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Old 12-22-2018, 07:02 PM   #41
Refplace
 
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/122: All Good Things

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
That and learning the style guide. I deliberately started writing my blog using mostly the Pyramid style guide formatting pattern to practice, and I still don't get it all right all the time.
Same here, not for my blog which is pretty limited but all my personal and game related documents. Though sometimes to avoid confusion by my players or GM I use the multiplication symbol instead of the Yen symbol.
There were a few articles Steven asked to use at a later date, one rejected because it would conflict with a book that may or may not be published (not mine), and a handful that I never heard back on so could have been too long, poorly written or just not feel right, Ill never know.
But I had a good start, I think 4 articles published and the only person I can blame for not getting more is myself. I think I submitted just two or three a year on average the last three or four years.
I'm grateful to Pyramid, all the editors and the Pyramid group including you and Christopher. Sorry for my part in its demise. I always listened to the style and editing advice even the couple of times I felt it conflicted with prior examples. It was the creative part where we ran hot, specifically the Dragon Knight system (Later it became the Conjurer article).

Some of my stuff will be resubmitted for books, others just go up on the blog. If enough people do that with their stuff we should have a lot of material out there. I mean Eggplant has practically written up all the Magic as Sorcery spells by now, just for one example.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Marsh View Post
In case anyone's curious, I ran the numbers, and we'd had 85 unique writers in the PDF era of Pyramid. The last "first time to Pyramid" author was #3/119: After the End II (although Matt Wehmeier — who appeared in the final issue — had only appeared once before, in #3/117: Hot Spots).
Darn, I thought he had the honor of being the last author to get his first article published!
As for that slush pile, I was honored when you asked to use what my earliest submission (sent in 2013) as my last article "Names Have Power" for issue #3/114, even as when I looked at it with more experienced eyes and was horrified at all the editing it needed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Marsh View Post
From my point of view, one of the big challenges with Pyramid is that it was always trying to juggle a lot of objectives, some of which are in tension with others. In no particular order, Pyramid tried to:
  • provide GURPS support in the abstract
  • provide GURPS support for specific projects, initiatives, and product lines
  • provide support for specific themes
  • be accessible enough to attract casual readers
  • be in-depth enough to interest long-time fans
  • be a testing ground for new writers
  • be a working area for less-experienced writers to hone their GURPS-specific skills and start building an "audience"
  • have enough established talent to entice folks to buy it
  • be a home for cool ideas that may not warrant a "full" supplement
  • be a testing ground for new ideas and concepts
  • be seamless enough support for GURPS that it wasn't "too" crazy
And most months it had to do that every 28 days, doing what it could to stay true to the quality of the rest of the GURPS line.

So, someone who's looking to the mag for (say) a GURPS genre update of a neglected genre (such as cyberpunk) wants something different than a fan who wants support for the latest hotness (Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game), who wants something different than a fan who's looking for the newest talent, who wants something different than a reader who loves seeing big GURPS authors flex their muscles on various topics. I'm certain I could've done better in just about every area . . . but I'm not certain I could've done better in all areas, since there are just so many aspects.
So much this.
Most of us think about your last paragraph, the difficulty with hitting enough genres and topics to interest the most people possible in any given issue, and themes helped a lot there.
But that list of yours? That is a monster to tackle.
And again, I am grateful for the platform and opportunity you gave so many of us.
Hopefully we can continue to see new authors, and certainly Kromms journal indicates a healthy publication lineup.
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Last edited by Refplace; 12-22-2018 at 07:22 PM.
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Old 12-23-2018, 12:27 AM   #42
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/122: All Good Things

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
By the book, you couldn't create this character . . . it merges cleric-only stuff (Clerical Investment, Power Investiture, spells, and access to Energy Reserve (Holy) and Spirit Empathy) with holy warrior stuff (Higher Purpose, Rest in Pieces, and access to warrior traits like Hard to Kill and High Pain Threshold). never played GURPS or even an RPG, it's somewhat more interesting.
I had been checking out what DF/DFRPG professions can best be mashed together into something new, to cover more roles in games with just 2-3 players. Merging cleric and holy warrior seemed an obvious start, so your article sounds perfect to me.

As for letting new authors get a foothold: Well, I can rest happy knowing that Pyramid accepted 100% of the articles I submitted. (True, they never published a second article from me, but I think that may be my fault for not submitting one... : )
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Old 12-23-2018, 09:32 AM   #43
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/122: All Good Things

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Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
Ah, so you would have to buy multiple types of bonuses as alternative enhancements or different Afflictions?
So there will be times when Higher Purpose or Talent is a much better option at +50% which is the way I have been doing it. Still when Higher Purpose is not really broad enough, and especially for Cursing it could be better than other options.
Ok, thank you for the clarification.
Yeah. The thing about Higher Purpose is that multiple levels are considered a rules option. So when I baked up the modifier I made sure I included that in the cost.
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Old 03-13-2019, 01:57 AM   #44
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/122: All Good Things

My thoughts about Sufficiently Deranged:

• Invention and Gadget-Based Powers: I would enhance this with something along the lines of Pyramid 3/66's “the Material Difference”, using the Pure Materialism option, replacing both Thaumatology and Alchemy with Weird Science, and having 25 energy points from suitable materials pay for 1 character point worth of gadgetry.

• Mad Science as Syntactic Realm Magic: the suggestion to base Realms off of science specialities is an interesting one, and implies that you should always treat the total number of Teams as if it was “13 or more”: the number of scientific specialties is open-ended, and thus so is the number of potential Realms. In other words, don't feel like you need to subdivide reality into a limited number of Realms up front; just go with the smallest multiplier to the Realm cost.

• Defining Effects says that energy costs don't apply. With the aforementioned modified version of The Material Difference, they may very well apply, with the caveat that they must be paid for using appropriate exotic materials. I'd generally allow material-based energy costs to replace margin of success.

• Gadget Workings: technically, this is an application of the Practices option in Thaumatology, p.192.

• And yes, this dovetails nicely with GURPS Powers: the Weird. When doing so, I'd base the Realms off of the Weird-Science Styles rather than science specialities. In this case, each Realm's associated skill would be pulled from the associated Style's Other Required Skills, which (almost?) always include at least one Science skill.

• combining this with Pyramid 3/46, Weird Science: there might be a few ideas in “the Power of Weird Science” worth saving; but by and large, this article's “Gadgets as a Power” option renders “the Power of Weird Science” moot. In the other hand, Metatronic Generators should be closely reviewed for ideas on Gadgets as a Power.

• Overall, I too would like to see this get a full book treatment for this article.
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