What is GURPSDay?

GURPSDay is something that started as a bit of a lark in February 2013. I somewhat off-the-cuff decided that Thursday is “GURPSDay” and from there, started ensuring every Thursday, I had a GURPSy post going on.

Other folks got in on the act (or were already posting lots more than me about GURPS, but joined in on the Thursday thing).

Later – much later – Phil Reed apparently got wind of the GURPSDay thing, and wondered out loud about it. That resulted in this Daily Illuminator post (and to be fair, Sean and I are long-time friends, and since he was one of the first interviews I did on Gaming Ballistic’s Firing Squad, he knew about the blog and my Thursday thing).

Then Jeffro Johnson helped me out, and wrote a PERL script that trolled RSS feeds and pulled in and formatted different posts, including a nifty Precis feature that allows commentary to be embedded in the post. Merlin Avery then improved the script in ways that are beyond my ken, but made it much more likely to successfully import RSS feeds from various platforms. He is a ridiculously accomplished code Jedi.

In any case, that’s where GURPSDay really took off, since the import and formatting of the content was automatic. To date, I now have 92 blogs on the roll, and we pick up one every few weeks.

Everyone Can Play

GURPSDay includes some real ringers. Christopher R. Rice (Ghostdancer on the GURPS Forums) effectively owns Pyramid magazine, he’s published there so much (deposit a thousand dollars, and the bank owns you; deposit a billion dollars and you own the bank). Peter Dell’Orto, ToadKillerDog and the author of GURPS Martial Arts and winner of the Dungeon Fantastic prize for elucidating the Principle of Conservation of Ninjitsu is there too. Lots of other GURPS authors – such as the inimitable Hans-Christian Vortisch (High-Tech, Tactical Shooting, Gun Fu) are on there.

Some aren’t (or aren’t yet) GURPS authors, but post amazing content nearly every day. Some post less frequently . . . but the script doesn’t care. If you post that week, it gets scooped up.

How do you get on the list? Just email me and ask. The note in every GURPSDay post says:

If you’re interested in having your blog consolidated here, navigate over to The Instructions Page and drop me a line. Take special note of the RSS Settings Fix if you’re on WordPress.

That is sincerely meant. If you write about GURPS, or want to, start up a blog and have at it. Or contact me or one of the others known to host Guest Posts until you’re comfortable doing it on your own.

Is all I need is your blog name, the name you want to be credited under (some, like myself, use their real names; others use pseudonyms), the RSS feed for your blog, and the blog address.

The two most common blog platforms are Blogger (a bit more editing-friendly) and WordPress (less WYSIWYG, but can more easily be turned into your own domain and can host eCommerce natively). The script likes both of them pretty well.

Write Here, Write Now

GURPS is resurgent these days. From the Dungeon Fantasy RPG boxed set to now being available to millions of customers on DriveThruRPG and other affiliates, there has never been a better time to investigate and play the system.

The community is vibrant if occasionally fractious . . . pretty much like every internet community everywhere. There are some truly helpful folks on there, who if approached with any reasonable degree of civility will bend over backwards to help you out.

Oh, did I mention those people include the Line Editor, Sean “Dr Kromm” Punch, and his plucky sidekick Jason “PK” Levine, the Assistant Line Editor? That some of the most prolific authors will engage in nearly any constructive conversation on powers, world-building, how to run a “rules-light” GURPS game, or how to prune away the monstrous amount of material that could be used into just the right amount of material that you need?

It’s a great group of folks, for the most part. And if you have something to say about GURPS on any sort of regular and constructive basis . . . I want to include you in the blog roll.

And to the existing 92 bloggers: WRITE MORE.