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Time After Time
Jun. 11th, 2009 09:29 pmI am a lot of things. But, very near the top of the list, I am a gamesmaster. I can run practically any roleplaying game, in practically any genre, if I have a bit of time with the rulebooks and background material. I won't run FATAL, but that's about it.
There is a game, and has been for years now, called GURPS - Generic Universal Roleplaying System. You can play practically any game you want with it. Fancy a story about the first humans forging across Persia to set up Ur? No problem - GURPS: GILGAMESH can be written. Want a go at refighting WW2 with Nazi wizards defending Dresden with bolts of White Power? Easy, if a little twisted. Cyber-Cthulhu-Trek-Punk: The Next Generation? Been there, done that, screwed my way through the Klingon poser-gang.
But in order to define which skills you can use, the game asks you to use a set of Tech levels. GURPS: GILGAMESH is at TL02 - bronze and tin. Weird War 2 is at TL06 but with magic. CCTP:TNG is mostly at TL09 with a few extra books bolted on. And our world is at TL07.
At least...that's what I thought. But I'm going to be running a new game, pretty soon, using the GURPS books. So I picked up a new set from the new, Fourth Edition. And lo and behold, the default setting for _our_ world is now TL08. And I don't think the conditions for that have changed.
_We_ have. And I don't know quite what to make of it. I knew I was living in the future, and I like it. But to have it confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by a metric created in about 1980, is something else entirely. Very odd indeed.
There is a game, and has been for years now, called GURPS - Generic Universal Roleplaying System. You can play practically any game you want with it. Fancy a story about the first humans forging across Persia to set up Ur? No problem - GURPS: GILGAMESH can be written. Want a go at refighting WW2 with Nazi wizards defending Dresden with bolts of White Power? Easy, if a little twisted. Cyber-Cthulhu-Trek-Punk: The Next Generation? Been there, done that, screwed my way through the Klingon poser-gang.
But in order to define which skills you can use, the game asks you to use a set of Tech levels. GURPS: GILGAMESH is at TL02 - bronze and tin. Weird War 2 is at TL06 but with magic. CCTP:TNG is mostly at TL09 with a few extra books bolted on. And our world is at TL07.
At least...that's what I thought. But I'm going to be running a new game, pretty soon, using the GURPS books. So I picked up a new set from the new, Fourth Edition. And lo and behold, the default setting for _our_ world is now TL08. And I don't think the conditions for that have changed.
_We_ have. And I don't know quite what to make of it. I knew I was living in the future, and I like it. But to have it confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by a metric created in about 1980, is something else entirely. Very odd indeed.
