Dungeon Fantasy Players and GMs: What Tips You Would Give to a New Player?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

High active defenses are a pretty substantial part of how you make things survive in GURPS; not every boss needs to be a large pile of hit points.

Yes, high active defenses are a huge part of what would be more HP in other games.

Originally Posted by JMason

I use fodder that always make all out attacks (and have low ST or skill, so the bonuses are needed). So they don't defend at all.

Exactly! No active defenses suit what amount to low-HP fodder monsters in other games.

—

In either model, you're making lots of attacks to defeat bosses. The difference is in whether you're doing that to whittle down HP slowly or to get the one or two attacks past active defenses that will win the fight. Personally, I find "Ha-ha! I finally beat its fiendish defenses and dropped it with a single heroic blow!" a lot more satisfying than "I was the one who chipped away the last few HP after wailing on it all battle," but YMMV.

[sir_pudding]

I actually used high active defense and/or high DR with the Minion rules quite a bit when I ran DF. So that any penetrating damage was enough, but the enemies still seemed dangerous and challenging. This worked very well (except for the one player who always attacked at full skill to the torso...).

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

That is something I think you need some tolerance for. People on these fora still confuse sequence with initiative pretty regularly and this is the home of hard corps GURPS fandom (and that actually has some potential for confusion unlike "called shot"). I'm all for precise language, but pedantry just causes friction.

It's not just language. It's everything. Hexes, armour, the magic system and so on.

It's a different game as Poker is different from Black Jack. There's no point confusing one with the other and no guarantee your experience with one will help with the other.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by lachimba

It's not just language. It's everything. Hexes, armour, the magic system and so on.

It's a different game as Poker is different from Black Jack. There's no point confusing one with the other and no guarantee your experience with one will help with the other.

If you are playing poker, pretending you don't understand what "hit me" means isn't fun for anybody. "Called shot" isn't even a term of art in D&D so far as I know, so it is more of a general descriptive term.

Excessive pedantry is a bit of a vice for me. I shout "die!" every time someone says "a dice". So for me, anyway, I need to consciously suppress some of this and pick my battles.

[Kromm]

As an editor, I'm always telling writers things like, "'Turn,' not 'round,' in GURPS . . . and there's no universal turn, only individual ones," "GURPS has 'attack rolls,' not 'to-hit rolls,'" and "CPs are Control Points, from GURPS Technical Grappling, not character points – which aren't 'experience points,' by the way." As a gamer, I couldn't care less! Being prescriptive with game-system terminology may help clarify things in some situations but definitely will give newcomers to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy the impression that it's an overly technical rules set favored by snobby people. Which suggests a tip: "Don't be a prescriptive canonista!" Let people be descriptive and port in cognates from other games. We all know that earlier systems inspired later ones anyway, especially in this case – without Tunnels & Trolls, Dungeons & Dragons, Diablo, and even Rogue, there would be no Dungeon Fantasy.

[Bruno]

My Sunday DF group has everyone except me and the GM new to GURPS; I think two players have prior experience with some iteration of D&D (3.0 or pathfinder), the others have played videogames.

It's interesting listening to them grok the rules through the filter of the mechanics they know. This group has no problem with the critical success mechanic - they see it as like "verifying" your critical hit in D20, but more awesome. ^_^

We also have a lot of MMO and videogame terms flying around, but since everyone knows them, there's no confusion.

Everyone's settled in very quickly, regardless of the vocabulary they're using. I'm making a point of using the official terms when I'm declaring my own actions, but I'm not correcting anyone and I'm answering them in the vocabulary they're using. I figure if they're kinda familiar with hearing it, they'll know what they're reading when perusing the books.

[TJA]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

ALSO! Dont hesitate to shift the penalties for low HP to lower parts of the spectrum, even in the negative, because cowardly Pcs simply will not do in a DF game. Giving them a slightly bigger envelope to work in for HP helped my players be bold...which is what we all enjoyed anyway.
Nymdok

I tried to understand, but could not.
Penalities for low HP? Lower Parts? Spectrum?

Could you explain a bit more?`
Thank you very much

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by TJA

I tried to understand, but could not.
Penalities for low HP? Lower Parts? Spectrum?

Could you explain a bit more?`
Thank you very much

He means the penalties you take (half move/dodge) for being below 1/3 HP and lowering the threshold to 0 (or even negative) HP.

[Blood Legend]

Advice for Players

1) The last 6 players I had kept looking at their advantages for stuff they could do so I guess the very first piece of advice I'd give is 'You are your skills. Look there for solutions.'

2) If you have any experience camping or climbing, channel your inner (outer?) explorer and buuuuuuy the gearrrrrrrr. If you don't have to drop a single item to get into zero encumbrance, my dungeon -will- kill you.

3) Don't worry about your dodge, your shield is 30 lbs for an excellent reason.

4) If you're not going to be versatile please don't play a wizard. We have plenty of characters that are here 'just' to do damage. And by the gods take a healing spell if it allows you.

5) Targeted Attack Vitals and the skills that let you find those vitals. Even at its best, using range is slow, make those shots count. Don't layer all the DPS on one creature unless there's only one creature. Flip side of the coin; you don't have to kill everything you shoot. Target a knee every once in a while. Your weapon is nearly silent, don't neglect stealth. Shooting occupied enemies from side and back hexes can significantly ruin their day. There are a variety of arrow heads, armor piercing doesn't do a whole lot against zombies, diversify.


Advice to game masters:

1) Dungeon Fantasy implies a different focus but don't neglect your strong points. Still, players are usually only going to want Information, Aid or Stuff from NPCs, so if you want to make them memorable, build NPCs as ridiculous (but serious) caricatures with at least one motive that your players (and you) can keep track of. Mix up cliches, you'll get some interesting stuff; The Devout Merchant, the Greedy Priest, the Power Hungry Urchin, the Starving Mayor. Your game is composed entirely of the people and monsters that they meet so get wild with enemies too. Don't worry too much about why the creature is there, you can have rank and file undead but every 3rd monster is a vampiric blood skeleton or a swamp thing that explodes caustic acid. Your players aren't going to give TOO much thought why there's a harpoon wielding merman in the desert. Most of the time they'll grin, shrug and shout "Sure why not."

2) Players will murder the **** out of any problem that gets too complicated. If you want to have non-violent challenges to give them (or yourself) a break, those challenges need to have one obvious but moderately difficult solution. Accept any short cut the players come up with. I've been very blessed lately that my players understand consequences but Dungeon Fantasy tends to have less consequences, so you tend to get thicker headed players. I've watched very good players devolve pretty badly.

3. If you see a critical space missing in the party, just fill it with an NPC. Your players are going to want to focus on the characters they picked, don't try to coax the ranger to pick up a few religious spells. You can make suggestions sure, but don't force it. Also this one seems to be Dungeon Fantasy specific, don't let gods and demons speak directly to the players. They have acolytes, popes, kings avatars, and other liaisons who can pass a message along. They're busy and you want to have something to escalate too later.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Also this one seems to be Dungeon Fantasy specific, don't let gods and demons speak directly to the players. They have acolytes, popes, kings avatars, and other liaisons who can pass a message along. They're busy and you want to have something to escalate too later.

That's assuming that both the gods and the demons are significantly more important than popes, kings, etc. :) There are things that one can easily classify as one, the other, or both (!) that operate on the scale of dungeon boss monsters, or in the case of demons even as piddly wee fodder monsters, familiars, and general vermin.

Dungeon boss monsters should make you wade through the entire dungeon to see them, but imps, familiars, and corrupting demonic tutors operate on a more personal level :)