''GURPS Japan'', full title ''GURPS Japan: Roleplaying in the World of the Shogunate'' (1st edition) or ''GURPS Japan: Beauty, Terror, and Adventure'' (2nd edition), is a

sourcebook A sourcebook is a collection of writings on a subject that is intended to be a basic introduction to the topic presented. Academic use In American universities, a sourcebook, either a standard one or a custom collection, may function as a supplem ...

for ''

GURPS The ''Generic Universal RolePlaying System'', or ''GURPS'', is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting. It was created by Steve Jackson Games and first published in 1986 at a time when most such systems w ...

'', a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

Steve Jackson Games Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and (until 2019) the gaming magazine ''Pyramid''. History Founded in 1980, six years after the cr ...

. The first edition was published in 1988.

Authors

Lee Gold Lee Gold is a member of California science fiction fandom and a writer and editor in the role-playing game and filk music communities. Gaming Gold became prominent after 1975 as the editor of '' Alarums and Excursions'', a monthly amateur pre ...

is an author, editor, game designer, and

filk music Filk music is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has existed since the early 1950s and been played primarily since the mid-1970s. Etymology and defin ...

ian. In 1975, Gold founded ''

Alarums and Excursions ''Alarums and Excursions'' (''A&E'') is an amateur press association (APA) started in June 1975 by Lee Gold; publication continues to the present day. It was one of the first publications to focus solely on role-playing games. History In 1964, B ...

'', a monthly

amateur press association An amateur press association (APA) is a group of people who produce individual pages or zines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group. History The first APAs were formed by groups of amateur pr ...

for RPG writers. She has served as editor ever since. ''Alarums and Excursions'' won the

Charles S. Roberts Award The Charles S. Roberts Awards (or CSR Awards) is an annual award for excellence in the historical wargaming hobby. It was named in honor of Charles S. Roberts the "Father of Wargaming" who founded Avalon Hill. The award is informally called a "C ...

for Best Amateur Wargame Magazine in 1984, and the

Origins Award The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so (for example) the 1979 aw ...

for Best Amateur Game Periodical in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Gold designed the RPGs ''

Land of the Rising Sun The word ''Japan'' is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by many languages. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon () and Nihon (). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji . During the third-century CE Three Kingdoms peri ...

'' (1980) and '' Lands of Adventure'' (1983), published by

Fantasy Games Unlimited Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) is a publishing house for tabletop and role-playing games. The company has no in-house design teams and relies on submitted material from outside talent. History Founded in the summer of 1975 in Jericho, New York b ...

. She also published ''Vikings'' for

Iron Crown Enterprises Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) is a publishing company that has produced role playing, board, miniature, and collectible card games since 1980. Many of ICE's better-known products were related to J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth, but the ''Ro ...

. Gold was the sole author of the first edition of ''GURPS Japan''. Hunter Johnson is a freelance

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

, author, and translator. He has translated many game rules and websites from German for

Mayfair Games Mayfair Games was an American publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games that also licensed Euro-style board games to publish them in English. The company licensed worldwide English-language publishing rights to ''The Settlers of Catan'' ser ...

. He authored, co-authored, or contributed to seven books for

, including ''

GURPS Monsters ''GURPS Monsters'' () is a 128-page soft-bound book compiled by J. Hunter Johnson and published in 2002 by Steve Jackson Games as a supplement for the ''GURPS'' role-playing game system. It contains biographies and gaming statistics for forty-eig ...

'' and this second edition of ''GURPS Japan'', and served for five years as the first coordinator of GURPS errata for the company. Johnson expanded and revised Gold's work into its second edition.

''GURPS Japan'' is a ''

'' rules supplement for adventuring in

feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to Japanese Paleolithic, prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millenni ...

, including character creation rules.

Publication history

''GURPS Japan: Roleplaying in the World of the Shogunate'' was written by

, with art by Guy Burchak, and was published by

in 1988 as a 112-page book. ''GURPS Japan: Beauty, Terror, and Adventure'', the second edition of the book, now revised and expanded to 128 pages by Hunter Johnson, was published by Steve Jackson Games in November 1999, written by Gold and Johnson, with art by Burchak and Theo Black. This second edition is compatible with the third edition of the ''GURPS'' gaming system. ''GURPS Japan'' was the first in the series of historical sourcebooks from Steve Jackson Games, and one of the smaller subgenre books published after the first broad genre ''GURPS'' books.

Reception

Strategicon convention manager and game critic Eric M. Aldrich I said in his review of the first edition: In his favorable review of this second edition,

Kenneth Hite Kenneth Hite (born September 15, 1965) is a writer and role-playing game designer. Hite is the author of Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents role-playing games, and lead designer of the 5th edition of '' Vampire: the Masquerade''. Educati ...

says, "''

Sengoku The was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Various s ...

'' and '' L5R'' RPG players and GMs can both get a lot out of this book," adding that "medieval Japan, broadly defined, is suddenly one of the most solidly playable milieux in gaming."

Reviews

* ''

Casus Belli A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one b ...

'' #84 (Dec 1994)

References

{{reflist GURPS 1st/2nd edition GURPS 3rd edition

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Historical role-playing games Martial arts role-playing games Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1988

Authors

Contents

Publication history

Reception

Reviews

References