[DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Hi forumites,

I'm going to be GMing my first Dungeon Fantasy mini-campaign soon. Has anyone out there got any great advice for me?

I'm a fairly experienced GM; I've just never GM'd DF before.

(By the way, if anyone is currently in Stockholm, Sweden and wants to join in, speak up!)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Use a varied opposition. Don't throw endless hordes of orcs at your players, but mix it up with Stone Golems and Toxifiers, flesh eating apes, and things that are immune to magic.

Throw in some varied challenges, too: tricks, traps, long tunnels in no-mana zones that need to be climbed, etc. Give everyone a chance to shine.

Keep an eye on your wizard's spell lists. Its the spot in the play of the game that is going to challenge your assumptions the most.

Figure out if your players want a challenge or an escapist romp, and plan the encounters for that.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

What those guys said, but also:

- the PCs are badasses right from the word go (I had a Knight start with Two-Handed Sword-21, Weapon Master (Greatsword), and ST 17 - nevermind the Magery 6 wizard). So expect that - it's pretty high powered, so monster will die. Embrace that - you can throw more monsters next time.

- follow Mark's advice about varied non-combat challeneges even if the PCs aren't designed to tackle them. You need to scout and didn't make one - oh, this'll be extra-tough. Part of the badass thing is that sometimes the challenges aren't to your core competency.

- decide ahead of time how you want to award experience. How you award XP will drive behavior - if you give extra XP for killing everything in the dungeon, expect that. If you give XP for exploration, expect that, too.

- Have fun with it. DF is dungeoneering with a nod and a wink to old school silliness. If you try to run it as a dark, serious, gritty game, you're trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. It works better if you just take it a little lightly and focus on the kill monsters, take treasure, go back to town aspects.

In addition, a bunch of us running or playing DF have blogs about our games - there is a link to mine in my signature, and it has links to the others (including Mark's).

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

It's not D&D. Don't expect it to be D&D. Mages aren't artillery, fighters aren't "tanks" and thieves aren't "damage dealers." It's a considerably more "strategic" than tactical game. Don't approach a dungeon as a series of unconnected fights, but as a more cohesive whole.

GURPS really works more like a game of Shadowrun or other "hiest" games. Characters have certain specialties in a broader scheme, and they will use them. Magic-users are more about crowd control and bringing unconvential solutions to the problem. Thieves and scouts and barbarians and even swashbucklers, to an extent, are about bringing "mobility" to the dungeon, allowing them to get around obstacles through sheer physical prowess and skill. The combat-oriented types are very lethal. Throw a knight or a swashbuckler against any reasonable group of orcs, and expect them to mow through at least one a turn (the minion rules aren't there to make this sort of thing easier, but to reach the inevitable conclusion with less muss and fuss: one hit from a knight with high striking strength, weapon master and a great-sword is going to destroy anyone not similarly badass): The reason you can't afford to ignore the knight isn't because he has you "tagged," but because he's going to kill you if you turn your back. This isn't to say that mages and thieves don't have their combat uses, they do, but fighters are about fighting, and so expect them to be very good at combat.

GURPS has never been a "pile of HP game," and it isn't here either. They will win because they're not being hit (or being hit too lightly for it to matter), because they're dominating the battlefield, or because they evaded it completely.

At high level play, expect ruthless exploitation, and design your monsters accordingly. When I tossed together monsters in my thread, I made quite a few that I found spectacularly ridiculous, like dragons with a DR of 20 and such, and I have since watched DF veterans rip them apart like they're nothing ("DR 20 and how much nictitating membrane? Dead!").

It's a great game, but don't expect it to play anything like D&D beyond the typical "Go into dungeons, kill monsters and take their stuff." It's still very much GURPS, and GURPS is about thinking about how things would actually play out. Do the same in return.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

As the series' creator and primary author, I would endorse all of the advice so far, especially this stuff:

Indeed! DF isn't about consistency of setting or logical abilities. At most, it's about the consistency of illogical abilities.

Very, very important! For instance, don't feel as if the lack of a spellcaster with the right countermagic means you shouldn't throw unavoidable magic in the PCs' path . . . if they go in without Stone to Flesh or Remove Curse, and end up statues or cursed, too bad. And if nobody can hack through the DR 20 on the golem, because nobody is a high-ST barbarian, so what? Make people think.

And don't be afraid to say something like, "Your Seeker spell doesn't seem to work. You suspect that there's a no-mana area in the way," or, "You feel your Shape Earth spell warded by a powerful force. Your Thaumatology skill tells you that this area has a guardian earth spirit with countermagic at skill 50 or 60." Magic is cheap and commonplace in DF . . . it's Just Another Ability, like stabbing and stealing. Casters enjoy no guarantees that their spells will always work as advertised outside of their nice, safe towns.

That's the flipside to unexpected challenges and spells that get blocked: Sometimes, the PCs' abilities should work exactly as advertised . . . and then some! Make sure that there are as many total blowouts, easy wins, and encounters with foes who can be mowed down in hordes as there are troubles that nobody can deal with and hand-waving barriers to magic. The GM's job isn't to be a jerk, but to maintain balance. Balance doesn't mean that every encounter has to be exactly on a par with the PCs, though. It means that while encounters will average out that way, a good many will be tough or very tough, and a similar number will be easy or very easy. Numerically, don't aim to make everything a dead-on 5.5 out of 10; as long as every 1 has a 10 and every 7 has a 4, you're good.

Definitely this, too. D&D – especially AD&D – was an influence on DF but not the dominant one. (I'd put it third behind Diablo II and NetHack, probably, and tied with Tunnels & Trolls.)

Yep. Don't worry if some PCs never, ever lose even 1 HP. What other games represent through HP, GURPS very often represents with active defenses and resistance rolls.

If you ignore all the other advice, pay attention to this. DF isn't designed to be super-serious, or involve economics or politics, or otherwise go past killing and looting. Its rules support this view. If you want more, you would probably be happier with GURPS Fantasy.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

It is disappointing to hear DF as a silly genre. I feel it can be silly if you want it to be silly but you can play seriously if you want to.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Small-d, small-f "dungeon fantasy" doesn't have to be a silly genre; GURPS Fantasy has tons of support for serious fantasy, some of which could take place in a dungeon. Large-D, large-F, italics, boldface Dungeon Fantasy™ is a specific product line for people nostalgic for hack-and-slash, kill-and-loot gaming; it isn't explicitly silly, but you can't get very serious with a subgenre whose defining features are (1) murderhobos and (2) magic as a casual art that's taught to thousands and so common that it's sold at shops. It's important to be aware of the distinction. Nobody has ever said that dungeon fantasy has to be played silly; however, Dungeon Fantasy™ is not a generic product but a specific worked example, a narrow subset of dungeon fantasy. Trying to map all dungeon fantasy onto Dungeon Fantasy™ and then complaining when it doesn't fit is a bit like trying to map all soda pop onto Coca-Cola™ and then complaining that Coke™ doesn't taste like ginger ale.

GURPS inherently supports completely non-silly dungeon fantasy out of the box. It isn't a silly game, and it has tons of rules depth. Because of this, many gamers – especially newcomers to the system – felt that it was a poor fit to the sillier, murderhobo kind of dungeon fantasy. Dungeon Fantasy™ was created as a demonstration that GURPS could go there, too – as a way of reaching a market who might have otherwise overlooked GURPS as hopeless for beer-and-pretzels gaming involving beardy dwarves, fireball-chucking wizards, and heal-bot clerics. There's always the rest of GURPS for those who aren't in the market for beardiness and pretzels.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Could there be a GURPS series about high fantasy with dwarves and elves and dungeons that is done in a serious manner? Maybe GURPS Heroic Fantasy where you could play a wizard who fights monsters and the forces of evil? But done in such a manner that at least attempts to make sense. Maybe something like Ars Magica or Pendragon or Stormbringer?

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

There's a difference between "doesn't take itself too seriously" and "silly," and I think that Sean is using them interchangably here.

Dungeon Fantasy is not slapstick, and the game you say you want to play feels exactly like the DF game I'm currently playing in. If you read Peter's game reports on his blog, I would be very surprised if you called his play reports "silly."

What DF doesn't do is get nose-in-the-air snooty about metaphysics or some half-baked "realism" or economic consistency. You have these small squads of murder-hoboes running around, likely sleeping, traveling, fighting, showering, and likely having nookie with trancendentally beautiful half-nymph ninja babes (or at least wanting to) in full armor and no one cares. That can be described as a bit 'silly,' but what I think it really means is that it's not pretentious. It's a framework that can be used to have some serious fun without getting crotchety about it.

The existing DF series can be used as-is to play the kind of game you seem to want. Full stop. Many of us on this forums, and at least two campaigns I know well (one from playing, one from reading about it weekly) are quite far from "silly," even if we embrace the tropes and stereotypes quite fully.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

As Kromm's public relations representative, I'm gunna have to advise him to stop using the word "silly" when referencing the DF series. He's not talking about the mood and atmosphere of a DF campaign. He's saying the fact that it is a heavy-magic world rife with classic dungeons (monsters, traps, treasure, etc.) with no explanation for it being so makes it "silly." He's calling any such world "silly."

For example, he's using the word silly to describe a DF campaign based on a world not much unlike Athas of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting. Of course, we can probably all agree that the mood and atmosphere of Dark Sun isn't silly and Kromm's not saying it is. (I'll note the one and only published adventure is set in a desert and there was nothing "silly" about its mood or atmosphere). But, DF, like Dark Sun, is a worked example; DF just doesn't use space in its rules books to include setting information to explain the classic tropes and staples and stereotypes of a campaign setting like Dark Sun (or Ars Magica or Pendragon or Stormbringer) does. So, by default, DF is "silly" in Kromm's words because that sort of stuff shouldn't exist and DF doesn't take the time to rationalize it.

In other words:

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I so want that in the Webster's.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Shoot. I meant to include my own advice before posting.

Since you're an experienced GM, I'll skip basic advice like the first and most important rule of role playing games is to have fun. We know what rule #0 is, too. ;)

I'll also skip warning you not to make every adventure a spotlight for the character that does the highest DPS and can tank the most damage. Of course, you have to keep all players entertained, even the ones who made scholars. DF talks a lot about "niche protection," but it's more than that; it's about giving all the players what they need to have a meaningful, interesting and most importantly fun role playing experience.

First of all, two posters above, Mark and Peter, have excellent DF-centric blogs:

• http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/
• http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/

They dabble in other areas as well, but mainly from what I've read of late, it's primarily DF. T-Bizzle has a good GURPS blog that often broaches DF as well with a link in his sig above this post.


I ran standard fantasy with a character creation point budget of 150 and a disadvantage limit of -75 using only the Basic Set and Magic from 2004 until just very recently and reluctantly making the switch to Dungeon Fantasy.

I'm very glad I did.

Other than the system design aspects such as using templates for character creation and whatnot, there were two major points of adjustment I had to make:

1. High combat skill levels (18-22+);
2. Monster design.

1. PC's can start with combat skills in the 20's. That's not a problem. It's awesome.

It opens up a whole 'nother rules set basic GURPS provides, but is less often used in standard fantasy gaming due to lower skill levels.

Almost every attack made by an experienced player will be deceptive or rapid. Often, both.

Commonly, Knights, Swashbucklers and Barbarians will take an Attack maneuver with the options of rapid strike and deceptive -4 -- for a total -10 to each attack roll -- when they are working with skills of 23 or higher, and if they didn't start with that level of skill, they will very quickly obtain it!

For example, right out of the gate, a Knight can chose DX +3, Broadsword (A) DX+6 [24]-23, then take the Weapon Bond perk (Adventurers, p. 14) for an additional +1 to skill with his chosen weapon.

So, be prepared for that. Monsters with one defense at 12-14 -- good in standard fantasy -- might as well have no defense at all in DF. In short order, they are going to be chewed up and spit out and booed off stage by a PC with skill 21 making deceptive attacks at -8 every turn.

On the flip side, PC's, particularly linebackers like Knights, can start with fantastic defense scores.

Again, I'll use the same Knight. With DX+3 and Shield (E) DX+2 [4]-19 and a DB 2 medium shield, a Knight laughs in the face of a ST 30 ogre with a maul and skill 12-14, common standard fantasy levels of skill. The Knight blocks at 14 and parries (with skill 23) at 18 without retreating. He'll shred the standard fantasy ogre, likely in the first round by lopping off its leg, arm, or even head with an easy targeted attack to the neck location.

High PC skills change many of the concepts of monster design used for standard fantasy. It's something I've greatly enjoyed as a new DF GM. It means you get to design more robust combat encounters.


2. Monsters must be designed to fit their opposition. That doesn't mean they must be designed to be difficult or easy either one; but what you don't want to happen is for a monster that you designed to be a challenge to be a walk in the park, or a monster you designed to be a push-over to put your session on the brink of a TPK.

Let me pull a few examples out of many. By no means is this comprehensive.

• Undead and Demons. You can design undead or demons to be tough cookies, powerful examples of their kind with huge levels of DR, massive damage, and annihilating attack powers. Then, a PC cleric with True Faith (Adventurers, p. 22) and a holy symbol out of a Cracker Jack box comes along and suddenly they are of no threat at all to the party. Watch out for that! Of course, this is no different than in standard fantasy, but it seems to be exaggerated in DF.
  
  
• Monsters that are Homogenous (or Diffuse). Knights, Swashbucklers and sometimes Barbarians are the primary damage dealers of the group and they can often hack through stone golems and giant skeletons no problem. But, they aren't the only damage dealers. Scouts and Wizards can be designed to fill that roll as well. However, they are often much less effective when dealing with monsters with these forms of damage reduction. So, use them wisely or risk frustrating players who chose to do forms of damage other than swing-cutting.
  
  
• Flying monsters with high dodge and decent ranged attack capabilities. These can really chew up even a well-designed PC party accustomed to fighting in 10'x10' rooms with 12' ceilings and one-hex-wide halls. First of all, they often flip the tables that Homogenous monsters set. They can take the primary damage dealers out of the fight while focusing the spotlight on the secondary. Scouts with their bows and arrows and Wizards with their fireballs must deal damage at a range. Trouble is, by default, they can't perform deceptive or rapid strikes and one dodge roll by the monster is all it takes to negate all damage done by the PC party for an entire "round" of combat. Take a decent dodge (not to mention the Aerobatics skill!) and a decent ranged attack like a flame jet, and these otherwise weak enemies can slowly burn a PC party to a crisp without taking a single point of injury.

Here's a good thread about basic PC party composition: [DF 1, 2] Which Four PC Templates?

All that said, as other have noted, Wizards, Druids, Bards and other casters are the most likely to throw a wrench in the gears of your dungeon's design. Again, that's the same as in standard fantasy but it seems to be compounded in DF. Experience and knowledge of the spell list in Magic are required unless you want to constantly hose players who chose to create casters with, "You can't do that!" or, "That spell just doesn't work!" or, "Sorry. No-mana zone." That's not fair to pull very often and it's certainly not fun for the player on the receiving end.


I think Peter coined it, didn't he? :)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

See my signature.

You're totally right, man. There's this gaping hole in the GURPS line. We really need a book about fantasy games with a deep, rich discussion of what makes fantasy games work, how best to build your own, the themes found therein. Perhaps we could touch on monsters and alternate magics, the cycle of history, and put in some racial and occupational templates so you can hit the ground running, and maybe even have a pre-gen setting or two. Would it be so hard? Not sure what to call it, but I bet we can get Bill Stoddard to write it up. He's pretty good at thoughtful setting material.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Ah, I may have missed that. Credit where it belongs.

The term "murderhobo" reminds me wonderfully of early RPGing, when the question of "So where do our D&D characters actually live?" came up in the game, and there was an odd moment when we realized that nobody had any idea...

Never happen. Pure Fantasy. : )

But on that topic, I hope people wanting "serious" Fantasy don't forget about Banestorm. I always think it's under-appreciated.

Hm, I don't know whether many DF players are clamoring for a ready-made game world to host their dungeons, but it'd be fun to see a simpler "alternate" Yrth (the Banestorm world) readied for DF – a conversion of sorts, with less trade and politics, more weird gods and monsters. Sounds like a nifty Pyramid article to me, if an actual DF line book would be going too far...

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Crap! I've been saying Doug when I meant Peter! XD

Apologies to both parties. XP

Gunna have to edit my post!

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I outlined a campaign world when I started my DF campaign, but I sometimes wish I hadn't. I think a lot of fun comes from trying to rationalizing why things are so weird on the fly, and taking some flip remark a player makes about the world and deciding it is true. When a player says, "Owlbear? Those things are like loot piñatas!" I decided that his treasure was literally inside of him. I really like the disconcerted looks when the player realize that they called it.

If I were starting now, I would spend my preparation time on statting challenges, and no time on thinking about the setting, allowing it to emerge on its own. I mean, you need rumors and hooks, I guess, but a list of undefined names and place names is good enough to improve that stuff for me.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Just to be pedantic, True Faith with Turning doesn't turn demons, just undead, and those handful of wussy demons in DF9 that have "Affected by True Faith." But by default, you wave your holy symbol and they chop you up - only a few have that feature or have a Dread of holy objects.

Undead, though, yeah, True Faith is a win button, although Doug and I have gone back and forth on some ways of changing that if you want it weaker.

Murderhoboes? No, stole that from somewhere else. I do love the term for DF, though.

I found this advice ideal. I literally put down a small play area and then defined the stuff outside it as needed. When we moved to a megadungeon (the original plan, but it took some weeks to get it ready) I did the same. I don't have a world map, I don't have a campaign history except as needed, I don't have much of anything except:

- a big dungeon
- a city
- some rough wildernerness mapped in my head
- places to put side dungeons if I need them

Everything else was defined in play, often by off-hand comments by my players. Nothing as funny as loot pinatas, but the actions of the players defined the setting as much as the setting defined the actions of the players. The more time you spend planning the overarching stuff in the game is time you aren't spending putting monsters in front of treasure and PCs in front of those monsters.

It'll get funnier, I promise.

Maybe "Dungeonland" funny, but still. ;)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Right. Canonically, there are examples of demons with neither Affected by True Faith as a Feature, nor Dread (Holy Symbols) as a Trait. We've been over it. :D

Really? The first time I ever heard the term was in one of your posts, and some others expressed the same. Guess we don't get out from under the GURPS rock very often. XD

Funny?! Loot pinatas would be AWESOME!!! XD

I swear to the Old Gods and the New, I will incorporate loot pinatas into a future dungeon as soon as possible.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

"murderhobo" is a fairly common terms in D&D-land. I'm not sure of the origin.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

It's been floating around on the RPG.net forums for a few years, at least. I have no idea who coined it.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Certainly and I don't think anybody will argue. I been running dungeons crawls using GURPS since the late 80s using my Majestic Wilderlands. In those campaigns there is intrigue, slice of life adventures, etc alongside the crawls.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I second this.

My Majestic Wilderlands supplement is a polished version of my GURPS notes with the GURPS mechanics replaced by classic D&D mechanics. And my Scourge adventure was originally run using GURPS. And Blackmarsh reflects more my experience running GURPS Fantasy from the late 80s onward than it does my AD&D experience in the late 70s/early 80s.

I would not call my stuff a "hit" but it been well received. And based on the feedback there is a least a niche market for this kind of fantasy especially with a system with an excellent design and the mechanical details to back it up like GURPS.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

There is some great advice in this thread. I wish I had been able to read this when I ran Mirror of the Fire Demon. I was caught off guard by a number of things that the advice in here would have prepared me for.

IME, the most important thing is to realize the sheer power level of DF PCs. They are, in some ways, "over the top." However, being over the top is a relative thing--you just need to create challenges that fit.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

So did SJG.

GURPS Fantasy

It's not a finished, worked example - but IMO you can't get both a finished, worked example and one that will suit all people's needs in all cases. It's like saying you want a generic specific setting. This is why DF succeeds, though - it's deliberately focusing on the lowest common denominator of dungeon fantasy - the dungeon bashing part. Banestorm is a more serious look at the same subject, but I wonder if has as much widespread fandom and attraction as DF. And it's been around since Orcslayer for Man-to-Man.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Playtesting MOTFD worked well as a shakedown for DF for us. We learned:

- clerics are murder on undead, but no matter how tough they look, they're still not front rankers. Our Axe/Mace-15, 2d+3 or 4 doing cleric got mauled by an ogre in short order when he stepped up, thinking that was pretty good combat power.

- just how nasty the Knight can be. The current knight in my DF game is run by the guy who played a 90% identical PC in MOTFD. He tweaked him after that, but having someone do 3d+7 cutting twice a second let us know just how high the baseline was.

- just how much magic you can get with 250 points. The wizard's spell list was limited compared to our last game, but he was able to do much, much more than we expecting from a "starting" wizard. Power Items were a pleasant surprise, too.

- that combat was like our older GURPS games, but even more so. With the damage being done by PC and NPC alike, it was parry-parry-parry-dead in a lot of combat. We went in with more of a "focus on one guy, cripple the legs, aim for the eyes" and ended with a lot more "don't waste any damage with blowthrough, and attack as much fodder per turn as possible" than we'd had before.

Then again, our first games in this campaign teetered between "total massacre of NPCs" and "Oops, missed that parry, make a new guy" a few times. It's still GURPS, and fights are still deadly. It's just that what used to be a worthy fight (say, ranked orcs with polearms and supporting missile fire) became, with careful fighting, a fairly easy win even without the main damage-dealers in attendance.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

GURPS Fantasy is a good book but it really just an overview of the fantasy genre. I would hope for a more supported series that deals with high fantasy but is geared more towards the serious end of the spectrum. I use the DF series now for rules, monsters and treasure but I play in a gameworld set in Mythic Earth which is similar to Ars Magica with real gods and cultures as the back drop for dungeon delving.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

DF is just an "overview" of then Dungeon Fantasy genre. You use DF for rules, monsters and treasures. GURPS has rules, monsters and treasures for more "serious" games, and Fantasy is your starting point.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Moreover, there's Banestorm if you want a much larger worked example. Many might consider Banestorm to be "low fantasy," but that's a matter of attitude and point totals. You could TOTALLY set a party of DF-style templates loose in Yrth and have a whale of a good time.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

First, I'd like to single out a few words that I actually wrote:

For those keeping score, I outright stated that neither GURPS nor dungeon fantasy is silly, and that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy isn't explicitly silly. I simply styled the "murderhobo kind of dungeon fantasy" as sillier than other kinds, which wasn't a statment that it's silly; "sillier" is a comparative term. My point was to get people to look at the premise:

The world is nigh-overrun by terrible creatures, entities so dire that they can kill ordinary folks and defy armies, and that control limitless stores of valuables. Despite this, the world still has enough trade and agriculture to support feudal empires dotted with towns that are home to temples and a healthy guild system. The fiscal support for this society ultimately rests on pillagers who bring valuables back to civilization, and who are so powerful that they can accomplish what feudal lords and town-sized settlements cannot. Part of that power includes astonishing abilities apparently learned from even more capable masters in towns and monasteries . . . yet these masters' only visible contribution to society is to send out thugs (dungeon delvers).

I dunno – I can't take that too seriously.

I first saw "murderhobo" on rpg.net in 2010 or 2011. I heard it uttered at gaming conventions before that, though. It isn't a new term at all, though it's newer than "munchkin."

Yes. And lest anybody think that "over the top" is the only style that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy supports (because boy, did "silly" get misread!), take note that Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen covers lower-level starts. In principle, you could even start at 62 points . . .

GURPS Banestorm certainly illustrates the problem with "serious" worked examples. To be serious – rather than seat-of-the-pants things that hand-wave economics, politics, and technology, and take a kitchen-sink approach to religion and the supernatural – a worked example requires a setting.

The catch with settings is that they're specific. If you remove the specifics, you return to the vagueness that tends to get "silly" (or "not serious enough," or whatever term you prefer).

And the tricky thing about being specific is that if the choices aren't to the liking of the audience, the product doesn't do well. For instance, the specific setting of Yrth isn't a hot seller, because it isn't the worked example for everyone.

Since it's prohibitively expensive to publish alternative worked examples until one catches on with the crowd, or so that there is something for everybody, the alternative is to publish instructions on how to roll your own. We did that, too: GURPS Fantasy.

Basically, SJ Games has published both a genre guide and a serious worked example. It seems only fair that there's also a less-serious worked example for other tastes. It doesn't seem fair to criticize the latter product for not being one of the first two. It actually seems obtuse to ignore the first two and demand that the last one cover the ground they already covered.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

There are (at least, non-exclusive) two ways to play Dungeon Fantasy. One is the semi-serious, ignoring-all-the-world-rigor dungeon delving for the feel of epic adventure, risk and gain. This has a lot of different shades. My personal leaning lies here along the 'discover the world and its secrets' vein. When I think of dungeon delving, I think of overgrown ruins and ancient empires and pillaging their bones for wealth while coming across awesome and terrible secrets and, occasionally, trying to carve out your own pocket empire on the face of the world.

The other way is more comic, laughing at the genre and having a good time with it while playing it, poking holes and fun at its inconsistencies.

Know which one you want and which one your players want, is my advice.


(Disclaimer: I'm not saying that there aren't other ways to play or that the two above don't mix in some proportions in every game or really anything else anyone should get all worked up about if they think there's an exception to what I just said. There are LOTS of exceptions. I've just found it a useful distinction in my mind, since I lean one way and my players the other.)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I would add that "silly" and "can't take it seriously" do not mean that nobody cares about the outcome of the game. To me, I can view DF as a bit silly or non-serious, and still deeply care about the events of the game. I can probably even feel fear and a sense of dread while playing it. What I can't do is sit back and examine the game and nod my head sagely, saying things like "And this game, with its roving bands of murderhoboes, is completely high brow epic fantasy..."

It's beer and pretzels (or as I now prefer, "beardedness and pretzels") gaming at its finest. That doesn't make it stupid it just means you aren't supposed to feel the same way about it as you might feel about an ultra-serious Call of Cthulhu world-spanning investigation campaign with low power characters trying to prevent the end of existence. (And some people can't take that seriously either!)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

That already exists. It's called GURPS Fantasy, GURPS Low-Tech, GURPS Low-Tech Companion 1 to 3, GURPS Thaumatology, and whatever else you want to include in your world (e.g., GURPS Mass Combat for feudal warfare or GURPS Underground Adventures for believable dungeons). That's as much "generic" support for serious fantasy as GURPS Dungeon Fantasy provides for the other kind. Abilities, gear, societies . . . it's all there. Of course, assembly is required, and that's fine – as I said earlier, the catch with settings is that they aren't generic, so they're a marketing gamble. We're not going to keep throwing darts until we get a bullseye; GURPS is by design a generic, toolkit system and not a setting-specific game like Ars Magica, so once we've provided the tools, we consider our job done.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Pithy one-liner: The only reason Dungeon Fantasy can be played out of the box instead of "some assembly required" is because there's no assembly, not because it's already been done by the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line.

(Again, not quite true, and I have the proof in my sig. Dungeon Fantasy games require quite as much work as the other sort, even on the setting - just not on making that setting self-consistent.)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

As far as advice I would say first determine what your group likes. If they just want kill monsters and take their stuff then you can just buy a premade dungeon and stock it at whim with no thought as to why they are there and what they are doing. But if the players like a good story with mystery then make a good story that makes sense and when the players defeat the enemy and solve the mystery then they will be fullfilled. A good story goes a long way towards keeping players entertained. If the story is interesting then the players will be happy even if you are not an expert Dungeon Master.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Really. Very interesting. That has just not been my limited experience so far. A missing leg has been a pretty much a quick fight ender for us, Scouts aim for eyes often and reap huge benefits, and an arm lopped off a two-handed wielder has been about as good as a kill.

I wonder if we will evolve the same way . . .

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

In my old game, doing 3d+ whatever and having skill 20+ was unusual. In this one, it's close to typical.

Cutting a leg off of a humanoid might end the fight. Might not. Same with a monster - especially a multi-legged one.

Stabbing the eyes? It might have a brain, it might not.

Chopping the body and putting it past -HP in one blow? Hard to discount that as a default tactic. Works way too often, and it works even if it turns out the guy has Supernatural Durability or Unkillable or is levitating or has No Brain - it's always valuable to ensure the most injury sticks to the target without blowthrough.

I know from my comments on berserkers that some people feel very differently from my guys - that you should cripple the legs, back off, and finish the crawling foe at your leisure. But ultimately we've found that's a waste of time - it's turning a one or two blow fight into a three to four blow fight for no additional value.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Meh. You only need to finish the foe at all if he happens to have fallen on a spot that you, for some reason, absolutely need to occupy again, or if his death is the actual goal.

Absent these, which will usually be absent in practice, a foe that can't attack you isn't worth worrying about. Move on and forget about the crippled orc/minotaur/whatever.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

My experience is that

- you often need to fight on that same ground.

- enemies with a crippled leg are movement-limited, but not motionless, nor unable to attack. Especially in a fantasy game, where opponents might have magic, psi, afflictions, innate attacks, sheer attack skill, and/or special advantages that reduce the impact of crippling.

- again, not all enemies are vulnerable, or usefully vulnerable, to crippling. You can waste a lot of time finding out, which is silly if you're hitting on a 16 or less and doing enough damage to threaten a one-shot kill. Skill 20+ and 2d+a lot or 3d+ a lot will be a one-shot kill on most "normal" (say, fodder) opponents, a one-two shot kill on tougher opponents.

- you might not win the fight, and a dead guy is less likely to come back and attack you (except as an undead), but an injured foe can.

I mean, my tactics might be featureless-plain foolish, but in a messy multi-fighter melee, leaving a guy with a crippled leg (if you even manage to cripple it) and pretending he's helpless is equally foolish.

Plus I feel like I have the experience of play to say that what my players are doing works. It may not be the only thing that will work, and other people are welcome to do what they will. But doing your best to get past defenses and then maximizing the amount of damage by hitting a non-blowthrough location to kill or fully incapacitate an opponent works. Arguing that it doesn't, or that it's wasteful, will fall on deaf ears as I watch my skill 22+, 2d+8 or 3d+8, Rapid Strike at -3 every turn PCs attack stuff to the body to ensure they don't waste strikes crippling what could be killed.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Yeah, that reflects my experience. I'm not one to waste time worrying about ecology and enemy logistics on dungeon-crawls, but I do prefer to stage adventures sufficiently far from settlements that my players can suspend disbelief. Hordes of horrible monsters at the town limits or a day's hike away make no sense to me or, more important, to my players. Since my monsters are lurking far from conventional food sources, most often in places filled with traps, curses, poison slime, and Evil Runes, suspension of disbelief also dictates that they'll rarely be creatures with human-esque weaknesses. I save people who can be stabbed in the eye or have their legs chopped off for casual bandit encounters on the way to and from the dungeon, and for altercations in town. My standard dungeon creatures are Elder Things with unearthly biology, Homogenous golems, Diffuse slimes, semi- or wholly spectral undead, and so on, not to mention vast numbers of things with No Legs (Aerial or Slithers) – and traits like Doesn't Breathe, Doesn't Eat or Drink, Immunity to Metabolic Hazards, and Injury Tolerance are very common indeed.

Certainly, I still let the PCs use rapier stabs to the eye, poison on arrows, and so on. They paid points for that stuff. But that's fare for those bandit battles and town quarrels I mentioned. Once you go off to fight constructs, demons, Elder Things, spirits, undead, etc., all bets are off. For the most part, your best tactic is to hit as hard and as often as you can with a swung weapon or a high-FP spell, and pray that you can deplete HP faster than they regenerate.

Indeed, any monster worth its salt isn't going to let being forced to crawl stop it. Ignoring the fact that I prefer monsters that ooze, slither, levitate, phase, or teleport, the ones that actually have legs aren't going to give up just because they're crippled. I always make sure that most serious monsters have at least one of an area-effect breath weapon (like as-Sharak and ice wyrms), a gaze weapon (like eyes of death and mindwarpers), a long-range bolt (like erupting slimes and flame lords), a dangerous emanation (like foul bats, horrid skulls, toxifiers, and undead slime), spells (like liches), or just a ranged weapon or even a melee weapon with long Reach. And of course I like zombies and similar ghoulies, who keep crawling after you and grappling if you don't utterly destroy them. My players have learned to go for K-kills . . . M-kills aren't nearly enough, and F-kills only work if the enemy has a weapon rather than an innate ability.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

But what about all of the wonderful loot the cripled monster has ;)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I think you should make a monster book with fairy races like they are depicted in myths. Ogres, trolls and giants with Injury Tolerance and other supernatural powers would be cool and there could some use from GURPS Faerie and Celtic Myth. Maybe the PC elves, dwarves, trolls and orcs are half breeds with humans and are thus weaker and mortal. But true faries might be superhuman entities from other planes like demons and spirits. That way a nest of ogres in a dungeon would be a challenge for 250 dungeon delvers instead of an easy boring slaughter.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

A nest of ogres in a dungeon can quite easily be a boring slaughter of the PCs; it depends what template you apply 'ogre' to. There's nothing that says that you can't build your NPC ogres on 300 points.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I use a large number of "normal" type foes, but again - Skill 20+ (24+ I think, for two of them), Rapid Strike penalties at -3/-3, Trademark Moves, etc. and guys doing 3d+7 or +8 cutting. Average damage from one of them with a hit will inflict a major wound on a normal man in heavy plate with a body hit - and thus very likely inflict knockdown and stunning, which is as good or better than a crippled limb. Against lighter armor, average damage puts even a pretty good guy (HP 13 or so) into negative HP and making unconsciousness rolls or death checks.

I also use a modified mook rule I've mentioned a bunch of times. This is because the average hit puts people into the "unable to usefully keep fighting" category from a body hit already. So I'm just saving myself the handful of rolls required for the body-cut guy to try to be useful again before he drops anyway.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

If you play the ogres right, mundane or not, they're neither going to be easy nor boring.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

But it is more fun to have unique abilities and powers than to just tack on a Barbarian or Knight template onto a humanoid.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Then give them unique abilities and powers. If you think you need guidelines, try out Mailanka's Homebrew Monsters thread.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

True but it can be exciting to have them more faerie-like. I had a couple of ogres sitting around a boiling pot, cooking what was left of the last adventuring party. The PCs got the drop on them but the ogres responded quickly. The archer shot out the eyes of one ogre but the ogre could use its smell and hearing to keep on fighting. The Injury Tolerance made the PCs have to continue hacking away until one one of the ogres dropped and let out a growl that stunned one of the party members. During this time the other ogre dumped boiling water on the stunned PC. The party was able to defeat the other ogre and heal the burned victim though.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

See that is fine, but I do not want to play, run, or buy material for a campaign where everything is faerie. I can respect that someone wants to do that, and I say more power to anyone who does. Dungeon Fantasy, as a line, tells us almost nothing about the setting. That is up to the people playing/running it.

That means that no one is saying stuff like "well, I'd buy that Dungeon Fantasy supplement, but I don't want to play a game about fighting faerie, I want to play a game where ogres and dwarves and elves are actually all elder things."

GURPS books have to sell to more than one person. My campaign notes, on the other hand, can have one customer (me).

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

How much experience do you have GM'ing non-DF GURPS?

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Back when I was working on Modern Action RPG, a homebrew RPG in many ways similar to the later GURPS Action, I had in mind writing an official rule saying that each player had to create a backup character, before the campaign begins, so that he can get right back into participating if his first character dies.

Would that be a good idea for DF?

I'm thinking the main benefit might actually be signal value, if I'm going to GM for some players I've never GM'ed before, or some players who have no experience with the system used (GURPS, Sagatafl, or hypotethically Modern Action RPG), telling them very strongly and directly that "this is for real, this campaign takes place in a dangerous world, and your characters can die."

Making a backup character for vanilla GURPS is an involved process, and I don't think many players who are GURPS fans will want to do that. Making a backup character in Sagatafl takes even more effort (whcih is why any such rule there would be a guideline, and would usually give the playes a month or 6 weeks extra time to make the 2nd character, after gamestart), but with the detailed and fairly flexible templates in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy volume 1, it's not very ardorous to make a backup.

So would it be a good idea? Specifically for bog-standard GURPS DF campaigns?

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Sounds good to me. You could give the players the option of making a backup character, or selecting one of a few GM-made characters. Having backup characters made ahead of time also gives you the option of including them as NPCs - they'll drop by in the tavern, chat about their own adventures, etc - so that if they're called on to join the party they aren't complete strangers.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

One reason to at least sketch a pseudo-world, is to provide players with a list of Languages, for their Bards, Sages and Wizards. Otherwise one player might spend 25 CP, 10% of his budget, on Language Talent and a lot of different ancient, current and monstreous Languages, only to find out that everybody, with no exception can speak at least Accented Common.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I don't think you'll get that, ever. There's already Ars Magica's Mythic Europe. Granted, there's also my Ärth historica fantasy setting, but I have no intention of trying to publish any RPG material commercially. I really don't think there's a market for it. Many people have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the use of real-world religions in Banestorm, Pendragon, Ars Magica and Quest FRP. And Ärth. They'd much rather have shallow lowbrow AD&D-shaped made-up crap.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

The problem with "discover the world during play" is that this means players can't create characters who have already discovered a lot of the world prior to gamestart.

GURPS DF characters start out highly competent, unlike 1st level characters in level-based RPGs or computer games, yet with the same minimal degree of world experience as those 1st level characters.

That makes it impossible to create one potentially very interesting character concept.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

And for the rest that b-dog wants, there are a lot of old GURPS supplements, such as GURPS Vikings, GURPS Middle Ages 1, GURPS Arabian Nights, GURPS Celtic Myth, and even some potentially relevant entries in GURPS Who's Who 1 and 2. GURPS Egypt and GURPS Aztecs too (those will certainly be of use for my Ärth setting, if PCs decide to tombcrawl for ancient magical artifiacts or knowledge, or travel to southern Vinland), and probably a few more.

There's also a lot of Ars Magica setting stuff that's relevant, both material for older editions, and material for the current 5th edition. I've pointed b-dog towards some of it before, and I'd be happy to help him further, if he asks me.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Do you have any advice for the OP, on how useful the Penetrating weapon Enchantment is? According to DF1 it's $5000, and gives an Armor Divisor of 2.

My instinct, if I were to play in a DF campaign, and if I were to play a fighter type (I'd be much more likely to play some kind of spellcaster, or a Thief, or Bard or Scholar,or maybe Artificer), would be to make a near-beeline to get that Enchantment on my favourite sword, because of the way DR works in GURPS.

Would that be a mistake? Presumably the price of $5000 is at least somewhat balanced with the other options. But I imagine it's possible for both GM and players to either over- or understimate how useful getting an AD on one's weapon is.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

It's pretty darn useful, and I took it pronto on my Named Weapon, an axe.

For a bit, it made Cadmus sometimes the only guy who could hurt certain folks. It also means that since he does 2d+3 when he's not under the influence of Righteous Fury (which can add up to +6 to swing damage through the ST boost) that he can still inflict 2d cut through DR 6. With RF on, he's at up to 2d+9, but usually something like 2d+7, which means unless you're dealing with DR 20 golems or something, he can hit DR 8 plate armor as if it weren't there, still with 2d+3 cut remaining. Both of those blows will sever a leg or render someone to -HP in one shot.

What it still does not do is give you the benefits of high ST and Weapon Master for truly large damage totals of the type that Peter's knights have when they ARE such characters, swinging a flail.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Made-up religions and gods don't need to be shallow or lowbrow (and, at the risk of offending some people, I would personally describe most real mainstream religions as fairly shallow in their understandings of human nature, history, and metaphysics). "D&D-land" religions are often based on mythology, which is far truer to the vast majority of historic spiritual experiences than modern religion.
See the box on DF:7 page 5 for how to make your DF pantheons more "realistic."

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Penetrating Weapon, at $5000, is the same cost as Puissance (+1 damage). Puissance is more useful if you're fighting foes with DR 0, DR 1, or foes who have hardened armor; otherwise, Penetrating Weapon delivers equal or more damage past DR. Looking at the Beastiary in Dungeons, Penetrating Weapon is better against 10 out of 15 monsters (not counting the monsters that are diffuse, since damage is generally capped at 2 and neither Puissance nor Penetrating Weapon helps).

The average ST14 knight without Weapon Master, wielding a broadsword, does 2d+1 damage. If that sword has Puissance, he can't reliably hack through the armor of a Golem-Armor Swordsman, a Mindwarper, or a Siege Beast (average damage of 9 vs DR17, 10, and 10 respectively). With Penetrating Weapon, he can (damage 8 vs effective DR 9, 5, and 5 - he still has to get luck against the Golem, but at least it's possible now without a critical hit.)

Penetrating Weapon is severely undercosted unless hardened armor is routinely available. I've added a Hardening enchantment, priced the same as Fortify, in my games to balance in better.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I think it depends upon what is meant by the word "discovered" - in some games, it's acceptable for the player of the well-traveled hero to make stuff up on the fly and it immediately becomes canon, barring GM veto. In this way, the players all "discover" it together in play, but it was already "discovered" in the more traditional sense of having been visited by the hero in question.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I think that unqualified Penetrating Weapon could use a higher cost, yes. It has the cost it has in DF to stay consistent with Magic – compare p. 63 and p. 65 of that work. However, I'm not the biggest fan of arms races . . . I don't think that introducing the concept of hardening for a price is the best fix.

My solution would be to qualify Penetrating Weapon. I'd scale to the point-cost progression of Permeation:

• Listed energy (and cash) cost against natural DR only; e.g., bone or hide. $5,000.
• Double energy (and cash) cost against soft metal and stone; e.g., copper. $10,000.
• Quadruple energy (and cash) cost against hard metal and stone; e.g., steel. $20,000.
• Eight times energy (and cash) cost against unnaturally hard materials; e.g., adamant, gemstone, or orichalcum. $40,000.

Then I'd define monster DR and armor DR as being progressively harder at no extra cash or point cost:

DR 1-3: Natural hide, scales, etc. (e.g., most dire animals and unarmored humanoids); nonmetallic armor.
DR 4-5: Soft metal scales or equivalent structural material, or ordinary stone (e.g., acid spider with its acid-resistant shell, obsidian jaguar, rock mite, or stone golem); metallic armor with DR 4+.
DR 6-7: Hard metal scales or equivalent structural material, or gem-encrusted (e.g., bronze spider or sphere of madness); metallic armor with DR 6+.
DR 8+: Unnaturally hard scales or equivalent structural material (e.g., golem-armor swordsman); metallic armor with DR 8+.

Finally, I'd simply ignore Penetrating Weapon's effects vs. any DR provided by magic (Armor spell or Fortify enchantment) or psi (e.g., mindwarper's psychokinetic DR), or that has the Force Field enhancement (e.g., Demon from Between the Stars or electric jelly). Thus, somebody with DR 6 plate could ignore anything less than quadruple-power Penetrating Weapon – and if he had Fortify 2, he'd have DR 6/2 + 2 = 5 even against that.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

At the risk of link-dropping, here's a section from my blog collecting combat advice - much of which is directly taken from DF-style campaigning - for melee combat in GURPS.

Melee Academy

This is a collection of relevant post titles which can be considered part of the Melee Academy series, even if it didn't appear under that title. These will include discussions of tactics and skills for combat in GURPS.

Right now I've got material from Gaming Ballistic, Dungeon Fantastic. RPG Snob, No School Grognard, and Orbs and Balrogs. I'm happy to add any relevant material as long as it gives tactical and skills related advice for combat in GURPS!

Watch this page for new stuff that helps get people's arms wrapped around fightin' in GURPS, and if you see something on another page that belongs here, let me know and I'll add it!

Skill Levels

Skill Levels for Melee Combat in GURPS (Gaming Ballistic)
Melee Skill Levels: A surplus of Awesome (Gaming Ballistic)
Skill Levels for Ranged Combat in GURPS (Gaming Ballistic)


Melee Academy

Melee Academy: High skill vs. armor and shield (Gaming Ballistic)
Melee Academy: Combat Grappling and Wait (Gaming Ballistic)
Melee Academy - Team Tactics 101 (Gaming Ballistic)
GURPS Melee Academy : Circling like Sharks (RPG Snob)
GURPS Melee Academy: Berserker's Wingman (Dungeon Fantastic)
GURPS Melee Academy - Stop Hit (Dungeon Fantastic)
Melee Academy: What's the Tradeoff for NOT Using a Shield? (Dungeon Fantastic)
Melee Academy: Fundamental Tactics Principles (No School Grognard)
Melee Academy: Tactical Positioning via Waits and Retreats (No School Grognard)
The Effectiveness of Knights in Dungeon Fantasy (No School Grognard)
Creating and holding on to initiatives in GURPS combats. (Orbs and Balrogs)

Not Melee Academy but Still Cool

Making grapples suck less in armed combat (Gaming Ballistic)
Low Tech: Choosing the right armor by weight (Gaming Ballistic)
Low Tech: Choosing the right armor by cost (Gaming Ballistic)
Exploiting weapon reach in GURPS (Orbs and Balrogs)
The feint: turning what you are good at into a combat asset.(Orbs and Balrogs)
GURPS Weapons & Tactics: Flails (Dungeon Fantastic)
GURPS Weapons & Tactics: Picks (Dungeon Fantastic)
GURPS Weapons & Tactics: Throwing Weapons (Dungeon Fantastic)
GURPS Weapons & Tactics: Using Shields Offensively (Dungeon Fantastic)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Why can't a player create a character who is a linguist without having a list of languages and places? If the GM and player communicate during chargen, the player assumes more influence over the campaign this way. "You want to play a linguist? Cool, let's figure out what languages there are and plan to adopt a policy on non-contradiction when we fill in the details as we go."

I am highly suspicious of the efficacy of trying to plan for everything. I think it is likely to result in campaigns that are years in the planning and hours in the realization. That's fine, if you really want to prepare, not play, but that is not my own preference.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

That would work for me.

I figure, save the "map the whole thing back to front before you start" for actual real world paying or lifesaving work. For games, I'm fine with being vague and letting the chips fall where the offhand table comments and off the cuff explanations make them lay.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I've considered just increasing the cost of Penetrating Weapon. Double or triple, perhaps.

On the other hand, letting people getting cheaper access to penetrating DR means that weaker fighters can affect higher DR monsters with the right weaponry, and that's not bad. It's not like I don't have an unlimited number of monsters - I can use more if it turns out the weapons are better than expected.

So far we haven't had anyone with one, because I don't make it trivial to just buy made-to-order or enchanted-between-sessions-to-order magical items, and because my players are laser-focused on "stuff that keeps us from dying."

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Note that "speaking languages" in DF is a role covered by either a scholar using Book-Learned Wisdom, or a bard or a wizard casting a Gift of Tongues or Gift of Letters spell. The possibility of learning languages the hard way is left open, but really, who would bother? Language is mostly meant to be a transitory challenge, not a hard setting feature.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Doesn't that Wizard or Bard still need to learn three languages the hard way in order to learn the Gift of spells in the first place? Or is this changed in DF someplace that I missed?

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Three is hardly something that requires much in the way of setting work though: Common, That Dead Language Mages Use to Look Clever, and Gobbo does the trick.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Sure, but I'm trying to find out if I missed a change to the prerequisites in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy x: Stuff sir_pudding Can't Remember Because it's in Box Text. :)

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

In my limited experience, PW1 made a big difference in actual play. It's the number one most desired first enchantment in our games.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

They need three Accented languages, total, which means that in addition to Common, they can drop 4 points on, say, The Barking of Dogs of the Bad Guy Race, and another 4 points on Whatever Demons Speak.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Oddly enough, it's an enchantment that dramatically changed between 3e and 4e. In 3e, PW subtracted its level from the target's DR and PD, which also made it an extremely desirable enchantment, but in a totally different way.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I've always thought that, but then that brings up my question about the scholar. What's the point of having the ability to learn languages on the spot or have Language Talent as an advantage in a campaign that is largely going to ignore languages? It seems like the Scholar's main function is to have an interchangeable list of background skills (Book Learned Wisdom) and the ability to do something random without training (Wild Talent). Those aren't bad necessarily, but they take up so many points and don't seem to come up as a main problem in Dungeon Fantasy campaigns. If language barriers are only going to be an occasional side problem to be quickly bipassed, why am I going to spend so many points on it?

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Sure, that's still the reason that you'd learn two of them the hard way. I was just making sure I wasn't missing something. Thanks!

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

The campaign can ignore languages as a social element for polite interaction – which is their usual role in a less hack-'n'-slash campaign – while still throwing language barriers in the heroes' path as puzzles to solve. The scholar's role is mainly to solve linguistic problems much as the thief disarms traps: to push past a challenge and achieve a goal. The specific language isn't important for this, exactly as Traps "just works" whether the trap is a crossbow or a pit. For instance, the scholar won't be planning his background around his languages, visiting his countrymen during downtime, trying to get his point across to NPC hirelings, etc.; outside of adventures, he speaks Common like everybody else. All that matters is that he can research the dungeon, deduce which Forgetten Languages its creators/masters used, and memorize these for long enough to read the runes etched on the walls and give the password to the specter guarding the treasure chamber.

Put another way, most dungeons probably have clues all over the place in the form of runes, and there may even be old books back in town that nobody can read, describing all the traps and treasures in there. The GM is well within his rights to omit mention of all this if the party has no facility to learn languages quickly, but to bring it up when there's a scholar along for the ride. That's just part of the missing Scholar entry under Making Everybody Useful (DF 2, p. 30).

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

Yet several of the official templates in DF1 and DF:Sages have the Language Talent advantage.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

See, this is why I love this forum.

Three days ago I posted a little plea for advice. Then I went out of town. Now I come back to find no less than seventy six responses!

Thanks to everyone for the great advice, and thanks also for the more general DF-related discussion(s), which are really very interesting.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I realize I'm a bit late to the thread, but....

When I made my DF world, I came up a brief document that pretty much covered the entire known world (I'm proud; I managed to keep it to five pages, despite my love of minutiae). It has very little detail, so a lot of it is "discover the world while you play." Then I told the PCs to feel free to make whatever they wanted about the world, as long as it didn't directly contradict what little I did right. Some of them have done so--the gave me quite a bit of info on dwarf and pixy culture that I didn't have to come up with, and it allowed those players to make characters with rich backgrounds. A lot of other stuff is invented mid-game as player asides. I now know more about elven drug culture then I ever wanted to, for instance. :)

So basically, let the players come up with stuff and you then decide whether you want to OK it or not. After all, it's DF; it doesn't have to be meticulously though out.

Re: [DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM
 

I don't want to "come up" with 7 different Langauges that my Scholar PC can speak and write Fluently, only to find out after the campaign is over, and I'm reading my notes, that the GM never made use of any of those langauges, not even once, and I've wasted 38 CP on them and on Language Talent. That's over 15% of the character creation budget!