Pyramid #3/122: All Good Things

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I had the same reaction. I'd really love to see Mad Science given the kind of full-length treatment other "magic systems" have gotten. We sort-of got that with GURPS Powers: The Weird, but that had the odd mix of techniques and perks for mad scientists, and the actual powers geared towards monsters and weird supers. You could of course slap gadget limitations on many of those powers, but it wasn't quite the same. (I've tried my hand at this, but I'm not totally satisfied with my own work!)

Been thinking about this and I want to add my vote for a book treatment.
We have enough material in the article to work with but more worked examples would be helpful.
I also think it could add to an existing setting.
Candidates: Madness Dossier, Tales of the Solar Patrol, Thaumatology: Alchemical Baroque, Thaumatology Age of Gold, Casey & Andy, Lands Out of Time, Mars Attacks, The Monster Hunters line, and the SteamPunk series all for Fourth Edition.
Bolded items are the same author so synergy should be easier.
Looking that list over I can see one overall Mad Scientists! book with a chapter or section of worked examples and relevant sciences for each of those settings, plus some other typical settings or time periods.
Or maybe just time periods with boxes for a few settings.

[scc]

Got to chime in about the DF(RPG) support, the Undead-hunter and Chevalier shouldn't have been templates but rather discussions on how to further enhance your character with these sorts of traits. Commander's are better, they actually have a broad array of abilities and may very well be worth adding to the roster.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

While I know many people are sad to see Pyramid go, I feel this issue has exactly the problems which frustrated me so often about it and make me glad that the resources are now being directed towards other things.

I am sad to see it go, but mostly in an abstract way. Sort of like hearing of the passing of an actor whose reputation you admire but whose work you haven't really followed recently.

I haven't picked up this issue yet, not sure if I will. Native American Crusaders is the only article that makes me feel interested from its description. DF is of little use to me, and the rest just don't sound like my flavors.

[Tyneras]

Sad to see the end of Pyramid.

I understand the justification, but my experience "Ending X to redirect resources elsewhere." almost always translates to "We are ending X and what remains will get the same or even fewer resources."

I hope you prove me wrong.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

There is one brilliant article (Sufficiently Deranged), which I would have preferred to see expanded into a more detailed treatment ...

Likewise. For those unfamiliar with Dr. Virginia Lee (box, p. 6), here's one of her finest moments. The comments below it are also worth reading.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

While I know many people are sad to see Pyramid go, I feel this issue has exactly the problems which frustrated me so often about it and make me glad that the resources are now being directed towards other things.

There is one brilliant article (Sufficiently Deranged), which I would have preferred to see expanded into a more detailed treatment rather than crammed into the restricted page count.

British Rhodes is an interesting read, but really seems like it would be better as part of a full steampunk setting or adventure.

Eidetic Memory is not to my taste this month; I don't like psionics in my sci-fi and I don't play fantasy games where the creatures would really fit. I guess they could be used for a monster-hunters style game with a focus on aliens, but they aren't really interesting enough to make me want to use them rather than the more classic options.

The Undead Hunter and Chevaliers and Commanders are dungeon fantasy, which is automatically a strike against them for me. Worse, the hunter and the chevalier seem like they are over-specialised, while the commander is mostly just repeating rules from an older issue.

Native American crusaders was OK, but I feel the article wasn't long enough for me to get an actual grasp of their religions beyond 'just more animism'. If I want to use NA stuff in a game, I probably need to track down some of the books on the 'inspirational sources' list. Also, a minor quibble, but the rules for Task Modifier don't make it totally clear if you have to specify the task when you buy the affliction or can choose every time you use it. The context seems to imply the latter, but that seems very good compared to other afflictions.

There wasn't really anything wrong with Random Thought Table, but it wasn't exactly inspiring either. I remember better ones.

So, basically, I got about 15-20 pages of stuff I might find useful from this issue. Compared to supplements with similar prices, I don't think it's really great value. If Pyramid shutting down means standard GURPS releases are doubled in quantity, I consider it a good trade.

You kind of hit the nail on the head regarding problems I had with Pyramid, and I think a lot of it wad due to a lack of author diversity. It was as if Steven got an article that was awesome, and then went to the same four authors that were published every month and asked for whatever rhey could turn out by publication deadline to fill out the issue.

And because it was always the same people writing, new people were discouraged from even trying to submit articles. And despite the brief attempt by Doug and Chris to start PWC, that barely lasted a year. I am glad to see, that despite fallings out, some of those authors now have book proposals in the queue.

Od course all of that is armchair quaeterbacking. I am glad that now we should hopefully get twice the book output, so I'm happy. I look forward to seeing what comes of this.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Humabout

And despite the brief attempt by Doug and Chris to start PWC, that barely lasted a year.

In fairness to us, over 100,000 words of written material were submitted in that year, which represents four complete issues, or about a complete 128-page book at GURPS typical density levels.

We just got very busy, both of us, with other things.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Humabout

It was as if Steven got an article that was awesome, and then went to the same four authors that were published every month and asked for whatever rhey could turn out by publication deadline to fill out the issue.

And because it was always the same people writing, new people were discouraged from even trying to submit articles.

I think this is harsh. The authors who were well represented in Pyramid submitted publishable content regularly and consistently. If people were intimidated by that, I don't know what to tell them. I know that Steven was eager to showcase work from new talent.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Humabout

It was as if Steven got an article that was awesome, and then went to the same four authors that were published every month and asked for whatever they could turn out by publication deadline to fill out the issue.

FWIW, that's not been the case in my experience. With the exception of a couple of deliberately constructed issues (for example, because of the lead time necessary, the DFRPG issues of Pyramid required authors who had pre-publication access to the DFRPG, so there was a very short roster involved), I don't think Steven ever asked me for articles on specific themes to round out an issue. And I like to think that if Steven needed articles, he might ping me about them from time to time. I'm reasonably confident that whatever articles you see in Pyramid, Steven came by them organically.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

To play Devil's Advocate I have to say that products with grab-bags of articles don't draw me much simply due to the "I don't need all these other things" factor. Focused products tend to intrigue me more.

Though I can recognize that a grab-bag product might be useful if they collected short articles that could just never be expanded enough to warrant even their own PDF release.