General Info

Howdy! I’m Doug, though my author credits are always listed as Douglas H. Cole

I have been role-playing since 1981 – starting with Holmes Red Box and AD&D, sampling many systems along the way, and started heavily playing GURPS since 1988. I’ve been an active playtester and author for both Third and Fourth Editions for a while; I started while I was in grad school at Northwestern.

I’m an occasional but avid target shooter and movie-watcher, I love postponing woodworking and home improvement projects, and I’m an inveterate GURPS rules tinkerer. And now I run my own company – Gaming Ballistic, LLC. But since you’re here, you already know that.

I have earned two doctorates: a real one from Northwestern University in Materials Science and Engineering, and a cool one in GURPS Ballistics from Illuminati Online University, based on an article I wrote a while back.

I currently live near Minneapolis, and work for a hard-disc-drive company as my day job. All the rest of my time is spent either working on products for Gaming Ballistic, or with my family – outnumbered badly by my wife and two girls.

More on Gaming

I started playing GURPS in 1989 with 3rd edition. Since then, I’ve done a lot of playtesting for 3e and 4e, plus LP for the Fourth Edition High Tech and Tactical Shooting. I’ve published about six articles in Pyramid, and I’ve an e23 book (GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling) that was the first GURPS release, on Sept 5, 2013, after the Big Damn Ogre got out of the way.

It is my secret desire to have the notation in TV Tropes for grappling rules say “Averted, in GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling.

There, now that I’ve said it, it’ll never happen. But . . . that won’t be my first mention on the GURPS page of TV Tropes. It’ll be my THIRD.

First: the mention of “the closest thing anyone got to deriving the system the authors used goes on for pages,” referencing an old article I wrote in Pyramid on “Interior and Terminal Ballistics for GURPS.” The second is a nod to my “Nasty Transcendental Equations Table” in Pyramid #3/33, the article on bows called “The Deadly Spring.”

And in fact, TG is mentioned in TVTropes already, but no opinions on averted or not are given. Alas.