GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11: Power-Ups

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by rosignol

For a physical document, I understand that it is optimal to fill a certain number of pages due to the limitations of binding, etc... but is that really an issue for a strictly electronic product? Or is this a case of keeping the page targets because there is a chance you might do a printed version at some point? Or is there some other reason?

Kromm writes page. This takes time. Kromm has to edit page.* This takes more time.

Now Kromm has less time for editing Cabaret Chicks on Ice. There is no rejoicing.

*Others must also do layout and stuff, but their time is less important.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by rosignol

For a physical document, I understand that it is optimal to fill a certain number of pages due to the limitations of binding, etc... but is that really an issue for a strictly electronic product?

The amount of content is still a limitation, even if it's not as much of a limitation as it is for print books. The amount of time necessary to write and edit a longer book tends to increase geometrically, not in a linear fashion. Longer books are also more expensive and therefore can be less desirable to customers.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by rosignol

For a physical document, I understand that it is optimal to fill a certain number of pages due to the limitations of binding, etc... but is that really an issue for a strictly electronic product? Or is this a case of keeping the page targets because there is a chance you might do a printed version at some point? Or is there some other reason?

With all publications, irrespective of medium, the primary purpose of writing to a page count is to keep down editorial and production overhead, and thus to hit a price point. The printing and binding costs do go up with the number of pages, but they do so linearly. These other expenses increase roughly quadratically with length. Thus, information-processing expenses rapidly outstrip physical costs (which don't even matter for a PDF). This is one of those things that readers are going to have to wrap their heads around in the digital era: Editing and production are "hidden value" in a book, but actually a significant fraction of what you pay for . . . and if the price goes too high, nobody will buy the darn thing.

This same logic is why PDFs aren't as dirt-cheap as some people want them to be. For very long items, the cost of creating a sensible, internally consistent, properly cross-referenced text is essentially the cost of producting the item. Putting a cover on it and shipping it certainly isn't free, but it isn't the major limiting factor in terms of expense. It is a gross drag on time and warehouse space, which is why small publishers with small margins and volumes might avoid physical books even where they could probably turn a profit on them once they finally reach customers.

[Qoltar]

Will any of this new fun stuff be available tomorrow at Gen Con as POD softcovers?

I own DUNGEON FANTASY 1 to 4 because of a past Gen Con where such softcover books were available. (And Sean, looking inside them - you autographed them for me!! majQa'!!)


- Ed Charlton

[vitruvian]

I did find this one bit odd... "Exceptions are superhero gadgets – which don’t apply here –".

Funny, I don't remember reading in Basic that the Gadget limitations (Breakable, Can Be Stolen, Unique) were meant only for the superhero genre, and couldn't be used for magical artifacts in fantasy games, or even Dungeon Fantasy ones. I guess I've been doing Bracers of Defense, Girdles of Giant Strength, and such all wrong...

[Stone Dog]

I think that means superhero gadgets don't apply in that sidebar because they aren't really gear in the same way that the +1 sword you took of the ork chief is gear.

Superhero gadgets are part of your character constructed with points and don't need special rules about whether or not you can lose them.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Stone Dog

I think that means superhero gadgets don't apply in that sidebar because they aren't really gear in the same way that the +1 sword you took of the ork chief is gear.

Superhero gadgets are part of your character constructed with points and don't need special rules about whether or not you can lose them.

Well, actually, they've already got special rules about that. But I read it more as saying that magic items constructed using the Gadget limitations didn't apply to the entire Power-Ups supplement because they were assumed to only be for superheroes, and therefore weren't going to be covered at all... which is funny, considering that it seems like a decent way of handling the types of item-based power-ups I clearly recall from the early days of AD&D, when we had interminable arguments about whether the Girdle of Giant Strength allowed you to survive lifting large items with its strength. Writeups of those sorts of powerful items, that would be incredibly costly done as actual magic items, if even possible, would seem to me to be perfectly on point.

[Kromm]

The DF series mostly does not use modifiers-based ability designs (although Power-Ups shows the math for GMs who like to tweak). It definitely doesn't use gadgets. It takes a strict approach to points – in keeping with the whole XPs-and-levels shtick it's riffing on – which isn't very compatible with the "easy come, easy go" approach to items found in the dungeon, especially since many artifacts would have different point values for different users. Canonically, at least, gadget limitations don't apply here. If they did, then power items would be ERs with gadget limitations and Special Recharge, which clearly they aren't . . .

As I often write, DF isn't always canonical GURPS. Any canonical concept that doesn't fit well or that would take too much space to describe gets turfed. Lots of complex concepts get simplified. It's 95% GURPS, but it does have its own assumptions. These are normally stated clearly. The statement about gadget limitations is one such example.

Originally Posted by vitruvian

I guess I've been doing Bracers of Defense, Girdles of Giant Strength, and such all wrong...

Pretty much . . . 40 Artifacts describes many items in this general vein, and calls them all "found gear" with no point cost. While you can charge points for them, as Power-Ups implies, this doesn't buy any guarantees and is more of a fine for acquiring artifacts at whim when the GM hasn't decided to put them there as treasure. Normally, they're just stuff, and come and go with no effect on point totals, like other stuff.

I should add that there's some designer fiat here, too. I'm the series designer, so I get to set the ground rules. I really dislike the gear-as-part-of-the-character approach to gaming, so it gets no cookie. Obviously, a GM could add that in. That's cool! However, Power-Ups is making the default assumptions clear, much as other books say, "You don't have to use templates, but you probably should, and this series is just going to assume that you do."

[Johan Larson]

Originally Posted by Kromm

With all publications, irrespective of medium, the primary purpose of writing to a page count is to keep down editorial and production overhead, and thus to hit a price point. The printing and binding costs do go up with the number of pages, but they do so linearly. These other expenses increase roughly quadratically with length.

Editorial and overhead costs are quadratic with length? That seems rather strange. Care to elaborate? Costs of most types are either fixed or linear.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Kromm

As I often write, DF isn't always canonical GURPS. Any canonical concept that doesn't fit well or that would take too much space to describe gets turfed. Lots of complex concepts get simplified. It's 95% GURPS, but it does have its own assumptions. These are normally stated clearly.

This is a profoundly important point and, to me, the core reason of why Dungeon Fantasy works so very well. There's a reason many successful GMs "houserule" for their campaigns. GURPS is a toolset. You're meant to focus it on the themes pertinent to your game, and thus a Supers game does play different from Transhuman Space which does play differently from Dungeon Fantasy.

It's not that they use different rulesets, it's that they use the ruleset differently.