Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game -- THE REVIEWS

[PK]

When a review of the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game is posted on these forums, I'll be copying it here. If a review is posted on another site, I'll be linking to it here. If I missed one, please PM me to let me know!

This is a closed thread to avoid tangents and digressions. See the top of each review for a link back to the original post, where you can discuss a specific review.

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PS: If you want to order the box set and/or GM screen from your FLGS, here is a preorder form for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG that you can print and take to them.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

{Original Post: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2117422}

I've made some preliminary comments.

[Refplace]

{Original Post: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2117443}

My Gm may want to use stuff from the adventure or Traps so I have not read them. My comments are on the rest.
GM Screen: Nice layout, and dang if it doesnt cover just about everything. Maneuvers and combat penalties of course but also skill probabilities, modifiers, even the Time modifiers. If its in a table its probably here.
DF Adventures: The new templates are WAY easier to read. I want these to be put in the GURPS Style guide! Starts off describing each class in a sentence or two and is just a nice book, easy to read. Spell lists not included in the templates which saves space and makes them easier to read. GURPS tinkerers should be able to figure out the under the hood bits for most traits pretty quickly. A few I was not sure how they were priced but I did not spend more than a moment trying to figure out the harder ones.
Clean and easy to read for a player with just what the player needs.
Spells: Magic with a lot cut out. No enchantments and no spells that go against the DF guidelines, though there are several Gate spells.
Spells are easy on the eyes in format and list the realm they go to. Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
Exploits: First one I opened after the GM screen. I looked up Slam right off and its easier IMO than the original rules but compatible and reasonable. I have not read the entire book but what I did read looked nice and was organized well. Some may find the skill list daunting but the writer calls out that you can easily trim the list and an index is included by attribute type. So that plus the templates should make it less daunting to newcomers.
Magic Items: Kind of a surprising gem here. It draws on some Pyramid articles as well as DF books and GURPS Magic. Really comprehensive with most of the magic items you could make from Magic in here listed with $$ amount. Plenty of new standard stuff but lots of material useful to casters. The unique items had flavor and were nice as well.
Monsters: A solid variety. This is a good starting bestiary for delvers and provides plenty of standard monsters plus some of the ones more unique to GURPS or an obscure research project. These are written up in the DF stat block format and are easy to use. Skill and damage are included and it would be rare a GM should need to look anything else up to run these guys.
No point totals so they wont work with shape change spells or powers but that is my only complaint. And it wont be an issue from what I can see in the DFRPG anyhow.

Overall I am very happy with the books and look forward to seeing them in print.

[tbone]

{Original Post: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2117606}

ME: "Good morning! Imma do so much today!"
SJG: "O Hai! I haz DFRPG PDFs!"
[later...]
PEOPLE WAITING FOR ME TO DO THINGS: "...Hello?... Where are you all day today?..."

Here's an unwashed handful of observations after initial skimming:

• Templates: Very nice. Much easier to read. Part of it is due to the Magic of Color; how well will the format carry over to B&W books?
  
• No Physician skill? That's a surprise. (I noticed it because of the unusual number of mentions of Esoteric Medicine for healing-related exploits. Well, could be fun...)
  
• Perks aren't named "perks", just presented as advantages with 1-pt costs. Nothing wrong with that.
  
• The Delvers to Go character raised by Orcs doesn't speak Orcish? Well, I guess they were a tribe that spoke Common. No problem.
  
• Delvers to Go nicely includes one of every profession – plus a bonus thief and wizard. Adventurers adds a ready-made knight and cleric. That's 15 ready-to-play PCs!
  
• Talents appear to use alternate benefits from the Power-Ups 3: Talents book instead of Reaction Roll mods (with some sensible exceptions). I much approve.
  
• Nice selection of weapons. I'm glad to see some of the revised stats from Low-Tech and other books (mainly, higher damage for big axes and the like).
  
• Wow, the Armor Table looks a little intimidating. But it includes weights and costs for whole suits, so it's still easy to use for players who don't want to build a suit from pieces. (I'm sure we'll be hearing lots, too, on how the weights are or aren't realistic...)
  
• Need to pay a temple for Repair Dismemberment or Resurrection? The costs are printed right on the character forms. This is portentous... : )
  
• Cardboard Heroes: Looks like a mix of old and new. Well, I'll withhold judgment for the actual physical minis.
  
• The books' art? Hmm... Overall nice, with certain reservations. A topic for another time. (The maps look great!)

[Dragondog]

{Original Post: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2117834}

Here's my review

Delvers To Go: Interesting starting with some quick rules explanations. An overview of how to read the character sheets of the delvers, and then the delvers. Showing us all professions, cat-folk, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, half-ogre, halfling, human. The only race they didn’t include a delver for was half-orc. Characters that go against type and give us some interesting examples of quirks. The elf, Llandor, whose full name we cannot pronounce, apparently can’t pronounce it either as he doesn’t know elven. They also have a variety of genders and ethnicities. And ending with an ad.

Adventurers: They start with a list of skills divided by their governing attribute and how success rolls work, which is a good and useful summary. Some normal introductory stuff to RPGs, DF, and the like; useful for any newcomers. Character creation is pretty much what we are used to, but condensed and better laid out than the Basic Set.

The templates have more space. And though I had no problem reading them, the division into sections can give a quicker overview of its constituent parts. And it seems to me that template specific rules, like Chi and Holiness, to a greater extent is located with the template rather in its own chapter, which will decrease the need to flip back and forth. There are some interesting new traits, especially for Knights.

They explicitly divide weapons into types, though fairly straight forward, still can be very useful. If for no other reason than removing any guesswork. I like the new armor tables, sorted by the type of armor and you don’t have to go to different tables based on hit location to get all the pieces! There’s even an entry for a complete suit so you don’t have to do the math yourself. And letting the player define the look of their armor is just awesome!

There are two more delvers in this volume, a half-orc knight and a human cleric.

Exploits: It starts with some rules reminders. See a pattern here? You find pretty much what you expect. How to use your traits mechanically. What to do in town. How to get to the dungeon. What to do when you get there. What to bring home. And what can happen to you when things go bad. Ending with a number of tables and an example to play.

GM Screen: I haven’t really used a GM’s screen before, so I can’t say much about it. After a quick look through, it seemed to be fairly thorough. I discovered the new Fright Checks rule. And that Complementary Skill rolls have been included from the get go.

Monsters: I made a fairly quick look through of this volume too. Starting with a reminder of some space/map related rules. It gives some good information on how to use monsters and what the traits you can find on the character sheet means. Monsters have been classified and those classes are explained. There is a variety of monsters and though I haven’t looked at the monsters from GURPS DF much, I recognized some of the monsters from those volumes. And I like these dragons more than the dragons in GURPS Dragons! Those dragons were weak. Unfortunately, there was very little art for a bestiary. And I like how they use quotes from the Delvers to illustrate the volume. They end with some 3 x 5 cards for monsters, traps, and diseases/poisons that can be very useful in a paper game (I mostly play digital, so not so much for me).

Cardboard Heroes: Appears to be a nice selection of monsters and heroes.

Traps: A quick look through showed a variety of traps, including a few riddles. This one is black and white.

Magic Items: A nice set of enchantments and expanded tables covering more than what was shown in DF1. Another black and white volume.

[PK]

{Discussion thread for these reviews: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=151621}

Pseudonym is reviewing various elements, one at a time, from both the box set and the additional content:

Cardboard Heroes: http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/0...cardboard.html

Dungeon - I Smell a Rat: http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/0...dungeon-i.html

Traps: https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/...rpg-traps.html

Spells: https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/...pg-spells.html

Magic Items: https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/...gic-items.html

Adventurers: https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/...venturers.html

Monsters: https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/...-monsters.html

Exploits: https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/...-exploits.html

Against the Rat-Men (adventure): https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2017/...g-dungeon.html

[Blind Mapmaker]

{Original Post: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2118025}

I must be mad, but I wrote an 8000+ words review on the box and the GM Screen:

https://blindmapmaker.wordpress.com/...ered-by-gurps/
(caution may contain ads by wordpress, an ad blocker is advised)

Short version: It's a really good introduction to GURPS, very accessible and fun to read. It doesn't contain a whole lot of new material. Still extremely useful for recruiting new GURPS cultists... erm players.

--------joined post--------

Managed to write a (considerably shorter) review of Dungeon Fantasy Traps:

http://blindmapmaker.wordpress.com/2...ered-by-gurps/

(Caution: may contain the hoster's ads. Ad-blocker is advised)

Contains some input by Christopher R. Rice. Thanks for the talk!

[PK]

Peter V. Dell'Orto reviews the box set and bonus content:

http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com...ame-brief.html

[PK]

Colin is reviewing the various Dungeon Fantasy RPG content:

Adventurers: http://justroll3d6.com/dfrpg-review-adventurers/

Exploits: http://justroll3d6.com/dfrpg-review-exploits/

Spells: http://justroll3d6.com/dfrpg-review-spells/

Monsters: http://justroll3d6.com/dfrpg-review-monsters/

Dungeon - I Smell a Rat: http://justroll3d6.com/dfrpg-review-dungeon/

Summary: http://justroll3d6.com/evaluating-dfrpg/

[PK]

Bira reviews the overall set:

https://bira.github.io/octopus-carni...pg-review.html