Steve Jackson's Blog, page 99

March 7, 2023: GURPS Bundles Of Holding Available Now

Bulk up your (digital) bookshelf with GURPS sourcebooks at a steep discount. From March 6 until March 27, Bundle of Holding is offering two new GURPS bundles: GURPS 4E Combat Action Collection and GURPS 4E Supers Collection. Funds from this campaign will support Direct Relief, an organization that sends protective gear and critical care medications to U.S. health workers and facilities as well as to regional response agencies worldwide.

The Combat Action Collection combines the GURPS Martial Arts sourcebook with GURPS Tactical Shootin g, GURPS Gun Fu , and three other GURPS High-Tech supplements: Adventure Guns and Pulp Guns 1 and 2 . If that isn't enough, the Bonus Collection adds five GURPS Action supplements, four GURPS Martial Arts supplements, and Transhuman Space: Martial Arts 2100 .

The Supers Starter Collection jumpstarts your Supers campaign with the classic GURPS Supers and GURPS Powers . Upgrade to the Power-Up Collection and you get four GURPS Powers expansions and nine Power-Ups supplements!

You get a lot for a little and support a good cause while you're at it. If you've been wanting to bring a friend into the game – why not send them a bundle, too? Make sure to check out this Bundle of Holding campaign soon. It's all over on March 27!

– Alain Dawson

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

March 6, 2023: Tabloids At PensaCon

We showed Tabloids  (first mentioned here) at Pensa - Irene, Emma, and I all played, and then we had four people come up to join and none of the three originals wanted to drop out, so we just played with seven. This made the cards run out quicker but had no other effect.

It went well! The game wrapped quickly, but not too quickly, and we had a tabloid with seven peculiar and scandalous headlines. I was the only one who did not win a round, which just goes to show something or other.

Current status of the game – We are happy with the rules and cards. We are still going back and forth on the cover. We are ready, though, to get Tabloids into our Kickstarer queue. The base set will be 328 cards. Since extra words just add to the fun, the stretch goals will be more cards, separately packaged so they can be added to the Kickstarter edition only.

Here's Irene's pic of the outcome of the game . . . the winning headline from each round.

– Steve Jackson

(NOTE: We haven't decided if Tabloids will get a wide release post-Kickstarter or limited release, so we're unsure of which Kickstarter account we'll use for the crowdfunding stage. Please follow both Steve Jackson Games and Warehouse 23 on Kickstarter so that you don't miss Tabloids , regardless of which decision we make. -PR)



Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

March 5, 2023: Like Us On Facebook For News, Photos, And Videos!

We post to the Daily Illuminator every day, and have for over two decades . . . but we know you can't always make a visit to sjgames.com a part of your routine. Fortunately, in today's world, there are other ways to keep in touch with us and stay up to date on our latest projects. One such way, which we know is perfect for many of you, is to like the Steve Jackson Games page on Facebook.

We use our Facebook page to share everything . . . not just about existing games, but also photos of prototypes and unannounced games. The Facebook page is also a great place to let us know what you're playing, as well as a tool you can use to tag your friends and ask, "Hey, want to play this newest Steve Jackson game with me?"

Like us on Facebook today!

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

March 4, 2023: Blowing Up Barrels

5 Barrel is a brewery and taproom in downtown Pensacola. They were good enough to sponsor the PensaCon boardgame room . . . and they also hosted the SJ Games team for an evening demo game of Car Wars 6th Edition.

Two of our players were familiar with older editions of the game. The other two learned quickly. Many dice were rolled, and many things blew up, including (by the time the game had ended) three of the harmless-looking barrels placed around the oval track. We added a special rule just for this game, too. The cars started out at equal intervals around the track, and each starting position was marked. When a car came around and touched its original position, it instantly got a complete out-of-sequence firing phase. That gave the drivers another reason to put the pedal to the metal! In the end, that bonus was only earned once, and I think it was decisive.

This was a great game. 5 Barrel has a fine, comfortable ambience, not so loud that we could not play, not so quiet that we were bothering anybody else. All the players showed great spirit, helping each other with the rules even as they tried to destroy each other on the track. (And everyone had taken an Armored Beer Refrigerator, so it was a very . . . Southern . . . sort of event.)

Vehicle painting, structure painting, photography, and 90% of the refereeing by Irene Zielinski. Mostly I just watched and shared the good time. And it WAS good.

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

March 3, 2023: GM's Day Sale On Warehouse 23

When was the last time you were nice to your Game Master? I'm not talking "my character's background is only 4 pages long this time" either. Roleplaying games are amazing, and GMs do so much work to make the game enjoyable for the players. From legendary encounters to tricky traps, GMs weave layers of storytelling into games, using games like  GURPS and The Fantasy Trip , among many more. GM's Day happens March 4 and we're celebrating them all weekend with our GM's Day Sale on Warehouse 23, March 3-6! 

Get discounts across the board on all GURPS books and PDFs, The Fantasy Trip books and PDFs, and more. Pick up a new adventure to inspire your fearless leader to start up a new campaign! Or snag some new dice and dice bags at a discount. Who knows, maybe your GM will use the dice you gave them against you for something great*! 

The sale is taking place on our new Warehouse 23, so make sure to register on the site. You can find instructions here. Fill your GM's library with some new adventures, or maybe just stock your own coffers with RPG goodness! 

*Steve Jackson Games is not responsible for any dice used by your GM to kill your character. 

– Hunter Shelburne

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

March 2, 2023: Gelatinous Second Edition

We first released Gelatinous as a Warehouse 23 exclusive title in 2020. We had hoped to put the game into widespread release, but the combination of pricey manufacturing costs plus the global pandemic relegated the first edition to direct sales only. Fortunately, the game did quite well and we have decided to roll the dice on a second edition. Gameplay is unchanged, but we've switched the packaging to a box (with windows, to show the green glitter dice) and included game aids to make it easier than ever to teach Gelatinous to your friends.

The new edition is now reaching our primary warehouse and currently scheduled for release to stores in March. If you already own the first edition, then there's no reason to grab this newest version . . . unless you want to add even more players to your game sessions!* If you missed out on that first release, please visit your favorite local game store today to pre-order the game. Between the quick, fast-playing rules and the gaggle of glittery dice, this is a great addition to your library. It is excellent for families and can be taught by gamers of any age . . . as demonstrated in this video from Play the Game HQ.



– Phil Reed

* Please note that the dice are not identical between the first and second editions, and combining dice from the two editions may make the game slightly more challenging. Of course, some of you may want a tad more difficulty in your dexterity games.

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

March 1, 2023: Say Hello To The New Warehouse 23

Warehouse 23 has been our direct sales home base for years now, and has served us well. But like most things in the digital realm, it needed a bit of an upgrade to keep up with the times, so we're officially introducing our New Warehouse 23 store on Shopify! You may have seen our Daily Illuminators about Shopify, or even made some purchases as a beta tester (thank you all for helping)!

As of this month, Warehouse 23 has officially transitioned to the new site. You will no longer be able to place orders on the old site. Banners on the old home page will direct you to click through to the new store.If you're an existing user of Warehouse 23, it's easy to activate your present account on the new Shopify site: Click here to visit the login page at the new site. Then, under "Create an Account," click "Register." Be sure to sign up using the same email address you used on the original Warehouse 23. The email address is very important! Once you've done this, you're all set. If you've never shopped online with us before: go here to create your account.If you have purchased PDFs or other digital files from Warehouse 23 in the past, many of them are already in your account in the new store. Please note that we are still porting over existing files, and this could take anywhere from a week to several weeks. You will find message updates in your Shopify library; watch these for the latest info!This is a big transition for the whole team, so please be patient as they complete the changeover and reply to customer service requests. If you have questions that still aren't answered, please write to help@sjgames.com.

Welcome to the new incarnation of Warehouse 23! 

– Hunter Shelburne

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

February 28, 2023: Hexagram 11 Kickstarter Ends Today

The newest issue of our zine dedicated to The Fantasy Trip , Hexagram #11, has funded on Kickstarter! Those folks who have missed it so far only have a few more hours to jump in! This new issue contains 13 articles featuring a variety of ideas to add to your  Fantasy Trip game, written by the phenomenal authors you have come to expect in Hexagram (and introducing a brand-new one!).

Some of my favorites involve how to use our newest (and unique) dice, like The Elder Futhark and Seven Deadly Sins dice, in your tabletop games. This campaign also includes Quick Quest #9: Grand Opening . These adventures are perfect for one-shots that take one or two sessions, or to insert into an existing tabletop campaign. They are particularly good for GMs that need a bit more inspiration, so if you're new to the game, you should defintely try out a Quick Quest . And if you're brand new, I recommend that you take advantage of our New To Fantasy Trip pledge, which is not only a great starting point for the game, but also features a signed copy of Melee !   Learn how to play and get an SJ-signed item? You can't lose!

Make sure to get your pledge in soon, as the campaign ends later today! 

– Hunter Shelburne

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

February 27, 2023: New Pocket Box Games Headed To Stores This Summer

As we try to fit our upcoming Pocket Box Kickstarter campaign into the schedule (more projects than space on the calendar!), we've moved three of the planned games into manufacturing and will offer them to our distribution partners this summer. The three games selected for this release path are: Proteus . Played on a standard chess board, each side gets 8 dice, with a different piece on each face. You start with 8 pawns, but each turn you get to change one of your dice to a more powerful piece. But as your pieces get more powerful, they become worth more points to your opponent! Tribes. In Tribes, the players are cave men and women. They hunt and gather food, make their tribal laws, and deal with natural disasters. But the object of the game is simple: Look after the children! In this game, the way to win is to have the most kids, and do whatever you have to do to make sure they survive to adulthood. The players must know when to cooperate, and when to cut their losses and protect their own families. Caligula. Under the dissolute Emperor Caligula, the Roman Senate gets down to serious business: drinking. But they keep on making laws. The usual penalty for disobedience: take another drink! Can you make laws that will trap your friends into going broke . . . or just not being able to find the table? This is a drinking game. Please don't buy it unless you are of age.All three games are in the manufacturing process and will be properly announced soon. Please watch our New Releases page for information on all of our upcoming titles, both new games and reprints, and please follow both Steve Jackson Games and Warehouse 23 on Kickstarter to receive email notification when the other planned Pocket Box titles are ready for crowdfunding.

– Phil Reed

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

February 26, 2023: Clear, Detailed, And Wrong

Andrew Walters writes: "I am asking ChatGPT questions about Munchkin rules and cards. It is wrong 100% of the time, even with questions that are on the FAQ. ChatGPT says, explicitly, that the Munchkin FAQ was part of its training material.

"The responses were perfectly grammatically correct, detailed, and sounded very confident. And wrong every time. Well, 0/5. I have a transcript."

Example: "In the card game Munchkin, the Kneepads of Allure allow you to have one additional player (beyond your normal allies) to assist you in combat. The card text reads: "You may ask one more player than usual to help you in combat. This item is worth no bonuses. Usable once only."

Err . . . Wrong, wrong, wrong. Sounded good, though!

Chat GPT is here to entertain you (and it can provide some fine Game Master descriptions of imaginary places.) But it's not really artificial intelligence. It has ZERO intelligence. It is using the rules of grammar to scramble and re-present phrases it has found online . . . and it has no way to "know" what is objectively right. Compared to ChatGPT, Jon Snow knows everything.

So don't use this program as your Munchkin referee. Unless, of course, you really like arguments!

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!