So...GURPS D&D?

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

For me there is still a certain amount of nostalgia associated with D&D, and at one time I thought about running a AD&D game for old times sake, but couldn’t really bring myself to do it.

I'd proposed to my players that we play some old school Basic D&D, just for some one-shots. There was a mutiny (which I eventually joined) and now I'm converting some Basic D&D modules to GURPS.

I'd forgotten just how crummy magic-users are at first level.

[umbros]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Even so, you might find DF: Dungeons of value, since it includes a lot of simplifications of athletic feats, shopping for gear, traps, travel, and hundreds of other tasks encountered in nearly every action-adventure subgenre. It would probably be of use in a 1930s pulp campaign or any other campaign where the heroes travel, explore dark places, and run into foes.

When I read DF: Dungeons I realized the simplifications would be just the thing for my GM style. In fact I was already using similar houserules, for things like kicking down doors, falling damage etc. in all genres that I run. (Mostly "Action" of some type: Swashbucklers, Cliffhangers, Traveller, StarWars, Fantasy.

[Taliesin]

First off, Dungeon crawling is what most people do. We can pretend that we do a lot of intellectual stuff but most game time is spent killing things and taking their stuff. There's a reason there are 10 million people playing WoW.

Second, GURPS is not going to be D&D because GURPS is better. Frankly if you prefer 3.5 then you're doing it wrong. The hard part is getting entrenched 3.5 players to even try GURPS. Dungeon Fantasy makes this much easier. A guy that used to say, "You all are playing GURPS this weekend guess I'll go to a movie then" is one of the most excited members of the group after being convinced to play only one game.
That being said, woe to the GM who tries to run GURPS exactly like 3.5. He will be in for a rough time.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

I'd proposed to my players that we play some old school Basic D&D, just for some one-shots. There was a mutiny (which I eventually joined) and now I'm converting some Basic D&D modules to GURPS.

I'd forgotten just how crummy magic-users are at first level.

My best friend, who tried to run a D&D 2nd Edition campaign about 10 years back featuring beginning elven warrior and wizards (and we abandoned the campaign after a single session-- none of us were aware of just how completely gimped elves are in that D&D system, and 1st level wizards with a penalty to Con are practically asking to be killed by a housecat) is my D&D 3.5 DM now, and has been dropping Dungeon Fantasy .pdf files into his hard drive as fast as he can download them...

I suggested to him that the same campaign that would have been a total party kill, thanks to some of the quirks in how D&D handles things would make for a very exciting Action-Adventure type campaign. He agreed, and indicated just how impressed he is with what he's learning about GURPS 4th edition, and how as soon as I'm done running a mini-campaign in the next couple of months, he's going to look seriously at a similar revisitation of the campaign idea.

I'm very excited by the prospect of handling an elven saber while wrapped in chainmail and shooting orcs with a burst of magic, if they should get close :)

-P.

[Gudiomen]

I think the necessity of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is that a lot of stuff fits into that genre, but wouldn't see light anywhere else. If GURPS is to remain truly universal it must refrain from no genre or subgenre. Hell, we're talking about a system that did Bunnies and Burrows for heaven's sake.

From a philosofical point, if GURPS is generic it must be usable and adaptable to dungeon fantasy. Like a truly chaotic and imense system is bound to have some "ordered" subsystems purely by chance.

Things like "spiked armor", or weird equipment and gear wouldn't show up in Low-Tech... this frustrated me in 3ed. So what if there was no historical bronze chainmail (just an example, I know there was)... my setting has it, how do I do it? How about fine, balanced and iron shields... sure they were rare, but in fantasy adventures "rare" is the bread and butter of the adventurers.
DF: Adventurers brings a lot of this stuff, wich I can use in my non cinematic, low-fantasy, gritty campaing. GURPS Fantasy didn't give me a lot of stuff I wanted, DF: Adventurers brought some of those things about.

It's the first RAW example of non-prerequisite Power Investure magic. Too.
The equipment quality and options alone are worth it.

I probably won't use the 250 cp templates for anything besides remote inspiration. I don't play on that power level and don't enjoy cinematic campaigns, but there's a few very handy rules in there.

I think a D&D style line of GURPS books was greately overdue. There is a market for that, a lot of players don't like the mechanics of D&D, but find the mass of information and adaptation needed to run a dungeon crawl in GURPS mind boggling.

If you don't run dungeon crawls (like me), but run Fantasy you'll get few very nice things from DF:A, if you don't run Fantasy at all, the book is probably not worth the cash. But if you do run classic hack-and-slash dungeon crawls and "old-school" fantasy adventures, then DF:A has you covered and will likely provide a fresh and new experience in this subgenre.

Sure, I'd take more out of Thaumatology, Low-Tech and the like... but DF:A is short, cheap and sweet.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

I think the necessity of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is that a lot of stuff fits into that genre, but wouldn't see light anywhere else. If GURPS is to remain truly universal it must refrain from no genre or subgenre. Hell, we're talking about a system that did Bunnies and Burrows for heaven's sake.

Hmm... Maybe we can use that "title as imperative" argument to press for all the niche products that people want? Like GURPS Daytime Television, GURPS Kaiju, and so on. If it's so universal, where are those books, HUH??

Heh, just messin' with ya *g* It was a good post... but no swipes at B&B! :|

[Kromm]

I'd love to see a GURPS Thrillers series that covers Hollywood's weird mix of poorly differentiated intelligence, police, and security officers that run around foiling an equally weird mix of poorly differentiated mobsters, spies, and terrorists. Not really GURPS Action! . . . I don't mean kung fu and gun fu (although that would be cool, too). I'm talking about a parallel to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers -- call it GURPS Thrillers: Agents and Officers -- with templates (analyst, cleaner, detective, hacker, infliltrator, sharpshooter, social engineer, surveillance expert, technician, etc.), a simplified system for credentials (Legal Enforcement Powers-Rank-Security Clearance), a boiled-down gear list, and a table full of modern cars. And a parallel to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Dungeons -- call it GURPS Thrillers: Missions and Ops -- with quick-and-dirty rules for break-ins, car chases, dead drops, detective work, EOD, interrogation, sniping, surveillance, etc.

Too bad I'd be the world's worst author of everything after the templates and credentials system! I love dumb thriller movies that start out like bad jokes: "So there's this FSB guy, FBI guy, and SAS guy, see, and they're working together for this secret U.N. task force to bring down these Chinese spies funding Iraqi terrorists through the Russian mob . . ."

[Almafeta]

Originally Posted by Extrarius

Finally, considering that the templates are 250 pts, you're not exactly starting out at anything equivalent to a D&D "level 1".

It depends which D&D you're talking about. And how cinematic you play GURPS vs how cinematic you play D&D.

We had a thread about this a few months ago, on how best to map D&D's levels to points in GURPS. People varied from as much as 50 to 500 points on what a "Level 1" adventurer could do, but each individual level after that most people agreed would be 25 or 50 points.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm talking about a parallel to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers -- call it GURPS Thrillers: Agents and Officers -- with templates (analyst, cleaner, detective, hacker, infliltrator, sharpshooter, social engineer, surveillance expert, technician, etc.), a simplified system for credentials (Legal Enforcement Powers-Rank-Security Clearance), a boiled-down gear list, and a table full of modern cars. And a parallel to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Dungeons -- call it GURPS Thrillers: Missions and Ops -- with quick-and-dirty rules for break-ins, car chases, dead drops, detective work, EOD, interrogation, sniping, surveillance, etc.

Ooooh... I'd buy those, specially the first!

While we're at it, Sci-Fi books with the same premise would work great (the smuggler, the pilot, the officer, the tech, etc...). I don't know how the sales for DF are going (I expect relatively well) and what the cost of production of these short .pdf books is... but I'm betting they'd make a buck.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm talking about a parallel to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers -- call it GURPS Thrillers: Agents and Officers -- with templates (analyst, cleaner, detective, hacker, infliltrator, sharpshooter, social engineer, surveillance expert, technician, etc.), a simplified system for credentials (Legal Enforcement Powers-Rank-Security Clearance), a boiled-down gear list, and a table full of modern cars. And a parallel to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Dungeons -- call it GURPS Thrillers: Missions and Ops -- with quick-and-dirty rules for break-ins, car chases, dead drops, detective work, EOD, interrogation, sniping, surveillance, etc.

And then GURPS Space Opera -- the same stuff in space. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons is filled with the type of thing that every genre can use. Again, a useful book would be one addressing these situations in many genres and Tech Levels.