Magic - Dungeon Fantasy Martial Artist Spell List

I mean, this is basically unarmed
combat, right?

Someone on a forum was discussing the possibility of a small buff to martial artists in Dungeon Fantasy. The suggestion was to allow them access to the body control magic college and base it off of their Chi power. I think that's an interesting start, but because I can't think of anything interesting to write this week, let's go with a slight refinement of that concept.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 4

15% cover art.

For better or for worse, the Dungeon Fantasy Monsters line has been a little bit inconsistent in what to expect from the titles. Better because sometimes you get cool surprises; DFM2 had some really neat stuff. Worse because sometimes you don't know that there is cool stuff under the covers; I didn't get DFM2 for forever because it sounded pretty boring from the title alone. This book though, Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 4 - Dragons is everything it says in the title; it's monster dragons 4 (for) Dungeon Fantasy. Ok, let's take a closer look.

Review - Hall of Judgement

Store Link

In a meta-GURPS way, this is kind of a special, potentially paradigm changing book; it might be the first major third party GURPS (technically, Dungeon Fantasy RPG) supplements completely endorsed by Steve Jackson Games. Its potential success or lack thereof could have an impact on future third-party supplements, so in that particular vein, it's a pretty exciting book. I backed the kickstarter at some level, forget which, but the one that gets the hard copy and the digital copies; I'm informed that my hard copy is in the mail, so this review is mostly based on the contents of the digital media. I doubt the physical media will have a world changing effect on my opinion, but if it does, I certainly will revise this review.
With that segue complete, I'd like to say now that despite the book not looking like something I wanted, I bought the book, and I was not surprised; it was very much what I expected anyway: a pretty down-to-earth dungeon delve with some Norsey trappings. I knew I am not particularly fond of most of those things and I still bought it hoping that maybe it would defy my expectations; it didn't. It was exactly what was advertised. So if you read the blurb on warehouse 23 and you like what you read, you might like this; if you read the blurb and you don't like what you are seeing, there is a good chance you won't like it. In any case, let's take a closer, more detailed look; let's see what I liked and didn't like, and paint a clearer picture of my conclusion.

Pseudobot - Added DFRPG version of throwing damage/range calculation

It's not that different from GURPS' version; but it's slightly different. So, enjoy, I guess.

Source

Pseudobot: Random Character Generator

Excitement.

I've seen people ask for a system to "roll" random characters in GURPS, and I have seen people insist that it is not good, useful, or what have you. I figure if people ask time and time again, there is someone that wants it.
Completely frankly, I don't like random characters that much, but if that makes TTRPGs fun to someone, and GURPS particularly, then who am I to tell them to go play D&D instead? If you care about the algorithm and method, there's a bit more text after the break.

Review: Pyramid #3/113 Dungeon Fantasies

Take A look if you want.

The newest pyramid out today is a Dungeon Fantasy issue. This is an impromptu review because I'm on vacation right now, but whatever. Let's see if this issue is good or not then.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy RPG - GM Screen, and the Cardboard Heroes.

That's about what it is.

A long time ago when I was reviewing all the Dungeon Fantasy RPG stuff, I said I'd wait to review some of the content until I got the physical box, I got the physical box now, so I guess I can review them.

List: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Articles usable by Dungeon Fantasy RPG

On the forums, someone asked for a post similar to the one I did previously guiding Dungeon Fantasy RPG users through the Pyramid supplements written just for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. Pyramid is a monthly "magazine," which often has a lot of GURPS specific content, like new equipment, adventures, rules, etc, and more than a handful have been in support of Dungeon Fantasy. So let's take a look.
If a title has an asterisk (*) next to it, it means that you can find it in the handy Dungeon Fantasy Collected compilation, a list of one-off articles that appeared in more general purpose issues that were not especially dedicated to Dungeon Fantasy.

Opinions: Dungeon Fantasy - The Other Racial Templates

There is one in here.

A long time ago, I did a post on my opinions on the vast vast majority of racial templates, but at the time I was missing a few of the pyramid issues with some of the racial templates, so I didn't finish them. Well, about a year ago, I did get them all, so now I can finish my reviews. So here we go.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy Encounters 1 - The Pagoda of Worlds

Cover is 50% title,
12.5% art, and not a
recommended daily source
of fiber.

This is the inaugural entry into a new line in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy franchise - Encounters. What are encounters? The concept is something less than a full fledged adventure, but with some mechanics behind it to make it more substantial than pure fluff or setting information. So, a book about a geographically and narratively agnostic set piece that does a lot of the lifting for you, without pigeonholing itself too much in a way that makes, perhaps a full fledged adventure more difficult to incorporate in a long running campaign. Overall, I found the book amusing and potentially helpful, if not directly for its content itself (which I think is absolutely fine,) then for the idea fodder it generated. Let's take a look then.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy To Dungeon Fantasy RPG - Which Books are Useful across the lines?

Dungeon Fantasy RPG is a streamlining of an already existing product: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. A lot of the rules are 1:1 compatible in one or the other, but some things in the new books might be considered somewhat redundant for users of the original, and likewise, some of the books from the original series might depend on some mechanics that aren't explicitly covered by Dungeon Fantasy RPG out of the box. This is a simple comparison of what materials between the two lines are immediately useful to the other. I'd like to note that some resources that I subjectively call redundant, might not truly be redundant. Sometimes there are a few small features that differentiate one from the other, and sometimes, nice, full-color, hardcover books are a luxury that's worth the money innate of itself.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy RPG - Dungeon: Against the Rat-Men

More space is given to the logo
than to the cover art.

Warning: this is another dungeon, so potential players who don't want the surprise ruined should stop reading here. This is the last book of the Dungeon Fantasy RPG content, besides a few pack-ins for the GM Screen, which I will save for when that actually arrives. Really, there isn't a lot I need to say about this dungeon that I didn't say about the other. It's decent and simple, and has a lot of guidance for new GMs. The cool thing here is that this is a bit of a sequel to the other dungeon, so if you like continuity, that's a nice bonus. So, let's take a closer look then.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy - Exploits

The spider looks on forlornly
as his buddy on the altar exclaims,
"dude, what the h-ck?"

Getting close to the end of these reviews, just this one big book, and a smaller bonus supplement. Exploits is basically the rule book of Dungeon Fantasy RPG, it tells you all the cool things characters can do and how. Sometime's, as a shortcut, I might call it the GM's manual, but really, everyone benefits from reading it because it can be inspiring and intriguing to see the different things you are capable of doing. I remember the first time reading Dungeon Fantasy 2, one of the big sources of material in this book and seeing all the ways certain skills or advantages could be applied, and as a fairly new RPG gamer, it was really eye opening. Let's take a closer look at this book.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy - Monsters

Red, green, and blue.

So, when reviewing these books, I try to consider the people that might be interested in buying or using these books, and to me, I think there are two important audiences: the primary audience probably being brand new prospective Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and the secondary being the deeply entrenched GURPS enthusiasts. I try to make sure that I provide notes that are interesting to both parties in these reviews to help people make informed choices, because sometimes RPGs are an investment, and it feels good to be walking into a purchase feeling confident that you are getting what you signed up for.
Not sure why I felt like putting that up, but, that's that - let's take a closer look at Dungeon Fantasy - Monsters.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy - Adventurers

This, my friends, is a cover.

Oh boy, time for one of two really big books. Full disclaimer: I have read the book through at a scan level twice, and as the goal of the document is to be an introduction to Dungeon Fantasy in specific, and GURPS in general, it straight copies several elements from a lot of previous books. Namely, and most obvious and relevant, are Dungeon Fantasy 1, GURPS Basic Set - Characters, Dungeon Fantasy 3, and a little bit here and there from other books in the Dungeon Fantasy and other lines. So, if I missed something supremely important, feel free to let me know in the comments.
With that out of the way, I feel like this is a pretty good surrogate for the aforementioned books, getting out only the rules that were absolutely necessary, and leaving the rest behind. Some of the stuff that was excised, although among my favorite mechanics (Namely, techniques, enhancements, and limitations,) I can concede that they may be a bit too much of a deep dive for an introduction to GURPS set, and that it took me many moons to wrap my head around them myself and appreciate the depth they can add. Let's take a closer look now.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy - Magic Items

The title page is almost
literally more credits than title
page.

Magic Items, I've always had opinions about the magic item books. They are not my favorite, but that is probably because they are just not for me. I'm sure there are people that appreciate and like them, otherwise this wouldn't have been voted for during the kickstarter as one of the first pieces of expansion material. When paired with Dungeon Fantasy - Spells, it covers a lot of the big holes; namely an easily accessible catalog of enchantments to easily add some razzle dazzle to otherwise ordinary treasure, plus an assortment of potions and alchemical concoctions. From the perspective of a Dungeon Fantasy player or GM, this book is critically helpful; from the perspective of someone already well entrenched in GURPS, there is a small smattering of truly unique content, and if you like either iteration of Dungeon Fantasy, it's a useful reference, but otherwise pretty redundant.

Aesthetic table of contents

Review: Dungeon Fantasy RPG - Spells

Nice cover art.

Today, I am reviewing Spells, the Dungeon Fantasy RPG Magic book. The magic system has little to no changes from the GURPS system that is published in the Basic Set and expanded in GURPS Magic, and I have discussed my feelings on the mechanics as such in brief in previous posts. I do worry that I keep reviewing these new books through the lens of a "slightly experienced GURPS player and GM" person though which I don't think is entirely helpful for the, "I've never even heard of GURPS, but Dungeon Fantasy RPG sounds like something right up my alley" crowd. This book, in that context then, absolutely does its job, but let's take a closer look.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy RPG - Traps

It's exactly what it says

Today, I'm going to look at one of the special bonus supplements for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG. Traps is exactly what it says on the tin - a catalog of traps. And it is huge. There is a lot to look at, and there's no flowery prose to dress things up further, so let's just dive right in and continue.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy RPG - Dungeon - I Smell a Rat

Cover Art, featuring actual art.

Disclaimer: This review is mostly based on a read through, but not a playthrough, and a preview/pre-release document, so perhaps some things will change between now and the true release.
That out of the way, yesterday I went for something a little short... a very little short to review to get myself back into writing shape for the next few reviews. Today, I'm walking through the 26 page introductory adventure, I Smell a Rat, written by Sean Punch.
In any case, the adventure starts off with the well known cliche of a bunch of adventurers gather to help someone clear a basement of rodents, and somehow, a complication arises, and things aren't exactly as they appear on the surface; of course they aren't. The adventure is well put together, and with my experience with novice players, a very new group might take two to three 3 hour sessions to complete the adventure, while an experienced group that gets down to brass tacks, can probably finish it in one session with a little bit of overtime. A warning right now: this might include some spoilers for players, though I intend to keep the spoiler potential as small as possible, it might become necessary to name some plot specifics in the name of giving an informative review. Let's take a deeper look then.

Review: Dungeon Fantasy RPG Cardboard Heroes

This is somewhat of a mini-review, but I thought I might warm myself up to what might be a lot of writing in the next few days as I try to write up some reviews for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG PDFs that are so brand spanking new, they aren't even being sold yet in Warehouse 23.
Unfortunately, this will probably be my toughest review, as well.
First, to start off on a good note, the art is good. There is an interesting mixture of old and new elements, and although I didn't look very closely, I think some, but not the majority are copies from earlier iterations of Cardboard Heroes. The newer assets are somewhat obvious with a more cell-shaded style than the legacy art. There is a good variety of figure art, over 100 elements, each with either a front and back for the standard SM-1 or larger pieces, or a top and bottom for the smaller pieces like rats or floor elements.

???

Now, here's my complaint, and I'm going to maybe sound pedantic, but this is kinda important to me. Take a look to the left. What color does that look like? Would you believe me if I told you that is the color white, and not some modern art pastel quilt?

The compression is
readily visible
without zooming in.

That's how badly compressed the art assets are. The same is true of most of the old Cardboard Heroes releases as well. For something that is meant to be taken to a printshop and printed on stiff glossy card stock, it seems weird to release something that isn't print-ready.
For a more representative picture of how much compression is in this image, look to the right at a hastily blurred and blotted out image. The art behind my red fill paint bucket and smudge tool, I assure you, is fine stuff. But the shimmery vampire sparkles around it irk me. I don't know if it is a matter of being preview material or not, but I hope that the actual printed material in the boxed set isn't as affected and/or that a higher quality PDF is just around the corner.