[DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Yeah, that reflects my experience. I'm not one to waste time worrying about ecology and enemy logistics on dungeon-crawls, but I do prefer to stage adventures sufficiently far from settlements that my players can suspend disbelief. Hordes of horrible monsters at the town limits or a day's hike away make no sense to me or, more important, to my players. Since my monsters are lurking far from conventional food sources, most often in places filled with traps, curses, poison slime, and Evil Runes, suspension of disbelief also dictates that they'll rarely be creatures with human-esque weaknesses. I save people who can be stabbed in the eye or have their legs chopped off for casual bandit encounters on the way to and from the dungeon, and for altercations in town. My standard dungeon creatures are Elder Things with unearthly biology, Homogenous golems, Diffuse slimes, semi- or wholly spectral undead, and so on, not to mention vast numbers of things with No Legs (Aerial or Slithers) – and traits like Doesn't Breathe, Doesn't Eat or Drink, Immunity to Metabolic Hazards, and Injury Tolerance are very common indeed.

Certainly, I still let the PCs use rapier stabs to the eye, poison on arrows, and so on. They paid points for that stuff. But that's fare for those bandit battles and town quarrels I mentioned. Once you go off to fight constructs, demons, Elder Things, spirits, undead, etc., all bets are off. For the most part, your best tactic is to hit as hard and as often as you can with a swung weapon or a high-FP spell, and pray that you can deplete HP faster than they can regenerate.

I think you should make a monster book with fairy races like they are depicted in myths. Ogres, trolls and giants with Injury Tolerance and other supernatural powers would be cool and there could some use from GURPS Faerie and Celtic Myth. Maybe the PC elves, dwarves, trolls and orcs are half breeds with humans and are thus weaker and mortal. But true faries might be superhuman entities from other planes like demons and spirits. That way a nest of ogres in a dungeon would be a challenge for 250 dungeon delvers instead of an easy boring slaughter.