GURPS Thaumatology [Hardcover]

Phil Masters (Author), Sean Punch (Editor), Igor Kieryluk (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Gurps | Publication Date: November 19, 2008

Magic sourcebook for GURPS 4th Editon

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Steve Jackson Games; 4 edition (November 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556347588
• ISBN-13: 978-1556347580
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #862,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A toolkit for doing magic your way, April 7, 2009

By 

T Richard Brown and Family "rkbrown" (Utah) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: GURPS Thaumatology (Hardcover)

When you want to create your own fantasy gaming world or adapt a setting from a favorite book or movie to a game one of the hardest things to do is make magic in the game work the way it does in the source materiel (or in your vision of magic for a home grown setting) without totally unbalancing the game mechanics. The reason for this is obvious a storyteller sets up his/her rules for magic in a way that makes a good story and can make it as arbitrary as necessary to keep things interesting, a game designer on the other hand has to keep it playable and fair to the player and still leave room for players who don't want magic using characters. Until now gamers creating or adapting a setting have faced two choices, use the rules for magic that come with the game you play and just ignore where they don't fit the source material or come up with a whole new set of rules for magic that may not work well with the rest of the game rules. Gurps Thaumatology offers another option, guidelines for how to adapt the existing magic rules to work in a way that fits your setting. The book shows how to take the standard magic system from GURPS Basic Set: Characters, Fourth Edition and expanded on in GURPS Magic and adjust it in ways that can radically change the feel of magic in game without having to completely rewrite the game mechanics including several updates of rules ideas from Pyramid magazine (threshold magic) and GURPS Cabal to the new edition of Gurps. There are even suggestions for how to mix multiple versions of magic within a given game setting.

If tweaks to the Gurps Magic rules aren't enough to get magic to work the way you want Thaumatology also includes alternate rules for magic like Path/Book magic that converts the concepts from GURPS Voodoo and GURPS Spirits to the new edition making magic work much more like it does in real world myth and folklore. There are also expansions of the concepts of syntactic magic and rune magic from Gurps Magic. Finally if no tweaking of any of these magic systems can get spells to work there's a discussion of treating magic as Powers (although I suggest having Gurps Powers, Fourth Edition if you want to go this route) and building it from scratch while keeping it balanced with the rest of the Gurps rules.

Now making magic work just right for your setting is still a daunting task but Gurps Thaumatology turns it from nearly impossible to merely challenging.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great handbook, December 23, 2008

By 

Connie C. Smith - See all my reviews
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This review is from: GURPS Thaumatology (Hardcover)

Thaumatology packs in virtually any type of magical system that a GM could want. I like it better than GURPS Magic, because several of the systems offer a way to bypass the huge spell lists that I did not want to deal with (virtually the entire use of Magic). Some people will like different magic systems than others, but this book offers so many, every will find something in it to use.

Note:You don't need GURPS Magic to use this book, which is a plus because, as of this writing, Magic is out of print and pricy, though the two books are compatible.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great resource for alternate magic systems in GURPS, April 6, 2009

By 

J. P. Tate - See all my reviews
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This review is from: GURPS Thaumatology (Hardcover)

This book collects and updates all of the alternate magic systems from the previous edition as well as adding a few new things. It's not mind blowing or anything but it's an excellent reference for a campaign that uses magic other than spell based.