GURPS: Monster & Spirits (but not worked examples)

[oneofmanynameless]

I would love to have a GURPS supplement about how to build monsters and spirits and magical creatures. We've got lots of worked examples across a lot of supplements, from GURPS: Creatures of the Night, to GURPS: Fantasy, to GURPS: Horror, to many other supplements and pyramid articles. And I've seen a few articles here and there, both in private GURPS blogs and (if I remember correctly) pyramid issues, that address questions of how to assess the challenge a monster might face to a group of players (did Christopher R. Rice write something to that effect?) We also have supplements with worked examples of monsters that are directly tailored to the power level of a set of professional "hero" templates for players (such as is the case in the GURPS Monster Hunters series.)

But what I want is a supplement about how build monsters. Something along the lines of Template Builders Toolkit; including the balance assessments from those articles, as well as world considerations (I once saw a Kromm post, although I can't find it anymore, detailing a long list of things that are assumed to be true by default of a character and that require an advantages or disadvantages on the character sheet to change that assumption), maybe even templates along the lines of a professional template that will guide you through important choices for key types of traits for building magical creatures that conform to certain genre conventions (I've built a couple of these for games where I was running things with other GM's, or even just for my personal use for keeping track of "how X creature type works in this game" etc), and of course worked examples.

[Kage2020]

Well, there was a playtest up recently for Rory Fansler (refplace) for his supplement on Spirit templates:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2421750

That might cover half of what you want when released?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

Well, there was a playtest up recently for Rory Fansler (refplace) for his supplement on Spirit templates:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2421750

That might cover half of what you want when released?

Maybe, but defiantly not everything.
Its a book of templates and lenses to help a GM quickly build spirits for a variety of roles. There is some discussion on certain abilities and how they can affect a campaign, plus some other stuff.
However it is not going to go over much on relative power levels and world considerations. I would think that would be more a How to be a GURPS GM product offering.

I hope when it comes out the Op would find it useful but it definitely will not cover all his requests.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Maybe, but defiantly not everything.
Its a book of templates and lenses to help a GM quickly build spirits for a variety of roles. There is some discussion on certain abilities and how they can affect a campaign, plus some other stuff.
However it is not going to go over much on relative power levels and world considerations. I would think that would be more a How to be a GURPS GM product offering.

I hope when it comes out the Op would find it useful but it definitely will not cover all his requests.

Yeah, I'm definitely thinking of something along the lines of a How to be a GURPS GM or Template Builders Toolkit, although I'm also definitely interested in your book as well. A book of templates and lenses to help GM's quickly build spirits to their needs sounds pretty great too.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Yeah, I'm definitely thinking of something along the lines of a How to be a GURPS GM or Template Builders Toolkit, although I'm also definitely interested in your book as well. A book of templates and lenses to help GM's quickly build spirits to their needs sounds pretty great too.

I'm still editing it and have a month before sending in my hopefully final draft. I'll see how much advice I can fit in their but that wasn't really the goal of the supplement and as always its going to be tight and something's have to be cut, cant fit everything in there.
One thing that is in there that I put a high priority on was discussion on various traits and how they work. For example traits I see a lot of questions on the forums, I tried to answer those questions based on collating various supplements and comments from Kromm, in some cases directly asking for a ruling on if my interpretation was accurate. Some wording has been changed to make things even more clear and concise as a part of that process.
An example is Insubstantiality.

So not really a discussion vs. relative power levels but some ideas where and why to use it, plus what modifiers you need for specific goals.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I'm still editing it and have a month before sending in my hopefully final draft. I'll see how much advice I can fit in their but that wasn't really the goal of the supplement and as always its going to be tight and something's have to be cut, cant fit everything in there.
One thing that is in there that I put a high priority on was discussion on various traits and how they work. For example traits I see a lot of questions on the forums, I tried to answer those questions based on collating various supplements and comments from Kromm, in some cases directly asking for a ruling on if my interpretation was accurate. Some wording has been changed to make things even more clear and concise as a part of that process.
An example is Insubstantiality.

So not really a discussion vs. relative power levels but some ideas where and why to use it, plus what modifiers you need for specific goals.

Honestly that's getting very close to what all I'm looking for! I do wish I could find that list of Kromm's of everything that is assumed to be true and calls for an advantage or disadvantage if not true. And I also wish I could remember where those "balancing encounters" rules were. But other than that it sounds like your supplement is going to be extremely useful! I'll look for it when it comes out!

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I'm still editing it and have a month before sending in my hopefully final draft. I'll see how much advice I can fit in their but that wasn't really the goal of the supplement and as always its going to be tight and something's have to be cut, cant fit everything in there.
One thing that is in there that I put a high priority on was discussion on various traits and how they work. For example traits I see a lot of questions on the forums, I tried to answer those questions based on collating various supplements and comments from Kromm, in some cases directly asking for a ruling on if my interpretation was accurate. Some wording has been changed to make things even more clear and concise as a part of that process.
An example is Insubstantiality.

So not really a discussion vs. relative power levels but some ideas where and why to use it, plus what modifiers you need for specific goals.

The "cant fit everything in there" would make sense if it was a physical book but as it a digital pdf it is something of a head scratcher.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by maximara

The "cant fit everything in there" would make sense if it was a physical book but as it a digital pdf it is something of a head scratcher.

Because the longer the book is the harder it is to layout and edit. The longer the book the more material playtesters have to go through. The longer the book the more the author must write and self-edit. It's not just "I'mma write me a thing and Kromm will edit it and then Nikki will put it in PDF form!" It doesn't work like that - not with the standards of Steve Jackson Games. I've been on all ends of freelancing for them now except layout and project managing and I can tell you from doing layout for my own projects (which is simple and stark) it takes time. Project managing is another time sucker. I don't know how Steven keeps up.

As far as I know there are *three* people working on GURPS right now. Kromm is doing editing and in house writing and Nikki is doing editing and finalizing. Steven helps wherever he can but he keeps the pipeline flowing. Again, far as I know.

Then Kromm is answering GURPS questions for people. And working with licensees on things GURPS-related. And coming to the forums. And writing various projects like the GURPS News. And setting up Kickstarters. And so much more we don't see.

It's a "head scratcher" that we get as much GURPS as we do. People should probably be more mindful and grateful.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by maximara

The "cant fit everything in there" would make sense if it was a physical book but as it a digital pdf it is something of a head scratcher.

What ReavenPenny said.
Except I'll add a bit more. Of the three people he mentioned Kromm is the only one working for GURPS ful time. Steven is more a project manager and part time editer and writer and does other things besides GURPS. Nikki as the layout person has also done some editing and works on other projects too. I think shes the only layout person on staff which means anything that goes to print she likely has to at least look at, if not work on. That includes TFT and likely some Munchkin and advertising marketing material as well.

The longer a book is the harder it is to edit and layout and its not really a linear thing as you get more stuff that is cross referenced and indexed and then has to be evaluated as a whole for clarity and conciseness.

Also longer is not always better. Having to trim to fit a desired word count forces the author to make hard choices and cut stuff that may have veered away from the focus of the project. Also saying something in hundred words that you could have in 20 is usually better for the reader.
If there really was good material left out, the author can make another pitch and see if sales justify a follow-up. Or fans can request it to show the author and Steve Jackson Games there is interest in that.

And on the editing front? Kromm has to edit different authors at different skill levels and authorial styles, that's actually harder than working with just a few regulars authors who you can predict what mistakes they will make.
Especially when editing for clarity and rules consistency.
Sure I wish I could write more supplements, and certainly buy more than one a month but we need more customers to justify the overhead.