Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

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?"

Ripping off D&D is sort of the entire premise of DFRPG. Personally, what I found confusing was ripping off the art and only the art.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Refplace

To me there all derivatives of Lovecraft rather than D&D, just as most of the monsters are derivative of mythology, folklore or fiction.

Sure, but when I do that sort of thing (and I do, as like you I enjoy some good Lovecraftian Horror) I prefer to go a bit further off-brand from D&D. Far enough off-brand that the Players aren't going to hear the description and immediately say, "Oh, an Aboleth".

[dbm]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Ripping off D&D is sort of the entire premise of DFRPG. Personally, what I found confusing was ripping off the art and only the art.

I would describe it as an homage but there definitely should be a big overlap. One of the ways to leverage the game is to run D&D modules converted to DFRPG, so similar monsters are useful.

Two caveats:

Building the game’s own iconic monsters is also important as that is what people latch on to, in my experience. People talk about that epic fight with a beholder or desperate fights against mindflayers.

Just copying the art and not having similar crunch is probably counterproductive, however I don’t think that is what happened here. I think they bought some cool, existing art and put stats to it, irrespective of what it was originally intended for. Given that art seems to be one of the most risky parts of RPG production (many KickStarters cite this as the reason for slipping) I can understand the desire to repurpose existing images.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by acmegamer

For some reason Phil hasn't replied to this question on the Kickstarter either. I'm hoping for a PDF as well as my physical copy I snagged.

Work. Lots of work. Extremely busy. Doing the CEO thing at Origins.

The answer: "Likely a yes."

More info:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/2536563

[acmegamer]

Originally Posted by philreed

Work. Lots of work. Extremely busy. Doing the CEO thing at Origins.

The answer: "Likely a yes."

More info:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/2536563

Thanks for the reply, also noted the Kickstarter email in my inbox this morning as well. :-) Have fun at Origins!

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by dbm

Building the game’s own iconic monsters is also important as that is what people latch on to, in my experience. People talk about that epic fight with a beholder or desperate fights against mindflayers.

This is 100% true!

I am thrilled when I read campaign write-ups (and I read them!) where something I invented is instrumental to a memorable game session. Other games might have things that look like as-Sharak, bronze spiders, ciuaclán, Demons from Between the Stars, electric jellies, ice wyrms, peshkali, spheres of madness, spore clouds, and watchers at the edge of time – and now bleeders, deep beyonders, kroa-kroa, mindhounds, ramices, reskinned, snāw wihtu, and tomb bugs – but those are my monsters, often created for my campaigns. When other gamers start talking about them, that's the sign we're building a new tradition of our own.

Despite that, I've taken pains to deliver many classics: angels, chimeras, demons (galore), dragons, elementals, fungi, gargoyles, giants, goblins, gryphons, jellies, liches, lizard men, minotaurs, molds, nagas, ogres, oozes, orcs, puddings, skeletons, slimes (many slimes), specters, striges, succubi, trolls, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and numerous beasties (apes, bats, bears, lions, rats, snakes, spiders, tigers, weasels, wolves, and bizarre bugs). A good proportion of these write-ups offer notes on how to create variants. And there are many more write-ups that file off the serial numbers despite what I said above, or that offer a classic under a new name. Together, these vastly outnumber the originals.

But . . .

While I seek to deliver an experience familiar to players of D&D- or Diablo-series games, I don't seek to replicate those games down to the very last monster. In fact, if I did that, we'd be looking at a lawsuit! Monsters that don't obviously come from the public domain might be "classics," but we can't use them; you're never going to see beholders, mimics, or owlbears for this reason. The serial numbers have to come off completely, and while I can defend a sphere of madness not being a beholder because it has arms, eats brains, and doesn't shoot rays, there's far less a person can do to make an owl-headed bear their own.

What complicates this is the average gamer's lack of knowledge of what's in the public domain. Many people believe D&D invented bugbears, but it didn't; many people think slaadi come from some mythology somewhere, but they were invented for AD&D. Plus many monsters of myth have powers completely different from those in D&D . . . but gamers expect the D&D powers, which we can't use. If we present those monsters, we have to use the traditional lore or make up our own.

Originally Posted by dbm

I think they bought some cool, existing art and put stats to it, irrespective of what it was originally intended for. Given that art seems to be one of the most risky parts of RPG production (many KickStarters cite this as the reason for slipping) I can understand the desire to repurpose existing images.

Correct on all counts. Original art for original monsters is a great idea – and also a great way to see a Kickstarter slip or fail. So we bought art that was already done. The stats that go with that art are original and don't rip off another game's stats. What they do do is match the art . . . I took great pains to make sure the abilities of the monsters were as close a fit as possible to what the images portrayed. You won't find anything without flames described as "fiery," or a monster with a certain number of limbs totally lacking extra arms and attacks, or something that looks muscular given ST 5.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by dbm

Given that art seems to be one of the most risky parts of RPG production (many KickStarters cite this as the reason for slipping) I can understand the desire to repurpose existing images.

I gather that it's also expensive. I mean really, really expensive. I've seen a number of people describing the business end of making games, and one of the repeated themes is that while the most expensive single part of making a game is usually the printing and assembly (that is, paying some company off in Hong Kong or Vilnius or wherever to print the physical pages, assemble the box, cut out the meeples, and so on), getting art for it is a very, very close second. Even if new art is 100% on schedule and perfect, it still costs a lot of money, so recycling art, which is vastly cheaper, is a way to massively cut costs.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I gather that it's also expensive. I mean really, really expensive. I've seen a number of people describing the business end of making games, and one of the repeated themes is that while the most expensive single part of making a game is usually the printing and assembly (that is, paying some company off in Hong Kong or Vilnius or wherever to print the physical pages, assemble the box, cut out the meeples, and so on), getting art for it is a very, very close second. Even if new art is 100% on schedule and perfect, it still costs a lot of money, so recycling art, which is vastly cheaper, is a way to massively cut costs.

Yes.

Hour per hour, artists are paid more than writers. That isn't a complaint – it's a statement of fact. Art is used essentially "as is," with only small tweaks, so artists are paid comparably to writers and their editors and proofreaders. We could afford to pay writers like that only if their work were perfect, which is rare. Art isn't always perfect, either, but unlike game stats, facts, or grammar, it doesn't have an objective measure of error.

And I said "hour by hour" . . . but what matters more is square inch by square inch. The art that fills a quarter of a page takes many more hours to create than words that could fill the same space. As a professional writer, I can – and have, on countless occasions – fill a quarter, half, or full page in the minutes before something is released. Writing can be fast. You can't rush illustration the same way.

Multiplying "lots of hours" by "more per hour" leads to high costs for art. The best workaround for that is to purchase the right to reuse art rather than to buy all rights to original art. The latter is the red-carpet, first-class, blue-plate treatment, and you have to be very sure you will sell scads of copies to invest that kind of capital.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Kromm

While I seek to deliver an experience familiar to players of D&D- or Diablo-series games, I don't seek to replicate those games down to the very last monster. In fact, if I did that, we'd be looking at a lawsuit! Monsters that don't obviously come from the public domain might be "classics," but we can't use them; you're never going to see beholders, mimics, or owlbears for this reason. The serial numbers have to come off completely, and while I can defend a sphere of madness not being a beholder because it has arms, eats brains, and doesn't shoot rays, there's far less a person can do to make an owl-headed bear their own.

Have you considered releasing a book of D&D conversions using the Open Game License? This wouldn't let you do beholders, but I think might've let you do bodaks and gorgons (though I Am Not A Lawyer, so I don't know about some of the finder details of this, such as if the OGL actually works for conversions into other mechanics).

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by dbm

Building the game’s own iconic monsters is also important as that is what people latch on to, in my experience. People talk about that epic fight with a beholder or desperate fights against mindflayers.

Originally Posted by Kromm

This is 100% true!

Are you speaking from a sales standpoint? I ask because, in my experience as a gamer who doesn't sell games, this is not true. Folks talk quite a bit about dragons and demons and trolls and other monsters that have a collective consciousness that's outside the game. It's hard to convey to someone who isn't already a gamer how cool a fight was against a beholder since you first have to explain what a beholder is and in ways that do not already involve game terms.

One thing that I don't think folks get about those early D&D monsters is that almost every monster in Monsters & Treasure comes from popular culture or mythology. I think the purple worm and the slimes are pretty much the exceptions, and the slimes have simple elevator pitches ("Ooze that eats you") or come from The Blob (Arneson liked monster movies on WTCN-11). You didn't start to get original monsters until Greyhawk, and even many of the monsters in it have mythical origins (e.g., golems, stirges). Blackmoor is filled with giant animals and sea monsters, many of which come from mythology or popular culture as well.

I think what I'm saying is that new players don't pick up gaming material to fight beholders, but that they fight beholders because they're in gaming material that they bought for other reasons. Original monsters are great, but they fill niches that the game brings out. They don't lure new players. I realize that DFRPG isn't pitched much at folks who are new to RPGs (Evil Stevie told Salon.com back when D&D 3e came out that GURPS is there for when formerly new players start looking for a little more, and this is true of DFRPG as well), but there has to be some common currency.