A Bestiary for more than the DFRPG: Nordlond Enemies Book

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Well those are all online and not a print copy, many still prefer print.

Only the GURPS Repository's Monster list is in a print unfriendly format. The other three are PDFs and are designed to be printed:

*Natural Encyclopedia by Kevin A. Muñoz (2009 July 27); 90 pages
*It Came from the Forums by KMunoz (2009 August 3); 34 pages
*Anon's Animal Album (2021 July 2); 75 pages counting index

Originally Posted by Refplace

Also this project will increase visibility of GURPS, at least iuf promoted well - and especially if some go to retailers..

Key word there is if. GURPS was hard to find begin with and had gone nearly totally PDF which in this day of laptops and tablets makes more sense than print.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Finally, I fully expect some differences in stats and a few new monsters.

Well that is a given. Writing up anything natural or fantastic is going to be a matter of interpretation. For example, Mummified Undead (Fantasy and Horror) have to sleep and heal "naturally". Perhaps an oversight or a bit of flavor.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by maximara

I am curious on how this differs from what already exists ie

1) Raw stats of Classic: Bestiary (available from the online preview and can be basically as is used with Dodge +3)
2) Natural Encyclopedia by Kevin A. Muñoz (27 July 2009): 660 Total Entries: 437 Converted from Classic, 247 Referenced from 4e, 21 Inspired by other Sources, 55 Originals by the Author
3) It Came from the Forums by KMunoz (3 August 2009): A Community Bestiary with 160 Entries
4) GURPS Repository's Monster list (29 July 2015): 200+ creatures
5) Anon's Animal Album (July 2nd 2021): Has 400+ 4e entries.

All of which are free?

My guess would be quality - tested playability (I'm hoping there will be notes as to what level of challenge the foe is), more consistency of written "voice," better organization, etc. Essentially, a "you get what you pay for" type of scenario. It also has the benefit of being an official product (created with Doug's Nordland license for DFRPG, but official nonetheless), which matters more than you might think to a lot of groups.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

My guess would be quality - tested playability (I'm hoping there will be notes as to what level of challenge the foe is), more consistency of written "voice," better organization, etc. Essentially, a "you get what you pay for" type of scenario. It also has the benefit of being an official product (created with Doug's Nordland license for DFRPG, but official nonetheless), which matters more than you might think to a lot of groups.

Ah now that is what I was looking for. But the "get what you pay for" and its official may be poor arguments. Compare

American Black Bear
Diet: Omnivore (carrion, fruit, insects, nuts, and rodents).
Distribution: North America.
Habitat: Woodlands.
Niche: Diurnal forager.
Size: 6′ long; 250 lbs
Black bears will usually retreat if they feel threatened.
Attacks on humans are normally hungry bears deliberately hunting those that seem vulnerable. They can often be dissuaded by a show of force, even from smaller animals.
ST: 13 HP: 13 Speed: 6.00
DX: 11 Will: 12 Move: 8/16 (land)
IQ: 4 Per: 10
HT: 13 FP: 13 SM: ±0
Dodge: 9 Parry: — DR: 2
Bite or Claw (13): 1d cutting. Reach C.
Traits: Bear; Fearfulness 3; Temperature Tolerance 1.
Skills: Brawling-13; Climbing-11; Intimidation-11; Stealth-11;
Survival-12.
Sexual Dimorphism: Females (5′ long; 170 lbs.) have ST and HP 11. Reduce damage for bite and claw to 1d−1.
Variants
Asian black bears are similar. For a sloth bear, change claw
damage to crushing and exchange Fearfulness for Bad Temper
(9)

to

Black Bear
A small, omnivorous bear.
ST 14; DX 11; IQ 4; HT 13.
Will 12; Per 10; Speed 6; Dodge 9;
Move 7.
SM 0; 300 lbs.
Traits: Blunt Claws; DR 2; No Fine Manipulators; Semi-Upright; Sharp Teeth; Temperature Tolerance 2; Wild Animal.
Skills: Brawling-13

Now which do you think is official (Basic Set) and which is from Anon's Animal Album? The second is the official one. Now which is more detailed and therefore potentially more useful?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by maximara

Ah now that is what I was looking for. But the "get what you pay for" and its official may be poor arguments. Compare

Hawk
Hawks are predatory birds, with hook-bills, fierce-looking eyes,
and powerful feet with long talons. Species of hawk can be found
in almost any environment, from harriers soaring low over open
fields to goshawks weaving agilely between tree trunks in dense
forest. Female hawks are invariably larger than the males.
Hawks attack using their talons, piercing their prey and subduing
it with repeated grasps if necessary. When the victim is
sufficiently restrained, it will tear off pieces with its beak to eat.
Hawks will not hunt people—people are just too big and
dangerous to risk attacking for a meal. They attacks if a person
is getting too close to their nest, swooping down to rake the
intruder’s head with their talons.


Varieties
Goshawk (SM –3): Goshawks are forest hawks. They have short,
broad, wings and a long tail. The back is dark colored, the breast
white, and the tail sports bold black bars. Goshawks are highly
maneuverable as they fly through brush and between trees.
Their primary prey is birds and mammals that they catch by
surprise with a combination of speed and cover. Goshawks have
Acrobatics at DX+2.

Harrier (SM –4): Harriers are long winged, long tailed hawks
that hunt open areas, such as plains, moors, bogs, and cultivated
fields. They fly low and slow, taking any small animal they can
catch. The females are brown, the males gray-white with dark
wing tips. Harriers have Acute Hearing 2 and Discriminatory
Hearing.

Kite (SM –4): Kites are soaring hawks with a distinctive forked
tail. They fly high and dive on their prey. They eat small mammals
and earthworms, along with the occasional bird, frog, or
lizard. Kites happily scavenge on larger carcasses.

Buzzard (SM –4): Buzzards are broad-winged soaring hawks,
circling high over open land or perching on a tall lookout from
which they scan the ground below. Buzzards have a shrill,
piercing cry.

Falcon (SM –6 to SM –4): Falcons are not true hawks, yet the
two birds are so similar in appearance and behavior that the
Norðlondr do not differentiate them. With their slender, pointed
wings, falcons are fast-flying and agile birds, reaching dizzying
speeds as they stoop on prey. A falcon’s enhanced move quadruples
when diving. Falcons have Acrobatics at DX+2.


An example from the current draft for "Hawk." I do have stats, but they're in a separate spreadsheet because that's much easier to work with when it comes to doing the massive layout task that is part of this book.

Each creature will have art.

If folks have my other books, you know what my monster layout style will be.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by DaosusLeghki

As a subset of this, it indirectly addresses the "there's no GURPS bestiary" complaint many have.

I hope it's more than indirect!

From the introduction:

Using the book in other campaigns
The Dungeon Fantasy RPG is purposefully generic: It is Powered
by GURPS, after all. The Norðlond setting is not generic,
borrowing from the literary tradition of the Viking culture.
The sagas of looting, pillaging, and raiding for wealth and fame
made a natural match for a game with a tag-line of “Smash Evil
for Fun and Profit.”

Even with that in mind, the monsters here can be—and should
be—repurposed and transplanted to other campaigns. Many of
them are thinly disguised transplants from other cosmologies
anyway: The nautamaðr is clearly based on the Minotaur;
the Blóðughúfa, or “bloody hat” is the redcap, a fixture of
Northumbrian folklore, perhaps derived or parallel to the Irish
fear dearg, meaning “red man,” said to wear a red coat and cap.
Animals—normal, giant, and dire—don’t require any work to
move between campaigns. Much as the player characters pillage
loot, GMs should pillage the worked examples here to make their
lives easier when running games in any campaign.

That Other Game
It’s no secret that the leading fantasy roleplaying game, published
through at least five editions over many decades, has a
wealth of material available in print and electronic format. What
could more in keeping with a game based on Vikings than to
pillage that material for adventure ideas and prepared scenarios
when pressed for time? To that end, many of the monsters in the
book given more Norse-flavored names also have a note indicating
what they might be called in That Other Game System. With
that in hand, playing through material simply referencing the
creature stats and using the “fluff text” and idea flow of existing
material becomes much more streamlined.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Well those are all online and not a print copy, many still prefer print.

Well once you have it, you can print it yourself, a common office printer will do it for less than 5 cent the page in black and white or up to 30 Cent for colour. Even regular SJG GURPS stuff can be cheaper in printing out the stuff by yourself ( after buying the PDF of course ), than a hardcover.


I prefer READING print due to bad eyesight and like the texture of paper, but most peole prefer in the long run digital. Because you need less space, can reprint if necessary and marks interesting stuff freely. And if a copy is lost due to accident, relocation to another home and so on you can just print a replace. Not to mention that you always have your whole library with you without breaking your back. a typical RPG fans library over the years grow into shelf meters.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Willy

...but most people prefer in the long run digital

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."

[Armin]

Originally Posted by maximara

I am curious on how this differs from what already exists ie
[snip]
All of which are free?

ART.

Without that, only basic, everyday animals are acceptable. A bestiary with creatures and no art is not useful to me, and I will never look at it again.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Armin

ART.

Without that, only basic, everyday animals are acceptable. A bestiary with creatures and no art is not useful to me, and I will never look at it again.

Thanks for this, by the way. It's an important factor, and the single largest line-item in the cost of making a book such as this. Making it COLOR for maximum impact on page-through is also a factor. And for every person who says "just give me the crunch and don't waste time on art" there are a lot more who won't even pick up a book that doesn't inspire them visually. In fact, some of the better selling products in this vein are systemless, with evocative art, vivid description, and only casual hints at mechanics.

Heck, I remember a fun exchange with an author on one of the books, who more or less said "I didn't think art was important until you showed me the art for my book."

[Polkageist]

All the free stuff reminds me of early Linux installations. Yeah it's free, but you're also all on your own for how to use it, configure it, and make it pleasant to look at and work with.

So yeah, those free versions are like building a Gentoo kernel: useful but hard to use.

There's so much value in having good art, multiple editing passes to catch and clean things up. Text blocks that give usage clues and descriptions, which might not be important mechanically but are fun to read! Having layout that draws your eyes to the important numbers in a clean and easy-to-read format. Things like HP and move speed pop out, and there's the sheer joy of being able to see key attacks in a shaded table so that you can see exactly what to roll at a glance.

I mean, that's one of the reasons I bought the DFRPG books despite already owning the Dungeon Fantasy pdfs. The editing and layout in the DFRPG release is just so, so much easier to use.