That was a bit of work. Instead of one packed shelf, GURPS now has two shelves, and the game has room to breathe. I use bookends to let some of the books free-stand, and I use my plastic hexagonal dice containers to store dice alongside the books. As I pulled everything off, I dusted and cleaned it, which is essential. A dusty and cluttered shelf is a net negative for a game, so I regularly clean them and give them love.
The entire shelf looks like it is begging for someone to come along and play. I am a very visual person, so I like a shelf that appears less like storage and more like a game store display. The shelf needs to look fun and serve as a "call to action" for what is on it. Some of my books sit on wooden display stands to stay face-out, like the stands used to display fancy plates. I really go all out with my shelves, and keeping them looking accessible and fun is part of my hobby.
If someone walks by, they will know I am a hardcore GURPS fan, and I am proud of it.
One shelf is devoted to Dungeon Fantasy and holds all my fantasy-oriented books, along with the Basic Fantasy books and adventures I play with the system, using my BX conversion guide. I have the excellent Dungeon Fantasy books from Gaming Ballistic on this shelf, too, another highlight of my collection.
I display a few fantasy art books alongside the fantasy-gaming-themed books on this shelf, and it makes for an enjoyable display. Some of these are admittedly Conan-level muscular guys and savage female warriors like a Tor fantasy novel cover, but I grew up on these paperbacks, so they are cool and fit the style of world that is true to my heart.
I still feel the "No Armor, No Problem" rules (Bulletproof Nudity, B417) should stay in GURPS, since they are a mainstay of the savage fantasy genre, but I understand if they want to modernize the game; it will be sad to see them go. In my game, these rules will stay and apply to all genders equally. The original GURPS Conan adventures are some of the best ever made, and capture the genre far better than any d20 game ever made.
I love GURPS Conan. GURPS melee combat, plus a savage Conan-style world, is some of the best stuff in gaming. You can drill down into being a melee god, and it actually shows with your slaying power. Skill versus skill matters in this game, where in traditional D&D combat, it feels like whack-a-mole d20 versus AC on both sides. I can fight defensively and tactically in GURPS, and it works.
I like Basic Fantasy since this is one of the best versions of BX out there, playtested and number-crunched, and it mostly stays out of the way when I want to use the monsters, treasures, locations, and adventures for my GURPS game. Many are coming home to this great game, tired of the endless stream of OSR retro-clones, and just wanting something that is freely shared, works, and does not push the next crowdfunding campaign.
I love Basic Fantasy for its simplicity and expandability, and also serving as a "no frills" base to use with GURPS. Where 5E tends to strip over itself with constant rules and character expansions, and page-long stat blocks, Basic Fantasy keeps it clean and easy, and I can focus on the story and action with a minimum of throwing out paragraphs of rules and exceptional cases for character builds.
I have my 5E game, Tales of the Valiant, on my other two shelves. That is the game where I choose to delve into that level of depth and complexity, but the raw and clean nature of GURPS and fantasy keeps me coming back for more.
For fantasy, the combo of Dungeon Fantasy plus Basic Fantasy is my one-two punch that delivers. I get the depth and fantasy combat sim of GURPS, the simple adventures and easily convertible stat blocks of Basic Fantasy, and two great games that work well together and rarely get in each other's way. To have an entire shelf devoted to my collection, all my fun containers full of dice, and my fantasy art books creates a compelling "fun center" that is a part of my hobby that serves both as a source of pride and a functional "fun center" to game from.
My other shelf is GURPS and my science fiction comics. Most of my third-edition books are stored on the bottom shelf here, too. Something is amazing about using GURPS to play retro-future science fiction, like the serials of the 1950s, pulp-action, two-fisted, Martian agents teaming up with Earth gangsters, alien monsters creeping about in caves, and rocketing off to planets in the next galaxy, which captures my imagination.
This genre captures my imagination even more than Star Frontiers, which I love. Where Star Frontiers feels more like 2001 meets Star Wars, the retro-pulp genre of science fiction feels more open and speculative to me. Anything can happen in retro-pulp science fiction, where the more modern we get, the more sandbox-like the settings become, and I feel the sense of endless wonder draining from my adventures and the game becoming inwardly focused on politics and corporate greed.
Star Frontiers is a great setting, but it stopped at Volturnus and had a few modules past that, but it never became much more. The game needed a follow-up world of adventure, more on Volturnus, or another great module series that captured the laser-pistol space-explorers genre. Yes, you can have an open universe in Star Frontiers where "anything can happen," but the later adventures felt more inwardly-focused than enabling outward expansion.
Even Traveller, with its random subsector generation, felt more "what is out there" than Star Frontiers, and encouraged outward-focused exploration. Traveller fell down assuming space was settled, and games like Stars Without Number do the "random system generation" with themed planets and adventure seeds much better.
While I love Alien, there is only so much 1970s anti-corporate cynicism I can take. Corporations these days are bad enough, from insurance companies to greedy AI-bubble VC tech firms. Why do I want to roleplay that? I roleplay to escape this world, not live a virtual life in it again. Of all the anti-corporate genres in role-playing, Cyberpunk does the genre the best, since the game's core concept is built more around fighting back instead of suffering underneath it.
The retro-pulp sci-fi genre feels like fantasy to me, with laser pistols replacing longswords. It is an escape from this world into a universe of infinite possibilities. Anything goes. I can invent a new "Solarion Empire" or purple-skinned space aliens in a star system and run infinite adventures with them as the bad guys and source of intrigue. I can drop a savage "John Carter" world anywhere I want to crash-land on and meet the local aliens.
There are times when sandboxed modern science fiction limits my imagination more than it stimulates it, and that modern pessimism and negativity feel like a wet blanket. There are times when I want it, and other times when I don't.
I do want to create a space for some of my classic crime and horror comics and play those using GURPS as well. One part of the hobby that gets lost for many on D&D YouTube is the inspiration it draws from outside the hobby. Yes, the classic adventures are fun, and random charts are great tools, but returning to the hobby's storytelling roots, where it all started, brings me great joy. Back in the 1970s, when role-playing games were just getting started, all they had were stories like this and "no way to play them." So they created games to play and drew inspiration from these stories.
In GURPS, that skull-headed Frankenstein mummy thing and that wizard-looking guy would be frightening NPCs, and worthy of a few rolls on the fear table. They could be deadly in combat, and the wizard likely has a few spooky magic spells. You should take care in a period game of the 1950s, where the weapons characters could bring to bear are a 0.38 revolver, a double-barrel shotgun, and a lever-action 30-30 rifle.
If any guns were allowed to start, given character backgrounds. Remember, part of the genre is beginning with everyone "like things are normal," and not everyone walks around with two M1911A1 pistols, a trunk full of guns, body armor always in the back seat, and ready for action. Monster hunters or bank robbers? Sure, go to town. Classic 1950s horror movies? Certain archetypes would have specific "movie prop" guns, such as a farmer with a double-barreled shotgun or a police officer with a revolver. A doctor or professor? You will need to find or buy a gun and have a reason that makes sense in the plot, without foreknowledge sneaking in. And if you can even use it effectively, it will be a question, as not every archetype will (or should) be a recreational shooter.
And that flying monkey thing could be deadly, too, or a constant pest that spies on you from a treetop for its master. Just this one image conjures up infinite scenarios and ideas for a GURPS Horror game, and I love it.
Well, my GURPS shelves are set for a fun 2026, and here's to a fantastic year of gaming and writing to come.
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