The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Before I review GURPS Myth, I should divulge where I'm coming from. I'm a GURPS player and fan. However, I'm not much of a computer gamer. Indeed, since I don't run either Windows or MacOS, there aren't many computer games out there which I can play. Myth is one computer game that I have never played, and indeed hadn't even heard of before the announcement of GURPS Myth. As such, this review will be a sort of "outsider's" perspective.

GURPS Myth is a worldbook for a fantasy world designed for unabashed hack-and-slash roleplaying. The tone of the worldbook is set by the first line of the introduction: "Let's be honest. At its core, roleplaying's about indiscriminately whacking things." You may disagree, but given that premise, GURPS Myth describes an interesting and storied world which is the ideal setting for powerful and effective characters who want to see a lot of combat.

The tone of the world is itself just about right for a combat-oriented game as well. Specifically, the world is serious and deadly enough that you can set real stories therein, so that the conflicts have some meaning. However, it does not take itself too seriously.

There are chapters on the history of the world of Myth, as well as the current geography, political situation, and technology. The largest chapter of the book, comprising about a third of its page count, presents the racial templates for all the Myth races and character types. The bulk of the new races are "dark" races, or as we like to say in the business, "monsters". Presenting them as character templates is a nice touch; it allows for PCs which are members of these races, and also encourages the GM to vary his monsters and create real NPCs out of them. For GMs who don't want to futz around with this, but rather just want to get get the beasties in play, there is also a complete, read-to-use "standard" version of each creature. After the racial descriptions are character templates, perhaps familiar to GURPS readers from such books as GURPS Wizards, GURPS Warriors, and GURPS Traveller. These templates give the basic attributes and skills necessary for the character archetypes from the Myth game.

The world of Myth is definitely a high powered one. The standard versions of the dark races would eat typical basic beginning GURPS characters for lunch, so GURPS Myth characters will need to be created from a more powerful base; the character templates in the book reflect this. On the high end of the power scale, there are rules for archmagery, and suggested optional rules allowing mages to do truly spectacular and deadly things. (And that's even without the munchkin's fantasy "dream" spells, a couple of which are described in GURPS Myth.) One caveat about this: don't purchase Myth if you are only looking for rules for archmagery. The rules basically amount to allowing lots of Extra Fatigue (from Compendium I) and the rules for higher levels of magery (which are described in a paragraph in GURPS Wizards). GURPS Myth rightfully points out that these extra rules horribly break what power balancing there is in the GURPS magic rules, and as such are probably not appropriate in most games that aren't GURPS Myth games. On the other hand, if you're already running an anything-goes, high-explosive, uberpowered fantasy game, the races and rules from Myth might be easily adapted to your campaign.

The last chapter of GURPS Myth deals with "E-roleplaying". This includes three pages describing some of the forms of roleplaying that have appeared with the advent of the internet: PBEM and chat room gaming. What is potentially the most interesting part of this chapter, however, is something that I am inable to try out myself. There are conversion rules for taking your GURPS Myth characters and turning them into characters for the Myth computer game, and vice versa. With these, it appears that you could use the Myth computer game as a fast, furious, and exciting combat system for your roleplaying game! So far as I am aware, this is the first time that a fusion between a computer game and a tabletop RPG has been attempted for use as part of the same game, as opposed to adaptions one way or the other. I would be interested to hear how well this system works for those who have actually been able to try it. I predict that we will see more of this in the future.

The book is well written, and is an easy and entertaining read. The black and white line art of GURPS Myth is quite good, and uniform enough in style to help establish a mood as you read the worldbook. Although not quite as good in quality, it did remind me of the style of Eric Hotz's work from the Harn material. (This is ironic, considering that the tone of Myth is as different as could be from that of Harn.)

In the end, GURPS Myth is very effective at what it does. If you're the sort of roleplayer who eschews combat, and who is annoyed by the focus of so many RPGs on combat, then you will probably not be pleased with GURPS Myth, and indeed may be put off by the occasional glib comment. But if you're looking for a high powered fantasy world in which to bash things and to clear out rooms with massive fireballs, then GURPS Myth is your best bet when it comes to GURPS. Most importantly, if you're a roleplayer and a fan of the computer game Myth, then you will definitely want to check out GURPS Myth.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

GURPS Myth
Author: Gene Seabolt Category: game Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games Line: GURPS Cost: $19.95 Page count: 128 ISBN: 1-55634-413-9 SKU: 6095 Capsule Review by R. Knop on 05/09/00. Genre tags: Fantasy	Before I review GURPS Myth, I should divulge where I'm coming from. I'm a GURPS player and fan. However, I'm not much of a computer gamer. Indeed, since I don't run either Windows or MacOS, there aren't many computer games out there which I can play. Myth is one computer game that I have never played, and indeed hadn't even heard of before the announcement of GURPS Myth. As such, this review will be a sort of "outsider's" perspective. GURPS Myth is a worldbook for a fantasy world designed for unabashed hack-and-slash roleplaying. The tone of the worldbook is set by the first line of the introduction: "Let's be honest. At its core, roleplaying's about indiscriminately whacking things." You may disagree, but given that premise, GURPS Myth describes an interesting and storied world which is the ideal setting for powerful and effective characters who want to see a lot of combat. The tone of the world is itself just about right for a combat-oriented game as well. Specifically, the world is serious and deadly enough that you can set real stories therein, so that the conflicts have some meaning. However, it does not take itself too seriously. There are chapters on the history of the world of Myth, as well as the current geography, political situation, and technology. The largest chapter of the book, comprising about a third of its page count, presents the racial templates for all the Myth races and character types. The bulk of the new races are "dark" races, or as we like to say in the business, "monsters". Presenting them as character templates is a nice touch; it allows for PCs which are members of these races, and also encourages the GM to vary his monsters and create real NPCs out of them. For GMs who don't want to futz around with this, but rather just want to get get the beasties in play, there is also a complete, read-to-use "standard" version of each creature. After the racial descriptions are character templates, perhaps familiar to GURPS readers from such books as GURPS Wizards, GURPS Warriors, and GURPS Traveller. These templates give the basic attributes and skills necessary for the character archetypes from the Myth game. The world of Myth is definitely a high powered one. The standard versions of the dark races would eat typical basic beginning GURPS characters for lunch, so GURPS Myth characters will need to be created from a more powerful base; the character templates in the book reflect this. On the high end of the power scale, there are rules for archmagery, and suggested optional rules allowing mages to do truly spectacular and deadly things. (And that's even without the munchkin's fantasy "dream" spells, a couple of which are described in GURPS Myth.) One caveat about this: don't purchase Myth if you are only looking for rules for archmagery. The rules basically amount to allowing lots of Extra Fatigue (from Compendium I) and the rules for higher levels of magery (which are described in a paragraph in GURPS Wizards). GURPS Myth rightfully points out that these extra rules horribly break what power balancing there is in the GURPS magic rules, and as such are probably not appropriate in most games that aren't GURPS Myth games. On the other hand, if you're already running an anything-goes, high-explosive, uberpowered fantasy game, the races and rules from Myth might be easily adapted to your campaign. The last chapter of GURPS Myth deals with "E-roleplaying". This includes three pages describing some of the forms of roleplaying that have appeared with the advent of the internet: PBEM and chat room gaming. What is potentially the most interesting part of this chapter, however, is something that I am inable to try out myself. There are conversion rules for taking your GURPS Myth characters and turning them into characters for the Myth computer game, and vice versa. With these, it appears that you could use the Myth computer game as a fast, furious, and exciting combat system for your roleplaying game! So far as I am aware, this is the first time that a fusion between a computer game and a tabletop RPG has been attempted for use as part of the same game, as opposed to adaptions one way or the other. I would be interested to hear how well this system works for those who have actually been able to try it. I predict that we will see more of this in the future. The book is well written, and is an easy and entertaining read. The black and white line art of GURPS Myth is quite good, and uniform enough in style to help establish a mood as you read the worldbook. Although not quite as good in quality, it did remind me of the style of Eric Hotz's work from the Harn material. (This is ironic, considering that the tone of Myth is as different as could be from that of Harn.) In the end, GURPS Myth is very effective at what it does. If you're the sort of roleplayer who eschews combat, and who is annoyed by the focus of so many RPGs on combat, then you will probably not be pleased with GURPS Myth, and indeed may be put off by the occasional glib comment. But if you're looking for a high powered fantasy world in which to bash things and to clear out rooms with massive fireballs, then GURPS Myth is your best bet when it comes to GURPS. Most importantly, if you're a roleplayer and a fan of the computer game Myth, then you will definitely want to check out GURPS Myth. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)