Soldiers and ScientistsTM Written by PHIL MASTERS Edited by NIKOLA VRTIS Illustrated by ZACH HOWARD Additional Material by PETER V. DELL’ORTO, KENNETH HITE, SEAN PUNCH, and WILLIAM H. STODDARD GURPS System Design z STEVE JACKSON Chief Executive Officer z PHILIP REED GURPS Line Editor z SEAN PUNCH Chief Creative Officer z SAM MITSCHKE GURPS Project Manager z STEVEN MARSH Chief Operating Officer z SUSAN BUENO Production Artist and Indexer z NIKOLA VRTIS Director of Sales z ROSS JEPSON GURPS FAQ Maintainer z Page Design z PHIL REED and JUSTIN DE WITT VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO Art Direction and Prepress Checker z NIKOLA VRTIS Lead Playtester: Roger Burton West Playtesters: Paul Blackwell, Fred Brackin, Douglas Cole, John Dallman, Kelly Pedersen, Christopher R. Rice, Andrew Rivett, Michael Roy, and William H. Stoddard GURPS, Pyramid, Warehouse 23, the all-seeing pyramid, Soldiers and Scientists, and the names of all products published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are trademarks or registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license. GURPS Steampunk 3: Soldiers and Scientists is copyright © 2019 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved. Additional art acknowledgments can be found on p. 3. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this material via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. STEVE JACKSON GAMES Stock #37-0349 Version 1.0 – February 2019 ® CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..........3 OPPRESSED GROUPS .......... 19 Steam-Powered Terminology and Concepts ......3 Women . .19 Mechanical Man . .27 Publication History ............3 Ethnic/Racial Minorities .......20 CHARACTER TEMPLATES ........ 28 About the Author . .3 Other Minorities..............21 Disadvantage Limits ........28 Additional Art STYLES.................... 21 Perks and Quirks...........28 Acknowledgments ...........3 Using Styles With Templates....21 Military Duties .............29 Combat Arts . .22 50-Point Templates ...........28 1. CHARACTER CREATION Heavy Pistol .................22 Artilleryman ..............29 OPTIONS ...........4 Scientific Pugilism ............23 Cavalryman ...............30 CHARACTER TRAITS ............ 4 The Secret Stick ..............23 Constable.................31 Advantages . .4 Sword-and-Pistol .............24 Crewman .................32 Machine Minds and Empathy ....5 Weird-Science Styles ..........25 Zero-G Activities ...........33 Scientific Friends: Individuals ....7 Vehicle Mastery ..............25 Entertainer ...............33 Scientific Friends: Societies ......8 Fashion Looks . .34 Perks ........................9 2. TEMPLATES .........26 Infantryman ..............35 Disadvantages................11 RACIAL TEMPLATES ........... 26 Medium ..................36 Quirks ......................14 Biological Creation ...........26 Radical...................37 Skills .......................16 Clockwork Automaton.........27 Reckoner .................37 Wildcard Skills ...............18 Raygun Gothic Robot .........27 Reporter..................39 Adventurer-Journalist .......40 Rogue....................40 Servant...................41 BOUT Upper-Class Youth .........44 A GURPS Motivations ...............46 Steve Jackson Games is committed to full support of GURPS players. We 75- or 100-point Templates .....46 can be reached by email: [email protected]. Our address is SJ Games, P.O. Aviator-Pilot ..............46 Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760. Resources include: Clergyman ................48 New supplements and adventures. GURPS continues to grow – see what’s Demimondaine ............50 new at gurps.sjgames.com. Society Adventuress .........51 Warehouse 23. Our online store offers GURPS print items, plus PDFs Engineer .................52 of our books, supplements, adventures, play aids, and support . includ- Field Officer...............54 ing exclusive material available only on Warehouse 23! Just head over to The Stress of Command......54 warehouse23.com. Fraudulent Mystic..........55 Pyramid (pyramid.sjgames.com). For 10 years, our PDF magazine The Department of Pyramid included new rules and articles for GURPS, plus systemless loca- Unconventional tions, adventures, and more. The entire 122-issue library is at Warehouse 23! Philosophical Internet. To discuss GURPS with our staff and your fellow gamers, visit Resolutions..............55 our forums at forums.sjgames.com. You can also join us at facebook.com/ Gentleperson of Leisure .....56 sjgames or twitter.com/sjgames. Share your brief campaign teasers with Large Vehicle Officer .......58 #GURPShook on Twitter. Or explore that hashtag for ideas to add to your Movement Leader ..........60 own game! The web page for GURPS Steampunk 3: Soldiers and Scientists Native Warrior ............61 can be found at gurps.sjgames.com/steampunk3. Professional Criminal .......61 Store Finder (storefinder.sjgames.com): Discover nearby places to buy Scientist..................63 GURPS items and other Steve Jackson Games products. Local shops are great Sportsman ................65 places to play our games and meet fellow gamers! Spy ......................66 Bibliographies. Bibliographies are a great resource for finding more of what Staff Officer ...............68 you love! We’ve added them to many GURPS book web pages with links to 150-point Templates ..........69 help you find the next perfect element for your game. Colonial Adventurer ........69 Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us – but we do our best Detective .................70 to fix our errors. Errata pages for GURPS releases are available at Explorer..................71 sjgames.com/errata/gurps. Magician .................72 Native Leader .............74 Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that begin with B refer to that book, not INDEX ..............76 this one. CONTENTS 2 INTRODUCTION This supplement, third volume in the GURPS Steampunk Period Superscience: Scientific ideas that were once seri- series for GURPS Fourth Edition, builds on and updates ously proposed or even widely accepted, which have now been the original GURPS Steampunk for Third Edition. It is the disproved or superseded in the real world, but which actually “characters” book, providing notes and a selection of tem- work as described in the game setting. plates (see pp. B258-B259) to make the creation of PCs for Raygun Gothic: The style of technological design associ- steampunk games quick and easy. It can be used on its own, ated with “pulp” science fiction, from the period 1918-1939. but it is part of a series, and gamers may want to read it in Screampunk: Steampunk horror. conjunction with GURPS Steampunk 1: Settings and Style, The Steam Age: The period from 1789 to 1914, also some- which discusses what “steampunk” actually means. Chapter 1 times known as the “Long 19th Century.” also refers to various other books that define the concept of martial-arts and weird-science styles in GURPS, but that material isn’t required when using any of the templates. Updated for Fourth Edition! Make As GURPS Steampunk 1 shows, “steampunk” is a broad Steampunk Characters Quickly and Easily! concept, encompassing a range of types of story, technologi- cal assumptions, and “flavors” of game. Hence, the templates in this book are designed to be flexible, and can be modified with an assortment of lenses that fine-tune them for specific UBLICATION ISTORY purposes. Broadly, this book assumes a setting based on the P H This is the first edition of GURPS Steampunk 3: Soldiers historical “Steam Age” and Western society at the time, with and Scientists. However, some of the templates here draw tech levels around 5 or 6, or something similar on an alternate inspiration from those that appeared in the original GURPS path of development. Steampunk. A few ideas and character traits are bor- rowed from other GURPS books, including GURPS Age of ERMINOLOGY AND ONCEPTS Napoleon, GURPS Screampunk, GURPS Martial Arts, the T C GURPS Power-Ups series, GURPS Horror, GURPS Infinite This book uses some specialized terms and concepts, Worlds: Britannica-6, and GURPS Powers: The Weird. as introduced and discussed in more detail in GURPS Steampunk 1. Clockpunk: A variant on steampunk featuring a lot of clock- ABOUT THE AUTHOR work or other pre-Steam Age technological style. Phil Masters is a GURPS author of long standing, and the Effective TL: Steampunk games and settings often make author of GURPS Steampunk 1: Settings and Style, GURPS use of the idea of divergent tech levels (p. B513). In such cases, Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances, and GURPS Steampunk the effective TL is a value equal to the sum of the two parts 2: Steam and Shellfire, along with the Discworld Roleplaying of the prevailing TL. For example, a TL(5+2) world has an Game and many other books for Steve Jackson Games. A role- effective TL of 7. playing game of his own creation, The Small Folk, is also Mannerspunk: Stories of social interaction and adventur- available through Warehouse 23. He has in his time been ing in Steam Age or similar societies, playing up the formality a reckoner of sorts and a peculiar manner of aesthete, and of the culture. makes his home in his native Great Britain. Additional Art Acknowledgments P. 6: “Passage through Mt. Saint-Bernard,” by Théodore of Jefferson R. Burdick,