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Old 10-02-2015, 11:26 AM   #21
simply Nathan
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

Probably the most silly-flavored things in DF1-3 in my eyes are the flavor text on the racial templates.
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Old 10-02-2015, 11:29 AM   #22
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

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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.
DF is Fantasy + Action! dialed to 11 and the knob ripped off...

I wouldn't use it for a Sword and Sandal for instance, especially not even an olde fashioned Conan sword and sandal.

But DF heartily supports Arnie's Conan.
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Old 10-02-2015, 11:30 AM   #23
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

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Fantasy has out-of-the-box templates, races, monsters, something that I have to constantly point out. Is there a particular reason that certain elements of the forum seem determined to ignore the presence of that material?
Fantasy does have a load of templates, but they're low point level, and moderately bare bones - much closer to gritty fantasy. The races are all over the place on points - which makes it trickier to mix them with the occupational templates for a target points level.
There are only really a handful of monsters, and they're scattered through the book - no easy reference to a list of monsters.

Overall - Fantasy provides far less of a basis upon which to run a games, than DF1-3 which you can buy for the same price.

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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.
Fantasy might help you create your fantasy world. Personally I could go along way without Fantasy for creating my own world out of my imagination and the many books I've read - some of which might be the inspiration for the game/world anyway. Fantasy does provide some useful pointers, but is not necessary.
It would take me (and my players) quite a lot of time to create characters, choose gear, etc. from Basic/Powers/Magic - DF provides everything necessary to create characters and be on our way adventuring in one evening.

EDIT: I might also come to the GURPS Forums, to seek advice, ideas, thoughts, etc. on my ideas, thoughts, problems and questions - and I'd like to think I might get some helpful advice, and not just get beaten over the head for wanting to play my game in my way, and not in the way some other people seem to think is the 'right' way.

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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?
I never said DF was the answer for any and all fantasy. Your picking a specific example that DF is clearly not targeted towards - I'm pretty sure I could come up with a dozen high/action fantasy mini campaign outlines for which DF would be a great starting point.

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"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.
What 'better' way is there for a group, possibly relatively new to GURPS, to get going on a generic Fantasy game, in the style of something they might have read, seen or played?
I'm pretty sure Dungeon Fantasy would be a good basis for many different possibility with minimum extra work.

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Old 10-02-2015, 11:37 AM   #24
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

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Probably the most silly-flavored things in DF1-3 in my eyes are the flavor text on the racial templates.
If people think DF is 'silly' because of some flavour text, then I see no point in trying to have a rational discussion with them.
If I want to play a Dwarf Cleric, I'm taking the Dwarf racial template, and probably not even reading the flavour text. I have my own idea what Dwarves are like - and assuming my idea and the GMs idea are compatible, and the traits on the template match up, then great.
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Old 10-02-2015, 12:10 PM   #25
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

DF is a good starting point for high powered fantasy games in my opinion. It has all sorts of powers and types of templates that are balanced against each other. It also has lots of treasure and monsters that are ready to find and fight. The important thing is the balance and DF is pretty good with that. All you need to do is add a backdrop that you like and you are ready to go with an adventure.

The reason for leveled Innocence in DF was because it would be balanced against existing balanced templates. Sure it is a cosmology advantage but there are also cosmology assumptions in DF already. One is that the Divine does not intervene much directly, instead it uses the followers like clerics and holy warriors to further it's agenda. Thus angels don't descend to the mortal world and defeat the demonic temple instead the Divine uses clerics and holy warriors to do that. The Infernal sort of follows this rule but cheats a lot allowing mortals to summon demons easily and often . But both allow mortals to fight it out instead of direct Divine vs Infernal combat.
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Old 10-02-2015, 12:19 PM   #26
evileeyore
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Default 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?
Pyramid hats for Psis is the first...

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Originally Posted by simply Nathan View Post
Probably the most silly-flavored things in DF1-3 in my eyes are the flavor text on the racial templates.
... and that's second off the top of my head.

If I sat down I could find where the rules imply a 'sillier'* game than I prefer...

Delver's Webbing is the first item to spring to mind, which highlights the TL3~ setting it's at.


* Perhaps silly isn't the most accurate term. "Extra Light" or "Beer and Pretzels" is probably closer to what I mean (though both are above the stereotypical "Orc and Pie"). But the Pyramid Hat is damned silly and as I'm playing a proto-Psi has probably been stuck in my mind more prominently.

While I can overlook racial template fluff, it does set the stage for races themselves. Very hard to restart taking Dwarves seriously when they're reduced to "Bearded and likes ale" in their fluff text and greedy alcoholic miners in their stats. ;)
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Old 10-02-2015, 01:10 PM   #27
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

Yes, yes, we know you are only allowed to play games THE CORRECT WAY....

That being out of the way, and to the actual topic:

IOU had a advantage "mundanity" that allowed a "Reality check" for the mundane character to negate anything "odd", basically whenever they would see or be targets of something weird the weird stuff would just not work/be there on a roll of the reality check or less.

At higher levels the mundanity would do real changes to the odd things, so for example a laser pistol would be turned into a toy laser pistol and aliens would be turned to men in funny costumes and so on.

For a less silly setting there could indeed be something like a blessing causing a protection effect that make it harder for monsters or totally making them go away.

In general though if I were to run something closer to DF, I would likely do it on area basis not individual basis. Basically in classic games you had dungeons in levels with lower levels being filled with more dangerous monsters,wilderness area getting more and more dangerous as you got away from the village and only rarely would the monsters get enough power to actually attack a village.

To simulate something like that you could have civilization to act as a sort of civilization level X with areas out from that being steadily lower bands. The stronger the monster the lower the "native band" is. If a monster tries to enter a higher band than their native they would need to make an unmodified roll against some number. For groups the boss rolls for everyone.

Thus it would be possible to monsters to attack villages by rolling well, but that would be rare and normally monsters would dwell at their own band, as getting to higher band is hard and going to lower band would make you bump into critters nastier than you are.
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Old 10-02-2015, 01:16 PM   #28
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
Pyramid hats for Psis is the first...

Perhaps silly isn't the most accurate term. "Extra Light" or "Beer and Pretzels" is probably closer to w "Orc and Pie"). But the Pyramid Hat is damned silly and as I'm playing a proto-Psi has probably been stuck in my mind more prominen
Psionics are a near enough a modern day concept, and have no good reason to be in a medieval based fantasy game, in my opinion. It's the only DF volume I don't own and have zero interest in.
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Old 10-02-2015, 01:16 PM   #29
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

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Originally Posted by weby View Post
Yes, yes, we know you are only allowed to play games THE CORRECT WAY....

That being out of the way, and to the actual topic:

IOU had a advantage "mundanity" that allowed a "Reality check" for the mundane character to negate anything "odd", basically whenever they would see or be targets of something weird the weird stuff would just not work/be there on a roll of the reality check or less.

At higher levels the mundanity would do real changes to the odd things, so for example a laser pistol would be turned into a toy laser pistol and aliens would be turned to men in funny costumes and so on.

For a less silly setting there could indeed be something like a blessing causing a protection effect that make it harder for monsters or totally making them go away.

In general though if I were to run something closer to DF, I would likely do it on area basis not individual basis. Basically in classic games you had dungeons in levels with lower levels being filled with more dangerous monsters,wilderness area getting more and more dangerous as you got away from the village and only rarely would the monsters get enough power to actually attack a village.

To simulate something like that you could have civilization to act as a sort of civilization level X with areas out from that being steadily lower bands. The stronger the monster the lower the "native band" is. If a monster tries to enter a higher band than their native they would need to make an unmodified roll against some number. For groups the boss rolls for everyone.

Thus it would be possible to monsters to attack villages by rolling well, but that would be rare and normally monsters would dwell at their own band, as getting to higher band is hard and going to lower band would make you bump into critters nastier than you are.
Ars Magica has something called Dominion that made areas with it much harder for evil supernatural creatures to live there. Thus a town with Dominion might be supernaturally resistant to attacks by demons and undead.
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Old 10-02-2015, 01:23 PM   #30
SCAR
 
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Default Re: Leveled Innocence advantage for DF idea

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Originally Posted by weby View Post
Yes, yes, we know you are only allowed to play games THE CORRECT WAY....

That being out of the way, and to the actual topic:

IOU had a advantage "mundanity" that allowed a "Reality check" for the mundane character to negate anything "odd", basically whenever they would see or be targets of something weird the weird stuff would just not work/be there on a roll of the reality check or less.

At higher levels the mundanity would do real changes to the odd things, so for example a laser pistol would be turned into a toy laser pistol and aliens would be turned to men in funny costumes and so on.

For a less silly setting there could indeed be something like a blessing causing a protection effect that make it harder for monsters or totally making them go away.

In general though if I were to run something closer to DF, I would likely do it on area basis not individual basis. Basically in classic games you had dungeons in levels with lower levels being filled with more dangerous monsters,wilderness area getting more and more dangerous as you got away from the village and only rarely would the monsters get enough power to actually attack a village.

To simulate something like that you could have civilization to act as a sort of civilization level X with areas out from that being steadily lower bands. The stronger the monster the lower the "native band" is. If a monster tries to enter a higher band than their native they would need to make an unmodified roll against some number. For groups the boss rolls for everyone.

Thus it would be possible to monsters to attack villages by rolling well, but that would be rare and normally monsters would dwell at their own band, as getting to higher band is hard and going to lower band would make you bump into critters nastier than you are.
DF already uses the civilisation/wilderness dichotomy for a Druids power, extending this adding a second axis for supernatural protection, or, create a new axis.
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