Apparently DF 12 is going to be Ninjas.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

The items are what makes the ninja, let's face it. But to spell it out: We'll be going with the "ninja, ultimate gadgeteer assassin" approach for the most part. It will be a fussy profession built around items, abilities that affect items, skills for using items, etc. The best comparison would be to the scholar in Sages, who needs all of those detailed rules for manuals, maps, and scrolls to be playable and fun. And just as the scholar got most of a DF supplement to himself, the ninja will get his own PDF. There are other reasons why this is so, but that's the short version.

Knights don't need this stuff. They're good with any weapon. In fact, they're just plain good at fighting. That's what makes them interesting, not how they dress for the ball.

I'm not worried about the Ninja template(s) invading the Knight's turf. I'm worrid about it invading the Thief's surt, and maybe the Bard's turf too (the trickster version of the Bard).

Really, I don't see why new templates are needed for Ninja. Just include a few pages of options for how to turn a Thief (or a Bard) into a Ninja instead. Those two templates are already there, in DF1.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by robkelk

With horned helmets!

(We are going with the clichés, not reality, right?)

My Viking Barbarian ain't gonna wear a horned helmet, unless he gets some kind of bonus for it!

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by newtkeeper

Couldn't the same thing be said about ninjas? You have your thieves, you have your martial artists...

No, it can't, because I don't have a good idea of what can go in a pirates book to differentiate them. But I did have a good idea of what would go in a ninja book to make them different from templates that are superficially similar. So no, you can't say that about ninjas. At least, I couldn't say that.

I'm not being mean, here. When Sean and I talked about ninja, both he and I had a pile of ideas about how a ninja wasn't just an artificer, not just a martial artist, not just a thief, and not just a crossover of the two. Someone says DF: Pirates and I think, okay, I can't write that because I don't know what niche to stick them in. That wasn't an issue with ninja. If anyone ever says "What niche do they fill?" about a potential new template, you need a deeper answer than "That's what they said about ninjas, too!" You need a lot of ideas to fill a book. Even all the coolness Sean and I conceived of about ninjas left me short of wordcount, so there was some back-to-the-drawing-board stuff that went on about what else was cool about ninjas. IMO the best stuff in the book came out of the need to fill it out a bit more, but to me it also demonstrated you need a BIG, meaty idea to fill even a fairly small book. That said, Roguebfl's idea of a High Seas book is sheer awesomeness, because you aren't left hoping you have 12,000 words to say about pirates.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Gizensha

To be fair to them, Alien was a group of civilians who had no idea what they were dealing with and who's heaviest weapon was a blow torch designed for welding, iirc, while Aliens was a fully prepared military commando unit.

Well, sure, but that's a writer-level decision. Had the writers stuck one alien in there, it wouldn't have been so easy to kill despite the commando unit. Look at Predator for a good example - one predator vs. commando unit, and it takes the whole movie and a series of awesome one-liners to deal with it. Had it been "Predators" - with dozens of them - the challenge would be dealing with the pack, not dealing with a large number of individually awesome monsters.

It's a genre switch, really, or a feature of how you use opponents. The challenge doesn't scale, the individual challenge rating of the components of that challenge does.

If you see what I'm saying.

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

No, it can't, because I don't have a good idea of what can go in a pirates book to differentiate them...

That's okay, because no self-respecting pirate would be caught dead in a dungeon. Dungeons are just found too far away from beaches and rum, don't ya know. Though I suppose, given a map with a convenient X marked on it, they might make an rare exception.

Why did I have a feeling that sooner or later this thread would wind up wandering to the topic of pirates?

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by pyratejohn

That's okay, because no self-respecting pirate would be caught dead in a dungeon.

What's self-respect doing in a dungeon, anyway? Kill it and take its stuff!

[rosignol]

Originally Posted by pyratejohn

That's okay, because no self-respecting pirate would be caught dead in a dungeon. Dungeons are just found too far away from beaches and rum, don't ya know. Though I suppose, given a map with a convenient X marked on it, they might make an rare exception.

What is the practical difference between a jungle full of magical beasties, natural hazards, unnatural hazards, and a natives who worship a cthulhuesque entity, and a dungeon full of magical beasties, unmaintained tunnels, booby-traps, and cultists who worship a demon from another dimension?

All I can think of is that the PCs are more likely to believe they can move in an arbitrary direction in the jungle- but this is an illusion. From where I'm sitting, the main differences are ambiance and bugs. :>

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

What's self-respect doing in a dungeon, anyway? Kill it and take its stuff!

Well, when you put it that way... "kill it and take its gold and rum" does have a nice ring to it.

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by rosignol

What is the practical difference between a jungle full of magical beasties, natural hazards, unnatural hazards, and a natives who worship a cthulhuesque entity, and a dungeon full of magical beasties, unmaintained tunnels, booby-traps, and cultists who worship a demon from another dimension?

None really. In actuality, the quest for lost treasure has always been part of the lore of pirates, explorers, conquistadors &c.

[Kromm]

Actually, if "pirates" became code for "the only delvers who can safely use really dodgy TL4 black-powder weapons," riffing more on the pistols than the swords, and the burning fuse in beards than on the eyepatches, it could work.