Dungeon Fantasy party compositions

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Kromm

At this stage, it would most likely be "an unspecified amount of time." The GURPS schedule is not paused, leopard-like, ready to unleash new release after new release with hair-trigger explosiveness. It has been demobilized so that we can mobilize Ogres. Once the Ogres roll out, it will have to be remobilized, and just that warmup time will take "another few months." If we were a factory rather than a publisher, you could think of it in terms of retooling.

Will there be a supplement for Ogres in Dungeon Fantasy?

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

So now I am wondering - if you are running or playing in a Dungeon Fantasy campaign, what kinds of characters does your party have?

In our current game, which has reached the mid-400 pt range: a coleopteran swashbuckler, a leprechaun wizard, a corpse eater unholy warrior, and a halfling cleric. But the party is actually much bigger with two demon allies and a giant spider familiar. There's virtually nothing the group can't kill.

And how well do they work together as a team? Were there any noteworthy holes in their lineup that harmed the party during adventures?

I've found that in most games, a good GM makes it fun regardless of "party balance." You don't want to throw anything at the players that would be literally impossible for their characters to handle.

When no one in our party had the Affect Spirits spell we did have some trouble with ghosts. We basically had to run away from them, as a result of which a few of us ended up Cursed. The cleric learned Affect Spirits the next time we got back to town.
Not having really good targeted ranged attacks is a bit of a hole, but one of the demons is double Chaos (highly recommended!) and can throw entropy clouds at people. And the rest of us have a few tricks like thrown knives, missile spells, etc.

All of that said, you need a healer in any decent party. Whether it's a druid with Plant Form Other and Heal Plants, a Holy Warrior with Healing, even a wizard with Minor Healing, some kind of healing is a necessity. With the right potions maybe you can even get away without that...

[Kallatari]

When I GM, I indicate a list of the "accepted" races by "civilization" and strongly recommend players take something from that list. Those who don't suffer the consequences of being hunted by angry mobs (and some players take those races anyway just because of the extra points you get for having the disadvantage of being chased by angry mobs... sigh).

That said, my go-to campaign setting tends to be an anything goes setting (based on DragonStar, so TL10^ plus elves, dwarves, and magic, etc.), which although not DF, does have the same weird party mixes. In my last good combination, we had:

- human commando with tactics and infiltration skills (assassin role)
- vampire-elf mage specialized in healing magic (healer role)
- a human occultist and telepath who was suffering from an ancient gypsie curse (sage role)
- a pseudo-human infused with a lightning elemental who could absorb, control, and produce electricity and lightning (blaster/archer role)
- human priest of the goddess of luck who emphasized the "chaos" aspect of the deity with his Divine Favor abilities (sheer random factor, back-up healer, and back up to all the others as he could sometimes duplicate their function/roles using his luck)
- a gunslinger combat android wearing battlesuit and carrying heavy beam weapons; the literal "tank" of the party. (tank/knight role)

All in all, was a pretty effective group and went well.

Another group in that same universe didn't go so well, mainly due to bad communication during character creations, where many people incorrectly assumed/interpreted what others were doing.

- two players wound up with the exact same "role" (assassin/sniper) although different character/personality/race concepts (one was half-demon mercenary, the other drow philosopher), despite one clearly calling it first and the other stating they'd do something else (strangely, same two players did the exact same thing in my current game)
- the person who volunteered to be the group healer (mage healer) got carried away at the flexibility of GURPS and decided to play the halfling-elf-half-dragon mixed racial background, stuck all his points into various racial features, and only wound up with minimal medical skills and a single minor healing spell.
- the party's faceman (human) would do all the talking for the party but wound up also making most of the decision, conflicting with the role of the party leader (a half-ogre) which was another player with the various leardership and merchant skills (it was a "firefly-style" trade campaign)

That campaign didn't go so well, and it eventually fell apart. Lack of healing was a serious issue and I recommend never leaving that role blank for any group, nor ever relying on a single healer. And the conflict between the faceman and the leader caused too much tension. When we all agreed it was an issue, we ended that campaign and started fresh with characters that fit better together.

But I think that had more to do with the personalities and overall "roles" of the group, as opposed to any give race and role combination.


Otherwise, when I'm playing, I'm looking more for the "something I haven't played before" as opposed to the exotic per se.

One of my favorite characters was a human mage with a personality very similarly to Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis. That was a hoot... but I had to always check with the other players and GM to see when I went too far, and we would collectively metagame reasons to get my character to participate in some adventures when the other characters were obviously annoyed at him. So was fun, but lot of extra effort. not sure I'd do it again.

All in all, I'll try different stuff with respect to how my character acts, but I always pay attention to how he affects the other players. And when I notice I'm the one who is hampering the fun of the other players, I quickly try to find a reasonable in-game way to change my character's behavior, or I retire that character and make a new one. It's a bit sad sometimes because I have to give up a good background I put effort into, but that's a small price to pay to ensure everyone has fun equally, especially when I'll eventually enjoy my new character anyway. So, exotic races and such don't draw my attention much unless I can find a good roleplay element to it. I'm more like Bruno that way, seeing most races as just humans in funny suits.

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

I never considered Berserker disadvantage as a sensed option for a PC, because I always figured it as a quick death condamne. Now, reading this thread, it seems a huge advantage more than a disadvantage. I'm confused.

It all depends on the set-up of the campaign.

If it's a combat intensive game, where bad guys are meant to be slaughtered, and your warrior can be reasonably assured to take out those around him with a single swing so that they can't retaliate - or you have allies that can keep them busy - Berserk is very useful.

If, on the other hand, the bad guys won't drop like flies, and are reasonably well-trained in tactics, it will cause lots of problems for the Berserk character (unless he has the DR and HP to shrug them off, but that's an issue of all "tank"-like characters, not just berserkers).

And, if you need to take a bad guy in alive to question him (or whatever), Berserk can be a real liability for the party as a whole. I had a game where the party didn't get any treasure because the Berserk character wiped out all the bad guys before they could ask any of them where they buried the treasure.

So, all in all, like any disadvantage really, Beserk is only as limited as the GM sets it up to be in his campaign. Myself, I'd ensure the drawbacks of it come up from time to time... but no more so than any other character's disadvantages.

[Centisteed]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

As I am preparing for my Dungeon Fantasy one-shot, I am beginning to suspect that the party will end up as a freak show. Not all have settled on a character concept, but so far I have:

- A pixie wizard
- A half-ogre ninja

So now I am wondering - if you are running or playing in a Dungeon Fantasy campaign, what kinds of characters does your party have? And how well do they work together as a team? Were there any noteworthy holes in their lineup that harmed the party during adventures?

LOL. Is this real? It sounds like the start of an
awful Saturday morning cartoon show for ages
10 years & under. Will someone be rolling up a
Purple Muffin that has combat experience? :)

[Dammann]

Ogres and Half-Ogres with decent Karate and Judo and so forth can be devastating in combat. Throw in those chi abilities, a little bit of Striking ST, and an Ogre ninja makes as much sense as a Dwarven Knight or a Half-Elf scout. You cannot disarm this guy. Take away his sword and kusari and he will just one-shot enemies with exotic hand strikes and punches.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Centisteed

LOL. Is this real? It sounds like the start of an
awful Saturday morning cartoon show for ages
10 years & under. Will someone be rolling up a
Purple Muffin that has combat experience? :)

Quite real - we just don't feel obligated to take the characters for a one-shot terribly seriously.

And frankly, a wizard suffers few disadvantages from being a pixie... and a half-ogre will almost always be a dangerous combatant.

[Centisteed]

Originally Posted by Dammann

Ogres and Half-Ogres with decent Karate and Judo and so forth can be devastating in combat. Throw in those chi abilities, a little bit of Striking ST, and an Ogre ninja makes as much sense as a Dwarven Knight or a Half-Elf scout. You cannot disarm this guy. Take away his sword and kusari and he will just one-shot enemies with exotic hand strikes and punches.

The 'classic' Ogre, to make up for its powerful
strength, is usually as dumb as bag full of hammers.
Why not have a half-pixie/half-ogre ninja? :-)

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Quite real - we just don't feel obligated to take the characters for a one-shot terribly seriously.

And frankly, a wizard suffers few disadvantages from being a pixie... and a half-ogre will almost always be a dangerous combatant.

Too far-fetched for me, I guess. It just sounds
like Reality TV. It would be interesting to hear
about the final report when the game wraps up.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Centisteed

Too far-fetched for me, I guess. It just sounds
like Reality TV. It would be interesting to hear
about the final report when the game wraps up.

More far-fetched than the existence of pixies? ;)

And frankly, the only downsides of half-ogres are -1 IQ - which is manageable - and the Social Stigma and Ugly appearance, and social abilities aren't really part of the ninja's niche anyway.

Besides, anime and manga series focusing on ninja frequently have ninjas of the "strong but dumb" archetype, and these were at least as much of an inspiration for DF: Ninja as real world history - likely more so. So who am I to argue? It's not like the whole Dungeon Fantasy series takes itself terribly seriously anyway...

[Centisteed]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

More far-fetched than the existence of pixies? ;)

And frankly, the only downsides of half-ogres are -1 IQ - which is manageable - and the Social Stigma and Ugly appearance, and social abilities aren't really part of the ninja's niche anyway.

Besides, anime and manga series focusing on ninja frequently have ninjas of the "strong but dumb" archetype, and these were at least as much of an inspiration for DF: Ninja as real world history - likely more so. So who am I to argue? It's not like the whole Dungeon Fantasy series takes itself terribly seriously anyway...

True enough. But what of us cloistered, stuffy, dusty,
& bookish types that like our DF more down to Earth
or at least closer to the OD&D/AD&D baseline? :-) And
I agree, I can't even believe a Pixie is a valid PC. Might
as well play a Supers game instead (Wasp from the
Avengers, I'm looking at you!).

What is the default campaign setting for DF? I didn't
think Yrth was this wild. Speaking of which, I just got
my hardback from Amazon for Banestorm. I should probably
check the races real quick. :)