4e Compendium

[dataweaver]

It's been, what, 14 years since 4e came out? In that time, there have been a lot of new developments in GURPS. And, like in the 3e days, these are spread out all over the place. Is it time to consolidate them, to produce a Compendium that collects them all into one place and organizes them?

One argument against a 4e Compendium is that we kind of already have something like that already, in smaller, more accessible pieces: I'm referring mainly to the Power-Ups series, though it has occasionally gone beyond merely collecting traits (e.g., Imbuements and Impulse Buys). OTOH, Imbuements have been vastly expanded on, to the point that I wonder if we need an Imbuements Expansion supplement or a second edition of Power-Ups 1: Imbuements that incorporates them.

And the 3e Compendia weren't just a collection of new traits; they also included various rules revisions, expansions, and variants that had cropped up over the years. And Power-Ups doesn't cover that for the 4e counterparts. I'm thinking primarily of various articles from the Alternate GURPS issues of Pyramid, though I'm sure some other rules have managed to creep in elsewhere as well.

Thoughts?

[Antiquation!]

Personally, I think it's a great idea. I got a lot of mileage out of the 3e Compendiums, and it seems like a great way to fill the gap with regards to publishing the improvements/refinements of the current edition as it's evolved without committing to a massive, ridiculously involved effort towards system overhaul and even more rewrites to get a new edition off the ground.

[Michael Thayne]

In theory it would be great, but my sense is there are business reasons why it's unlikely. The market for tabletop games is a lot smaller than it was when the 3e book came out.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I'd love one.

[evileeyore]

They've done a good job of not putting new Advantafes in every book that has come out... however... there are a lot of things in Pyramids that get forgotten because that's not a convenient source to go looking through.

Pyramid Compendiums would be very useful.


Also since December is the end of that line...

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

They've done a good job of not putting new Advantafes in every book that has come out... however... there are a lot of things in Pyramids that get forgotten because that's not a convenient source to go looking through.

Pyramid Compendiums would be very useful.


Also since December is the end of that line...

Oh this is a good point. The Pyramid page currently says that the Pyramid shutdown "will give the team time to explore the thousands of Pyramid articles that we have published since 1993 and select the best works that are worthy of compilation, expansion, and update to the GURPS 4th edition rules." So maybe my pessimism was misplaced.

[Kelly Pedersen]

It seems to me that the Power-Ups line is effectively the successor to the Compendiums, in that it's explicitly about collecting all the examples of whatever it is each volume focuses on, and presenting them in a neat, collected way. I'd say that Power-Ups should try to collect any applicable material from Pyramid articles, as well as from the full-length books. That might be a bit of a tall order, though, as there is a lot of material in Pyramid.

[Flyndaran]

What kind of Pyramid compendiums would people like is, I think, the question.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

The big advantage I saw in the compendia is that they collected rules from a wide variety of sources which might be entirely physically inaccessible. If I wanted, say, the mass combat rules but GURPS Conan was OOP, I'd be out of luck without the appropriate compendium. But with the advent of digital publishing, absolutely everything non-licensed is available in an instant if I really want it. There's no supply chain issue the way there might be for 3rd edition works. A 4e compendium might be modestly convenient since it puts everything in one digital file, but with decent PDF search tools, even that's of limited utility. And, of course, 4e has been better about rules creep than previous editions. Most of it falls within an established framework as worked examples rather than as novel rules.

There's not a lot which I see value in collecting in a separate document. The few things which are fall into a category of broad utility. Rules for CF cost adjustments, for example, aren't in Basic, so they have to be repeated across the line in DF, Low Tech, and so on. Assistance rolls and the like from the Action system could also stand repetition, though rather than just duplicating the rules as in DF17, I'd prefer to see a whole book on the topic, creating different kinds of assistance for different settings.

So, yeah, I don't think it's time for a 4e compendium yet.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

What kind of Pyramid compendiums would people like is, I think, the question.

My list:

Pyramid Magic
Pyramid Action!
Pyramid Dungeon Fantasy Templates
Pyramid Dungeon Fantasy Rules
Pyramid Dungeon Fantasy Adventures
Pyramid Monster Hunters Templates
Pyramid Monster Hunters Eules
Pyramid Monster Hunters Adventures
Pyramid Tech
Pyramid Martial Arts
Etc...

And then compile all the articles that fit that theme or 'book'. I wouldn't even be a little bit upset if there was some overlap, like if the Pyramid Fantasy, Magic, and Dungeon Compendiums having articles that showed up in all three.

That way when I sit down to build a campaign I can grab the Compilations that fir my themes, skim for usage, and not have to 'worry' that I'm missing something that would be cool because it was more 'Dungeonny' than 'Magicy' so I didn't grab it for my Space Wizards Need Crystal Power! action/magic/space themed game.

[EDIT]
Editted my list a bit...
[/EDIT]