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Occasionally, my work leads to something getting published...

GURPS Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances is now available from Warehouse 23. It's technically the first book in the GURPS Fourth Edition "Vehicles" line, but it's also, of course, the second book in the 4e "Steampunk" line, supporting my past discursions on settings and style with notes and game mechanics for some very steampunk hardware... A remarkable amount of it historical.

(Of course, just because it really existed doesn't make it automatically a good idea. Pre-dreadnought battleships and giant balloons had their little problems, and that "torpedo ram" that gets the one big heroic moment in The War of the Worlds? Only a geek like Wells could think it was a cool idea.)

But there's also some fantastical stuff, some of it courtesy Jules Verne, though I also raided third edition GURPS books along with dubious dime novels. So there y'go; thirty-plus vehicles, covering land, sea, air, and space.

EDITED TO ADD: Roger Bell_West has reviewed the book on his blog.

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A very brief but somewhat significant note: The Discworld Roleplaying Game is now available for purchase in electronic (PDF) format, for those who no longer like making shelf space.

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For those keeping score -- the GURPS production process seems to be coming back to life now, as one of my PDF projects heads to production review, and another comes back to me after its first draft has been exhaustively reviewed by the line editor.

I can't say much more than that for now, but it's a start.

Discworld RPG Overflow

Despite the 408 pages, some stuff got squeezed out of the Discworld RPG. So I've now made some of that material available online:

• https://www.philmasters.org.uk/RPGs/More-Discworld-Characters-from-the-Books.pdf - game stats for assorted characters from the novels.
• https://www.philmasters.org.uk/RPGs/More-Discworld-Occupational-Templates.pdf - some extra occupational templates.
• https://www.philmasters.org.uk/RPGs/More-Discworld-Spells.pdf - more sample spells.

Another Review

I guess with all the blogs and stuff there are in the world, I should expect a fair number of non-professional reviews. It's nice, though.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/01/rpg-review-discworld-2nd-edition-gurps.html

The Continuing Saga of the Discworld RPG

Aaaand another review...

• http://oneyardhex.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/discworld-rpg-review.html

The book is definitely in UK shops now. There've been reports of limited supply in some outlets - apparently the distributors underestimated demand - but restocks appear to be coming in. So if your shop claims that they can't get hold of the thing, tell them to press their distributor, hard.

(Amazon UK still don't seem to have it, though.)

More Regarding That Book

A second review of the Discworld RPG is now up at http://www.letthedicefall.com/2017/01/the-discworld-roleplaying-game-review.html.

Also, the book will be hitting retail in the UK this week. British gamers who lack a friendly local game store may wish to mail order; I thoroughly recommend Leisure Games for this. See https://leisuregames.com/collections/new-releases-week-commencing-9-january/products/gurps-discworld.

Discworld Reviewed

The first (gratifyingly positive) review that I've seen of the Discworld Roleplaying Game has now appeared on the Web, at http://justroll3d6.com/discworld-roleplaying-game-review/.

It's Alive! It's Alive!

It's taken a while, but yes, today I held in my bare hands, irrefutable physical evidence that the second edition of the Discworld Roleplaying Game actually exists in material form!

The official street date for publication was this Wednesday just gone, the 21st, and I understand that people in the USA have indeed actually acquired copies from shops. The book doesn't appear to have made it to retail here in the UK just yet, but I guess that we can hope for next week.

More on GURPS Steampunk

Just a note; Roger Bell_West and Mike Cule discuss steampunk, taking discussion of my book as their starting-point, in the latest episode of their podcast, Improvised Radio Theatre - With Dice.

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1. The launch of the new edition of the Discworld RPG has now been delayed until the beginning of December. Probably. Why am I not surprised?
2. Roger Bell_West has a very kind review of GURPS Steampunk 1 in his blog: https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2016/11/GURPS_Steampunk_1__Settings_and_Style__Phil_Masters.html

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And so it came to pass, after a fair amount of waiting to launch... My latest GURPS creation is now available for purchase online, in PDF form.

GURPS Steampunk 1: Settings and Style is planned to be, as the title should imply, the first of a new series, bringing GURPS 4th edition rules standards to contemporary steampunk sensibilities. Or vice-versa, perhaps. It imports and revises some material from earlier (3rd edition) books while adding new stuff, so you can now be driven to fits of the vapours, stat up quick and dirty steam-tech, and argue the definition of Raygun Gothic, all from one book...

Oh, and I've been updating and revising a couple of other manuscripts lately, about which I may not yet speak in detail. Related to this, though? You might ask that...

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Yes, it's been a while since I've had anything to announce here. Various projects have, shall we say politely, been hanging fire. But now, after a year or two in the writing, some time in the revision (in which time, Terry added a whole new and significant sapient race to the setting), the horribly sad death of the setting's actual creator, and a heck of a period, umm, heaven knows, maybe with the book buried in peat maturing while SJGames cranked out a few dozen more Munchkin variants, I can actually, officially, mention the forthcoming onset of the new edition of the Discworld Roleplaying Game.

It's scheduled for November, in fact. I very much hope that remains true, because it'd be nice to do some kind of quasi-official launch at Dragonmeet.

(I'm honestly trying not to be cynical about launch dates these days, y'know, but it's difficult.)

Anyway, we definitely have an official cover design now an' all. I must come up with at least one more convention demo scenario...

UK RPG Conventions Page (Usefulness Of)

For some years now I've been maintaining a calendar of British RPG conventions, currently at http://www.philmasters.org.uk/RPGs/conventions.htm, which I hope some people may have found useful. However, I'm now wondering if anyone is still using it.

I've noticed that I've been receiving few notifications or announcements from conventions recently, so if I don't happen to hear about or pick up on an event, it doesn't get an entry on the page - and nobody then complains. I also get very few comments on it in person at the conventions I attend myself. And, though I absolutely do not maintain the page in the hope of making a profit, I do notice that the tip jar feature has received exactly zero income in all the time it's been open.

This is pushing me toward the conclusion that the page is no longer of any use to anyone, presumably because gamers are hearing about conventions through this new-fangled socially medium stuff or something. Hence, as maintaining it costs me a little time and effort, I'm considering just letting it die.

However, if it does still serve a useful purpose, I'll be glad to hear it, by e-mail or through comments here, and I'll try to keep it going.

Me, in Audio Form

Just in case anyone is wondering what I sound like these days - I recently gave an interview to a roleplaying games podcast, Improvised Radio Theatre - With Dice, about my work in the hobby, including The Small Folk and other stuff.

Concert: Marina and the Diamonds

Cambridge Corn Exchange, 20th November 2015

I've been to a handful of rock and pop concerts this year (and yeah, I've neglected to blog about them), and one thing that's become obvious is that high-quality, presumably back-projected video screens have now become financially entirely accessible to, well, a lot of the sort of bands who play the Corn Exchange. Marina and the Diamonds are using theirs to show some pretty good pop-art-flavoured visuals during their current tour, but I suspect that the system isn't entirely bug-free, and may have been the cause of the dread Technical Difficulties which generated about an hour's delay between the support act (who didn't make much of an impression on me; I think they could do with something to fill the sonic space between the thud of bass and drums and the ping of synthesisers and falsetto of the singer) and the main event. At least, the screens once or twice displayed giant Windows menu bars in that time, which I take as a sign of glitches. Add in a notable amount of time spent queueing outside before the doors opened, and, well, things ran a bit late. Then, it turned out that the lighting designer had decided to silhouette Marina herself with a full-strength white spot, angled up from behind her, for some songs. Which would be fine if it hadn't meant everyone in the balcony going "Aaargh" and shielding their eyes...

All of which techie wobbliness was rather unfortunate, because it was actually rather a good gig. Marina Diamandis combines a genuine talent for writing good old-fashioned catchy choruses with a certain amount of stage presence and charisma. This in turn meant that, although she had assembled a highly competent band for this tour, she genuinely didn't need to hire any backing singers; when she wanted vocal filling, all she had to do was point her microphone at the standing audience down at the front and tell them to supply it. (Diamandis does say that the "Diamonds" are her fans, after all...) This approach did leave her slightly more restrained and introspective songs, such as the rather cool "Immortal", looking a little out of place, but overall this was an effective pop-as-in-popular performance. Diamandis manages to be a plausible feminist while wearing three different glittery costumes, one including cute mouse ears, in a ninety minute show, too.

It has to be said that Diamandis's songs aren't as clever as they maybe think they are; the message in the likes of "Savages" is hardly subtle. But then, it's pop music, and its heart is absolutely in the right place. Worth a little waiting and some being dazzled.

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Hmm, I didn't follow up the previous post. Well, The Wars of Atlantis did appear (and still looks nice). But anyway, the other significant thing is the appearance of Transhuman Space: Bio-Tech 2100, my latest TS product, as a PDF from Warehouse 23 - an extended analysis of the place of biotechnology in the world of 2100, in both historical and game-mechanioal terms. Other stuff is still waiting. Print buying can evidently be a big job these days.

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Just in case anyone was wondering, yes, my writing projects continue.

• I've just turned in the first draft of another GURPS project. As usual, I can't talk titles, and I don't know how long this will take to filter through the several stages of the publication process... And the first draft came in seriously over-long... But anyway, it should be interesting when it eventually becomes a saleable PDF.
• The Discworld RPG is completely out of my hands, and moving forward rather slowly - but I gather it's definitely still moving, honest. I'll be running one of my demo scenarios at Stabcon this weekend, actually.
• The Wars of Atlantis is still scheduled for release on the 20th of this month - but I've now got all my comp copies, and they look very nice indeed.

Small on Paper

By way of a small footnote to the immediately previous entry; a few printed copies of The Small Folk are now available from Leisure Games; see their online catalogue here. In addition, a few more should be available from the Modiphius Entertainment stand at UK Games Expo next weekend.

Small, But Perfectly Formed

The wait is over; The Small Folk is out.

What's it about? Well, here's the blurb:

The Small Folk have been lurking on the margins of human society since before the dawn of history, but we humans don't tend to notice them. They're really good at hiding from us. They're also good at arguing, picking fights, sulking, and splitting up into cliques. But they're tough, clever (on their good days), and armed with an array of startling magical powers.

The Small Folk is a game of wainscot urban fantasy, built round the popular FATE rules engine. Take your pick of seven different cliques, from aggressive goblins to oh-so-superior brownies and technophile gremlins (or the cliqueless, because some people just have to be different), and an array of skills and magical powers, personalise your character with aspects and stunts, and get out there and get underfoot.

Oh, and watch out for cats, rats, hawks, mousetraps, and your neighbours.

 Some History, For Them As Are Interested

Ten years or so ago, I wrote a chapter for Guardians of Order's Dreaming Cities, an urban fantasy sourcebook for their Tri-Stat system. It was quite well reviewed, and some people seemed especially to like my chapter. Then GoO went broke, and the rights to the chapter reverted to me.

Over the next few years, I dabbled with various ideas about what to do with this material, and I eventually plumped for self-publishing. So I looked around for an Open Gaming License rule set to use for this purpose, and plumped for Fate, and specifically the "Free FATE" variant. After I'd plugged the system and rules together, filled and sanded the joints, and applied a layer of varnish (with the aid of some very useful peer review), I had a 116-page book which I could sell as a PDF with a reasonably clear conscience.

Then, well, stuff intervened for a while. But in due course, I commissioned Steve Stiv to do me a cover (and got a little bit of really good interior art out of the deal as well, because Steve is a great guy), and sorted out a business arrangement with Warehouse 23, and now, here it is. Yours for $11.99.

For Those Who Prefer Paper

 Although this is basically an electronic publication, just as an experiment, I had a few copies printed off by Lulu,  and I've now sold some of those on to Leisure Games. So they should be available from there soon, if not already.