Skip to main content

The Last Pyramid

Today saw the publication of the final issue of Steve Jackson Games's Pyramid magazine, as was announced several months ago. Broadly speaking, it was the victim of generally rough times within the gaming industry.

I'm one of what is surely a small number of people who have been published in all three iterations of Pyramid. I'd had some previous contact with SJ Games--some stuff I helped with ended up in GURPS Cyberpunk, which in turn has doubtless gotten my name on the Federal Register of Dangerous Hoodlums--but it wasn't until the later days of the paper version of Pyramid that I finally got up the nerve to try my hand at writing an article. The result was a short piece on low-tech (mostly Medieval) economies, which became my first professionally published work.

This, apparently, was enough encouragement. Having seen how painless the process actually was, I started thinking in terms of writing for publication. It didn't hurt that around this time I went to work for a publisher and in not very long started writing for them as well. Indeed, when the topic was first floated with them, I was able to point to prior professional publication.

But the second, web-based version of Pyramid is where I really started to take off. The switch to the new format made it suitable for a large number of short pieces on a broad range of topics (mostly, but certainly not entirely, GURPS-related). Many of the historicals I wrote, for example, were the result of reading a book and thinking "How can I get a gaming angle on this?" All the editors were good to me, but none better than Steven Marsh, who let me experiment with things like a pulp/cliffhanger adventure written in the form of a several-part cliffhanger serial and a campaign setting built by coming up with a framework world and working exiting location and adventure articles into it, essentially making the whole of Pyramid (or, at least, large parts of it) a single setting.

By the time Pyramid switched to the PDF format, I'd largely moved on to longer works like hot spots and items in the DF series. But I did keep coming back for it for shorter, odder pieces which didn't justify an entire book written about them.

But while I haven't done quite so much for the third edition as the second, I'll still miss it. I'll miss the venue for shorter pieces. "The Golden Geniza of Ezcali," for example, was basically a worked example of a way of dealing with a key folkloristic principle; its primary value, as I see it, is as a thought experiment, not something requiring another twenty or thirty pages. And, of course, I'll miss it as a source of new talent. Nothing against the usual GURPS-writing suspects, mind you, but I do wonder where they'll find the next Christopher Rice. Or, indeed, the next me. I'm not counting on it, because things change and the magazine format may never be viable in the publishing culture of the future, but perhaps an upturn in the gaming market will some day give SJ Games scope to revive it. If they do, I certainly hope to be around to help.

And, finally, there's a lot I owe to Pyramid as a semi-professional writer. It's where I started writing for actual money, and with something well north of 100 articles (I've lost count, honestly, but I suspect it's in the neighborhood of 140), it contains a substantial proportion of my professional output. Moreover, the more ambitious work I've written and my ongoing work in the future likely wouldn't have started without it. The dark, rune-bedecked portal of the Pyramid is the door I got my foot in.

Comments

Peter34 said…
Not to mention the “Omniscient Eye” articles that appeared during the last years of the v2 (HTML) version of Pyramid!

Popular posts from this blog

Car Wars Minis, Third Batch

Still having a go at these, trying out some new ideas. The short version is that having the right tools and materials is still key, but I've got a way to go with some other stuff. I think this one looks better in person than as a picture. A couple of shades of blue here with a blue wash and drybrushed metallic blue on some components. Oh, and purple spikes. I didn't even try to figure out something clever to do with the windshield. I'm finding that it's hard to make yellow work, but this one wasn't too bad. I initially tried masking the area for the blue stripe with tape, but it pulled off the paint instead. Had to do a swipe with a broad brush, which isn't great but worked better than I expected. Another one that looks better in person than on film. Tried to do a few different shades of green, which wasn't entirely successful. Probably my best out of this batch. I credit the red wash, which ended up being kind of glossy and goes well with the copper accents

Car Wars Minis, Second Batch

They say it's a poor craftsman who blames their tools. Is it a poor craftsman who gives them credit when things work out? If so, I am that craftsman. After my first round of not-great miniature painting, I ran off some more CW minis and tried more painting, this time digging up my well-hidden actually-for-minis paints (as opposed to the standard craft store acrylics I used the first time around), which I had more than I thought I did, and limited myself to my tiniest brushes. I also watched a few more YouTube videos about painting minis just to get a better feel for what it looked like when people did that. How did it come out? Still not great, but better. The first of batch #2 and by a considerable margin the worst. Involved some ill-advised dry brushing and the metallic paint I used for the weapons and I didn't thin the metallic paint I used on the weapons and side windows, losing all the detail in the process. This one...is actually OK. The thinned blue and purple paints gi

Charcuterie Bard

A few days ago, I dropped this random gag:   I shall make a character for an RPG who has powers related to artistic creativity, but instead of music and song, they come from arranging cheeses and cured meats. A charcuterie bard. — Turhan's Bey Company (@turhansbeycmpny) December 21, 2021   But then I remembered that there's absolutely precedent for food-based magic:  So, then, obviously we can have food-based bards in GURPS, right? The best approach I see is modifying the Enthrallment skills (p. B191). However, rather than requiring Public Speaking at 12+ as a prerequisite, a charcuterie bard requires Cooking and Professional Skill (Food Stylist) at 12+; see Ferrous Metal Food Fighting Guy for a bit on the latter. The skills are used by preparing and feeding an audience with tasty, tasty foods. The elements of food in question cost a minimum of 1% of COL per target, though higher quality ingredients provide a bonus (use costs and reaction bonuses for styling, GURPS Low-Tech