Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Tomorrow, we'll be uploading the last PDF release of 2007. It's by a Mystery Author, and the topic is Deep and Dark. Actually, not that much – but it's been something he's been looking forward to doing for quite some time.

This release is something a bit different for GURPS – instead of a traditional supplement (like the excellent Changing Times and Shell-Tech), this product takes the system and pushes the envelope (a bit like the superb Supers). GURPS has the potential for genres far beyond those grounded in realism, and this author has taken the first steps in that direction.

(No, it isn't licensed, nor is it anything that's "long-awaited." Sorry. And yes, I may be over-inflating the importance and/or long-term effects of this singular release. But I see the spark of something special here, and I like it.)

If you're magnetically attracted to this release, either because you've figured out the title/author, or because of my magical marketing (ha!), keep hitting refresh on the e23 front page through the mid-day tomorrow (Thursday December 27). If you're just "interested," watch Friday's Daily Illuminator and this week's Pyramid (containing the Designer's Notes for this product).

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

I get the feeling you're hinting about something...

Heh, Thanks Paul :)

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

And . . . it's online.

Steve Jackson Games is happy to release, as the last PDF of 2007:

Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers by Sean Punch.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Great!

Now checking it...

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Oh sweet Jeebus that's funny.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Yay... :-(

Color me so unimpressed that I will not spend my money on it.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Well, thanks for the feedback, anyway.

In that line of thought: what would you have preferred to see released?

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

It looks interesting. Not at the top of my list, but definitely something I'll pick up eventually.

I really like the concept. It may prove a good tool for getting d20 players to give GURPS a try. I wonder if one of the stumbling blocks with some of them has been that they just don't want to give up their dungeon crawls--the game system was less important than the impression of what the gaming experience and the style of play was going to be like. Now, finally, with this book and the announced sequel, we will finally be getting "GURPS d20," and that may have some interesting results.

Mark

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

What I could *really* use is a 4/e update of GURPS Cabal. I'm going to run a Cabal-based campaign starting in July, and I'm working on adapting it to 4/e, but it's something of a struggle, given the sheer complexity of the original material. . . .

Bill Stoddard

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

The complexity of the setting, or of the magic system? 'Cause the update of the magic system in part of Thaumatology, which is currently in the early stages of layout.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

If it's a GURPS 4th Edition PDF I will buy it. One reason is to support the GURPS line the other is that I usually find something useful inside no matter how far off topic is seems to my campaign setting (which is modern day magical with a twist of Stargate). Take Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers for example, the magical items section has my creative juices flowing while I write this.

Now back to your question, well I would love to see the GURPS Basic Set release in one big combined PDF. Yeah, I know I have brought this up before, but I promise it's my last whinge concerning this in 2007! Now that GURPS is moving more to PDFs it just seems weird to expect people to buy PDFs for a game system that itself is not available as a PDF.

I tend to buy all the GURPS hardbacks relevant to my campaign setting and happily sit them on my bookshelf for the occasional read but during my gaming all I want to use is my laptop. Here's hoping 2008 will be a happy PDF year.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Well, the item is now mine, and it's just about fair to say that GURPS D&D is here, like it or not - and I like it!

Of course, many will likely feel that they don't need the notes on how to create two-dimensional dungeon delvers. Fair enough. But for those getting their feet wet without too many aspirations other than perhaps getting to know the system, this is very close to being just the thing, I believe. And the language around the archetypes presented will help anyone transitioning from D&D feel right at home, easing him into this new world. If that is a bug or a feature is up to you, but this is GURPS - and dungeon-delving H&S is a valid genre, enjoyed by many, and many a topic on how to help people transition have been posted. Official help is now there.

And there is one feature that is worth coming in after for all of us (at least until the new version of Low-Tech sees light of day) - there is a quite comprehenisve Gear chapter that is useable in ANY fantasy campaign - and thank you for that!

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

i think it's a really neat idea and a really good example of a good topic for a nice niche market. Certainly not for everyone, but who cares because it didn't cost any printing money kinda thing.
I doubt I'll ever use it, but it might be fun enough to have at some point that I might lay down some monies for it.

My one main thought, though.. is that it's frustrating not to have 'Dungeons' or whatnot out.. because there is nothing about gameplay in this pdf and the totally ass complicated combat rules etc really need to be addressed before you can let gurps loose on ur typical dungeon fantasy adventure. The way I look at it, this supplement isn't gameable on its own, so I really think it might have been better, not necessarily to bundle them all together cause this one counts mostly as the phb as i understand it, but it would have been much nicer to have them both released at the same time so it's playable out of the box kinda thing..

I guess this way you get a bit more press through multiple release events, and it doesn't reaally matter all thaaat much. But just looking at the contents I am definitely left wanting a lot more before I decide this series is worthwhile..

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Well, they're both (DF: Adventurers and DF: Dungeons) written. It's just that there's only so much layout we can do in a week before the holidays. :) You'll see plenty on game play in Dungeons, believe me.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Is it too early to request an omnibus POD version, to contain both volumes and maybe GURPS Lite as well? 'Cause, like, that seems like it'd be just the ticket for a really handy book....

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

As a GURPS 4e PDF with roughly the same page count?

I honestly don't know.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Think on it, and get back to me.

No one product is going to make everyone happy, but with the variety of PDF release, we should be able to release something that interests you.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

We can think on it. If we ever did that, the included Lite would have to be optimized to describe the advantages, skills, and spells in the PDFs, and not the ones not seen there. So that would be a third project of no less complexity.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

If you go this route, it would seem that you'd want/need Lite, some sort of enhanced Magic offering, as Lite has none, Adventurers, Dungeons, Monsters, Traps, and Treasure. Possibly a Gear section as well.

That's 256 pages, perfect for a compendium hardback release. Effectively GURPS DnD in one glossy, friendly to FLGS, +5 Tome of Goodness.

Edit: And those who wander into e32 and get each PDF offering likely are not the complete set of people who would get the omnibus DF:Compendium hardcover. You'd get additional sales for the hardback, plus some completists who would buy both the electronic and hardbound versions. The errata would be in for most, if not all, of the PDF versions, and possibly the 256 page book would be inexpensive to lay out...like when your PhD adviser allows you to "staple your papers together" to make a thesis.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Except that Dungeon Fantasy is targeted at GURPS players who want to run dungeon crawls, not D&D players who want, for whatever reason, to leave D&D behind. That would be a very different book. One worth writing? That's a different question (and thread).

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Agreed, on both target and difference. My point, however, is that the volumes thusfar announced make a VERY complete book. Sean's comment about a 32-page GURPS Lite: Dungeons is well taken. It's a project of its own.

But, I would still argue that when all of the component parts are done (and you'd not necessarily even need the Gear chapter, as Lite has a small Gear selection which can be expanded with TL2-4 specificity) it would make for a release in hardback that would appeal to GURPS players who don't frequent e23, don't like PDF format, and like to shop at gaming stores. The overhead for putting it together would be low(er) than a purpose built 250 pager, as you're basically compiling already released works. I don't know if this is doable, with the ease I postulate, but the compilation, available after the release of the last "chapter," would be a worthy book in its own right.

Plus a bonus hardback for those who like 'em. AND appeal to the DnD crowd, and with the inclusion of Lite, it's built for those who might try Castle on the Frontier Lands using GURPS.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

e32 eh?*

Well I for one for the book useful for two things, the stats for the Holy Symbols and the Holy Water in the gear section. That alone just saved a campaign I had been planning, I hadn't been able to determine a fair price for holy water or holy symbols. Presto, the book comes out and is useful in a non dungeon crawl scenario! The power modifiers are very interesting as well and gave a good deal of insight into how to create a bard type character.

For my vote**, little niche things like this seem useful to me, I gave it a high rating on e23.

*This sent my finance into giggle fits as she tried to figure where the 11 other E's were
**Though my vote probably doesn't count much considering that I am a Krommite...

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Well, although I like the flexibility e23 offers with short-form works, I like my physical books with a little more heft. For instance, I would greatly prefer to see one omnibus Transhuman Space POD (containing Changing Times and Shell-Tech) rather than - or in addition to - two smaller volumes. I've got some of the smaller Third Edition books, like Modern Firepower and some of the WWII line, and they just don't look right on the shelves. I'd absolutely love to be able to roll like-themed volumes like these together into one compendium for easier reference.

About the only small-form book that I care for as-is is the Screampunk book, and that's just because it evokes the whole comic-book style in size and presentation. Even then, it's a stylistic appreciation that I would gladly sacrifice if - for instance - I could bundle it with the Steam-Tech PDF as a slightly bigger POD volume. I would probably even value that enough to buy that volume to replace my two individual books.

But then, I'm also the kind of guy who'll bundle together multiple DVDs into a standard-size multidisc case, so that that as ye will. ;)

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

If you're taking a poll...

While I appreciate the wealth of GURPS products available on e23 (and have purchased some of them), I sometimes get the feeling that you've forgotten about the other SJGames RPGs. I'm not sure what you could do for Toon that hasn't already been done, but there's plenty of In Nomine books that could be written. (Off the top of my head, there's two IN books that are out-of-print in the dead-tree editions but not yet avalable on e23, and I believe there's at least one IN PDF somewhere in the pipeline between "playtested" and "available".)

Oh, and I'd buy GURPS Vehicle Design for 4e (I have a non-pressing need for rules to stat out a spaceworthy flying car in a superscience setting), but I think that's a somewhat bigger project than you were asking about...

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Also, it doesn't count, because it's already written and in the editorial pipeline, not a surprise concept-to-release deal. So you'll be getting that, just as soon as we get it back from the editor.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Would someone please do a full review in the forum?
http://forums.sjgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=64


Pretty please!

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Oh fun! Good for a silly game once in a while. I really like the “classes” and the mix of powers, spells, and lots of advantages.

The one thing I would have liked to see was a meta-trait that could be mandatory for all PCs that would in essence “turn off” all the complexity in GURPS. Things like Injury Tolerance: No Blood and High Pain Threshold come to mind. Basically something that could be slapped onto an existing PC to turn him into a “delver”; where HP is something to be used up like ammo and damage doesn’t result in realistic effects.

That stuff is all mostly there in the templates, but it would have been a fun way to show off some of the gene conventions, and I would have loved to run some kind of an Infinite Worlds campaign where Delver PCs cross into the “gritty realism Fantasy” parallel or vice-versa.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

I know you weren't talking to me, but how can I resist?

Other than Vehicles Design and the Bonnet Design System, I'd like to see pocket genre guides to science-fiction subgenres -- as narrow as GURPS Starfighter Pilots, covering analogs to Battlestar Galactica, Space: Above and Beyond, and Wing Commander as role-playing games. Visualize Seals in Vietnam without the historical info. The Modern World line is one I'm looking forward to, especially if we can get Modern World: Superspies! to cover Bond, Flint, Solo, Steed & Peel, and the rest. Of course, it should be no surprise I'm eager for Action.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Hi,

I like this immensely as it's well done and fills a niche. It hasn't the goal to address every GURPS player, but it doesn't need. What it tries to do it does well.
The idea of both dungeon fantasy releases packed with a specialized Lite is quite tantalizing. This would be even better in just doing GURPS-Dungeon related one-shots.

I also like e23 and the pdf releases. It relieves my over-full bookshelf which already contains nearly every gurps 3rd Ed. book and 4th Ed.
I find it usefull to have Books and PDFs as they fill different goals for me. Books are nice to read and good for preparing things, but in a session I like PDFs as they are more readily presenting information (searchable,...).
Also the price-page ratio is quite good for me (living in europe, as it presents a nearly 50% discount ;-) ).

Keep the good work coming, you're doing a great job.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Feedback like that seems like a good idea... another thread might be a better showcase for it. Just sayin' :)Where can we look for the explanation of the Napoleon/Han connection? *ig*

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

There's not a big market for Solo adventures.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Ack! UNCLE!

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

I adore this. Give me more!

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Hi:

My appretiation here is while "Luck, Extra Hit Points, and Influencing Success Rolls with CPs" are definitely OK, using traits as "Injury Tolerance: No Blood" by default is IMHO too much...

Such things can ruin the sense of danger and the flavour of the game, making it too simplistic and too unbelievable. People with "No Blood" even would be inmune to a lot of venoms.

With that, I would have the feeling of playing a definitely cartoonish/silly game... the sort of games and systems I strongly avoid (of course, that always remains as an option for all genres-settings).

Instead, I would seek a more elegant solution for keeping some feeling of the GURPS system and its flavour, while it supports Dungeon Crawls. If the rules are too weakened for a simplistic DF version enough to make it to look silly, then I would be using D&D or something like that.

Summarizing: I would wish Dungeon Fantasy to keep and even encourage some viewpoints/rules useable in "serious" fantasy games too.

All this is a bit of nitpicking and of course, IMHO.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

That's not a meta-trait. That's a campaign switch. When running a delver campaign, it seems quite apropos to ignore all of GURPS' optional complexities like bleeding rules. (I wouldn't ignore shock, though -- there should be a difference between a weak wizard and a rough barbarian who've just gotten stabbed -- giving everyone HPT or ignoring shock would minimize the coolness factor of the fighters.)

I'm sure we'll see much more on this topic in DF:D.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

I'd like to see GURPS Dinosaurs updated to 4ed, but I'm biased because I'm writing an Elizabethan Lost World setting with European explorers battling Aztecs and Dinosaurs on a lost continent in the Pacific. There was some very useful material in Lands Out Of Time, but an update of the old book would be great!

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Yes, it would definitely be cartoonish and silly, which is sort of the point. It would be entirely possible to build in varies versions of the trait for different levels of silliness.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

You could do this as a campaign level switch sure, but my point it that it would be fun to also be able to do it with a trait, so it applied only to some people in the campaign but not everyone else.

For example the trait could be for PCs only; everyone else would bleed to death, suffer shock, not have better luck than normal, whatever. Essentially it would be like the little flashing triangle over a characters head in an old style computer RPG that tells you they are a PC.

Or, it could be like training wheels for new players. I could run a game with all the switches on, but let the new player have a PC with this meta-trait on. The player would get to see how all those complexities worked for his comrades, etc. but wouldn’t have to worry about them for his own PC until it was time to take off his training wheels.

It might be fun too for people used to D&D or whatever, just as a list of things that GURPS does that their usual system doesn’t.

I just think it would be fun (and easier) to have a meta-trait that could be slapped on to existing characters to turn them into delvers then to re-do the campaign settings. Say the PCs in a serious fantasy campaign fall through a banestorm into silly alternate world or something like that.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

without starting another "are we there yet" VDS thing, and yes I know that all books are uniques, how far off is it?

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

More than four months.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

...
*faint*

heh, jk

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Can we have any more hints on what is in Dungeon Fantasy: Dungeons? Can we ever expect any more of this series such as Dungeon Fantasy: Dungeon Beasts or the like?

I agree with the suggestion above of making a seperate "complete game" GURPS Dungeon Fantasy with everything you need to play, with character templates, playing information, monsters, items, quickstart pregen characters - this would be a good "grittier" alternative to D&D and fans of GURPS (actually, that would be an ideal Powered By GURPS product).

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

With 32-page items, it's hard to give out useful hints without giving away most of the PDF, but I'll try. DF: Dungeons will have two distinct parts:

• Dungeon-Crawling is about what the PCs do in a DF campaign. It focuses strongly on using skills and gear -- especially skills found on the templates in DF: Adventurers, and gear from that book. Major sections: "Getting Ready to Go" (buying, stealing, and making gear in town, and finding a dungeon to raid in the first place), "Travel" (how to make outdoors-oriented PCs useful, in essence, with notes on quick-and-dirty travel times, foraging, camping, and tracking), "Exploring the Dungeon" (the non-thieving parts, like light sources, marching orders, maps, and searching for secret doors), "Breaking and Entering" (the thieving parts, like climbing, picking locks, and bashing doors), "Traps and Hazards" (how to cope with things other than monsters that try to kill you), "Monsters" (how to recognize and deal with monsters before the fight starts -- parleying with dragons is a classic, after all!), "Combat" ("how to" material on recognizing monster weaknesses, feigning death, backstabbing, taunting, etc.), "After the Battle" (namely, tying up live baddies, searching dead ones, and healing allies), "Loot" (all about extracting, identifying, and evaluating treasure), and "Disposing of the Spoils" (what to do when you get back to town with your haul). A few little boxes address odds and sods that don't quite fit into the above categories.

• Mastering Dungeons is advice to the GM on how to run a DF campaign. What's innovative about it, IMHO, is that it refers back to the previous section for most of its rules; thus, the GM will design dungeon adventures by setting challenges to be met by skills, which will in turn give each type of delver a niche. Major sections: "Dungeon Design" (basic dungeon archetypes and how to map them out, with crunchy advice on doors, locks, monsters, traps, obstacles, secrets, and loot), "Fiendish Traps" (mainly a system for how to think about stats for traps, so that you can quickly come up with just about any kind of trap without forgetting important details), "Perilous Encounters" (advice on random vs. set encounters, how to stat monsters, and how to balance combat encounters), "Treasure" (brief advice on what to give out, how much, and how it works), and "Beyond the Dungeon" (short notes on wilderness and town adventures). Again, there are a few boxes, these ones oriented toward how to run quicker combats and protect PC niches.

That looks exhaustive, but I'm sure I've omitted things. Also -- and this is crucial -- everything here is crunchy. "Advice" does not mean "vague, feel-good fluff," but in fact often comes with specific skill rolls, tables of stats, and quick-and-dirty rules for assessing stats.

I'd love to see those. I've hinted at DF: Monsters, DF: Traps, and DF: Treasures . . . but whether these ever get written hinges on how well the first two PDFs do! I can make no promises at this time.

That's another thing that depends on sales. If the first two PDFs do so well that we decide that there should be two or three more, and if the full set does so well that we feel inspired . . . well, who knows? I agree that tossing in a special version of Lite -- with magic rules, and tailored to the tasks and templates covered by DF -- would create a cool PbG product. But that would only happen if interest levels were so high that we couldn't ignore the hue and cry.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

I'm in love with this sort of summarized "Table of Contents".

It has even stuff related with monsters!

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

After a friend bought this, and I got to glance at it. I broke down and bought the damn thing.

Even after saying this

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

All is forgiven :)

Where is that fattened calf?

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

What changed your mind?

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

The first one seems to be doing quite well already, so... there is hope.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

After seeing the book I saw that I had slightly misunderstood the blurb on e23. Also we are about to begin a fantasy campaign that uses things from the PDF. It also was pointed out that when we play fantasy games it isn't too far from what this PDF is about.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

I bought it and found it a very enjoyable read. The best parts of the book for me were the new powers and the templates that used them, which helped me better understand how to apply GURPS Powers.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

If D&D is as popular as I think it is, a free GURPS Fantasy Lite, independent of the DF line, might be a powerful recruiting tool. With some simple 150 point templates, a few races to choose from, a smattering of spells such as you got with Basic D&D, and a couple of crunchy monster pages, you might give people enough of a taste to hook them. The superiority of GURPS for fantasy gaming is one of the best kept secrets in geekdom.

Edit: Given how popular DF has turned out to be, maybe SJG should consider releasing the full set of DFs as a hardback!

Edit 2: The book is presently being discussed on GURPSnet here http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...=1#post8276693 Folks might want to check in there too and give their impressions.

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Thanks Greg1. I'm checking it.

And this very thread "Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!" has its gemel in http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...5&page=1&pp=10

Re: Last PDF of 2007, and it's GURPS doozy!
 

Um.. I'm getting it so I can leave D&D behind. With D&D going 4th, I do not realy want to respend all of my cash on another whole system. So I think GURPS:DF is perfect catch for me.