Pledged this morning.

Quote from: Skarg;918179Yeah, I prefer lower point levels too. When I converted our long-standing TFT campaigns to GURPS, the most experienced characters came to a little over 200 points.

I think it's important to explain the range of available power settings. I've seen 25-point PCs be some of the most fun both for myself and for others to play. It tends to feel dull and silly to me when characters start being good at many things and super good at other things.

Comparing point totals would add confusion and there is no need since all the players start the same.
Batman, Daredevil, Green Arrow, and Hawkeye are all low end Supers and quite a bit more than 250 points.

Quote from: CRKrueger;918180Jesus these guys are stupid.  They have an entire library of GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy PDFs sitting there in Warehouse 23.  Want to see this KS go to crazy levels - add as stretch goals the old Dungeon Fantasy PDFs.  

Haters have to hate I guess, but for those reading your post and thinking it might make any kind of sense your math is off.
The $250 level gets it all.

Quote from: refplace;918379Comparing point totals would add confusion and there is no need since all the players start the same.
Batman, Daredevil, Green Arrow, and Hawkeye are all low end Supers and quite a bit more than 250 points.

What confuses me, is why anyone would think this. I don't think people who would be confused by the idea of different point levels, has any hope of dealing with the GURPS rules themselves. First Edition through Third Edition GURPS did it. It only takes maybe a few sentences to explain that as a rough guideline, 25 points or so is an average person, 80 points is probably quite competent, 100 points is a good "hero material" starting point, 150 points is probably a powerful/gifted/advantaged person or a "hero", 200-250 points is a seasoned remarkable person/hero, 300-400 points is starting to get into comic book or movie hero or supernatural territory or something. What confusion? I expect MORE confusion from giving players 250 points. I've even seen new players get fairly confused from making and playing 150-point starting characters, because they have a bunch of abilities they aren't familiar with. Playing lower-point characters are far less confusing. Unless you're expecting to be a comic book superhero, and are going to be confused at why you aren't better than everyone else and competent at almost everything.

Quote from: refplace;918379The $250 level gets it all.

Yeah 250 dollars for mostly old stuff, unlike the most successful gaming Kickstarters that open the old catalog through stretch goals, then come up with new stretch goals.

"A new, as yet unwritten, Dungeon fantasy pdf delivered to all backers in 2017."
"A second..."
"A third..."
That's called not having enough faith in your KS to even come up with a friggin' plan.

I hope they make it, but instead of third of the way through and not funded, they could have been funded first day and putting GURPs back on the map.

Quote from: David Johansen;918219I get really tired of the company line that the stuff they put out is proper support.  Oh I've been called on it a time or two.  But the odds and ends and options they keep putting out without filling the significant and crippling gaps in system support just don't cut it from where I sit.

"You can use this article in Pyramid to build tracked vehicles using Space Ships!"  How could I ever miss that and how it would totally fix the gaping hole of vehicle support for GURPS.  I don't care if it's just a big book of standard vehicles or the full design system at this point.  A proper bestiary is harder to do I suppose but they've done it before.  A nice one stop book of general racial templates, animals, and monsters.

As a fan I do get tired of hearing this same old line.  It just doesn't make any sense the way you and others say it.
Just looking over the books list for Fourth Edition, so not counting the Third Edition stuff, most of which can be used with little or no tweaking (Not like you need to worry about point totals after all).
Creatures of the Night, 5 books
Dragons
Dungeon Fantasy 5 Allies
Dungeon Fantasy Monsters, 3 volumes
Monster Hunters 5 Applied Xenology
Supporting Cast: Age of Sail Pirate Crew (gets you pirate write ups)
GURPS Horror and GURPS Zombies are pretty much Monster focused

Additionally almost every setting book has setting related monsters.
As for dissing those that appear in Pyramid or part of adventures, other companies do that too and frankly I think its part of the attraction to an adventure to get a new monster or two.
Saying they have no Bestiary is just so silly that it is off-putting. Why keep making monster books for people who just keep complaining there are no monster books?
People who may not like the current line up need to stop being so blind and lazy, and instead of using buzz words like "Bestiary" and tell them more specifically what they want.

GURPS bestiaries or monster books are geared for (surprise!) different genres and settings.
In a generic system the modular approach makes sense, for every 1 person who wants a 20$ all in one book there are lots more who would yell about the wasted space for included stuff that did not fit their play style or genre.
Animals, dinosaurs, DF monsters, Horror monsters, Undead, aliens, and even bandits of various types (much less racial monsters) are all covered.  Yeah you need to look in more than 1 book, but than were back to the pay extra for stuff I wont use with an all-in-one book.
And of course some of us dont want them to stop coming up with new critters.
If you want more of a specific type, its fine to say so and request it. But keep saying they dont have anything just discourages more from getting written.

As for vehicles, almost as big a misrepresentation. What vehicles? Ancient ones are in Basic and low tech. Modern ones in Basic and High Tech (and really you dont need more than a template for base stats and your favorite search engine for flavors and fluff), Future vehicles? Again Basic has a few, Bio-tech, Ultra Tech, and the Spaceship series.
Sure the Vehicle Design System will be cool to have for the math heads who want to design things with scientific accuracy.  however for most people there are plenty of examples from which you can just eyeball the differences.
Again its a matter of being specific about what you want (and on the SJG forums where it will get more eyeballs from authors) rather than saying GURPS doesnt have any vehicles.
Authors look at statements like that and go "umm what?"  You want a book on modern jet fighters? motorbikes? wagon types? than say so or at least pick a time period or setting for a broader range.  Just remember too broad "every genre, every world" will tick off those who feel cheated for paying for more than they wanted.

Quote from: Skarg;918389What confuses me, is why anyone would think this. I don't think people who would be confused by the idea of different point levels, has any hope of dealing with the GURPS rules themselves. First Edition through Third Edition GURPS did it. It only takes maybe a few sentences to explain that as a rough guideline, 25 points or so is an average person, 80 points is probably quite competent, 100 points is a good "hero material" starting point, 150 points is probably a powerful/gifted/advantaged person or a "hero", 200-250 points is a seasoned remarkable person/hero, 300-400 points is starting to get into comic book or movie hero or supernatural territory or something. What confusion? I expect MORE confusion from giving players 250 points. I've even seen new players get fairly confused from making and playing 150-point starting characters, because they have a bunch of abilities they aren't familiar with. Playing lower-point characters are far less confusing. Unless you're expecting to be a comic book superhero, and are going to be confused at why you aren't better than everyone else and competent at almost everything.

Well not having read the new books yet, I dont know if maybe they are in there, but I doubt it.
Remember this is not GURPS for everything like the Basic set is.  This is GURPS streamlined for a specific sub genre of heroic high fantasy.  Wizards who can call lightning or toss fireballs and warriors who can wade through hordes of orcs, etc.
No reason to say "Your average car salesman...., Captain Kirk, Spiderman, Superman, Han Solo, etc would be built on x points."  That I think would just confuse people and add no value to something this specific. Let those who get into full toolkit mode read things like that in GURPS Basic.

Here you have 11 professions or character classes and 9 races, set about the power level of D&D 7th to 10 level as starting characters. First level 'roll and die' wouldn't work very well and 20th+ level is more something to work towards. GURPS is linear not geometric in advancement so a mid level is probably the better starting point.

Quote from: refplace;918396Well not having read the new books yet, I dont know if maybe they are in there, but I doubt it.
Remember this is not GURPS for everything like the Basic set is.  This is GURPS streamlined for a specific sub genre of heroic high fantasy.  Wizards who can call lightning or toss fireballs and warriors who can wade through hordes of orcs, etc.
No reason to say "Your average car salesman...., Captain Kirk, Spiderman, Superman, Han Solo, etc would be built on x points."  That I think would just confuse people and add no value to something this specific. Let those who get into full toolkit mode read things like that in GURPS Basic.

Here you have 11 professions or character classes and 9 races, set about the power level of D&D 7th to 10 level as starting characters. First level 'roll and die' wouldn't work very well and 20th+ level is more something to work towards. GURPS is linear not geometric in advancement so a mid level is probably the better starting point.

I see what you're saying, and I agree that if you want to run D&D-esque heroes in GURPS, you do want high point levels (though I think 150 would work too), but I think the information on point level options is valuable and not confusing. To run GURPS well, you need to be able to grasp some things, and this is not a difficult or unnecessary concept. Also, it backfires if the orcs are also going to be built on too many points. If you want to be able to "wade through hordes of orcs" in GURPS with a 250 point fighter, you'd better understand that you should probably create those orcs with about 10-40 points each, or you're going to have a bad time.

I remember dying a lot of times playing Conan Beyond Thunder River.  And Conan was 500 points.  Pict arrows against an unarmoured man.

Quote from: David Johansen;918407I remember dying a lot of times playing Conan Beyond Thunder River.  And Conan was 500 points.  Pict arrows against an unarmoured man.

Hehe yep! Funny how getting filled with arrows has that effect. Survival has much more to do with what you do and therefore what happens, than it does with having an uber character. I also remember running newbies in that module, and having them butcher picts left and right, or take a cautious action and have the adventure end because it didn't lead to a conflict.

Quote from: refplace;918392As a fan I do get tired of hearing this same old line.  It just doesn't make any sense the way you and others say it.

As a fan, fifteen years of being stonewalled, put off, and shown bits and pieces here and there gets tiring too.

But bear in mind that I'm thrilled that they're finally doing this.

Quote from: refplace;918396Here you have 11 professions or character classes and 9 races, set about the power level of D&D 7th to 10 level as starting characters. First level 'roll and die' wouldn't work very well and 20th+ level is more something to work towards.

So... since my favorite part of any D&Dish campaign is the first 5 levels... with me wanting to start a new character as we hit 6... this GURPS box doesn't really have much to offer me, because I don't want that higher level playstyle?

Quote from: Simlasa;918431So... since my favorite part of any D&Dish campaign is the first 5 levels... with me wanting to start a new character as we hit 6... this GURPS box doesn't really have much to offer me, because I don't want that higher level playstyle?

I supose that depends on what aspect of D&D over 5th level makes you feel the need to start over?

There's been more discussion of what DF is for. It's not intended to imitate D&D, it's intended to address the same premis as D&D but from a GURPS perspective: exploring hard to reach places, beating down the natives and taking the valuables back home.

Quote from: dbm;918459I supose that depends on what aspect of D&D over 5th level makes you feel the need to start over?

There's been more discussion of what DF is for. It's not intended to imitate D&D, it's intended to address the same premis as D&D but from a GURPS perspective: exploring hard to reach places, beating down the natives and taking the valuables back home.

Part of the appeal of that kind of campaign (for me at least) is that starting characters do not start out as larger than life heroes, they become so as play progresses. The characters are for the most part, a cut above regular people but still very much largely regular people.

The lower levels of D&D do the same thing that lower point totals in GURPS does. It teaches players the very basics of their character's abilities as they relate to ordinary people and helps teach the valuable lesson that charging into combat as a universal solution to everything is the quickest way back to the new character drawing board.

If the dungeon fantasy game is aimed at newcomers it would make sense to begin introduction of starting characters at lower point totals. If the D&D or Pathfinder beginner boxes had started players off with instructions to create characters of levels 7 to 10 it would have been much more intimidating to both new DMs and players.

The mindset switch between a game such as D&D and GURPS is a little confusing to those who aren't familiar with both systems. Starting beginning players out with characters who are full on badasses is only going to compound the issue. Players familiar with only D&D or similar systems won't realize just how much numbers actually matter in a GURPS game regardless of the capabilities of the mooks.

A 7th-10th level D&D fighter confronted with 6 guards from schmucksville leveling loaded crossbows at him will provoke a response of laughter. When they all fire, even if some of them manage to hit the fighter's high AC, the damage will be laughable and the fighter will proceed to advance and chop them to bits in short order.

The same player with a 250 point  dungeon fantasy warrior is confronted with 6 guards from schmucksville leveling loaded crossbows at him. Knowing that he he is roughly equal to his D&D fighter in terms of relative power level, he laughs at the guards.....and is riddled with crossbow bolts and down on the ground dying a mere 1 second later. Shit that was fast! "Hey" the player is thinking to himself. " I thought I was supposed to be this badass warrior?"

Lower power levels in any system are useful for teaching players how game abilities work a little bit at a time. Had that player encountered those guards with a 1st level D&D character do you think he might have reacted a bit different?

Beyond the teaching aspect for new players and GMs, starting at a lower point total allows for more room for growth before the characters become full four color dungeon supers. Not to mention that with a wider range of point totals there is nothing stopping experienced players or even new ones who want to jump into 250 or higher point characters from doing so if they wish, whereas eliminating support for characters under these levels leaves players new or experienced with little choice but to dive into the deep end of the pool and hope that they can keep track of everything.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;918608Part of the appeal of that kind of campaign (for me at least) is that starting characters do not start out as larger than life heroes, they become so as play progresses. The characters are for the most part, a cut above regular people but still very much largely regular people.

That's totally cool as a preference. On the one hand, a phrase used to describe Dungeon Fantasy (as a line, not this specific product) and it's 250 point baseline is 'skip to the awesome'. As a design choice it ignores the part of a character's life where they are barely more capable than a regular Joe and pitches straight in to the more able stage. On the other hand, GURPS characters are still a lot more fragile than D&D characters since they are not equipped with bigger buffers of hit points to shrug off injury until the last gasp; to my mind this means that many scenarios like your guards point remain significant throughout the life of a GURPS DF character.

QuoteThe lower levels of D&D do the same thing that lower point totals in GURPS does. It teaches players the very basics of their character's abilities as they relate to ordinary people and helps teach the valuable lesson that charging into combat as a universal solution to everything is the quickest way back to the new character drawing board.

On the one side, yes, absolutely. On the other, however, because GURPS is more open in its structure than D&D is you can (with the exception of magic) try pretty much the same things at 150 points as you can at 250 or 350. The difference is in how likely or otherwise you are to succeed (and hence how big a difficulty factor you can take on). On the one hand, this can make GURPS more mechanically challenging to learn; on the other hand since most things you can attempt are strongly rooted in reality it is quite intuitive to say 'I attempt to feint' or 'We gang up on him'. You don't have to learn and then select a specific game mechanic to achieve the things you would expect to do; contrast vs DnD 3.x where you can't feint by default and flanking requires square perfect positioning or you don't achieve anything. The complexity is in knowing what benefit you receive, not what game move you need to undertake to achieve that benefit, and at the very least this makes it easier to try out cool manoeuvres.  Over time you will learn what level of difficulty you can overcome with an acceptable probability of success.

QuoteIf the dungeon fantasy game is aimed at newcomers it would make sense to begin introduction of starting characters at lower point totals. If the D&D or Pathfinder beginner boxes had started players off with instructions to create characters of levels 7 to 10 it would have been much more intimidating to both new DMs and players.

I think that genuine new comers will have it fairly easy, as they will draw their assumptions from reality and GURPS has strong ties to that. People coming from other games might have a harder time of it as they need to re-calbrate their assumptions. I guess we'll only know how good the product is at achieving that aim once we see it.

QuoteThe mindset switch between a game such as D&D and GURPS is a little confusing to those who aren't familiar with both systems. Starting beginning players out with characters who are full on badasses is only going to compound the issue. Players familiar with only D&D or similar systems won't realize just how much numbers actually matter in a GURPS game regardless of the capabilities of the mooks.

A 7th-10th level D&D fighter confronted with 6 guards from schmucksville leveling loaded crossbows at him will provoke a response of laughter. When they all fire, even if some of them manage to hit the fighter's high AC, the damage will be laughable and the fighter will proceed to advance and chop them to bits in short order.

The same player with a 250 point  dungeon fantasy warrior is confronted with 6 guards from schmucksville leveling loaded crossbows at him. Knowing that he he is roughly equal to his D&D fighter in terms of relative power level, he laughs at the guards.....and is riddled with crossbow bolts and down on the ground dying a mere 1 second later. Shit that was fast! "Hey" the player is thinking to himself. " I thought I was supposed to be this badass warrior?"

That just shows, to my mind, that GURPS and D&D model damage in very different ways. A person coming from RuneQuest would probably have a much lower assumption clash to contend with. I appreciate that this is intended to be a dungeon delving game and that is much more in the wheel house of D&D than it is RQ.

I think that GURPS makes active avoidance of damage much more of a thing than D&D does. I was just listening to the interview Dr Kromm did on the DF box set and he was talking about what makes dragons scary in this game (and big monsters in general). To summarise - there are no saving throws in GURPS. If a dragon breaths on you then the only way you are avoiding damage is to dive behind cover or outside of the area of effect. If you're too close to the centre of the effect you are out of luck. You don't get a chance to reduce or eliminate damage 'just because' like you do in D&D.

Similarly, the firing squad or jumping a perimeter guard don't work well in D&D but are built right in to the core assumptions of GURPS on how bodies respond to damage. In D&D, HP are justified in part through skill at getting out of the way, turning a telling blow in to a flesh wound and so on. In GURPS, HP are meat points by default and skills is represented by skill directly (higher parry, block and other active defences). Again, we'll see how well the product makes this clear once it is in hand.

QuoteLower power levels in any system are useful for teaching players how game abilities work a little bit at a time. Had that player encountered those guards with a 1st level D&D character do you think he might have reacted a bit different?

Like I said above, since GURPS doesn't generally wall off actions behind arbitrary permissions this is not so clear cut. Anyone can attempt a Rapid Strike for two attacks in a round in GURPS, but a low skilled combatant is unlikely to do it reliably. Yes, there are enhancers that you either have or don't have (Weapon Master being the obvious example here) but 90% of what WM does is to make you more likely to succeed. It doesn't really add new abilities or options that weren't there before.

QuoteBeyond the teaching aspect for new players and GMs, starting at a lower point total allows for more room for growth before the characters become full four color dungeon supers. Not to mention that with a wider range of point totals there is nothing stopping experienced players or even new ones who want to jump into 250 or higher point characters from doing so if they wish, whereas eliminating support for characters under these levels leaves players new or experienced with little choice but to dive into the deep end of the pool and hope that they can keep track of everything.

If you peg 'full four colour dungeon supers' at 250 points then you are right by definition, since there is no play proposed before that point. I don't think of 250 point characters as quite that uber personally, and think you can get a lot of growth on top of a 250 point base. But clearly this is a case of personal preference, and the level was picked to 'skip to the awesome' as noted.

TL;DR: If you don't want to play 250 point characters then the templates will be useless to you, though the box may still be beneficial as a cleaner presentation of the rules. I think jumping in at 250 points in GURPS is less of a hurdle than starting at 5th or 6th level in D&D.

Quote from: Simlasa;918431So... since my favorite part of any D&Dish campaign is the first 5 levels... with me wanting to start a new character as we hit 6... this GURPS box doesn't really have much to offer me, because I don't want that higher level playstyle?

Dial your number of starting points back. Don't buy all the items in your starting packages. Trust me, GURPS can emulate the zero to hero pretty damn well. I remember a Fantasy game I once played in where we started with 25 points and 50 disad points. It worked out quite well once our active totals hit around 100. (20 sessions later.)