Monday, January 7, 2013

In which I play GURPS Dungeon Fantasy

Yesterday I played my first online game of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. It was GM'ed by Colin Ritter and included four players.

GURPS Midgaard

It was a lot of fun. We had a dwarven warrior saint, my morninstar-weilding knight Tarjan Telnar, a human thief (who'd also apparently a wizard, sweet), and a scout.

Short version, we bargain for a reward from a jarl and then headed off to recover a lost axe that would help him appear more jarl'ly. We killed lots of goblins, mostly by making their heads a splode. Well, I made their heads a splode. 3d+8 crushing will do that.

We used Google+ hangouts (that was fine) and Roll20 (that was kind of annoying to configure). I need to play with Roll20 more to figure out how to set up better macros.

Some amusing bits:

- We must have spent 10 minutes buying rations. I remembered why I put the dungeon next to the city in my game - buying food for PCs is like figuring out the lunch tab split. "Okay, I've got 26 meals worth of rations and 48 silver pieces, how about you?"

- None of our guys can evaluate the value of art objects, or even jewelry, worth a damn.

- None of us know Heraldry, either. I totally forgot to buy that one, that should have been me. Sorry guys.

- I built my guy with, effectively, auto-kill ability built in. It worked like a charm. I agree with Vryce's player, though - once you get into the 3d+8 range of damage, your problem is no longer offense, but defense and handling bad circumstances. You just need more skill for a better Parry and more Perks and Advantages that help you act more broadly.

- I managed to roll a 3 or a 4 at least twice, maybe three times, on damage rolls. Lucky for me minimum damage for me is still a ridiculous amount.

- I finally got to use some of the things I helped build into the system - All-Out Attack (Long), Targeted Attack techniques (as "Slayer Training"), and multiple blocks - on my own character. I've used them with NPCs, but it felt good to do them with my own PC.

- The couple of times the GM would get stuck on a rule, which didn't happen often, either I or the other freelance GURPS author on the list could quote the appropriate rule. Default roll, modifiers for dual-shooting arrows with Heroic Archer, penalties for multiple parries, whatever. On my part, I had my books opened to especially hard-to-remember rules and tables. It violates my "no books on the table" rule but online, it's something that seems to speed play instead of slowing it down.

Sure, he could ruled anything he wanted and we'd have gone along with it, but it was available instantly. "16 on the critical head blow table is . . ." "double damage." It's the difference between "stop and look it up" and "one of the players knows the rule by heart and just tells you the numbers."

- Using Roll20 was kind of cool, because the guys the GM wasn't dealing with at the moment (the rest of us, say, while the scout was ahead) we could still type up what we were doing. The warrior saint and my knight had a whole conversation about how to attack the goblins, we typed up our prep so the GM could just glance at it and know what we were up to, and we could noodle on about non-gaming stuff without disrupting the flow of play or the GM's talking. Nice.

- Not sure why, but I forgot to get my shield enchanted to Deflect +1. Meant to, but didn't. Okay, things to do with my loot.


Lots of fun.

20 comments:

  1. "The couple of times the GM would get stuck on a rule, which didn't happen often, either I or the other freelance GURPS author on the list could quote the appropriate rule." I am hoping to GM GURPS for the first time in a few months and am counting on the experienced GURP guys to pitch in. BTW, GURPS Low-Tech arrived at my office today from Amazon and it was cool to see your name as co-author. Now if I could just get back to work...

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    1. Cool, thanks! It's fun to tell people I wrote a book or two and say "Good look me up on Amazon." :)

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  2. how well did Antoni's Warrior Saint work out? What was your impression of the charater's capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. I ask to see what the author of the concept chooses to do with one.

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    1. He seemed pretty well-rounded, although he didn't get to bust out his prayers enough to see what he's capable of.

      He obviously wasn't up to my kill rate, but that's what happens - the only thing the knight is any good at is combat, and I made mine very good at that indeed.

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    2. I had Guide My Hand active, but it's my combat prayer (it was that, or Righteous Fury, and we had no knight when I built the character). My other prayers are not useful in general combat, though I don't expect undead to be much of a trouble, with Protection from Evil (Enhanced) giving me turning with an effective Will of 23 against undead and 22 against other supernaturals. Flesh Wounds is so I can request Lay On Hands if things go really dire. Powerful Conviction was mostly for a general skill bonus to being priest-y

      Had I known that we had a knight, I would have spent a little less in combat stuff, and I would have picked some extra prayers to deal with Evil. Confidence, Divine Guidance, Sense True Evil, Righteous Fury, Smite, Lay on Hands are on my wishlist for future purchases.

      By the way, Peter, do you like how my Saints and Warrior Saints ended up?

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    3. I'm not sure what you mean. It's an interesting character but I feel like I haven't gotten to see what you can really do when the chips are down.

      We need two front-line fighters, though, because it won't be all goblins all the time.

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    4. I mean the templates, as exponents of the divinely empowered character archetype. I feel that most renditions don't do the concept justice.

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    5. I don't think I've actually really looked at either very deeply. I should, just to see what I'm teamed up with.

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    6. Peter, while I wrote them, I may be missing some emergent behavior on them, so if you give them a look, and find something nifty, or if you set up your munch... I mean players on it, please tell me ;)

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  3. Douglas, I answered to your questions on Google+, but in the interest of keeping others in the loop, I will say this: my character didn't feel useless in combat, but he was eclipsed by Peter's Knight. Of course my character was built when he was going to have to be both the main melee combatant and the main support. The only other character being the thief-mage. Still my combat style is going to be radically different from Peter's. His works well against foes with a skull hit location and moderate defenses. Mine will work against tough foes with very high defenses, and of course if they are undead they are going to be hit doubly hard. Also,while both characters are perfectly able to defend, I feel that mine may be slightly more defensively focused. I really need an edged shield though, that is going to be what I ask for to the Jarl, once we get back home.

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    1. Well, my special attack is best against stuff that have a brain to bash, but I can pretty easily deal one at a time with guys with high defenses.

      Against them I'll just Rapid Strike, Feint and Attack, -1 Deceptive on the attack. I won't kill two a turn but I won't suck. Flail-21 and 3d+8 damage goes pretty far.

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    2. You're probably better than me, I know. However, the difference will not be as big ;) You've got two signature moves? Also, the morning star is a sick sick weapon, my players know that very well...

      I've got Feint and Counterattack maxed, skill 18+weapon bond+balanced, and once I get an edged shield, my DWA won't be so puny... Had one when we were using Low Tech gear (+0.5 CF there), but in DF, it's crazy expensive.

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    3. Only one Trademark Move, but my skill is high enough to let me do a lot. My Trademark Move ("Tarjan's Twofer") is really meant for clearing out roomfulls of low-defense guys. For strong individual opposition I'll bust out my knowledge of the combat rules and go to town. ;)

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    4. I have found in the DF game I play with Nate Joy that Skill-24 is the "sweet spot" for being awesome. That doesn't have to be Skill-24. It can (and for me, it is!) lower skill, but Committed Attack (+2). It allows one to target a limb, stab to a vital, or bash a skull and STILL have Deceptive Attack left over. In fact, given my weapon is a 2d+3(2) Named Weapon , taking -2 to target a leg and -8 Deceptive attack for -4 to their defenses is a great way to leave a foe crippled and immobile.

      Oh, I do have TA (neck), which is good for the x2 wound multiplier, but against tough foes - and we've hit a few with Weapon-20 - you need a lot of DA.

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    5. Kuroshima: For what it's worth, unless I have my Righteous Fury on, another player's Knight eclipses me in combat as well. Which he should.

      My GM house ruled that I can choose the order of the RF die rolls. The highest goes to DX, second-highest to ST, and lastly to HT. If we were playing with my Action Points rules, I bet that would be different!

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    6. Kuroshima: For what it's worth, unless I have my Righteous Fury on, another player's Knight eclipses me in combat as well. Which he should.

      Yeah. Knights are a really one-dimensional archetype. Combat, combat, combat. So it's unrealistic to either expect to match them in combat across the board or even narrowly. Yes, you can lead people into combat, but it's still combat. You can use your combat skills to aid others, in combat.

      But all my guy does is fight. I took a knight and dumped 75 extra points into being better at it (and more survivable.) I think it's a good thing, though - I don't mind being out of the spotlight, and I can help win combat and get on to the other fun stuff.

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    7. I do not mind being eclipsed by the Knight. The Knight, the Swashbuckler and the Mystic Knight are the melee powerhouses. Barbarians, Holy Warriors and Warrior Saints are second string fighters. They can hold their own, but they can't (and should not) reach the levels of the main melee classes.

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  4. This was my first experience playing a RPG online and despite a few initial hiccups, I feel that it was a reasonable substitute for face to face. Lots of fun with some fun people. It would be nice if we could sketch out a rough map during play though. I had some difficulty keeping up with where everything was once the skull fragments started flying.

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    1. Yeah, we should get a little wish list going. Maybe a shared "loot we took" document, ask Colin to put up a rough map of the rooms we are in (just so we all know), stuff like that.

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    2. I second the LOOT document. We use Google Drive to create a shared document, and have a separate page for each adventure location, so we know what we got from where. I ALSO created a page just for my guy, since I have a nasty tendency to forget how much money and stuff I have.

      I also find it a good idea to have a "key plot elements" page on that as well, so that people can take shared notes, and the group can label each point 'confirmed,' 'speculation,' or something. That came up in the DF game I just got done with.

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