[DF] Beyond the Dungeon

[Nemoricus]

I've seen a lot of discussion about how Dungeon Fantasy could be used to support more diverse adventures than straight-up dungeon crawling, if only it had some more stuff in it. So, that gets me wondering about how Dungeon Fantasy compares to other fantasy RPGs.

In particular, I'd like to hear people's views on:

1. What types of adventures would people want to run that Dungeon Fantasy either does not support or supports weakly?

2. What do other fantasy RPGs include in their core books that allows them to support those types of adventures? How do they compare to what Dungeon Fantasy has?

I ask for the focus on the core books because RPGs like Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons provide extensive setting support in their supplements, but their core books are much sparser. Also, people still spend a great deal of time creating their own settings for such systems, so having an 'official' setting is not necessarily required.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

1. What types of adventures would people want to run that Dungeon Fantasy either does not support or supports weakly?

The obvious answer is anything that is really far from pseudo-medievalist dungeon-delving fantasy: contemporary realistic espionage, hard-sf political thriller, ect (and the answer to your second question is "basically nothing and at least GURPS as a whole covers those"). That's not exactly a useful answer, though. Did you mean, perhaps, "What kind of secondary-world fantasy adventures would people want to run..." or something like that?

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

I've seen a lot of discussion about how Dungeon Fantasy could be used to support more diverse adventures than straight-up dungeon crawling, if only it had some more stuff in it.

Oh, I run wilderness adventures with some urban intrigue all the time. I'm not sure how much extra support there needs to be in Dungeon Fantasy, as much of that is in the GURPS Basic Set. I'd welcome an Urban Adventures supplement, but much of that is like Wilderness Adventures: there's generic stuff that should be in GURPS like dealing with crowds and law enforcement. (Much of Wilderness Adventures also made its way into After the End.)

[dripton]

The biggest gap I see remaining is city adventures. DF currently abstracts Town as The Place Where You Buy And Sell Stuff And Get Healed, which is fine for some games. But I can definitely see room for City Adventures book. And maybe also some expanded Town rules for people who don't plan to actually adventure there, but who enjoy a more detailed home base.

[sir_pudding]

I ran a couple of cities-as-dungeons in my last Dungeon Fantasy game, without much trouble.

[Nemoricus]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The obvious answer is anything that is really far from pseudo-medievalist dungeon-delving fantasy: contemporary realistic espionage, hard-sf political thriller, ect (and the answer to your second question is "basically nothing; less even because at least GURPS as a whole covers those"). That's not exactly a useful answer, though. Did you mean, perhaps, "What kind of secondary-world fantasy adventures would people want to run..." or something like that?

If someone looks at Dungeon Fantasy and says "Hey, I'd like to run modern day spies with this" then that's a valid answer. My question is then: Why should Dungeon Fantasy support it?

But, given the rest of my post, I'm expecting that most people are trying to run fantasy games with it. Yes, that still does cover a lot of territory, but that's the point. I'm curious about what people want to run with Dungeon Fantasy and what gaps or challenges they find.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

1. What types of adventures would people want to run that Dungeon Fantasy either does not support or supports weakly?

Generally speaking, SJG only uses the Dungeon Fantasy imprint for stuff related to dungeon crawling, though there's a bit of stuff about the process of getting to and from the dungeon (wilderness). There's plenty of stuff out there for GURPS that covers that need, it's just not published under the name Dungeon Fantasy.

In terms of what you'd want to play that isn't well supported, that depends on what you think DF is. If we assume it's about support for monster-slaying action-adventure, the missing part is likely the social activity that sets up the need for monster-slaying.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

I've seen a lot of discussion about how Dungeon Fantasy could be used to support more diverse adventures than straight-up dungeon crawling, if only it had some more stuff in it.

My posture is that the Dungeon Fantasy frame, as it is, can handle the same kind of adventures than the other RPGs you're mentioning here. Basically it's not that it's missing anything essential, but instead the limitation comes from some comments around suggesting (or even imposing) a sort of narrower scope and silly character.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Nemoricus

I'm curious about what people want to run with Dungeon Fantasy and what gaps or challenges they find.

Also there is a good number of DF sourcebooks published so far (not to speak of devoted Pyramid articles), and what isn't covered yet can be tackled with other GURPS sourcebooks, like Fantasy, Low-Tech, Martial Arts, City Stats . . . And even with sourcebooks from the other RPGs by means of conversion, if it's needed.

Now, some people has been mentioning rules for building, keeping and running castles and territories for instance.

[b-dog]

I would like some books dealing with non European dungeons and towns. I would love to have some books for Middle Eastern DF, Asian DF, African DF and Native American DF.