12-12-2012, 02:44 AM | #41 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: [DF] Levels
Id love to see an GURPS supplement for video games like Shining Force, Fire Emblem or Warsong or such
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12-12-2012, 09:13 AM | #42 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: [DF] Levels
I think you're not interested in DF then. You want a broader fantasy game.
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12-12-2012, 09:31 AM | #43 | |||
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [DF] Levels
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1. This "movement" is just one of the usual cycles of nostalgia wherein older hobbyists look at what younger hobbyists are doing and go "Bah!" I've seen this in my other hobbies and I've seen it before in gaming. It isn't a stable basis on which to build a market, because eventually, younger hobbyists become older hobbyists who go "Bah!" at different things, while their former elders become non-hobbyists as often as not. 2. "The roots of D&D" is overstating the importance of one game. Inasmuch as there is a movement, it's just as much about getting back to other RPGs, including Tunnels & Trolls, Traveller, Gamma World, RuneQuest, and Villains and Vigilantes. Even for old-schoolers, D&D is an influence, not the influence. For instance, T&T is only a year younger than D&D, was actually the first RPG to which I was exposed, and represents the path of fun, tongue-in-cheek silliness that many of us have always preferred to serious play. (SJ's own The Fantasy Trip was very much in a similar vein, and was a major influence on GURPS and on me.)
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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12-12-2012, 09:34 AM | #44 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Rochester, MN
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Re: [DF] Levels
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The beauty of GURPS is that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy *can* be modified to meet b-dog's expectations, but b-dog will have to do the work (and there are people on the forums who will be happy to help with the endeavor). In the case of levels and "zero-to-hero" playstyles, two answers have already been provided. b-dog has some fun ideas regarding cosmology and world-building, which, you're right, are full-blown Fantasy (and/or Horror) territory. However, the number of posts regarding how to recreate such-n-such an item from b-dog's "old school" gaming experience, makes many people wonder why use b-dog' uses GURPS at all. I believe b-dog even answered the question in another post a while back. Personally, I love GURPS Dungeon Fantasy for every reason b-dog seems to find fault with it: No levels, no fixed classes, no required abiliity/skill progression, no alignments, no set cosmology/background/built-world, etc. |
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12-12-2012, 09:41 AM | #45 | |
Fightin' Round the World
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: New Jersey
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Re: [DF] Levels
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However, it's not only henchmen and hirelings - those guys (well, some of those guys) make pretty good low-powered heroes, or full-powered but non-standard heroes (some of the odder mixes of 125 template + 125 lenses, say). Going with 125 pointers will probably more suit a game that's meant to mimic old-school D&D. Going with 62 is a lot like playing zero-level guys . . . especially in my games, where most fodder monsters are more than 62 points. A lot of the advice on multiple PCs and multiple low-powered PCs comes from my own play experience (albeit, not often in fantasy). The idea of sticking low-powered guys into dungeons appeals to me personally, and I think we did a good job of supporting that. Still, the basis of DF is higher-powered play and I think that's good. You know it works at 250, so if you start at 125 and work up you don't need to worry about the game "breaking down" in the same way that you often hear complaints about with D&D, where wizards scale up geometrically and non-mages don't. Finally I'll note that while my own influence from 1st edition AD&D and 1st edition Basic Set/Expert Set D&D is strong, so is my influence from Rolemaster, so is my influence from the Unearthed Arcana era of AD&D (I for one loved it, and ran my longest and best AD&D game with UA classes and races), and so is my influence from video games. My GURPS influence is the strongest, perhaps - I've been running GURPS for longer than all the D&D and Rolemaster I played, combined. I'm less high-powered video game inspired than Sean Punch is, which is probably why the book we co-authored covers both high and low powered adventurers, but I'm not writing to purely emulate D&D. Just to emulate some of the fun I had playing it and playing other fantasy games.
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12-12-2012, 09:51 AM | #46 | ||
Aluminated
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: [DF] Levels
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12-12-2012, 09:57 AM | #47 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [DF] Levels
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Fans of more thoughtful, setting-oriented play have a wealth of options: Banestorm (and Abydos), Fantasy, Locations: Worminghall, Thaumatology: Alchemical Baroque, Thaumatology: Urban Magics, etc. However, GURPS will never get strict class-level gaming with alignments and required advancement paths, because that's against Steve's philosophy. The fact that I agree with him may well be why I've managed to be the steward of his RPG system for 17 years.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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12-12-2012, 10:25 AM | #48 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [DF] Levels
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While I'm not a dedicated computer gamer, I did play Diablo and Diablo II and I quite enjoyed them both. On the other hand, I would never use GURPS as an engine for such hack-and-slashing, where exploring dangerous locales, fighting an ever-increasing sea of enemies and looting everything one comes across are both goal and method. This is because I personally believe that the strengths of a 'traditional' roleplaying game over a computerised one are under-utilised when gaming in that style and the infinitely greater ease of play, not to mention shiny graphics, mean I'd consider the CRPG superior to the traditional one in delivering such a playing experience. I don't want to work hard in order to use lower TL technology to imperfectly emulate what I could easily get from the higher TL equivalent. No, when I use traditional roleplaying systems as the game engine, I'm doing so because I want to take advantage of the advantages it has over anything that we can yet run on a computer. The PCs as well as the NPCs are not run by 'AI' subroutines that couldn't deceive anyone but a child, they are run by actual intelligent beings that can imbue them with personality and complex motivations, even responding to entirely unforeseen circumstances. The world is potentially larger than even the most impressive sandbox game world, because the GM can detail any area that the PCs choose to visit during the course of play (or between sessions). And he doesn't have to rely on some randomisation algorithm, he can do so in a way that takes what is already known about the surrounding area in the game world into account, not to mention the actions and reputations of the PCs. That leads to perhaps the most important advantage, because the game is run through an intelligent entity, not merely a device slavishly executing code, it is possible for actions to have consequences in a way that doesn't depend on a hopelessly abstract 'morality system' or a choice between one of several endings. To the limits of the reasoning capability of the GM*, the choices of the players can truly shape not only their own fates, but also have effects in entirely unforeseen (but plausible upon later analysis) quarters. And there's no limit to the kind of actions the game engine can resolve. Anything one can imagine can be attempted, whether that's a strange impulse or a long-term plan to match the villain's long-term plan. And if the GM and system is good, the results will be logical and plausible, even when the designers did not remotely foresee that anyone would try it. Given all this, I'd feel that I was failing to take advantage of the reasons I prefer GURPS to the newest computer games if I merely used it to emulate Diablo/Torchlight style dungeon-crawling. To truly shine, traditional roleplaying games really need characters with fleshed-out personalities, freedom from rails and consistent worlds that reflect and support the desired play style as well as responding to the actions of the PCs in complex ways. I do acknowledge that this is my opinion and that people who play traditional roleplaying games for other reasons than what I perceive as their most important advantages over CRPGs might differ. For example, if the primary goal is face-to-face socialisation, it might not matter if the traditional roleplaying game is technically an inferior game engine for the style of play. *Which ought to the be considerably superior to that of his players, for best possible results. Human intelligence assisted by a physically-randomised task resolution system can still outperform computers when it comes to incorporating events into an ongoing narrative in a way that allows willing observers the illusion that the characters involved and the world they live in is as real as ours. But only if the human is very smart, very knowledgable and, ideally, very diligent.
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12-12-2012, 11:09 AM | #49 |
Join Date: Nov 2006
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Re: [DF] Levels
The reason I like real world religions is because they seem more authentic during roleplaying. If you have a cleric who is a Jesuit or Catholic priest it seems cool to have them use their cross to drive away a vampire or other undead. But if your cleric has to use something like a Symbol of Ravenkind to drive away undead there is a moment where you feel ashamed and wonder what you did wrong in your life to end up being such a loser.
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12-12-2012, 11:16 AM | #50 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [DF] Levels
That might be your experience, but it isn't mine. I'm not religious, but I've gamed with enough people who are that I would never, ever consider using real-world beliefs to justify the sort of carrying on that goes on in the kind of game where priests exist to "turn undead." I would consider that offensive. In my opinion, if your fantasy clerics with made-up religions seem like "losers" and a source of shame, that's a testament to a specific gaming group doing a bad job with fantasy religions, not a statment that fantasy religions are lame.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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