Getting an eBook reader means I finally have some more time to read through my extensive (and mostly unread) collection of GURPS PDFs. Since it’s mainly snatches in public transport and before bed, Pyramid proves to be better for this with its semi-short articles. Let’s see how long I can keep it up

Facts

Authors: Matt Riggsby, Sean Punch, Steven Marsh, Andy Vetromile, Stefan Jones, Matthew Pook
Date of Publication: 21/11/2008
Format: PDF-only (Warehouse 23-only)
Page Count:  48 (1 title page, 1 content page, 2 pages ads)
Price: $9 (PDF), $ 0.2 per page of content; Score of 8/10 ($500 Pyramid 3 Bundle: $4.10, $ 0.091 per page, Score 10/10)
Preview: https://warehouse23.com/products/pyramid-number-3-slash-01-tools-of-the-trade-wizards

Review

As all my other reviews this one will be rated according to meat (rules, stats, game mechanics), cheese (setting, characters, story), sauce (form, writing, style, art) and generic nutritional substance (universal nature, adaptability). At the end you find a weighted average of those components and a value score that also takes into account price per page.

The first issue of Pyramid 3 starts off with only two GURPS features (and “‘.’ Is For Full-Stop Drum” only has a two “monster” stat blocks that tie it to GURPS), which is way less than in later issues, where often only the Recommended Reading and Random Thought Table weren’t explicitly for GURPS. Most of the articles have a GURPS-y slant though in that the authors did think of the way magic would impact the world or stories. In my definition that makes it more “cheesy” (fluffy) than “meaty” (crunchy).

Theme-wise it’s solid, even though you could argue that neither a guildhall, nor being mysterious is a physical tool of the trade – but that’s splitting hairs. The only odd one out is the Full-Stop Drum, which still ties into GURPS Alphabet Arcane, which sort of ties it back to the tools motif.

Meat

The main meat article actually deals with flesh – more specifically undead flesh. “Necromantic Tools” by Sean Punch (5 pages) shows aspiring death mages how to graft undead arms to their bodies, how to make skull-tipped wands and a better way to deal with the usual zombie horde as an ally group (incidentally providing a considerable upgrade to the lackluster zombie template from GURPS Magic). The staffs are a little on the boring side, but the rest has a lot of meaty detail.

Apart from that, there are just the monster stats from the “Full-Stop Drum” and a couple of hints scattered through the other articles. The living zombies and the giant badger are nice, with the former being more generally useful.

All in all, nothing bad, some really good stuff, but not a whole lot.

Meat score: 7

Cheese

This is where the issue really shines. Matt Riggsby’s “The Guildhall of the Hermetic Brotherhood” (10 pages) shows what a magical disputation society come regulatory body / research fellowship might look like in a quasi-medieval fantasy setting. Despite the title, the focus is evenly split between the organisation and the building itself with the organisation being quite a bit more interesting. Disregarding the fact that guilds were normally not kingdom-wide organisations, Matt’s take on the whole thing is quite realistic and interestingly written. The guildhall fits the quite mundane nature of the society. Alongside the six pages of text we get four pages of battlemaps with hexes for the guildhall (more about those under sauce). The only thing that’s missing for me are the cellars, but depending on the town that’s not unrealistic either.

Steven Marsh’s “Tooling with Curses” (5 pages) veers into the more immaterial toolbox of wizards and more on the GM’s side too. We get three interesting, non-debilitating and somewhat abusable curses and three boxes and a lead-in on the more general topic of when and why to use curses. A very nice and tight selection, even though I’d have preferred one more curse maybe.

Next we get an (uncredited) instruction of how to fold a “Wizard’s Letter” (5 pages) with steps simple enough for me to follow. The example letter ties things back to the Hermetic Brotherhood again, which is nice. The letter is a neat prop, but nothing extraordinary. I’m a bit mystified as to why they provided the blank back of the letter too, but maybe they thought it was a nice parchment-y colour for printing out. I think there are better options for that, but let’s not quibble about a first issue.

Andy Ventromile’s “Out of the Rough – Magic Gems in RPGs” (6 pages) is a short, but thorough system-neutral treatment of the use of gemstones in fantasy magic. It covers many aspects and, of course, the use of powerstones in GURPS makes this especially interesting to GMs and players in SJG’s house system, but everything is kept generic. Andy gets a little side-tracked in politics in the middle, but it’s still interesting stuff. Just would have liked to see such in a longer treatment. There are only six types of gems (and one of them is pearls) treated individually, so don’t come looking here for correspondences (you can find those in GURPS Thaumatology).

Stefan Jones’ “‘.’ Is For Full-Stop Drum” (3 pages and really awkward to quote something with so many apostrophes / quotation marks in a row) is the odd one out in this issue. It describes a clan-based swamp fisher society that while it uses magic and has some ancient magical history can really only claim a link to theme by way of being part of GURPS Alphabet Arcane. Spoiler: The eponymous drum is very much not a tool for wizards except in the sense of bringing about the apocalypse.

So how does it fare as a description of a society and its past? It’s a decidedly mixed bag. There is some interesting colour, but descriptors such as “savages”, a tradition of contests to gain more women and rigid separate gender roles weren’t en vogue in 2008 and certainly aren’t today. I’d charitably call it a homage to Lovecraftian and leave it at that. What can you do with the whole thing? Not much unless you really want to bring about or prevent an apocalypse, and not a very interesting one at that (but see the meat section).

“Random Thought Table – Seriously Mysterious” (2 pages) by Steven Marsh is thankfully quite a bit fresher and talks about why and how to make wizards look mysterious with a lot of useful tips on how to pull it off in game. Again, this is a generic article, but it’s quite easy to tie it in to GURPS and most systems that have skills. It’s more tricks of the trade actually, but it plays around with some common tropes, showing ways to subvert them. A very fun read.

The humour section was quite mixed again. Murphy’s Rules was fun (at the time) and it was nice seeing Frederick Brackin’s name in print again – a big GURPS fan and supporter, may he rest in peace. “Items Found in a Dead Wizard’s Satchel” made me chuckle, but the “Fnordplay” left me stumped – and I wasn’t the only one (title was fun at least).

For a second article Andy Vetromile gives us “Recommended Reading – Tools of the Trade” (2 pages), which at a first glance is more about wizardly boardgames, but the author does include some nice ways to use board-game materials in your RPGs as well as pointing out some interesting ways of working magic in Deadlands and Unknown Armies. Not an absolute must-read, but a nice little addition.

The second recommended reading “Wizards and Gaming” (2 pages) by Matthew Pook is about a (2008) review of wizardly TTRPGs (and a good helping of how wizards work in D&D, 4th edition). It hasn’t aged too well (e.g. even GURPS had a supplement about a magic school by now), but still has some interesting bits if you like older games.

“Last Words” (1 page) features an interview with Chad Underkoffler, which again gives some helpful characterisation tips – a nice way to close the issue.

All in all, there is some pretty good stuff in there with only five pages falling below average.

Cheese score: 8

Sauce

While the writing is above average to pretty good, the same cannot be said of the art. The cover is nice but was already seen in GURPS Fantasy. The humour page had one decent and new image and a tired old one and there are three more reused third edition illustrations that serve little purpose other than providing visual way-points. What else? There are the folding instructions for the wizard’s letter and while these are not especially inspiring they do serve their purpose better than many online tutorials I’ve seen. Then there’s the map of the Guildhall by Matt Riggsby. I’ve never been a big fan of his maps and this one looks straight out of a Campaign Cartographer 3 tutorial, but it does help with visualising the place. Also it can be used as a battle map. Minus points for not providing battle maps as an image file, though. Virtual tabletops were a thing back then too (and so were printers).

In the end this comes in slightly above average, which is still pretty good for GURPS standards, unfortunately.

Sauce score: 6

Generic Nutritional Substance

As far as roleplaying supplements about magic go, this one is pretty generic. It favours traditional fantasy, but not completely. Several articles can be used in many kinds of settings. It does pretty much require some sort of fantasy, though, being about magic after all.

Generic Nutritional Substance score: 7

Summary

I remember not liking this issue much, when I first read it, but that might have been due to the fact that I loved the online Pyramid with its weekly offerings and disliked the map a lot. I might not have read it from cover to cover, because my time for that was rapidly diminishing. Re-reading it now, I’d say it’s a  roughly average issue of Pyramid 3. Certainly not the best entry point in the series, but not bad either and a fine zine in its own right. It’s more generically useful than many of the later issues too – even outside of GURPS.

If you are planning on buying the Pyramid/3 Bundle for $500 you get an even better deal, but maybe grab some issues from the middle of its run first (or read them over a friend’s shoulder) to see whether it’s your cup of tea. Back in the day all of us online subscribers got this even cheaper as part of half-a-year subscription deal, meaning we paid less than $20 for $54 in product. I want to say that I still think this was extremely generous on the part of SJGames.

Total score: 7.3
Total score is composed of a weighted average of Meat (40%), Cheese (25%), Sauce (20%) and Generic Nutritional Substance (15%). This is a meat-oriented book. A “cheesy” setting- or drama-orientied book would turn the percentages for cheese and meat around.

Value score: 7.65 (8.65 as Pyramid/3 Bundle)
Value Score is composed of the average of Total and Price.

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