Friday is time for random stuff.
- I don't talk about reading, much, but after plowing through some assorted books and some Chandler, I wanted something light to read . . . and dug out the latter volumes of the "Spellsinger" books by Alan Dean Foster. I'm not a "furry" fan but I liked these books, and if you like furry worlds this isn't a bad one . . . although it's deliberately punny. Given the central conceit of the books, the number of music references ADF got wrong is really stunning, from mis-attributed song credits to mis-spelled or just badly wrong band member names. Still fun stuff if you've got GURPS Furries and want a world with Marxist monsters and turtle wizards and people summoning up giant monsters with Beach Boys songs.
- Many nuggets of information in the Ballistics Report.
First, go read it.
Lots of good information in that. If you're waiting on another Peter Dell'Orto / Marshall LaPira project, it'll have to wait a bit. I enjoyed working with Marshall and Doug on the Crypt, but really, adventures aren't my thing. They are Marshall's, though, which is why I took on a project to co-write one with him. Also, I wanted to get his foot in the door as an author, since I'm a low-risk choice (I meet my deadlines and I turn in what I contracted for.) Now that he's established his CV enough for a solo project he's going right ahead with one. I'm looking forward to seeing what he has in mind.
- Doug mentioned this, which is good, because I don't pay attention to Kickstarter updates particularly closely. Email me if you want my attention and my money. Still, I read Doug's blog so I heard about Dungeon Fantasy Companion 3. I'm not privy to what's in it, but it's quite probable I have stuff in it. I get - and answer, and then forget the details of - emails from SJG occasionally about re-use and suchlike, so I'm crossing my fingers that I have stuff in there and a print comp copy due to me. Here's hoping. If not, I'll just buy one.
- Next game is scheduled for 8/15, so we'll see what game that will be.
(Almost forgot this one!)
- Acoup has a post which basically concludes with an explanation of how modern munitions deployed by a modern army would trash zombies. Very GURPS, actually - zombies won't do well against armor or Paveway munitions.
Friday, August 6, 2021
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Quick Review: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 4: Ring Fort
Today, let's look at:
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 4: Ring Fort by Douglas Cole, Jarl of the Dungeon Vikings.
Ring Fort provides a Viking ring fort in full detail for use in DF. It has a map of the fort and town, details about the physical structure and layout of the fort, and detail on the inhabitants. Sections discuss using the ring fort as a "town" for DF, and have enough details if the PCs assault the place (well, not specific loot details, but still) or had to fight out of it against some monstrous threat.
Details are excellent, down the number of men and their equipment, locations of importing businesses in town, and names and personalities of peoples. The place is ready to go with little in the way of needed detail to make it game-ready.
Amusingly, there is a quote from a Japanese used here on a Viking fort. That just struck me as funny. Maybe we need DF Encounters 5: Himeji-jo? Hmm . . . I've been there at least once . . .
Overall, it's a useful supplement. The map is attractive, but I do wish there were battle maps of the gates - the most likely places for combat if the GM uses it as a battle location and not just as "town" outside of the "dungeon." Still, it's a good resource to have if you need a wilderness town for PCs to interact with, provided you're okay with it being Viking-themed or are willing to reskin everyone as orcs or generic Olden Tymesfolk or whatever. A nice addition to the Encounters line.
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 4: Ring Fort by Douglas Cole, Jarl of the Dungeon Vikings.
Ring Fort provides a Viking ring fort in full detail for use in DF. It has a map of the fort and town, details about the physical structure and layout of the fort, and detail on the inhabitants. Sections discuss using the ring fort as a "town" for DF, and have enough details if the PCs assault the place (well, not specific loot details, but still) or had to fight out of it against some monstrous threat.
Details are excellent, down the number of men and their equipment, locations of importing businesses in town, and names and personalities of peoples. The place is ready to go with little in the way of needed detail to make it game-ready.
Amusingly, there is a quote from a Japanese used here on a Viking fort. That just struck me as funny. Maybe we need DF Encounters 5: Himeji-jo? Hmm . . . I've been there at least once . . .
Overall, it's a useful supplement. The map is attractive, but I do wish there were battle maps of the gates - the most likely places for combat if the GM uses it as a battle location and not just as "town" outside of the "dungeon." Still, it's a good resource to have if you need a wilderness town for PCs to interact with, provided you're okay with it being Viking-themed or are willing to reskin everyone as orcs or generic Olden Tymesfolk or whatever. A nice addition to the Encounters line.
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Quick Review: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 4: Two-Page Dungeons
Today I'm taking a short look at another 10-pager from the 2021 GURPS PDF Challenge.
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 4: Two-Page Dungeons, by the awesome Tetsujin no Llama*.
This book consists offour five two-page adventures for GURPS DF:
From a Sinking Ship
The Blasphemed Shrine
A Cold Day In
All Along the Watchtower
The Floor is Lava
The names do justice to the dungeons. They're generally very short, use vanilla critters from exisiting books, and require more time to read than to set up and play, given existing characters. They're well-written and interesting little bits of delving, too.
I'm sure some wag will point out that GURPS is so damn complex it requires two pages while old-school games can do one-page dungeons. Each of these, though, has a few nice things that take up space, like:
- an easy to read layout
- a small encounter area with sufficient detail to run the game . . . provided you go get the monster stats from the appropriate books
- a nice full-page map, full-color, that can be zoomed in on and printed out to make a battle map for minis
Overall, it's a well-done book. I'm not sure I can expect to use anything from it, since most of my players will also own it, but it's good material for them to use on their gaming groups in turn.
* Larger than a frog, but also iron.
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 4: Two-Page Dungeons, by the awesome Tetsujin no Llama*.
This book consists of
From a Sinking Ship
The Blasphemed Shrine
A Cold Day In
All Along the Watchtower
The Floor is Lava
The names do justice to the dungeons. They're generally very short, use vanilla critters from exisiting books, and require more time to read than to set up and play, given existing characters. They're well-written and interesting little bits of delving, too.
I'm sure some wag will point out that GURPS is so damn complex it requires two pages while old-school games can do one-page dungeons. Each of these, though, has a few nice things that take up space, like:
- an easy to read layout
- a small encounter area with sufficient detail to run the game . . . provided you go get the monster stats from the appropriate books
- a nice full-page map, full-color, that can be zoomed in on and printed out to make a battle map for minis
Overall, it's a well-done book. I'm not sure I can expect to use anything from it, since most of my players will also own it, but it's good material for them to use on their gaming groups in turn.
* Larger than a frog, but also iron.
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Quick Review: Dungeon Fantasy 23: Twists
Here is a very brief look at the 10-page PDF GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 23: Twists, by Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch, creator of the DF line.
This book covers "twists" to change the heroes-clear-dungeons approach common to a lot of DF games.
The twists come in three categories:
- landholdings and status for PCs
- really scary evil
- high tech and ultra-tech
Each section is a couple of pages of advice on how to implement these things in your game. They aren't heavy on "crunch," but rather on page numbers, plus some numbers. For example, status effects are spelled out and benefits given, costs for castles and strongholds provided (but DR, HP, size, etc. is handwaved a lot), etc. There aren't any example ultra-tech weapons, but there are page refences to the relevant rules, advice on controlling such items (with more references), and penalties for using items, defaults, tables, and spells on tech.
It's all concise and easy to read, and if you've got a use for any of the three bits the whole PDF is worth the cost even if you won't use the other parts.
Felltower and DF23
I'm likely to use the first two parts. I already do use some of the second part. It's not really new to my game, but does provide some useful ideas for expanding the "really scary evil" bit. Damnned immortal souls? Yeah, although the PCs like to pat themselves on the back for killing Evil Sterick, his backstory (known to them) makes it clear that he wasn't alwasy that way, and then suddenly things went very, very bad and so did he. It's not an isolated case . . . and DF23 gives me some more ideas on how to make it clear that's the case. The third bit . . . not in Felltower, but I do want to run a DF game that features high-tech at some point. Going back to the landholdings and status - yes, if PCs want to invest the money, they can absolutely do this. I finally have some easy numbers to use in terms of points and dollars to charge for the benefits you get, and have the benefits spelled out. I'm in.
Good stuff.
This book covers "twists" to change the heroes-clear-dungeons approach common to a lot of DF games.
The twists come in three categories:
- landholdings and status for PCs
- really scary evil
- high tech and ultra-tech
Each section is a couple of pages of advice on how to implement these things in your game. They aren't heavy on "crunch," but rather on page numbers, plus some numbers. For example, status effects are spelled out and benefits given, costs for castles and strongholds provided (but DR, HP, size, etc. is handwaved a lot), etc. There aren't any example ultra-tech weapons, but there are page refences to the relevant rules, advice on controlling such items (with more references), and penalties for using items, defaults, tables, and spells on tech.
It's all concise and easy to read, and if you've got a use for any of the three bits the whole PDF is worth the cost even if you won't use the other parts.
Felltower and DF23
I'm likely to use the first two parts. I already do use some of the second part. It's not really new to my game, but does provide some useful ideas for expanding the "really scary evil" bit. Damnned immortal souls? Yeah, although the PCs like to pat themselves on the back for killing Evil Sterick, his backstory (known to them) makes it clear that he wasn't alwasy that way, and then suddenly things went very, very bad and so did he. It's not an isolated case . . . and DF23 gives me some more ideas on how to make it clear that's the case. The third bit . . . not in Felltower, but I do want to run a DF game that features high-tech at some point. Going back to the landholdings and status - yes, if PCs want to invest the money, they can absolutely do this. I finally have some easy numbers to use in terms of points and dollars to charge for the benefits you get, and have the benefits spelled out. I'm in.
Good stuff.
GURPS PDF Challenge 2021 - arrived!
I'll post more later, but I just received my PDF Challenge books . . . so I'll be reading DF23 ASAP. Hopefully I'll have time to share my thoughts tonight!
Monday, August 2, 2021
Where are my current games at?
This is just a quick post mostly for myself to talk about where my campaigns are, and why.
Felltower - currently laying fallow right now, as the party has spent a good bit of time exploring the Cold Fens. This means some restocking of the dungeon, as it will have been months since it was last explored. I've done some of this, but I need to do more. Some of the new denizens may bring treasure, but they will be heavily outnumbered by the types of creatures that don't. What the orcs, cone-hatted cultists, and others living in the dungeons have been up to is known to me but I haven't done the nitty-gritty of writing it down on the actual dungeon key.
Cold Fens - current being explored, but the group is paused mid-delve against the giants. After that, the survivors may explore elsewhere. They repeatedly bring up "going after the dragon," but don't actually know where that is.
Gamma Terra - in hiatus right now, as our GM has very little time to develop material for play. I'd really like to play this, but it's not an option right now.
AD&D - keeps getting pushed off. I'm not sure now when we'll be able to play.
Low-Point DFRPG - proposed as a game, but no details have been nailed down yet. I'm a player, not the GM, so I'm not sure of the status of this.
That's about it for my tabletop RPGing right now.
Felltower - currently laying fallow right now, as the party has spent a good bit of time exploring the Cold Fens. This means some restocking of the dungeon, as it will have been months since it was last explored. I've done some of this, but I need to do more. Some of the new denizens may bring treasure, but they will be heavily outnumbered by the types of creatures that don't. What the orcs, cone-hatted cultists, and others living in the dungeons have been up to is known to me but I haven't done the nitty-gritty of writing it down on the actual dungeon key.
Cold Fens - current being explored, but the group is paused mid-delve against the giants. After that, the survivors may explore elsewhere. They repeatedly bring up "going after the dragon," but don't actually know where that is.
Gamma Terra - in hiatus right now, as our GM has very little time to develop material for play. I'd really like to play this, but it's not an option right now.
AD&D - keeps getting pushed off. I'm not sure now when we'll be able to play.
Low-Point DFRPG - proposed as a game, but no details have been nailed down yet. I'm a player, not the GM, so I'm not sure of the status of this.
That's about it for my tabletop RPGing right now.
Sunday, August 1, 2021
No Game Today
Sadly, we ended up with no game today.
This was for several reasons:
- a short crew (just 4-5 people)
- half of the crew didn't have any backup characters ready
- no one had an idea of what to do, except a single vote for the Jester Gate, which I shot down because it was brought up less than 24 hours before game, and I didn't have time to finish prepping that for a "maybe we'll do that." I specifically didn't want to play if much of the session was going to be people floating and shooting down ideas.
In a way, this is all ironic. The game used to be a full crew at 4-5 people, everyone had a backup character ready, and no one wanted to have a risky delve with brand-new guys because they're not tough enough to risk the stuff that the regular crew is also too careful to tackle . . . because of fear of loss, presumably. So game was torpedoed by all the things it's fundamentally designed to avoid - needing a large group of people, needing your "A" character, and having something specific to do. Oh well.
I got a lot of non-gaming things done, which was useful, but wasn't Felltower. Oh well.
This was for several reasons:
- a short crew (just 4-5 people)
- half of the crew didn't have any backup characters ready
- no one had an idea of what to do, except a single vote for the Jester Gate, which I shot down because it was brought up less than 24 hours before game, and I didn't have time to finish prepping that for a "maybe we'll do that." I specifically didn't want to play if much of the session was going to be people floating and shooting down ideas.
In a way, this is all ironic. The game used to be a full crew at 4-5 people, everyone had a backup character ready, and no one wanted to have a risky delve with brand-new guys because they're not tough enough to risk the stuff that the regular crew is also too careful to tackle . . . because of fear of loss, presumably. So game was torpedoed by all the things it's fundamentally designed to avoid - needing a large group of people, needing your "A" character, and having something specific to do. Oh well.
I got a lot of non-gaming things done, which was useful, but wasn't Felltower. Oh well.
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