I was looking into running a grittier dungeon crawl than what D&D provides and picked up GURPS Dungeon Fantasy at the...

I was looking into running a grittier dungeon crawl than what D&D provides and picked up GURPS Dungeon Fantasy at the suggestion of Veeky Forums.

I'm reading through the book and the whole time I'm just like...is this supposed to be playable? And fun? Pic related, it's what an average character looks like.

I guess I don't understand why I need special rules for roleplaying a code of honor or vow, and why is there a special Hiking skill? What about quick draw? The skill list is so huge it's hard to keep track of.

>is this supposed to be playable? And fun?

No, of course not. You got lured in by the GURPS meme. GURPS is only fun if you're autistic.

If you want a gritter dungeon crawl than 5e, try Basic D&D or one of its OSR variants, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess. They're very rules light compared to later D&D, which inherited the greater weight of Advanced D&D.

If you're cool with having more rules as long as they don't go full GURPS, Torchbearer will do it as well.

PDF related is a set of Darkest Dungeon classes for LotFP.

That character sheet isn't really that confusing. It's a little front loaded but in actual play it's really simple. A lot of it is granular and not applicable to every character but it's still useful since it's a universal system. The code of honor stuff doesn't really have rules for the whole code of honor thing, just a mechanical commitment that you're going to abide by a certain set of personal rules. Hiking is all about overland travel and wilderness exploration, and quick draw is super useful since every round is a second, so being able to draw your sword and act faster than your opponent can mean the difference between life and death.


If you're the sort to balk at long skill/ability lists or complex mechanics then maybe GURPS isn't for you. That doesn't make it a bad system. I've been running a lowish fantasy game with it for almost five years, and I've run several one-shots of it at my university's D&D club to good effect.

"I guess I don't understand why I need special rules for roleplaying a code of honor or vow"

The Disadvantage Code of Honor and Vow are A) guidelines and B) meant to give you points back if you choose to abide by them. You technically don't need to choose either even if you wish to play an honor-bound character, but it's nice to get 5 to 15 points if you commit to a set of ideals.

"why is there a special Hiking skill?"

It is there for campaigns that involve much foot travel. A good investment in hiking improves travel time and reduces overall fatigue costs. If your character's HT is high enough, it becomes less necessary as a buy-in. Otherwise, it isn't absolutely required as the GM will calculate distance traveled plus fatigue spent.

"What about quick draw?"

What about it? This skill allows you to ready a weapon in an instant and beat someone else to the draw when trying to out-draw you (a showdown at high noon, for instance).

"The skill list is so huge it's hard to keep track of."

This is a common issue with first time players. Typically, you or the GM decide on what skills matter for the game at hand. For instance: no one is going to be using Computer Programming in most fantasy settings and most space opera settings won't require Riding (Horse).

>Typically, you or the GM decide on what skills matter for the game at hand.

GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy is supposed to do that for you already, and be ready to play out of the box. Did they do a shitty job?

No, DFRPG is meant for OSR games, which include an emphasis on wilderness exploration and expeditions to dungeons, meaning hiking is relevant.

>Why do I need special rules for roleplaying a code of honor or vow
That's how disadvantages work, it's a system baked into the game that gives you extra EXP for roleplaying

>Why is there a hiking skill?
So you can hike. Every D&D book, especially older editions, have rules for overland travel and hiking, this is nothing new.

>Quick Draw?
So you can quickly draw a weapon. In combat, you have to ready a weapon first before you can use it, as each combat round is only a second. With Quick Draw, you can draw a weapon and immediately use it, useful for things like wild west showdowns

>The skill list is huge
This is a legitimate complaint, and is something that stumps a lot of new GM's. You're supposed to go through the skill list personally, and cut out any skills you will not use to make the list more manageable. I don't know if the dungeon fantasy box set has rules for wildcard skills, but check them out in the basic set, they make skills MUCH more manageable

Have fun

Didn't say anything about hiking, I said if it's supposed to have been stripped down for you already, it shouldn't have a huge and unwieldy skill list, and you can't reasonably use "the DM is supposed to trim that down for you when you decide what to play" as a defense.

>using GURPS for OSR

>The skill list is so huge it's hard to keep track of.

You've got it backwards. If you're trying to do a long arduous hike and the GM wants to know if you're making good time or getting fatigued, you roll 3d6 as always. If the result is less than your Hiking score, then you're good.

The thing is, it's all right there on your character sheet. Whereas other games you're reaching for the rulebook and looking to see what kind of Con check to make.

You're freaking out because you see all those skills and are used to games where every one of them has special rules.

>Whereas other games you're reaching for the rulebook and looking to see what kind of Con check to make.
>You're freaking out because you see all those skills and are used to games where every one of them has special rules.

I see you've never played an actual OSR game instead of this GURPS knockoff of one, user. That's too bad. Over there you just ask the DM.

The skill list is stripped down for you already. If you want to strip it down even further to suit your GMing style, there are guidelines for that. If you want to add more skills, there are guidelines for that. The skill list as-is is everything that one would need in a game about adventurers getting to and crawling through dungeons.

The only part of GURPS that conflicts with OSR philosophy, if you can call it that, is the crunch. That doesn't mean you can't run OSR in GURPS, since there's a lot more going on than the amount of rules in play.

>LotFP

>The skill list is stripped down for you already.

That's what I said. OP said "this list is huge and unwieldy."
Then someone said "yeah, but the DM is supposed to trim the skill list down, you don't use the whole thing."
Then I said "It's supposed to be trimmed down already to just the skills needed for 'dungeon fantasy' so that's not a reasonable defense."

>The only part of GURPS that conflicts with OSR philosophy, if you can call it that, is the crunch. That doesn't mean you can't run OSR in GURPS, since there's a lot more going on than the amount of

Considering how many different ideas people have about "the OSR philosophy" I seriously doubt that, but I haven't read GURPS:DF yet so I can't really say. But even if it nails it 100%, I still don't see what running it gets you when you can't run any classic TSR dungeons or OSR modules with this.

Nope. The Skill list which is pared down for fantasy games is already a part of the product.

>GURPS

>I still don't see what running it gets you when you can't run any classic TSR dungeons or OSR modules with this.
Of course you can. If you mean "without conversion," the conversion is going to be easier than you think, since GURPS uses real-world units and the statblocks for monsters are simple and most standard spells are in the DFRPG spellbook. If you ask "why convert," the answer is because you want to play using DFRPG's rules. If you don't like crunchy systems, then obviously DFRPG isn't for you, and there are many systems available for you to pick from. For people who like crunch and OSR, though, their options are very limited. This product is for them.

GURPS more like BURPS

Good we don't want brainlets tainting the system anyway.

I learned 3e when I was 15 and I'm not on the spectrum.

I'm and thought I came off as a dick, so I'll answer honestly.

>I don't understand why I need special rules for roleplaying a code of honor or vow,

You don't need special rules if you plan to roleplay it anyway: you just do it. It only comes up if playing your disadvantages would inconvenience you and you don't want that to happen. It also gives incentive to people who don't roleplay, or gives ideas and guidelines. On top of all that, it gives you more points to spend on other things. It's a win if you're already going to roleplay those traits, it's a win if you have no idea what you're going to play and need ideas, and it's a win if you're not used to roleplaying and want to know how to start.

>and why is there a special Hiking skill?

Hiking is a legitimate skill in real life, so why not in a game? In game terms it allows you to travel further in a day.

>What about quick draw?

Allows you to draw weapons instantly as a free action. Seems pretty useful to me.

>The skill list is so huge it's hard to keep track of.

A legitimate complaint, but goes away after you get grips with the system. The skills, for the most part, do exactly what they say they do (especially in DFRPG where it's supposed to be the simple skills).

>special rules for code of honour
These aren't special rules. It's literally just "I agree to play my character in a way that limits his choices, and I will therefore receive some points for it."
That's it. That's not special rules. There's no dice rolling or tables or anything like that. It's an agreement between the player and the GM.

The problem about the way the sheets look in the book is the layout, it makes it look like a LOT more than it is. Most people use GCS. Here's an example of a GCS sheet. It's a character for a 16th century Base & Mission style game where the party was part of a fortress defence force.

There's some other stuff on ther elike the hit location table but mainly it's just Attributes, Skill list,a Advantages & Disadvantages, weapons & equipment. That's not really complex.

Also, this.

1. There's easy ad&d > gurps conversion guidelines available.
2. Building gurps adversaries from a list of d&d traits is simple.
3. More customizable characters than any d&d allows.

Personally i like the dfrpg boxed set, bought it two weeks ago. My only gripe with it is i dont like the skill based magic system, and wish they had given us something else instead, ideally built using powers.

Then, that's "Sorcery".
Basically you buy levels of the "Sorcery" advantage, and your spells are alternate abilities of it, meaning you can buy up to your Sorcery point cost in powers and their cost is divided by 5. (Like innate attack, curses, etc)
I don't know if the DFRPG box has details on how powers work though. There's book called "Powers" about that.

1. That character sheet doesn't look complicated at all, just detailed and even not so much.

2. Just becouse some user over a mongolian board suggested you something that doesn't mean you have to blindly comply with it. You could have made your mind by downloading the df pdfs.

3. How about making your own thread about your PbtA homebrew instead of calling out gurps only for the sake of flamewars? Yes, i'm implying that this thread is bait. Congrats, you got another bump.

Yeah. I'm familiar with sorcery. Unfortunately it's not even close to what I'm looking for. Sorcery is "improvised spells with normal spells costing 1 pt / use, all spells take 1 s to select and 1s to cast, and a single spellcasting style that's not exactly flexible".

I'm looking for more of a "fp cost determined by total point cost of the spell, improvised casting is optional not automatic, spells prepared each day can be swapped out, activation rolls based on a single spellcasting skill per style, several limited casting styles (priestly, druidic, wizardly, etc) that access subsets of the same spell list but play somewhat differently due to differences in the limitations on the array."

Easy enough to convert sorcery spells though, once the framework is ironed out.

Been chipping away at something for magic for two weeks. Just would have been nice if they had already built something like what I'm looking for to save me the time.

How can you come from D&D and yet have problems with this?
I genuinely don't understand.

I can't say for sure, having never played GURPS, but that actually looks reasonably straightforward. More complex than 5e, sure, but it doesn't look unmanageable at all.

I've got powers, pu8, pu5, sorcery and thaumatology. Sorcery was a disappointment in implementation but was a good example of how to use powers to build a magic framework, so im building what i want to use. I know ill rnf up using it for more than one campaign anyways.

Everythings not neatly laid out like a d&d sheet or pathfinder monster statblock.

Thats my only guess. Gurps statblocks tend to be kindof ugly.

Yeah the base magic system is a bit of a turd. I think the DF version of ritual path magic would have been a smart choice to include. Incantation or whatever.

>barrier shield skill
I think you need more hammers if you want to play homebrew Reinhardt, user.