Jackson Books

When I read for the first time this book, I wasn't expeting too much, but it really surprised me. GURPS Japan brings to you a complete description of the social classes and the code of honor of the Samurai, the "bushi" of the legends and history in the feudal Japan. Is very cool meet a lot of friends and try to interpretate the honor of being a samurai, or to understand the essence of this marvelous game. The complete description of the weapons and the costumes is very interesting too.

This is one of the most interesting rpg supplements I have ever read. There are so many interesting historical details in this book which can enhance any rpg campaign set in Japan. It is far superior to Oriental Adventures in the Dungeons and Dragons system. Even if you are not a role player, this supplement can provide interesting information for anybody interested in historical Japan. I definitely recommend it highly.

I had real problems deciding whether or not to buy this book. The biggest stumbling block was the lack of information about the book from anybody besides SJ Games. What would I be getting for my hard-earned money? SJ Games tried to help by showing some pages on their website but they didn't help me make up my mind because I just couldn't get a good feel for what the book was about. I finally decided to buy the book because I'm contemplating running a campaign with Psionic and/or Super powers and this book seemed to cover those topics in greater depth than the basic books did and I've had good experiences with the previous books in this series.

Now that I've read the book I can see why people have been reluctant to try to describe it. GURPS Powers is very much more than a simple repackaging of the 3rd edition of GURPS Supers and GURPS Psionics. The authors have put considerable thought into the whole concept of "Powers" (what they are, what they can do, why they exist, etc.) for all roleplaying genres and have developed a radical new structure for how to implement them within the GURPS rules without doing more than adding a few enhancements to the existing system. This is a truly astonishing accomplishment and frankly I don't have the skill as a reviewer to do justice to their work but I will try anyway.

The first couple of chapters lay the groundwork of their basic concepts, it's necessary to at least skim through these details but it's pretty dry stuff and leaves the reader wondering why they bought the book. Then chapter 3 (Examples) starts to weave the whole meaning of their work together in a very readable fashion and things start to fall into place. The book gets better and better from that point forward.

The key to their revolutionary thinking (and I don't have near enough space here to explain it at length) is that most roleplaying games have some sort of extra-ordinary powers at work. This could be cybernetic, psionic, magic, gods; the list is pretty near endless. These extra-ordinary powers are frequently the key to making the game enjoyable for the players. What would Banestorm be without magic? Or most of the Infinite Worlds without the super-science and dimension-crawling aspects? Would "Carrie" be as interesting if the protagonist could only play practical jokes on her tormenters?

Stepping forward from there, the authors show how to use their theories to create new roleplaying worlds or enhance existing ones. How about creating a mage who has superpowers rather than spells? In many ways that works better for simulating some author's magic systems than the standard "wizards cast spells" model that GURPS Magic uses.

The strange thing that kept occuring to me as I read this book was that I couldn't figure out who was the intended audience for this book. Although it is very interesting and useful for generating super-powered characters, the lack of new abilities means that the book isn't absolutely necessary. On the other hand, this book is an absolute must-have for any GM who is contemplating a campaign with anything more exotic than historical or modern adventuring. But the book is almost exploding with good ideas for generating new characters...

One of the things I've already assimilated from the book is that, as with all GURPS 4th edition books, the GM needs to carefully decide what level of complexity they are willing to tolerate and stick with it. There was an example in the book of what a group of Supers needed to do to move 10 tons of concrete rubble that left me completely in the dark. Not because the example wasn't clear, it was perfectly clear, I just couldn't figure out why anybody would want to go through so much paperwork in their roleplaying.

Although this is true of GURPS in general, it is particularly true of Powers because of the implications of superpowered roleplaying. It's obvious that a sword can parry a mace, but Mr. GM, can a flamebolt parry a laser beam? The players are all looking at you and want a reasonable answer as soon as possible.

As the authors point out, modern science is frequently not useful in answering superpowered rules questions so consistency on the part of the GM is vital. One of the most important parts of the book is a couple of chapters that help the GM think through the implications of their decisions BEFORE they will occur in play. This is a godsend and is easily worth the price of the book by itself.

Another valuable section of the book assists the GM in figuring out how powers will affect their campaigns and helps the GM to find interesting plots that will keep the players coming back for more. The final section of the book briefly discusses nearly all genres that use powers and the conventions that govern playing in them. Although I thought I knew most of them, I found enough interesting material to keep me going for a surprisingly long time.

I haven't looked at the index simply because the book is superbly well organized and I don't think I'll have any problems finding anything I'd need to know on short notice. The authors have made excellent use of color to help organize the information and highlight important items. My only quibbles are that the artwork is somewhat lacking in both creativity and quantity and there are fewer roleplaying examples than I'd like, I find the examples to be extremely useful in understanding the points the authors are trying to make.

In conclusion, this isn't an easy book to comprehend but is well worth the reader's time if they are willing to invest enough of it.

I just ran a GURPS Powers campaign, where we went through several adventures using the system detailed in this book.

The players were very pleased with the system, and we had a lot of fun for several months. After each adventure, I would award them with a few character points, to allow them to buff up their characters. The idea was to start the campaign with characters about as powerful as the X-Men, and to gradually develop them until they were about as powerful as members of the Fantastic Four, which is of course, a much more powerful group.

As the players grew their characters, I compensated by raising the point totals of their opponents. This worked for a while, until some of the damage totals from energy attacks became so high that the heroes who used energy damage became much more powerful than the slugfest types, who used their fists instead of energy blasts.

It got to the point where if an energy blast hit someone, they were reduced very far in hit points and the combat didn't really resemble a comic book like setting. I have to wonder how much playtesting the makers of this book really did.

All flaws aside, it is a very comprehensive system with a rich array of powers and ways to build a super hero character. In fact, the possibilities are almost endless. You can create a character like Superman, Wolverine, The Hulk, The Human Torch, etc. Everything is there, with the usual point system that GURPS is famous for. This also means that you can link up campaigns of super heroes with other campaigns, as all of the rules are pretty much the same.

We then attempted to create a campaign which resembled the "Dragonball Z" comic book series. We tried to build a frieza character with 1-million points, just to see what he would be like. I found that at these astronomical totals, the entire system would have to be overhauled in order to have the types of battles depicted in the comic books. Otherwise, you would have characters instantly killing anyone with less than say, 50,000 hit points (by using either a high powered energy attack or a series of multiple attacks with their 50,000 point strength).

Not only does this book have expanded fencing rules, a plethora of new maneuvers, and templates for historical buccanears, but it also explains pre-industrial ship to ship combat and ship generation rules. Great for any fantasy campaign setting as well as historical.

I've adapted the D&D world of Mystara (The Basic,not AD&D, campaign setting. i.e. Isle of Dread, Gazateers, etc...) for this system. The Players love it and it's nostalgic for me since I started RPGing in this setting back in '82.

This new edition of Gurps Swashbucklers not only gives all the information about the age of pirates and musketeers you will need, it also contains various sword-fighting styles of the era - all of course in the detailed format of Gurps Martial Arts. The new maneuvers and optional rules for fencing alone are worth the price of this book. If you are a GM or play a fighter, who uses blade weapons of any kind - from knife to vibro-katana - believe me: you want this book!

The author is a former US Army NCO and applies that sense of "Been There, Done That" to his writing. This is a good source book for any Traveller rule system.

This book has it all. Maps, history, weapons, organizational charts, slang, traditions, characters, special forces, citations, orders, military justice, battle dress, drop ships, operational procedures... (deep breath). Even if you know nothing about the military, you can read this book, and run a campaign that'll leave your players thinking you're a retired SgtMaj.
So there I was...

Customizable armor! Like energy cloth baselayer with the fit and feel of spandex (scuba lycrasuits or the compression shirt you wear under football pads) with DR 20 (melee attacks from non-superscience weapons from non-giants, handgun bullets) to replace the star trek turtlenecks for non-combatant military crew. Personal defelector shields, neural interface helmets, chameolon armor, printed computers on armor+clothing, particle beams (GURPS blasters), plasma weapons (star wars blasters), nanotechnology and all. covers TL9-12, strict. Scale is personal to small vehicles. Superscience items (shields, contragravity, time manipulation, psionic devices) are clearly marked.

This has been rushed-through the editing process, but SJGames is pretty good with errata updates.

The third edition of GURPS Space was an amazing effort. One slim volume included all rules needed to run a very wide range of SciFi-oriented roleplaying campaigns. This included a lot of information about: how to generate star systems, create and run starships, economics of trade between star systems, lots of science fiction equipment, character archtypes, campaign backgrounds, etc., etc. Literally to infinity and beyond. The book was like the old saying about the Platte river, a mile wide and an inch deep.

While it was an amazing effort, the lack of space left the game feeling very generic and somewhat incomplete. This could be overcome with dedicated effort but most GM's didn't feel it was worth the extra work. The third edition Ultra-tech books attempted to address this problem but were not SJ Games finest efforts.

I bought both 4th edition GURPS Space and Ultra-Tech with this background in mind and was surprised and pleased.

The new GURPS Space doesn't cover nearly as much as the original book, it just deals with the background material necessary to set up and run a good campaign. Many people felt cheated by this because they enjoyed browsing through the old third edition's plentiful charts and building starships using the surprisingly detailed (and sometimes painful) variant of GURPS Vehicles.

But I felt this was a good decision because Science Fiction can have such a large and varied background that is so important to the story that the GM is trying to tell that it deserved the coverage it got. Imagine trying to describe all of the technology and background used in both Keith Laumer's Bolo stories and David Brin's Uplift novels in less than 50 pages.

The bigger surprise was the new version of GURPS Ultra-Tech. This is really well thought-out and interesting and fixes a lot of the weaknesses of the old system. The vastly larger space for the topic was very well used and the illustrations and short stories are worth the price of the book all by themselves. Another pleasant discovery was the extensive bibliographies in both books. The people who wrote the books knew their topics well and loved to share.

Yet another piece of the puzzle in replacing the old third edition GURPS Space book was recently published in electronic format at SJ Games e23 store. I haven't bought it yet but the new GURPS Spaceships is supposed to be much easier to use and more interesting for generating ships to have adventures in. Which is the point of all three books.

GURPS is a great game system but much of the time the books are sourcebooks that have to be used with the Basic Set. Not this book. Not only does it have the history of the war, reviews on the nations and armies, vehicle-design system, alternate history ideas and details about what's happening behind the front lines it also has a new version of the GURPS Lite rules. This is all you need to play a game set in World War Two (unless you wish to get other titles or cool maps and stuff).
I would suggest getting players who know the history of World War Two. Otherwise they might get a tad confused.

GURPS: World War Two is the beginning of an ambitious campaign by Steve Jackson Games to bring the battles of World War Two to life for gamers. And it makes a wonderful starting point.

It seems hard to believe that there are only six chapters in this book - but there is quite a lot of detail in these chapters. Beginning with "The World At War" this chapter explains the background for a World War Two style campaign. It covers a lot of world history in a good capsule format that GM's may want to read thoroughly for campaign ideas. "The Combatants", gives a comprehensive section on the major players in the war, both on the winning side and the losing side. "Characters" gives you everything you need to create player characters and NPC's for a WWII campaign. The character templates in this section give GM's a quick starting point. The "Armoury" chapter gives your characters some weapons to fight with, as well as a basic equipment list. The "Vehicles" section adds many cars, trucks, and tanks to your WWII campaign. In "Move Out!" there's campaigning info for players and GM's. There's even some ideas for crossover campaigns and alternate endings for the war. Finally, for those who may not own the basic rules, the book concludes with a copy of "GURPS: Lite" - a basic intro to the GURPS RPG for those who may not own the basic book. This edition of GURPS Lite has been custom tailored for GURPS: World War Two.

The 28 pages of detail about the course of the war is not to be missed, and can even be appreciated by non-gamers for its attention to important events in World War Two such as the sinking of the Bismark. The 20 pages of details on Britain, the US, the Soviets, Germany and Japan give us an inside look at the organization of armies,units and tactics, special ops, and intelligence, although it's easy to see that this could be expanded. The 23 pages of info on characters is fairly comprehensive and includes 14 sample characters. The 36 pages of detail on vehicles gives some of the major equipment used in the war, as well as ideas on how to use what you know to create totally new equipment that may not have been covered in this section. The 16 pages of "Move Out" even includes info on what might be happening on the home front, as well as what is happening behind enemy lines. The "Basic Training" section of GURPS Lite allows GM's that don't have the basic rules to create military and non-military characters and NPC's for this campaign.

This book is a great starting place for GM's, and that is probably its only flaw. When covering a subject as large as World War Two, you have to have space - and even the 208 pages of material here are not enough for a comprehensive look at World War Two. However, there are other books already printed continuing the series, and more forthcoming. I can't recommend "GURPS World War Two: Iron Cross" highly enough for GM's wanting to "fill in the blanks". This book is a great addition to the GURPS library and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to try an adventure or a whole campaign set in this time of peril.

If you are looking for a book that covers the special forces of WWII and how to incorporate them into the GURPS game system, this is it.

Mr. Fisher has done an excellent job of maintaining both historical accuracy and game integrity. The writing style flows well and makes for an easy and informative book. For those of you who are not experts on WWII, this book may even prove educational :-)

GURPS has long been known for the attention to detail that it displays in its world books - thankfully GURPS WW2: Hand of Steel lives up to the pedigree.

Don't expect a wide range of detail in this book - it is one of SJ Game's new "mini-book" supplements. If you want the full low down on World War II and its participants, buy the core book and the other full size releases in the line.

What you do get though is a concise, intelligent, and historically accurate portrayal of the "special forces" in the conflict that spawned the modern understanding of that term. Everything from Wehrmacht combat engineers to US Marine Raider battalions - you are not limited by theatre or nationality, although the ommission of Italian special forces (extremely minor though they were in WW2) is a noticeable ommission.

Not that that effects the way the book works. If you want a Tech Level 6 military orientated campaign source, this book is essential. Games following the Real World WW2, Alternate Earths campaigns, even contemporary and near future special forces orientated games will benefit from the information in this book.

I am thoroughly satisified that I bought it - a great gaming aid and a good historical read. Nicely done.

I was fortunate enough to see Richard Jackson and listen to him read this past July in Prague. What an amazong man and an amazong Poet! The empathy with which he writes for all life is amazing. His lines are well-crafted and at times starkly beautiful, like the glittering of glass shards after a terrible accident. He speaks to the wonder and terror and pain of life with such brilliance! I would recommend him to anyone who feels the weight of life, for by his words the reader knows he understands.

The poems render love in its many manisfestations in ways that are imaginative, passionate, and original.

I had had a copy of this book for as long as I can remeber. I am now 21 and this is one of my all time favorite books, and a wonderful memory. I lost my copy of this book. My mom and I were talking about it and I thought, hey, I should look on line for a copy of it. And now I am beyod excited to oreder my copy of this book. It's the best! I am so excited to share this book with my daughter!

This book is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best children's Christmas book i've seen. This will be the 3rd copy I have purchased. The first was when my first child was born in 80' she loves it still to this day, and after she had begged and pleaded for me to hand it down to her (i cd not part w/ it), I found a copy on-line so I purchased it. Now she is having my first grandchild so she has requested that I try to find her another copy so she could always keep hers and have one to pass on to her child as well. Both copies I have received still have a slight smell on several of the stickers, and that is what makes this book so special the memory is still brought back with the smells and she LOVES it. This is a very good investment that produces a lifetime of memories in such a small package!

book series. It is excellent for parents to read to their children during devotion times. It is excellent to use as a short biography for homeschooling.

This book is an excellent resource on the following Christian Heroes, most who are/were missionaries:

Mary McLeod Bethune
William Bradford
Brother Andrew
George Washington Carver
Jonathan & Rosalind Goforth
Billy Graham
Betty Greene
Clarence Jones
Gordon McLean
Lottie Moon
Luis Palau
St. Patrick
Rochunga Pudaite
Mother Teresa
Charles Tindley

The book's format covers a 2 page biography on the hero, then follows up with separate chapters on character qualities specific to the individual (i.e. George Washington Carver's biography is followed by chapters on perseverance, resourcefulness, and service). An added bonus is that there is a list of all the character qualities in the back of the book. So if you're looking for examples of a specific character quality the list is a wonderful resource.

I found this book very interesting, especially since I have never heard of the majority of these people. The age level for those who would be interested would probably be 3rd grade and higher. There are no pictures, other than drawings of the person at the beginning of the biography, so it could be quite boring for preschoolers and early elementary grades.