Steve Jackson Games Forums - Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

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Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qoltar (Post 2137517)

4) Yrth (Banestorm) and Dungeon Fantasy - going back to my first question - Could DF adventure game sessions take place in the world of Yrth?

I saw a thread about a week or two ago about all the Dungeon Fantasy (i.e., not the boxed set) material, and how compatible it is with DFRPG. The author even went into the Pyramid articles...

A little searching:

Link to post by Pseudonym

Another link to a post by Pseudonym

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

For my DF / DFRPG open "campaign" (a succession of one shots that I run from time to time at a club when a scheduled table is cancelled), I shamelessly steal from Everquest (original+Kunark mostly).

It provide dozen of areas, cities and dungeons with nice maps.

The players at that club are mostly students, EQ glory days were before their time, so far, nobody noticed...

I renamed most gods/places/organisation, and I moved a few things around, but if I want, for example, a forest with lost temples, I flip to the right map, and my memory of years playing the game give me something to describe, with fauna, flora and various encounters, as well as political and religious influence and a few notable NPCs and rumors.
Even if the scale is wrong, it is enough to give ideas.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

The most annoying thing about winging it is the absence of names. Town needs a name, the tavern needs a name. I realize that the absence of these things is the joke but I think they'd be the primary utility of such a setting.

I was twiddling around with a few generic names for a generic map. Felt they needed to be ordinary but not too silly. I did a Tunnels and Trolls map featuring places like Illregard and Noregard and Noreturnadress but I think that goes too far to set the tone of a Dungeon Fantasy game. It's not that Dungeon can't or shouldn't be silly, but that should be up to the GM and players and not imposed by the setting.

Here's some names I was thinking of using:

High Hold - The good and reasonable human kingdom that's still pretty medieval.

Tarngeld - The grasping mercantile realm which is slowly spreading through conquest and overthrowing guild monopolies. Tarngeld is a mildly evil ream but they don't worship demons or sacrifice children to any god less worthy than profits.

Good Stone - The dwarven realm in exile, having been driven out of their ancestral mountain tunnels by monsters.

Fair Shores - The elven realms along the western coasts.

A bit bland but serviceable but that's a good thing.

The time line needs to leave layers and strata of abandoned underground complexes. I want depth in the dungeon to correspond with how dangerous it is.

1129 Present
1117 Rise of Tarngeld
753 Rise of High Hold
500 - 650 Arrival of Human tribes from the southern seas
300 - present Dwarves driven out of northern mountains

massive flooding buries the lands in silt
400 - 600 Fall of Old Human Empire

-100 - 400 Rise of Old Human Empire
-500 Arrival of Human tribes from the eastern seas
-1000 Fall of Elven Empire
-2000 Rise of Elven Empire
-2000 Arrival of Elves over western seas

massive volcanic eruption buries the lands in ash

-5000 Fall of Ancient Lizardman empire
-5000 Arrival of Human tribes from eastern forests
-10000 Rise of Ancient Lizardman Empire
-15000 Creation of Lizardmen

glaciers withdraw to the north, mountains rise due to weight shifting
massive earthquakes and volcanos shake things up

-1000000 - 10000 Age of the Old Ones

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Johansen (Post 2138100)

Best source I've found for names is this site: http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

Not only do you get generic fantasy names for anything from Elves and Orcs to Gnolls, Lamias and Dracaenae, but you can generate credible real-world names from a wide range of nations and historical periods, generate a wide range of place and object names for world-building, and even generate names based on existing fantasy/sci-fi properties from King Arthur to X-Men.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

That's neat but I usually have something in mind in tone or feel.

Anyhow, I drew up a map. I'll do a more detailed black and white political version as well.

http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/Sunlit.jpg

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qoltar (Post 2137760)

Guess I'm just used to having a lot more background detail before starting a game session.

In the past the default assumption is that every so-called 'one-shot' game session might lead to a campaign. With a campaign my most loyal one or two players like to have maps and interesting cultural details.

Does this mean I should give up on running DF and run typical GURPS 4/e instead?

-OR-

Just go ahead and run one or two DF sessions and not stress out about background universe details?

I did make the investment by buying the box set and the GM screen package. Should at least try to put it to use.

- Ed C.

My DF players & I want a world around them & not just an empty map. It also helps me plan out the campaign. However, there's nothing wrong with doing an adventure or two 'in the gray void'.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kromm (Post 2137638)

The campaign that directly inspired GURPS Dungeon Fantasy – and through it, the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game – was set in a world designed to support dungeon crawls: It had a trackless central desert, northerly regions held at bay by strings of fortresses, steamy jungle nobody ever returned from, impenetrable mountain ranges, and five sets of unexplored islands. It was in its second age of magic, but remnants of the first age were hidden everywhere: lost jungle pyramids, caves sealed with magical forces, straight-up dungeons . . . even the great cities, supposedly safe and well-engineered, were built upon the ruins of ancient settlements, and their cellars and sewers mingled with dungeons. The magic was giving rise to many monsters. This world was a palimpsest, its new face drawn hastily over a hack 'n' slash realm where might and magic trumped civilization.

This would ideally require two magic systems so that the stuff you get from the dungeon is really worth getting, that is we can't make it anymore. So how did you handle that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kromm (Post 2137638)

Well, one of my secrets is that the campaign itself was the spiritual descendant of not one but two campaigns set on Yrth. I more-or-less saw Yrth the same way, and had the capital-B Banestorm be simply the latest in a long strong of small-b banestorms. Humans were there before . . . and so were other things, and sometimes Things. The latest human religions had social power but not magical power – that resided with the Old Ways. The Old Gods and Elder Gods were both immanent, if subtle; I put GURPS Religion to good use making sure there were real clerics in the world.

So I think Yrth is workable for DF if you're willing to mess with it a bit. You can still use its civilizations and social structures, but it's a lot of fun to have those be a veneer that flakes off once you get very far away from cities and patrolled trade routes. Set the real action of great and supernatural importance in the Blackwoods, Djinn Lands, Great Desert, Orclands, and Ring Islands, and far beneath Zarak, while the political struggles of the civilized kingdoms and empires are just a sideshow – though of course the kings and emperors probably don't see it that way.

Yrth is workable for DF. Megalos, Al-Wazif, Al-Haz, and Cardiel are probably too settled for hack n' slash, but most other areas are probably servicable. And it would be nice if we had rules for Sahud's spirit magic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMason (Post 2137691)

Pretty much any D&D setting works fine. I've used material for the "Known Lands", "Forgotten Realms", and Pathfinder's "Glorantha" with just a few tweaks to me liking.

The only issues you might have are assumptions on monsters and races. DFRPG Goblins, for example, don't map to Pathfinder's, so you'll either need to ignore the settings assumptions about goblins, or create your own DFRPG version of the PF goblin.

Wasn't there an official licensed GURPS port of one the D&D settings?

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

Quote:

Originally Posted by scc (Post 2138642)

This would ideally require two magic systems so that the stuff you get from the dungeon is really worth getting, that is we can't make it anymore. So how did you handle that?

Why would you need two magic systems? "We can't make it anymore" can be simply due to "nobody knows how" (lost craft secrets that haven't been reinvented yet) or "There just isn't enough mana/divine intervention/virgin wyvern testicles any more".
We're only finally reinventing the full Roman marine concrete recipe, and it's not like the chemistry of concrete has changed in the two-thousand-odd years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by scc (Post 2138642)

Wasn't there an official licensed GURPS port of one the D&D settings?

Nope. They did World Of Darkness, Castle Falkenstein, and Deadlands though.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

Could scc be thinking of 3E GURPS New Sun?
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/newsun/

Re: Dungeon Fantasy(DF) and regular GURPS 4/e questions (Yrth too)

I'm thinking that'd give you some pretty crazy dungeons. Might be worth a whole book of it's own.