GURPS Ice Age is a supplement of GURPS rules for adventure in the Stone Age and before. Character rules for various hominid races include Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Neanderthal, and Cro-Magnon peoples, with new skills, and a section on Shamanism and Magic. The book provides campaign setting data and animal descriptions for Pleistocene Europe and Pliocene Africa, with dinosaurs as well. The book also includes campaign-suggestions and sample scenarios. GURPS Ice Age gives players information on early man, rules for using these characters in a GURPS game, shamanistic magic and spells, and details on how to set up a prehistoric campaign. The included adventure is suitable for play over 2-3 sessions. GURPS Ice Age includes rules and setting material for games that are set in the time of prehistoric man. Ice Age also introduced a system of rules for shamanic magic.
Publication history
GURPS Ice Age: Roleplaying in the Prehistoric World was written by Kirk Wilson Tate, with a cover by Guy Burchak and illustrations by Donna Barr, and was first published by Steve Jackson Games in 1989 as a 64-page book. Most of the material was slightly reworked and republished in GURPS Dinosaurs, although the interior art by comics artist Donna Barr was not. An introductory adventure, "Wolf Pack on Bear River", was also excluded from GURPS Dinosaurs. GURPS Ice Age is a long since out of print edition. A PDF edition is available from Steve Jackson Games.
Reception
reviewed GURPS Ice Age for Dragonmagazine #148. Bambra comments: "A game centered around cavemen and woolly mammoths? The GURPS Ice Age game takes this unusual subject and does a first-class job of turning it into a credible and detailed setting, including lots of background information and a gaming environment that makes a distinct change from other settings." He notes that the included adventure "does an admirable job of capturing the flavor of life at that time. The GURPS Ice Age game is also a handy sourcebook for GMs running timetravel or lost-worlds adventures." Lawrence Schick commented that the dinosaurs are "thrown in for those who don't care too much about scientific accuracy".
