Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Discussion Thread

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by lachimba

As for content I don't believe GURPS could release much more.

We already have Martial Arts, Lowtech, several magic systems etc. I really don't believe another five book s on each of those topic are desirable. Already I struggle to remember where advantages and limitations popped up.
I long for GURPS index so I can find everything!

What could come with more customers is colour, limited print runs, software (I long for $10apps to do GURPS work for me eg a build a character app etc)

Also simplifying things is a goal for me too. DFRPG breaks from GURPS by not having the building block model of just one more book. It's like Psionic Powers which boots out Powers, but it's one step more booting out Lowtech, magic, DF books and the basic set. I read people on these forums asking what they need to play GURPS and they get told so many books for any genre. Now when players want to play DF I can give them one (ok maybe two if they are a spellcaster) book. Done.

You're right. There is ALOT of content there. ANd Im looking forward to more!

There are also GCA GCS for software to build a character.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

huh it's doing well in the last day!

I am slightly ashamed to admit that I personally kind of don't want 3 pyramids devoted to DF stuff next year, but hey if it gets people buying Pyramids I'm all for it!

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Don't feel bad. I'm not sure it's a great deal either. And I have 3 articles in SMarsh's DF slush pile.

Yeah, but DF is what sells/has sold. I love the Action! series, but those Pyramids havent done as well I understand. Im just in the minority. So if DF fans can help bouy pyramid till Action! gets a month....Ill wait patiently and enjoy the DF content as well :)

Nymdok

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Probably all of the above and then some. One of GURPS weaknesses has always been that it never offered much support for one particular genre or, especially, for one gameworld. PDF publishing has begun to change that, chiefly in the Dungeon Fantasy line which now has (if I'm counting correctly) 26 supplements plus a lot of Pyramid support.

However, I still see one of Dungeon Fantasy's weaknesses as being it's utter lack of any gameworld and the attending support (adventures, maps, location books, etc). In the heyday of AD&D TSR had several gameworlds it was supporting concurrently. WhiteWolf had one gameworld, but it used many different lenses to view them with (Vampire, Werewolf, etc); and eventually they branched out (Dark Ages, among other "gameworlds").

People who like that kind of support generally go to other publishers and buy all those supplements.

And that's the thing I keep harping on in these kinds of discussions. We are not the target audience for the kinds of products that sell in greater volume. We are a self-selected group that tends to be more interested in creating our own worlds, adventures, campaigns, powers and so on. Look at what makes up the bulk of the threads in this subforum overall.

The much larger bulk of the RPG audience simply isn't interested in the sorts of things we on average like to do. (First of all, simply by virtue of the math, there are probably 3x as many players as there are GMs.) And for whatever it's worth, I think GURPS tends to attract people like us a lot more, precisely because it's more cookbook than ready-to-eat meal. But that means a more limited default audience. GURPS starts the round with a major handicap.

[GM Joe]

I like toolkit RPGs, and GURPS is the only one left that I enjoy that still gets significant support. So, that says a lot to me about what the wider RPG audience is like. I share the hope that the Dungeon Fantasy RPG is a step in the right direction.

(BTW, I'm shocked and saddened that GURPS PDF releases only sell a few hundred copies these days. They're so well-written and thorough, it's a shame they don't have a wider audience.)

As far as people having shelves full of OtherGames' product, the only thing I can add is that I know a lot of folks who really, really like having physical objects to collect. PDFs are great, but they also want to buy a real book, the higher-quality the better. I'm talking about the collector type of RPG enthusiast, here. I don't know how big of a piece of the puzzle that is, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by Kromm

As I said upthread, this project is essentially a lure to bring new people to GURPS. We're appealing to existing GURPS fans for funding because we hope they want the community to grow, which will in turn increase the odds that the game will continue to be published. But we've been completely open about the fact that our target audience is newcomers.

This might be a moot point now that the campaign is almost over, but in the light of the above mentioned, the KS video – the first thing I look at on any project – seems to be directed at not-the-target-audience. If I didn't know GURPS, I'd have had no idea why is it "done the way I like it".

But I know GURPS and praise be onto people who solved the EU shipping costs problem and onto the ones who introduced the shipping discount stretch goals, I was able to afford the boxed set now!
(Btw., isnt' it $15 off already? The project description still says $10).

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

And for whatever it's worth, I think GURPS tends to attract people like us a lot more, precisely because it's more cookbook than ready-to-eat meal. But that means a more limited default audience. GURPS starts the round with a major handicap.

I'm hoping that the DFRPG box set is a chance to turn that around. If the box set does reasonably well once it enters normal distribution, planning to follow it up with an in-print Dungeon Delving gameworld and a couple PDF supplements supporting that gameworld would be a considerably different direction than SJGames has ever taken with GURPS, and could bring in new gamers. Following that up with another Box Set for a different genre, and some gameworld support for that genre, I think would open a lot of eyes (and while we discussed a few of those possibilities upthread, the popular examples of those genre's always have some kind of gameworld attached to them).

Lets face it, 7th Sea and V20 and Scion aren't attraction half-million or million dollar kickstarters because their rules are unbelievably better than the other options - they're attracting it because of the gameworlds that those game rules live in (and, to some extent, the fond memories they bring back).

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

In the heyday of AD&D TSR had several gameworlds it was supporting concurrently.

And it killed them. I've talked with people who were working at TSR at that time, and they said supporting half a dozen worlds with releases monthly or bimonthly split their focus way too finely. It was great for consumers, but ultimately it was one reason they didn't have any reserves when Random House dumped all the novels.

[A Ladder]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Yeah, but DF is what sells/has sold. I love the Action! series, but those Pyramids havent done as well I understand. Im just in the minority. So if DF fans can help bouy pyramid till Action! gets a month....Ill wait patiently and enjoy the DF content as well :)
Nymdok

I love the Action! series and really wish there was more support. But as, was brought up in a previous thread, Action! covers so many bases that you just need to throw in a general assumption about the world and you already have an Action! game (Modern day SEALs, vs Wild West, vs Space Opera).

SEALs just needs an assumption that the PCs are super badass and have a powerful government behind them.

Wild West just needs horses and lower tech guns/armor and you got that game (minimal stripping of templates).

Space Opera is the hardest in that you need Psi Powers and Space Ships, but I just took stats right out of Basic and made my own Powers and I'm going to run that campaign in a few weeks.

A personal reason why I didn't bother with the pyramids is that they only had a few sections that appealed to me. In effect, why spend the same price as a fully 32 page source book (A1 or A2) to get 6 pages of support?


Back to DF: I guess I'm in the minority of posters who now makes more money and spends more money on game materials. I love that there is physical copies of the DF books. I can finally spread a quality looking product vs a janky binder filled with printed PDFs around the table. I hope now that my players will read the rules instead of asking me what something does.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

And it killed them. I've talked with people who were working at TSR at that time, and they said supporting half a dozen worlds with releases monthly or bimonthly split their focus way too finely. It was great for consumers, but ultimately it was one reason they didn't have any reserves when Random House dumped all the novels.

And I'm not saying that SJGames should be supporting a half-dozen gameworlds with GURPS (unless GURPS suddenly gets rabidly popular). However, having two or three gameworlds in three different major genre's would be a good thing in my mind. It seemed to do pretty well when SJGames tried it with WWII and Traveller, and I think it can work well again if you can hit on the right combination. WWII and Traveller, however, missed out on one of those things that often times drives fans - the support, growth, and continuation of meta-plot within the gameworld.

I think the "box set" idea, simplifying and streamlining the toolkit rulebook, is a huge step in the right direction for that kind of support. However, I also think that this misfires somewhat unless you can take it past genre and into gameworlds, because that's what attracts the truly rabid fans.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

And it killed them. I've talked with people who were working at TSR at that time, and they said supporting half a dozen worlds with releases monthly or bimonthly split their focus way too finely. It was great for consumers, but ultimately it was one reason they didn't have any reserves when Random House dumped all the novels.

That's one of those cases where the short term disaster probably led to the long term success, by virtue of the ubiquity and diversity of the brand.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

And I'm not saying that SJGames should be supporting a half-dozen gameworlds with GURPS (unless GURPS suddenly gets rabidly popular). However, having two or three gameworlds in three different major genre's would be a good thing in my mind. It seemed to do pretty well when SJGames tried it with WWII and Traveller, and I think it can work well again if you can hit on the right combination; and I think the "box set" idea, simplifying and streamlining the toolkit rulebook, is a huge step in the right direction for that kind of support.

I would love to see Banestorm resurrected as a going concern. DF and "regular" fantasy could find easy fits there, and there's an existing catalogue of backstory about the setting.

And the Infinite Worlds is your boilerplate GURPS setting. It deserves extra love.

I'd enjoy seeing a Transhuman Space explosion but the setting, while brilliant and rich, is not sufficiently typical of a sci-fi/space genre to get everyone's jimmies dancing.