Pyramid Pick From The Past
Sherpa, Second Edition
Written by Steffan O'Sullivan
Published by Two Tigers Games
28-page staple-bound digest-size softcover; $8.00
Sherpa, subtitled "A Role-Playing Game for Outdoor Use," never got a review in Pyramid, though it was mentioned twice (once in 1997, when the "pre-first edition" debuted on the web, and then again in 1999 when the first print edition appeared, though the then-editor misattributed the publisher). This is a shame, since Sherpa is cute, light, and fun, much like the marshmallows you'd expect to scorch on a camp-out. (Please don't roast a copy of Sherpa on a stick. It won't end well.)
Before we strike out for the wilderness, remember that 1992 to 1995 was the prime development period for Fudge, when author Steffan O'Sullivan conducted an experiment in game design and development via public newsgroups and mailing lists. With Fudge behind him, O'Sullivan turned to the problem of roleplaying outdoors. And if you like the outdoors and want to roleplay outside without resorting to LARPing, it is a problem: character sheets blow away, pencils break, rulebooks are just too heavy to schlep around the countryside, and if you can find a reasonably flat place to roll a die it will probably drop into something-or-other's burrow. How do you address these problems?
Problem 1: character sheets blow away. Solution: reduce the character information to what can fit comfortably . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: August 4, 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.