United States), see Neil Gaiman's _Brief Lives_ and (for a cameo, not mentioned in Who's Who) Barbara Hambly's _Ishmael_.

   - Terry Pratchett's Leonard da Quirm is an even closer parody of da Vinci than he seems, once you've read about da Vinci's eccentricities. (See especially Pratchett's _Jingo_.)

   - For a time-travelling spin on Caesar, try _The Cleopatra Crisis_ by Simon Hawke.

   - For women in the Montez mold, try Rex Stout's _Under the Andes_.




3. GURPS: Who's Who I - the first volume of a (currently) two volume set of some of history's greatest and worst characters, make 52 people from history come to life for your GURPS and gaming campaigns.

   Although another reviewer has listed all the characters that are covered by this book, it should be noted that they are not in alphabetical order in the book. Rather, they are in time period order, making it slightly harder to find a specific character unless you already have a good idea of when that character lived. Admittedly, there is a good Table of Contents and a good Index should you wish to find specific people who were written up using the GURPS RPG system for this book.

   The book covers people who lived in the Ancient World and Dark Ages, The Middle Ages, The Renaissance, and the modern era. There are two small appendixes in the back that cover a few other characters and how the GURPS game mechanics were used to recreate these famous and infamous people.

   And that is the strength of this book. These people were real people from history. It is very enlightening to see how real people are seen when measuring up to GURPS standards. Most people, when making themselves as a player character, or when creating historical NPC's for campaigns, tend to overestimate the amount of points that would be necessary to create that character.

   There are also adventure seeds for each character, as well as a small group of people who never were that changed the history of their worlds. These "alternate earths" make a wonderful addition to this book, showing how history could be changed in strange ways by only one person.

   I'd highly recommend this book to GURPS GM's that have historically based campaigns, and recommend this book to any student of history that might want to try to recreate a historical figure for another campaign. Non-GURPS GM's wil find the character stats fairly easy to convert to their favorite systems.