Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

I've recently started two threads over at RPGNet which might be of interest to Dungeon Fantasy players. This thread lists all sorts of archetypal Dungeon Fantasy adventure locations.

And this thread attempts to come up with a setting framework where the typical lifestyle of delvers actually makes sense, for those who want some more Dreaded Role-Playing in their campaign - basically, they represent their own social class that stands apart from the normal feudal order, with its own restrictions and privileges, and which evolved because civilization needed its own class of highly-trained monster hunters to prevent the monsters from overrunning civilization (which has happened numerous times in the past, thus explaining all those treasure-filled dungeons).

I have to admit, I am very tempted to write this up as a 20 page mini-setting and selling it as an ebook...

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

I did consider that, but I think this would likely be of wider interest than just GURPS and Steve Jackson Games fans. All those D&D and Pathfinder players, for instance... ;)

Besides, it's not as if this framework really needs any game-specific rules.

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I really like the Doomed Slayers thread. I'm considering how the represent their obligations and privileges in GURPS terms.

To start with they have the Slayer's Code of Honor: Help all who ask, Don't remain living in one place for long, and Own no more than can be carried. Presumably they also can't hold an official Title, since that's generally tied to an Estate, and they're supposed to remain a-political. They can still gain Status from Wealth, though that will be limited based on how much they can take with them. All together, the Slayer's Code seems as limiting as Bushido or Chivalry. [-15]

They also have a set of rights that can be summed up as follows: Right to freedom of Travel, right to Compensation for their deeds, and right of Salvage on loot. This is basically a minor Legal Immunity (free from laws restricting travel, weapon use, reclamation of stolen goods, etc) and resembles a Letter of Marque. I'd place it at [10].

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Sounds good for starters. Note that not all Slayers will have the Code of Honor - quite a few are only in this for profit or other reasons, and will break it if they think they can get away with it.

For a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy campaign I would treat the rights and duties of Slayers as campaign assumptions and charge no points for it. Each Slayer can also take the optional Code of Honor for extra points, but this is not mandatory (though it should probably be included in the disadvantage list of all templates).

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That makes sense. As long as the PCs act like Slayers, they will be treated accordingly. It's up to them whether it's a Code that they uphold, or mere expediency. In that case, since the benefits they receive are contingent on maintaining at least the appearance of following the code, I'd drop the value somewhat. Even without the actual Code of Honor they'd be restricted in terms of Wealth, Status and property. Absent those elements, it's probably worth at most [-10].

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Years ago, I found a link to an FTP site with some RPG articles, almost all about AD&D although they tended not to admit that they weren't generic, and one of them was a quite interesting one, suggesting that the economy implied by the pricings in AD&D core books and supplements was of the same shape as a gold rush area economy, meaning there was huge inflation, and lots of luxury goods and services available.

I lost the URL long ago, but it's possible someone else remembers it. And even if not, it's more the idea itself that made sense to me (from the perspective of actively wanting D&D-land - I actively want to avoid it), than that I remember the article as being extrmely worth reading.

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Interesting, though I see it more in terms of social restraints and possibilities than economic ones. Though of course the two are related...

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Do it! Count mine as a voice supporting you in this. I'd buy it.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

While I'm not familiar with that specific article, I think I do remember that FTP archive from back in the 1990s. Iowa State, IIRC. It tended to go up and down -- up before TSR discovered the Internet in late 1994, down when TSR discovered the Internet and became T$R, up again when Wizards bought out TSR and immediately decreed that the TSR Internet policy was asinine.

I'm pretty sure it's toast nowadays. The other possible site was one in Finland, owned by a guy who was a big Ars Magica fan and looked like a young Beethoven on a pogo ball (which was the picture on his web site), and it's gone nowadays too.

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Personally, I don't think this will fly as either a GURPS supplement or a Pyramid article, based on my reading of Kromm's posts on settings for DF. But if you want to do it for even less than a Pyramid article would bring, I'd love to see it.

On the topic of economics, one thing I did like from D&D 3e was the quick-and-dirty economic system -- how much loot you could sell at a village before you'd mess up the economy and have to sell it elsewhere, and what you could buy. A similar such system piggy-backing atop of City Stats might make for a good article. It provides an excuse for PCs to go to another town, if nothing else.

Of course, it would also be in place for a Urban Adventures supplement for Dungeon Fantasy.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

That's what I figured - but like I said, there is no need to tie it to GURPS.

Well, I've wanted to field-test what I could achieve with RPG ebooks for some time...

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

I've always just eyeballed this as ~10% of the goods of that type in that village. you can buy one of the 15 horses at 'regular' price, but if you want two... it's going to impact them and cost a lot more.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

I think it'd be interesting to work up a few alternative explanations that give the same dungeon fantasy setting paradigm.

However, the only one I can think of to start would be some kind of crusades analog.

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Nice idea Jürgen. You have my money if you end up publishing it. Also, scooped for discussion on a local forum.



Could you perhaps point me to some of those? Would be interesting to read.

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I'm afraid they're not "posts about [some] settings for Dungeon Fantasy", but meta-level posts about why SJG is not interested in producing a setting or multiple settings for Dungeon Fantasy. The short version being "DF-style gaming is often played without a strict coherent setting, but if one is needed and the GM doesn't want to make it up, many excellent settings are already available."

Or to put it another way, the RP market is already saturated with everyones campaign settings, plus you can find various GMs notes on their own settings up for free on the internet, if you're on a tight budget.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Sure, but that didn't seem to be saying that setting snippets were inappropriate for Pyramid, just as standalone supplements. After all, there has been setting stuff in plenty of issues of the current volume of Pyramid.

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I've added an interesting new idea on what other professions might spring up in such a world at the bottom of this page. More ideas on logical Slayer-related professions are very much welcome.

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I don't have any ideas to contribute regarding Slayer-related profession, but I have a question which sprang to my mind while reading this post.

If there's a never-ending cycle of growth and disintegration of nations because of monsters despite the presence of Slayers, as the intro text implies, how would it be if the Slayers were absent? This also implies that no matter what the Slayers do, the cycle will inevitably repeat itself, making it seem to an outside observer that everything the Slayers do is ultimately futile. Do you intend for the Slayers to be a relatively recent addition to society so that they haven't had a chance to affect the cycle yet, or do you see it as a potential plot point leading to the breaking of the cycle?

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You'd probably want to do less of a Forgotten Realms or Buffy the Vampire Slayer "setting" and more of a conceptual set of ideas that would be generally useful. For example, you're concept of the Doomed Slayer seems like it should work for Medieval Europe, Tokugawa Era Japan, Bureaucratic China or Middle Earth. I like the concept because it really fits the motivations of PCs. Focus on what this means for players, how Slayers would be different from Knights or Men at Arms and general motivations.

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That, I prefer to leave to the GM. The Slayers are a relatively recent addition, so maybe they can break the cycle... but maybe they are just the latest weapon in a cycle of escalation, so possibly not.

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One thing I would keep in mind is that Slayers aren't soldiers. They're likely to wear relatively light armor, use weapons that aren't useful in formations and focus on arcane lore and magical "tricks" that let them exploit the weaknesses of monsters. There were discussions about power level but that's strictly limited to other systems since a powerful knight or assassin will be easily the equal of a powerful slayer in fighting humans.

Also, nations would probably fall when the monsters are able to mass enough that they have real armies. At this point the slayers become less efficient and the human armies have to fight back, and the monsters might be able to go through a couple kingdoms before they are fought to a standstill. There might be central kingdoms that have lasted for millennia and frontier kingdoms that are standing on the graves of dozens of civilizations.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

That still leaves the monsters which are able to hide within human societies, though. Vampires, shapeshifters, demons and so forth - they all might weaken civilization from within, and armies are less efficient against those.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Do such items sell?

My impression has been that unless one is being published by a known game company, setting material can't be given away, much less sold.

Don't get me wrong - I think the project is an interesting and worthy one. I'm just skeptical about the market.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Yeah, that's why I'd recommend doing it as a "generic" setting in the vein of Monster Hunters. I think you could do a decent 20 page supplement on how to work these ideas into an existing setting and have it work pretty well.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Well, the ebook market is somewhat different than the print market - sure, sales are low, but there aren't many up-front costs (none, in this case). Furthermore, at the planned price of $4 I hope I will be able to attract impulse buyers.

But anyway, like most gaming authors I am not primarily into this for the money. ;)

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

I started using the Internet and Usenet in 1997, if that helps people who want to date the site. I also don't remember much Ars Magica material on the FTP site; if there had been some, I'd have been interested in it.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Understood.

My own experience as a dabbler hobbiest suggests to me (and maybe I'm drawing the wrong conclusion) that gamers aren't interested even in free amateur support.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Well, for me the support I want is pre-generated dungeon layouts with traps, monster encounters, and things of that nature. That said, I love this "Doomed Slayers" idea; I just plain prefer handwaving/justifying the standard tropes to trying to get rid of or work around them, and having "adventurer" be a social class with the priveleges and restrictions most PCs are going to have anyway makes perfect sense to me.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Well, let's see how it works out.

The first draft is finished, and I'm giving it another good reading before handing it over to my gaming group for feedback...

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

The revised draft is finished, and I have sent it to a number of proofreaders/playtesters - but I could still use some more help with that.

If anyone is interested, please drop me a line at jhubert@gmx.de.

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Neat! I just sent you an email.

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Received and manuscript sent.

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Awesome! I just sent you a few critiques, and I hope they're useful.

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Sent you an email too, did it get lost in cyberspace? I didn't get a bounce back notification...

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Apparently so, since I couldn't find it either in my Inbox or my Spam folder.

Alternatively, you could send me your email address per Private Message...

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Thanks to everyone who is willing to help out!

I have now nine volunteers for looking over the revised manuscript, which will hopefully help a lot with working any problems out...

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Now you just need to incorporate the idea of the mythic Dungeon and you will be set.

The basic gist is that the Dungeon (capitals and all) is an actual entity capable of expansion and regrowth. This explains why it can support repeated forays into it's depth as well as some of more oddball funhouse encounters.

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You know, this is a good point... and I already have an entity in the manuscript ("The Forsaken Labyrinth") which is fairly to this concept. All I need to do is to enter a reference ton Dungeons into it, and it should fit perfectly...

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

Expect anywhere between 100 to 500 copies sold per year depending on the reputation of the author. Not very profitable for a company but for a single author it can mean quite nice return on the effort. Majestic Wildlerlands I sold nearly 500 copies with a profit margin of $5 per. Blackmarsh is a bit of an oddball because I released the PDF completely under the OGL. But I am satisfied with the 40+ book sales I gotten so far. And the ratio of 40 sales to 1,000 download is typical of the retro-clone ruleset which also have free PDFs and commercial books.

I can't release the exact figures for Points of Light series but they were in the hundreds.

Reading Jurgen's material over the years I am confident he can sell a 100 copies easily. The only limit is that there is a maximum price one can effectively charge for this market. For setting products $10 for print is pushing it in my opinion. Majestic Wilderlands is both a rules and setting supplement so charging $12 for print worked out. PDF prices should be whatever you charging for print less the PoD costs. For MW it worked out to be $7 for the PDF.

It all depends on the author's reputation. The better the reputation combined with the right production values means more can be charged.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

The revised playtest manuscript is now available in the Files section of the newly-created Doomed Slayers Mailing List!

Hope to see some of you there.

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...aaand it's nearing publication. Here you can see the cover image.

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Getting close! I look forward to tossing some money your way.

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Please do keep us posted - I'm always on the look out for good quality generic RPG materials.

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I'm rubbing money on the screen, but nothing is happening. :(

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You will have to be patient a little while longer, I'm afraid...

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Patience, yeah yeah, how long will that take?

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[THWAP]Boot to the head.

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Nice cover illustration!!! (heh heh!)

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I thought that art style looked familiar...

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Hopefully it will be published this month.

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It certainly seemed appropriate to the setting. It does have parodistic elements, though it can be played perfectly straight - and Kurt's (aka quarkstomper) art nicely manages to straddle the two extremes.

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Seeing as you may be too polite to pimp your own work I will ask: any progress on this?

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Just thought I'd give an update on this book, it was just published and is available on DriveThru. Looks great guys, congratulations!

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Indeed it is, though according to the publisher there are plans to sell it on e23 as well.

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Aw, man! Now imma gonna have to buy it twice.

Oh well.

Re: Of possible interest to Dungeon Fantasy players
 

I have no personal objection to this. ;)