Sean Punch (born July 27, 1967) is a Canadian writer and game designer. He is the author of the fourth edition of the GURPS role-playing game. Before he turned to writing he was a student of particle physics. [1]
After writing, editing, and contributing to dozens of books for GURPS, Sean Punch took over from the game's original designer Steve Jackson as the line editor for GURPS in 1995. [2] : 110 Assisted by David L. Pulver, another Canadian and veteran role-playing game designer, he took on the task of re-designing the entire rule system for the a fourth edition of GURPS beginning in September 2002. [2] : 112
Sean Punch remains the Line Editor for GURPS - equivalent to being editor-in-chief of a book series, and the key decision-maker for new rules expansions.
In an attempt to acknowledge the quality and quantity of his work, some GURPS players have used his online nickname ("Kromm") to create a tongue-in-cheek cult. [3] They leave messages in discussion groups pretending to "praise Kromm."
Sean Punch has appeared in the following newspaper and magazine articles, websites, and podcasts.
Bunnies & Burrows (B&B) is a role-playing game (RPG) inspired by the 1972 novel Watership Down. Published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1976, the game centered on intelligent rabbits. It introduced several innovations to role-playing game design, being the first game to allow players to have non-humanoid roles, and the first to have detailed martial arts and skill systems. Fantasy Games Unlimited published a similar second edition in 1982. Frog God Games published a revised third edition in 2019 from the original authors. The game was also modified and published by Steve Jackson Games as an official GURPS supplement in 1992.
Thaumaturgy is the purported capability of a magician to work magic or other paranormal events or a saint to perform miracles. It is sometimes translated into English as wonderworking. A practitioner of thaumaturgy is a "thaumaturge", "thaumaturgist", "thaumaturgus" or "miracle worker". A saint, who is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness or closeness to God, may be claimed to have performed miracles, which are events not explicable by natural or scientific laws.
In fantasy fiction, a lich is a type of undead creature.
A generic or universalrole-playing game system is a role-playing game system designed to be independent of setting and genre. Its rules should, in theory, work the same way for any setting, world, environment or genre in which one would want to play.
Pyramid was a gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began life in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 issues, though it has been published on the Internet since March 1998. Print issues were bimonthly; the first online version published new articles each week; the second online version is monthly. Pyramid is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It replaced Steve Jackson Games' previous magazine Roleplayer.
GURPS Technomancer is a techno-magic campaign setting by David Pulver, published in 1998 by Steve Jackson Games as for the GURPS role-playing game system.
In many works of modern fantasy, elves are depicted as a race or species of pointy-eared humanoid beings. These depictions arise from the álfar of Norse mythology influencing elves in fantasy as being semi-divine and of human stature, whose key traits are being friendly with nature and animals. However, this differs from Norse and the traditional elves found in Middle Ages folklore and Victorian era literature.
Bruce Robert Cordell is an American author of roleplaying games and fantasy novels. He has worked on Dungeons & Dragons games for Wizards of the Coast. He won the Origins Award for Return to the Tomb of Horrors and has also won several ENnies. He lives in Seattle.
GURPS Powers is a role-playing character book written by Sean Punch and released in December 2005 for the Fourth Edition of GURPS.
GURPS Magic is a source book for the GURPS role-playing game from Steve Jackson Games that provides in depth coverage of magic in the context of GURPS. The first edition was published in 1989. The book expands on the material outlined in the Basic Set, provides alternative forms of magic for gamemasters to use, and contains much more material. A second edition of the book was published in 1994, and a third edition for the fourth edition of GURPS was published in 2004. The first two editions received positive reviews in game periodicals including Games International, Dragon, and White Wolf.
GURPS Martial Arts is a source book for the GURPS role-playing game, published by Steve Jackson Games; the most recent edition, by Peter Dell'Orto and Sean Punch, was released in 2007. GURPS Martial Arts includes new perks, skills, techniques, styles, weapons, and combat rules for GURPS, as well as history on the martial arts, pregenerated NPCs, and ideas for martial-arts campaigns. The book is an essential for any game that features large amounts of melee combat, in any genre or setting.
David L. Pulver is a Canadian freelance writer and game designer, author of more than fifty role-playing game rulebooks and supplements, including the award-winning Transhuman Space.
Group SNE is a Japanese company founded in 1986 by the current president Hitoshi Yasuda, which produces role-playing games, light novels, board games and card games. Ryo Mizuno was one of the founding members. Group SNE is named after Syntax Error, the programming language BASIC's term. The most famous product of Group SNE is Record of Lodoss War well known for a fantasy anime adaptation. Moreover, there are several anime adaptations based upon Group SNE's products such as Legend of Crystania, Mon Colle Knights and Rune Soldier.
The Psionics Handbook is a sourcebook published by Wizards of the Coast in 2001 for the 3rd edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It contains a multitude of rules and options for integrating psionic powers into the D&D game.
Chris Pramas is an American game designer and writer, as well as a founder of Green Ronin Publishing. He is best known as the designer of the Dragon Age RPG, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Freeport: The City of Adventure.
Lords of Darkness is the name of two accessories for the fictional Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
A tabletop role-playing game, also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a set formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.
GURPS Voodoo: The Shadow War is a role-playing game supplement by C. J. Carella, published by Steve Jackson Games in 1995, about using voodoo magic in a GURPS campaign.