The Dungeon Fantasy box set is great! But now I hunger for more...

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Refplace

... at least an implied setting. DFRPG implies it by whats in the Monsters book, the magic system used, races and templates as well as other minor details.

True enough. On top of that, though, I think dungeon-centered fantasy is really a special case: it comes with so much widely understood and shared – even when unwritten – setting. The Tolkien-esque races. Underground tricks and traps. Mad wizards and their abominable creations. Quests and treasures. So many well-used tropes that create a well-worn setting.

This stuff has really solidified thanks to 40+ years of D&D, D&D clones, D&D-influenced video games, etc. Gamers just know what to expect, what to do, and generally how things work. Right down to pegging character types with a single word. ("Cleric? Turning undead and healing. Scout/ranger? Ah. The bow and tracking guy.")

I suppose a counterargument is that what I'm talking about here is tropes, not setting; true enough if you define "setting" as nations, towns, organizations, etc. DFRPG proudly glosses over those. But I can understand its reason: "If you're going to spend your time exploring dungeons, then details of the kingdom's political background just aren't important." That approach works (or can work, if you're not opposed to it) for dungeon-centered fantasy. (It wouldn't work well under the label "High Fantasy"; there just isn't a singular and shared understanding of what "High Fantasy" involves.)

Super-simplified settings may even work for other genres (to a degree, anyway). Space Opera? If the action is meant to center on bustling cities and spaceports, then remote planets could be lightly painted as generic "wilderness". Or if the idea is to explore wild planets in detail, with PCs spending almost all their time "Down There", then the spaceport might as well be set aside without detail as "town".

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

I'd suggest some sort of Space Patrol - one part Texas Ranger bringing law to a rugged frontier region, one part Survey Scout of the uncharted frontier, one part Space Marines as the only military presence in the region.
And it wouldn't be hard to cram all three of those campaign scopes into a single box, using the same Frontier Sector backdrop.

Yeah that could work. Again your narrowing the scope and broad appeal because you will have to make implied setting choices.
However it still could serve the purpose of enticing new players.
New thread I think.

Originally Posted by tbone

True enough. On top of that, though, I think dungeon-centered fantasy is really a special case: it comes with so much widely understood and shared – even when unwritten – setting. The Tolkien-esque races. Underground tricks and traps. Mad wizards and their abominable creations. Quests and treasures. So many well-used tropes that create a well-worn setting.

This stuff has really solidified thanks to 40+ years of D&D, D&D clones, D&D-influenced video games, etc. Gamers just know what to expect, what to do, and generally how things work. Right down to pegging character types with a single word. ("Cleric? Turning undead and healing. Scout/ranger? Ah. The bow and tracking guy.")


Super-simplified settings may even work for other genres (to a degree, anyway). Space Opera? If the action is meant to center on bustling cities and spaceports, then remote planets could be lightly painted as generic "wilderness". Or if the idea is to explore wild planets in detail, with PCs spending almost all their time "Down There", then the spaceport might as well be set aside without detail as "town".

It could work, especially if the game was set up to be workable with existing or later settings.

[A Ladder]

Man, if Mailanka made a box set of his Psi-Wars I would buy it in a heartbeat.

It's got everything: campaign switch assumptions, focus on the simpler GURPS rules, how gear and powers interact, a reason for small scale conflict (aka PCs), and is based in a familiar "space opera" type setting (which is extremely rich in detail).

Give it the Five Books treatment: Adventurers covers templates, gear, spaceships, and cybernetics. Exploits is all the campaign rules (in spaaaace) and setting material. "Spells" would be Mailanka's Communion and artifacts. A book on opposition from aliens, troopers, and ships. Finish with a dope adventure, expanding on the previous mentioned setting and we would have a winner.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I doubt it, mostly because the big work in the boxed set would be stripping down the core rules. More dungeons would use some sort of template or loose format, I suspect, like the one in the box. I have played the game and have my set, but I haven't done a detail read yet, but if it IS complete, I suspect that the kind of things you'll see will be dungeons, templates, and other things you can use easily, as-is, with the under-the-hood toolkit stuff hidden. Themed monster books. The whole point of the DFRPG box set is that it's complete.

And I disagree.


In terms of content there's still plenty to cover.

Then there's the standees etc (minis potentially ).

Then theres the chance of a box getting in the shelves and new people buying the original box.

In terms of production.

Ill give you that writing and editing are much of the time, but consider a hypothetical "next level book".

Needs to distil down several books.
Be edited.

Likely needs some new content.

Then there's art and production.

There was a huge wait this time between the books being written through a kickstarter through to me actually getting it hypothetically in October.

I give my standard disclaimer of knowing nothing about the internal SJ Games situation.

I still see that being much more than a year from start to finish.

I also see putting two boxed sets through the pipeline at the same time being an issue .

[tbone]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

I'd suggest some sort of Space Patrol - one part Texas Ranger bringing law to a rugged frontier region, one part Survey Scout of the uncharted frontier, one part Space Marines as the only military presence in the region.

I was having the same sort of thoughts. A space frontier is huge and unknown. Imagine it's just not possible to properly cover the frontier with all sorts of proper organizations for exploration, research, policing, fighting, trade, and more. Rather, circumstances call for one very flexible Patrol (or Agency or whatever) that has to play all those roles to some degree.

It's naturally going to be stretched thin, too. So while there will be big colonization efforts here, and major military operations there, much of what goes on will have to make do with small teams. And the Patrol knows from experience that space is big and weird, and totally unpredictable, with backup and rescue typically far away. So teams have to be diverse: even if the mission is just exploring an interesting planetary feature, teams try to include a soldier, a biologist, a medic, a technician, a psi... all "just in case".

And yet, even that level of deployment isn't always possible. So the Patrol learns to work with others as needed: official Agents work alongside contracted experts, mercenaries, guides, corporate reps... even "free agents" (to place a "we'll-just-look-the-other-way" name on smugglers and other rogues). Teams sometimes contain more outside hires than Patrol members.

Needless to say, organizations other than the Patrol also have teams doing things here and there. The frontier also crawls with private "adventurer" teams beholden to no one at all. (Read: Pirates, bounty hunters, and "kill the bugs and take their stuff" explorers.)

That's all pretty basic Space Opera filling, but maybe it's the sort of framework that would support "adventurer teams in space" gaming without going too deeply into hard-wired setting. It could resemble fantasy gaming quite a bit, with a few key differences. (One key difference from DFRPG: Unless the setting is really out in nowhere, organizations will likely be important as employers, Patrons, etc. Which just creates a reason to include GURPS' new-ish, nifty, and simple rules for requesting aid from organizations (DF 17 Guilds, an awesome book)).

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by lachimba

And I disagree.


In terms of content there's still plenty to cover.


In terms of production.

Ill give you that writing and editing are much of the time, but consider a hypothetical "next level book".

Needs to distil down several books.
Be edited.

Likely needs some new content.

Then there's art and production.

There was a huge wait this time between the books being written through a kickstarter through to me actually getting it hypothetically in October.

I give my standard disclaimer of knowing nothing about the internal SJ Games situation.

I still see that being much more than a year from start to finish.

I also see putting two boxed sets through the pipeline at the same time being an issue .

And I disagree with you and agree with Douglas :)
Here is the thing. Your right that new books would require a lot of work.
However the production gap with DFRPG was that Kromm had to write it,
That took him off editing and left it mostly up to PK.
New books will be a lot smaller than the whole set so even ones Kromm does write wont take as much time. And Freelancers could write material, especially adventurers or monster books.
I dont see supplements to the DFRPG being more of a bottleneck than regular DF supplements were.

As to your last line, yeah I think two items through kickstarter at the same time would be overwhelming.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Refplace

.

As to your last line, yeah I think two items through kickstarter at the same time would be overwhelming.

I am entirely reffering to producing two large scale physical products at once.

DFRPG was written and edited September last year.

Thats 12 months assuming the writing and editing part took zero time.


I also dont ever see something of this scale ever being produced again without at least a small kickstarter (or other crowd funding exercise ).

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by lachimba

I also dont ever see something of this scale ever being produced again without at least a small kickstarter (or other crowd funding exercise ).

Oh, I agree completely with this part. Each boxed set would be paired with a kickstarter, no question. Page count would likely be tightly restricted, etc.

My overall thought, though, was that support materials for existing boxes (right now, only the DFRPG) would be handled through PK and Steven, as the usual editing pair. Others might even be brought in for contract work (SJG has contracted editors before; Peter Dell'Orto notes on his blog that his first work for SJG was, I believe, freelance editing). That would allow Sean to repeat the process of distillation, but with the gained wisdom of what worked and didn't the first time. Not saying you could do two boxes at once (certainly not; probably even terribly unwise), but I do think you can support existing box(es) and make one more simultaneously.

Plus, if the first one does well enough to spawn eager interest in follow-on product, it may be that beyond kickstarter, more resources can be found to speed production.

[Phantasm]

I would certainly be willing to work with Bill Stoddard, Robert Schroeck, and others in working on a Supers/IST boxed set. My contributions to the project would be a book of powers for the players to select from, and possibly a few racial packages for aliens, extradimensional, and terrestrial races. A "Super-Powers" book, which would be the third in the set (the five books being: Heroes, The Caper, Super-Powers, Headquarters and Equipment, and an adventure)

(I don't have the ability to write a full-on Supers boxed set on my own any time soon, sadly.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I would certainly be willing to work with Bill Stoddard, Robert Schroeck, and others in working on a Supers/IST boxed set. My contributions to the project would be a book of powers for the players to select from, and possibly a few racial packages for aliens, extradimensional, and terrestrial races. A "Super-Powers" book, which would be the third in the set (the five books being: Heroes, The Caper, Super-Powers, Headquarters and Equipment, and an adventure)

Funny thing, but a book of powers is what I would probably like to work on. . . .