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Thursday, September 1, 2016

Kickstarter - Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, Powered by GURPS


I played a significant amount of GURPS in my early college years. I owned Man to Man and Orc, which highlighted the combat system that was to become GURPS. First edition boxed set. Most of the 1st and 2nd edition supplements. Conan solo adventures. Lots of GURPS. The problem as we saw it wasn't that GURPS wasn't a good and balanced system. It wasn't the lack of sourcebooks. It was the lack of adventures and, from the viewpoint of D&D players, the lack of dungeon crawling.

Dungeon Fantasy corrects that omission.

$50 for a self contained boxed set?

I'm in :)
This standalone boxed set contains everything you need to play: cardboard figures, combat maps, dice, and five full-color rulebooks that feature original art.
Adventurers (128 pages). GURPS is famous for letting you play any character you can imagine. Dungeon Fantasy keeps this flexibility while trimming away unnecessary details, concentrating on just what matters to monster-slaying, treasure-hunting action: Pick from 11 classic professions and nine playable races, customize your alter-ego using quick-start templates and a powerful point-build system, and gear up with an equipment list that offers dozens of weapons and lets you assemble exactly the suit of armor that fits your image. 
Exploits (112 pages). Learn how the heroes actually use their abilities and gear. That means combat, of course – and dozens of other activities, whether your thing is sneaking around, swinging from the scenery, exorcizing evil, or getting rich through cunning deals in town. This book also describes countless bad things that can befall adventurers (poison, traps, dismemberment, lava pits . . .), as well as good things, namely loot. And it’s full of practical advice to the Game Master who leads this three-ring circus: challenging the players, keeping the action moving, settling arguments, and much more. 
Spells (80 pages). What would fantasy be without magic? Adventurers features four spellcasting professions (bard, cleric, druid, and wizard), and this volume describes over 400 spells to help you customize them. It also includes complete rules for how spells work – whether their power comes from the gods, Nature, or creepy tomes of forbidden wizardly knowledge. 
Monsters (64 pages). Once the adventurers are ready, and armed with weapons and magic, it’s time to test their mettle! This catalog starts you out with more than 80 things that want to bite, claw, grab, sting, and curse the heroes – not just the predictable orcs and zombies, but also several Dungeon Fantasy originals. Each offers notes on tactics and variants, and the whole collection comes with advice and rules for adventurers dealing with monsters . . . and monsters dealing with adventurers. 
Dungeon (24 pages). I Smell a Rat is a simple (but not simplistic!) quest designed to show new gamers the ropes. Like any classic hack ‘n’ slash adventure, it starts at the inn. From there, the heroes will find themselves facing traps, enemies, and unexpected twists – and finding treasure, although not necessarily gold and silver. Advice and “adventure hooks” let the Game Master challenge advanced players or spin the tale into a series of adventures.

13 comments:

  1. Or a $125 (probably) boxed set if you are in Australia... =8(

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    1. They added PDF-only option now, after we made a bit of a fuss. It might also be worth pledging and seeing what happens with shipping after Backerkit does their thing. Enough orders from Oz and they can ship an entire pallet at once, which spreads the shipping cost around a bit.

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    3. The addition of PDF is indeed good news.

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  2. I'm in for $250 but GURPS is my system. It was my first system and still is my favorite.

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  3. I chuckled a little when "streamlined rules" came up in the video and closed the browser tab.

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  4. For GURPS, DF is sstreamlined. It still is a fairly crunchy system, but itcan be played fairly simply.

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    1. Fourth edition was pretty streamlined over Third Edition, Revised anyway, and Action did a great job of streamlining it further. Since Sean is purposefully trying to target new gamers for GURPS, I suspect he *started* at Action and went simpler where he could.

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  5. I am tempted, but shipping rates seem USPS based, so it looks a bit painful for European backers.

    Is there much volume needed to make bulk shipment to a European fulfillment center viable?

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    1. That's somewhat unknowable, and done retroactively, I think, by Backerkit. I hope to be talking to them about my own Kickstarter (pending!) and I'll come back with anything I can relate.

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    2. Sticking in a box with accessories means instant 20% sales tax here in the UK. And that's calculated after import duty and the post office admin "fee". Once you add in postage expect the price to more than double unless they do European fulfilment.

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  6. I think GURPS is already pretty streamlined. The rules in actual play are fairly simplistic. I would even argue that a system like FATE is much more complex than GURPS.

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  7. Oh, my. So very tempting. TFT was my first game and GURPS my fourth (I came in 2 years after Tenkar at the 1e to 2e transition). oh dearie me

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