10-02-2015, 07:58 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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DF has the advantage of already having a huge deal of rules support, so simply building a high-fantasy setting on its scaffolding seems perfectly appropriate to me. As for the topic at hand, Innocence would arguably be built as something akin to Higher Purpose, except it penalizes others' rolls against you (rather than giving your rolls a bonus). Higher Purpose requires that you specifically pursue the task (slaying giants, kicking bunnies, whatever), so this version would require you specifically maintain your "innocence," whatever the GM deems that to be. Set the price the same as Higher Purpose ([5]/level). Personally, I'd require the character take at least as many points in "innocent" Disadvantages as he has in Innocence, but such characters can freely remove such Disadvantages in exchange for permanently getting rid of corresponding levels of Innocence. For example, a character with Innocence 5 [25] might have Clueless [-10], Gullibility (15) [-5], Truthfulness [-5], and Vow (Chastity) [-5]. If the character decides telling lies really isn't all that bad, he can get rid of Truthfulness - but his Innocence will drop to 4. |
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10-02-2015, 08:43 AM | #12 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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(But since DF came out, many DF fans have acted like its deprecated, or seem utterly unaware of its existence. You should check it out! It's quite an excellent book)
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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10-02-2015, 08:48 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Yorkshire, UK
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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10-02-2015, 08:58 AM | #14 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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10-02-2015, 09:02 AM | #15 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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Secondly, if you're toolkitting, shouldn't you use toolkit books? If you say things like "I wish DF had more setting to it." and "I want to explore the cosmology of my fantasy world more, but DF doesn't really have anything for that" and "I find DF unrealistic. I mean, why is the village even there," you're asking questions that DF wasn't designed to answer but that Fantasy was. That's what it's for. DF does come with all the stuff you say, but it's geared towards a specific thing. What if I want a different thing? What if I want a slice-of-fantasy-life game with relatively ordinary people who investigate the horrors of their fantasy world and slowly go mad, in a sort of fantasy call-of-cthulhu? Are the DF templates, races, gear and general rules really the best choice for that sort of game? "Dungeon Fantasy" is a specific product geared towards a specific sort of game. When it comes to the other framework lines, people understand this, but DF seems to have blinded people. I suppose it's because people who play D&D are used to mashing whatever into that game: If they want to play Game of Thrones, they make D&D characters and just ignore all the combat stats and roll a d20 and have their Game of Thrones story, and the average DF player works the same way. But there is a better way.
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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10-02-2015, 10:04 AM | #16 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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What it does not do without a small amount of work: Serious Fantasy. Having now played a bit in someone else's DF game which is being run seriously, I've scrapped off the silly veneer (and am tweaking a few things here and there) and I can see DF can pretty easily be used for 'serious roleplaying'. |
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10-02-2015, 10:17 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cambridge, MA
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
The templates in DF often do a better job matching genre expectations. For example, Fantasy has a Knight template. As a player, I might think that's the right choice if I want to play a mighty orc-slayer. But his best weapon skill is Lance at 12. He's going to get cut down by the first orc he meets.
As a GM, I like to use the toolkit and make my own templates, and I have often used Fantasy to help me do so. But if I didn't have the time or inclination to do that and I wanted to run a fantasy game with a little more context to it than standard DF, I would start by giving my players DF templates, then give them the world background and a few more points to spend on social traits. I would not give them the templates from Fantasy, because I think I would be setting up my players for disappointment. Most fantasy games are about heroes, while those templates don't describe heroes. What about monsters? Most players expect to fight monsters, not just hear about them. How many of the monsters in Fantasy would make a good fight for an adventuring group? Well, there are a total of about eight monsters in the Monsters section of the book. Most of them are way beyond what a party could ever survive a hostile encounter with (Brontes, Rukh, Tiamat, etc.). They make interesting world background, and I'm sure they could lead to cool stories, but if I'm running a game where the characters fight monsters (and I don't want to take the time to design my own--thanks to you for helping us do that!), again I'm cracking open a DF book to find a monster that's ready to go with a nice stat block and a reasonable path to victory. Even if it's a game in which the characters come from someplace and have a purpose in life other than dungeon-delving, the story has a plot, and the encounters happen for a reason that might advance the story. |
10-02-2015, 10:28 AM | #18 |
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
Unless that orc has spear or broadsword at 9 or default (DX-5 = 5). There's no reason to expect every warrior to have all his weapon skills at 14+. 12 is a professional full-time warrior's expected skill level.
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10-02-2015, 11:16 AM | #19 | |
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Yorkshire, UK
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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Would you (or someone else) mind giving some specific references to what you consider the 'so much silliness' in any of the DF products? A couple of specifics from the original core books (DF1-3) at least. I'm not talking about the tongue in cheek writing style, or one or 2 specific monsters - I'm pretty sure I could find examples of both of those from many other GURPS books. |
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10-02-2015, 11:26 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea
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In all seriousness, though, the DF templates work just fine for general purposes. Look at the Suggested Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills. Anything missing that you think should be in your campaign? Take those and apply your own custom Lenses, adding in what you think is appropriate and removing what you think isn't to make them fit to your campaign. The Knight template from Fantasy always struck me as either a low-powered campaign level or else a quick-and-easy template for NPCs (if I'm recalling it right). |
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