Old-School D&D style game

[soulnafein]

Hello there,

A local Old School RPG group found itself without a d&d GM. They generally play D&D and/or traveller.
I've suggested that I'm happy to run a few old-school dungeons using GURPS.

Obviously Dungeon Fantasy came to mind but two things put me off it in this situation:

1) 250 points characters are complex for beginners
2) Old school 1st level characters aren't that complex

I'm really keen to let GURPS shine so other things I need to figure out:

1) Progression (what's a good progression rate for such a game?
2) Adventure: can you suggest an old published D&D adventure that doesn't involve too many different type of creatures (lots of conversion work) and that they would enjoy?
3) Anything else I should think about and I'm not?

Thank you guys!

[Nereidalbel]

1. 250 points isn't that complex when using templates
2. DF is ~lvl 5-6 in D&D, which is only a couple murder hobo adventures into most campaigns anyway.
3. ~10 points/session works out ok for D&D leveling.
4. Can't help ya too much on that one, but, some DF players rather enjoy Yrth as their setting. Comes with a nice timeline of events and such.
5. We'll get back to ya on this one!

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

1. 250 points isn't that complex when using templates

... And survivability is important. That said, 250 point GURPS Df template characters obviously aren't going to play the same way as 1st level AD&D or D&D3 characters. Probably not like 4th or 5th Edition D&D characters either.

[T.K.]

I saw some discussion on this matter a while back and the general consensus was that 1lvl in D&D would roughly translate to 50-ish pts in Gurps.

The problem though, is that Gurps can't really be measured by points alone. The rule options used and accessible to players, where those points are spent and a lot more plays a much bigger role defining "power" in Gurps.

It's the same old same old 250pts librarian against the 50pts fighter.

What I'll be doing in my soon to start high fantasy campaign is award 1 XP point each session and 30-ish XP pts for completions (quests, archs, major objectives, finish dungeons...)

That way they know they're increasing each session (like Gurps normally is) and also have big bursts of power (like D&D levels).

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Carlos

My only "complain", however, is that unarmed martial arts don't receive enough love, despite the fact that not only D&D but many other games presents monks that use his bare hands in their whacking way. I may be wrong, but at least for what I recall from my PMs/posts to Kromms about unarmed martial artists, it seems he thinks that such character is a foolish way to be a martial artists. Again, I may be wrong.

He largely does; apparently it's just not a concept he was regularly exposed to in his gaming history (videogame or otherwise) - at least as competing on equal ground with armed characters. And IRL it's kinda nutty.

It does seem to be basically a special trope of D&D and co. and some kinds of anime/manga (not all - most unarmed friendly settings have everyone unarmed with optional superpowers, not a mixture).

BUT! There was a bit of complaining about the subject on the forum here, which I think brought it up to Kromms and Peter Del'Orto's attention (he'd been on the same page as Kromm AFAIK), and ho, Pyramid to the rescue!

Pyramid vol3 #61 Way of the Warrior has the article "More Power to Dungeon Warriors" (by Peter and Sean) lavishes much attention on the Monk template.

Another idea floated about has been to make a metatrait bundling a vow to fight unarmed and another to fight unarmoured (which is a pretty BIG problem in DF, even more so than real life what with the toxic goop, acid-skinned slimes, man-eating swarms, and so forth). You'd combine them with... something (the suggestion I've seen is the Imbue advantage, possibly limiting it to folks with those disadvantages and even applying Pact to boot).

[Dragondog]

There's one DF adventure, Mirror of the Fire Demon, that you can find at http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...the-fire-demon. No conversions needed.

Kromm has made a few posts that could be useful. In http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...885#post751885 he suggests 50 points + 50 points per level, which would make 250 points a level 4 character.

In http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=84477&page=4 he says that not wearing armor is a -10 point vow as there are spells that grant DR. Not using any DR whatsoever would be -15 points.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Another idea floated about has been to make a metatrait bundling a vow to fight unarmed and another to fight unarmoured (which is a pretty BIG problem in DF, even more so than real life what with the toxic goop, acid-skinned slimes, man-eating swarms, and so forth). You'd combine them with... something (the suggestion I've seen is the Imbue advantage, possibly limiting it to folks with those disadvantages and even applying Pact to boot).

Ideall, the combined Pact of No Weapons and No Worn Armour should act as a Power Modifier on a bunch of advantages, such as lots of Striking ST, Enhanced Dodge, DR with a Conscious/Aware Only Limitation (to represent actively rolling with blows) and so forth.

In fact given that some of those levelled traits are quite cheap themselves, Stroking ST Limited to Unarmed Only, and levels of Hard To Kill (as well as severely Limited levels of DR), it might be possible to gather all of them into a (levelled) Meta-Trait so that the Pact PM can more fully be applied to them. But that might be a bit cheesey, and even if it's not deemed cheesy it's very important not to apply the PM twice. For a typical PM little damage is done but I imagine this PM is going to be -25% or thereabouts.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by soulnafein

Hello there,

A local Old School RPG group found itself without a d&d GM. They generally play D&D and/or traveller.
I've suggested that I'm happy to run a few old-school dungeons using GURPS.

As I recently found out, Dungeon Fantasy does "old school" Dungeons and Dragons better than Dungeons and Dragons. I think you'll think the same after a few sessions.

Originally Posted by soulnafein

1) 250 points characters are complex for beginners

Not really. While you can't put a DnD level to GURPS points, the templates as listed are probably between 5th and 7th level. When I GMed D&D I rarely started characters below 4 levels and I only remember two GMs who started at level one in nearly 25 years of gaming. That said the "leveling up" dynamic for GURPS is so radically different from D&D that players might actually become frustrated if you start them off at "low level" and use the guidelines for normal advancement (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level, p. 42).

Originally Posted by soulnafein

2) Old school 1st level characters aren't that complex

No, but they really aren't that much fun either. It's incredibly annoying to play a 1d4 HP mage and die requring you to create a new character. That said, check out GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen for lower value characters.

Originally Posted by soulnafein

1) Progression (what's a good progression rate for such a game?

To keep it similiar to D&D I'd offer up at least twice what is listed in DF3 so you can "level up" every session.

Originally Posted by soulnafein

2) Adventure: can you suggest an old published D&D adventure that doesn't involve too many different type of creatures (lots of conversion work) and that they would enjoy?

I always liked Expedition to the Barrier Peaks myself, but Against the Cult of the Reptile God might work better if you use lower-point value characters.

Originally Posted by soulnafein

3) Anything else I should think about and I'm not?

I have a ton of worked up critters on my blog which might prove helpful.

[soulnafein]

Thank you for the quick a useful answers.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

As I recently found out, Dungeon Fantasy does "old school" Dungeons and Dragons better than Dungeons and Dragons. I think you'll think the same after a few sessions. [snip]

+1. I wasn't all that keen on D&D before my GURPS group ran our dungeon tribute game for Gary Gygax seven years ago, and now I use (some variation on) GURPS DF templates and rules for probably half of the games I run, including my current one, because it's such an effective way to ease people into high-powered violent fantasy, even if they're a little iffy on the rules.

ETA: Obligatory link to Mailanka's excellent Homebrew Monster thread.