GURPS Cliffhangers

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Cliffhangers
Gurps Cliffhangers.jpg
Cover art by Miro Sinovcic
Designers Brian J. Underhill
Illustrators
  • Miro Sinovcic
  • Butch Burcham
Publishers Steve Jackson Games
Publication1989
Genres GURPS

GURPS Cliffhangers is a sourcebook published by Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in 1989 for the generic role-playing game GURPS that explains to gamemasters how to design adventures in the style of pulp magazines.

Contents

Description

GURPS Cliffhangers is a GURPS campaign setting supplement describing how to run pulp-hero adventures set in the 1930s. [1] After a short introduction, the book has six chapters: [2]

  1. "The Era": History and daily life in the 1930s.
  2. "The Settings": The various regions of the world at the time, with an emphasis on ten nations and locations that could be fertile ground for an adventure. Each of these locations has scenario ideas. [3]
  3. The Hero: Character creation and equipment.
  4. Gadgeteering: Rules on inventing new gadgets.
  5. Adventure Design: Advice for creating scenarios that contain the adventurous spirit of pulp fiction.
  6. The Cliffhangers Campaign: Thoughts about campaigns, and scenario ideas.

The book concludes with a sample adventure, "Black Diamond: Prologue", which begins at a technological exposition and ends abruptly, leaving the gamemaster to design more chapters of the adventure. The book also contains a bibliography and filmography of works of this genre. [2]

Publication history

SJG published the generic role-playing game GURPS in 1986, [4] and followed this up with many genre sourcebooks to allow gamemasters to design adventures in almost any genre. One of these was GURPS Cliffhangers, and 96-page softcover book written by Brian J. Underhill, with cover art by Miro Sinovcic and interior illustrations by Butch Burcham. It was SJG in 1989. [1]

Reception

In Issue 11 of the British games magazine Games International , Paul Mason noted that the book's approach to adventure design was "that of a serial, where every episode ends on a cliffhanger. There are practical problems to taking this approach in a rolegame, but it shows willingness on the part of the author to find ways to capture the unique style of the genre." Mason concluded by giving this book a rating of 3 out of 5, saying, "Overall the artwork is weak, but the material is up to the usual GURPS standards. If I wanted to play a game set in this period, I'd be hard pressed to choose between this and Justice, Inc. ." [5]

In Issue 44 of Abyss (Winter 1989), David Nalle thought the background material was "solid, basic, and about what you would expect." Nalle also found the chapter on adventure design "pretty extensive, including an explanation of the importance of the rather difficult-to-play capture situation so essential to pulp fiction, and also an examination of the role of the deus ex machina as a plot device for the adventure." Nalle concluded, "This is a good, compact and pretty thorough presentation of the topic ... For the stuff you need to stimulate your imagination in order to run a campaign, it is tops." [6]

Other reviews and commentary

References

  1. 1 2 Schick, Lawrence (1991). Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Prometheus Books. p. 388. ISBN   0-87975-653-5.
  2. 1 2 "Cliffhangers". Guide du Rôliste Galactique (in French). 2009-05-08. Retrieved 10 February 2026.
  3. ↑ Mason, Paul (December 1989). "Role Games". Games International . No. 11. p. 40.
  4. ↑ Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 107. ISBN   978-1-907702-58-7.
  5. ↑ Mason, Paul (December 1989). "Rolegames". Games International (11): 40.
  6. ↑ Nalle, Dave (Winter 1989). "In the Speculum". Abyss . No. 44. p. 12.
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