01-14-2012, 09:19 AM | #21 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
The dungeon portion is small, but very intense with LOTS of enemies. The PCs are pretty like to trip ~5*N orcs and assorted allies as soon as they enter, as the various guard rooms hear the fighting and come investigate. After the PCs clear that, there's N+4 Stone Golems down the hall, and roughly another 5*N skeletons and assorted nasty undead allies in the outer chamber.
That's a lot of combat for 4 hours. Combat length tends to scale with the square of the participants, so those waves of orcs and masses of skeletons could just take up all the time very easily without every reaching completion. Instead, I'd probably focus on the sacred grotto, and add some physical obstacles to it*. Have the PCs arrive on Day 5, so a team has already gone through and added traps to it, and the PCs get ambushed by a rival on their way out. Throw in a (small) random encounter as the PCs approach, and you've got a pretty good 4 hour session. * ie, add a long hallway somewhere and put a chasm that the PCs need to cross; make part of the corridor on two levels so the PCs have to climb up it, etc. Maybe add a rune-filled section (from DF2 Dungeons) with a turn-off switch on the far side, so the PCs have to send someone through to get past it safely. |
01-14-2012, 09:20 AM | #22 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
This bears repeating. There are a LOT of adventures on the market that have clearly only been run with the authors group (and only once and only with a given party composition), or haven't been run at all. Curse of the Azure Bonds and your four or five Trolls riding Giant Crocodiles in a 10'x10' room, I'm looking at you particularly hard here :P
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01-14-2012, 10:10 AM | #23 | ||||||
Aluminated
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
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Glorious. Quote:
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Probably the least detailed part of the adventure, I'm afraid. Quote:
I'd like to repeat this. Coming up with the N notation was easy. Figuring out what stats N monsters should have to make them a good challenge for a group of adventurers was hard, and the playtesters did a lot of the work towards refining monster stats.
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01-14-2012, 10:17 AM | #24 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
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Ghostdancer
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01-14-2012, 10:25 AM | #25 | |
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
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01-14-2012, 02:15 PM | #26 | |
Fightin' Round the World
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: New Jersey
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
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Vote early and vote often! Adventures are tough to write, but if they sell well . . .
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01-14-2012, 04:01 PM | #27 |
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Verona, Italy
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
So, at last we got the first (of so many more to come) DF adventure. I’ve just read it cover to cover and I’m liking this product, overall. Several good hints are present, and as a game-aid it seems quite useful (henchthings, scaling guidelines, sample wilderness events/encounters etc).
Of course, being an adventure, its real worth should be tested in actual play! I’m noting those few things not entirely to my liking. Scarcity of colour and character: just because every single GM is going to adapt the adventure to his own campaign should not excuse that. I’m also fond of the almost traditional boxed text to be read to the players (when dramatic, while not too long) which is not present in MotFD. Another example: the Flame Servant Demon - supposedly one of the more interesting new creatures – does not deserve a mere word of description! Even skeletons get a slightly kinder treatment! Art: an issue related to the one above. A couple of good illustrations are there, but in the whole, art is almost completely unrelated to the content. No Mirror, no Fire, no Demon are depicted…weird! Moreover, the only hint to the desert is a guy in loose robes and a flat turban. Also, being nostalgic of drawn maps, I’m not fond of digital ones, expecially when they represent very simple locales such as the ones in the adventure. Sure, this is more a matter of personal taste. Format: I truly appreciate the boldening of relevant skills, in the spirit of hallowed DF:2! Yet, the presence of monsters in a given area should be immediately evident. Instead, here you often have to read the whole paragraph. No boss monster or other tricky supernatural confrontation, which is an unusual choice (apart from the extruding skeletons, which made me chuckle...). Quantity over quality. Moreover, the chapter describing the npcs is way too long and overdetailed (reminds me of the boring parts of Abydos), while not isolating the most relevant stats (primary combat skills, damage, DR), just like they used to do in pre-DF eras. Typo: the Stone Golem appears on DF2, page 26, not Adventurers.
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01-14-2012, 04:16 PM | #28 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: North Yorkshire, UK
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
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Graham
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01-14-2012, 06:05 PM | #29 |
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Cedar Falls, Iowa
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
Despite all the hardheaded and clear thinking about why there haven't been more adventures published for GURPS, I still have to say that I'm a little disappointed that there aren't more. But, I think we should ask, what is the role of published adventures for a system that's dedicated to telling any and all stories.
IMHO adventures are good for experienced GMs and players who want to take a break from doing all their own prep or would like to try a new idea, BUT they're GREAT for people new to the game. Could SJG and current established authors, please put out a few adventures for beginners linked to the most popular settings/subgames (fantasy, space, etc.)? Even if the adventures themselves don't sell particularly well in and of themselves, I'd think you'd all have a vested interest in doing this in order to help bring in new players (who would hopefully purchase copies of some of your already published work). Why not actively recruit a number of the experienced GMs who are on this board to convert some of the material they've used in their campaigns into a few published adventures (at least they'd be partially through the playtest process)? And in marketing said adventures, why not link them into sales packages for other books (e.g. buy GURPS Space and get "[insert title here]" for just $2! or buy Banestorm and free intro adventure!) I'd just like to see more effort by SJG to actually market GURPS to potential new players, rather than simply saying that tabletop games are dying, ah well, let's just sit back and cater to our established audience. (that's going to read a little harsher than I intend, but I stand by my basic point). Adventures can be a good means of assisting in the marketing of GURPS, esp. to the newer crop of players who are coming into the hobby (however small they are in comparison to days past). |
01-14-2012, 06:08 PM | #30 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon
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At a profit, of course. That always being the kicker.
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adventure, dungeon fantasy |
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