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Old 02-28-2021, 03:05 AM   #1
Greg 1
 
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Default [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

The question may be unfair because DF never tells us to default to any particular sort of world. But all the same, the GURPS DF game worlds I've seen tend to have similarities. Perhaps the most obvious one is that DF game worlds tend to be much more cosmopolitan than most dungeon fantasy. Due to all the race options for PCs, there tend to be towns where members of all the races live and hang out at the tavern together. A Pixie, an Ogre, an insect person and a half-elemental might easily all be seated at the bar.

So do you think there are distinctive features of the worlds GURPS DF games tend to default to? If so, what would you say they are?
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Old 02-28-2021, 04:11 AM   #2
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

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Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
The question may be unfair because DF never tells us to default to any particular sort of world. But all the same, the GURPS DF game worlds I've seen tend to have similarities. Perhaps the most obvious one is that DF game worlds tend to be much more cosmopolitan than most dungeon fantasy. Due to all the race options for PCs, there tend to be towns where members of all the races live and hang out at the tavern together. A Pixie, an Ogre, an insect person and a half-elemental might easily all be seated at the bar.

So do you think there are distinctive features of the worlds GURPS DF games tend to default to? If so, what would you say they are?
IMHO the question is unanswerable. Even within DF there are a lot of options with 21 main books, 4 monster books, 2 Denizens books, 2 Encounters, and 2 settings Settings. (And there is not counting the monster books, the tangental material, or the stuff in Pyramid)

Then there is the fact that DF is GURPS and can be tweaked and altered to the point one could argue it wasn't DF anymore. GURPS Fantasy and Thaumatology allow mammoth tweaking of magic for example.
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Old 02-28-2021, 05:36 AM   #3
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

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IMHO the question is unanswerable. Even within DF there are a lot of options...
That's why I use the word "default". Certainly, DF is a toolkit and you can use the books for all sorts of different worlds. But when I've seen or read about it actually being played, the games seem to default to a certain kind of world.

I get that you can build a world where the only sentient race is Elves. I'm sure somebody somewhere is doing that. But that's not how I'm seeing the game played.
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Old 02-28-2021, 06:45 AM   #4
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

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Perhaps the most obvious one is that DF game worlds tend to be much more cosmopolitan than most dungeon fantasy.

I don't know about other dungeon fantasy, but they are certainly more cosmopolitan that other fantasy settings.



By default, DF leans heavily into good-evil-bunny-squid, and that's not unique, but its probably played up more there than other places.



DF feels a lot more magic heavy than most other Low TL fantasy settings I see in gurps.
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Old 02-28-2021, 07:39 AM   #5
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

I think what's distinctive about it is how unformed it is. It's a great study in soft world building. If you're interested in world building, I strongly recommend the videos by Hello Future Me on this (and every other) subject.

Here's the one on hard and soft world building.

In quick examples, though, Middle Earth is a product of hard world building, where studio Ghibli does soft world building. Much is left unknown, unformed, unexplored. It's deliberate and is better that way. Harry Potter used to be this way too, and was better for it.
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Old 02-28-2021, 08:07 AM   #6
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

I don't play a lot of DF, but I do refer to Infinite Worlds all the time. In my IW-inspired campaign, I use "Yrth-2" as shorthand for "whatever world it is that DF depicts."

Concur with ericthered about the cosmology: OD&D had Elder Things, but not nearly as prominent or as integral to the setting.

DF's demons are somewhat idiosyncratic and different than (say) TFT's.

"Hell gnomes" as dungeon maintainers has a different flavor than the imps of Dungeon Keeper or ignoring the question entirely.
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Old 02-28-2021, 10:22 AM   #7
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

I assembled a list to work from when I was doing my revision of the "Wellsprings of Creation" setting because I wanted to be sure I hit all the tropes. Naturally, I can't find it now. Things I remember include:
  • A four-way moral universe (good/evil/bunny/squid); the DFRPG has "the Devil" as the ultimate source of evil, but GURPS DF does not (at least, not officially).
  • An East from which martial artists and ninja originate
  • A North from which barbarians originate
  • Monarchy as the predominant political system

There's more, but not a lot more.
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Old 02-28-2021, 02:29 PM   #8
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

Nordlond is pretty solidly built. ;)

https://gamingballistic.com/product/...oks-print-pdf/
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Old 02-28-2021, 08:37 PM   #9
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

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Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
  • A four-way moral universe (good/evil/bunny/squid); the DFRPG has "the Devil" as the ultimate source of evil, but GURPS DF does not (at least, not officially).
I am not familiar with that expression. Bunnies? Squids?

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Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
  • An East from which martial artists and ninja originate
  • A North from which barbarians originate
  • Monarchy as the predominant political system

There's more, but not a lot more.
I generally see the DF world as low-density, lots of wilderness with ruins of past civilization.

Societies are not super organized (not as rigid or codified as high medieval era).

I guess I have been influenced by the like of Titan (Fighting Fantasy).
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Old 03-01-2021, 03:13 AM   #10
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Default Re: [DF] What's Distinctive About the Default Worlds of DF?

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Originally Posted by khorboth View Post
I think what's distinctive about it is how unformed it is. It's a great study in soft world building. If you're interested in world building, I strongly recommend the videos by Hello Future Me on this (and every other) subject.

Here's the one on hard and soft world building.

In quick examples, though, Middle Earth is a product of hard world building, where studio Ghibli does soft world building. Much is left unknown, unformed, unexplored. It's deliberate and is better that way. Harry Potter used to be this way too, and was better for it.
I fundamentally disagree. I don’t think that lack of detail puts an emphasis on soft world building. That’s just an open field for the GM to exploit as he sees fit.

I’d argue that with dungeon fantasy you could just as easily end up with middle earth as hogwarts. In fact, I’d even suggest that groups with mostly power gamers, as is likely for dungeon fantasy, tend to favor hard worlds, because that encourages preparation and planning based on the details and rules established, as opposed to finding out your entire build was rendered useless when you got back to school after summer because the GM decided to change the mood/tone/atmosphere of the campaign (disclaimer: it was more than a decade since I read HP). Bear in mind, also, that the analysis in the video is for writing (where the author has absolute control and readers/viewers are passive) – not gaming (which is an actively cooperative pastime).

Of course, that’s not to say there are no unanswered questions in dungeon fantasy. “Who built this dungeon again, why are there a handful of seemingly incoherent monsters and traps here, and how long have they been surviving on the pure hope that a band of moro-, ahem, adventurers would stumble on their lair wile leaving the rooms intact (not to mention unspoiled...)?”

However, I’d say that these questions might have “logical answers”, but according to dungeon fantasy logic (if, say, making advances in dark magic requires a pact with the devil, among other things, leaving visual markings shunned by the larger society, I’d say a plethora of random dungeons is to be expected). That’s why there’s such a thing as a dungeon crawl genre.

Sometimes details may be left up to the players’ imagination. Sometimes they may be conveniently ignored (monster remains is usually not a commonly occurring feature, unless it’s part of a “creative” solution to the problem at hand). On the other hand, I have no idea how hygiene is handled in minas tirith (sewers carved into the, and while it likely has a detailed answer somewhere in Tolkien’s works, I don’t think that’s the dotted i that pushes it into “hard territory”.

As for the dungeon fantasy world in general, as mentioned by a previous poster, there’s a mysterious east, a frozen north, etc, all centered around a focal kingdom. From there, I might easily improvise that pixies and trolls generally come from a local enchanted forest, dwarves and goblins from the tall mountains, and any of the locations I choose to include may be fleshed out in detail, including pixie society, goblin customs, etc. It may not make sense from a TL8 human perspective, but that may even be the point (it’s not just foreign but another race, sometimes even alien or weirder).

There’s a difference between having unanswered questions on one hand and having unanswerable questions or choosing not to answer them (even when players beg for it) on the other. The later would be more in the spirit of Spirited Away (unintended...).
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