Daily Illuminator

April 16, 2025: Game Recommendation: Pilfer

Did you know that there is a fantastic little collection of word games on the Merriam-Webster website? I only stumbled onto them recently! But before you go explore, let me tell you about one in particular that I just can't get enough of.

Pilfer is a quick multiplayer anagram game that you can play against a bot, with friends, or with other online players. Create words from a common pool of letter tiles, or alter existing words by adding more letters – rearranging as much as you'd like! If you steal a word, it's yours until someone adds another letter to it. Everyone's score is the total number of letters in their words at the end of the game.

This was a massive hit on a recent family Zoom call; we ended up playing several rounds because it's just so fast! If you enjoy Bananagrams, Boggle, Scrabble Slam, or any other real-time word games, it's a must-try.

– Irene Zielinski

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

April 15, 2025: I Respond To All My Texts With A Unicorn Sloth

I'm not going to say I've wasted far too many hours on the Emoji Mixer, but I don't think I'd be able to deny it in a court of law, either. The premise is simple: Take one of a number of emojis and combine it with another. Voila! You can then download the combined emoji.

Personally, the bulk of my time has been spent mixing the "rabbit" emoji with others, to often hilarious results. ("Rabbit" + "Burning heart" just looks like the cutest pyromaniac imaginable.) Oh, and it is possible to "combine" an emoji with itself. And, yes, "rabbit + rabbit" yields predicable-but-adorable results.

For those looking for tabletop-gaming utility, this is a real quick-and-easy way to generate an "icon" idea for any appropriate NPCs. "The secret coordinates to find A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. are being held by . . . the Strawberry Nerd?!"

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: Why Is The Darkness Blinking?

They're trapped between the realm of the living and the dead . . . and they're not too pleased about it. The Book of Unlife adds 44 unliving monsters to your The Fantasy Trip campaigns, along with a complete adventure setting. Live like there's too many tomorrows thanks to Warehouse 23!

April 14, 2025: Triangle Agency Is Anti-Trad

Have you heard about Triangle Agency? This fascinating TTRPG riffs on Control, Paranoia, and The SCP Foundation to make an urban fantasy RPG about working for a mysterious organization which captures and destroys anomalies that threaten existence. The game is brilliantly written, with a cheeky corporate wit à la Severance throughout the text, and multiple argumentative narrative voices that present different visions of the same world. The game is also, in a way I find really fascinating, anti-trad.

For those who aren't familiar, a "trad" game is a TTRPG like GURPS, Call of Cthulhu, or Dungeons & Dragons. It tends to be a big book with lots of stats, a traditional GM/player dynamic, and a design approach for long-term campaigns sculpted to the whims of the GM.

I come from a "story game" background, which has a very different approach to what a TTRPG looks like. This isn't good or bad, but neutral – different games for different folks. I'm used to seeing games that are extremely uninterested in trad-style designs (stat-less, GM-less, built for one-shots, etc.), but I don't think I've ever seen a game that actively works against the core assumptions of trad design.

Triangle Agency is a big book with a lot of stats. I think some people approached it looking for Delta Green and were surprised when they realized it actually gives the GM very little power. It has no "rolling for stats," and characters will by default fail at anything risky without the intervention of a special power. It's built for long campaigns, but those campaigns twist and weave as different perspectives vie for control of the game. It's a fascinating object!

I don't want to make anti-trad games, but I think one of the best ways to learn how to design something in the trad mindset is to learn from how others reject it. If you like GURPS, you'll probably dislike Triangle Agency a lot, but as a game designer it helps me grow my craft by learning how to hold love in my heart for both.

– Jay Dragon

Warehouse 23 News: The Autodueling Continues . . .

. . . with the Car Wars Pocket Box Bundle 2! Visit Midville and Black Lake to see its sights and colorful citizens, or take your chances in the Armadillo Autoduel Arena! Will you find glory or defeat? Find out by picking up this Pocket Box from Warehouse 23 today!

April 13, 2025: He Who Fears Being Conquered Is Sure Of Defeat

If you haven't figured it out yet, I watch a lot of nerdy YouTube videos. My latest find is a significant investment in time, clocking in at more than 90 minutes, but it is totally worth it. Super Bunnyhop is an eclectic channel with videos about history and the video game industry. The video that caught my eye is a deep dive into the history of strategy games that focuses heavily on Kriegsspiel and how Napoleon might be the originator of the hobby that so many of us love.

– Will Schoonover

Warehouse 23 News: A Great Deal Of Adventure!

Excitement is in the cards with the Decks of Destiny for The Fantasy Trip. This collection of resources and reference material contains adversaries, rumors, combat options, and more to make your games of TFT fast and furious. Download this set today from Warehouse 23!

April 12, 2025: Save The World, Or Play Pixelated Golf?

I love the idea of hiding information in a tabletop RPG world in new and interesting ways, and I just stumbled across one I'd never thought of: putting it on an Atari 2600 cartridge.

This hacker programmed the Atari 2600 as a digital photo frame and shared details on the project, including how images are limited to 64×84 pixels, black and white. If you don't want to program the actual hardware to make it happen (although it'd be really cool!), the article provides enough information so that you can describe it vividly in a game or create a visual aid. The link even offers instructions on how to turn your own pictures into the suitable format!

If you want to amp up the challenges for the players even more, maybe make the heroes have to track down the cartridge buried among thousands of others in a New Mexico landfill . . .

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: Classic Car Wars!

Get on the road, but watch out . . . the right of way goes to the biggest guns! Choose your vehicle – complete with weapons, armor, power plants, suspension, and even body style. Order the Car Wars Pocket Box Bundle 1 now on Warehouse 23, and enjoy classics like Car Wars, Truck Stop, Convoy, and more in the classic Pocket Box format!

April 11, 2025: Thinking About The Iliad

My mind has been on ancient Greece a lot lately. It started with the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey and the Iliad (both truly phenomenal and powerful reads), followed by the novels Song of Achilles and Wrath Goddess Sing, along with a valiant attempt to enjoy the Percy Jackson TV Show (before being put off by how it fumbles the last episode's pacing).

Ancient Greece is a fascinating historical period, and an even more fascinating mythological period. It's been valorized in western society for hundreds of years, from Raphael to the founding fathers. It contains echoes of many of our greatest triumphs and our primordial sins, all wrapped up in a culture that is now so distant from our own that we cannot help but project our own values back in time. Some TTRPGs touch on this period (GURPS, of course, has some fantastic rules for historical gaming, and Agon is an indie game from Evil Hat that hits some of those same notes).

To me, the greatest appeal of ancient Greece is that alien quality – though we can equivocate and debate endlessly about which parts of Greece are virtuous and which are monstrous, it is ultimately a different society and a different world, with a fundamentally different relationship to what it means to be alive.

– Jay Dragon

Warehouse 23 News: Colosseum To Believe 'Em

If the real world's got you down, consider an exciting new career as a gladiator! GURPS Martial Arts: Gladiators presents all the details you need to add this era to your historical adventures . . . or mine it for ideas to include in other campaigns! With historical insight, rules, weapons, character options, and more, it's never been easier to bring gladiatorial glamour to your game. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

April 10, 2025: Stakeholder Report For 2024

The 2024 report is here. I am already nostalgic for that relatively benign time . . .

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Mind Over Matter

Unleash the power of the brain at your GURPS game, with GURPS Psionic Powers. This supplement presents a complete power framework, making it easy to outfit heroes (or villains!) with abilities such as telekinesis, psychic vampirism, telepathy, and more. Add this awesome insight into the mind with a download from Warehouse 23!

April 9, 2025: Dodecadonuts

What do you do when you're a roleplaying fan obsessed with donuts?

Other than "play RPGs and eat donuts," of course.

The answer is here.

Dodecadonuts is a completely demented project – and I mean that in the most admiring way – that combines artisanry and wit to generate T-shirts you will want to wear, stickers you will want to stick to things, and donuts that you had better NOT eat.

Click the link.

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Oops, All The Pyramids!

Imagine it: over 100 issues of Pyramid – nearly 5,000 pages of gaming goodness – covering all manner of genres, power levels, and possibilities – in a bundle at a fantastic price. Your imagination must be amazing, because Pyramid Volume 3 Bundle exists and awaits your download! All 122 issues from that era are in one package, a complete collection of GURPS goodness. Download this trove from Warehouse 23!

April 8, 2025: Can Ghosts Help Me File A Home Owner's Insurance Claim?

I recently learned that many so-called haunted houses may, in fact, be attributable to carbon monoxide poisoning, as noted by (picked almost at random from online) NPR and the American Lung Association.

However, I've done additional research, and I'm still not finding any conclusive evidence as to why ghosts would be so cruel as to release dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in the first place . . .

Anyway, I feel like I have a great hook or red herring for a future GURPS Horror game.

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: An Era Of Gaming Goodness

From 1980 through 1985, Steve Jackson Games published The Space Gamer, chock full of articles, reviews, insight, and games. Now, The Space Gamer Bundle is available with all 50 issues from that era in a downloadable bundle at a great price. The past awaits at Warehouse 23!

April 7, 2025: Playing With Reality

I'm currently not-quite-halfway through Playing with Reality by Kelly Clancy. Now, one would typically wait until they've finished the book to write a review, so this isn't that, but it is a "hey I am currently reading this book and quite enjoying it" kind of post. Clancy's neuroscience background and historical perspective have been both fun and engaging for me – though with my own background, the opening chapters did leave me wanting a little more neuroscience. Don't get me wrong, her overview was masterful; I'm just a big ol' nerd.

I'm learning new things about history and greatly enjoying the retellings of stories I already knew from classes on computer science or cognitive psychology, and I'm looking forward to a (sure to come soon . . .) quiet afternoon where I can sit down and actually finish this book. If you're interested in how human and machine decision making are influenced by our understanding of games, then maybe check it out!

– Irene Zielinski

Warehouse 23 News: So Real, And Yet So Not

Not everything that's impossible is magical; sometimes it's just really impractical. GURPS Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality is an assortment of pre-modern tech that never existed (probably), but might have, or was believed to exist, or was close to working but didn't. Grab a gun-sword, peruse Leonardo da Vinci's sketches, and download the impossible today from Warehouse 23!

April 6, 2025: Does Anyone Speak Shark?

I had no idea that sharks didn't make noise, but apparently they don't. No, wait; they do. But it seems scientists just figured that out. Anyway, here's an article from the website Science that explains what they've discovered, including an audio recording of these first known sounds.

Personally, I think it kind of sounds like the shark in question is rolling a Shark d6 Dice Set around in their tummy . . . but I suspect that's because it's the sound my tummy makes when I swallow a Shark d6 Dice Set.

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: Weapons For A Bygone Era

Add spice to your Victorian and Wild West campaigns with GURPS High-Tech: Adventure Guns. This catalog describes iconic and unusual firearms from the mid-19th and early-20th centuries, plus new rules and historical insight to make the era come alive. Don your 10-gallon hat or steampunk goggles, and download it today from Warehouse 23!

April 5, 2025: Homebrew Inspiration With Weird Ireland

My husband and I love worldbuilding for our TTRPG campaigns. Part of the fun of creating a setting is making it feel lived in – creating cities, towns, roads, and vistas in between. And while there's nothing wrong with A Great Legendary Place Beyond The Mountains, there's also something to be said for the fantasy equivalent of The Corn Belt . . . and for quirky landmarks that make you laugh.

Weird Ireland is an Instagram account hosted by Brinsley McNamara. Each post gives you a glimpse of the oddities that underlie everyday life on the Emerald Isle. Some showcase Ireland's mythic past; others are simply fun. (For example, my husband's home county of Louth is featured both for Cu Chulainn's Stone and a potato vending machine.) My favorite post so far is about Donnelly's Hollow, where a monument commemorates a bare-knuckle brawl for the ages.

– Katie Duffy

Warehouse 23 News: Do More With Less?

GURPS Power-Ups 8: Limitations lets you add more flavor and power to GURPS abilities by making them less-than-ideal in some circumstances, or giving them a vulnerable point. In addition to an authoritative compilation of limitations, it also includes new options and insight to make limitations come to life . . . and perhaps provides a way to get the few extra points you need to make your ability awesome! It's just a download away from Warehouse 23!