[DtG] New GURPS Players, $150 Each.

[LokRobster]

Thanks, Nose66!

I’ve seen quite a few posts on VTT but haven’t followed up; I appreciate ye dropping it all here as an easy find.

For the previous cost discussion, I do forget sometimes how expensive our hobby choices are in direct comparison to the Big Box Stores (Big Box Gamemaker). But really it’s my fault for underestimating how much $150 is so many folks; inconsiderate of me from that point if view.

When we can afford it, I feel like I’m getting Boutique Quality Craftsmanship and wasn’t planning to get anything else.

[DouglasCole]

https://kreioslair.gitlab.io/2021/05..._wrestler.html

Kreios published the wrestler he used for the Meatgrinder blind-test scenario. Fun character.

[DaosusLeghki]

Greetings forumites!

I thought I'd bang the drum for Delvers to Grow some more. I firmly feel that this is the best product for onboarding new players to DFRPG, and to GURPS. In an attempt to convince y'all that you should back the Kickstarter, I'll first discuss my overwhelmingly positive experience and then discuss some reasons you might not want to back the Kickstarter and hopefully address them.

I'd like to start with my own experience. My first GURPS character was a 150 point wizard. Making him was a four hour long exercise in reading descriptions, cross referencing and attempting to optimize. My first DFRPG character was also a wizard, and took about 2 hours to make. I just finished making a 125 point wizard using an advance copy of Delvers to Grow. It took me 15 minutes, and the bulk of that was copying stuff onto a piece of paper. I did not have to crack open Adventurers even once.

Admittedly, that means were I a new player, I would not know what most of the stuff on the character sheet is. That's actually a feature and a good thing. I now have a decently optimized, competent character, and I had to read about 2 pages. If I were a new player, I would learn what that stuff meant in play. What I did not have to do was read through dozens of advantages and spells to figure out which one I should take. Did I mention that all the spells and equipment are also done? I did not have to deal with pre-requisites.

I understand this sounds pretty much like a pre-gen, but there were many decisions I made. Here's what I decided about my wizard: he's had a magical accident that left him disfigured and excommunicated. He's a bit of a geek. He has a lot of spell power and specializes in being a missile-slinger. And the most important thing is that since I made these decisions, I am bought into playing MY character, not a pregen off a list. I have every confidence that I could guide a group of players through this process in 30-60 minutes and intend to do so. In fact, other people's experience suggests that my time estimate is on the higher side.

And that's where the strength of Delvers to Grow is: it lets you make a character without having to be familiar with the mechanics at all. In fact, all you have to do is copy down stuff off each module. You make choices based on the kind of person your character is. Just like DFRPG/GURPS in play, the mechanics take a back seat to your decisions. You might think "but what about co-dependencies? I'd hate to make a missile-slinger without the Innate Attack skill." It's taken care of. The templates look deceptively simple, but a lot of thought and effort went into them. This is literally Kevin Smyth and Doug Cole doing the yeoman's work for you. The DFRPG templates are built to make a competent delver. Delvers to Grow allows you to make a competent delver QUICKLY.

The book has some new Advantages, and they are pretty fantastic. I don't want to go into detail too much for fear of spoiling the fun, but suffice it to say they fit the theme of DFRPG. The Disadvantages are grouped into 25 point packages with a story about how your character got them. For example, my wizard's magical accident gave him Frightens Animals [-10], Social Stigma (excommunicated) [-10], and Unnatural Features [-5].

Now, I'd like to address some of the reasons you might not want to join this Kickstarter:

Not into DFRPG or Dungeon Fantasy
This one certainly makes sense, from a certain point of view. Many people have their own style of game to play, and for a long-running game, that's great. What Delvers to Grow brings to the table is such speed that you can actually play a pick-up game. A friend rolls into town and wants to play for an session? Would you rather spend the evening making a character, running D&D, or playing DFRPG/GURPS? And you don't have to use pre-gens! This is a great product to have on the shelf just in case someone wants to play a quick game.

Not into Nordlond
Delvers to Grow is more or less setting agnostic. Only the art and a few of the inside jokes are Norse-themed at all. The written material and statistics are all DFRPG standard.

Too expensive
This is a difficult and touchy concern to address. Without getting into economics, I will mention only two things. First, games like DnD will always be cheaper. The nature of mass production and fixed costs guarantees it. We play other games because we like them better, not because we get more pages per dollar. Second, even while being more expensive than DnD, Delvers to Grow--and the DFRPG line in general--still offers a fantastic value. Compare dollar value per hours played to something like the cost of a novel or a movie. Or even to board games, where a $60 game might be played for 10 hours total.

I'll pick it up later
This is a tempting thing to do. Why pick up product you don't need right now? I'd like to propose a couple of reasons you might want to back the Kickstarter now. First, physical copies will be gone relatively quickly. I don't have any insight into Doug's business plan beyond what he's shared publicly, but I highly doubt he is going to print many excess copies of the book. So, if you want to pick this up in a year from now, it will probably not be there. Second, backing the Kickstarter sends Gaming Ballistic a signal that there is interest. These days, almost all sales happen within the first few months of a product's release. If you want to pick this product up later, back the Kickstarter now instead, and let Doug know he should continue making product like this.

As you might be able to tell, I am extremely excited for this product and want it to succeed. So, vote with your dollars and, to paraphrase some less savory figures in history, "vote early and vote often."

[LokRobster]

Originally Posted by Tymathee

I never quite get why there's such a distaste for the dungeon fantasy genre... it's either because

• They've played it for years (maybe decades!) and lost interest or grew to despise it
• For the sake of being a contrarian
• Were never interested in the first place... although this may be the prior reason in disguise

I then fear that such players and GMs voicing this distaste are in turn unwittingly turning away potentially new role-players to table-top gaming. It is, after all, the most popular genre of TTRPGs so if this is what they're hearing than they just might never sit down to play at all. Meaning less new bloods for GURPS. All this exciting new GURPS DF/DFRPG content could likely be ushering in a more optimistic era with more people to join the hobby... but the needless snobbery within the community does us no favors. Let people enjoy what they want, even if its good ol' smashing down dungeon doors to murder monsters and take their stuff.

That being said, Delvers to Go seems like an amazing product that both provides accessibility to play and adds more depth to the dungeon fantasy experience. I want it!

I’ve been thinking about this a lot today while tinkering on my car. I think I was a Contrarian Elitist against Dungeons for a lot of years, and oddly enough it ties into the cost discussion in this thread.

I started on red box d&d as a gift in ‘82; mostly stayed with that but friends had Ad&d so some of that too. I kept try on to figure out how to model tanks and guns using TSR (not satisfyingly) and got into car wars in ‘86. Spent some time Indiana Jones RPG, Dark Conspiracy in 91. I gravitated towards GURPS around the same time and developed a love for all the historical sourcebooks. On a limited budget I only got those books as the came out, and skipped anything I didn’t want to use. No GURPS Magic, no Fantasy, not even Horror for a long time; just focused on my favorites and left DF behind.

Over time I got more disposable income and was able to afford to pick up books I was less interested in, so by ‘99-‘01 I had a few GURPS fantasy / Magic things; and a stack of MERP modules I’d found at a thrift store. Starting with 4e in 2004 I probably bought every hardcover GURPS book launched. By 2010 my gaming time had reduced, so I didn’t get into DF when it started. Kind of dialed back to genres I was most likely to play, and more importantly to me, fun to read.

Like many of us here, I’ve always been baffled as to why everyone doesn’t just see how great this system (GURPS as a whole) is, and wish more folks were into it. When the boxed set DFRPG did its Kickstarter launch, I folded up my “anti-DF” bias and jumped in. Here was something shiny and amazing that I could see getting new players! (It’s fun read too)

So that brings me to the past few years and Today, with Gaming Ballistic. I’ve been into everything they’ve done, even the Fantasy Trip stuff even though I haven’t gotten TFT yet. I want this Powered by GURPS license concept to succeed, be huge, bring thousands into GURPS and help our whole community grow. More folks means lower cost books! But more importantly, that scale brings cooler content, more adventures and stories and ideas and fun.

As one person I don’t have much Social Influence, but I am working to spread the word with the few folks I can reach. Aside from backing Delvers to Grow myself, I Venmo’d a young friend down in New Braunfels some seed money to fund half of his pledge, and getting my college-age kid to jump in and back it as well; get that $150 box set starter level out there for that group of friends. Not a ton, but it’s something.

If everybody else jumps in we can get some acceleration outa this thing! Let’s do it!!

[Donny Brook]

I like a game that rewards thoughtful and attentive character building rather than one that avoids it.

[DaosusLeghki]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I like a game that rewards thoughtful and attentive character building rather than one that avoids it.

I suspect a lot of people do, once they're familiar with the system. But to get them familiar, it helps to be able to play quickly, even if the character isn't as fleshed out as *edit*it would be if you'd taken some time*/edit*. I know when I got my current group started, we made characters and played a quick dungeon crawl to familiarize everyone with roleplaying and combat. If Delvers to Grow had been around, I'd have used DFRPG. Instead, I had to use DnD 5th.

My pitch isn't that this is the be all end all of your gaming. Rather, this is a tool for you to introduce people to the GURPS environment in a quick and easy way.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

I've been really reluctant to say this on these forums, but if you're talking about getting people into GURPS and asking them to support at the $150 level, here's a big issue I have with the Gaming Ballistic Kickstarter. It's too expensive.

For everyone to back individually, sure. That $150 equips a whole group to do quite a lot, although how that relates to who pays for what is a different matter.

[ArchonShiva]

On the “games like D&D will always be cheaper” front, it is important to remember that while SJG and GB cannot remotely compete on page count per dollar or (color!) art per dollar, they can sometimes compete on useable content per dollar.

D&D uses a ton of space for subclasses, which through the nature of the game you generally only need one per player, and for spells (the average GURPS/DFRPG spell is much shorter, and there are far less “do the same thing with a diffefent theme” spells on our side). I’ve purchased SCAG and used two spells out of the whole book; both of which have been updated and reprinted in TCoE.

DFRPG books tend to be more focused: you basically buy one thing, but you buy a lot of that thing. This may offer better value for dollar.

[Taneli]

I wish the Nordlond was more in the shape of Nomad Lands from Yrth x)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Taneli

I wish the Nordlond was more in the shape of Nomad Lands from Yrth x)

I don't have it handy, but you can map Nordlond and surrounds with reasonable fidelity onto the Nomad Lands. I did it. Ytarria is surprisingly large (to me it was a surprise) and Nordlond fits into the Nomad Lands with room to spare, IIRC.