Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint

[revshafer]

[None of that has anything to do with any sensible ecology. Often, the -ology that comes closest is technology: The monsters were created as an act of mortal or divine whim (i.e., simply because somebody could), out of academic curiosity, as marketable goods, as a security system, or as a result of unrelated or botched research into entirely different "tech."]

Absolutely brilliant summation!

[b-dog]

What I think of the ecology of monsters is how they interact and function in the mortal realm. Sure the monsters can come from other worlds where the laws of reality are different but once placed in the mortal realm they need some way to survive there. A monster that is from the Divine realm must have access to Divine energy to survive and a magical one needs mana and so on. If the monster is deprived of those supernatural energies then it becomes mundane and needs to eat to survive. A centaur must eat and ages and is susceptible to disease etc. In essence it becomes a biological being. A lich or a demon needs access to Infernal or magical energy to survive in the mortal realm, without those energies they will die or fade away. In any case once a monster is in the mortal realm it must abide by the rules of the reality there and to overcome those rules it needs a source of supernatural energy.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I disagree. A lot of existing and popular monsters have no reasonable ecological niche. In fact many have a purely social niche.

That's not quite what I meant. I meant that they have to fill a game purpose. I should have been more clear.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Kromm

And that sums it up.

We're not going to make Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game art secondary to text. I understand that longtime GURPS fans have learned to accept art of uneven quality and to focus on the words, but we're trying to grow the market beyond longtime GURPS fans. I read books from other publishers that sell 10 or 100 times as many copies, and most often what they have that we don't is visuals. At the risk of sounding snobby, I often find that the words make me cringe. Most gamers won't ever notice the writing or editing if the art and layout aren't wonderful, though; many will buy "pretty" and not bother with any of the words that aren't game stats.

I do wonder though if stock art, even very pretty stock art, is the best way to sell books. My reaction to the art started off a "oh wow this is beautiful", then became, "heh, an off-brand aboleth" when I got to the deep beyonder, then turned to confusion when I saw the glaudernaut and reskinned, which conceptually speaking have almost nothing in common with the D&D creatures they share art with. Still thinking it was original art, I wondered if SJGames had had the bad luck to hire an unusually uncreative fantasy artist or something.

I doubt I'm unique here. I suspect just about anyone who learned D&D between 2000 and 2008, and a good chunk of those who learned it between 2008 and 2014 (the era of the great Pathfinder vs. 4e split), is going to have a similar experience reading this book.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Kromm

...which brings the average market town more wealth than a realistic empire would see – so much so that commonfolk use a silver-and-gold-based cash economy and run remarkably modern-feeling businesses.

Surely you exaggerate. Prices in silver and gold seem to be close to realistic historical values (though the fact that they're fixed, rather than undergoing moderate variation over time, is of course unrealistic). This is something nice about GURPS—it has such a rich base of well-researched material ready to go, that authors can get little details like this right without needing to do all the research themselves. Even factoring in magic items into a town's wealth, I don't think a Dungeon Fantasy town ends up with anything like the wealth of the Roman Empire.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Even factoring in magic items into a town's wealth, I don't think a Dungeon Fantasy town ends up with anything like the wealth of the Roman Empire.

All you need is a megadungeon, a power curve that rises to challenge the heroes, and the assumption of multiple delving parties doing regular raids. That right there means million-dollar "bypasses all DR" weapons are showing up on the regular and in the plural. Totally setting aside large chests literally filled to capacity (400 lbs.) with gold pieces: $8,000,000 apiece. While GURPS has an audience that leans toward the realistic, the kind of hack 'n' slash the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game assumes really is meant to approach the Diablo "What on earth am I supposed to do with a billion gold?" case.

Though GURPS Dungeon Fantasy does that, too. Per Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 2, you'd need two full chests of gold to buy a single Puissance +6 bow. Though if you want a dimensional refuge (Dungeon Fantasy 8), you'd better bring more . . . those run up to $200,000,000. The point being that trades with six, seven, and eight zeroes are within reach of delvers who don't rule the kingdom or even the town.

[b-dog]

Idea for a sword a wraith might use. It could be a spiritual weapon that goes right through non living matter but harms those that are living essentially bypassing DR of armor. It would also chill the living and make their attacks penalized. The sword would also affect spiritual beings like demons, angels, undead and faerie. Demon armor like the kind in Elric with demons bound into armor would protect to some degree until the demon in the armor is slain. The plus factor of armor would protect at the level of the plus. For example, armor with +3 would protect as DR3.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Kromm

We're not going to make Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game art secondary to text.

As long as the text does not become secondary to the art, I'm not likely to complain, despite my "meh" reaction to most of the art*.

However my reaction to the off-brand aboleth was not "heh" or even "meh", but rather "why?", as in "why bother ripping off D&D?"




* Noting I'm from the Mentzer BECM generation, so while the art was black and white, it was often phenomenal (but also ranged to "eeeh"). The art here wasn't bad, but... well... Caldwell, Easley, Elmore it ain't.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

However my reaction to the off-brand aboleth was not "heh" or even "meh", but rather "why?", as in "why bother ripping off D&D?"

On the other hand I liked the addition of more Ultraterrestials or as I call them in my Chalice World setting "Outsiders".
To me there all derivatives of Lovecraft rather than D&D, just as most of the monsters are derivative of mythology, folklore or fiction.

[Phase_Shifter]

Originally Posted by philreed

If you use the same email for Kickstarter and Warehouse 23, the file was automatically added to your W23 account. If you're having troubles receiving your PDF, please contact kickstart@sjgames.com for support.

OK, the PDF is not in my W23 account (because I use a different email for Kickstarter). I emailed using the email address associated with my W23 account, and the response indicated the PDF was in my account. I sent back the entire list of files in my account on Monday (which doesn't include Monsters 2), and haven't heard a response since.

What's the next step here?