GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3 now available!

[Lonewulf]

Cha-ching, babeh!

[Icelander]

'tis mine, though I know not why.

I've read it and didn't find a single thing I found useful. Multiclassing rules? In GURPS? And the reason why we can't just buy some of the abilities of a different template?

The racial templates were... well, racial templates for Dungeon Crawling. Simple, direct and could have been whipped up for any player who wanted one in about 1-2 minute each. Don't get me wrong, I do believe in getting game designers to do my dirty work so I can focus on more fun stuff, but the point is that all of these templates fail to simulate the races in question well enough for me to bother with them. I want more detail in templates, not less. The only GURPS books with templates that I've found satisfactorily in the least was the 3e Special Ops and maybe a couple of Hans' work in 4e.

I loved the advice on running dungeon crawls in installments 1 and 2. I didn't find anything useful in the short postscript for advancement here. Plain vanilla we could have done ourselves.

Where were the complex Advantage sets set up to simulate various high-level abilities? They could have been here, but instead we get Two-Weapon Fighting which turns out to be Dual-Weapon Attack at maximum level + the Off-Hand Weapon Fighting Perk. With enough knowledge to run even a simple game, we knew that. I want someone to do the math and write-out for a Powers-style Meteor Swarm (because GURPS magic doesn't have anything like it), Sense Secret Doors (Dungeon Fantasy style), Stonecunning, Wall of Force/Iron/Stone. I can do all of that, but it requires some time and math, whereas Two-Weapon Fighting doesn't.



The only thing I did enjoy was the writing style and light-hearted approach.

[Lonewulf]

Icelander, that was a very scathing review. While I feel that you may have ruined this for me before I ever actually read the supplement, I do have to admit that at least your points were logical and explained well... >.>

Just want to say that before I strangle you for ruining it for me before I even read it.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

(...) Just want to say that before I strangle you for ruining it for me before I even read it.

I remain unaffected and happy. I think DF 3 remains in line with what I expected.

[dravenloft]

Maybe we should burn the heretic? Just a little? Maybe only around the edges? Maybe we'll get CP for it :D
(sorry Icelander. I'm in a weird mood)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Plain vanilla we could have done ourselves.

Perhaps . . . but it took weeks to do, so I'm guessing that those who think their time is worth more than, say, 10 cents/hour will get their money's worth out of it. And hey, it's $7.95 despite being 12-13 pages longer than the other two, so if you don't think templates are worth as much, well, you didn't pay as much for them. FFI, though, DF is intended to be template-driven, so future items will only have more templates, lenses, and advancement options. If you have time for freeform points, you don't need DF.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I want someone to do the math and write-out for a Powers-style Meteor Swarm (because GURPS magic doesn't have anything like it), Sense Secret Doors (Dungeon Fantasy style), Stonecunning, Wall of Force/Iron/Stone.
The only thing I did enjoy was the writing style and light-hearted approach.

Probably never in the DF series. It's commited to the magic-as-spells approach, and saves powers for "innates."

[Mailanka]

The racial templates were... well, racial templates for Dungeon Crawling. Simple, direct and could have been whipped up for any player who wanted one in about 1-2 minute each.

Yeah, except people who complained about the lack of races in Adventurers couldn't even be bothered to look up the elven and dwarven template in the core book, let alone make up their own.

It looks to me like DF: 3 was made to address what some felt were shortcomings. Most complaints about DF was that it didn't dumb things down enough, so perhaps Kromm is making life even easier for our "grab'n'go" GURPS players (as opposed to us who love to sit around tinkering)

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The racial templates were... well, racial templates for Dungeon Crawling. Simple, direct and could have been whipped up for any player who wanted one in about 1-2 minute each.
(...)
I want more detail in templates, not less. The only GURPS books with templates that I've found satisfactorily in the least was the 3e Special Ops and maybe a couple of Hans' work in 4e.
(...)
Plain vanilla we could have done ourselves.
(...) let me say that I'm sure the book is useful to someone. Someone entirely new to GURPS might get use from it, for example, and my room-mate, who is trying to learn the rules, might try to use it to run a simple Dungeon Crawl.
(...)
I want someone to do the math and write-out for a Powers-style Meteor Swarm (because GURPS magic doesn't have anything like it), Sense Secret Doors (Dungeon Fantasy style), Stonecunning, Wall of Force/Iron/Stone. I can do all of that, but it requires some time and math, whereas Two-Weapon Fighting doesn't.

That's so geeky...

I am very good at racial design, too, and familiar with Martial Arts, but I feel no need to let the world know; and I don't think less of GURPS players who are not as confident as me with advanced rules, template building and so on.

Don't take me wrong, but you seem to have an elitarian approach which, in my opinion, is extremely rare among "actual" GURPS players (as opposed to "expert, technical-minded GMs" who populate this forum).

You write that you want more detail in templates... well you are probably the only one :)
I like details, and I can build an extremely detailed racial or occupational template, listing dozens of traits and skills... and then, I'll better throw it away and create something simpler that might be actually useful in play.

I like the Dungeon Fantasy series, I think its scope is to be a fast, light-hearted, hack-n-slash game, and I think it manages to do so very nicely.

I don't care about how to replicate exactly Meteor Swarm in GURPS terms, and I am happy to focus more on play than on power-building (GURPS Powers: the most detailed, comprehensive and BORING book of all time).

I really hope that SJG people don't take into account "advices" like yours about how GURPS should be, or the game will soon lose its (already small) niche of players, becoming an overcomplicated, useless world- and power-building tools for bored GMs...

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Lupo

That's so geeky...

Didn't you know? Geeky is the new jock.

Originally Posted by Lupo

Don't take me wrong, but you seem to have an elitarian approach which, in my opinion, is extremely rare among "actual" GURPS players (as opposed to "expert, technical-minded GMs" who populate this forum).

The ideas that bridges should be designed by actual engineers and laws should be formulated by actual lawyers are both 'elitist'. Yet I see nothing wrong with either.

The idea that those who are best at working with the rules should be the ones to do it isn't designed to exclude anyone, it's a logical extension of the human tendency to specialise.

Originally Posted by Lupo

I like details, and I can build an extremely detailed racial or occupational template, listing dozens of traits and skills... and then, I'll better throw it away and create something simpler that might be actually useful in play.

Why would detailed templates not be useful in play? I'd think that doing the work before you play would help play move smoother, as opposed having to do it while you play.

Originally Posted by Lupo

I don't care about how to replicate exactly Meteor Swarm in GURPS terms, and I am happy to focus more on play than on power-building (GURPS Powers: the most detailed, comprehensive and BORING book of all time).

Why do you assume that just because something exist, you have to use it? Being able to reproduce Meteor Swarms in GURPS is useful if you need to do it, but having that ability in no way makes it incumbent upon you to use it. In fact, if you wish, you don't need to use any book.

But don't assume that because you don't like the added complexity, no one else will.

Originally Posted by Lupo

I really hope that SJG people don't take into account "advices" like yours about how GURPS should be, or the game will soon lose its (already small) niche of players, becoming an overcomplicated, useless world- and power-building tools for bored GMs...

Different people want different things. In my own personal experience, some people want a very artificial experience that is recognisably a game and operates exclusively on its own internal logic, with no connection to real world logic. This is the tack taken by World of Warcraft and D&D.

Other people want a consistent set of rules capable of modelling real world physics.

GURPS aims at both groups.

But while it's easy to not use certain rules if you feel they're too complex, it's not as easy to use rules which don't exist. Therefore, if you must err on either side, it's better to err on the side of having too much complexity available than too little.

[KDLadage]

Icelander:

I agree with you on the "engineers should build bridges; lawyers should deal with laws" and all that.

But, if GURPS has a flaw (and it does, I assure you) then one of the bigger ones when it comes to new players is the sheer volume of the number of skills in the game.

Templates are great. But there comes a time when the amount of detail they present can get so high, that the big picture is lost. Think of it like when you continue to zoom in on a Fractal Image... you see the details, but lose the image; you can no longer see the forest, because all of these trees are in your way.

In my very humble opinion, the skills list in the DF series should have been reduced to 15-25 wildcard skills (perhaps as high as 30, but no more than that) and left at that. The templates should have had the levels in those 15-25 skills; all rolls in a DF game would be using those 15-25 skills, and no others. Keep it simple. Very, very simple.

I can remember the reactions to the templates in Black Ops... (or the proto-tempaltes from the original Special Ops) those things were monsters... There comes a time when the tool comes far too complex to make the job you are trying to complete any easier than it would have been prior to using the tool in the first place.

Not saying it was reached.... but I believe it has gotten pretty darned close.

IMVHO.