(DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

DF tends not to include skills and advantages in their templates that won't be helpful in the dungeon.

That suits many games fine, but some parties do a lot outside the dungeon too (just for example, urban adventures involving mysery and social interaction).

If you were going to give DF PCs some extra points for "useless" skills, how many points (if any) would you give?

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

I wouldn't give them any extra points.

250 CP is plenty to 'sink' a couple of points in social skills. My guess is every template has at least one Background Skill that's a social option. Barbarian has Carousing. Bards are social machines. Clerics have Languages and Savoir-Faire. That's as far as I got but you get the idea.

The one thing I would flesh out for this kind of thing is Social Backgrounds, so Cultural Familiarity, Status and the like.

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

5, which if you really want to be tight fisted is equal to the amount they can get from Quirks.

But if I gave them extra points I wouldn't allow them to be spent on Primary skills.

I'd open up Advantages to allow them to spend half their points out of Template.



Honestly what I did do at one point was let them start at 300 points, 250 for the Template and then 50 for anything beyond, even Power-Ups and off Template skills, and made sure it was known that social was important. And then let them suffer if they couldn't handle a few important social situations.

But really, 5 points should suffice to boost a social Secondary or Background skill and pick up one another on Templates without very many Social skills.

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

I'd say build a few 10-15 point lenses, and let players pick from them. Bards have social stuff in the template, the 15 points don't limit them. But 15 points for a bit of wealth and some status on a proper knight, some reputations and languages (especially languages), etc. Rank for clerics and thieves, some skill boosts, and a list of "choose 5 points from" of skills and advantages that mostly acts as "its on the template, so you can buy it later" permission and Id think you'd be set.

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

In my DF Aersalus campaign I gave 15 extra points purely for social traits. It worked pretty well.

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

If your players are optimisers then I would forewarn them that there will be plenty of social interaction, then cut their point total. They will figure out how to be good at social interaction without sacrificing combat ability because they are optimisers.

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

While I get that 250 points is already a huge budget, it's a lot of work to nerf each template and then add social options. I'm not sure it's worth the effort. They're already great for heroic dungeoneering, so I like the idea of providing additional points; I'd go with 5-25. I like the idea of lenses, but I'd probably just compile a list of skills and advantages and then vet the results as I would with any character concept.

For my existing DFRPG game, I haven't added any of that, but I'm not as wedded to pure DF as the game expects. So far the basic skills have been sufficient, but if we evolve to need more, I'd probably just provide some bonus points to be spent on a limited array of background options that we would assume had always been part of each character. I've never had problem with that sort of retconning in the past.

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

If you're not wedded to pure DF, then the simplest thing to do is ignore the templates. You don't have to nerf them or invent new lenses. Just let players buy whatever skills they want.

The point of "must stay on template" rule in DF is simply to deliberately emulate old-school class-based games with bounded scope and enforce niche protection, so that each class has its own schtick guaranteed not to be stepped on too much by other classes, and characters are forced not to seem too much alike.

If that's not a concern, you don't need to strictly conform to templates. And if you're experienced enough with the system, you don't need the guidance that a template provides as to what a good fighter / mage / cleric / thief really ought to have, or at least think hard about not having, so you could just ignore templates entirely. (That's just getting back to basic GURPS, after all.)

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

I wouldn't nerf any templates, I'd just say 'social stuff is a thing, so don't be 100% dungeoneer, everyone needs some ability to deal with normal society' and let them work it out.

Giving everyone some extra points and telling them it's specifically for social stuff would work fine too. Maybe 10 points? That's enough for everyone to have one Advantage like Charisma +1 or Attractive plus a couple of skills. If someone wants Status 3+, let them swap out a few points of Advantages from an existing template.

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

Even for the Bards?

Re: (DF) Points for delvers who do more than delve
 

Dungeon Fantasy is also very light on Starship piloting and maintenance skills. Dungeon Fantasy is what it is and has templates appropriate for what Dungeon Fantasy is. There is enough articulation for your Dungeon Fantasy characters to wade into the light social work of hiring some help, selling their loot, and convincing a lower noble to allow them to go to the forbidden place to retrieve the thing of thingyness, but powerful as those characters are they are not equipped to deal with interrogating captured spies or rooting clues out of witnesses to a murder. If you want characters that really mop the floor with people socially or who have advantages that would allow them greater social mobility or authority then you gotta build templates that allow that or let players go points-free when building characters.

If you want to have more socially powerful characters but don't want to go to the trouble of rebuilding the templates just create supplemental packs for each class, 15-20 points of Status or Legal enforcement powers or reputation or Social Regard, maybe up to 5 points of Social Skill buffing, bearing in mind the players will have 5 points of quirks if they want to boost those social abilities.