Chuck Bennett's Games Page

The Realistic Space Travel Project has been moved to the Science Fiction Page.

GURPS is the Generic Universal Role Playing System published by Steve Jackson Games. As the name suggests, this is a generic game system intended to allow roleplaying in any sort of setting desired by the GM (referee) and players. The GURPS Basic Book is all that is needed to play the game, but the company also publishes a multitude of supplemental books with additional rules for adding detail to the game. Examples are Vehicles, Ultra-Tech, Magic, and Martial Arts. Other supplements are worldbooks, such as Space, with rules for creating a broad variety of science fiction settings; Fantasy, a ready-to-use sword & sorcery setting with cultures similar to Europe and the Middle East at the time of the Crusades; Cliffhangers, for running games in the style of the 1930s and 1940s pulp fiction and movie serials; and Conan, for running adventures in the Hyborean Age of the barbarian adventurer created by Robert E. Howard. Historical worldbooks include Vikings, Imperial Rome, and Aztecs.

GURPS Voodoo: The Shadow War is a recent worldbook (late 1995) with a "secret magic" campaign in which the players combat evil supernatural forces in the modern world. Here is a review of GURPS Voodoo that I wrote for the CompuServe RPGames Forum's Crossroads Gazette. For awhile I was working on a GURPS Voodoo campaign based on a Christian biblical view of magic, demons, and spirits. I envisioned something like the "spiritual warfare" works of Frank Peretti (This Present Darkness, etc.), except from the human point of view only, with all of the actions of angels and demons occurring "behind the scenes". The Christian spirit warriors would have to rely on "gifts of the spirit" (would psionic powers be included? and what about the value of "prayer cover" support from those not physically involved in the struggle?) to combat the demonic Corrupters, and would have to be very careful of any alliance with other factions of the Shadow War. I've temporarily moved on to other projects, but if anyone is interested in this subject matter and wants to discuss it, e-mail me. Here are some Bible references that may be of interest: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 (gifts of the spirit); 1 John 4:1-3 (determining what spirits may be trusted); What the Bible Says About Magic; What the Bible Says About Demons; What the Bible Says About Angels; What the Bible Says About Sorcery. Another site that may be of interest is Paranormal Phenomena & The Christian: Introduction - I've only skimmed the intro and made a bookmark, and haven't had time to go back and read it all, so I can't vouch for anything there.

Misc. GURPS Stuff
Here are some GURPS resources that may be of interest:

Traveller was one of the first science fiction roleplaying games, dating back to the mid-1970s RPG boom with the success of the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. The game has been through several incarnations, from the original Black Box set, through the Traveller Book hardback rulebook, and MegaTraveller, to Traveller: The New Era. Over the past twenty years the rules have evolved and (IMHO) improved, and the published campaign setting of the Imperium has also evolved (though not necessarily improved) from the Third Imperium, through the Shattered Imperium (Civil War setting in MegaTraveller), to ??? (whatever they call it in The New Era - I never bought that one). The game's publisher, Game Designers Workshop, recently (early 1996) went out of business. Marc Miller, one of the original authors and still holder of the rights to the game, has started a new company to publish a new rules set and new campaign setting. Further details can be found on Joseph Heck's Traveller News page, and on the Imperium Games website.

Misc. Game-Related Stuff

Questions? Comments? You can e-mail us at: bennett@rollanet.org.

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