Steve Jackson Games (SJG) is bringing back their magazine, Pyramid, through this Kickstarter. The editors behind it, Steven Marsh and Sean Punch, agreed to answer my questions about this campaign and some of the other upcoming SJG projects.
EGG EMBRY (EGG): Thank you for talking with me about this project. What is the Kickstarter for Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS Pyramid Scheme going to produce?
STEVEN MARSH (STEVEN): It’s three different issues of Pyramid, a gaming magazine that supports GURPS. To expand a bit: Pyramid began life as a print magazine, lasting from 1993 through 1998. Following its end as a print publication, it had an era as a weekly updated website, lasting from 1998 through 2008. After that, we launched what we called the third volume of Pyramid: a monthly PDF magazine that lasted 10 years, until 2018. The GURPS Pyramid Scheme continues the tradition of that third volume; each PDF provides articles tied to a genre theme in support of GURPS.
SEAN PUNCH (SEAN): To amplify a bit on what Steven just wrote, it’s a Kickstarter campaign to bring to life three issues of Pyramid, Volume 4: one for fantasy and magic, one for modern-day action and adventure, and one for futuristic gaming and tech. These will be PDFs in the tradition of Pyramid, Volume 3 (Volume 2 being the webzine and Volume 1 the printed magazine). Because a Kickstarter needs stretch goals, each issue is going to start small, but we’ll add articles as support grows.
EGG: Sean, for this Kickstarter, your role within SJG is a key factor in making this project happen, what do you do for SJG?
SEAN: I’m the GURPS Line Editor, meaning I’m the boss of GURPS rules and text: I review authors’ queries and proposals, answer authors’ questions, review drafts and submit tons of comments, tackle playtest questions, edit many (not all!) final drafts, and make a final pass over products before they go live. I also do a lot of writing. And I take time to answer rules questions from partners (like Gaming Ballistic) and gamers. In short, I’m the developer of GURPS. Other talented people handle production, project management, business decisions, etc.
EGG: Sean, we spoke before about the GURPS 2020 PDF Challenge, the Kickstarter in which you launched a number of GURPS PDFs, in your opinion, how did the fans receive that campaign? Is SJG planning to revisit it and offer more short GURPS PDFs?
SEAN: I was floored by the response to that campaign! We hit all the stretch goals with time to spare, the final backer count was more than double what I expected, and the earnings made it an unambiguous win. Closer to my heart were fan reviews, which were positive, the only negative words coming from people who couldn’t use everything in the grab-bag (that’s to be expected). SJ Games has already offered further short GURPS PDFs as standard non-Kickstarter releases – I even wrote a few myself. I couldn’t tell you whether there will be a GURPS 2021 PDF Challenge, however; as I said, I’m the boss of rules and text, not business.
EGG: As the Line Editor for GURPS, why create new content via Pyramid magazine as opposed to more short PDFs or a sourcebook?
SEAN: Not all ideas cool enough to deserve a platform fill enough pages for a PDF to be economical. Somebody might be making money off four-page PDFs, but we have too much overhead for that; e.g., our customers expect things like title pages and tables of contents, which get silly for four-page items. So while we like short PDFs, there’s such a thing as too short! A zine like Pyramid is an economical way to offer compilations of short ideas. Of course there’s the “grab-bag effect” I mentioned, since not everybody can use everything in each issue, but that’s balanced by the fact that a smörgåsbord of ideas shows off the versatility of GURPS.
EGG: Steven, coming over to your part in this project, what’s your role in SJG?
STEVEN: My most commonly used signature is as the GURPS Project Manager. Basically, I handle a lot of the day-to-day administrivia of GURPS, freeing up Sean Punch to be brilliant in his own ways. But I also step in as needed elsewhere in the company, especially for digital and POD initiatives.
EGG: I’ve noticed a trend of RPG magazines crowdfunding during December and January. As the editor for Pyramid, what makes now the right time to bring this magazine back?
STEVEN: We found great success last year with the GURPS 2020 PDF Challenge, which resulted in 12 compact GURPS supplements all being released at once. Shortly before that, we released the Pyramid Dungeon Collection, a well-received supplement that updated some of the print-era Pyramid material to GURPS Fourth Edition. The reaction to those two projects led us to believe there’s an audience for smaller material, especially when it’s coupled with the excitement and community of a fundraising campaign. The GURPS Pyramid Scheme is a further expansion of that idea, to see how much fan demand there is in these bite-size bits of gaming goodness. As for the timing: I suspect the pandemic and news have resulted in everyone’s attention spans being a bit frayed lately. I think gaming magazines are seeing something of a renaissance because even if there isn’t the ability to absorb and appreciate a 256-page gaming book – or find a group to play it with – it’s still possible to read a four-page article that sparks your imagination or gives a jolt of gaming adrenaline.
EGG: That is a fair point. Why launch with three issues as opposed to one?
STEVEN: We’re releasing three issues at once because that strategy meshes well with the previous era of Pyramid. Each issue was tightly themed, with the month devoted to magical items or cyberpunk or cinematic locations. For a majority of those issues, the genre could be classified into roughly “past/fantasy,” “present/action,” and “science fiction.” So, we’re releasing three issues – one for each genre. By embracing that structure, someone who just plays fantasy (for example) has a better chance in a single issue at getting material they can use. Releasing three issues at once helps ensure that anyone who has just about any interest in GURPS will find something inspiring.
EGG: Who is working on the articles for this?
STEVEN: We invited a large number of fan-favorite GURPS authors, including Phil Masters, Matt Riggsby, Peter V. Dell’Orto, Christopher R. Rice, and – of course – Sean Punch. We also have a number of writers who were popular in the pages of the previous Pyramid making a return, including J. Edward Tremlett and Jason Brick.
EGG: Who is working on the articles for this? How far along are the three issues?
STEVEN: The campaign is structured so that the final size will be decided by the fan demand and support; the more funding goals we reach, the more articles are “unlocked” and the larger each issue is. All three issues are completely done as far as their editorial and artistic content. Once the crowdfunding campaign ends, it will be a matter of making sure the correct articles are included, fixing the table of contents and introduction, and updating the internal “p. 00” references. I’m excited to know that we’ll be delivering issues to backers very quickly after the end of the campaign.
EGG: Beyond this project, what are each of you working on for SJG and for yourselves?
STEVEN: Probably the biggest continuing project I’ve been working on at Steve Jackson Games has been our ongoing efforts to make a huge amount of our classic GURPS back catalog available via print-on-demand efforts. This has enabled our books – some of them long out of print – to find their way into fans’ hands, cheaper and quicker than ever. This has proven to be a game-changer (so to speak), especially for our international fans who have been struggling with the global problems of shipping costs and logistics. As far as any personal projects . . . mostly I’ve been trying to survive the rollercoaster that has been the past however-many months.
SEAN: People are tired of Illuminati jokes, so I hate to say, “You’re not cleared for that!” . . . but the thing I’m most likely to be working on for SJ Games in the near future is something I can’t discuss yet, because we’re still planning. I can say that I’ll almost certainly be writing more short PDFs for my pet series, GURPS Action and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. Outside of that, being the GURPS Line Editor is a full-time job that leaves me little time for personal projects – and after working on RPGs all day, I don’t want the things I do for myself to be tied to RPGs. Perhaps I’ll find the time and motivation to write a book on cocktails, and once confinement ends, I’ll surely spend more time on Argentine tango; those are my other hobbies.
EGG: Thank you both for taking the time to speak with me. Where can fans follow this campaign and SJG?
STEVEN: The campaign will launch on Kickstarter. You can sign up there to be notified when it does launch. Steve Jackson Games has (to the best of our knowledge) the oldest continuously running blog – the Daily Illuminator – and you can follow it for our latest news and insights.
SEAN: I was going to write what Steven just wrote, but I’ll add a couple of URLs. For a monthly retrospective on GURPS, see the GURPS News. For hints, clues, and leaks, see my personal journal every Friday.
Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS Pyramid Scheme from Warehouse 23 and Steve Jackson Games
“Pyramid returns with three new issues! GURPS support for fantasy, modern, and sci-fi campaigns! Select one, two, or all three issues!”
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