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Old 06-19-2020, 05:03 PM   #1
Shadekeep
 
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Default TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

I'm curious as to how portable adventures written for TFT might be for GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy. I played GURPS ages ago in a version that felt very much like "TFT with knobs on", but not sure how much it has evolved away since then.

If I wanted to get the core rules for these systems, would I pick up the GURPS Basic Set: Characters and Campaigns and the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game products? Or is Dungeon Fantasy superfluous, since it's built around a GURPS core? I'm basically looking for the way to convert from TFT to these other systems, but not vice versa.

Thanks!
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Old 06-19-2020, 06:33 PM   #2
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Default Re: TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

If you got GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game you would have everything needed to compare to GURPS and TFT. The GURPS Basic Set has a whole lot of information that is not relevant to the TFT-type fantasy genre. DFRPG is an impressive product.
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Old 06-19-2020, 06:47 PM   #3
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Default Re: TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

DFRPG is a Powered by GURPS product, meaning it uses the GURPS rules and includes a stripped down rule set in it. The full GURPS system has a lot of material unlikely to be used in a fantasy game and DFRPG cut that out and hid a lot of stuff such as the powers system by just showing the final product.
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Old 06-19-2020, 07:29 PM   #4
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Default Re: TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

Great, thank you both! So if I pick up Dungeon Fantasy, anything I adapt to those rules should also work with GURPS as well?
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Old 06-19-2020, 08:29 PM   #5
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Default Re: TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

Yes, DFRPG is all GURPS, just not ALL of GURPS.
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Old 06-20-2020, 07:44 AM   #6
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Default Re: TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

Quote:
Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
DFRPG is a Powered by GURPS product, meaning it uses the GURPS rules and includes a stripped down rule set in it. The full GURPS system has a lot of material unlikely to be used in a fantasy game and DFRPG cut that out and hid a lot of stuff such as the powers system by just showing the final product.
I think I would term the ruleset a "curated" or "streamlined" one rather than "stripped down." Your second sentence confirms this: Sean did the hard work of removing everything that's "not this genre" from the corpus of GURPS work, fixing and tweaking to bring certain general case rules into alignment with the treatment's mission statement.

GURPS is a "subtractive" system. You remove everything that's NOT your campaign to form the foundation, add your own personal fluff and crunch if needed, and then play. "Stripped down" GURPS sounds like you're getting less, but in fact you're getting *just what you need*, which is a huge help.

I don't mean to pick too much (though of course I'm nitpicking a bit), but I think there are less pejorative-sounding ways to convey the work done to make the DFRPG what it is.
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Old 06-20-2020, 11:28 AM   #7
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Default Re: TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

Much ta, useful into!
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Old 06-21-2020, 09:30 PM   #8
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Default Re: TFT / GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy

DFRPG is also slightly different in some details of how some rules and spells work, even though it is almost the same.

The flavor of DFRPG (and the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line) is pretty heavily "doing D&D-like games in GURPS", with much more D&D-cliche-inspired content than previous GURPS fantasy worldbooks and settings, which tended to mostly be more down to earth and either not-cliche or different cliches, and usually much less exaggerated power levels.

As someone who started with TFT, then converted my TFT campaign to GURPS as soon as GURPS came out, and who continues to prefer the TFT style of game world and gameplay without D&D cliches and tropes, I'd be a bit cautious of using DFRPG as a basis for converting TFT content to GURPS, because DFRPG has lots of D&D-style stuff that I really enjoy the absence of. Classes, super-hero-like power levels and special unrealistic character abilities, monsters that are like puzzles that call for magic and powers to beat them, genre tropes, etc.

But DFRPG IS great at condensing GURPS 4e into medieval-fantasy-only concise little books. Even I find the 4e Basic Set overwhelming with all the Generic Universal content I don't use. I prefer[red] earlier editions which were more human-centric and had manageable Basic Sets, but 4e also has some good improvements and is what most people know and play these days.
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