This update comes a day early because I'm taking a long weekend on the occasion of my 22nd wedding anniversary. I'll name the week Koshogi, for silly reasons. The news:

• We released Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III . . . because the third time's the charm! This issue marks the first time that my interest in wine has shown up in a GURPS item, however.

• We've set internal release dates for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, by Peter Dell'Orto (peterdellorto) and y.t.; GURPS Hot Spots: Constantinople, 527-1204 A.D. and GURPS Locations: Hellsgate, both by Matt Riggsby (wombattery); and GURPS Power-Ups 5, also by y.t. While I cannot share those dates, this does mean that things are coming unstuck at last.

• The premliminary PDF of GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling, by Doug Cole (douglascole), has entered our review process.

• I reached 97.1% by word count on my edit of the new Discworld RPG, by Phil Masters (phil_masters).

• PK (peekitty) turned in the first draft of GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic.

• For those who missed it, I was interviewed over on RPG Codex.

On May 15, we had Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi" and "Dot"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson" and "Vicky"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Torsten ("Qoqa Ramazanov," a.k.a. "Zoya Petrovna Sidorov"). Martin ("Zhang Zhu," a.k.a. "Harry") remains unavailable.

( Last session's events . . . )

This is a short update, so let's call the week Bilbo. Anyway . . .

• I don't normally mention reprints here, but in this case, it's a bit of a licensing coup: We released GURPS Classic: Castle Falkenstein, by Phil Masters (phil_masters) and Jim Cambias.

• We contracted art for GURPS Locations: Worminghall, by Bill Stoddard (whswhs), marking another obstacle overcome.

• I reached 92.7% by word count on my edit of the new Discworld RPG, by Phil Masters (phil_masters). Sorry for the slower-than-usual progress, but a sinus infection at the start of the week kind of cramped my style.

On May 8, we had Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi" and "Dot"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson" and "Vicky"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Torsten ("Qoqa Ramazanov," a.k.a. "Zoya Petrovna Sidorov"). Martin ("Zhang Zhu," a.k.a. "Harry") remains unavailable.

( Last session's events . . . )

Lots of news this week, so let's call it Boann. She has these tidings for you:

• Nikki sent out the production PDF of Pyramid #3/43, and PK (peekitty) turned around comments on it. Expect this soon.

• GURPS Locations: Hellsgate, by Matt Riggsby (wombattery), got its art and a production review! It now awaits prepress, although there's still a fairly long queue for that.

• GURPS Power-Ups 5, by y.t., also got its art and a production review!! It, too, is now waiting for prepress.

• We got some art news on GURPS Banestorm: Martial Arts, by David T. Moore; GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, by Peter Dell'Orto (peterdellorto) and y.t.; GURPS Hot Spots: Constantinople, 527-1204 A.D., by Matt Riggsby (wombattery); GURPS Locations: St. George's Cathedral, by Michele Armellini; GURPS Locations: Worminghall and GURPS Underground Adventures, both by Bill Stoddard (whswhs); and Transhuman Space: Wings of the Rising Sun, by David Chart. None of these are out of the woods yet! However, the trees now look more like shrubs.

• I reached the 87.2% mark by word count on the new edition of the Discworld RPG, by Phil Masters (phil_masters). That takes me to the very end of the NPCs.

• We kicked off the playtest of GURPS High-Tech: Adventure Guns, by Hans-Christian Vortisch.

• We also started the peer review of GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers, by Bill Stoddard (whswhs).

On May 1, we had Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi" and "Dot"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson" and "Vicky"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Torsten ("Qoqa Ramazanov," a.k.a. "Zoya Petrovna Sidorov"). Martin ("Zhang Zhu," a.k.a. "Harry") remains unavailable.

( Last session's events . . . )

This week is named Neil, for no especially good reason. The news:

• PK (peekitty) reviewed the all-but-final PDF of Transhuman Space: Wings of the Rising Sun, by David Chart.

• There was a bit more production progress (no, not art, sorry) on both GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, by Peter Dell'Orto (peterdellorto) and y.t., and GURPS Power-Ups 5, by y.t.

• I reached 81.4% by word count on my edit of the new edition of the Discworld RPG, by Phil Masters (phil_masters). I was just chatting with Angua about this.

• GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers, by Bill Stoddard (whswhs), entered peer review.

• We're gearing up to playtest GURPS High-Tech: Adventure Guns, by Hans-Christian Vortisch. Those who like guns that are meant to be used, not hang on a wall, might want to read the call for playtesters.

• The e23 Wish List got a very minor update.

On April 17, we had Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi" and "Dot"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson" and "Vicky"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Torsten ("Qoqa Ramazanov," a.k.a. "Zoya Petrovna Sidorov"). Martin ("Zhang Zhu," a.k.a. "Harry") continued to be unavailable owing to schedule conflicts.

( Last session's events . . . )

This week is named Overton, and here's his scoop on notable GURPS project movement:

• There was new production-level progress on GURPS Hot Spots: Constantinople, by Matt Riggsby (wombattery); GURPS Locations: Hellsgate, also by Matt; GURPS Locations: St. George's Cathedral, by Michele Armellini; GURPS Locations: Worminghall, by Bill Stoddard (whswhs); GURPS Underground Adventures, also by Bill; and Transhuman Space: Wings of the Rising Sun, by David Chart.

• The preliminary PDF of GURPS Banestorm: Martial Arts, by David T. Moore, got through author review and is now in the (yes, rather long) art queue.

• PK (peekitty) finished his edit of GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling, by Doug Cole (douglascole).

• I hit 75.3% by word count on my edit of the new Discworld RPG, by Phil Masters (phil_masters).

We're skipping gaming this week, so I'm putting off the recap of our April 17 session until next weekend. That doesn't mean I can't post something sooner. It's time to play Rate That Agent! This exercise should be useful to my players for determining who to send to do what – and also to any readers curious about which characters in these adventures are best at what tasks.

This time around, I've come up with six broad areas of activity, each containing five narrower skill sets. All six major categories and the 30 minor ones they encompass are a bit arbitrary – as is my assessment as to which skill sets go with what kinds of activity. Still, there's a method to this madness, because I've grouped activities on the basis of traits that influence them in game terms (e.g., a common controlling attribute or Talent).

Likewise, the scoring is arbitrary in the sense that the algorithm is designed to give numbers between 0 and 10. However, the ratings are figured from character-point investments in relevant areas; they aren't eyeballed, and everybody's report card uses the same rules. Each +1 corresponds to a factor-of-two increase in versatility. This doesn't mean that +1 is the same as "twice as good" or "as capable as two other people." For those who like numbers, it's closer to saying that if an Agent scores N and you want to compare her to someone who scores M, the odds of N prevailing are close to 1/[1 + 2^(M-N)] .

Not all the scores have the same metric, so comparing unlike scores is a bit dodgy (not that this stops me!). For a task that depends on two or three things, it would be smartest to go with the person who rates highly in most or all of the relevant categories. That said, a person who really likes numbers could compare composites. As I used a base-2 log scale, the composite of a score of M and a score of N would be ugly: log(2^M + 2^N)/log 2. I'd just go by feel!