Pyramid #3/103: Setbacks

[PK]

For each step forward
My quest forced me two steps back
So I turned around

— Sir Rhogar

As much as we wince and complain when the GM throws a monkey wrench into our plans, we know that any heroic adventure is defined by those challenges and complications. Without struggle, our campaigns would just be a series of simple errands, and preventing that is the goal of Pyramid #3/103: Setbacks. Frustrate and delight your players with an onslaught of new issues to overcome, such as:

• Life as a hero is stressful. Combat, terrifying situations, personal issues -- it all takes a toll over time, and if you're not careful, it may leave you Mad as Bones. Christopher R. Rice adapts the Long-Term Fatigue rules from GURPS After the End 1: Wastelanders into a system for tracking Stability Points, a sort of "mental fatigue" or "sanity track," via a new system that works great with either the basic rules or the advanced ones from GURPS Horror.
  
  
• Any horror investigator or GURPS Monster Hunters champion smart enough to survive a few missions knows that you can't focus exclusively on the Big Bad -- not unless you want to be stabbed in the back by the Monsters' Minions. Michele Armellini discusses 16 different types of underlings and how to use them, with a full sample character for each, loaded with gear and ready to use.
  
  
• Because interstellar travel is complex and dangerous, the craft of GURPS Spaceships have many opportunities for Spaceship Malfunctions. But in this month's Eidetic Memory, David Pulver replaces the existing "-X to HT until repaired" rules with nine pages of detailed and flavorful mishap tables, resulting in anything from jammed elevators to antimatter containment faults.
  
  
• Anyone who's read Matt Riggsby's just-released GURPS Hot Spots: The Silk Road knows how exciting the Tarim Basin was up until the Tang dynasty . . . but the action didn't stop there! Designer's Notes: The Silk Road continues the timeline, from Mongol hordes to Cold War proxy fighting, and also presents one realistic and three fantastical creatures befitting any Seidenstraße campaign.
  
  
• But we didn't stop there with our love for the Silk Road. Enjoy the poster-sized, full-color, detailed map of historic Central Asia -- suitable for printing at your local copy shop -- on the last page of this month's issue. (You can see a sneak peek of this map in the preview PDF.)
  
  
• And we just barely managed to deliver this month's Random Thought Table, which reminds us that we only punish the characters to reward the players.

—

Store Link: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-2703
Preview PDF: http://www.warehouse23.com/media/SJG37-2703_preview.pdf

[Paulon]

File size: 63.3 megs. I thought there was something wrong at first, but that's one very nice, if huge, poster map of the Silk Road area.

[PK]

Yeah, one of the nice things about Pyramid is that we can experiment with weird bonus content that wouldn't fit anywhere else, like giant maps and spreadsheets.

[GM Joe]

Nice! I can't wait to download it this weekend and take a peep.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

I don't want to say that making the huge color version of the map was a thinly veiled excuse to test a large-format printer I picked up along the way, but...what was the question?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Some Designer's Notes for "Mad as Bones."

[Turhan's Bey Company]

BTW, this is actually quite a good issue. I'm at the point where I generally need more alternate rules like I need more holes in my head, but Christopher's rules for mental fatigue are quite interesting; it's always good to have pre-built stats for minor and middle-rank characters (I always find those vastly more useful than write-ups of big bads); and Pulver's list of things that can going wrong with a spaceship is the sort of thing that's likely to find use in any starfaring campaign I'm likely to run.

[johndallman]

Erratum: The second sentence of the description of Long-Term Stability Points (LSP) on p4 is identical to the third sentence. You aren't supposed to test these rules on the editor!

[DouglasCole]

This is a very meaty issue. And it felt like it kept going and going with good stuff. Even where I said "no, I'd do that differently" it was based on a conscious design decision preference rather than a flaw in the original works.

I will think about if and how to review this; some of the reviews might get long.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Over all, I have to agree with Doug - there is a lot here. Michelle's article is the one that will see immediate use, but David's random roll tables for spaceship malfunctions was awesome. Steven, wrote another piece that requires more thought, but it's freaking amazing. Overall, great work.

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

BTW, this is actually quite a good issue. I'm at the point where I generally need more alternate rules like I need more holes in my head, but Christopher's rules for mental fatigue are quite interesting; it's always good to have pre-built stats for minor and middle-rank characters (I always find those vastly more useful than write-ups of big bads); and Pulver's list of things that can going wrong with a spaceship is the sort of thing that's likely to find use in any starfaring campaign I'm likely to run.

Your designer's notes for the Silk Road are fascinating (so glad some critters made it in). I'm still trying to figure out how to use the book for my current campaign. My high fantasy campaign will benefit greatly when I finally come back to it as their are some Mongol-esque elves in it.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Erratum: The second sentence of the description of Long-Term Stability Points (LSP) on p4 is identical to the third sentence. You aren't supposed to test these rules on the editor!

Grrr. I spent hours checking for that stuff and something still got in. Oh, my glob. :-/

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

This is a very meaty issue. And it felt like it kept going and going with good stuff. Even where I said "no, I'd do that differently" it was based on a conscious design decision preference rather than a flaw in the original works.

I will think about if and how to review this; some of the reviews might get long.

You had a very direct hand in my article at least. :-)