Undungeon-fantasyfing your DF game
 

So, as was discussed on this thread: Thoughts on Starting a Nordlond Campaign on the DFRPG forum, and a bit on this one Creating a Fantasy Campaign: Fantasy vs Dungeon Fantasy, how would you add more tradition fantasy on top of your Dungeon Fantasy game?

I'll give some more specific parameters here:
1. I would like to play a more traditional fantasy game using Nordlong as a setting.
2. What I mean by traditional is less dungeon/hack-and-slash and more real-world with consequences.
3. I'll use GURPS DF or DFRPG templates as a base.

Things that pop up in my mind are:
1. Status and Rank.
2. More social skills on the templates.

What would you add or subtract from the templates/game world?

Also, if you keep the dungeons, what rationale would you use for them?

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Well I guess the easiest way is make 100 point DF PCs and then add 25 points for out of template skills and advantages. I would look at GURPS Fantasy for some guidance.

You can use DF templates as a starting point and then just ignore "class" niche. Or wide it up in prep session!. It will no longer be DF but it will be the game you wanted.

Of course you could use directly Fantasy and play Nordlong focusing on social and political matters.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

You could create some social lenses and allow each character to chose one. Example may be the face guy or the information gatherer. Some of these may intrude on the niches of some of the other templates. By using lenses you can keep the point totals more balanced with a mix of Advantages, Disadvantages, and Skills.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

I would say start by defining how powerful the characters are meant to be starting out, probably following the Delvers to Grow guidelines of Novice [62], Journeyman [125], and Master [187], with Veteran [250] as a further option, and build them as delvers (IIRC these also match the point levels available for Henchmen in DF15, the templates for which could be used instead of, or in addition to, DtG). Then give them another pool of points - or perhaps a choice of several lenses - to represent them being people in a non-DF setting, with professional skills, social skills/Advantages/Disadvantages, etc. This will still lend itself to violent heroic fantasy (delvers are fairly combat-optimized), but now the characters can have more meaningful interactions with the world itself. This will maximize the number of DF resources you can bring to bear while still allowing you to run a campaign that isn't about killing monsters and taking their stuff.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Could start your campaign with a band of DF adventurers assumed to have one or more successful dungeon runs under their belts. Use normal DF templates for the starting characters and then award an appropriate number of points for their dungeon runs. The game starts with the local leadership, impressed with the band's recent success and growing fame, tasking them with solving "A Problem". Let the players spend the award points as they see fit. Maybe even spending them as the adventure unfolds and they see what things are useful.

Extra credit if "The Problem" is related somehow to the previous dungeon runs.
Escaped monsters now roaming the country side instead of safely living in the dungeon.
A village that had an agreement with the inhabitants of a dungeon that are now starving due to the party's destruction of the dungeon economy.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

I would just drop the Dungeon Fantasy stuff entirely and build what for GURPS has long been a "normal" fantasy setting. GURPS Fantasy will do most of this for you. You can still use the Nordlond stuff as plug-in material for the game, giving you monsters and treasure and so on, but if you're looking for templates, they're in GURPS Fantasy, as are some classic monsters of myth, and so on.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Throw out the templates.
Throw out the character classes.
Throw out the DF books.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

One thing to consider is that DF characters are basically super-heroes (or rather may end up that way after some xp).

Not a problem for DF game ("Reed Richards is useless" trope is fully active) , but in a "mundane fantasy", the wizard with IQ 25 or the bard with smooth operator 6 and charisma 10 are going to break the game fast once they apply those stats to something else than battle magic or negotiating with elder things ...

Using Delvers to grow help to create starting character fast, and most of the content in the DF/DF RPG books is still super-usefull in a regular fantasy campaign, but I would be very wary of the potential effects from some ultra-focused power-ups, as well as some of the templates "ignore this normal restriction" approach...

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Thank you, everyone, for replying.

Sadly, I didn't make myself clear enough, and some of the answers mirror the ones from those topics I linked in my initial post.

I prefer more specific answers on what you would do to undungeon the dungeon (Lol).

So, this reply, like the above from capnoni, is more in line with what I would like to read.

From Juan's reply and Varyon's reply
I think a 25-point professional and another 25-point social lens would be ideal.

What about using the Income jobs from Fantasy pp138-139 for the professional lens?

It lists the jobs of Armorer, Beggar, Barmaid, Courtier, Farmer, Fisherman, Mercenary, Priest, Smith, and Tavernkeeper.

Which other jobs would you use?

And for the Social lens, what would it comprise?
Maybe a "Viking" len? Urban vs. country lens? Racial lens?

The way I imagine it, the professional lens represents what you did for a living before you became an adventurer. And the social lens represents how people around you or your culture shaped you.


Thank you, DeadParrot; your idea is a nice plot hook.


What I want is to add on a DF basis, not throw it away.
I like the action-hero (even superhero) vibe you get from the DF base.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

I think this is a good approach, but I'd strongly suggest customizing the lenses to each profession or at least set of professions. A lens that gives a swashbuckler IQ +1, Charisma +2, and some points in influence skills makes for a charismatic swashbuckler who can contribute in social scenes; the same lens applied to a bard makes the bard much more powerful in most circumstances; and applied to a wizard is a straight up power boost. Low IQ fighting types need different lenses from high IQ spellcasters.

I've run a mixed DF and social game before; it works fine if you tone down some of the arbitrary, video-game conventions of DF and make sure the PCs have social skills beyond Carousing and Intimidation.

I'm not up on Nordr lore, but presumably there's some semi-rational reason for them. Why not keep that?

If not or you don't like it, there's a bunch of potential reasons for dungeons:
1. Monsters in the wilderness reproduce via spontaneous generation and don't need food as such. They just congregate around and do violate things to resist the approach of civilization. I've used this reason a lot in my games, because it has a nice pre-modern feel to it.
2. Some hostile force or forces is attempting to intrude into reality, and dungeons are expressions of those intrusions. This can be a little video-gamey, but I've read a couple of book series that pulled this off reasonably well and it's a good explanation if you want more gamist dungeons.
3. Dungeons don't exist, but delve sites do, and there's all kinds of reasons for delves sites. Troll caves, dwarf mines lost to dragons or demons, tombs of undead traitors, spider infested caves, bogs filled with the dead of ancient battlefields, and poorly garrisoned watchtowers are classic examples from Tolkein and give a fair range of sites. So your players don't explore "Bandit Dungeon B14", they explore "Dragonhead hill, looking for the bandit camp" and you have a bunch of outdoor encounters with traps, cursed areas, wild animals, and bandit guards.

My previous social/DF game had delve sites, which were usually abandoned or forsaken fortresses and tombs. In one notable case, they had to delve a toxic waste dump of a faerie library in which the preservation spells had reached critical mass and pulled the entire thing beyond time and space. That's not the kind of delve site that can appear every week, but once in a two year campaign? Worked perfectly and was quite memorable.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Low Tech Companion 3: Daily Life and Economics looks at a lot of things that would be relevant for such a game, including a number of other professions. I think that just lists what skills/traits you need for the profession as well as what it pays rather than giving full templates for individuals of the profession, but that should work for this. Note that [25] is likely to be rather high - while some professions do call for above-average attributes (which will eat into that budget quite readily), I'd imagine you wouldn't need those boosts compared to your starting attributes from being an adventurer (I believe the Armourer has above-average ST, but then you'd expect any adventurer who is also an Armourer to already have at least that much ST anyway).

Area Knowledge, Current Affairs, appropriate Savior-Faire (in some cases this will be integrated with the profession as well), Contacts, Reputation, Social Regard, etc. Exact details would depend on the characters and setting.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

I think that professional lens shouldn't give boni that will min/max even more the DF templates. Probably stick just with skills?


Can you talk more about your experience?


I liked your dungeon rationale ideas, and they can be used together depending on where on the map the PCs are.

You made good points. Will look into them and try to create something.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Again, the wizard gets a lot more of Fast-Talk-IQ [2] than the knight does. The knight needs IQ or talent boosts to be decent at influence skills.

Well, I was maintaining a blog at the time, so my notes on setting up the game and session write-ups are available:
https://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.co...&by-date=false

If you have questions after that, I can answer specific questions.

I will say the game was DF inspired, but I used my own templates and didn't worry about Status at all. So it's not perfectly suited to your idea but the broad strokes worked fine. One of the sessions was an actual murder mystery.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

"Traits For Town" in Pyramid #3/58 and Dungeon Fantasy Collected may be useful here.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Our DF games had a fair degree of social interaction, because there weren't many dungeons: we spent most of our time clearing wilderness and setting up a realm (the GM was using the Pathfinder: Kingmaker Adventure Path). The wizard had the social skills, but the IQ 10 knight wasn't stupid, and sometimes said the right thing while the wizard was still considering options.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Have truces. Time to bargain over ransom, talk shop, etc.

One emir told an emissary from a Christian kingdom: "Your ships are our horses, are horses are your ships." That's miltaristic shop talk and very intelligent too.

Have a reason why you are fighting in a dungeon (the tactical situation of fighting underground is in fact fascinating; as long as you have a social context).

Don't make the characters outlaws in their own hometown (Vikings are respectable folk when they return from plundering).

Give the PC's home connections.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

It seems the simplest way to build off the DFRPG system would be start with templates and add on a 25 point lens to cover social background and skills. So you might have a lens for Aristocrat with appropriate Status & social skills, another for a Criminal Background, perhaps with a contact and other related skills, etc. It depends on what rules you have. If you have the henchman supplement, you could use those plus a 25 point social background lens to create 150 point characters. If using Delvers to Grow, just require that one "power up" is a social background lens. With a lot of assistance, I wrote up a bunch of 25 point low tech lenses earlier this year but those were more focused on professions than social skills so I'm not sure that would be helpful. I assume you would not want to go with full blown 250 point dungeoneers to start with. I also think adding on is easier than subtracting.



For a grand scale concept, I'd go with a magic Gamma World explanation. A few centuries ago there was an advanced magic empire that dominated human civilization. This was responsible for creating a lot of magic items and possibly monsters and even nonhuman races. There was an apocalyptic, magic fueled war that demolished civilization, leaving behind a wasteland. Places like Nordlond were backward hinterlands before the End and thus missed most of the damage. They are oases of relative civilization amidst the howling barbarism of the shattered empire. The dungeons are the ruins of the old civilization, the treasures the old wealth and artifacts. The monsters are likewise remnants of the old empire, occupying the ruins. Lower level adventurers get employment dealing with monsters who wander in from the old Empire. Higher level ones will actively enter the wastelands and search out old dungeons.

Note this is also an excuse for why PCs can't create magic items or use certain spells - that knowledge was lost.

Premise swiped from an otherwise unremarkable old rpg called Fifth Cycle.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

This.

Go back to Gurps classic.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

As a variant of ditching DF / DFRPG rules, keep using Exploits (or GURPS DF 2: Dungeons, 16: Wilderness Adventures and part of 3: The Next Level), all the loot you feel like and a selection of other rules. You will be building the templates from scratch anyway and Douglas Cole's Delvers to Grow series won't be very helpful either, since those are also focused on superheroes (street-level maybe, but still very much larger than life).

The hard part are the monsters. It's not easy to find much in DF that's a good balanced encounter for 75 to 125 points characters. You can, of course, use smaller numbers of horde monsters and regular humanoids. My preference would be adding fatal flaws to bosses that can be researched beforehand.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

QFT. This is by far the biggest difficulty I've found in trying to play a 150-pointer DF-like game. Even with Doug's superb Nordland Bestiary, I struggle with figuring out how to "downsize" monster stats...

thom

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

We need 1/8 Dice Kobolds from AD&D 1E. LoL.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

I've run high powered DF games, off and on, since the DF line came out. I'm used to setting up encounters where a dozen ogres in a fortified keep is an easy fight and a half-dozen Spheres of Madness is not that big a deal.

And now I'm running a 175 pt DtG game, and tossing beginning delvers in leather armor against 30+ goblins (in waves, but still) backed a gnome artificer in full plate armor wielding a fully automatic crankbow. And there's a two-headed, four armed ogre coming up to smash people. My instincts say it's not too hard a fight but should be a good baseline for future battles.

The PCs are in no way capable of dealing with all this, and after the elf scout goes down with 2 crossbow bolts mortally wounding him, I realize I really need to recalibrate my expectations.

I think the DF line actually has adequate support for low power foes - six dinomen aren't that impressive; giant rats and ice weasels are explicitly weak foes. But the difference between experienced 300 point, full template delvers and 150 point DtG journeyman is substantial.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Are you using the fodder rules, mlangsdorf? It's been so long that I pretty much forgot about them since DFRPG left them out. These do change things quite a lot. I've never liked the "one-tap and you're out" rule, but forgoing defence rolls and incapacitation at 0 HP make things vastly more manageable for the players.

What also helps is giving humanoids and most animals a decent self-preservation instinct. And this is also more helpful to un-DF-ing the system. It might present complications when enemies flee, but those can (not necessarily will) be interesting in and of themselves.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

I do use a modification of the fodder rules: fodder class foes defend normally, but always failed HT rolls to resist unconscious at 0 HP and flee from battle if they take a hit of more than HP/3.

Neither of which helped in that battle, as the gnome was a worthy and the ogre was a boss. And the PCs' big problem was doing any damage to those two at all, or at least doing it without taking serious wounds themselves.

I think I have managed to recalibrate, and I'm hoping the next delve - against dinomen with some tricks up their sleeves - which be much more manageable.

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Consider adding Monster Hunters 2 on top of DF. The investigation system gives your world a bit of a "Witcher" feel where combat survival depends on prep - finding out (usually with non-combat encounters) the 5 Ws and How you can get that key bit of info to handle something beyond your characters. A lite treatment of chases and pulling rank further extend the out-of-dungeon potential without completely abandoning the work provided by the DF line. As mentioned, there are several pyramid articles that address lenses for extra domains like social or wilderness exploration and you can just insist players have at least one of these. Finally, destiny points give you a tool to let players have fun while getting into unsalvageable trouble without you needing to pull the punches in a dissatisfying way.

Multiple books cover all these topics in more depth, but I think MH2 is the best single addition available. YMMV

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing you DF game
 

Good rules - consider them pinched!

Re: Undungeon-fantasyfing your DF game
 

Coming in late.

Dungeon Fantasy started out as a spoof of D&D, and eventually got turned into an adaptation of sorts — especially after incorporating Nordlondr stuff: the Nordlondr Folk are basically D&D Races with the serial numbers filed off, and the Nordlondr Bestiary (or whatever it's called; I'm not recalling off the top of my head) is the D&D Monster Manual written up in GURPS stat blocks.

So lean into that. In particular, D&D 5e has something in it that DF doesn't, but which could be just what you're looking for if done right: Backgrounds.

What I'm thinking of here is to create a series of “Background Templates” following the same pattern as how DF's Class Templates roughly mirror D&D's Classes; but build them focusing mainly on traits and mechanics found in GURPS Social Engineering — or, in the handful of cases where the Background in question represents a lack of socialization, such as the Hermit or the Outlander, some additional skills that help compensate for basically being a loner.

Basically, use these Background Templates to fill in the sorts of character traits that DF Class Templates have avoided.

For reference purposes, here are the D&D5e Backgrounds from the Player's Handbook:

• The Acolyte is a religious devotee, focused on taking care of the spiritual needs of his deity's followers.
• The Charlatan is a con artist, good at deception, sleight of hand, forgery, disguise, and other less than reputable means of trickery.
• The Criminal is less about deception than the Charlatan is, but likewise deals in the less-than-legal side of things: blackmail, burglary, enforcers, fences, highway robbery, hired killers, pickpockets, and smugglers for in this Background. Remember, this focuses on the social side of things; pair is with a Thief or a Fighter to get the skills needed to pull off the capers.
• The Entertainer livens up people's lives through entertainment: actors, dancers, fire-eaters, jesters, jugglers, instrumentalists, poets, singers, storytellers, and tumblers. Again, this deals with the social aspects of being an entertainer; but it can be paired up with a lot more than just a bard: a Scout could make money by impressing people with his trick shooting; a Knight could entertain people as a gladiator; a Thief could cover juggling or stage magician stuff; and so on.
• The Folk Hero is a common folk who has stood up for the people and is now regarded as something of a champion. This could be a Robin Hood type, but needn't have actually run afoul of the law.
• The Guild Artisan makes and sells things: your alchemists, armorers, carpenters, cooks, painters, potters, smiths, shopkeepers, caravan masters, etc. Can pair nicely with the Artificer for raw manufacturing potential.
• The Hermit has lead a secluded life of contemplation and study. Features skills include such things as Meditation and Hidden Lore.
• The Noble is your high society type, with savoir faire, Status, Wealth, and politics.
• The Outlander is most at home out in the wilderness. Foresters, trappers, homesteaders, guides, outcasts, bounty hunters, nomads, and the like. I'd start this with the Wilderness-Trained lens from [b]DF16: Wilderness Adventures[/u], then fill it out with suitable social traits.
• The Sage is similar to the Hermit, but focuses less on introspection and more on book-learning. Pairs nicely with Scholars, but also Wizards.
• The Sailor makes a living out on the seas. In addition to ship's crew, can also represent independent fishermen.
• The Soldier covers the social aspects of being in an army.
• The Urchin grew up on the streets, and knows the city's lower class quite well. Features things like Streetwise, Area Knowledge (city) and urban survival. Distinct from Charlatans and Criminals in that the Urchin doesn't break the law as a matter of course.