I was looking through my hoard (again, it’s not a collection, it’s a hoard… collections are organized) a while ago, and I saw the Discworld Role Playing Game. Discworld, if you don’t know, is a fantasy world created by the late Sir Terry Pratchett, first appearing in the early 1980’s in the novel The Colour of Magic. It’s a flat world, a disc, that rests on the back of four elephants, who stand on the back of Great A’Tuin, a turtle. The world has changed significantly since he first wrote about it – the last novel in the series that I read, entitled “Raising Steam”, tells about the first railway on the Disc – and the fight some Dwarfs put up against it. The RPG, like many I own, is a bit dated. This edition doesn’t include, nor refer to, about half of the series. It’s written using the third edition of the GURPS rules, and includes a “lite” version thereof. To get the most out of the game, though, I’d suggest using the full GURPS rules. GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing System, and it’s published by Steve Jackson Games (the same folks who make Munchkin, amongst other great stuff.) The game system is thorough. You can, given enough character points, make ANY character you wish, from any time you wish. Want an elf wizard? (The Discworld doesn’t have ‘em, but other fantasy universes do.) No problem. Want a cyborg? Ok. A superhero? Can do. A Roman gladiator, an Egyptian priest of Set, a Viking raider, an Old West gunfighter, a Discworld werewolf? No problems. Of course, this thoroughness comes at a price: character creation is fairly slow, very meticulous, and involves math. Lots of math. (*shudder*) Grab some dice, and let’s start killin’ some goblins – … Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel”
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Commodore Tank ClarkCommodore Clark has been the Team Leader of the 33rd STARFLEET Rangers for several years. His monthly articles about games (usually Role-Playing Games -- RPGs -- but sometimes about other tabletop forms of entertainment) appear regularly in the Regulator Charge!, the ship's newsletter. Archives
September 2017
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