Of Magic and Mad Science

GURPS 4e Magic and news about GIRL GENIUS

By Kurt Wilcken

As I've mentioned before, GURPS is my favorite system for homebrew role-playing campaigns. It is a flexible rule system which works well in a wide range of genres. This past year, Steve Jackson Games has upgraded its Basic Set (which I commented on in this thrilling installment) and since then has been putting out new editions of some of its core books to be compatable with the Fourth Edition. I recently picked up one of these revised books, GURPS Magic.

The GURPS Basic Set gives a general overview of the magic system and a sampling of representative spells, good enough for a campaign where magic is only used occasionally and usually by NPCs; but for most fantasy campaigns, especially if the Player Characters can use magic themselves, the GM will want a more extensive treatment.

Like the other GURPS 4th Edition books, the new GURPS Magic is bound in hardcover and printed on glossy paper with clean, easy-to-read design and adequate color illustrations. The binding problems with the first printing of the 4e Characters book have been remedied; this sucker is made to last. The book's graphic design is consistent with the Basic Set, and also has color-coded chapters to aid in finding things; something I find very helpful.

The illustrations... well, they're adequate. They're nice; they're in color; they do the job of visually breaking up the page. They just don't sing to me. I don't find them as intriguing or imagination-sparking as some of the black & white illustrations from the previous edition. I suppose it's a matter of personal taste.

The book compiles the two earlier suppliments, GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimoire into one convenient volume. The bulk of it is comprised of a big list of spells taken from both earlier books and arranged by "College": a chapter for Animal Spells, a chapter for Plant Spells, a chapter for Fire Spells, a chapter for Etc. Spells.

Unlike classic D&D, magic spells in GURPS are treated as skills. Just as if your character wanted to trim the cat's claws, you would roll against his Animal Handling: Cat Skill, if he wanted to turn the cat into a cactus, (because even with a 14 or less skill, the cactus is still easier to take care of) he would roll against his Skill in the Transmogrifcation Spell. Instead of arbitrarily limiting the number of spells a wizard can cast each day, mages in GURPS are limited by having the spells cost fatigue points; (that, and the chance they might blow a spell roll at an embarrassing moment).

Another major difference between D&D and GURPS Magic is in spell advancement. In classic D&D, as a mage character advances in rank, he has more spells available to him; the higher the rank, the more powerful the spells he can cast. GURPS does not require you to achieve a certain level to cast certain spells, but it does make you work for them. Most of the spells have prerequisites which must be acquired before the spell can be learned. This is also true with some of the mundane skills, too; for example, in order to learn the Surgery Skill, you must also have the Physician Skill; but with the Magic Spells, most of them have prerequisites and many of the prerequisites also have prerequisites.

This can be frustrating for the player who just wants to create a Storm to discover that he also has to learn Rain, Hail, Snow, Clouds, Frost, Create Water and probably a couple other spells as well. But looked at from the other direction, this approach has a certain logic to it. Each College of Spells has a few entry-level spells with no prerequisites upon which the other spells are built.

I have previously mentioned in this column GIRL GENIUS, Phil and Kaja Foglio's wonderful steam-powered gaslight comic of Adventure, Romance and Mad Science. (And if you are not reading it, I shall have to come to your house in my Electric Zeppelin and send my army of Steam Weasels to destroy your X-MEN collection). This week, Studio Foglio made an important announcement regarding the series:

GIRL GENIUS GOES ONLINE!
WWW.GIRLGENIUSONLINE.COM

Our biggest news is that the main Girl Genius storyline will be moving to girlgeniusonline.com-starting April 18. All new material will be available for free reading, one page at a time, updating Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Graphic novels will still come out once a year (through Diamond Book Distribution, hooray!), but we’re suspending the production of the periodicals. This will free up a lot of my time, save some trees, and cut our overhead at a time when we really need to do something. Plus, I have to say, periodical comics serve two functions; one as a frequent reminder that we exist-sort of a placeholder; and two as a cheap entry point for new readers experimenting to see if they want to commit to the series. The Girl Genius comics, at the higher end of the price scale and on a quarterly release schedule, didn’t really do this as well as a more frequent Web presence will.

I am very excited about this move-it’s something that we’ve wanted to do for years but have been too chicken to try. We have a lot of faith in the Girl Genius story and characters, and believe that by giving new readers access to them in a way that is risk-free, we will only grow our readership. We’re a tiny little company. Big movies like Steamboy and Sky Captain will always stampede over us-- we cannot compete on their level. We simply haven’t got the money for advertising. This is something that we CAN do-make our story our advertising. It’s a model that has worked out before-television works this way. You give your primary product away for free and make your money on the licensing and advertising. It’s scary, but it will be fun!

Current subscribers will be hearing from us soon-we will be offering several ways to reimburse them for the unused portion of their subscription fees. As always, if there are any concerns, you should certainly contact us. We do our best to sort problems out when they arise.

I have to admit, I'm a bit apprehensive about what this means for the fate GIRL GENIUS. I like having a real, live comic book made of atoms and molecules in my hands as opposed to a virtual comic of photons on my computer screen. I guess it's the luddite in me. But either way, GIRL GENIUS is a great comic and I hope it prospers.

You will be able to read the continuing adventures of Agatha Heterodyne at:http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/index.html and keep watching Airship Books for more details.

If you have any comments, whether magical or mundane, you can either e-mail me, or roll vs. your 18 or less Teleport Spell over to our Nifty Pop Thought Forum. I live for feedback.

Nil Desparandum.

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