Dungeon Fantasy needs a bare-bones setting

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Then we release some crunchy, low-profile item like Power-Ups 1 and it hits the Top 20.

Yeah, go figure... That's a crunchy pdf that I have gotten very little use from, but most others seem to love it :\

So... I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of the buying public ;|

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

Because Greyhawk blew goats. No one is saying that DF should have THE OFFICIAL SETTING, only that there could be a default setting for people that just want to buy products and play the damn game. Not every GURPS player wants to build a world from the ground up or take 5467809687 hours to port an existing world.

So you know that much of what goes into my Points of Light/Lands of Adventures setting came out of the GURPS Fantasy campaign that I have ran since 1988. One of them, Southland, is a free download from here http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/gl.../SouthLand.pdf

Also I will be releasing within a month or so Blackmarsh and the PDF will be free. The text and maps will also be under the OGL to anybody here can use it as a basis for a fan DF project. All the setting I create for this are esstentially statless. For leveled characters I recommend converting to GURPS at 20 pt per level or just tweak a DF template.

A magical substance called Viz is a big part of the background. And in my GURPS campaign Viz was a one shot 1 pt powerstone found as treasure.

I put up a bunch of previews here. http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/se...bel/Blackmarsh

After DF Monsters 1 is release I may tweak one of the settings I create to reflect the setup and mix of the DF Line. It would similar to the Wild North where I used Russian culture and mythology as the foundation of the setting GURPS Russia was great starting point to find out more.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Kromm

And that isn't surprising: Why would any real percentage of customers who've chosen a generic system get behind one specific setting?

You right if all you are selling to are people looking for a generic system. My counter argument is that GURPS is a great Fantasy RPG as well as a great generic system. But newcomers just looking for a different Fantasy RPG they have to sift through all the other material to play the fantasy game. With GURPS 2nd Edition plus GURP 1st edition Magic it wasn't so bad and it was pretty clear what you had to do to play GURPS Fantasy.

Later editions got better as a rule system but lost the ability to just be picked up an run as a Fantasy RPG. As a consequence it has become harder and harder for the core members of my group to convince other people to run GURPS as their system. I think between the three of us we might handed out a dozen or so extra copies we had bought of 2nd and 3rd edition GURPS since we began using GURPS as our primary system in 1988.

If I had a one or two book Powered by GURP Fantasy RPG that I could point them to. Then I could get a lot more people interested in running GURPS 4th edition and become customers of the rest of the line.

I know you said in the past that GURPS is marketed as a generic RPG. But a referee need to pick something to do with a generic RPG and like the general RPG market, that something is typically the fantasy genre. At least that been my experience in western PA and eastern Ohio.

For me , the outstanding work you and your team done on the Dungeon Fantasy has more than addressed any personal complaints I had about support for the Fantasy genre.

[Corlock Striker]

Being a first time GM and relatively new to GURPS, all I really want is a starting adventure to work from. Granted, I've stolen the first level adventure from D&D 4e and am running with that, but it's sort of annoying to use since the maps I got with it are all square grid rather than hex grid, but we make due. Anyway, my real point, is that I'd just like a worked example of how to create an adventure.

Maybe something to help me figure out what are appropriate challenges for certain points levels so that when I start creating my own adventures I'm not throwing too much or too little at the players. I don't necessarily want a challenge rating on each monster or anything like that, just some sort of guide line for use with GURPS. I switched to GURPS not so much for the genericness of it, although that was an awesome plus when I found out about it, but more for the freedom in provided compared to D&D, especially in skills.

I always found class skills and cross-class skills in D&D to be irritating. I mean, why isn't rope or knots a class skill for a fighter? Wouldn't that sort of be an essential skill for a soldier? I just sort of found that that small list of skills was kinda annoying. I like the lack of class and cross-class skills in GURPS, I like the fact that I'm not restricted to the abilities of one class, but rather by what I want my character to be able to do. In essence, I love that I can create the character I want to create.

I've bought GURPS Banestorm, would I buy a DF setting book? Yes, mostly to see what one needs to create a setting. I might not use the setting, or maybe I'd tweak it to work for the setting I want, if it was close to that, but I'd treat it as a worked example, sort of like Banestorm. Though I think I need to go back and re-read that, same with Fantasy, which I own.

Anyway, point here, is that there aren't a lot of worked examples of adventures to look at in GURPS. Yeah, I could take one from D&D or some other system, but I still wouldn't know if it's at the right challenge level for my players, since I'm still new to GURPS and being a GM. Ein Arris is nice, but it wasn't quite the kind of setting I wanted to run in, nor that my players would want, since one of them wanted to be a mage, and it strongly suggests not having magic in the campaign.

Maybe in fact what we need is not adventures for GURPS, but keeping in line with the Generic aspect of the system, a book that helps first time GMs learn how to create good adventures, and figure out what are appropriate challenges for the points level of his PCs. That could be very useful. A book that gives more system specific advice on this sort of thing. I've read plenty of system neutral stuff on creating adventures, but something that helps me to understand what are appropriate challenges for specific points ranges in GURPS would be awesome.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Corlock Striker

I've bought GURPS Banestorm, would I buy a DF setting book? Yes, mostly to see what one needs to create a setting. I might not use the setting, or maybe I'd tweak it to work for the setting I want, if it was close to that, but I'd treat it as a worked example, sort of like Banestorm. Though I think I need to go back and re-read that, same with Fantasy, which I own.

Just to support this. Some of the feedback that I get for my Points of Light books is that they serve as either as inspiration for their own campaign, or they lift section of the setting I detail. For example one of my setting has an orc infested forest with about six locales that relate to that. The person I chatted with found it useful to lift it out and used in a section of their own campaign.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Corlock Striker

Anyway, point here, is that there aren't a lot of worked examples of adventures to look at in GURPS.

Have you looked at Pyramid?

[Corlock Striker]

I actually have looked at Pyramid. I own a few issues. I own the one with Groom of the Spider Princess. Which I liked actually, but I'm not so much running a Wuxia Campaign, so I'm not sure I can use it. But it was an excellent adventure. I don't know, I guess I'd just like someone to sort of break down the encounters in an adventure for me, and show me how that encounter is at an appropriate challenge level for the PCs. Because, the plot for an adventure I can probably come up with. It's knowing whether it's encounters are too hard or too easy that has me worried.

[tg_ambro]

Originally Posted by Corlock Striker

Being a first time GM and relatively new to GURPS, all I really want is a starting adventure to work from. Granted, I've stolen the first level adventure from D&D 4e and am running with that, but it's sort of annoying to use since the maps I got with it are all square grid rather than hex grid, but we make due. Anyway, my real point, is that I'd just like a worked example of how to create an adventure.

I would (actually, I did) buy a copy of Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering. It an excellent resource in learning the fine craft of adventure design. As the third most downloaded item on e23, I think several folk agree with me.

Maybe in fact what we need is not adventures for GURPS, but keeping in line with the Generic aspect of the system, a book that helps first time GMs learn how to create good adventures, and figure out what are appropriate challenges for the points level of his PCs. . .

Once again, Robin's laws is awesome for the first part, the second part is much more difficult to determine, primarily because points totals don't translate into combat prowess. And it's not like D&D's CR system was very accurate. I remeber in one game I ran a CR 1/4 spider almost TPK'd my party of level 1 heroes, by itself. I've heard other stories of CR wonkiness as well.

[Corlock Striker]

Own it and have read it, Robin's Laws that is. And I imagine it is rather difficult, but any sort of general guidelines would be useful. I imagine some of the CR wonkiness in D&D probably had to do with them expecting you to have the standard party make up, and if you didn't have that, then everything was thrown out of wack, either because you could do too much damage in a turn, or heal too little or other such things.

[tg_ambro]

Originally Posted by Corlock Striker

Own it and have read it, Robin's Laws that is.

Sweet!

And I imagine it is rather difficult, but any sort of general guidelines would be useful. I imagine some of the CR wonkiness in D&D probably had to do with them expecting you to have the standard party make up, and if you didn't have that, then everything was thrown out of wack, either because you could do too much damage in a turn, or heal too little or other such things.

You're probably right about the CR wonkiness, but I think that illustrates the difficulty facing a GURPS CR system. Even if it had a hard set of limits placed on it, as DF CR system would, advantages, party compostion, tactics, and situational modifiers create far too much variablity for any kind of system to be designed.

I'm not saying I wouldn't want something like this, and it certainly would have helped, but I just don't think it's feasible.