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Introduction

Very recently, Steve Jackson Games began offering their GURPS Fourth Edition books as PDF downloads via e23, SJ Games' virtual warehouse. I will be reviewing the electronic version of GURPS Fantasy here.

Specs

Just like GURPS Magic, the electronic version of GURPS Fantasy is $10 cheaper than the hardcopy. The e23 site is very easy to navigate and I had no difficulty downloading this 7MB PDF file. There is no watermarking or DRM scheme to restrict your access to the file. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: This is a Good Thing. I respect a company that respects me and doesn't assume I'm a thief; currently, there's no DRM scheme in existance that doesn't make it harder to do honest, legal things with the product you paid for (like taking it to Kinko's to print a single hardcopy) -- so thank you, SJ Games, for making my life easier, here.

The PDF is done very professionally. The full front and back covers are included, along with a filler "product description" page and the 240 pages of content found in the hardcopy. The file loads and views fine on every PDF viewer I tried under both Windows and Linux. The document is fully bookmarked; every chapter gets its own heading with sub-headings and sub-sub-headings for sections and sub-sections within the book. Basically, the Table of Contents is available as a bookmark on the side of the screen when viewing the file; it's very useful. There are no internal hyperlinks, but that's to be expected in a product conceived of as a physical book. The addition of such links would be useful and much appreciated, but are not really necessary here.

Worldbuilding 101

GURPS Fantasy (hereafter referred to as just Fantasy) is a toolkit book, full of advice, rules, and examples to help any GM create and run a fantasy game. It favors medival fantasy but also delves into everything from ancient myth to wuxia to the "hidden fantastic world" of many modern day conspiracy games -- fantasy, after all, is the realm of the fantastic, and the fantastic can happen in many settings. But don't let me get ahead of myself...

Chapter One, "Planning the Campaign," discusses the decisions that must be made and the ground rules that must be laid out for any fantasy game. The book gives definitions and examples of the various fantasy genres (High or Low Fantasy, Dark or Light Fantasy, etc.) and the tropes and cliches that define them, along with advice on crossovers. It discusses where the game will take place, briefly (Chapter Three goes into this in depth), and then goes into detail on the scope of the game -- the whole campaign could take place in a single location or it could involve travelling all over the world. Fantasy offers a few middle-ground approaches between those two extremes.

Chapter Two, "The Supernatural," delves into the things that make a world fantastic, starting with what magic is -- for example, does it come from within the mage or is it a separate force? Both options have interesting implications, and Fantasy explores this with several options and ideas that match up to each worldview. (Several of these options involve changes to the magic system, and include a forward reference to the rules in Chapter Seven.) Several classes of magical objects are discussed, such as the fantastic items that may occur naturally in a fantasy world (e.g., dragon's blood, which allows one to understand animal speech.), fetishes (items with spirits bound inside), and "named objects", which are simply normal objects given names (via symbolic inscriptions and such), that may gradually grow into magical items based on the great deeds that their owners do. Neat stuff. We also get advice on deciding how common magic items will be in the game world, and how this ties into the world's mana level.

Next is advice on how to create and use magical beings -- such as spirits, gods, angels, and demons -- and the half-human offspring that they seem to regularly produce in myth. One sidebox even gives advice on how to build an actual god, for GMs crazy enough to allow diefic PCs and willing to give them the thousands of points necessary to pull it off. The magical realms in which they live get some focus as well, from the Dreamlands and Faerie Realms to Heaven and Hell, along with what you can do (story-wise) with each one. In a high fantasy game, for example, if one of the PCs dies, there's no reason why the group can't maneuver their way into the realm of the dead and challenge the gatekeeper(s) (or god(s)) to a contest to win back his life! In fact, the question of what happens after death can be quite important to a fantasy game, so Chapter Two concludes with a few different options, from rising as the undead to reincarnation and from resurrection to ascencion into godhood... death clearly doesn't have to be The End if the campaign setting doesn't demand it.

Chapter Three, "Worlds," now gets into specifics about the world itself and what's in it. First, the world itself -- is it a planet, flat world, multi-planet system, etc.? Unless the game is set on Earth as we know it, the map may need to be altered (or a new one drawn.) Fantasy also offers several ways to make the environment feel like a magical one, from exaggeration (deserts where the sands are hot enough to kill instantly) to impossibilities (islands in the sky); advice for setting mana levels (and things like aspected mana and ley lines) is part of this.

Populating your new world is important, of course, so the chapter goes into fantastic plants, animals, and monsters next. The text introduces the concept of emblematic traits -- the one key trait which sums up what makes this particular thing unique and fantastic. I loved this concept, as it reinforces the idea that every new thing introduced to a world, story, or campaign should have a purpose. Fantastic creatures should exemplify concepts or themes, even if they're just serving as window dressing. This is reinforced in the section on monsters, which describes true monsters as extraordinary creatures outside the order of nature (i.e., orcs aren't monsters; they're a race. Dire wolves aren't monsters; they're animals. The Chimera, a unique being with a specific role in this myth, is a monster.) There are eight different kinds of monsters listed, from giants to primordial entities, each with a long description of what sort of monsters fit into that category, how to use them, and a full writeup of a sample monster. (The giant description also includes rules for easily turning any person or beast into a giant version.)

The section on races and cultures is very similar to the discussion of alien races in GURPS Space, breaking up physiologies into human-like, bestial, and "wugs" (disturbing to human eyes), with all of the reasons why a given race would fit into any one of those categories. Nine detailed examples of racial culture follow, from elven bioengineers to human/dragon collaborators, along with a discussion of just where humanity fits in (whether as the dominant race, a minority race, or the only race.) The way in which magic influences technology in any given culture is addressed, from magic replacing tech to true syncretistic "technomagic". Finally, all of this is put together into guidelines for creating true fantasy civilizations, with an emphasis on what makes them interesting. The text offers severa exotic social structures and customs (some from the real world, some not) that can make a society seem more fantastic, including advice on deciding how the civilization interacts with magic, religion, and other cultures.

If Chapter Three helped the GM create a world, Chapter Four, "Histories," helps to make that world real, starting with a surprisingly in-depth treatment of pre-history and mythology -- it hadn't occurred to me to what degree creation myths and such pervade every culture, and thus how important they are, before reading this book. After some advice on adjusting history if you're setting the campaign on Earth, Fantasy describes the various "historical eras" that a fantasy campaign can be set in. The best part about this approach is the continuity that it offers: Civilization starts in a Dawn Age, grows into City-States, then Empires, which turn to Decadence and/or Exhaustion, collapse in a Catastrophe, and fall into Dark Ages until the eventual New Beginnings. So when you decide which era your game is taking place in, you've already got a likely history for your civilization without any extra work! Each era is covered in depth, with advice on how to set your campaign in the game and what sorts of characters and adventures lend themselves to the setting. To help with the fun, the book also gives a couple dozen example disasters -- with quick game rules for typical, minor, major, and historical-level versions -- and ideas for using the relics and ruins of long-gone cultures in a game.

Chapter Five, "Localities," goes from macro to micro: Where does the game actually begin? We're given definitions and lots of useful (i.e., gameable) information about settlements from isolates to imperial capitals, such as how many people live in each, the types of jobs that be supported there, the typical security (guards, walls, etc.), and the transportation used within. It includes a discussion (and a very clear diagram) of how food and goods trade between villages, market villages, and towns. Certain services get their own additional sections with more detail (the ones that adventurers are likely to need -- arms and armor, medical care, inns, etc., along with unofficial "services" such as obtaining hidden information and lore.) Extra attention is given to castles and holy places, two fantasy mainstays, and the chapter concludes with a look at how many mages each settlement might support, and how they'll affect life there.

Crunchy Goodness

The ubiquitous "Characters" chapter (Six) follows, with guidelines about campaign power level and a bevy of racial and occupational templates. The racial templates include all of the common ones (Elves, Dwarves, etc.) along with several particularly unusual ones (e.g., the mute Devilfish and the warrior-ant Myrmidon). A sidebox has rules for turning an creature into a racial template and several other boxes offer "behind the scenes" info and suggestions. The undead are covered as well, both with "undead lenses" (which can be used to turn a person of any race into an undead version) and meta-traits to simplify their creation (in fact, I'm now loathe to create any sort of spirit without using the Fantasy meta-traits -- they make it so much simpler.)

The Advantages, Disadvantages, and Skills section is full of advice on how certain traits apply to a fantasy game. Highlights include a variety of modifiers for Magery (enough to make it fit almost any fictional trope you can think of), a new Modular Ability (Spirit Trapping), and some Talents that are useful enough to belong in the Basic Set. There are also nearly two dozen occupational templates, from Peasant Adventurer to True King, and each one goes into great depth, with lenses and other customization options. Most are followed by one or more job descriptions so you know how much your PC will be taking home every month. In fact, the last part of the chapter is a discussion of wealth, currency, status, and income, along with even more job descriptions. It closes out with new equipment, vehicles, etc., so players will have something to spend all of this money on.

Chapter Seven, "Magical Arts," feels like something taken out of GURPS Magic -- a whole chapter of variant ways to do magic in GURPS. Options are presented for "low magic" (subtle things like making craft-related Talents magical, either to imbue your creations with magic or to exceed mundane limits of skill and craftsmanship), "formulaic magic" (potent effects achieved through slow ritual, including praying to a divine Patron and using spirit powers like Medium and Channeling to order spirits to do your bidding), and "high magic" (slinging fireballs and summoning true miracles at a moment's notice). There are many words devoted to how to change the standard magic system to suit your needs, including using alchemy, psi, chi, or powers as magic; reorganizing the spell colleges (e.g., into five elements, into twelve zodiacs, or into two colleges: white and black); or meditating to build up a "bank" of energy points to be used for potent effect. The new "fixed magic" rules bring Knacks back into Fourth Edition (remember those?) and "modular magic" lets you simulate D&D-style "fire and forget" spellcasting.

Various traditions are simulated with tons of (optional) spellcasting modifiers, such as the laws of correspondence (which allow for voodoo dolls), symbols, and True Names. The rules for turning your body into a living enchantment via magical tattoos were a highlight for me. Rules for using the New Inventions rules (from the Basic Set) to create new spells follow, along with some species-specific magic rules, such as Blood Magic for vampires and Glamour Magic for faerie. The chapter then closes out with an expanded spell list. I was somewhat surprised at this last part, since most people running a fantasy game will probably pick up GURPS Magic, but I have to admit that one could run a typical fantasy game just fine with these extra spells alone.

Chapter Eight, "Storylines," starts with several concepts for fantasy adventures, each one with two or three full-fledged adventure seeds included. For example, Perilous Journies adventures involve danger out in the open, with the heroes having to travel through this wilderness or foreign place. Several reasons for making this journey are given, along with the necessary elements (you must have a reason, a route, and perils, and it's important that the length be appropriate), variations on the theme (e.g., a journey out of Hell), and advice for either dropping this into an existing campaign or building an entire campaign out of it. Several of the adventure seeds tie together, into an interesting concept about an underground labrynith being twisted into a suburb of Hell that you could easily make a campaign out of.

One of those adventuring concepts, "War," is important enough that the last part of the chapter is devoted to it, with a discussion of feudal armies, professional armies, strategies, types of battles, the role of magic and mythical beasts and the undead... and finally, where the player characters fit into all this. The section on Magic and Warfare alone is several pages long, as certain spells can completely change a battle.

The final chapter (Nine), "Roma Arcana," is my favorite, hands-down. In this, the author turns all of the guidelines in the previous eight chapters into a worked example. Instead of going for the typical "Medival England plus Magic" world, though, he creates a world where the Roman Empire has not yet collapsed and where the gods and magic work just as they think it should. Dinosaurs roam in far-off lands and kraken hide out in the deep oceans. There's even a small sidebox with rules for fitting this world into the Infinite Worlds setting if you want.

The best part of this setting, for me, is how it illustrates almost all of the variant magic systems from Chapter Seven. Druids and such use the standard system, but spells take 10 times as long to cast (the caster has to get the attention of a friendly spirit). In addition, certain abilities can be acquired via a Pact with a family's ancestral spirit. Animal sacrifice can be used to enhance spells or other tasks. Anyone can pray to the gods for a boon, or hope for the gods to send a prophetic dream, and sometimes it comes. Rival cults use different methods, however. The worshippers of Bacchus use Powers as Magic, acquiring potent advantages that only work when they're drunk. Worshippers of Mithra gain specific advantages and spells as they rise in the ranks of service. Worshippers of Isis learn ritual magic and also gain special Talents to improve their mundane skills when used in a ritual manner. Jews learn Spirit Trapping to borrow spells from the angels, which they then cast normally. Etruscans use Spirit Powers to sense and affect the spirits of the dead, turning them against the living. Germanic barbarians use magical bear and wolf skins to become lycanthropes. Chaldeans use astrology for divination, and so on. All of these options mean that there's a significant difference in how each group approaches their art, which gives a real feel of diversity and of verisimilitude -- it feels more like a "real" fantasy world to me than one in which magic works in one, predictable manner.

Anywas, as if that weren't enough, this chapter also includes even more occupational templates and job descriptions, most of which can be used just fine outside of Roma Arcana. The chapter concludes with sample NPCs, maps and physical details about the setting, and several fun adventure seeds.

Final Analysis

I take the following into account for Style grades:

Layout: The editing and visual layout of the book is very good. The bookmarks are done well. Diagrams are used where they're necessary and always match to the text. In several places, however, especially the adventure seed section, the sideboxes don't always match to the main text, though (I had to scroll up and down a bit). 4.5

Text: This book is written in a very clear manner; I believe that I understood almost everything the author was trying to impart; I had very few questions. The vignettes and long quotes at the beginning of each chapter were appropriate, though a bit dry at times. 4.0

Art: Good. While there are some unfortunate exceptions, most of the artwork is well done and very appropriate to the text by which it's placed. The "Poser + Photoshop" pieces are still rather prevalent, though at least they're done in a more stylistic manner than in, say, GURPS Magic, and they don't dominate the book. 4.0

Overall Style: 4.2

I take content alone into account for Substance grades:

I was almost surprised by the amount of useful information packed into this book. I feel like I've attended an anthropology class and literature class, but at no point was I bored -- I read Fantasy almost straight-through, eagerly. Honestly, the magical variants and Roma Arcana alone are enough to justify the book's cost, especially at the lower PDF price, and the rest of the information (especially the "historical eras" section) puts it over the top. 5.0

Overall Substance: 5.0

I'd recommend this book highly to any GM who wants to run a fantasy game in GURPS. I'd recommend it almost as highly to any GM running a fantasy game in any system as well! Players may not get quite as much use out of it, though the crunchy parts will appeal to several of them -- I recommend it to any player who thinks they'll find the information herein useful. In other words, if you're looking for a treatment of kabbalistic magic for your character, Fantasy will give you a great treatment of it; pick it up.