10 Best Issues of Pyramid?

[Celjabba]

They are all great according to your need, but some personnal favorites are :

66 Law of Magic for RPM
70 4th edition Festival (10 for 10)
53 Action (Fortunately, ...)
75 Hero's Jackpot
83 Alternate Gurps IV (KYOS)
08 Cliffhanger

Also, here is the index of Article for Pyramid III :
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=115624

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This is very variable, according to the kinds of settings you play in or run.

Quite true, which is why the "why" part of the question is probably the more important part. I didn't really want to scope the answer just for me personally, so intentionally left that open. We might get as many answers as there are issues -- but the reasons behind particular recommendations and discussions are the good part.

And it's been good discussion so far.

[Crystalline_Entity]

I like the way GURPS does Powers, so quite a few of my favourites include things like Sorcery (Magic-as-Powers), Gourmet Alchemy (Alchemy-as-Powers) or Psionic Powers. I'm also a fan of the dimension-hopping/world-jumping genre, e.g. Infinite Worlds.

• #3/20 Infinite Worlds - for more psionic teleportation powers, including Quantum-Jumping
• #3/63 Infinite Worlds II - for "Lord of your own domain", which introduces Jumper (Pocket Dimension)
• #3/105 Cinematic Magic - for Super-Sorcery and Gourmet Alchemy (I'd been waiting ages for an alchemy-as-powers system)
• #3/72 Alternate Dungeons - because I've this weird urge to try playing a DF Imitator one day, and have been tempted to repurpose the abilities for a character who can call on echoes of himself from parallel worlds.
• #3/86 Organisations - mostly for "What's In a Lair"
• #3/71 Spaceships II - because I like the "Captain's Boat" which gives Spaceships-as-Patrons

Plus the Tech and Toys issues, for gadgets when I need them.

[ericthered]

The Pyramids I keep coming back to are:

• Pyramid 66 is almost a dedicated expansion for RPM, and gives it a lot more depth. Monster Hunters is the game I find the easiest to get a game going for (easy to build plots and easy to find players), so RPM is useful that way. I use RPM for a number of fantasy systems as well. Pyramid 66 gives lots of options for flavoring RPM for use in other games, and for making colorful mages.
• Pyramid 34 has a way to build vehicles using the spaceships system, and I find myself constantly returning to it. I don't know that I use it in play much.
• Pyramid 54 has City Management, which in combination with City Stats and a few blog posts about generalizing beyond cities, gives Gurps a realm management system. My Banestormed Romans game had that article as the core engine behind it. It was a pretty unique role-playing experience. It does take some unpacking though.
• Pyramid 37 has Blaster and Laser Design, which can be generalized and customized even further. I've played a few different games using this, and it really unlocks the options available in ultra-tech.
• Pyramid 71 has The Captain's Boat, which I feel odd about putting on this list, because its both really amazing and transformed the way I thought about vehicles, battlesuits, and the ally advantage in gurps, and which I look up periodically for numbers from, and its also a really simple idea I don't go back and read very much.
• Pyramid 65 has Natural weapons, which I love and never use, Buckets of Points, which I use in over half the games I play, and Alternate Gun Skills, which I use anytime its worth the time to explain to the players.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

• #3/71 Spaceships II - because I like the "Captain's Boat" which gives Spaceships-as-Patrons

Originally Posted by ericthered

• Pyramid 71 has The Captain's Boat, which I feel odd about putting on this list, because its both really amazing and transformed the way I thought about vehicles, battlesuits, and the ally advantage in gurps, and which I look up periodically for numbers from, and its also a really simple idea I don't go back and read very much.

2 votes for The Captains Boat :) Thank you both.

[Gollum]

I love that one: Pyramid #3/111, Combat II, especially for a very important article: Animal Combat Styles, by Rory Fansler.

Indeed, animals in combat are not so easy to handle in GURPS. Often, they just attack, dodge, attack again, dodge again, and so on, like robots ... While, in real life, each species has its own unique tactics to hunt or defend itself ...

That article describes most of their specific manners of fighting in such a simple and effective way that it becomes very easy to make animals sound real and living. No matter the animal. Even one that your create for your own alien game world.

[Evil Roy Slade]

Can I just say this has been a great thread? It has brought to mind some back issues that I had mostly forgotten about and even inspired me to hit W23 to purchase a few I had overlooked a decade or more ago.

Myself, many of my games have been fantasy (not quite Dungeon Fantasy -- I like a little more in the way of social aspects for the murder hoboes) so the various DF, Low-Tech and magic/thaumatology-focused issues have all seen a lot of use for me; as well, I do some tinkering so the Alternate GURPS issues have a lot of appeal.

[Rupert]

I don't know about 'best', but I can say that the issues Ive got the most use out of to date are:

#3/34, for the Alternate Spaceships rules.
#3/87, for the Medieval Sea Trade article, which I've been using in place of the tables in Spaceships 2 when the PCs are trading with low-TL worlds.
#3/103, for the Spaceships Malfunctions article, which has been great inspiration. Well, I thought it was. My players may have other opinions.

It looks like the campaign is moving to universe hopping for spaceships, so this list will doubtless change, and I've got a ton of reading to do.

[Tomsdad]

Yep I agree it depends on what your running

anything that had stuff on lower TL mechanics are of great use to me.

And I also agree any alternative GURPS issues also gave lots of interesting idea and food for thought either in their own right or as springboards for my own ideas.

Articles like Dan Cole's delayed gratification I also got a lot of millage out of

I like to quickly give a shout out to the articles that looked at an iconic vehicle. Not just because it gave us stats on the vehicle and their systems. But also gave background and insight into the vehicle, and that IMO helps a GM use it in their games. (Tiger tank and "devils' chariot" spring to mind). I'd buy a collection of them in a heart beat! hint, hint

[ham2anv]

I hope that "El Paso Vice" from #3/115 is useful to many more GMs than just those running Technomancer games. It took a decent amount of work to finesse the standard spell magic system into the Action framework.


The population of Banestorm GMs is perhaps slightly larger than Technomancer GMs, so I also hope some get use out "Arvey: The City of Silver Hills" in #3/22. It's a pretty standard fantasy city that fits into the particular history of western Megalos.


But the article I think I'm most proud of is "Thoroughly Modern Magic" in #3/66. Through the power of spreadsheets, I managed to update the industrial enchantment rules from 3e and generalize them for all TLs. I even threw in a magical style and a character template for industrial enchanters. Unfortunately, this article is also probably the least generally useful for most campaigns.