06-15-2019, 07:30 AM | #241 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lancashire, UK
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Quote:
Also, beholders and mindflayers specifically are pretty much apex bad guys. You build up to fighting them and they’re still rock hard to defeat. Such things are great tales made of. |
|
06-15-2019, 08:26 PM | #242 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Quote:
|
|
06-16-2019, 01:04 PM | #243 |
Join Date: Nov 2006
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
What about ideal animals for PCs the encounter? They would be animals created the Divine originally desired before the Infernal corrupted the world? They might lead other animals of their mind against the PCs and be much tougher than regular animals.
|
06-17-2019, 09:49 AM | #244 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Quote:
I've had to explain what an "orc" is after Peter Jackson so thoughtfully filled hours of footage and thousands to theaters with stories about fighting orcs. I've had to explain what a "minotaur" is, and a "titan," and a bunch of other stuff out of myth. Yes, people know what "vampires" and "zombies" are, except that they expect the former to be a pastiche of Dracula retellings and "those guys from Blade and Buffy and Underworld," and the latter to conform to Romero-style horror movies . . . and when the versions in the game aren't like that, they get bummed, so you end up apologizing. Honestly, explanations and apologies are a waste of time. If you're giving people monsters they haven't heard of anyway, why not give them monsters that nobody has heard of, so That Guy can't lean on player knowledge to ruin the challenge? And so that there's no risk that there's some version in a film somewhere that will build up false hopes? I think the best plan in a game intended to bring new people to gaming is to assume they've never looked inside a game manual to see the art or learn about the monsters. Basically, to take the stance you're introducing the reader to freaky-looking things that their alter-egos are going to fight.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
|
06-17-2019, 11:43 AM | #245 | |||||
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Quote:
(As an aside, I'd welcome help for making mighty spellcasters more than new monsters, regardless of the source of the monster. Picking spell lists is a pain in GURPS or DFRPG, especially for arch-wizards or high priests.) Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I'm not saying "don't create original monsters"--far from it! Not only do they give variety to a game and make great bosses, they also tend to have original takes on mechanics that GMs can steal. I'm merely saying that folks do expect the classics for many reasons: they're easy to convey to others, they're handy when converting D&D adventures (though I think a system that exists only to handle old D&D adventures should just be D&D), they often have third-party artwork or miniatures that you can just show your players to symbolize the monster, there's a chance you might buy a product based on their presence (for example, I bought GURPS Adaptions since the kalidah statblock was in the preview). At the least, I'd expect more hitting up of Cardboard Heroes for monsters than just GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3 did, as Evil Stevie already owns that artwork. |
|||||
06-17-2019, 12:33 PM | #246 | |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Quote:
I grew up reading books with written descriptions and no art so I learned and enjoyed the process o imagining the authors words into mental pictures. As for the other bit,I tend to make that mistake. I consider myself reasonably intelligent but no genius. So if I know something I am often surprised when others dont know it too, with the exception of a few things I put special study into.
__________________
My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
|
06-17-2019, 02:09 PM | #247 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
In the specific case of monsters, having artwork helps even the GM get a handle on the monster. The boxed set was really bad in this regard. Among the artwork in the original Monsters were red dragons, giant rats, a giant spider, scorpion swarms, and a zombie, which are the exact kind of monsters I advocated above in no small part because we do not need artwork to understand what they are. By contrast, original monsters like ciuala, eyes of death, frost snakes, ice wyrms, mindwarpers, and void brutes which are not obvious from a name and a very short description absolutely need artwork, all of which were missing it in Monsters. It not only looks nice, but it's handy for actually understanding what the monster does. Which is why I'm happy that the new book has artwork for all the monsters.
|
06-17-2019, 09:11 PM | #248 | ||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Quote:
Make up a few Clerics, two to three different Druids, and one of each flavor of Wizard and what more do you ever need? Maybe swap out a few spells here or there, increase or decrease their skill levels... but it's not like every evil Cleric needs a customized list. Quote:
And politely ignore that they never actually hit ever again if they weren't shooting Leia. |
||
06-18-2019, 09:42 AM | #249 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Quote:
This is getting farther off-topic, but a good goal for DFRPG products is to let GMs make adventures fast by making the crunch easier to use. |
|
06-18-2019, 02:38 PM | #250 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
|
Re: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Reprint
Giving spellcasters-as-monsters the spells they need to be a viable threat is pretty straightforward.
If you were writing a GURPS book and giving point totals, you might actually care about prerequisites and whether the spells are the "right" sort for that kind of caster. On a DFRPG adventure, though, just list the top three or four offensive, defensive, and utility spells, and their levels. If these casters are doing villainous, plot-device-ish things when they're not a counter on a battle map, assume they have whatever magic is needed to explain that, which might not even work like spells. There's no need for magic-using villains to be built on points or even fair.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
|
|