Sean's Picks of the Week (1113-1117) - Get Your GURPS Week!

Those in the know spent this week checking the temperature in the Nether Realms and wondering if Beelzebub might not be trying on ice skates. Why? Because that which never seemed possible came to pass - Steve Jackson Games is now on DriveThruRPG, currently selling 4th Edition GURPS products. They are also challenging the notion that PDFs must inherently be devalued (which, for those of us who strive to make a living at this, is a pretty big deal). Onward!

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GURPS BASIC SET: CHARACTERS

Gotta admit, I did not see this coming. Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System) is actually up on DriveThruRPG! In celebration of this surprise shift in my universe, I’m declaring this Get Your GURPS Week!

Naturally, I think opening up with the core book is the right move here – GURPS Basic Set: Characters.

GURPS is the most flexible roleplaying system ever created. With just this book, you can adventure in any world you can imagine. Use all types of weapons from clubs to lasers . . . magic and martial arts . . . psionics and superpowers.

Create exactly the character you want to play . . . your favorite fictional hero, or your own invention. Choose from over 400 advantages and disadvantages, over 350 skills, spells, and techniques. Customize your character with individual perks and quirks, and you’re ready to go.

No more switching game systems when you change campaigns! GURPS gives you one set of clear, comprehensive rules to cover any background. This new Fourth Edition is based on 16 years of gamer feedback from the Third Edition, and is faster and easier to play than ever before.

GURPS makes the Game Master’s job easy and fun. All rules are carefully organized, indexed, and cross-referenced. Charts and tables are clear and legible. And to help you introduce new players to the system, there’s a “Quick Start” section which covers the basics in a few pages.

This is Book 1 of the two-volume Basic Set. Only this book is necessary to play. Game Masters, and players wanting more detail, will find Book 2 valuable.

GURPS Characters is the companion book to GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns. The two provide everything you need to play or run a GURPS campaign.

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GURPS BASIC SET: CAMPAIGNS

Get Your GURPS Week continues with the other half of the GURPS Basic Set duology, this one focused on all the campaign-oriented stuff you’ll need to do pretty much “all the things” in GURPS.

With GURPS, you can be anyone you want – an elf hero fighting for the forces of good, a shadowy femme fatale on a deep-cover mission, a futuristic swashbuckler carving up foes with a force sword in his hand and a beautiful woman by his side . . . or literally anything else! GURPS has been the premiere universal roleplaying game for almost two decades. Fourth Edition makes it even better!

GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns combines information from the Third Edition GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Compendium II – plus our new core setting, with infinite possibilities for timeline-hopping adventure! (You don’t have to play in the core setting – there isn’t some game-altering metaplot – but it’s there if you want it.) This 240-page, full-color PDF contains everything a GM needs to create and run a GURPS Fourth Edition campaign.

GURPS Campaigns is the companion book to GURPS Basic Set: Characters. The two provide everything you need to play or run a GURPS campaign.

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GURPS: HIGH-TECH

As we roll on with Get Your GURPS Week, let’s look at one of the most popular GURPS releases ever. How this system handles varying levels of technology is one of its strongest design foundations, and the various books that cover the many options for gear in the nigh-infinite number of games you can play is a huge selling point. Along with this one – GURPS High-Tech – there’s Low-Tech, Ultra-Tech, and Bio-Tech, giving both players and GMs massive options for their campaigns and characters. The fact that immense research goes into these books makes them useful to any game, regardless of system (in fact, that’s why this one, in particular, is so beloved by gamers across the decades).

From the Industrial Revolution to the Digital Age, GURPS High-Tech lets you outfit adventurers of all stripes, be they a pioneer party just trying to survive or a SWAT team taking down bad guys. Its meticulously researched TL5-8 hardware includes:

• Weapons. Descriptions and stats for hundreds of historical weapons – small arms (from muskets to assault rifles, plus oddities and prototypes), light artillery, explosives, and more – with new rules for guns, gunmen, and “Gun Fu.”
• Armor. Head-to-toe protection for every budget.
• Vehicles. An essential selection of rides. Cover ground by stagecoach, jeep, or tank . . . cruise the coasts by kayak, surfboard, or patrol boat . . . cross the skies by glider, plane, or helicopter . . . and more.
• Tools. Complete tools of the trade for such specialists as detectives, divers, firemen, medics, spies, and thieves.
• Electronics. From early telegraphs to modern computers, medical scanners, and surveillance devices . . . if it beeps or blinks, it’s covered.
• Survival Gear. Camping equipment, first-aid kits, rations, and everything else explorers need.

GURPS High-Tech requires the GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition. The notes on real-world equipment will enhance any game set after 1730.

Bonus! Includes a free copy of GURPS High-Tech: Weapon Tables! No need to go through 256 pages of troublesome words when all you need is a Colt Python’s Bulk and Rate of Fire rating.

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GURPS: FANTASY

Ray Greer of Hero Games fame told me the story of how he convinced Steve Jackson to push his deadlines and include guns in the original release of GURPS; Steve was just going to stick with fantasy-level support, since a lot of folks loved the core rules for just that (and its roots in the game-changing The Fantasy Trip didn’t hurt that impression, either). GURPS Fantasy establishes beyond question the strength of the system for the most popular genre of gaming in the world.

At the same time, there’s lots of other genre-support material for GURPS fans – GURPS Horror and GURPS Supers, as examples.

Fantasy – from ancient myths to popular films, stories of heroes and magic have captured the human imagination. Now GURPS offers roleplayers a comprehensive guide to the entire Fantasy genre. Building on the flexible, streamlined Fourth Edition rules, it helps you develop a campaign to explore the world of your favorite book or film – or create a new one from your own dreams. The main emphasis is on historical fantasy, in settings from the Bronze Age to the Renaissance, but the principles apply to any fantasy setting, from the prehistoric past to the remote future.

A complete campaign setting, Roma Arcana, is ready to use in your own campaign. It can stand on its own, or fit into the Infinite Worlds campaign framework from GURPS Fourth Edition. Send a band of adventurers on impossible missions in a magical Roman Empire, as they struggle to hold back the darkness from their native city and win honor.

You’ll find help in running your campaign in Roma Arcana or any other setting – advice on creating balanced parties, devising scenarios to challenge them, and using the game systems to achieve dramatic effects.

Take the most flexible, most consistent game rules system available, and use it to run the campaign of your dreams.

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GURPS: BANESTORM

I’m closing out Get Your GURPS Week with one of the many campaign-oriented books Steve Jackson Games publishes. Banestorm is a complete world book to get folks started with the fantasy-oriented aspects of the system. For other campaign-enhancing books, check out GURPS Zombies, GURPS Dragons, and GURPS Infinite Worlds. No doubt, a lot more of the SJG campaign books will start showing up on DriveThruRPG soon.

Welcome to the land of Yrth, a magical realm of incredibly varied races and monsters – including people snatched from our Earth and other worlds by the cataclysmic Banestorm!

Whole villages were transported – from such diverse locales as medieval England, France, Germany, and the Far East. Now humans struggle with dwarves, elves, and each other. The Crusades aren’t ancient history here – they’re current events!

Characters can journey from the windswept plains of the Nomad Lands – where fierce Nordic warriors seek a valiant death to earn a seat in Valhalla – to Megalos, the ancient empire where magic and political intrigue go hand in hand. Or trek south to the Muslim lands of al-Wazif and al-Haz to explore the forbidden city of Geb’al-Din.

This book provides GMs with a complete world background – history, religion, culture, politics, races, and a set of 16 detailed, full-color maps – everything needed to start a GURPS campaign. Phil Masters (GURPS Discworld and Hellboy RPG RPGs) and Jonathan Woodward (Hellboy RPG and GURPS Ogre) have added new peoples, places, and plots, as well as lots more on magic and mysticism, all of which conforms to the just-released GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Magic.

So prepare to make your own mark on Yrth. Plunder elven ruins while evading the desert natives. Play a peasant-born hero . . . an orcish pirate . . . a Muslim double agent commanded to infiltrate the Hospitallers.

-----
Back when I worked for OBS (the company behind DriveThruRPG and RPGNow), we tried extensively to get SJG to consider putting their stuff up. Naturally, they wanted to focus on their e23 site. I am guessing the sheer advanced volume of traffic that DriveThru continues to show changed the winds, so here we are...

This is a low-gaming, high-social-geekery weekend for me. While we have our Prowlers & Paragons: Epic Age campaign on Sunday, tonight features low-stakes poker. Tomorrow is "Justice League," followed by... not even sure. Sunday is also the birthday celebration of my dear friend and Freedom Squadron: Global Operations Force co-conspirator, Chris Parks.

Here's hoping you have great things planned!

The Adventure Continues!

Note that I use affiliate links in all my posts as a way to generate additional revenue for my efforts; I make my Picks and other article choices, however, based on the desire to share a wide variety of things with you. Thank you for your support.

Sean Patrick Fannon
Writer & Game Designer: Shaintar, Star Wars, Savage Rifts, much more
Please check out my Patreon and get involved directly with my next projects!

 

[TrippyHippy]

A year later than DriveThruRPG. And that's not comparing game companies, that's comparing PDF marketplaces.

A year later for the reasons stated. Still later, and deliberately so.

And I compared Steve Jackson Games to the other major RPG publishers, not the new upstarts. Given that Palladium, Steve Jackson Games and WotC still exist and most of those D20 companies don't, perhaps they're the examples to follow.

Who's judging them? I'm not. You're the one who seems to want to advocate their business practices as a moral stance here. I couldn't care less, frankly.

Within three years they had the bulk of their back catalog on e23. That doesn't strike me as leisurely.

They didn't have the actual GURPS 4th Edition core on PDF till much later - after multiple printing runs.

Which shows their dedication to PDFs, because they chose to stay in the business of providing a PDF marketplace independent of DriveThruRPG.

It shows that they are willing to release PDFs at drivethrurpg. Anything else is your own interpretation.

Which Fate books? Each world book release generates $3000 from Patreon subscribers, which means sales are more of an afterthought.

Fate Core is a free/pay what you want PDF. They lower the price to encourage more buy in from casual gamers, and potentially get more subscribers. SJGames isn't really interested in this type of promotion with GURPS.

Steve Jackson Games sells them at that price because they are interested in maximizing profit from the PDF, which is more important than sales. If they believed reducing prices would increase profits, they'd reduce prices.

I'll refer you to points made already.

"Most likely"? "Probably not"? Please. Steve Jackson Games publishes an annual "Report to the Stakeholders"*, and while 2017's report isn't out, 2016's says "sales are no longer strong enough to make traditional distribution work for GURPS hardcovers." They list the top selling products by dollar amount; 35 out of the 40 are Munchkin, and the other 5 are not RPGs.

You have made my point for me. Sales aren't strong enough to do a print run, so they're putting it out on PDF as it makes no difference to traditional sales. The actual PDF market is a fraction of the physical book market, so Drivethrurpg is not a replacement for it, it's merely a cheap alternative to keep GURPS in existence without a print run. They don't feel obliged to manipulate the prices in order to stimulate a market, because for them the e-book market is negligible.

I've seen people here get upset when I ask for evidence of their claims, but this is a new low, to get upset when I provide citations for my claims.

The citations didn't provide evidence for your claims. That was the point.

 

[barasawa]

For so long the book publishers would tell us that the writing and editing were cheap, the vast majority of the cost of a book was the printing.
Now when they've eliminated the cost of printing, and virtually eliminated all distribution costs by going digital, some of them find other excuses to keep the prices as high as the dead tree format. (There are a number of companies doing that exact thing.)
Does anyone else see a consumer issue in that?

 

[TrippyHippy]

Does anyone else see a consumer issue in that?

The consumer solution is to buy something cheaper, from the multitude of alternatives out there.

 

[stargazera5]

The consumer solution is to buy something cheaper, from the multitude of alternatives out there.

And that was the point most of us were making in complaining about the prices when you came in with your original comment about SJ Games having the right to sell for what they want. They could sell them for $10,000 each, if they wanted. Consumers have the right to balk to any price they consider excessive and make their displeasure known. A good business will look at such a reaction and make a business decision if it makes sense to change their approach or take the product off the market. The complaints everybody had about the price were from the consumer point of view, not he business's.

Frankly, given the low volume of sales they've seen at their current price point on their own site, per the Stakeholder link somebody else posted, it seems that consumers have been rejecting their prices for quite some time. In my opinion, this goes a long way in explaining why GURPS is no longer well known in the newer generation of RPG enthusiasts.

 

[TrippyHippy]

And that was the point most of us were making in complaining about the prices when you came in with your original comment about SJ Games having the right to sell for what they want. They could sell them for $10,000 each, if they wanted. Consumers have the right to balk to any price they consider excessive and make their displeasure known. A good business will look at such a reaction and make a business decision if it makes sense to change their approach or take the product off the market. The complaints everybody had about the price were from the consumer point of view, not he business's.

Frankly, given the low volume of sales they've seen at their current price point on their own site, per the Stakeholder link somebody else posted, it seems that consumers have been rejecting their prices for quite some time. In my opinion, this goes a long way in explaining why GURPS is no longer well known in the newer generation of RPG enthusiasts.

I doubt SJGames actually cares that much - which is my secondary point above. The PDF sales is just not that great a priority for them. They are just interested in keeping GURPS in perpetual existence, without worrying about the overheads of another print run. With regards to the consumers, they can either pay the prices given, or move on to other products. Complaining about it here makes no difference.

 

[prosfilaes]

A year later for the reasons stated. Still later, and deliberately so.

Still later than who?

It shows that they are willing to release PDFs at drivethrurpg. Anything else is your own interpretation.

Then what was the point of bringing up DriveThruRPG in the first place? The fact is, they've had PDFs out over a decade; what releasing them on DriveThruRPG means is by your own statement just your own interpretation.

Fate Core is a free/pay what you want PDF. ... SJGames isn't really interested in this type of promotion with GURPS.

They've released GURPS Lite. This is not about PDFs, but what you monetize and what you don't. WotC didn't release the full copy of the PHB, Palladium didn't release anything for free, Troll Lords keeps the Castles & Crusades PHB only available in full priced ($21 for 194 page) version. Paizo releases a full SRD with almost everything in it, but not a neat free PDF. Trail of Cthulhu is not available in any sort of free form. Of the major RPG companies, Evil Hat is the only company I know of that releases their full core book for free.

The citations didn't provide evidence for your claims. That was the point.

Actually they did. They were evidence that SJGames did what I said they did when I said they did; they were evidence for the exact things they were linked to.

Steve Jackson Games is finding Munchkin more profitable than GURPS, and is concentrating on more profitable works. Claiming that means something about PDFs is silly. Maybe if they studied on how to make GURPS more profitable, they'd reduce prices, but nothing you've said shows that that is in fact true.

 

[prosfilaes]

For so long the book publishers would tell us that the writing and editing were cheap, the vast majority of the cost of a book was the printing.

That depends on what genre of books you're buying. A good chunk of my math books or bibliographies were priced well beyond anything you could justify from printing.

E23 showed the number of copies sold of their PDFs*, giving us information about how much they were making from a PDF. A decent selling PDF could sell 1000 copies; at $8, that's $8,000 to be split among infrastructure, authors, artists and editors. Assuming they get 32K a year, that's no more than 3-man-months of work before they start losing money. (Actually, I understand the rule of thumb is anyone in office costs twice what they get paid, for insurance, taxes, building costs, etc.) So that's not a whole lot of money. Play with the numbers as you will, but I think you'll have sell a lot of copies before you're paying a living wage to the creators.

* http://web.archive.org/web/20111108212839/http://e23.sjgames.com:80/hot.cgi

 

[TrippyHippy]

Still later than who?

I need to repeat myself? Later than drivethrurpg and RPGNow.

Then what was the point of bringing up DriveThruRPG in the first place?

Because they've just released them on drivethrurpg, as the context for this entire thread. I didn't bring it up, the thread did.

They've released GURPS Lite.

An abbreviated game, not a full one, and many companies had released these even before RPGNow was a thing.

Actually they did. They were evidence that SJGames did what I said they did when I said they did; they were evidence for the exact things they were linked to.

No they didn't. They provided links to pages that merely showed their catalogue pages or the like. They didn't prove your arguments with salient evidence.

Steve Jackson Games is finding Munchkin more profitable than GURPS, and is concentrating on more profitable works.

Meaning that they have decided the print runs is not profitable enough and the alternative of releasing PDFs in perpetuity, with minimal overheads, is as much a statement to that effect. They won't drop the PDF prices because there is no incentive to proselytise or prioritise GURPS sales over their other products. Releasing GURPS on drivethrurpg is tantamount to putting GURPS out to pasture, rather than trying to win new markets.

 

[prosfilaes]

I need to repeat myself? Later than drivethrurpg and RPGNow.

So out of RPGNow/DriveThruRPG, Paizo, E23, and the OpenGamingStore, they are the second oldest RPG PDF marketer still on the net. That does not make them a late adopter. If you want to count Steve Jackson Games as selling their own game on PDF, you need to compare them to other game companies.

An abbreviated game, not a full one, and many companies had released these even before RPGNow was a thing.

Yes, and as I said, you could only produce one company that was giving away their full game for free. Releasing GURPS Lite for free is more than many companies do now, and releasing Fate Core for free is more than just about any other company has done.

No they didn't. They provided links to pages that merely showed their catalogue pages or the like. They didn't prove your arguments with salient evidence.

They established that the e23 site existed and started selling products on the days I said they did.

Releasing GURPS on drivethrurpg is tantamount to putting GURPS out to pasture, rather than trying to win new markets.

To quote you:

It shows that they are willing to release PDFs at drivethrurpg. Anything else is your own interpretation.

 

[TrippyHippy]

So out of RPGNow/DriveThruRPG, Paizo, E23, and the OpenGamingStore, they are the second oldest RPG PDF marketer still on the net. That does not make them a late adopter. If you want to count Steve Jackson Games as selling their own game on PDF, you need to compare them to other game companies.

Considering that two of those are merged companies and Paizo wasn't even in that market till they started releasing Pathfinder, you are making a spurious argument right there. SJGames deliberately came after the main companies RPGNow and drivethrurpg, after publicly expressing their skepticism about e-book markets in it's impact on the traditional three tiered distribution model. They were late uptakers after the phenomenon broke.

Yes, and as I said, you could only produce one company that was giving away their full game for free. Releasing GURPS Lite for free is more than many companies do now, and releasing Fate Core for free is more than just about any other company has done.

You didn't ask for more than one. GURPS lite is not a full game. totally straw man argument here.

They established that the e23 site existed and started selling products on the days I said they did.

Another straw man as nobody had ever disputed the existence of e23.

To quote you:

The difference is you assumed a motivation that SJGames had "commitment" to PDF sales. They don't need to have any commitment when the overheads amount to nothing, so there is no evidence of this assertion whatsoever.