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In college I played some Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games, and I've played a little once or twice as an adult. On the other hand I've read the rules to many more RPGs than I've ever played; it's nearly as much fun (more fun, even, sometimes), and without all the fuss of getting some people together, interacting with them, and being teased by one's non-RPG-playing loved ones.
All of which has nothing specifically to do with this particular RPG rulebook. GURPS Cabal is a supplement (I think they call it) to Steve Jackson Games' Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS). It's written by Ken Hite, who also writes my favorite column, Suppressed Transmissions, in SJ Games' online magazine Pyramid. Hite's specialty is speculating about the secret history of the world, the ancient magic and vast conspiracies that underlie what we naively think of as real. He does actual research, and there are lots of real live facts mixed into the heady brew that he serves up (and on the other hand, of course, he's not actually a nutcase because gosh it's only a game, heh heh heh).
This particular bit of Hite writing is 128 eight-by-ten pages of Hermetic magic as practiced and guarded by the Cabal and its allies and enemies, as well as factions, creatures, substances, and the underlying esoteric structure of the universe. It's put together out of various historical systems of magic and fraud, things that may or may not have been believed by the ancient Egyptians or written down by Hermes Trismegistus (or someone else by that name), the elements and the Sephiroth, the Rosicrucians and the Golden Dawn. It has both well-written narrative about the secret mysteries (John Dee and the Pearl-Bright Ocean, the Abyss that surrounds the Godhead, if Godhead is really what it is) and also the obligatory numerical game mechanics (Lemurians, ST +16 (+6 of which is Natural, -40%)[137]; IQ -3 [-20]; HT +5 [60].)
It's fun to read. I imagine it would be fun to play, also, but really; who has the time?
This web page is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.