If the price is a little steep, you can score a number of books from the order form that will let you build your own time machines, time portals and Tesla-coil conversions. You can even learn the secrets of the Philadelphia Experiment, no naval destroyer required.
-- Suggested by Reid Simmons
The production department is ecstatic over the recent purchase of two spankin' new Macintosh G3 computers. We are currently playing musical computer as we phase out the oldest machines and get information
swapped onto the new ones. The new computers will help us get through the
next few months, as we gear up to bring you loads of neat stuff for the
holiday season.
– Alain Dawson
Alien Races II (for GURPS Traveller)
The second book in the GURPS Traveller Alien Races series, Alien Races 2: Aslan and K'kree addresses the biology, home worlds, culture, and society of
the fierce Aslan, the centaurian K'kree, and two minor species. It details their historical involvement with the Imperium, from first contact to present, and presents racial templates, rules for playing alien characters, and examples of unique technologies and ship designs.
Stock #6607, ISBN 1-55634-392-2 . $20.95.
GURPS Mecha (reprint)
From battlesuited space marines making an orbital drop to cinematic Japanese anime action featuring giant walking tanks piloted by beautiful alien princesses, GURPS Mecha covers the entire genre of mecha action! In the pages of Mecha you'll find an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide to building mecha, special combat rules that emphasize the cinematic nature of mecha combat, and advanced rules with a plethora of options like transforming and combining machines that can turn into cycles or fighter planes, overload boosters, psionic mecha, energy battlesuits, giant swords and shields, even steam punk mecha!
Stock #6021, ISBN 1-55634-239-X . $19.95.
GURPS Warriors
Mighty barbarians hacking away with massive broadswords and battle-weary grunts with cordite-stung eyes come to life! GURPS Warriors expands upon the template system introduced by GURPS guru Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch in GURPS Wizards so you can get on with the game!
Inside you'll find 29 warrior archetypes, along with templates and design advice allowing you to quickly and efficiently recruit your new warrior.
Stock #6085, ISBN 1-55634-393-0 . $19.95.
The next appearance of the Pirate Game will be at Crescent City Con in New Orleans in early August.
-- Steve Jackson
Also in playtest is the first of the long-awaited Superiors books, containing not just the existing expanded write-ups of David, Dominic, Laurence, and Michael, but also all-new material on what it's like to be a Servitor of those Words.
All you need is a Pyramid subscription . . .
-- Keith Johnson
GURPS fans will find the three new lots interesting. We have three copies of the [beautiful!!] new hardback edition of the GURPS Basic Set, with mint condition dustjacket and ad ribbon, signed by both Steve Jackson and the Japanese translator, Hitoshi Yasuda.
We very much appreciate the support you've given the auction. Not only does it give us a way to get Neat Stuff into appreciative hands, but it's also financed the hardware that keeps this website growing and smoking. Thanks!
-- Steve Jackson
-- Suggested by Denis Sarrazin
I can think of no reason not to make GURPS Lite available in LOTS of languages. If you're interested in working on this, contact me. We're not offering to HIRE translators for two dozen languages (sorry, guys) . . . but if you volunteer for your language, we'll post the results in PDF files for everybody to download and copy for free, and the translators will get their names on the finished work. We may also find that game magazines in the various languages want to publish it!
Ideally I'd like to see committees form for each language, since it's harder to do these things alone; these committees might or might not be (or become) MIB cells. Fnord.
The Superiors 1 playtest files are now available to Pyramid subscribers!
-- Keith Johnson
Ten people braved the Texas summer heat and the flying paint pellets. Entirely too much fun was had. For those who have never tried: Getting hit doesn't hurt . . . if the pellet breaks. If it doesn't break, you get a truly livid long-distance hickey. Of course, if the pellet doesn't break, you're not dead; this is some consolation.
Afterwards, we went over to Alain's apartment pool, had a picnic lunch, swam, and told war stories. This was fun; we'll have to do it again someday. Hmm . . . maybe a challenge match with the Illuminati Online folks?
-- Steve Jackson
Dragon*Con '99 was held in Atlanta Georgia from July 1st to the 4th, and SJ Games (in the form of my humble self and a crew of MiBs) was there!. I got to meet some old friends and made a few new ones. Our booth was located directly opposite a place that runs a haunted house in Atlanta, and there were almost always several costumed creatures patrolling the aisle, to the excitement and chagrin of children of all ages.
The two seminars I gave were well-attended, and sales were good -- we ran out of Deluxe Illuminati on Friday, and had to have more shipped in to satisfy the ravenous crowds. We reserved our space for next year, and I plan on returning.
MIBs at the con/booth workers: (L to R) Lee Walker, Loren Wiseman, Matt Lee, Steve Fritz and Bill Sides. I don't know who took the picture, but fortunately, they didn't take the camera!
Loren Wiseman in the SJ Games booth before the crowds were admitted Friday morning. Bill Sides took the picture.
I assume this is just using raw actuarial averages, since it doesn't ask any lifestyle questions at all. It's still fun. Kind of . . .
-- Steve Jackson
That should end that particular tempest . . .
-- Steve Jackson
The site also offers insights into Buddhist philosophy and is available in Japanese.
-- Suggested by Jeff Wilson
Note, please: if you have a game aid under evaluation, or a currently unanswered question, there is no need to write John right now to say "What's the status?" The status is, he has a lot of mail to go through, and about 3 dozen files to get up to speed on, and duplicate inquiries won't make his job any easier . . . If you haven't heard anything from him in, say, three weeks, THEN you might want to make sure nothing has fallen through the cracks.
-- Steve Jackson
However, amazon.com has a page for Hot Lead, with a note saying "out of print." This is one of literally dozens of errors in their listings of our products (which is why we don't point to them) . . . and we've warned amazon about their errors before, but they don't seem to get fixed.
The funny thing, though, is that now somebody has hoaxed them by posting a (glowing) review of this nonexistent book. See for yourself . . .
-- Steve Jackson
As the founder of the Monster Raving Loony Party, Sutch never won an election in more than 30 years (though a member of his party WAS once elected mayor of a small English town). But he did shake up the British political scene with questions like "Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?"
Perhaps, in his trademark top hat and gold lame suit, he took some satisfaction in Jesse Ventura's election. Who knows? A few more candidates like Sutch, and politics could become respectable again.
-- Steve Jackson
Conventions love to schedule around three-day holiday weekends, and the Fourth of July is no exception (in fact, it's one of the most popular dates for cons). This weekend, we have major representation at four (!) conventions:
Steve is at InConJunction in Indianapolis, as he mentioned in Thursday's Daily Illuminator. Our Indy Men In Black will be running our booth there, and lots of our games will be played.
GURPS Traveller line editor Loren Wiseman is at Dragon-Con in Atlanta. Loren is a guest of Dragon-Con, but will be helping our Men In Black run the booth, as well.
To make our coverage even, we also have a booth at Westercon, the annual western region's SF convention held this year in Spokane. We're being represented there entirely by our west-coast MIBs.
And last but definitely not least is Origins! SJ Games products are being carried at Origins by Adventure Retail Ltd. (I may be ambitious, but I'm not completely insane!), and many games will be run, not least of which is the annual Car Wars World Racing Championship! I expect a large number of our Men In Black as well as regular fans will be running as many games as they have hit points for . . .
So if you haven't made other plans for this weekend yet, and are near one of these shows, you should drop by, at least for a day. Much fun will be had by all!
-- Monica Stephens, Convention Manager
-- Suggested by Mark Bassett