seventeenth issue - RPG Review

generic game that promised to handle all genres with one rules set.
At that time, there were two "generic" RPGs: Chaosium's Basic Role­Playing and Hero's HERO System. The trouble is,
you had to buy each genre as its own standalone game, paying for the core rules all over again. If you used BRP, that
meant buying Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld, Stormbringer, etc.; with HERO, that meant getting Champions, Danger
International, Justice, Inc., etc. Also, each game had little tweaks and differences, making lessons learned in one place
troublesome in another place. Eventually, Hero would solve this by reinventing the HERO System as a core rules set ­­
but back in 1985, that was in the future (1989).
Thus, when SJ Games released GURPS in 1986, it was the answer to all of our prayers. Truthfully, it could have been
terrible and we would have made it work! Fortunately, it was a good rules set, so we came to play it almost to the
exclusion of other RPGs by 1990. We also went around talking it up to other RPG groups and at local conventions.
I play GURPS today for two reasons. First, I still believe that it's a good system. I understand gamers who prefer games
that are fine­tuned to a genre, a setting, and/or a play style, but I'm not one of them. I doubt that I would have kept on
playing RPGs if I had had to buy and learn a new rules set
for every campaign. Second, I started working on GURPS
for SJ Games as a freelancer in 1994 and full­time in 1995,
and I firmly believe that a line developer for an RPG has
no business doing that job if he or she doesn't actively and
regularly play the game ­­ not playing leads to getting out
of touch, and from there the journey to terrible products is
a very, very short one.
Do you have favourite GURPS supplements which really
capture the spirit of the game for you?
After 26 years of playing GURPS and 17 years of working
on it, I have such a holistic view of GURPS that I'm not
sure that I have favorites in the sense you mean. The
supplement I've probably used the most is GURPS Magic,
and the one I'm proudest of writing is GURPS Undead . . .
but neither screams "Generic!", so neither captures the
spirit. Maybe that's the thing, though: A good generic
game doesn't lend itself to this sort of reduction ­­ what
captures the spirit is the breadth and depth of the whole
library, not any one item on the shelf.
What exactly do you do at Steve Jackson Games? What
does the day­by­day work of a line editor and author consist of?
"Line Editor" is a catchall title. There are several bits to it:
8 RPG REVIEW ISSUE SEVENTEEN September 2012