GURPS Infinite Earths

Diamond

Banned
It looks as if the GURPS rpg system is coming out with a sourcebook called 'Infinite Earths'. In fact, its on the shelves now. Unfortunately, I don't have an rpg supplier near me, so I have to order online... :(

Does anyone know if it will have new information, settings, etc, or if its just a reprint/compilation of Alternate Earths I & II, Time Travel, etc?
 
Diamond said:
It looks as if the GURPS rpg system is coming out with a sourcebook called 'Infinite Earths'. In fact, its on the shelves now. Unfortunately, I don't have an rpg supplier near me, so I have to order online... :(

Does anyone know if it will have new information, settings, etc, or if its just a reprint/compilation of Alternate Earths I & II, Time Travel, etc?
It's actually called "Infinite Worlds"...here's the webpage:

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/infiniteworlds/
GURPS Infinite Worlds combines and updates material from GURPS Time Travel, GURPS Alternate Earths, and GURPS Alternate Earths 2 into one full-color hardcover volume, and gives dozens of new worlds to explore as well!
Those "dozens of new worlds" could just be one-paragraph descriptions or something though, I dunno...
 

Diamond

Banned
I'm almost tempted to get it just for those extra 1 or 2 page descriptions... but at almost $40 US, I think I may just wait a few months and get it used on Amazon. :)

Plus, I could probably get more good ideas from the members of this board in one day than I could from this book.
 
Looks very interesting so far. :) I wonder whether Friedrich is about emperor Friedrich II. or Friedrich the Great.
 
Max Sinister said:
Looks very interesting so far. :) I wonder whether Friedrich is about emperor Friedrich II. or Friedrich the Great.
Just got the book today. It's Friedrich I Barbarossa, whose history in the real world is described like this:
He almost brought the rich cities of northern Italy into a common Empire, losing one campaign thanks to malaria, and losing the Battle of Legnano in 1176 only throught the defection of his vassal Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. He deposed Henry with the aid of many German bishops, and almost broke the power of the German nobles, which (along with the tax revenues from Italy) would have unified Germany as a nation much as his contemporary Philip II did for France. His struggle with Pope Alexander III almost ended papal control over the national churches, which might have allowed the Church to reform gradually without splintering. And he led the Third Crusade in 1190, which almost took Jerusalem, except that Barbarossa drowned in the Saleph River and the German armies dissoved.
In the "Friedrich" timeline, he "managed to cow" Henry the Lion into supporting him in a succussful defeat of the Italian cities, and with the money from this conquest he succeeded in breaking the German nobles' power and in taking Jerusalem in his crusade, which in turn led to the Pope backing down (this is also a world where magic works, so it's suggested he may have gotten some magical help from the wizards of the Knights Templar). Anyway, the end result was a great German-Roman Empire in the present year of 1219, which is now being infiltrated by SS Agents from Reich-5 who have developed a dimension-hopping technique using people with natural psionic abilities whose talents have been enhanced using drugs, brain surgery, and other Mengele-like techniques (fortunately the existence of other worlds is only known by the Ahnenerbe division of the SS, which deals with 'Ancestral Heritage' and occultism, and hasn't been shared with the rest of the Nazi government out of fear that Fuhrer Alschneiss would take over the parachronic program and kill all the Ahnenerbe members to preserve the secret). The Ahnenerbe SS division "seeks to transform the German-Roman Empire into the First Reich, a breeding ground for Aryan warriors."
 
Jesse said:
The Ahnenerbe SS division "seeks to transform the German-Roman Empire into the First Reich, a breeding ground for Aryan warriors."

That should be Second Reich, thus moving their Reich to 4th. :D
 
fortyseven said:
That should be Second Reich, thus moving their Reich to 4th. :D
I never really thought about what Reich #1 and #2 were supposed to be, but according to this page the Nazis of our history (and presumably of the Reich-5 timeline) meant the First Reich to be the Holy Roman Empire, from 800 to 1806...so, the Friedrich timeline would really just be an expanded version of the First Reich, from their point of view.
 

Thande

Donor
Generally accepted that the First Reich is the Holy Roman Empire, effectively defunct after the 30 Years' War and totally destroyed in the Napoleonic Wars; Second Reich is Bismarck's 1870-1918 Reich, and the Third Reich is obviously Hitler's.
 
Ouch! So now Reich-5 doesn't only have technology farther progressed than ours, but magic too? And they discovered other TLs?! That's BAD.
 
I have the book as well. Being a GURPS player/GM for a long time now I'm use to the setting. It started with their old GURPS: Time Travel book and the 2 Alternate Earths.

Reich 5 had better technology, magic, AND psionics. Problem: Only a secret society has the magic and psionics so far, but this can change.

Personaly I love the paramilitary world jumping this game offers. A real chance to challenge the players.
 
I meant that the numbering of reichs would have to be different, but maybe not. I know Hitler's was the Third in OTL.
 

Thande

Donor
In one of my ATLs the 3rd Reich is when Germany annexes and incorporates the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary, and the 4th is after the second global war in which Germany was partitioned between France and Russia before being liberated and restored. This is the flag of the 3rd and 4th Reichs:

untitled.GIF
 
Confusing terms...

For those not thoroughly familiar with GURPS Alternate Earths, Reich 5 doesn't mean a 5th Reich--it's the 5th timeline the I-Cops discovered in which Hitler's Reich won the war. It's still clled, by natives, The Third Reich.
 
I just picked up GURPS Infinite Earths and am fairly impressed with it. Since I don't do much gaming any more I picked it up more for the ATLs presented. I found a few of the more briefly detailed ATLs to be very interesting and may work to expand upon them.

On the down side, I wish they had not used the glossy paper, which only upped the price. It would have been nice if they had included world maps for the new ATLs. There are a few ATLs that were briefly covered in an old article in Pyramid magazine, which should have been included. A few, like Technate, were expanded upon. I haven't looked a great deal into the classification of ATLs that they provide, but will over the next few days.
 
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