Powered by GURPS... Dungeon Fantasy?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Usually, the space on the page is better used for qualitative and occasionally hand-holding advice to new GMs on how to learn their art and adjust an adventure on the fly.

My issue stems from the fact that Phil Reed said "Box Set" upthread and that screams to me the old DnD box set to get people into the game. If that were the case then you'd attract more players from that Other Game if you have at least a guideline on what monster/trap/whatever a given delver should be able to handle. If this were just "Getting GURPS folks to play more GURPS" then yeah, that's fair. More advice would likely be more useful because GURPS players already know how combat can go.

Also, why not both? Advice in the GM section and a 1 (maybe 2) page appendix?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

More explicit advice on 'how to tell what you can fight' would be helpful

I allow a Per-based Tactics to figure out approximate threat level.

[Bruno]

If I had my druthers, the templates would each come with a paragraph labeled "Run Away", that discusses how this template disengages, or avoid combat in the first place. Bard's negotiate, Barbarians use intimidation to get some room then use their superior mobility, Thieves vanish, Wizards use Hawk Flight or use the secret teleportation spell etc etc etc.

Mark ran his game with the explicit house rule that we could almost always scream Run Away and flee, perhaps taking one auto-hit on the way out depending on the situation. This is a good rule to promote that sort of thinking.

Posting on a phone with a tremor, fighting autocorrect.

[Kalzazz]

Well, there are 3 main issues

1. Information asymmetry - the DM knows the monsters and the PCs, so he can judge what may happen if they throw down. The players don't. In order to know to run away, they must bridge this gap - CER won't help here, what helps would be clear rules, guidelines and examples for how PCs should get information to make decisions with
2. Information insufficiency - the DM might not know to begin with! Or may be confused. At times the DM may be very wrong about the likely outcome of a rumble. CER definitely helps here
3. Chaos - with dice being rolled, people choosing tactics manuevers and such, the outcome is often rather up in the air

I think 1 is the biggest issue. 'You see an ork with a sword wearing plate' . is Mr. Ork a skill 12 guy or skill 20? DR 3 or DR 14 plate? How scary is the pink flamingo compared to red, black or chartreuse etc?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

you'd attract more players from that Other Game if you have at least a guideline on what monster/trap/whatever a given delver should be able to handle.

I'm pretty sure that's something which he intends to have fall under the heading of "qualitative and occasionally hand-holding advice to new GMs."

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

How scary is the pink flamingo compared to red, black or chartreuse etc?

I used to be an adventurer, until I took a chartreuse flamingo to the knee.

Related to gauging monster power, and in the spirit of futile speculation, I find myself wondering what a sample adventure or just a sample encounter for a DF box might look like. "Caravan to Ein Arris" and "All In a Night's Work" are entirely wrong, and Mirror of the Fire Demon is much too long, unless it's a really big box. I suspect it'd have to be new material, maybe the size of a substantial Pyramid article. Say, a bit of dungeon where there are a few monsters here, a trap or two there, and another puzzle or two to figure out (bottomless crevasse to get over, magic levers to open a portal, sort of thing) to demonstrate what some of the fixtures of dungeoneering look like in GURPS.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I'm pretty sure that's something which he intends to have fall under the heading of "qualitative and occasionally hand-holding advice to new GMs."

Again, if you want a chunk of the DnD market you're going to need to create things that are familiar. Straight up comparative numbers would help with that I think.

[Kalzazz]

DnD works very differently than GURPS . . . . DnD does not turn into rock paper scissors laser Spock strudel lizard insanity of mutually trumping tricks that GURPS does quite as easily due to constrained choice. Though DF by virtue of constrained choice can do well at this to. (Now yes, the role of the DM is to make sure players make characters that fit the game and constrain choices to do so etc, but if I go to far down that path I'd rather just DM Earthdawn)

Its trivially easy in GURPS to run into a situation where the hapless newbie DM is trying to waddle through game mechanics to figure out how to have the goblins hurt PCs whose DR exceeds their damage. This is not a common DnD issue. In DnD almost all monsters can swing, and if they hit, do their damage unto HP, and putting on some +1 plate mail won't stop the goblins cold

[Pseudonym]

For the idea of players sizing up monsters at a glance, I was tooling around in my noggin once about an objective application of Body Language/Physiology/Naturalist and things like the Martial Arts familiarity perks... maybe something like rolling against those skills before an encounter, gives you x tidbits of information for margin of success... like
MOS 0-2: Reveal ST
MOS 3-5: Reveal ST + DX
MOS 6+: Reveal ST + DX, attack skill levels and damage.

A different suite of skills might reveal mental abilities, and yet another might reveal secret powers (EG, thaumatology might allow you to detect spell lists of magically inclined enemies by reading "magery fields.")

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Again, if you want a chunk of the DnD market you're going to need to create things that are familiar. Straight up comparative numbers would help with that I think.

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I'd add my "It's a Threat!" rules to that pile because it near removes the need for a GURPS GM to balance an encounter in DF. You consult one set of numbers to another and then move forward. That's a huge stumbling block removed for newbie GMs.

I strongly agree.

Originally Posted by kmunoz

I feel like the "It's A Threat" rules are too complicated and time-consuming for a starter set. Maybe something simpler like DPS calculation.

Welcome back kmunoz! Good to see you again!

Because of the breadth and depth of the scope in 'Its a Threat' it will impart mechanical understanding on the GM to look at those metrics. If they choose NOT to look at the metrics, then having the pre-genned Threat levels printed clearly helps to make differential arguments quickly.

Remember, DPS means nothing till you take into account Hit Odds vs Defense Odds, and the DR that offsets that DPS.

Simply focusing on DPS will not give you a complete enough picture to be functionally in the 'ballpark'.

Trust me, I Looked at it. A lot. For a long time. And noodled and puzzled and mulled.

Nymdok

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I'm pretty sure that's something which he intends to have fall under the heading of "qualitative and occasionally hand-holding advice to new GMs."


I used to be an adventurer, until I took a chartreuse flamingo to the knee.

Related to gauging monster power, and in the spirit of futile speculation, I find myself wondering what a sample adventure or just a sample encounter for a DF box might look like. "Caravan to Ein Arris" and "All In a Night's Work" are entirely wrong, and Mirror of the Fire Demon is much too long, unless it's a really big box. I suspect it'd have to be new material, maybe the size of a substantial Pyramid article. Say, a bit of dungeon where there are a few monsters here, a trap or two there, and another puzzle or two to figure out (bottomless crevasse to get over, magic levers to open a portal, sort of thing) to demonstrate what some of the fixtures of dungeoneering look like in GURPS.

That flamingo line made me laugh out loud and my dog jumped.

Regarding the length of Mirror, though: the adventure in the D&D Starter Set (Mines of Phandelver) is surprisingly long. It has a lot of locations and a lot of side quests. I ran it with some newbies (it was a warmup before coming over to GURPS this coming weekend) and it took us six days to finish.