A Bestiary for more than the DFRPG: Nordlond Enemies Book

[DaosusLeghki]

I think the answer to why this bestiary is great and needed has mostly been answered upthread. However, I'll try to add my two cents:

In comparison to homebrews, it's going to be a professionally produced, official product. That means art, playtesting, cohesiveness and completeness. Each of those things accomplishes something homebrew can't do: it makes it faster and easier for the GM to do prep. Of course none of it is necessary. Of course homebrew resources exist (and it's great that people have collated them). But somehow, RPG publishers keep making new content and people keep buying it. That happens because there is real value in professional products. I happen to think there's a spot for a bestiary like Doug's working on.

A published bestiary will be complete. A GM will be able to use the monsters directly, without having to do a search for art, without having to come up with their own description. What's more the tone will be consistent, as will the level of detail.

Additionally, this book could become a single source reference for monsters in combat-heavy adventures. Rather than having to point to 5 places, including a couple of websites, for an adventure, a GM could just reference the monster using standard GURPS notation. If using Foundry VTT, you could load the book into PDFoundry, too. I know I would love it if the monster my party's fighting had [PDF: NOB35] in the description.

In comparison to the other published products, this book will be more useful for making combat encounters faster. Those books are great, but they all have a few monsters, each with a lot of detail and description. This will hopefully be quick and easy to use in case you need a monster right now. This falls in line with Gaming Ballistic's theory that you should not make the GM do homework.

I don't want to put the other published books down. I have most of them and like them a lot. But they are designed for a different purpose. If you want to make a custom dragon NPC, sure GURPS Dragons is a great option. I wanted a weird and unsettling monster for a horror adventure recently, and I used a Slake Hound form one of the Creatures of the Night collections. But if I want to have a quick fight, there is not really a big book of stuff you can use on the fly.

I think there's a lot of value in this Bestiary. It makes it easier to prep for games and is another step in hopefully moving GURPS away from being a boutique game played by people who have lots of time to prep to a game played by people with busy lives. I hope many others will agree, and will back it when the time comes. I know I will.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

When I mentioned "official" being important to many groups, I was specifically thinking of those groups where sources other than official print - like lwcamps' GURPS Animalia, your referenced Anon's Animal Album, or in some cases even official rulings by Kromm on the forum - are not allowed. If you want a character who transforms into, say, a grizzly bear (Bloodlust and Very Beautiful on the base character are optional, of course), you've got to use the rather, well, basic build from Basic Set - sure, the entries from GURPS Animalia and Anon's Animal Album and other online resources may be more detailed, even be demonstrably more true to the actual animal, but they aren't available. Such a GM/group may be inclined to allow for whatever grizzly bear equivalent shows up in Doug's Nordlond Beastiary.

Perhaps it is my experience with Super 1e; Classic Supers in general, and AD&D Unearthed Arcana (ie the Munchkin Manual) but limiting yourself just to official material is not a good way to go. As mentioned earlier by others Classic: Space Bestiary may have had balance issue even in Classic.

All of those had serious balance problems despite being official. Classic: Fantasy II (Madlands) is another case.

Also that is a little too close to the mindset expressed in Crit or Miss Special: The Problem with GURPS for my tastes.

More over as the GURPS wiki shows there are different versions even in the official 4e material. Mummy (Fantasy/Horror) vs Mummy (Magic) vs Mummy (Zombies) are all official write ups of a Mummy but they are wildly different in point totals, advantages, disadvantages, and (of course) point totals.

If fact, using an official template from one official book can show really bizarre logic hiccups in another. Such as Fantasy/Horror mummies needing to sleep and naturally heal. The first maybe but how does a waking corpse naturally heal?!?

[Rommel]

I am completely baffled by the idea that producing an official bestiary for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is even slightly controversial. Even assuming someone were completely satisfied with the existing resources, what possible harm is there in more support for the game system?

I have personally found the lack of an official bestiary for GURPS 4th ed to be extremely frustrating. I know that there are many creatures scattered amongst dozens of 4th ed books and PDFs. But when I am planning a series of encounters for my group, it is not an efficient use of time to skim through all of these books looking for the right creatures. Having a large selection of creatures, with detailed, accurate stat blocks, would be a huge time saver.

Regarding the existing resources on the web, there was clearly a lot of work that went into producing them. However, many of the entries don’t have descriptions. In the case of fantastic creatures, I am often not even sure what the creature is supposed to look like, or how it behaves. I suppose that gives me the freedom to decide all of that for myself. But I often don’t want to spend the time to do that, particularly when I am rushing around an hour before a session trying to plan everything.

I also think that the value of good art should not be underestimated. Particularly for fantasy creatures, a good piece of art tells one a lot about how the creature can be used in a campaign, from how it may attack, to how intimidating it will appear, to the environment in which it will likely be found. There are also many practical uses for the art. Now that I use virtual tabletops for a lot of my games, it is very easy to copy a picture of a creature from a PDF and make a token for the game. Even when playing on a battle mat, if I don’t have the correct mini, I will often take the picture from the PDF, crop it, resize it, and print it out to use as a paper token.

I remember first being introduced to Advanced D&D in the late 70s. I don’t think it was an accident that the Monster Manual was the first book published for the system. I remember going over to my friend’s house and pouring over the Monster Manual, fascinated by all of the weird creatures. Whenever I am trying to come up with ideas for a campaign in other systems, the first book I will always pull off of the shelf is that respective system’s monster manual. It’s a shame that this hasn’t been possible with GURPS 4th ed.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Rommel

I remember first being introduced to Advanced D&D in the late 70s. I don’t think it was an accident that the Monster Manual was the first book published for the system. I remember going over to my friend’s house and pouring over the Monster Manual, fascinated by all of the weird creatures. Whenever I am trying to come up with ideas for a campaign in other systems, the first book I will always pull off of the shelf is that respective system’s monster manual. It’s a shame that this hasn’t been possible with GURPS 4th ed.

I have fond memories of AD&D as well but even the MM did not have pictures for every creature in it. For the most part common creatures (Bear and Beetle, Giant for example) had no pictures even though in many cases the way the listings were set up there was certainly room.

For example, the dinosaur section only had about half of the listings with pictures which given how popular they were in the 1970s is weird.

I suspect that the reason we never got a formal 4e GURPS Bestiary is there would have had been a lot of work to bring it up to even the standard seen in the basic set and the PTB desided that people could use the same 'ignore PD, add +3 to dodge and use HT for HP' quick and dirty method suggested earlier.

Of course there were pictures of creatures in later AD&D works that once you saw then you couldn't unsee them. The Lava Children of Fiend Folio looked like a relative of Alfred E Neuman and the text description brought a whole new meaning to 'they died with a smile on their face'.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by maximara

Perhaps it is my experience with Super 1e; Classic Supers in general, and AD&D Unearthed Arcana (ie the Munchkin Manual) but limiting yourself just to official material is not a good way to go.

I never said it was, or wasn't. I was simply mentioning that the stamp of "official" matters to many GMs/groups, without making any value judgement on if such people are Paragons of the Tabletop or having Hurting Wrong Fun.

Originally Posted by maximara

If fact, using an official template from one official book can show really bizarre logic hiccups in another. Such as Fantasy/Horror mummies needing to sleep and naturally heal. The first maybe but how does a waking corpse naturally heal?!?

How can a corpse walk around? Healing at the same rate as it would as a human makes no less sense. For a mummy in particular, it's very common for such to be a boss-type of enemy (see: nearly every book/movie with a mummy), and it accumulating unhealable wounds doesn't fit well with that. Of course, looking at the entry in GURPS Horror, I note that it does, in fact, have Doesn't Sleep and Unhealing (Total). I don't have Fantasy to check and see how it functions there, however. Those two traits are missing from the Mummified Undead metatrait, but then none of the corporeal undead metatraits have them, because while specific undead may well have them, there are others who wouldn't (vampires typically wouldn't, given their habit of sleeping in caskets and that they tend to be able to heal, although the latter is typically dependent on feeding). That said, the combination of Unkillable 2 and Unhealing (Total) seems odd (a character with both traits, once reduced to -10xHP, would fall into an unending torpor, as he/she wouldn't be able to heal back to full HP), although I suppose the latter might still allow for magical/alchemical means of restoring HP.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

For what it's worth, this isn't born out by my sales and feedback to date. My own experience is that "in the moment," folks prefer print-and-pdf over both print alone or PDF alone by a large margin, anywhere from 3:2 to as much as 3:1 in favor of options with print.

For my own self, I like print for digesting material, and PDF for that quick stat lookup and portability. The heavy preference that I've seen on Kickstarter pledges for hardcopy stands in a mild rebuttal to "print is dead."

I'd be buying print over PDF (and print+PDF over either) but for two things. Firstly, shipping costs to New Zealand tend to be high to outrageous, and secondly, having had to move house a couple of times in the past few years I'm now allergic to heavy boxes of books.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I'd be buying print over PDF (and print+PDF over either) but for two things. Firstly, shipping costs to New Zealand tend to be high to outrageous, and secondly, having had to move house a couple of times in the past few years I'm now allergic to heavy boxes of books.

Yeah. That's one of the downsides to "one big book." The smaller, 48-page volume plan would have enabled me to print at Mixam Australia and then use AUS/NZ packets for like AUD 12.

But the big book plan, if successful, likely won't be able to support that.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Yeah. That's one of the downsides to "one big book." The smaller, 48-page volume plan would have enabled me to print at Mixam Australia and then use AUS/NZ packets for like AUD 12.

But the big book plan, if successful, likely won't be able to support that.

I recall Delvers to Grow’s Kickstarter had the option of having the main book and the example characters split up, or combined into an omnibus. Could something similar be done here, or would that likely add a great deal more work (and/or perhaps the ideal way to organize the book is one that wouldn’t really work for separating into volumes, making the whole thing essentially undoable without severely compromising quality)?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I recall Delvers to Grow’s Kickstarter had the option of having the main book and the example characters split up, or combined into an omnibus. Could something similar be done here, or would that likely add a great deal more work (and/or perhaps the ideal way to organize the book is one that wouldn’t really work for separating into volumes, making the whole thing essentially undoable without severely compromising quality)?

It's usually the other way: the basic package was split, but there was a special edition omnibus.

But the DtGr Omnibus was "only" 96 pages after some hard editing. The Bestiary is bigger, and prohibitively expensive except in volume. So if we do the big stuff, it's all-in.

I'm going to try and be laser-focused on making the PDF and a single print version that's as large as the backers can fund (up to 240 pages commit). We'll do what we can to get it to folks up to that point.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Of course, looking at the entry in GURPS Horror, I note that it does, in fact, have Doesn't Sleep and Unhealing (Total). I don't have Fantasy to check and see how it functions there, however. Those two traits are missing from the Mummified Undead metatrait, but then none of the corporeal undead metatraits have them, because while specific undead may well have them, there are others who wouldn't (vampires typically wouldn't, given their habit of sleeping in caskets and that they tend to be able to heal, although the latter is typically dependent on feeding). That said, the combination of Unkillable 2 and Unhealing (Total) seems odd (a character with both traits, once reduced to -10xHP, would fall into an unending torpor, as he/she wouldn't be able to heal back to full HP), although I suppose the latter might still allow for magical/alchemical means of restoring HP.

I double checked and the mummy listed in GURPS Horror p 92 (or at least my copy) does not have Unhealing (Total) though it does have Doesn’t Sleep [20]: "Doesn’t Sleep [20]; Indomitable [15]; Mummified Undead (p. 27) [80]; Unfazeable [15]; Unkillable 2 (Achilles’ Heel, Fire, -50%) [50]"

More over Appearance (Monstrous; Universal, +25%) [-25] doesn't fit with how mummies have been depicted in fiction.

While GURPS Zombies tried to explain that Appearance (Monstrous; Universal, +25%) [-25] or Appearance (Horrific; Universal, +25%) [-30] replaces Supernatural Features (No Body Heat, No Pulse, Pallor) [20] that is for undead that have begun to decay.

That idea effectively dies when you realize Boris Karloff "passed" for human for much of that picture, how mummies were treated in many of the Scooby Doo cartoons, and nearly any mummy outside of the Mummy (1932) the Appearance (Monstrous; Universal, +25%) [-25] is perhaps over doing it. Appearance (Ugly, Universal, +25%) [-10] or Appearance (Unattractive, Universal, +25%) [-5] seems more in line with what is shown on screen.

As for weird meta-traits the Vehicle meta-trait in Template Toolkit 2: Races does not have No Manipulators and Numb as part of the package and yet every vehicle listed does. Why not have No Manipulators and Numb as part of the Vehicle meta-trait passage and eliminate the redundancy?

Also why have Social Stigma (Subjugated) [-20] rather than Social Stigma (valuable property) [-10]?

Then you have Vampire in the Basic set which describes itself as a “Bram Stoker”-style vampire and yet has Weakness (Sunlight; 1d/minute) [-60] when in the actual novel the only effect sunlight had on Dracula was it limited his powers.

Similarly GURPS Horror grossly over simplifies the Universal version of Frankenstein's monster and has "Cannot Speak [-15]" when in fact even as late as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein the monster could and did speak (if only to go "Yes, Master").

These are the things that get me into my 'just because it is official doesn't mean it makes sense or agrees with other examples' - I had that issue with magic-users and armor in AD&D.