[DtG] New GURPS Players, $150 Each.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by RyanW

In my case, it's at least partially because it is usually pitched as nostalgia, but my gaming history has pretty much never included dungeon crawling. I started gaming with things like Iron Crown's CyberSpace and WEG's Star Wars, then moved to GURPS and Riddle of Steel.

So the typical play style of dungeon fantasy is not at all appealing to me. Such a style certainly isn't required of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, but is the play style implied from page one.

Nordlond tries to support a lot more than dungeon crawling, to the point where I had to add actual dungeons to Hall of Judgment (the faerie warrens) that were strictly optional, Nordvorn didn't HAVE any dungeons, and could legit be played 100% as intrigue and politics, and I deliberately solicited the dungeons that appear in Forest's End and Rosgarth.

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

It is valuable. Painful, but valuable.

I charged as little as I thought I could for these volumes. If that's more than the market will bear . . . I guess I have some serious thinking to do.

If I had 1,500 or 2,000 supporters instead of 400-600, I could make up the development costs more easily and charge less. But I don't.

I really am rooting for your company! Trying to make a living as a writer is a hell of a grind. And excited about the sci-fi setting you're working on! So good luck!

[(E)]

Originally Posted by LokRobster

Pardon the long post - but its base concept is GETTING NEW PLAYERS INTO GURPS! (via the new Delvers To Grow)


<SNIP>

With Delvers to Grow, I could have started a game the first evening!

That's the AMAZEBALLS of this supplement. Sure, you don't care about DF genre, or low-point adventurers... but imagine getting your young friends and relations INTO A GAME. Intro to play, make characters, and ACTUAL PLAY in an hour? Sure, it's not 'Real GURPS', or Old West, or Sci-Fi, or Modern Horror - but it's a gateway drug. Once exposed to the flexibility and options of RP and combat options of GURPS, no other game's rules will hold up (my feelings as a fanatic).

<SNIP>

We need new blood, new players, and new interest. This project is the way to do it!

So let it be written, so let it be done.

btw, I love the Nordland world and its stories...

Speaking from experience, starting a game in DFRPG/Nordlond doesn't mean it has to stay there.
Once your new players have the basics under their belt just slowly add more to the game. Heck, I was feeling guilty about much unadulterated GURPS stuff was naturally and organically creeping in by the second session.

To paraphrase: If you use gurps for anything similar to traditional fantasy, Delvers to Grow and DFRPG are an excellent and well thought out start point.
Less time and effort is required to incorporate this start point into a world than you think.

For all the high detail world builders out there, while it may not be immediately obvious, there is a complete economic simulation hiding behind the high quality art.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by (E)

For all the high detail world builders out there, while it may not be immediately obvious, there is a complete economic simulation hiding behind the high quality art.

As it happens, this is true twice. The basic overall model used one deeply researched foundational model that was developed for a different game. Then (E) helped me with an even more detailed underpinning to the settlements that ties in very well with the first model.

This was fortuitious...but shouldn't be surprising since both models used similar research and fact bases.

Even so: if you just want to go Viking, you can do that. If you want to sail off the map to "some other realm" of your own making, you can do that. If you want to know how many geese are in residence in Ainferill...we can probably tell you.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

As it happens, this is true twice. The basic overall model used one deeply researched foundational model that was developed for a different game. Then (E) helped me with an even more detailed underpinning to the settlements that ties in very well with the first model.

This was fortuitious...but shouldn't be surprising since both models used similar research and fact bases.

Even so: if you just want to go Viking, you can do that. If you want to sail off the map to "some other realm" of your own making, you can do that. If you want to know how many geese are in residence in Ainferill...we can probably tell you.

For the people who want to bolt on a Merchants or Settlement leading campaign, well I made sure the bolt holes are there and in the right place. ... and have the right thread pitch, while Douglas ensured the structural integrity was up to specifications.
That metaphor is starting to get away from me, but there has been some serious attention to detail making sure the setting has the potential to handle a diverse array of uses.

[Tymathee]

Originally Posted by RyanW

In my case, it's at least partially because it is usually pitched as nostalgia, but my gaming history has pretty much never included dungeon crawling. I started gaming with things like Iron Crown's CyberSpace and WEG's Star Wars, then moved to GURPS and Riddle of Steel.

So the typical play style of dungeon fantasy is not at all appealing to me. Such a style certainly isn't required of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, but is the play style implied from page one.

For me, I'm nostalgic for memories that I never had the opportunity to have, being born quite some time after the heyday of old school dungeon crawling. It is something that I can't entirely explain why I ache for it but there's some magical allure to taking papermen through dark and dank depths, to do battle with beasts and loot their treasures for fun and profit. I kind of hope that the day I become too jaded to enjoy the genre never comes.

So I'm determined to delve deep into GMing for GURPS so I can run these kind of games. For an upcoming game I've been cooking up for sometime is one that starts the PCs at 62 points, running them through Keep on the Borderlands and finishing with Tomb of Horrors. The couple of modules set in Dungeonland will be somewhere in there too... that flavor of silly really suits the humor of DF. I'll likely be plugging the more system-agnostic rules from OSR books like Old School Essentials, like the idea of "dungeon turns".

[maximara]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I started out playing D&D in the 1970s, before the first edition of AD&D was a gleam in Gary Gygax's eyes. Now it's "been there, done that" for me.

That is my feelings about it as well. The whole magical "medieval" setting has done to death which is why I found Roma Arcana such a breath of fresh air.

[Tymathee]

Originally Posted by maximara

That is my feelings about it as well. The whole magical "medieval" setting has done to death which is why I found Roma Arcana such a breath of fresh air.

I always thought it might be fun to swap "magical "medieval" setting" for "GURPS DF... in faux-Ancient Greeeeeece!" Labyrinths and minotaurs, oh my!

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by maximara

That is my feelings about it as well. The whole magical "medieval" setting has done to death which is why I found Roma Arcana such a breath of fresh air.

Thank you! Though I don't so much mind the medieval as such; I ran a campaign set in Worminghall and had fun with it, though Worminghall's genre is not dungeon crawling but Harry Potter. What I'm less satisfied with is, on one hand, the dungeon fantasy's omnium-gatherum of classical monsters, Tolkienian fantasy races, and horror movie monsters; and on the other, the basic theme of gaining power by killing things, which seems to have more bookkeeping and less characterization than I look for these days.

[Nose66]

Originally Posted by LokRobster

I still plan to pull the group together and do something online together remotely, but it's just not the same.

You need to do that, and now it is even easier to play online. Purchase Foundry VTT for $50 (although it is supposed to drop to $40 for their 1st anniversary sale https://www.foundryvtt-hub.com/... and I get no $$ from this, I just think it is a great product), and then install our free GURPS Game Aid: https://foundryvtt.com/packages/gurps

Take a look at our Getting Started video: https://youtu.be/YstMNNLwKBM and if that looks interesting, check out the Users Guide: https://bit.ly/2JaSlQd

We have an active community on the GURPS Discord: https://discord.gg/6xJBcYWyED so you can always drop by and ask questions.

Don't let a little thing like 1,000 miles keep you from playing GURPS!