Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034117The text and presentation feels like it's trying to cash in on the current D&D craze to sell GURPS. The problem is it comes off as too similar to D&D without going all the way and converting the SRD    monsters to their system. Personally, I'd be more interested in doing the work to learn this if it weren't Gygaxian fantasy with different numbers. People buy games for the content, not the mechanics.

The appeal of GURPS is the mechanics.

The point that many of us adopted GURPS to play D&D style fantasy with more realistic rules. The problem with GURPS is the lack of stuff like monsters, magic items, etc. Some of it had been addressed over the years like magic items and fantasy races, and some of it hasn't like monsters.

The GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line was created to address the demand for stuff. It wasn't perfect because instead of giving stuff meant to work with the 120 to 150 point most of us started our campaigns at it opted for a 250 point target.

The Dungeon Fantasy RPG was created to address the fact that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy was a supplement to the GURPS Core Book. That there were complaints that the buy-in was off putting and confusing.  So the DF RPG was written as a complete standalone RPG based on GURPS rather than as a supplement to the GURPS core book.

Again to be clear, the heart of it is the fact that people used GURPS as a alternative to D&D to play a fantasy campaign*. Sean Punch missed the mark with the initial release of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy (not the RPG) by focusing on 250 pt characters. The RPG just carried over that design flaw.  And yes the 250 point template was chosen to make Dungeon Fantasy work a little more like D&D but only in one respect. To give the characters a similar endurance to D&D character in exploring a dungeon level.

What Sean Punch failed to realize that most D&D campaigns occurs at 6th level or below. And even with later editions, D&D characters are just as fragile as 120 point to 150 point GURPS characters in exploring dungeons. What he considered to be an important distinction wasn't as big as he thought it was.

Also understand that aside from being 250 points character the rest is bog standard GURPS in a different presentation. The new advantages and others are just separate GURPS mechanics combined and re-written to be more clear as part of a stand-alone RPG. My criticism of starting out at 250 pt aside, the DF RPG is a good representation of what it looks like when you use GURPS to run a fantasy campaign that uses D&D stuff like orcs, dungeons, and dragons.

Of course GURPS, designed to be generic, can run other types of fantasy campaigns some very different in the type of fantasy they depict. But for many of us GURPS gamers, it was used to run the same kinds of campaigns we were running with AD&D and D&D. Just now we have explicit support were before we had to cobble a lot of ourselves using GURPS as a toolkit.

Maybe. The way it was displayed in this and one other store makes me think they were trying to sell to D&D fans. The way it's written doesn't seem to assume I know what GURPS is (lots of "If you like this and want more...check out GURPS Basic Set!" scattered around), it's just badly organized.  If you already have the Basic Set and know the system pretty well, and you don't want to learn D&D, this seems like a reasonable product (but again, they should have converted the entire SRD if that's where they were going). But it wasn't marketed that way in the store.

I guess Steven Jackson is happy in his niche of catering to system nerds, but it would have been nice to have a boxed RPG that is more than a different mechanical system for D&D activities.

One thing that makes me a little skeptical is I've seen asides like "even if your skill is 108!" Targets and modifiers much larger than the dice are bad news, because they destroy player intuition. This was a major gripe I had with 3.x and 4e. Just skimming the rules, it's intuitive that having 15 in a skill is quite a bit better than 12. But if 108 can happen...does that mean 105 is bad? 16 must be a terrible skill level! Or does 16 become worthless as the game advances, much like having +3 to a skill check eventually became useless in 3.5?

In GURPS anything over 16 is really only good for eliminating penalties.  With a skill of 30 you can hit an enemy in the eye in total darkness more than half the time and reliably parry any blow.  Missile range penalties are brutal in GURPS, so high skill is important if you want to fire rapidly without aiming much.

Steve Jackson doesn't seem to feel that the GURPS fan base will grow much and makes most of his money on Munchkin, a game that's mostly about mocking D&D.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034122Maybe. The way it was displayed in this and one other store makes me think they were trying to sell to D&D fans.

If you are any RPG aside from D&D, Star War, and maybe Shadowrun, you are trying to sell to D&D fans. Either has an alternative genre, alternative fantasy, or perhaps another way to run the same kind of fantasy that D&D addresses.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034122The way it's written doesn't seem to assume I know what GURPS is (lots of "If you like this and want more...check out GURPS Basic Set!" scattered around), it's just badly organized.

I didn't have any issue with its organization, but it doesn't mean the consensus or individuals may have issues with it. I do know that it was written, organized, and laid out in accordance to how SJ Games does things as opposed to taking a look at how similar rule sets are presented elsewhere in the industry.

SJ Games does excellent work most of the time. But there are things for which where they have blinders on.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034122If you already have the Basic Set and know the system pretty well, and you don't want to learn D&D, this seems like a reasonable product (but again, they should have converted the entire SRD if that's where they were going). But it wasn't marketed that way in the store.

Again, there is a pre-existing line of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy supplements that provided the foundation for the DF RPG.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034122I guess Steven Jackson is happy in his niche of catering to system nerds, but it would have been nice to have a boxed RPG that is more than a different mechanical system for D&D activities.

While not boxed sets SJ Games has done that several times like with Discworld and Mars Attacks. People are even less interested

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034122One thing that makes me a little skeptical is I've seen asides like "even if your skill is 108!" Targets and modifiers much larger than the dice are bad news, because they destroy player intuition. This was a major gripe I had with 3.x and 4e. Just skimming the rules, it's intuitive that having 15 in a skill is quite a bit better than 12. But if 108 can happen...does that mean 105 is bad? 16 must be a terrible skill level! Or does 16 become worthless as the game advances, much like having +3 to a skill check eventually became useless in 3.5?

Here the section you are referring too.

QuoteCritical Failure
A critical failure is an especially bad result. You score one as follows:
• A roll of 18 is always a critical failure. (Yes, even if your skill is 18, or 28, or 108!)
• A roll of 17 is a critical failure if your effective skill is 15 or less; otherwise, it's an ordinary failure.
• Any roll of 10 or more greater than your effective skill is a critical failure: 16+ on a skill of 6, 15+ on a skill of 5, and so on.

It is an attempt at humor not meant to be taken seriously.  

A 28 may be reached but considering it would take a 100 points on skill and attribute to get there it is not likely. And for most skills what it the only will get you over having a 18 skill is the ability to win contest of skills and eliminate penalties. There is an optional 3rd edition rule that at skill 20 your critical becomes 7 and improves by +1 per 5 points until you reach the max which is making a critical hit on a 10 or less (or maybe 11 or less).

But in 4th edition that was capped at 6 or less.

GURPS Magic confers additional benefits to spells with extremely high skill levels mainly a reduction of casting time and mana cost. But even there are hard lower limits.

There is little reason to push any skill beyond 20. You are better off putting the points into broadening your skills or maybe at first increasing an attribute.

Quote from: estar;1034126If you are any RPG aside from D&D, Star War, and maybe Shadowrun, you are trying to sell to D&D fans. Either has an alternative genre, alternative fantasy, or perhaps another way to run the same kind of fantasy that D&D addresses.

I actually think this is why so many products sell poorly. Too much "slightly different D&D" out there, not much attempt to really tap into new trends in YA entertainment. Last I know of that wasn't a licensed product was Vampire.

QuoteWhile not boxed sets SJ Games has done that several times like with Discworld and Mars Attacks. People are even less interested

Both those seem like really, really bad ideas, Discworld being a somewhat less bad idea than Mars Attacks, since it's less dated (how many people under 30 have even heard of Mars Attacks?). If I were making an RPG today, I'd make something about plucky teenagers in a dystopian postapocalyptic world run by an authoritarian corporate entity. Or maybe it would be about watching other people play video games on a live feed in a dystopian world where nobody actually knows anybody in person.

QuoteI didn't have any issue with its organization, but it doesn't mean the consensus or individuals may have issues with it.

Probably because you know GURPs. If I read a disorganized 5e OGL-based game, I probably wouldn't notice a lot of issues because my brain would fill in blanks. I can type examples, but it overall seems heavily stream-of-consciousness-style writing, which is bad for game manuals.

Anyway, the technical combat looks interesting, so I'm going to try to wrap my head around it and inflict it on some players. I think it would be a lot more interesting if they tried to step away a little from D&D classes and do their own thing, but I guess they constrained themselves to trying to organize what they'd already been selling to GURPS fans.

Quote from: estar;1034126There is little reason to push any skill beyond 20.

I tend to set things so up so rarely anyone manages to, but there can be good reasons to want higher skill levels. Not just to handle penalty situations, but to attempt difficult things and do things only masters can do. Notably for weapon skills, to defeat other masters.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034138Anyway, the technical combat looks interesting, so I'm going to try to wrap my head around it and inflict it on some players.

The tactical combat is the reason I have always preferred TFT & GURPS to all other systems, as it's a mode of play I love which doesn't exist in the same way in other games.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034138I think it would be a lot more interesting if they tried to step away a little from D&D classes and do their own thing...

Yeah I agree. I don't even like the non-basic classes in D&D, and the flavor of the DF campaign assumptions feel annoyingly cliche` and bland to me. They do at least demonstrate how to do D&D-esque in GURPS, so at least new players wouldn't have to learn new settings ideas, and it would I suppose provide a reference point if someone wanted to convert D&D-esque content to DF or GURPS.

While I think both Mars Attacks and Disc World are fun and indeed, Disc World is in itself a complete rpg in one book, I don't think the overlap with readers and collectors of obscure card sets from the sixties are all that great.  I feel the settings both put off more people than they bring in. Though I did play in a brief Mars Attacks game, I was quite disappointed the GM wouldn't kill my obnoxious American tourist off.  I had a long list of rotten people for the Martians to disintegrate

I've agitated for an introductory GURPS Fantasy supplement for GURPS Lite for years and years because it would help to bring new people in.  GURPS Lite is amazing for what it is but it's really insufficient to run much of a game.

Even so, fearsomepirate, I would suggest reading over GURPS Lite, especially combat.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034138Both those seem like really, really bad ideas, Discworld being a somewhat less bad idea than Mars Attacks, since it's less dated (how many people under 30 have even heard of Mars Attacks?). If I were making an RPG today, I'd make something about plucky teenagers in a dystopian postapocalyptic world run by an authoritarian corporate entity. Or maybe it would be about watching other people play video games on a live feed in a dystopian world where nobody actually knows anybody in person.

There are plenty of companies that try to chase the latest entertainment fad for example Margaret Weis before she closed up shop. Vampire worked because it was well written and published at the right time. Despite the Anne Rice Vampire novels being bestsellers at the time there was no reason to think that it was any more catchy than any of the other popular early 90s entertainment. And Vampire did not dethrone AD&D 2nd ed

The problem with GURPS is that Munchkin stole GURPS mindshare in the company. It not a criticism. Munchkin started to pay the bills. But as a consequence only one thing at time was tried and even then until the DF Boxed Set as much of the previous way of working was reused. At this point my opinion the only way forward to salvage GURPS is open up to 3rd party publishing. Doesn't have to involved open content,  what needed is a variety of 3PP publishing trying different formats and different types of products. So what ever works to accomplish that.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034138Probably because you know GURPs. If I read a disorganized 5e OGL-based game, I probably wouldn't notice a lot of issues because my brain would fill in blanks. I can type examples, but it overall seems heavily stream-of-consciousness-style writing, which is bad for game manuals.

(shrug) to me it as clear and informative as anything else that Sean Punch writes generally I find pretty good.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034138Anyway, the technical combat looks interesting, so I'm going to try to wrap my head around it and inflict it on some players. I think it would be a lot more interesting if they tried to step away a little from D&D classes and do their own thing, but I guess they constrained themselves to trying to organize what they'd already been selling to GURPS fans.

The key things to remember are

1) One second combat round which means you do one thing and only thing only per round. Most non-move actions allow for a single 3-foot step.
2) You attack, the target defends.
3) Damage is reduced by armor. Anything that gets through is modified by the kind of damage it is.
4) What you can do in a round is called a maneuver. Most are one or two line description. But of the more complex ones are a paragraph. The good new that everything you need is in that paragraph. And only encounter them if you decide to use all the options like GURPS Martial Arts.
5) Everything in GURPS start what you can do for real and the mechanics correspond one for one. There is little if any abstraction.
6) However You can resolve anything in GURPS abstractly by a contest of skills or attributes.
7) Templates are your friends in figuring how all the character creation options hang together.
GURPS has multiple multiple magic systems. The standard system works but considered bland by many.
9) A skill point has a real world correspondence. It represents X hours of learning.

In general what novices get hung up on is being able to do one thing and only one thing during a combat round.

My cursory reading of the combat suggests there's a lot of shuffling around for optimal position before unleashing hell, much like an X-COM game. Fair?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034162My cursory reading of the combat suggests there's a lot of shuffling around for optimal position before unleashing hell, much like an X-COM game. Fair?

Position matters but like real life whether it means anything depends on circumstances and opportunity. In general you are taking a bunch of move actions until you reach your target and then you do a step and attack. When you or target gets injured you may decide to do a different maneuver like all-out attack, or all-out defense. But there are consequences to every type of maneuver. The decisions you make in GURPS track pretty well with the decisions you make if you were actually fighting.

By far the best course of action is for the party to do scouting and try to lay ambushes whenever they can.

Here a blog with a more detailed explanation.
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/06/basic-gurps-combat.html

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1034162My cursory reading of the combat suggests there's a lot of shuffling around for optimal position before unleashing hell, much like an X-COM game. Fair?

That's one sort of thing that can make sense to do. Depends on the situation - some close encounters can be very "one action leads to another till one side is down". But position and facing and weapon reach and how many people are in position to attack whom each turn can be decisive.

As has been mentioned before, in GURPS, numbers kill.  It's important to support your comrades and control frontage.

Does anybody else feel Caverntown was a great release?

I haven't looked at Caverntown.