Pyramid Review
GURPS for Dummies
Written by Adam Griffith, Bjoern-Erik Hartsfvang, & Stuart J. Stuple
Edited by Christopher Morris, Andy Hollandbeck, Sean Punch, Jessica Kramer, & TECHBOOKS Production Services
Layout & graphics by Carl Byers, Andrea Dahl, Lauren Goddard, Denny Hager, Joyce Haughey, & Heather Ryan
Cartoons by Rich Tennant
432 pages & miniature reference "screen"; $21.00
Perhaps it's the status symbol for the new millennium: you know you've really arrived when someone writes a . . . for Dummies book about your corner of the world. Dungeons & Dragons has its book (two of them, actually), and now there's GURPS for Dummies. The series has allowed increasingly nebulous definitions of its products. This one says its purpose is not to explain GURPS but to give you a better handle on playing it. If you find the core GURPS Basic Set baffling, this won't clear anything up. More accurately, the same material presented in a different way may help but it would be accidental.
The authors claim it's useful for both new and experienced players, and this seems to be true to a point. The building blocks for a character, the development of the campaign, the world-building, assigning character points, even the use of technology . . . if it's in the game book it has a mirror image here. The effect is scattershot, though. In one part, you'll get good insight into why Enemy is an awful disadvantage for your player, but elsewhere you get a laundry list . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: May 12, 2006
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