A valuable expansion for the Basic Set that adds new modifiers, rules, and concepts to GURPS, along with a hefty dose of advice on running a game with powers. Useful for every fantastic genre, not just supers.
I'm glad SJG made effort to pack the book the most. But I'm curious if anyone knows the reasons why they didn't simply increased the page count a little bit (a dozen I think). I can't see what's wrong about that, but neither I run a game company on tight budget
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I'm glad SJG made effort to pack the book the most. But I'm curious if anyone knows the reasons why they didn't simply increased the page count a little bit (a dozen I think). I can't see what's wrong about that, but neither I run a game company on tight budget
The ones that come to mind are uniformity and cost, I remember one of the SJG staff saying they had an agreement with the printers that all GURPS books (bar Characters) were going to be 240-page books, increasing the pagecount would've therefore caused a fairly substantial price hike (£3-5). SJG are also married to the idea of ALL 4e sourcebooks being 240 pages, hence the delay of GURPS Vorkosigan (or however it's spelt)
But I'm curious if anyone knows the reasons why they didn't simply increased the page count a little bit (a dozen I think).
Increasing the page count increases the price non-trivially. SJGames appears to have information from shops that this impacts the sales quite seriously.
This is probably true (gamers are tight-fisted moaners), but more to the point, the shops probably believe it (game shop owners are under-funded paranoids). Hence, whether or not they could sell as many copies, the shops would order far fewer. So page bloat is officially Not An Option.
OK Phil, but page bloat is one thing, a dozen pages is another. Probably Wonder_Lemming is spot on, they have an agreement with the printer and need to make all book the same size. This strikes me as odd because other minor publishers do hardcovers with different page count without apparently breaking a sweat. Also Chris Aylott wrote on the official forum that GURPS Bestiary could be bigger, so I'm still confused. However, no big deal, I was just curious if someone knew better than me.
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OK Phil, but page bloat is one thing, a dozen pages is another.
Well, for a start, it'd probably have to be 16 extra pages. But even if it was just 12, it'd still be bloat. Marginal changes matter, and 5% is non-trivial.
Could I use the book to run a psionics campaign without having to kitbash all the powers together?
Yep. Well, giving characters interesting variations on the same power will take a few seconds of looking at the numbers, and a significant new psi effect may involve five minutes skimming the book and a line or two of arithmetic, but that's using the flexibility of the system, not kit-bashing. And a lot of the time, you'll be using stuff right out of the book.
Yep. Well, giving characters interesting variations on the same power will take a few seconds of looking at the numbers, and a significant new psi effect may involve five minutes skimming the book and a line or two of arithmetic, but that's using the flexibility of the system, not kit-bashing. And a lot of the time, you'll be using stuff right out of the book.
Spiffy! And thanks for the info. Looks like I need to pick this up then.
I'd forgotten how much I really click with GURPS until I was given the 4E core books as a Christmas gift.
Well, for a start, it'd probably have to be 16 extra pages. But even if it was just 12, it'd still be bloat. Marginal changes matter, and 5% is non-trivial.
I understand, I used Rev's figures about the extra page count. But now you got me interested, what would be the price difference between a 240 page hardcover and a 256 pages one?
I think (and may very well be wrong) the most important factors are the cover type and full color in the first place: maybe 16 more pages over 240 will cost one or two extra dollars. Now consider all the extra editing work with Powers, it's a cost too. That's why I thought the printer agreement was a better explanation. And if Phil doesn't know, is there someone that can put me in perspective?
Thanks in advance.
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-- Lut, International Nucleo Team Editor
Hard tasks in RPGs, please vote here, it takes just a second.
Last edited by LutherBlisset; 02-07-2006 at 10:35 AM..
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