First Impressions

[Zarmonic]

I just got done trying out the new game with my regular group and I gotta say it was an amazing success!

It was kind of a spur of the moment decision. We where going to continue the newly started cyberpunk campaign I was running, but one guy couldn’t make it, and he’s the hacker. Sure, I could have made rolls for him but that didn’t sound like any fun, so I sprung this on the guys instead.

They made characters. I have the PDFs so I was able to loan out my laptop and tablet so multiple people could look things up as needed. I put them to work on it while I familiarized myself with the dungeon, which I hadn’t had the chance to read yet.

We had a GURPS newbie amongst us, and he took to it quite well. He chose the Cleric template and made his character on his own with only having to ask a few questions.

It still took us about four hours before we got to the actual game, but there was a lot of talking and pizza eating as well so that’s not at all bad.

The veteran GURPS players where impressed! They made comments as to how the rules where explained so much better and that it was likely an item to appear on their Christmas lists.

We didn’t finish the dungeon but we plan to play it through in later session(s) now.

Good job!

[MIB.6361]

That's great to hear Zarmonic.

How long did you play and how far did they get? (If you don't want to post spoilers, you can just say what page you made it to).

[Kromm]

Speaking from my experience running the dungeon twice at Gen Con for groups new to the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game but not to GURPS: It's probably a two-session dungeon for most gamers – three sessions if the group tends to find combat slow-ish in any game because they like to weigh all the options. People tend to need a while to reach area #6 owing to the puzzle-y nature of the earlier areas . . . and due to roleplaying through the adventure intro with the quest-giver!

[Zarmonic]

We only had a couple of hours left to play so we didn't get past the sewer. They did find Room 4 and now they've decided to return upstairs before moving on. Looks like I'm going to have to come up with some background info for the town, the history of the tavern, smugglers and thieves.

I think it's cool such info was left out so as to make it able to fit in any GM's world, but this was a case where I would have appreciated more detail. Things about the employer are pretty vague. It says in the book how her uncle died but nothing about how everyone thinks he died, or that he is in fact dead and not simply missing. It made for a pretty awkward intro but the players did seem to understand that such petty details where kind of besides the point for this kind of adventure so it worked out fine.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Zarmonic

... the players did seem to understand that such petty details where kind of besides the point ...

Playing in the game now in a PbP... and those petty details are normally ones I'd drill down into.

But since I opted to play the Half-Ogre Barbarian pregen* I'm just rolling with "Let's get to the bashing stuff part guys" and no one else has yet thought to ask those pertinent questions.

So we breezed right past all those 'pesky' RP moments and are poised at the door opening...


* I haven't seen the other pregens as I didn't back deep enough to get the GM Screen (have to buy it later), but there are ... problems with this character's design. Or maybe I just have problems with it's design.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by rknop

If you sit down to design systems or things like vehicles, then, yeah, the math in GURPS (which is nearly always still arithmetic, sometimes a wee bit of very simple algebra) becomes frequent. But for GMing and playing, the reputation GURPS has as being more mathy than the most popular games is entirely undeserved.

It's a reputation gained more than 20 years ago that just won't go. Back then it was perhaps more reasonable, as the popular games of the day tended to use dice pools, and "count the successes" as their primary mechanic, so the players' contact with maths was limited (of course, if you were good at maths, especially stats, you could see all sorts of interesting oddities on those systems that were exploitable...).

[BrianEye]

I was rereading Exploits last night. A little bedtime / stress relief reading.

I do find Dungeon Fantasy to be a really good, fun read, from first impression through current. I hope it does well - I'd like to see some follow-on items or other boxed sets one day.

[Rasputin]

DFRPG got a mention over on ENWorld.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

DFRPG got a mention over on ENWorld.

... where's this Warrior template he thinks is there? And the 1 point advantages are there still. *hair pull*

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Bruno

... where's this Warrior template he thinks is there? And the 1 point advantages are there still. *hair pull*

I think he's referring to D&D classes and comparing them to the DFRPG Professions. Not sure which edition of D&D called the combat specialist a Warrior - I've always been partial to Fighting Man myself. He specifically mentions the Knight profession so I'm not sure what he would have gotten Warrior from.

He also misses that the professions assume you'll take Disadvantages. Quirks are suggested for a few extra points.