So I mentioned that DF products, especially thanks to their hack-and-slash, keep-it-simple approach to the material, are good sources of stuff for other campaigns. Well, what stuff is that?
Here is what I found useful. More tomorrow.
Changes to Magic
This is two-pronged.
First, if you really like the Cleric/Druid/Wizard split - god-granted powers/nature-derived powers/black knowledge from moldy old books - DF has that built in.
Admittedly, it has it baked into 250-point templates centered on dungeoneering, which might not be your game. You can't just grab a cleric or wizard template and dive into a plot-and-social or lower-powered (or both) campaign.
But the basic rules are sound:
Clerics get a pick-list of spells, only those spells, but ignore prereqs. Even in a game where Power Investiture 6 isn't a no-brainer starting character choice, the actual spell lists and approach works.
And DF7 might not fit my game, but it's a great source of variant cleric approaches for games where, yes, there is a Cleric of Thor and a Cleric of Odin and a Cleric of Hermes and they all seem to just have that one god kicking power down to them.
Druids draw power from nature. Again, they get a pick-list (and some nifty powers, which can be expanded on) and spells that only they can use.
Wizards get everything else.
Secondly, that "everything else" has been modified. Spells like Enlarge and Invisibility are changed to make them less game-shatteringly important. The economy-breaking Create spells no longer turn out permanent high-grade materials such that no wizard with them would do less than turn a faux-medieval world into Star Trek's post-scarcity society. In other words, if you basically like the GURPS Magic system but have concerns with the abusiveness of some of the spells, DF goes a long way towards fixing them.
And you can always release the handbrake and allow those "off limit" spells - Gate spells, Teleport, and so on - if they aren't really sensibly off-limits in your game world.
Supplements useful here: DF1, DF7, Pyramid 3/60.
Monsters
The Dungeon Fantasy line has a lot of monsters. Three books worth and part of a chapter in Dungeon Fantasy 2. All of them suit fantasy games, since DF is nothing if not a scaled-up stripped-down fantasy game.
So you have book after book of monsters to steal from. Some of them, at least some of the ones I wrote, came straight out of a long-running, plot-oriented, originally moderate-point game where the power level apex was about where DF starts out. Trolls, dinomen, horde pygmies, and more are right out of that game's notebook of monsters. They don't need to be in deep dungeons guarding dollar-sign bags and trapped chests brimming with gold and jewels. They work just fine lurking in forests, being fodder in the evil lich-king's army you're trying to avoid, or whatever.
Warning: The monsters are powerful and assume 250 point characters. For less-powerful less combat-optimized characters, monsters are proportionally more difficult. Generally, you need to use fewer types of monsters per encounter, and fewer monsters per type, when placing them into a lower-point game.
For example: Fodder monsters are probably Worthy (one-to-one challenges for PCs), Worthy are nearly boss-level (one-to-many) and bosses are going to be very special challenges. A Broadsword-14 Parry 10 orc with a medium shield (DB 2) and Scale (DR 4) is a one-turn kill for a Broadsword-20 DF Knight with ST 17 (3d cutting, 1d+4 impaling), but for a Broadsword-16 PC with ST 13 (2d cutting, 1d+2 impaling) he's going to be a challenge. A DR 17 golem-armor swordsman is going to go from "tough fight, aim for Chinks in Armor at -8 and wear it down" to "well-nigh-unstoppable, aim for Chinks in Armor at -8 to even have a chance to hurt it, if you hit"
Supplements useful here: DF2, DF9, DFM1, DFM2, DFM3, DFA1.
Part II will follow this week. If you've found bits of DF useful, please post what bits in the comments. Please keep it positive! I'm looking for what's broadly useful outside the game as written rather than critiques of the game as written.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Painting Table WIP
I got to work on three of those four minis I posted about the other day:
The Gatekeeper is still white, though - I found some flash lines I hadn't noticed pre-primering, so I filed them off and I'm waiting for a low-humidity day to get started on her again.
The middle guy is mostly done - he needs edging on his armor, a wash, and some eye and face highlights. Then he's done. The eyepatch dude is mostly base coated except for the detail around the head. The thief is partly base-coated. The downside to starting in white is that some of my dark tones take 2-3 extra coats, like the base brown for his checkerboard coat. It'll look better than if I started with black once I finish - but it will take longer to finish.
The Gatekeeper is still white, though - I found some flash lines I hadn't noticed pre-primering, so I filed them off and I'm waiting for a low-humidity day to get started on her again.
The middle guy is mostly done - he needs edging on his armor, a wash, and some eye and face highlights. Then he's done. The eyepatch dude is mostly base coated except for the detail around the head. The thief is partly base-coated. The downside to starting in white is that some of my dark tones take 2-3 extra coats, like the base brown for his checkerboard coat. It'll look better than if I started with black once I finish - but it will take longer to finish.
Monday, September 5, 2016
The Tone of DF, and Using Bits Elsewhere
So the utility of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy outside of the DF books, and its tone, have come up repeatedly. Maybe constantly.
The Tone of DF
DF books, at the very least how I write them, is a little off-center of serious. The other authors do pretty much the same. I gather that puts some people off.
As I've said before, I'm not laughing at the genre and thus laughing at you for liking it. I'm laughing at the inherent silliness of it with you. I'm like Monty Python mocking King Arthur in The Holy Grail - if you like knights and King Arthur, you don't come out of that feeling like they're mocking you for liking it. They like it too, they just see so much scope for poking holes into the stories the way they are told. I'm poking fun at the silliness of going into tunnels in an a-historical mix of armor and weapons and fighting monsters for treasure at the same time as I'm saying, oh yeah, this is so much fun I haven't stoppped playing these games since I started when I was nine. I'm just not demanding, like Cole Jenkins says, a deconstruction to enjoy it. That can be fun too, but rather, I'm sincerely enjoying it.
That's why I write that way. I could in theory ditch any hint of this being something other than a solemn and serious game, the basis for something "more" and "deeper" than dungeons. But I probably couldn't keep that up, or enjoy it. Like the games I started playing when I was nine, the "more" I want is more play time, and the "deeper" I want is deeper dungeons. I want to acknowledge the oddities and smile and enjoy them. That the line does this makes it all the better, and makes it more enjoyable for me. I can't really imagine doing it differently and liking it the same.
Like I said, though, I'm enjoying it sincerely. And there isn't a hint of mockery in my pointing out the silliness inherent in this great genre.
The Game is Fun As Written
I've mentioned my "this is awesome" moment.
I got that DF was a good game. I didn't doubt that. Really, though, I didn't really get how good DF was until I sat down and played it. I got it on paper and I got it intellectually. But I didn't get it in my gut until we started playing a DF game for a time-killer, until we decided to do something else.
Actually keeping the game limited has made it more fun than I'd expected, and kept it running for years. It's not boring yet - the closest things to complaints from people I've gotten is "I want to play more often" and "I want to get more things done in the dungeon." Pretty much, more of the same, and more on the days we play.
I did a serious, 10+ year game (1999-2010 or so, with long breaks between sessions for three of those years). I used bits of DF in it - golem-armor swordsmen, toxifiers, spheres of madness, eyes of death, obsidian jaguars, horde pygmies, dinomen (which were re-skinned into dinomen from what was in that game), trolls, and a few others showed up. I had a Heroic Archer who is echo'd quite accidentally in the Scout (since Sean wrote that without any reference to my game). I grabbed rulings from DF2 and recommended DF2 to others for the same, even for people running gritty mostly-urban fantasy games that lacked dungeons entirely. So I have drunk from the well of "use Dungeon Fantasy line materials in a lower-point, non-DF game." There is nothing wrong with doing that. But the product as written and created is really an excellent one, and I think it plays better than it reads. It's worth the honest try to see how it plays out.
And I think it works best if it stays that way - an inherently light and focused game raidable (like other GURPS works) for bits. It's useful in and of itself, yet avails itself of the greater GURPS collection to expand into - or be used in - something different from itself.
The Tone of DF
DF books, at the very least how I write them, is a little off-center of serious. The other authors do pretty much the same. I gather that puts some people off.
As I've said before, I'm not laughing at the genre and thus laughing at you for liking it. I'm laughing at the inherent silliness of it with you. I'm like Monty Python mocking King Arthur in The Holy Grail - if you like knights and King Arthur, you don't come out of that feeling like they're mocking you for liking it. They like it too, they just see so much scope for poking holes into the stories the way they are told. I'm poking fun at the silliness of going into tunnels in an a-historical mix of armor and weapons and fighting monsters for treasure at the same time as I'm saying, oh yeah, this is so much fun I haven't stoppped playing these games since I started when I was nine. I'm just not demanding, like Cole Jenkins says, a deconstruction to enjoy it. That can be fun too, but rather, I'm sincerely enjoying it.
That's why I write that way. I could in theory ditch any hint of this being something other than a solemn and serious game, the basis for something "more" and "deeper" than dungeons. But I probably couldn't keep that up, or enjoy it. Like the games I started playing when I was nine, the "more" I want is more play time, and the "deeper" I want is deeper dungeons. I want to acknowledge the oddities and smile and enjoy them. That the line does this makes it all the better, and makes it more enjoyable for me. I can't really imagine doing it differently and liking it the same.
Like I said, though, I'm enjoying it sincerely. And there isn't a hint of mockery in my pointing out the silliness inherent in this great genre.
The Game is Fun As Written
I've mentioned my "this is awesome" moment.
I got that DF was a good game. I didn't doubt that. Really, though, I didn't really get how good DF was until I sat down and played it. I got it on paper and I got it intellectually. But I didn't get it in my gut until we started playing a DF game for a time-killer, until we decided to do something else.
Actually keeping the game limited has made it more fun than I'd expected, and kept it running for years. It's not boring yet - the closest things to complaints from people I've gotten is "I want to play more often" and "I want to get more things done in the dungeon." Pretty much, more of the same, and more on the days we play.
I did a serious, 10+ year game (1999-2010 or so, with long breaks between sessions for three of those years). I used bits of DF in it - golem-armor swordsmen, toxifiers, spheres of madness, eyes of death, obsidian jaguars, horde pygmies, dinomen (which were re-skinned into dinomen from what was in that game), trolls, and a few others showed up. I had a Heroic Archer who is echo'd quite accidentally in the Scout (since Sean wrote that without any reference to my game). I grabbed rulings from DF2 and recommended DF2 to others for the same, even for people running gritty mostly-urban fantasy games that lacked dungeons entirely. So I have drunk from the well of "use Dungeon Fantasy line materials in a lower-point, non-DF game." There is nothing wrong with doing that. But the product as written and created is really an excellent one, and I think it plays better than it reads. It's worth the honest try to see how it plays out.
And I think it works best if it stays that way - an inherently light and focused game raidable (like other GURPS works) for bits. It's useful in and of itself, yet avails itself of the greater GURPS collection to expand into - or be used in - something different from itself.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
DF Felltower - Revised Rumor Rules
Rumors are a big part of my DF game. However, certain PCs have gotten so good at garnering them that I'm regularly needing to make up 15+ new ones, sometimes more, each session. That means lots of redundancy, repetition, and - based on one player's opinion - much more chance for falsehoods and red herrings.
So I tweaked them a bit. Here is the replacement set:
Rumors
Rumors represent the filtered nuggets of potentially useful information you get from:
- hearing the latest news and gossip;
- chatting with old-timers;
- interacting with people in your profession (wizards at the guild while you're getting Power Item charges or learning spells, fellow guards for knights, at the church for clerics or devout PCs, etc.);
- information stumbled across in general research or other activities (scraps of maps found in the marketplace, notes in margins of books, chitchat between sages you've hired, etc.);
- actual official pronouncements.
Who Gets Rumors?
PCs, and major NPCs or designated minor NPCs, are eligible for rumors. Most hirelings, henchmen, volunteers, etc. do not come with rumors, nor do Allies. (Basically this means Raggi comes with one, so did Gort, and other "knowledgeable" types might come with one.)
You get one rumor automatically if:
You stay in town. Living off the land or otherwise bypassing upkeep costs means you don't get to hear any of the latest news and gossip, or chat up old timers. You may hear bits and pieces of larger news but don't get the filtered bits of news that amount to rumors.
Plus, you may get additional rumors.
Carousing. A Carousing roll costs 30 sp (or your extra costs for Compulsive Carousing, if you have any.) Success gives one (1) additional rumor plus one (1) for every two points of success on the roll to a maximum of three (3) additional rumors. Critical success will give an additional rumor, for a possible total of six (6) including the automatic rumor.
Example: Vryce has an effective Carousing-17. He rolls a 12, making his roll by 5. He gets one rumor for staying in town, one for succeeding on Carousing, plus two more for making his roll by 5. The GM rolls for five rumors total. Had he rolled a 6 or less, he would get six rumors total!
Current Affairs, Propaganda, Research, or Streetwise. As Carousing, above.
Any of the above rolls are in lieu of doing actual research, and you may only choose one. PCs with Compulsive Carousing can only choose Carousing unless a self-control roll is made!
Notes:
Rumors are rolled on my big d30 Rumors Table.
Another option would be unlimited rumors, but repeats are retained - sometimes, the same rumors keep coming up. I chose not to do that, because the people with one rumor always feel badly when they get a repeat. I don't mind making up a lot of rumors, I'm just trying to limit the number of times I'm making up and giving out 15-20 rumors per session.
I'm debating letting Carousing, etc. give only one additional rumor (two on a critical success), but letting the player choose a topic. Then I'd choose off of the table. But my concern is that instead of a quick roll, this becomes an issue of people wanting to use Luck, debating for a long time about what to ask for, wordsmithing to find just the right words they think will get me to tell them something that might not even be on the table, etc. So better to just cap the number, I feel.
So I tweaked them a bit. Here is the replacement set:
Rumors
Rumors represent the filtered nuggets of potentially useful information you get from:
- hearing the latest news and gossip;
- chatting with old-timers;
- interacting with people in your profession (wizards at the guild while you're getting Power Item charges or learning spells, fellow guards for knights, at the church for clerics or devout PCs, etc.);
- information stumbled across in general research or other activities (scraps of maps found in the marketplace, notes in margins of books, chitchat between sages you've hired, etc.);
- actual official pronouncements.
Who Gets Rumors?
PCs, and major NPCs or designated minor NPCs, are eligible for rumors. Most hirelings, henchmen, volunteers, etc. do not come with rumors, nor do Allies. (Basically this means Raggi comes with one, so did Gort, and other "knowledgeable" types might come with one.)
You get one rumor automatically if:
You stay in town. Living off the land or otherwise bypassing upkeep costs means you don't get to hear any of the latest news and gossip, or chat up old timers. You may hear bits and pieces of larger news but don't get the filtered bits of news that amount to rumors.
Plus, you may get additional rumors.
Carousing. A Carousing roll costs 30 sp (or your extra costs for Compulsive Carousing, if you have any.) Success gives one (1) additional rumor plus one (1) for every two points of success on the roll to a maximum of three (3) additional rumors. Critical success will give an additional rumor, for a possible total of six (6) including the automatic rumor.
Example: Vryce has an effective Carousing-17. He rolls a 12, making his roll by 5. He gets one rumor for staying in town, one for succeeding on Carousing, plus two more for making his roll by 5. The GM rolls for five rumors total. Had he rolled a 6 or less, he would get six rumors total!
Current Affairs, Propaganda, Research, or Streetwise. As Carousing, above.
Any of the above rolls are in lieu of doing actual research, and you may only choose one. PCs with Compulsive Carousing can only choose Carousing unless a self-control roll is made!
Notes:
Rumors are rolled on my big d30 Rumors Table.
Another option would be unlimited rumors, but repeats are retained - sometimes, the same rumors keep coming up. I chose not to do that, because the people with one rumor always feel badly when they get a repeat. I don't mind making up a lot of rumors, I'm just trying to limit the number of times I'm making up and giving out 15-20 rumors per session.
I'm debating letting Carousing, etc. give only one additional rumor (two on a critical success), but letting the player choose a topic. Then I'd choose off of the table. But my concern is that instead of a quick roll, this becomes an issue of people wanting to use Luck, debating for a long time about what to ask for, wordsmithing to find just the right words they think will get me to tell them something that might not even be on the table, etc. So better to just cap the number, I feel.
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Painting Table Snapshot
I'm finally getting some painting in this summer.
Here are the guys I'm working on now, that I can show you. There are five others I can't reveal, but these four I can:
Three are Castingroom Minis adventurers, the other is the Gatekeeper. She'll look good in brunette and red before she goes to her proper owner.
I expect the other three will make appearances in my DF game. Especially the lantern-holding guy and the thief. The eyepatched fighter would make a good PC, though.
Here are the guys I'm working on now, that I can show you. There are five others I can't reveal, but these four I can:
Three are Castingroom Minis adventurers, the other is the Gatekeeper. She'll look good in brunette and red before she goes to her proper owner.
I expect the other three will make appearances in my DF game. Especially the lantern-holding guy and the thief. The eyepatched fighter would make a good PC, though.
Friday, September 2, 2016
A deeper look at the DF Kickstarter
So I want to take a deeper look at the Dungeon Fantasy RPG Kickstarter campaign.
This is a special one for me. First, because it's GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, which has been a great source of gaming fun for me. Second, because some of my writing has informed the game, so I might get some more sales out of this.
Pledging
The game needs $100,000 to fund. Seems steep, except SJG has experience with a Kickstarter gone too-huge (Ogre) and a solidly estimated smaller one they kept from over-promising on (Car Wars Arenas). Both ended well, but Ogre still has deliverables and some third-party elements sound like they didn't pan out. They went right for "enough money to be worth doing" instead of some minimum to get by.
That does mean the 500 or so people in on the Kickstarter so far need another 500-750 people to get this game out. Or for all of the $1986 put-me-in-the-game pledges to sell out plus a few hundred more people.
GM Screen
This is a $20 add-on. It's on 2mm chipboard, which is like the heavy Ogre counters from the Ogre boxed set. That's nice. $20 feels a little steep to me, but a solid physical screen with a 16-page book, okay, I can go $20 for that. I'm certain I'll use it.
Extra Boxed Set
A $50 add-on, you can get a second copy of the game. Nice to see them add that. I'm not sure if it's a hard limit - you may have two, thank you very much - or a soft lift - $50 each.
PDFs
A $35 add-on for five books. Okay, $7 each. That works. It's clearly not $7 each - some would sell for more, such as the 128-page PDF.
(Also, you can pledge $36 and choose "No Reward" and then select the PDFs as an add-on at the end of the campaing. $50 + shipping, especially interational, is too much? Throw in $36, get the PDFs, and support the game.)
Other Add-Ons
As an author, I'm pretty happy - some of my material is included in the boxed set and as add-ons. I've got stuff at every level, too. I think only I have that distinction aside from Sean Punch.
They've put the DF PDFs and Pyramid issues as add-ons. The books are in tiers:
Classic - These are the books that are mostly mined for the boxed set books. They include DFM1 and DFM2, and I'm a co-author on DFM1.
Beginning - These are the books easiest to add to the boxed set. Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3 is there, hurrah! Get the boxed set, add on some monsters please.
Expert - These are the books you'll need other GURPS books for and some adaptation to make them work. Dungeon Fantasy 12: Ninja and Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen are there along with Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians.
I'm very pleased with all of that - having material in the box, and having the support material explicitly discussed and showcased.
Like I said, we need a lot more people in on this to make it actually happen. I'm going to keep talking about the set. Not exclusively - I have a lot of other posts bubbling around in my head - but often. I just wanted to look at it a little as a supporter and as a author alike.
This is a special one for me. First, because it's GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, which has been a great source of gaming fun for me. Second, because some of my writing has informed the game, so I might get some more sales out of this.
Pledging
The game needs $100,000 to fund. Seems steep, except SJG has experience with a Kickstarter gone too-huge (Ogre) and a solidly estimated smaller one they kept from over-promising on (Car Wars Arenas). Both ended well, but Ogre still has deliverables and some third-party elements sound like they didn't pan out. They went right for "enough money to be worth doing" instead of some minimum to get by.
That does mean the 500 or so people in on the Kickstarter so far need another 500-750 people to get this game out. Or for all of the $1986 put-me-in-the-game pledges to sell out plus a few hundred more people.
GM Screen
This is a $20 add-on. It's on 2mm chipboard, which is like the heavy Ogre counters from the Ogre boxed set. That's nice. $20 feels a little steep to me, but a solid physical screen with a 16-page book, okay, I can go $20 for that. I'm certain I'll use it.
Extra Boxed Set
A $50 add-on, you can get a second copy of the game. Nice to see them add that. I'm not sure if it's a hard limit - you may have two, thank you very much - or a soft lift - $50 each.
PDFs
A $35 add-on for five books. Okay, $7 each. That works. It's clearly not $7 each - some would sell for more, such as the 128-page PDF.
(Also, you can pledge $36 and choose "No Reward" and then select the PDFs as an add-on at the end of the campaing. $50 + shipping, especially interational, is too much? Throw in $36, get the PDFs, and support the game.)
Other Add-Ons
As an author, I'm pretty happy - some of my material is included in the boxed set and as add-ons. I've got stuff at every level, too. I think only I have that distinction aside from Sean Punch.
They've put the DF PDFs and Pyramid issues as add-ons. The books are in tiers:
Classic - These are the books that are mostly mined for the boxed set books. They include DFM1 and DFM2, and I'm a co-author on DFM1.
Beginning - These are the books easiest to add to the boxed set. Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3 is there, hurrah! Get the boxed set, add on some monsters please.
Expert - These are the books you'll need other GURPS books for and some adaptation to make them work. Dungeon Fantasy 12: Ninja and Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen are there along with Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians.
I'm very pleased with all of that - having material in the box, and having the support material explicitly discussed and showcased.
Like I said, we need a lot more people in on this to make it actually happen. I'm going to keep talking about the set. Not exclusively - I have a lot of other posts bubbling around in my head - but often. I just wanted to look at it a little as a supporter and as a author alike.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
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