GURPS Fantasy / Dungeon Fantasy (and beyond)

[dbm]

There is a GURPS PDF which guides a GM through setting up a campaign and optional rules to hit the key notes of a specific narrative inspiration you want to emulate - GURPS Adaptions.

And I personally think GURPS has a good level of support for roleplaying. Again, there is a whole book on Social Engineering.

 

[pawsplay]

I really struggled with understanding Dungeon Fantasy at first, it just seemed so snarky and parodic. I did eventually gain the understanding it wasn't explicitly inspired by old school dungeoneering, but primarily on Diablo-like games and fantasy board games, with D&D and CRPGs being a secondary influence. That helped a little, but I still think the writing could have used an editor, to edit the editor. It was hard to read the rules over all the snickering. And it basically ruled out plenty of classic D&D bits in the format; for instance, halflings are all kleptomaniacs. Which, I guess is funny to Sean Punch, but to me, it was just, why print stats for halfling characters at all?

 

[Paragon Lost]

I really struggled with understanding Dungeon Fantasy at first, it just seemed so snarky and parodic. I did eventually gain the understanding it wasn't explicitly inspired by old school dungeoneering, but primarily on Diablo-like games and fantasy board games, with D&D and CRPGs being a secondary influence. That helped a little, but I still think the writing could have used an editor, to edit the editor. It was hard to read the rules over all the snickering. And it basically ruled out plenty of classic D&D bits in the format; for instance, halflings are all kleptomaniacs. Which, I guess is funny to Sean Punch, but to me, it was just, why print stats for halfling characters at all?

Sean seems like a nice guy and very bright, but his design outlook and what he enjoys are something that I don't care for.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I vaguely remember that too.

Ok, now that's gonna drive me crazy. I seem to recall a few war/board games from the 1970s that made use of that type of map. I just don't know which company back then that did it, Victory, Wes End Games, Metagaming or Avalon Hill? SPI might be who did it, the more I think about it. Well, this will be a bug in my brain for a while. lol. Thanks for that! Too many decades on to recall now. <grumble>

I’m pretty certain it wasn’t AH, because I have almost no true wargames from them. I don’t remember Victory. I think my only West End Games were RPGs. So of those, t would almost have to be SPI or Metagaming.

It might have been a TSR or Task Force Game, though.

My mind is telling me that the game I’m thinking of was made in the 1980s.

I know I still have it, but I just don’t have the time to go looking right now. It’s somewhere on the left side of this picture:

 

[Paragon Lost]

I’m pretty certain it wasn’t AH, because I have almost no true wargames from them. I don’t remember Victory. I think my only West End Games were RPGs. So of those, t would almost have to be SPI or Metagaming.

It might have been a TSR or Task Force Game, though.

My mind is telling me that the game I’m thinking of was made in the 1980s.

I know I still have it, but I just don’t have the time to go looking right now. It’s somewhere on the left side of this picture:

Went and looked up Star Fleet Battles speaking of Task Force Games. Maybe GDW? I'd swear it was 1970s wargame though and not 1980s. Ah well, Getting ready for an evening ride on my new motorcycle, so I'll have to search more later. lol

Edit: BTW Points for having Universe and FASA's Renegade material.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It could be GDW, but I doubt it. The only titles of theirs I can think of offhand as being in my collection are all RPGs, like Space:1889 and Traveller.

 

[Argyle King]

To qualify, I don't think that most players are going to invest points in a skill that will maybe be used once and then ignored. I also feel like wandering around in Dungeon Fantasy with a loaded heavy crossbow is asking for an accident. I also don't think that the average encounter distance in DF is likely to make investing in a crossbow feel like a good buy (even without higher tech weapons). In any case, I'm not talking about the realism of the crossbow, I'm talking about the 1-second round which feels totally unnecessary and makes crossbow use feel like an unfun slog.

Battlesuit by Steve Jackson used dots instead of hexes. That's the only one I can think of.

If you really wanted to ignore loading times, you could.

Though, much like modern D&D, if you take away the drawbacks of ranged combat, there starts to be one particular type of character that is noticeably better. Even so, there are ways to approach doing it, and options for trying to do it in more balanced way.

Perhaps, in your game world, crossbow technology is highly advanced due to Gnomemish clockwork mechanisms for reloading being available. So, instead of the normal process of manually loading a bolt, bolts come in a magazine similar to a modern AR-15. After 6 shots, you need to swap out the magazine.

It could be any number of shots. I went with 6 because that would be easy to track using d6s that you would already have at the table. It also opens up the opportunity to roleplay some cliche 80s action movie plot points:

"This is a Gnomish 44, the most powerful crossbow in the world; with enough draw strength to take your head clean off. Right now, you're wondering... did he fire 6 bolts or did he only fire 5? There's only one way to find out. So, now you have to ask yourself one question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

 

[pawsplay]

Spray and pray is sort of viable for a Chinese-type reloading crossbow. At some point, you are going to want to either become a Heroic Archer or get some kind of technological upgrade. In the world of Dungeon Fantasy, I see no reason why gatling crossbows couldn't be a thing.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I’m trying to remember which of my wargames used an array of regularly spaced dots instead of hexes or squares. It never caught on.

I know World in Flames used that for sea/ocean. Planes would count the dots. But ships wold use "sea boxes" which were much larger and more abstract.