GURPS does dungeon crawl?

[CraigR]

I ran a GURPS 3e group through Keep On The Borderlands about 10 years ago, and I'm in a group going through the same Cave of Chaos currently (4th edition game).

There are minor differences, of course: I used the original module for my source material, and my GM now is using the rewrite for Hackmaster (and we went through module B1: In Search Of The Unknown before it). It's been quite comedic.

[DAT]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I guess it's been a while, but it's not that bad. The caves of chaos are populated by: a goblin tribe, a hobgoblin tribe, a bugbear tribe, a gnoll tribe, a kobold tribe and two tribes of orcs, ignoring the minotaur, evil cultists and whatever else I forgot. EVERY single tribe is at war with the majority of the others. The two orc tribes fight each other, but have a semi-truce when needed. The kobolds are on their own, as are the gnolls and bugbears(who serve as occasional mercenaries with the other tribes), while the goblins and hobgoblins are allied.

The module points out that these guys are constantly feuding, and clever players can take advantage of this.

The kobold pit trap seemed to have gotten everyone, but what usually screwed people when I ran the module was the Orc's net trap.

I also remember the ogre (my group's first encounter in the caves), the oozes(sp?)/slimes (we ran away), the rats, the stirges, the medusa, the skeletons, the zombies, and the wight.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I still don't think so. What you need is the player or module designers description of the NPC to round out the numbers. Character has a CHA 18 but the designer describes him as merely attractive, but with a magnetic personality? Character has Attractive appearance and CHA 4. Tada.

You can't convert just based on character statistics, especially in D&D where much of the stuff on a GURPS character sheet is left entirely to back-story and description, ie "Fluff text".

This is assuming the fluff text tells you something actually useful or doesn't give you conflicting pieces of information. Take Lolth for example who in Deities & Demongods and Queen of the Demonweb Pits (Q1) had CHA 3 (23) for her half-spider and drow elf female forms respectively. Problem is neither pieces of fluff text tells you anything about how good a leader she is.

IIRC the DMG1 used Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler as example of high CHA; problem Julius Caesar only got a Charisma +1 and Adolf didn't get any but rather the skills Performance-16, Psycology-16, and Bard-15. In short mechanicly D&D could not tell if somebody really had CHA or was using a series of related skills to fake it.

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by Smirg

Probably the most famous example is Petra, the ruins of an ancient city mostly carved into the sides of canyon walls.

The only recent and active (almost wholly) underground town I know of is Coober Pedy in the australian outback, where they are mining opals and it's just too damn hot to live above ground (and when they are digging most of the time anyway...).
They even have underground churches, which might be the location for a dungeon crawl. :D

Don't forget the salt mines in Russia that had everything underground from churches to hospitals to barracks.

And I have about 30 dungeon crawls in my game world. I just don't make them the central plot point. Exp: Jhim, Boris (the burner), and Carl walk into Bendel. They stay the night at Meldain's House of Flowers and, while relaxing in the bar with the pretty girl of his choice on his arm, Jhim hears a rousing tale of the destruction of Beleth and the rumors of what was left behind.

Now the stage is set. Intrigued, Jhim catches the storyteller before he leaves and asks about Beleth. The stroyteller, GM plot device, now gives a little more detail about what the rumors are and where the ruins of Beleth can be found. Jhim tells his friends and they discuss the possibilities and eventually decide to go and see if it lives up to the rumors.

I'll give my players the opportunity to do dungeon crawls, but they have to choose to do them. The Halls of Beleth has some very interesting consequences that a couple of my groups have suffered.

I see GURPS: Dungeneer as being Maguic, Fantasy, Bestiary, and a gear book rolled into one. With discuusions on the hows and whys of dungeon making, including ecologies.

[demonsbane]

And then, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy came to being ;)

[maximara]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

And then, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy came to being ;)

Kind of made the whole convert D&D to GURPS thing a little redundant didn't it?