Dungeon Fantasy 7: Attack of the Healbots

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Few, if any, crunchy bits in GURPS Thaumatology.

Please post YOUR definition of 'crunchy bits' sir.

[Athanbeli]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Well, that's how GURPS is . . . it's a central part of the core game-design philosophy to provide tools and suggestions.

That’s fine, but here is my advice for your future products (thinking about ‘Summoners’, and its mandatory summoned creatures section): it’d be nice if – every now and then in the text - there were bits that hinted to the fact that the game is actually being played and enjoyed by the authors. This was achieved in the Creatures of the Night series, and in DF2 (monsters section) and DF6. Most of the times, though, it seems to me that gurps products are just the play-tested result of meticulous research and game tinkering (especially in the character building part of it) by professional designers.
That is good, of course, but eventually makes the product somewhat less interesting to me (such is the case for DF Clerics). In short, I’d favour a little more colour and personality over completeness and predictable genericness (fire-infused priest of fire along with his fiery holy ally…).
Well, maybe I'm talking about worked examples, too...

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Athanbeli

That’s fine, but here is my advice for your future products (thinking about ‘Summoners’, and its mandatory summoned creatures section): it’d be nice if – every now and then in the text - there were bits that hinted to the fact that the game is actually being played and enjoyed by the authors. This was achieved in the Creatures of the Night series, and in DF2 (monsters section) and DF6. Most of the times, though, it seems to me that gurps products are just the play-tested result of meticulous research and game tinkering (especially in the character building part of it) by professional designers.
That is good, of course, but eventually makes the product somewhat less interesting to me (such is the case for DF Clerics). In short, I’d favour a little more colour and personality over completeness and predictable genericness (fire-infused priest of fire along with his fiery holy ally…).
Well, maybe I'm talking about worked examples, too...

I will agree with you here. DF6 was an interesting read for me because it had flavour and style to make me imagine cool things to do in a campaign. DF Clerics is a very good book but it never really inspired me; it gave me some templates to run different type of clerics which is useful rather than captivating.

I think that the problem is that Dungeon Fantasy as a genre is mostly flavor and fluff. People play fantasy because they love to let their imagination loose and less so because they want to simulate realistic combat with mythical monsters. That is why D&D is the most popular RPG ever; the rules are not very good but the whole background fluff is really interesting. I think the trouble with GURPS is the fact that the writers of DF think of it as a silly genre as opposed to Gygax who truly loved it. And I can see the difference when I read the Basic Roleplaying System version of Dungeon Fantasy called Classic Fantasy; the writer of this book really loved the genre and put in interesting descriptions of the non human races, spells and so forth.

[umbros]

I kind of prefer the "generic-ness" of the DF PDFs. Specific items or things that belong to a particular campaign world are nearly worthless to me if I don't play or run in that world. I say nearly because they may be convertible or otherwise inspirational but they are not ready to use. I don't have any trouble coming up with "Fluff" in my mental downtime (i.e. raking leaves or whatever), but putting that fluff to rules is something that takes more of my time than I am willing or able to spend. That's where professionals come in. They take the rule book, find or create the simplest way to do X, and sell that time savings to me. If I like the way they did it, I'm good, if I don't I have a starting point that is that much ahead of the game. I am nearly always disappointed somehow by setting books and adventures, but I can always find a use for a new rules idea.

All that said, I am more of a "crunch" guy (meaning to me rules not setting, texture, or worked examples.) rather than "Fluff" (meaning to me story vignettes, settings, NPCs life stories, etc., etc.) Not that I don't enjoy reading these things, but I think I would rather pay a novelist to write them.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Athanbeli

it’d be nice if – every now and then in the text - there were bits that hinted to the fact that the game is actually being played and enjoyed by the authors.

In fact, there are such bits and DF is being played by the creators. My former fantasy campaign is the whole reason why the DF series exists at all; any specific item, monster, etc. you see in any DF book by me came from that campaign in whole or in part. I know that Phil Masters plays in a DF game. I can't speak for the other writers (so far, that's Rev. Pee Kitty), but I have my suspicions there, too . . .

Originally Posted by b-dog

I think the trouble with GURPS is the fact that the writers of DF think of it as a silly genre as opposed to Gygax who truly loved it.

Note that you can love the genre – which I do, and which is why I created the series – and still regard it as somewhat silly. The two don't conflict. It's very difficult to defend the stance that the fundamental premise of monsters-and-traps-and-loot fantasy isn't silly. This has no bearing on how much the authors love the stuff, though. I'm not sure why you believe that "thinks dungeon fantasy is silly" and "loves dungeon fantasy" need to be in tension. For some of us, getting silly fun out of a genre is the mark of ultimate respect for said genre. I don't love completely serious genres half as much as I love ones that make me chuckle.

Originally Posted by umbros

Specific items or things that belong to a particular campaign world are nearly worthless to me if I don't play or run in that world.

Yes, and this isn't lost on us. Dungeon fantasy is a genre that works best when the world crops up around the specific players and their characters. If the party is made up of a minotaur barbarian, fire-infused cleric of fire, and a nymph scout, then there needs to be a land of minotaurs, an active breach to the Plane of Fire, and a lots of nymph-infested wilderness in the setting. Good luck getting that from some world created by an author who didn't have those specific PCs in mind!

[trooper6]

To agree with umbros. Creatures of the Night, which are less generic, don't sell as well as those generic supplements. Clerics has only been out a few days and it is already poised to overtake CotN5 on the sales charts.

I'd much rather have a book that tells me how to make a Cleric to the god of Fire that I can then port into my Fantasy world, then have a book detailing a Cleric to the god Don Fuego the Chaotic Trickster Fire God whose clerics to fire dances on the edges of Volcanos. Which might be a cool idea...but not work well for my campaign.

[Athanbeli]

Of course I'm not talking about such extremes, in fact I was referring to small spicy hints, not to the whole content of such products. I'm well aware that books like DF6 are not going to be the norm in the series.
Perhaps I value usefulness differently from most other gurps customers: to be told that a cleric of fire is resistant to fire/heat and can cast create fire saves me at most 10 minutes of prep work, not weeks or months. Not to mention the fact that unholy warriors of War might be berserks.
On the other hand, it was very useful to be reminded that the carnivore apes from DF2 should make use of grappling techniques (just 1st thing that came to my mind...).
That's all, and I hope I made my point clear. I'm still a huge fan of the DF series, which I find the products of most immediate usefulness, despite the fact that my vision of fantasy cannot be defined as DF.

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Note that you can love the genre – which I do, and which is why I created the series – and still regard it as somewhat silly. The two don't conflict. It's very difficult to defend the stance that the fundamental premise of monsters-and-traps-and-loot fantasy isn't silly. This has no bearing on how much the authors love the stuff, though. I'm not sure why you believe that "thinks dungeon fantasy is silly" and "loves dungeon fantasy" need to be in tension. For some of us, getting silly fun out of a genre is the mark of ultimate respect for said genre. I don't love completely serious genres half as much as I love ones that make me chuckle.

Alright, I made a mistake in thinking that people don't like DF. Sorry. But I will say that for me I really enjoy the serious style because if a game starts out at campy then it degenerates too quickly into a game that is extremely silly. Plus, I am more or less trying to recapture the way I felt about D&D when I was young and the game books were serious. In any case the rules part is fine. And yes the idea of dungeons is absurd and silly I agree but so is the idea of a Jedi knight or Batman or any superhero but in movies where they are cast as serious they are more entertaining to me.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Plus, I am more or less trying to recapture the way I felt about D&D when I was young and the game books were serious.

Reallly? Gygax's own books were hardly serious, as this image shows:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roguebf...69371/sizes/o/

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by b-dog

I am more or less trying to recapture the way I felt about D&D when I was young and the game books were serious.

I guess it depends on the people you gamed with! I played D&D in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. We were very much into it, and spent a lot of time and energy on gaming. I don't think we were serious about it at any point. The PCs always had silly names, the plots always had in-jokes, and it was a point of pride among those of us who DMed to have a more gonzo, outré adventure than the last DM.