The HORROR!

[Tyneras]

So many useful things! We don't have an actual horror game going right now, but this gives me many ideas about why various characters might be perceived as horrific and scary. I think some of this is going to go into play right away.

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Wonder how much I can get for tatty books from 1987?

Which ones ?

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm thinking of selling off a lot of my GURPS paper when I can get organized to do it. Wonder how much I can get for tatty books from 1987?

Now if they were tatty GURPS books signed by the GURPS Line Editor, I suspect that would nudge the collector value up some what!

[Mercator]

It looks like a very worthy successor to the already great Third Edition.

I like the discussion on corrupting powers -covering Powers, Imbuements, magical Skills like Enthrallment, etc- very much. It was one of the central issues during the playtest, and I think the author handled it very well.

I'm also glad that the new rules for sanity loss made it into the book.

On a selfish note: Got credited on my first playtest. Yay!

M.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's a new edition, not an all-new book. Madness Dossier isn't there because that setting will be getting a longer treatment elsewhere . . . Despite that one omission, the new edition has 176 pages to the previous one's 128 pages, which translates into 38% more content by word count (so without Madness Dossier, it's more than 40% new material). The extra text comes from roughly a third again as many monsters; entirely new systems for stress and derangement, insanity, and corruption; support for new subgenres (notably J-horror, survival horror, and torture horror); and a bibliography that takes into account a decade of horror fiction released since the last edition. Finally, the recycled content has all been updated to GURPS Fourth Edition and in a lot of cases overhauled descriptively as well (e.g., holy water and silver weapons both get better treatments that offer a wider range of options).

. . . Sounds very good!

I just looked at the index at its e23 page and I had to buy it.

[The Cardinal]

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's a new edition, not an all-new book. Madness Dossier isn't there because that setting will be getting a longer treatment elsewhere . . .

Halleluja! Jubilations! The years of darkness and despair will soon come to an end! All those horrible sacrifices were not in vain! IT WILL BE MINE!

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by Kromm

As for me, I don't print PDFs. I have two desktop computers, two laptop computers, and a smart phone in a five-room apartment. And all of my gamers come with one or more of laptop, smart phone, and tablet.

I have yet to take that leap, though some of my players have. Hopefully a tablet will change all that -- I need something portable before I can really go all-out on pdfs.

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm thinking of selling off a lot of my GURPS paper when I can get organized to do it. Wonder how much I can get for tatty books from 1987?

Dibs on Scarlet Pimpernel and The Prisoner!

[Mgellis]

Got it. An outstanding book, as one would expect, although there is one curious error...

In the description of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein never names his creature. He abandons his creation utterly. It is the creature who says, at one point, "Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed."

Interestingly, and tragically, the creature literally inflicts on others what has been inflicted on him...he isolates Frankenstein (killing everyone around him and making sure he lives as long as possible) in the same way that he has been isolated. And, in the same way that his humanity has been denied, he obliterates the humanity of Henry and Elizabeth by treating them simply as extensions of Frankenstein. He does not kill them for who they are; he kills them because they belong to and are precious to Victor.

It's a great book. Read the 1818 version, though. Oh, and read GURPS Horror, too. :)

Mark (who really is trying not to lapse into lecture too often...)

Later edit...in the novel, the creature actually might have a point in Law (Swiss Criminal). He says he had learned enough of man's laws to do mischief. He steals a pendant from William Frankenstein when he kills the boy and then deliberately plants it on a sleeping woman so she will be blamed! (And it turns out to be Justine, a beloved servant of the Frankenstein family, whose eventual execution causes much grief and, on the part of Victor, self-recrimination and gnashing of teeth.)

[ClayDowling]

I finally got a longer chance to look through it. All the GURPS scary goodness appears to be in there, at least as thorough if not more so than the original.

The hardcover will be beautiful. Black and white works very well for the horror genre. If you have any doubts, look at the Call of Cthulhu books. As a side note, Paterson Printing out of Grand Rapids, who did the printing and binding on those books and a couple of other horror games, gives the books a really classic horror feel. A sewn binding makes me feel more like I'm holding some ancient tome. A slip-jacketed cloth cover would really enhance that, but that's clearly not consistent with the SJGames trade dress.

[Kuroshima]

Personally, the thing I'll regret from losing color interiors are the color coded sections. On my basic set, I know that skills are deep blue, advantages light blue, and disadvantages brown. Other than that, I don't mind that much the loss of color interiors...