I had no idea SJG had done a licensed sourcebook for Andre Norton‘s excellent Witch World series. It feels awesome to crack open a book from 1989 — my salad years as a gamer — that I’d never heard of until recently, based on a universe I enjoy, for a game system I enjoy.
I’ve read two Witch World books so far, the original Witch World and its sequel, Web of the Witch World (both as part of my slow-moving effort to read Appendix N). They’re wild, unpredictable, and inventive. Norton was fantastic writer.
But despite the first two books involving a main character from another world and a main faction from another world…somehow it had never crossed my mind that there’d be all sorts of that stuff happening in the setting. I thought it was just those two things!
I’m currently casting about for a GURPS setting which, as a prominent feature of the setting, combines two or more…genres? Eras? Themes? Whatever you’d call, say, a fantasy world with inhabitants from a high-tech SF setting and modern-day Earth, like Witch World. Or the forthcoming GURPS Ring of Fire, which I’m very excited about, or GURPS Technomancer. Or TORG, Rifts, or other “collision of worlds” settings.
Basically, I want a setting that showcases GURPS’s ability to integrate multiple tech levels and genres into the same campaign, or even the same party of adventurers. The next time a slot opens up for a new game in my Seattle group, my current plan is to pitch a cross-whatever GURPS campaign of some sort.
To my delight, Witch World is a good candidate.
Other strong candidates so include Reign of Steel (so good!), Time Travel or Infinite Worlds, and a mix of Cabal, Illuminati, Warehouse 23, and maybe Black Ops. Rediscovering my interest in GURPS, which I last played in junior high or high school, has been one of the highlights of my year to date.