Dungeon Fantasy: Good or Bad for GURPS?

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

Forgive me for being the new guy and asking, but what's the difference between Dungeon Fantasy and Fantasy? I'm not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I'm all for having more fantasy options, but I'm not quite sure what relationship DF has to Fantasy.

Dungeon Fantasy is highly pared-down GURPS, optimized for D&D-style dungeon crawls. Just enough rules and bare-bones setting to feel like a Gary Gygax production. Connection with Fantasy? Minimal, but possible.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

Forgive me for being the new guy and asking, but what's the difference between Dungeon Fantasy and Fantasy? I'm not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I'm all for having more fantasy options, but I'm not quite sure what relationship DF has to Fantasy.

DF is a guide to playing and running a classic dungeon crawl style game.

Fantasy is a guide to creating a fantasy setting, with lots of material on many styles of fantasy.

[Johnny Angel]

Ok, so DF is GURPS put into (for a lack of better words) a somewhat prepackaged setting with the skills, abilities, equipment, templates, and etc which would be most suitable for such a campaign and without things such as computer programming and guns which have no place in such a campaign. Is that about right?

That sounds like a pretty good thing to me. I'm sure I'd take a lot of ideas of the book because I'm already working on doing something similar using the GURPS products that I have. I'm putting together a fantasy style campaign.

I think a GURPS product which is semi-prepackaged is a great idea. Especially since not all of the D&D crowd (of which I am a member) is exactly thrilled with how D&D's new edition is turning out. I also think that such a product might be less intimidating and a little more accessable to people who are new to the system.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

Forgive me for being the new guy and asking, but what's the difference between Dungeon Fantasy and Fantasy? I'm not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I'm all for having more fantasy options, but I'm not quite sure what relationship DF has to Fantasy.

DF is specifically oriented towards over the top stereotypical Fantasy roleplaying of the sort found in the late 1970s. There is no particular need for reality, explanations of how monsters got into that room, what they live on etc.

To use the example cited above, while Abydos can be made into a DF setting fairly eay by making the people of the ilsnad balackheareted demon worshippin thugs, it can be considerably more sophisticated, where legitimate moral interpretations distinguish undeath from demonic, where the economics of a society that uses zombie labor come into play. Where political and trade intrigues between Abydos and the Empire are concieved and executed.

In DF AlL of that is irrelevant. Just be sure the elf chick in the platemail G-string shows off her legs when she poses over that dragon she whupped.

[Woodman]

There is also the similar Action series, which does the same thing for modern action movies that DF does for dungeon crawling. It hasn't had the output as DF, I assume because DF has proven more popular.

DF 1 and 2 and Action 1 and 2 correspond quite nicely, but the DF 3-5 content doesnt lend itself very well to an Action adaption. Maybe one could do small themed collections of supporting cast NPCs and an Action/Supers crossover could make a good Pyramid article.

And on topic i think DF is a good thing for showing how to tweak all the possible options in GURPS to get a specific kind of game.

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

DF is specifically oriented towards over the top stereotypical Fantasy roleplaying of the sort found in the late 1970s. There is no particular need for reality, explanations of how monsters got into that room, what they live on etc.

To use the example cited above, while Abydos can be made into a DF setting fairly eay by making the people of the ilsnad balackheareted demon worshippin thugs, it can be considerably more sophisticated, where legitimate moral interpretations distinguish undeath from demonic, where the economics of a society that uses zombie labor come into play. Where political and trade intrigues between Abydos and the Empire are concieved and executed.

In DF AlL of that is irrelevant. Just be sure the elf chick in the platemail G-string shows off her legs when she poses over that dragon she whupped.

What I'm trying to do is create something which is a middle ground between that and what I guess would be considered a somewhat realistic Low-Tech Fantasy game. I like pretty much everything you described about DF, but I also want the world to have some internal consistancy and make sense. R. Howard's style with some of Tolkien's world building and a little bit of real world historical combat mixed in.

I'll probably take some elements from the book and use them.

[LynGrey]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

I got into gaming because of D&D like almost - what, 90% of us? Dungeon-crawls are the "gateway drug" to lure youngsters in. They play their WoW and Diablo, maybe some D&D, then a trenchcoated figure comes up and says "Psst! Kid! Since you like that, howsabout a bit of Dungeon Fantasy?" A bit of a nibble, and from the simplified DF rules they're gradually introduced to the whole range of what GURPS has to offer. By the time they hit college, they're total GURPS-heads.

Besides which, DF is fun in and of itself. Don't want to go into deep detail this session? Just drag out your old Keep on the Borderlands module and improv a pleasantly nostalgic game with new flavors and options for a light gaming session.

Summary: Definitely "good".

Hey me and my friends have played the most popular systems, DnD/D20, Shadowrun (old and new), White Wolf (shudder), and Gurps... and we have an analogy with that kind of like yours...

DnD is like the erector set you get as a kid, then Shadowrun is like that first tool box you get as a teen.. you know just a hammer, screwdriver, socket wrench... Gurps is like the the Mechanhics tool box in the shop.. you got eveything you could possible need or don't need.. and WhiteWolf.. well you got a ball of yarn, go have fun.

Or the theme of drugs.. DnD is Weed, Shadowrun is acid, Gurps is Heroine, and Whitewolf is some out of date basil leaves.


But keepin in the theme of the topic.. DF did what Martial Arts did for me... Put our houserules in print :-)

[trooper6]

Dungeon Fantasy? I'm not really into the genre but so what? I have all the DF books, and if I ever run a Fantasy campaign...which I probably will at some point, I'll certainly mine the books for details. I tend to go a bit less cinematic but I'm sure there'll be things for me to use.

In the end, anything that sells copies I think is good for GURPS. GURPS doesn't have to publish exclusively to my tastes. I trust enough that GURPS will continue to publish things I'll be interested in to make me happy. If there are people who love high cinematic dungeon delving...I'm happy there are GURPS books to make them happy too.

The more happy GURPSers, the better.

How could that be bad for GURPS?

[Phantasm]

I particularly don't care for the genre, preferring games with more depth than "go to this place, kill everything, and take their stuff". However, the topic does say "Good or Bad for GURPS" (emphasis mine). As a way to bring people into the system and get them to realize that it's not as complicated as they want to believe, I'd say that it is working.

Now if only I could find more people who want to play something other than sword-and-sorcery. . . .

[griffin]

Originally Posted by b-dog

I'm curious what the average GURPS player thinks about the Dungeon Fantasy series. For me of course I really love it but I am wondering what other people think. Thanks.

Good for GURPS overall but bad for retailers. They really need to work on a softcover book that can be sold at retail. I think DF really helps bring in the D&D crowd, but it doesn't help for say game demo purposes at the Favorite Local Games Store (FLGS) when the product you are demoing is only available by PDF online.

I'd really love to see a softcover DF book released in the not too distant future (say first half of 2010).