I wonder when DF will do non-European fantasy

[Kuroshima]

Well, on one hand I understand b-dog, in that his tastes differ from DF slightly, and so wants something that does slight changes to the line. I also want SJG to publish "the book that handles my campaign perfectly", but alas, SJG publishes what they think will be profitable enough to justify costs. On the other hand, Mailanka is exactly right in that it's either window dressing, or if it diverges enough from the core assumptions, it's a separate line.

We might someday have Dungeon Fantasy Monsters: Arabian Nights, or Fantastic Japan, or Age of Myth. I would buy those books, and if properly framed, I have no doubts that they would sell well enough. They would, as usual for DF, only pay lip service to the actual sources, taking the cool stuff and turning it up to eleven. They would discard anything that detracted from the goal of having foes to kill and take their stuff.

Setting books for DF would be something else. If they ever happen, they would probably not sell well enough, because for all that gamers want settings, they want the setting that exists in their heads, only to have someone else do the hard work or putting it to paper and deal with the inconsistencies and contradictions.

The sweet spot would be a fantasy setting that took DFs assumptions and indiosincracies (there are many kinds of elves, there are goblin-kin, there are all sort of weird humanoids running around, etc. and they more or less get together well enough for racially diverse groups to be a thing). The tech level is a weird mishmash of technologies that never existed together. The setting that comes from these assumptions will probably not look like anything from actual history, if you're consequent, but will be it's own thing.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

But we already have GURPS Japan and GURPS Arabia. Both of those already alter the magic system appropriately, and they have suggested templates. These are 3e templates, but it's not exactly difficult to use those to pick/adjust the existing DF templates. They both have monsters and discussions of what localities would look like. Why are these not good enough?

1) Because having to convert 3e templates isn't a viable answer. One of the goals of the DF line is to have grab-and-go character templates: pick a job description, select some specific capabilities from short menus, and play. Having to dig into a similar-but-not-quite-the-same version of the game and coming up with your own conversion while not really knowing how well it'll fit with the assumptions of DF is the opposite of the "we've done the hard work for you" goal of the line.

2) Current and forthcoming historicals don't go OTT. I've written two Hot Spots so far and I've got a third in progress. They were written with my Serious Historian hat on, so they have real history and only gestures in the direction of more fantastic campaigns. They've got color and detail, but not all the specific kinds of color and detail one would desire from a DF book. So while, for example, the book on Florence could have delved into wildly speculative clockpunk weirdness appropriate for artificers, it didn't. For that, some other product is needed.

That said, I think you're looking at this topic far too narrowly. There are many ways to handle adding fake-Indian, fake-Japanese, fake-Kongolese, and other such elements to DF beyond writing full-blown settings. Notably, books in existing lines could easily expand things in certain pointed directions. A new Monsters might be packed with critters inspired by tropes from the subcontinent without explicitly being labeled Monsters From India. A Denizens about martial artists would almost inevitably expand coverage of East Asian tropes. A Treasures volume could easily be written on clockpunk wonders, which would fill a potential gap between Renaissance Florence and DF without limiting itself specifically to that location.

And individual locations and adventures could be written in suitable faux-non-western locations. Mirror of the Fire Demon, for example, takes place in a vaguely Middle Eastern desert, which pretty much hits the target for how much "culture" DF wants to take on. Similar things could be written concerning an adventure starting from a fake sub-Saharan trading post or during a faux-Aztec demon outbreak. And being DF, they don't have to fit into any larger context. The run up to them can simply be "the adventurers were wandering around and they ended up here."

Now, that may not satisfy someone who specifically wants, say, DF in Tang China or Cairo under the Mameluks, but it certainly provides ample scope to someone who wants "oriental" or "African" adventures.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Now, that may not satisfy someone who specifically wants, say, DF in Tang China or Cairo under the Mameluks, but it certainly provides ample scope to someone who wants "oriental" or "African" adventures.

It also gives the person with more specific tastes some things that are a closer approximation of their interests than the generic, somewhat western material. It's not exactly what they wanted, but it's better for someone trying to do basically grab-and-go DF to be able to say "like this template, except change these two or three things" than to have to say "like that template, except change these twenty things".

Shaping by successive approximation isn't just an animal training technique :)

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

The sweet spot would be a fantasy setting that took DFs assumptions and indiosincracies (there are many kinds of elves, there are goblin-kin, there are all sort of weird humanoids running around, etc. and they more or less get together well enough for racially diverse groups to be a thing). The tech level is a weird mishmash of technologies that never existed together. The setting that comes from these assumptions will probably not look like anything from actual history, if you're consequent, but will be it's own thing.

This would be a commercial message were it not for the fact that it's no longer available, but I think that sort of DF setting would look a lot like the Wellsprings of Creation setting I wrote for web-Pyramid. The key is that it's less a specific setting rather than a framework into which there are potentially slots for every trope and cliche you can imagine, with a pretty map and specific names attached to things. Zombie kingdom's down here, valiant but squabbling knights are over there, hydraulic empire is in that corner, dwarf kingdom is under that mountain range, etc.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

1) Because having to convert 3e templates isn't a viable answer. One of the goals of the DF line is to have grab-and-go character templates: pick a job description, select some specific capabilities from short menus, and play. Having to dig into a similar-but-not-quite-the-same version of the game and coming up with your own conversion while not really knowing how well it'll fit with the assumptions of DF is the opposite of the "we've done the hard work for you" goal of the line.

You can overdo it, though. It makes some sense to do this for broad appeal: A bunch of monsters that people can just do (if they can't be asked to fidget with their own). But when you start narrowing that down into something like Nyambe, I question the viability of it.

That said, I think you're looking at this topic far too narrowly. There are many ways to handle adding fake-Indian, fake-Japanese, fake-Kongolese, and other such elements to DF beyond writing full-blown settings. Notably, books in existing lines could easily expand things in certain pointed directions. A new Monsters might be packed with critters inspired by tropes from the subcontinent without explicitly being labeled Monsters From India. A Denizens about martial artists would almost inevitably expand coverage of East Asian tropes. A Treasures volume could easily be written on clockpunk wonders, which would fill a potential gap between Renaissance Florence and DF without limiting itself specifically to that location.

And individual locations and adventures could be written in suitable faux-non-western locations. Mirror of the Fire Demon, for example, takes place in a vaguely Middle Eastern desert, which pretty much hits the target for how much "culture" DF wants to take on. Similar things could be written concerning an adventure starting from a fake sub-Saharan trading post or during a faux-Aztec demon outbreak. And being DF, they don't have to fit into any larger context. The run up to them can simply be "the adventurers were wandering around and they ended up here."

Now, that may not satisfy someone who specifically wants, say, DF in Tang China or Cairo under the Mameluks, but it certainly provides ample scope to someone who wants "oriental" or "African" adventures.

I'm looking at it that way because that's what's being discussed. We already have DF Ninjas and some of the monsters in the Monsters book already strike me as having a non-Western vibe (like the Watcher at the End of Time or the Horde Pygmy). I would not object to further Monster books, or adventures set in specific locations, or Adventures set in distant lands, or a quick pyramid article suggesting ways in which you might turn your DF adventurer templates a little more Japanese or a little more Aztec, or whatever, beyond my usual grumbling about too much DF.

But that's not what this thread (it seems to me) is asking for. It was a GURPS DF Nyambe or a "GURPS Aztecs, but DF-ified." And that's what I object to, and it seems to me that you object to it too, that you find that too narrow a view, and on that, we're agreed.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

DF1: Adventurers has this to say about cultures:

Pish on what DF1 has to say! The toolkit does not tell the artisan how to craft his masterpiece. (Though one is 'limited' by one's toolbox)


When I said, "Your DF and my DF..." the emphasis should be read on the "Your" and "my", not on the "DF". I can put culture, intrigue, politics, romance, etc in my DF and it will still be DF. I just have to realize this is a plot best (or most likely) solved by swording the bad guys and not talking to every NPC.

Just like with D&D.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

We might someday have Dungeon Fantasy Monsters: Arabian Nights, or Fantastic Japan, or Age of Myth. I would buy those books, and if properly framed, I have no doubts that they would sell well enough. They would, as usual for DF, only pay lip service to the actual sources, taking the cool stuff and turning it up to eleven. They would discard anything that detracted from the goal of having foes to kill and take their stuff.

I'd pay for these supplements.

Setting books for DF would be something else.

I don't see a need for "DF Setting" books. I don't even see a use. You could cover all the setting changes needed to 'run' a particular cultural flavor with DF in Pyramid article.

DF Sengoku Jedai? Lens switches for Knights and Swashbucklers need a few background skill changes (Poetry, Calligraphy, etc skills); some small work on switching Clerics and Holy Warriors over to the appropriate 'magical style' (scrolls, etc used by Miko, Shugenja, etc), Wizards become either Kototama practitioners ("power-word" wizards) or Mahōtsukai (evil blood witches!), the Ninja is already done... etc.

DF Aztecs? All 'fighter' types lenses probably get Survival, and Clerics and Holy Warriors probably have Status, Wizards come in two flavors: Good Soothsayers and Evil Sorcerors!

Etc.

The sweet spot would be a fantasy setting that took DFs assumptions and indiosincracies (there are many kinds of elves, there are goblin-kin, there are all sort of weird humanoids running around, etc. and they more or less get together well enough for racially diverse groups to be a thing).

Or it just gets dumped. In my DF campaign there are no Goblin-kin, it's Orc kin (Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gargoyles), Goblins are lumped in with the Fey, etc. But then I'm also still using my old GURPS Gamma World Fantasy setting... so... all the culture, races*, and such work was already done on my part. And I kept my cultural lenses... but I did add a few 0 point lenses because... 'templates' (I don't normally use templates so I wanted make sure PCs could afford a cultural lens without cutting into a template).


* I did rework my races to bring them 'inline' with DF 3.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

But that's not what this thread (it seems to me) is asking for. It was a GURPS DF Nyambe or a "GURPS Aztecs, but DF-ified." And that's what I object to, and it seems to me that you object to it too, that you find that too narrow a view, and on that, we're agreed.

To be clear, I don't object to them as such. I mean, I do agree that they would seem unlikely to sell very well, simply because settings/locations/adventures don't sell as well as chunks of rules, though ultimately that'd be something for SJ Games to decide. On the other hand, as a consumer, I'd be interested in seeing such things (if, say, Phil Masters were to write Dungeon Fantasy Settings 1: I Can't Believe It's Not Africa, I'd buy it), and as an author, I think DF settings or just GURPS settings created with an eye towards DF compatibility would be hella fun to write.

[Kalzazz]

I would like 'faux fantasy Japan' with monsters and sample quest ideas and such oh my . . . I more or less run into issues as a DM such as instead of 'you run into a group of works with great axes' it becomes 'you run into a group of works with naginatas'

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Ye gods. Just try telling people in Baghdad - in 750 AD or today - that they're Persians. They've spent large parts of the last thousand years avoiding being Persian with large amounts of lethal force.

Why do you think I was pointing saying the Elites were Persian not the People.
Just like for a large part of Medaived England the Elites were Norman but not the People.

[Tinman]

I'm not sure if T.B.C. was advocating or explaining, however, I would love to see some DF books "Monsters of India" or "Adventures- DF Japan: Hunt for the Blood Lotus"
with worked examples of foes, monsters & treasures.
The biggest problem for me is knowing about those things as I'm not familiar with the culture as I am with Western, Middle Eastern, and American ones.