Undungeon-fantasyfing your DF game

[binn05]

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?

[Juan]

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.

Originally Posted by binn05

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?

[capnoni]

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.

[Varyon]

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.

[DeadParrot]

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.

[Stormcrow]

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.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Varyon

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.

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.

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

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.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

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.

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.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by binn05

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?

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.

Originally Posted by binn05

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

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.