Pyramid was a US gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 issues, and was published on the Internet from March 1998. Print issues were bimonthly; the first online version published new articles each week; the second online version was monthly, published until December 2018. Pyramid was headquartered in Austin, Texas. It replaced Steve Jackson Games' previous magazine Roleplayer.
Pyramid published general gaming articles by freelance authors, as well as Designer's Notes by Steve Jackson Games product developers, industry news, cartoons, and gaming product reviews. Although articles tended to concentrate on Steve Jackson Games products such as GURPS, it published articles on other games such as d20 System, Talisman, Nobilis, Hero System, and published various comic strips and single-panel cartoons. Steve Jackson Games also briefly published another online magazine, d20 Weekly for several months using a very similar model to that of Pyramid. However, the venture was not a success, and was eventually folded into a slightly expanded Pyramid.
The online subscription system used for Pyramid also granted access to subscriber forums, a dedicated chat server, and occasional pre-publication playtest material for Steve Jackson Games and other companies' products. In 2008 this was changed: Pyramid became available as a PDF download from e23 (online service), and the subscriber forums were discontinued.
In late 2018, it was announced on the Pyramid page of the Steven Jackson Games website that "we are closing down Pyramid magazine later this year. The December 2018 issue will be the final issue of the magazine, and effective immediately, we are no longer accepting subscriptions."
Contents
Publication history
Shannon Appelcline noted that Steve Jackson Games stopped publishing Roleplayer magazine with issue #30 in 1993, "but only so that Steve Jackson Games could start a new magazine. Pyramid debuted in May 1993. It was an ironic return to the generalist magazine industry—though it also promised to incorporate the SJG material that had once been printed in Autoduel Quarterly and Roleplayer." Appelcline noted that the magazine covered SJG games including Car Wars, but covered GURPS so strongly that "SJG always had problems selling Pyramid as a non-house organ. Contrariwise Car Wars quickly faded away. The new magazine also looked quite nice, with glossy pages and some full color pages—luxuries that Space Gamer had enjoyed only briefly. It soon became entirely color, as SJG's star continued to rise over the next few years." Appelcline concluded that Steve Jackson Games began "having concerns over the profitability of publishing a generalist magazine. They finished up Pyramid's print run with #30 (March/April 1998), and began publishing 'volume two' of Pyramid as an online, weekly, subscription-based magazine and were able to successfully do so for 10 years." Appelcline also noted that as the company was moving to PDF publications, Steve Jackson Games ended the HTML second volume of Pyramid and reinvented it in 2008 as a PDF-only third volume of Pyramid.
Editors
Derek Pearcy—Print issues 1–2.
Jeff Koke—Print issues 3–4.
Scott Haring—Print issues 5–30. Online edition March 1998 – February 2000.
S. John Ross—Online edition 1998.
Steven Marsh—Online edition February 2000 – December 2018.
Awards
2001: Origins Award Best Professional Game Magazine of 2000
2004: Origins Award Gamer's Choice: Best Electronic Product of 2003
2005: Origins Award Best Non Fiction Publication of 2004
List of issues
Volume 1
the printed version, retroactively referred to as Pyramid Classic:
01: May–June 1993
30: March 1998, same cover art as GURPS Wizards
Volume 2
There are 1877 samples of articles released in it.
Issues:
001: April 1998
558: November 2008
Articles:
1: A Minor Emergency
7: Electronic Gaming News
8: Warehouse 23
91: Autoduel Japan
1002: Suppressed Transmission published August 13, 1999
2630: When Good LARPers Go Bad published March 1, 2002
Volume 3
01: Tools of the Trade - Wizards, November 2008
02: Looks Like a Job for . . . Superheroes, December 2008
03: Venturing Into the Badlands - Post Apocalypse, January 2009
04: Magic on the Battlefield, February 2009
05: Horror & Spies, March 2009
06: Space Colony Alpha, April 2009
07: Urban Fantasy, May 2009
08: Cliffhangers, June 2009
09: Space Opera, July 2009
10: Crime and Grime, August 2009
11: Cinematic Locations, September 2009
12: Tech and Toys, October 2009
13: Thaumatology, November 2009
14: Martial Arts December 2009
15: Transhuman Space, January 2010
16: Historical Exploration, February 2010
17: Modern Exploration, March 2010
18: Space Exploration, April 2010
19: Tools of the Trade: Clerics, May 2010
20: Infinite Worlds, June 2010
21: Cyberpunk, July 2010
Reviews
Dragon #212 (December 1994) p94