A clump of collective nouns So we have collective nouns for animals, from the mundane “herd of cattle” and “flock of birds” to the twee “pounce of cats” and “cackle of hyenas”. Gamers have taken up the baton to suggest similar words for fantasy beings: “a band of bards”, “a convocation of clerics”, and what not. I hereby suggest a few of my own, with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game foremost in mind. Below is my beginning (and not-too-serious) mess of monikers for your collective consideration. (You can expect – if not exactly look forward to – updates as more names come to mind.) Characters Creatures Cockatrice,…
-
-
DFRPG resource: Questions and answers!
I read and play the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game… and I have questions! Riddles in the dark! (Fine, “riddles of the dork”, if you must.) DFRPG dishes up its rules with admirable clarity and completeness. Still, its text covers a lot of exploits, powers, monsters, and more, and the inevitable uncertainties arise. This page is an ongoing record of questions I’ve posed (generally on the DFRPG forum) and the answers I’ve received. The focus is on official rulings and clarifications (i.e., answers from line manager Kromm), but I’ll also be listing answers from other sources, as well as questions that remain unanswered. This will be a slowly growing resource. Visit…
-
GURPS/DFRPG resource: New Talents
Talents in GURPS are advantages that boost skills and typically offer some additional benefit. Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG) has Talents too (even if that game just calls them “advantages”). This page will hold any Talents that I’ve created or revised. In addition to the expected information, I note where the Talents have been introduced earlier on other pages. Reading those may offer additional background on the thinking behind the Talents. This page may be updated with new offerings at any time, so check back now and then. The Talent show Assassin’s Gift 5 points/level (GURPS, DFRPG) Killing comes unnaturally easy to you – just not the straight-up, face-to-face kind…
-
Rules Bit (GURPS/DFRPG): Better Aim
Intro This tiny little rules tweak that I use is one so small that I can’t come up with any clever-ish title or subtitle. It’s so trivial that I tend to forget it’s a house rule, not official rules-as-written. With that lack of ado, here it is: The rule Change the TH bonus for the Aim maneuver to +1 per second of aiming (up to +3 for 3 seconds). Reworded, that’s nothing more than “add +1 to the Aim bonus”. Do that, and the bonus now ranges from +1 to +3 instead of the official +0 to +2, before the addition of weapon Acc. Notes By the book (Basic Set…
-
Three new Talents for GURPS/DFRPG: Graceful, Lithe, and Life of the Party
For your character-building pleasure, and apropos of nothing in particular, here are three new Talents for GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy Releplaying Game. Two Talents are variants on a single physical concept and the other Talent social, but they’re all good for PCs who like to entertain or just stir up fun. (They’re also pretty simple and obvious ideas; maybe you’ve already come up with similar Talents for your own games?) Edit 2019-07-15: This article originally had two Talents, Graceful and Life of the Party. Now there are three, as one was a poor buy in DFRPG (containing several skills not found in the game). With that split into two versions, here are three Talents for…
-
31 reasons why you want to pick up Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (and fast!)
Gamers! If you missed the first appearance of Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG), fate and Steve Jackson games (SJG) have granted you a second – but fleeting – chance to pick up a box. It’s happening through a successful Kickstarter campaign that will reprint the boxed set, launch a new Monsters 2 book, and offer a bunch of add-ons. (The campaign ends Sat, March 23 2019 7:13 AM UTC!) Why do you want this game? There are as many reasons as there are flavors at that one ice cream chain. There are so many reasons, in fact, that only a logorrheic hack blogger could list them all. That’s my cue! Updates 2019-03-16: Added…
-
What happens when you read Dungeon Fantasy RPG books just before going to bed
I’m writing this for my own amusement (having resolved long ago to write down remembered dreams in the morning, but almost never doing so). I’m posting it here as a bit of gaming comes into the story. (Barely. Don’t expect much.) It happened after perusing Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game books before sleeping. Hmm, if I do that more often, maybe I’ll have some proper gaming dreams – say, a dream of me as a PC, descending into a dungeon. (That’d be worth writing about!) Or more realistically, maybe a dream of prepping for a convention session, and heading into the room to GM for a crowd of excited players. (Of course,…
-
Dungeon Fantasy RPG character: Leonidas of Nemea, Cat-Folk barbarian
Hey, look! It’s a fully-fledged character for Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game—or GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, with maybe a small tweak or two. Yes, you’re looking at a cat-folk—a lion-folk, that is!—with He-Man’s goofy pageboy haircut instead of a noble mane. There’s a reason for that… Leonidas of Nemea 250-Point Cat-Folk Barbarian The dry plains of far-away Nemea are home to cat-folk—fierce, strapping lion-folk, in fact. And at six and a half feet in height and 250 pounds, the lion-boy Leonidas stands tall even among… Wait a second. Isn’t “Leonidas” just too twee a name for a warrior lion? Yes, it would seem so—but this young pride-leader has taken the name for…
-
Dungeon Fantasy RPG: The Notes (Part VI)
What? I still have unposted “review” notes on the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG)? Let’s make this the last installment. Sure, there’ll be more to say about the game – thoughts, content (monster and character ideas, etc.), play reports, lots of stuff. But it’s well past time to close up this World’s Slowest Unboxing™. What’s left to talk about? Not details of spell lists or combat options, but meta-stuff. And comments on artwork. Wrapped up with thoughts on the game’s future. Before the big stuff, a few more random observations: Miscellaneous stuff Default roll vs Connoisseur (Gaming Art) So, how about the books’ art? I can say a lot…
-
Dungeon Fantasy RPG: The Notes (Part V)
It’s time for more notes on Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (DFRPG), Steve Jackson Games’ condensation of the GURPS roleplaying system and its Dungeon Fantasy (DF) series into an all-included, standalone game. The first four articles looked at specific books and components; this installment will add a few observations on the product as a whole. And even then, I believe I have another installment in store for later. (Just think of this as the slowest unboxing ever.) The dire elephant in the room We can’t jump in without mentioning this big piece of DFRPG news, announced in the Steve Jackson Games (SJG) Report to the Stakeholders for 2017 just a few days…
