After a bit of a recess, it’s time to report more impressions of Steve Jackson Games’ boxed Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG). (“After a bit of a recess”? All my posts are bookended by recesses longer than the lives of small animals.) This installment comments on goodies outside the core five books: the maps and Cardboard Heroes included in the DFRPG box, and the separately sold DFRPG GM Screen and its included booklets. I think I have enough notes for one more installment after this, covering meta-level observations about the game. For now, let’s gaze upon those stand-up heroes as they adventure across those lovely maps. (Recap: Part I offered miscellaneous…
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The talented thief: Stealing the spotlight in GURPS and DFRPG
You know how it goes. You think “Hey, I’ll toss out some quick new Talents for thief characters”… and the next thing you know, it’s an essay on where weaknesses lie in the fantasy thief template, why you would want to nab more Talents, what’s already available, how new ones should be designed, how much your thief should spend on them, what else can boost the profession… Yeesh, it’s already looking like some unsolicited (and low-rent) first draft of Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves down there. Well, this article may not be the shortest thing you read today, but it’ll slip you a swag bag of valuable (?) new Talents for characters (even…
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Dungeon Fantasy RPG: The Notes (Part III)
On to Part III of thoughts upon exploring Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, the latest “powered by GURPS” wonder from Steve Jackson Games. Part I offered miscellaneous notes on the Adventurers book. Part II focused on Adventurers‘ catalog of skills. Here in Part III, I look briefly at the remaining four books found in the game box. Exploits Unless I’m missing it, DFRPG doesn’t offer Optional Rule: Extra Effort in Combat from GURPS (BS p. 357). That’s a bit too bad, as the rule is useful for letting fighter-types burn off FP for nifty minor combat boosts, which in turn means more tactical options and more resource management fun. Well, like a lot of rules bits, it’s an easy thing…
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Dungeon Fantasy RPG: The Notes (Part II)
It’s Part II of a scattershot passel of notes on Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, the GURPS-based all-in-one game that everyone’s talking about. (They are. You just can’t hear them all the time.) Part I offered miscellaneous notes on the Adventurers book. This installment focuses on Adventurers‘ catalog of skills, a key component of a DFRPG character. Part III and later will look at additional books and other facets of the game. (Abbreviations: “DFRPG” is Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game; “DF” is Dungeon Fantasy, SJG’s “full” series of dungeoneering books for use with the regular GURPS Basic Set.) Skills in Adventurers A farewell to skills DFRPG pares down the GURPS skill list…
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Dungeon Fantasy RPG: The Notes (Part I)
ME the other day: “Good morning! Imma do so much today!” SJG: “O Hai! I haz DFRPG in the mailz!” [later…] Everyone around me: “…Hello?… You still alive?…” Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game is real, and it’s pretty spectacular. There are plenty of reviews of this GURPS-based, back-to-hack-n-slash offering from Steve Jackson Games; you’ll find a list of reviews here. I’m offering the lazy man’s variant of the review: an unwashed handful of disjointed observations. Part I is small: thoughts on part of DFRPG‘s Adventurers book. Part II will wrap up that book with a lot of notes on skills, one of the key components of any GURPS/DFRPG adventurer. Part III…
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Beware the assassin’s blade
DFRPG idea: “Assassin’s weapons”. Has small notches, grooves, etc. on blade, supposedly to carry more poison. Probably not real, but let it be in game.Add cost to blade. Gives +1 to Poisons roll to use extra poison (Practical Poisoning, Exploits p58). Also lets poison survive 4, not 3, blocked its (Adventurers p116). However, Armory (Melee Weapons) +5 roll (= IQ) makes purpose clear; gives negative reactions! You may have heard of the “assassin’s weapon” or “assassin’s blade” or some such: a blade etched with grooves that help carry poison and more effectively deliver it to the target. This isn’t necessarily something that was used in real life (or so I’ve…
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As good as done: New Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) perks for GURPS
GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks introduced a new perk that I loved immediately: Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). This one-point beauty lets you specify some task or action that your character performs as a matter of course, even off-screen – reloading weapons (good for action heroes), sitting with your back to a wall (good for paranoid heroes), and many more – without your having to say that the PC performs the action. “Cool”, I thought. “It’s automation for characters.” There aren’t a lot of SOPs offered in Perks, but they’re easy and fun to think up. Here’s a giant handful of SOPs to keep your PC busy, on and off screen. But first,…
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Idea Pot: Earn-as-you-go disadvantages for GURPS
In a game like GURPS, what do you get for saddling a PC with a disadvantage? A more interesting character, of course, but also a more immediate benefit: instant character points you can spend on stuff that makes you awesome. Not everyone’s crazy about how that works, though. Like this SJG forum commenter: I don’t like buying disadvantages at character build time… I’d much prefer a system (or option) which rewards disadvantages as they come up during play rather than as a big chunk of bonus points beforehand. Hmm. Could that work in GURPS? I think it could. Even better, I think it could work alongside the game’s tried and…
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Books we want: An updated GURPS LITE
Do we really need a new GURPS LITE? No. There may be lots of books we’d like to see updated (or created), but nothing about GURPS LITE demands a new version. It has always been, and still is, a well-made and perfectly playable introduction to GURPS. A read through the work, though, suggests a number of ideas for small improvements, additions, and, yes, subtractions. Even if none of those are pressing, LITE has been out there for a whole bunch of years. With LITE as the first GURPS that many people will see – and the only GURPS they’ll see if they aren’t impressed – isn’t it worth revisiting the…
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Magical mystery tours: Three GURPS Dungeon Fantasy adventure seeds for bards
Three… bardventures? No. Let’s not do that. What we have here is simply three adventure seeds that highlight PCs of the musical persuasion, though of course other Dungeon Fantasy professions may be involved. The scenarios came up while I was writing Dungeon Fantasy: The Musical! feat. Bards, a look at all things bardic that could go into a future Bards installment in the Dungeon Fantasy Denizens series. I didn’t include the storylines in that article because the Denizens series doesn’t deal in adventure seeds, and because no one would use these ideas anyway. But what the heck. They do no good sitting in my slush pile. So here you go: a…
