Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Discussion Thread

[tbone]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Why is that a surprise? Physician is a TL5+ skill while DF is generally pretty solidly TL4 with magic.

In that case, I'm surprised to (re-)learn that Physician is only TL5+. (One of those "knew and then forgot" things.)

A check of BS confirms that for Ye Olde Times games, Pharmacy (Herbal) and Esoteric Medicine are indeed the available choices. Further checking: DF Adventurers and Dungeons contain no mention of Physician. So, DFRPG is right on target in leaving it out. (And in addition to Esoteric Medicine, DFRPG does offer Diagnosis, First Aid, Pharmacy, and Surgery, so that's more than enough to keep the Town sawbones, barbers, herbalists, and quacks busy.)

(While on the topic: I don't think Physician at TL 4- sounds odd. Then again, in Europe-ish backgrounds, realistic Physician/TL3 might as well be Esoteric Medicine (European). "Some sort of ailment, you say? Bleed him!" GURPS' approach sounds reasonable enough to me.)

[tbone]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'd rather not have to listen to the players using broken English for the entire campaign.

Speaking of which: Among DFRPG's ready-made delvers, Argua and Miao Miao have nonstandard ways of speaking. Maybe quirky enough to count as Accented, in the case of Miao Miao; and Broken, or close to it, for Argua.

There's nothing on the character forms that accounts for this. (That includes Argua's Social Stigma (Savage); there's nothing preventing someone with that disad from being perfectly eloquent, as Grükuk Kzaash demonstrates.)

Is this a problem? No. Call it a bit of fun personalization, which of course is a good thing. It just made me think that Argua's speech, in particular, would have offered a good opportunity to demonstrate a character with less-than-Native language ability (or some exotic Native language, plus Accented or Broken Common language).

No big deal. (I'll just telepathically send newbie GMs a note that, since Argua doesn't have any disad or other traits suggesting funny speech, any conversation between her and others is assumed to be fully fluent and understood in both directions; the "Hulk smash!" feel is just a special effect.)



Incidentally, a tangent: Anyone notice that all 15 pre-gens have Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions)? Interesting. It's a nice detail, IMO: If the typical group is (probably) going to play in classic "watch each other's backs" style – buff the fighter who needs it, save the scout from the troll nest, etc. – then the PCs might as well take the available points for that.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'd rather not have to listen to the players using broken English for the entire campaign.

You make your players speak in Accents? I actively discourage that.



Unless they are really good at it.

Originally Posted by tbone

While on the topic: I don't think Physician at TL 4- sounds odd. Then again, in Europe-ish backgrounds, realistic Physician/TL3 might as well be Esoteric Medicine (European). "Some sort of ailment, you say? Bleed him!" GURPS' approach sounds reasonable enough to me.

I agree. I've always allowed Physician at all TLs.

[MIB.6361]

Originally Posted by tbone

Incidentally, a tangent: Anyone notice that all 15 pre-gens have Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions)? Interesting. It's a nice detail, IMO: If the typical group is (probably) going to play in classic "watch each other's backs" style – buff the fighter who needs it, save the scout from the troll nest, etc. – then the PCs might as well take the available points for that.

I'm happy about that. I made all of my DF PCs take it (or if they didn't, I told them I'd hold them to it anyway and they wouldn't get the additional points) to prevent any sort of in-fighting or back-stabbing.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Interesting. I tried imcognito mode and it worked fine

Incognito does not disable things like scripting and flash. It's not "secure", it's just "keeping a separate pile of cookies that we'll shred at the end of the session".

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by lachimba

works fine in Australia too

Also in Spain, Europe.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by tbone

Speaking of which: Among DFRPG's ready-made delvers, Argua and Miao Miao have nonstandard ways of speaking. Maybe quirky enough to count as Accented, in the case of Miao Miao; and Broken, or close to it, for Argua.

Argua is actually pretty fluent in most of her quotes - check out her long description of Ogres in the Monsters book, for example. I'd peg her as less consistently distinctive than Miao Miao.

I've always played my favorite idiot barbarian minotaur Mrugnak with a rather distinct speech pattern, but he came from D&D and spoke like that even when under the effect of translation spells. He also had an INT of 3 and a CHA of 4 - that's why I had him talk funny. The net result seems to actually make him strangely charming to PCs so I think I failed on the CHA front, but that's a side point.

In GURPS I give Mrugnak Accented comprehension of the common language, and still attribute most of his speech problems to being an idiot. Argua's a bit thick but IQ 9 is like, 12 year old, not toddler; she really does seem to have an extra quirk about using the first person singular more than anything.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by tbone

Incidentally, a tangent: Anyone notice that all 15 pre-gens have Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions)? Interesting. It's a nice detail, IMO: If the typical group is (probably) going to play in classic "watch each other's backs" style – buff the fighter who needs it, save the scout from the troll nest, etc. – then the PCs might as well take the available points for that.

I think it's very good to promote co-operative play as the default assumption, and this is a good little nudge in that direction. It's not mandatory on the templates, giving DFRPG the flexibility to handle more prickly parties. But for a group of strangers grabbing random pre-generated characters at a demo game in a store or whatever, I think it's a very good idea to push them to work together.

[Dragondog]

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.

[evileeyore]

Magic Items: It's nice to finally see Resist Acid and Fireproof as armor enchantments.