GURPS Horror is out!

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Langy

I had hoped that future SJGames books would use that kind of bibliography style.

I liked it too. Made the bibliography several times more useful.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Areas that I'd like to direct readers to: "Be Thou Not Afraid", page 95 (how angels can be terrifying); Stress and Derangement, pages 141-152 (psychological counterparts to Fatigue and Damage) (. . .) (a toolkit for making just about anything the GM wants hazardous to your moral health

This release has came as a surprise to me.

The areas that you are pointing to are very interesting to me. Years ago I made a set of GURPS 3e house rules for handling the psychological dimension of characters, in parallel with the Hit & Fatigue Points too.

And angels being terrifying makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not a big fan of the Horror genre, but I hope that more parts of this book can be mixed with the Fantasy genre (in a broad sense). Thanks for your post!

[dataweaver]

FWIW, the "Power Corrupts" section is also something of a "psychology mechanics" system, though what it tracks is moral decay.

[B9anders]

I am sort of torn here.

On the one hand, I loved 3e Horror. Which makes me want to buy this.

On the other, 3e Horror is itself just a great book which adapts rather well to 4e.

What do the readers who have already sucked the marrow from the shattered spine of 3e Horror get for our money's worth?

Does it emulate Sanity rules from CoC in any way? What kind of monstrous stats do we get? I've always felt that GURPS ought to be very well suited to CoC, except that it struggles with the Sanity aspect (fright checks just isn't quite the same to me).

[dataweaver]

I think you'll like the aforementioned "Stress and Derangement" section; Derangement in particular has a CoCesque Sanity vibe to it. As well, the Power Corrupts section provides guidelines for having the study of dark tomes being harmful to your soul.

[Mercator]

Originally Posted by B9anders

What do the readers who have already sucked the marrow from the shattered spine of 3e Horror get for our money's worth?

Having gone through both: quite a lot, actually. Kromm gives a brief overview of the changes here.

It's a very, very good book, and the new content by itself is well worth the price.

M.

[Max Schreck]

Yee-haw! I got a complimentary copy. Joy, joy. Now to see if any of my suggestions made it in.

Cheers!

[aesir23]

Woo-Hoo! My first playtest credit!

I'm seriously excited that this is out now. I should probably wait until after finals to read it, but what the heck.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by B9anders

What do the readers who have already sucked the marrow from the shattered spine of 3e Horror get for our money's worth?

Speaking as one of those readers, a lot. As Kromm pointed out in the Horror thread in the e23 forum, they've removed the Madness Dossier (which is getting its own supplement) and between that and the extra pages, you have +40% content, which is very nice for its price point.

Let me give you an example. In 3e, we have a section on Vampires, which includes a template. Then, thereafter, we have a discussion of "Variations," including their ability to control monds, Dread, summoning wolves, rats and bats, compulsive behaviors, dependency on the earth, and staking, plus a quick discussion of resurrection. All in all, this is about three paragraphs. Moreover, it contains a discussion of Plague Vampires (a sidebar) and romantic vampires (a section of another side-bar).

In 4e, you don't have a vampire template (because it already exists within the basic book, so its inclusion would be redundant), but you have a greatly expanded variation section that covers more than a page, with twice as many paragraphs discussing those variations, turning several of those mentioned above into full paragraphs and adding an expanded discussion of Draining and Uncontrollable Appetite. Then the book discusses alternate vampires, of which there are many: The Romantic Vampire and the Plague Vampire remain in the book (with the Romantic gaining a Lamia variant), then we've added the Gaki, the Cihuateto, the Jiangshi, the Moroi, the Psychic Vampire, the Upurina, the "Vampire Lord" (a vampire inspired by Bram Stoker and is nearly 1000 points), and a Vetala.

Almost every monster in this book gains such an expanded treatment, as well as entirely new sections, like the Unnatural Natural.

I'm just giving you an idea here. Essentially, this is much more than just Horror updated to 4e, though you will find much of its information and structure remains the same (the horror advice Kenneth Hite gave in 3e and in Nightmares Mine remains as relevant as ever), but it actually expands on much of the material given. It's certainly worth the $20 they're asking for it, in my opinion.

[B9anders]

thanks for the input. I am reading it right now. :)