YouTube: Nosh Solo, Keep on the Borderlands

 

Nosh Solo is doing a fantastic series of solo plays on YouTube, going through the classic Keep on the Borderlands with GURPS 4e. We get seven 100-point characters, built off Dungeon Fantasy templates, going through the adventure. This started a few weeks ago, and it rocks. Let's show our YouTube creators some love and support this weekend!

This is like listening to a fantasy adventure podcast for GURPS, and it inspires me. This is so well done, and it needs more views, comments, likes, and attention.

This is like a look into an "alternate universe" where Steve Jackson Games got the rights to D&D and used the GURPS rules for the game. It is such a different experience, much more story-based, much more gritty and realistic, and a far better "narrative game" than even the "narrative-focused" games we have in the hobby today.

Grounded, gritty, realistic, historical, and hard-hitting fantasy? GURPS does it the best.

And this is one of the best solo plays in GURPS, and it is currently being developed! This hasn't ended yet, and it is time to jump in, follow along, comment, and join in the fun. We have seven so far, and catching up is not that hard and quite enjoyable.

If you start a podcast or live play series this weekend, definitely make it this one.

Wildcard/Bang Monster Skills

When I do my quick-and-dirty B/X monster conversions from old-school games such as Basic Fantasy, I will assign them a hits value based on my conversions, give them a base damage value based on hit dice, and then for most everything else, combat skills, special attacks, defenses, and other powers - I will just assign the monster a simple wildcard "bang skill" that is a catch-all skill roll for anything the beast is likely to do.

These are explained in the GURPS Basic Set Characters book (B175), and they are meant to group together like skills for a simpler game. An example is the skill Detective! in the game, which groups together all specific skills in their area, such as the ones a detective is likely to know.

So, in this case, a goblin gets the Goblin! skill, and a giant spider gets the Giant Spider! skill. If my goblin needs to make an attack roll, be sneaky, disengage, set a trap, hide, or do sneaky and stabbing, I would use the Goblin! skill. For my giant spider, that skill covers ambushes, hiding, wall crawling, web throwing, entanglement in spider webs, spider poison, scampering away, grappling, seeing in the dark, sensing movement, and spinning webs around a grappled character.

The critical part of this second case is that the wildcard skill covers "monster superpowers" that a monster should naturally have. Want to resist the spider poison? Opposed HT roll (Contests, B375) versus the bang skill, or you take the damage or effect. Web entanglement? Opposed ST roll versus the bang skill.

You can even use the Margin of Victory (B375) as a modifier to the effect roll, such as a spider poison being death on a loss difference of 6 or greater, damage for a failure of 3-5, nausea on a failure of 1-2, and no damage for any success.

I typically set this skill to 11+ the monster's hit die rating in B/X rules, and the Basic Fantasy set is just as good as any to use for this, plus the PDFs are free. That is a good baseline, and some "zero hit die" monsters, such as goblins, will just default to an 11-minus roll for everything.

If a power needs an exceptional modifier, let's say my Giant Spider! skill is at a 12-, I could modify STR-based rolls by a +4 (to the skill level) if I want that spider to be stronger in terms of grappling and STR-based checks. These one-off modifiers are easier to track than a complete design, and they add a little extra flavor to the monsters beyond just assigning a bulk skill level for everything. I could throw in a +2 skill level to web-based rolls if this type of spider is primarily known for its web-spinning and throwing powers.

More hit dice? That is going to be a higher base skill level and a more brutal monster to fight. Please remember that parry and dodge ratings are exceptional and should be rated in the usual GURPS manner (see my B/X conversion page), or else the fights will quickly become frustrating as high-level monsters will always be able to dodge and parry any attack coming their way.

One to three special case modifiers are enough to give any monster a custom feeling that avoids it from being too generic. If a monster is really good at flying, give it a bonus there, and so on. You can also add penalties, such as making an unintelligent monster, like an ogre, penalize its IQ-based rolls, perception, and other areas where you want it to be weaker. This makes ogres that are easily tricked, or ones you can try to sneak by while they are sleeping.

For the effect value, I will calculate a base damage or effect die roll based on the hit dice, but otherwise, most results can be figured out using opposed skill rolls, like "spiderweb strength versus character ST."

The best part about wildcard monster skills is that they can be used for mobster thugs in a 1920s Noir game, alien creatures in a science fiction game, enemy soldiers in a WW2 game, planar creatures in a plane-walking campaign, robots in a steampunk game, armored clone troopers in a space opera game, zombies in a post-apocalyptic horror game, orcs in a fantasy game, or any monster or enemy for other setting or world imaginable.

I can even rate "non-monster" things, like traps or automated gun turrets with a similar system, as long as an opposed skill roll can be used to defeat it, there is no reason a puzzle, computer security, or a lock can't be given a wildcard skill. The characters make an opposed roll to beat it. This differs from the GURPS way of doing things by rating tasks with a difficulty modifier (easy, hard, etc.), but it gets us to the same place just as easily (and maybe with an extra die roll for the opposed side).

I do not need a massive bestiary for every world I visit, and this makes GURPS a faster and easier game to run for any genre than games that require huge monster books, such as D&D. While large, detailed bestiaries are nice and an invaluable resource (thank you to our devoted fans and community members who pour hours into these and generously share them), GURPS gives us the tools to "wing it" when those resources are not available, or we just need to have something quickly and off-the-cuff.

GURPS becomes very easy to run with the tools the game gives us; all we need to do is figure out creative ways to apply them to our games.

GCA: Random Characters

While I love the GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) program, the paid-for alternative on Warehouse 23, GURPS Character Assistant (GCA), is also a good option.

One of the best functions of the GCA alternative is the "Create Random Character From Template" option in the top menu. This option takes a template, preferably one of the more expensive ones, and randomizes the choices so you can create a random character to begin playing with.

Of course, if there are potential synergies, such as weapon master (or fast draw) in a weapon the character is not skilled with, I am allowed to go in and fix those, and do a few clean-up items. If something is game-breaking, I will change it. But I keep things as they are, and if my knight is a shield, spear, and flail user with a sling as a ranged weapon who gambles and has a criminal background - that is who I got.

Spells and gear I will need to add myself. I will let the character's skills guide me, especially for spells. If a wizard has elemental or demon lore, that will change the spells I choose. I will need to build a gear loadout for each character.

Random characters are fun! They force me to play with weapons, skills, advantages, disadvantages, and builds that aren't my typical choices, and challenge me to optimize that build with future character points. If you are an experienced GURPS player and want to challenge yourself outside your comfort zone, play a random character and build them into a viable one.

Also, I am not as attached to these characters as I am to my "pet characters", which I tend to stick with game after game. Random characters will be much more fun since there is little chance that I will want to protect them, and another amazing random creation is a button-click away. After a while, I will be invested in them and want to protect them, maybe, but still, I won't care as much if their story ends, and I need to start another.

I am starting to play through some excellent Basic Fantasy adventures with the GURPS rules, such as the Morgansfort campaign. Now, these adventures and Basic Fantasy are great games, and I can enjoy these adventures with many old-school games, even classics like Old School Essentials or Castles & Crusades. Since I source all my old-school monsters and treasures from Basic Fantasy and convert them to GURPS (see my B/X Conversions page), this works easily for me.

Doing this playtest will likely force me to update my conversion page. Still, there are many good suggestions for quickly adapting B/X monsters to GURPS without needing expansive bestiaries written for the game. Are they perfect? Not by a long shot. Do they work? They should, and with powers that are more like bang skills, like a spider's "entangle 13-" or "venom 11-" powers, they should work well enough, and not every monster is the same (or should be), and even powers can vary. Some spiders won't have entangling or venomous powers.

This is my issue with most kitchen sink fantasy bestiaries, and after a while, players know what to expect. A monster "outside the norm," like a mana spider that shoots magic missiles, will be seen as cheating by the referee, or a goofy one-off. For me? Mana missile 14-, 1d6 damage, 6 shots, and uses spider stats. I'd give them a one-use 12-minus magic web spell. Monsters are not supposed to be familiar. That next fire beetle may explode after it dies. You just don't know.

Much of today's fantasy games contain bad habits or false assumptions that D&D forced on us, and we follow them without questioning. Part of the fun of fantasy gaming is not knowing what to expect. D&D has enshrined all its goofiness and has become predictable and boring. This recycled fantasy culture gets boring. Yes, it is iconic. But this place isn't where fantasy gaming started, and it is not the place in the unknown that makes us fear the next monster in the dark.

For me, GURPS works well and gives me that "immersion feeling" that I crave when I convert a setting to GURPS. This was reported from players of GURPS Traveller as well, even though people played the same setting with the original 2d6 rules, once they switched to GURPS, it almost felt like people were "in VR" and actually experiencing the world in person.

GURPS is highly immersive, with a level of detail and reality that makes you feel like you are in the world, looking around, watching people walk by and doing their things, hearing the sounds and smelling the smells, and living there. I can't explain why this happens, only that it has been reported many times, and I also get that feeling.

This is the GURPS Reality Immersion Field.

It exists.

I will likely expand the setting a little; the encounters and adventures mention traders on the roads, but I have no other towns near the fort to trade with, so I may add a few places of my own. The setting is perfect for expansion, so I shall create a few more towns and link this to the city to the north.

A solid, expanded, old-school adventure with random characters and GURPS?

This sounds like fun.

GURPS = Easiest Realism Fantasy

The common theme of many realism fantasy games is how hard they make everything, especially character creation. I took a trip into Rolemaster recently, and while the charts and game are cool, the character creation bogs the system down with a lot of unneeded math and crunch. GURPS is relatively straightforward in comparison.

Realism fantasy is different from deadly or gritty fantasy because there is an assumption that combat will be detailed with realistic effects of damage applied. Shadowdark is a deadly and gritty fantasy game. Still, since it uses the 5E engine, Shadowdark is not necessarily realistic, and it takes more work and referee assumptions to get there since the game does not give you the simulation systems you need for a realistic fantasy game.

Shadowdark is very gritty and deadly, but it does not give me the tools to run a game with a high amount of realism, nor does it give the players that much to work with in terms of skills and combat options to have the things they need to reciprocate and solve problems realistically.

Shadowdark is more of a board game than a simulation. GURPS is more of a simulation.

There is some cosmic war between Rolemaster and GURPS, of which I am unaware. Regardless, the system's goals in the fantasy genre are very close to providing gritty, deadly, realistic, skill-based fantasy play. GURPS has better combat options and fewer charts, whereas Rolemaster has the crit charts. GURPS can be played from a character sheet, whereas Rolemaster can't.

Rolemaster makes these internal assumptions that guide certain races and heritages, making certain professions and skills easier for those backgrounds. The game builds a "hidden" set of best paths and ideal combinations into character creation and advancement methods. In a sense, this is the game's "traditional fantasy cred," where dwarves don't make great wizards, and the other sets of fantasy tropes are created through the game's character system.

GURPS has none of that. You play as a zero-based human or a racial fantasy template and begin designing for it or adding templates until you are done. Unless you put them in there, the game has no internal assumptions of who can be the best at what. If you wanted dwarves to be unable to use arcane magic, put that in the dwarven racial template for your world as a disadvantage.

Playing a gritty, realistic fantasy game is far easier in GURPS than in any other system. The "critical effects" can be mostly made up on the spot and become readily apparent with high damage rolls. Do 20 points of damage to a head with a warhammer, and it is easy to describe what happens without flipping through 50 pages of charts. The same goes for melee critical misses, and spell critical hits and failures.

And for spell corruption, I could tag that system as a Modifier as a Limitation, tag it with Unreliable (16+ for -5%, or just say critical misses), and then put a corruption (or divine disfavor) mechanic on there for another -15%, and take -20% off the cost of all spells and spell-like powers (non-serious and temporary effect would likely reduce this down to a -10%). Or I could "say it is so," ignore the design system, and say this is like GURPS Horror. There are dozens of ways to do this, all of which are valid if you are consistent.

I have an imagination; I don't need all these charts. Are they inspiring? Yes. Are they required to play? No, and the character can limit your imagination by making you dependent on them.

Psychological limitations and those internal battles also play a considerable role in realistic fantasy, and GURPS delivers those with the game. The social factors play into the game as much as the skills and abilities, giving me a much stronger game than just providing characters and crit charts. Of course, Rolemaster is more than just those parts; GURPS has all the pieces I need built into the game's core, and they work the same for any genre or setting.

GURPS gets me to realistic fantasy nirvana more easily than any other game. Once people understand character creation, everything else is easy and flows logically. I don't need to learn a new system to do this, either, or support a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics that requires a few dozen dice to play and players constantly asking, "What do I roll?"'

With GURPS, I have that game.

GURPS vs. Realism Fantasy

There is a genre of dungeon-crawling games that relies on high-simulation elements, such as Rolemaster United (RMU), and in a roundabout way, Dungeon Crawl Classics with its rudimentary "crit charts" for warriors and other classes. A few other games try to walk the realism route, but none does it as well as GURPS. Where RMU models weapon attacks versus armor, GURPS models damage types after they penetrate armor. RMU requires a chart for each weapon and a crit table for each damage type.

GURPS is less descriptive but just as deadly. Still, it is not hard to make up descriptions of damage types and special effects, especially if the damage goes overkill. Hits to the arm or hand may cause someone to make a DX roll to avoid dropping a held item. Face hits may damage teeth, eyes, ears, or the nose. Blood may get in an enemy's eyes. A hit to the leg could cause a target to lose balance.

Most crit charts can be replaced with imaginative referee rules.

These rulings will be more logically consistent and appropriate than a chart will force on you.

Your crit effects will be better than the ones in the book and will also reflect the reality you are trying to make happen in your game. Doing slapstick comedy? The orc's pants drop and reveal underwear with hearts all over it, and he trips and falls over. Doing gritty realism? You stab the orc in the eye.

It is the same with "magical mishaps" in many of these games, and being forced to roll on corruption charts that could have tentacles popping from the wizard's body. Dungeon Crawl Classics, Shadowdark, and Warhammer FRP all do this. In GURPS, you can critically fail a spell roll. Guess what? Make up an effect.

You can and will do better than any of these charts.

90% of the time, the corruption or mishap effect will be better than anything you can find on a chart in these games. You will miss out on the WTF ones that don't make sense, but if you open up your imagination and think just a little, you could do better than any of the charts in these games.

You could go subtle, like townspeople start acting strangely around your wizard, or you could go freak-gonzo and have your caster grow demon horns. You could roll a reaction roll to see how subtle or severe the effect will be, if you don't have a clue. You could even do things not on the charts, like warp reality and move a door from one side of the hall to another, and mess with the player's minds. When the characters exit the dungeon, they will find that the entire dungeon has moved 1,000 miles to the north. Maybe a group or retainers they never hired is waiting for them outside the dungeon and asking for a treasure cut. Perhaps the town they came from, they went back to, and discovered it was destroyed 100 years ago.

I told you that you can do better than the charts that ship with these games.

Your imagination is 1,000 times better. Don't buy games primarily intended for people who don't have vivid imaginations, and expect the book's limited subset of random chart results to be better than yours.

And trust yourself.

If your "crit result" or "corruption effect" does not seem "as good as one in a book," then tell yourself that your imagination will always be better than what someone else can come up with. If you doubt your idea, roll one die, and make it a 50-50 chance you use it or come up with something else. Come up with two and roll between them; it is either a bleed effect of the leg, or you cut the orc's boot laces off, and a piece of footwear flies off (possibly hitting a nearby goblin in the face).

None of the charts in these other games likely have that boot crit, but that happens in combat. I just made it up. It is just as valid a result as anything in those games.

Some of the charts in these games are interesting, such as random tavern names and other miscellanea. Those are mostly useful and fun idea generators. Charts that affect gameplay or limit critical effects and failures to a subset of results should be scrutinized as possible replacements for your imagination.

GURPS EverQuest: Lessons Learned

Using old strategy guides, a few others and I worked on converting EverQuest to GURPS. A friend wanted a Shadowdark conversion first so she could play with her friends and a few EverQuest players, so we started that conversion. Shadowdark is like "rules light" 5E, and I get why it is popular; it is 5E without wasting all the time and money.

Shadowdark is simple enough that once EverQuest characters are boiled down to basic abilities, we can use that as a framework for a GURPS conversion since we won't need to dig through our source material and all these ancient, yellowed strategy guides we picked up on eBay.

We are avoiding the D&D 3.5E version of the game to keep D20 out of the conversation. The strategy guides are the source of truth here. The spell lists will be the ones from the game, and we will make a formula to convert those into each game, which is easy because we can just make a guideline chart based on levels and what the spells should do.

So, we got the first five classes converted, and...?

Umm...

Let's stick with Dungeon Fantasy characters. Even the spells are "meh," and the Dungeon Fantasy ones are better if you choose each class spell list with a theme. A shadow-knight with a pain, stun, and wither limb power is much more thematic and fun than the EverQuest spell lists. I can design good GURPS characters and stick to a theme when picking spells. In any D20 game, you design all the options first and tell players, "This is all you get."

My GURPS characters feel more like real characters in this world, and honestly, the setting is better than the EverQuest game rules and spells. Even in our Shadowdark game version, we must make up "cool thematic powers" for each class to give them some "zing" and playability. Otherwise, these are straightforward B/X style classes with a hit die, progression chart, and a skill list.

As-is, the Shadowdark version of the conversion feels plain, and it needs sprucing up outside the rules of EverQuest to make it attractive and worth playing. Let's invent an extraordinary power for a druid, like animal friendship? Let's give the necromancer special powers, too. We must give them more than a spell list and an allowed set of weapons and armor.

Also, casters in the Shadowdark version of the game will end up with hundreds of spells from the strategy guides and be far more potent than the martial characters. Even if you only say, "Pick ten memorized," and cast them with Shadowdark rules, they will still be insanely powerful.

GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy?

The characters as I designed them are perfect, thematic, and feel realistic and gritty. Even my friend says she likes the GURPS characters better than our converted ones, even though our Shadowdark version is much more faithful to the game. My GURPS characters are much more open to different progression paths, whereas my Shadowdark characters are stuck in a class and five rolls on a talent chart over ten levels, and that is it.

Using GURPS eliminates playing with her friends, but given people's time and attention these days, it may be a lost cause, hoping they will play any pen-and-paper game with her. I will jump at the chance, of course! But for those in her online gaming circle, I severely doubt they will even play Shadowdark. Most people who play 5E will play D&D on the Beyond platform and have no interest in Shadowdark or EverQuest, nor would a complete 5E conversion even be worth doing.

GURPS is better for characters; even if you use stock GURPS spells and powers, you can get closer to feeling than design. That is the thing with GURPS conversions, stick with GURPS stuff first, and you may find it does the job better than an item-by-item perfect total conversion.

My druid could learn to become a bard in GURPS. Just spend the points over there and sing to woodland creatures, if you want. In Shadowdark, you are stuck in one class with minimal customization options.

The EverQuest setting is still a classic, and the strategy guides have maps, monsters, and zone information. We are sticking to the first three expansions in the classic, maximum level 60 era of Kunark, Luclin, and Velious. Even with zero EverQuest spells and powers and just using stock Dungeon Fantasy and designing for "close enough," the conversion is already a home run. Monsters? The level is just "toughness" or a point value; we can use GURPS Ultra Lite to create them.

The only advantage Shadowdark has is that the monster list works well and fits EverQuest's game world. The exploration and play systems are tight. The game is D20. It is easy to hand a player a character sheet and just play. Getting friends to play Shadowdark is easier.

The advantage of GURPS?

Everything is better here, even without a complete conversion. The characters feel better, play better, advance better, and feel realistic and fantastic. The world is just "the setting we play in." The classes are just "frameworks we design within." The different spells aren't a problem since the Dungeon Fantasy spells are better than the MMO's math-based, button-mashing, circa 1999 computer game standards. If you wanted one spell, designing it would not be a problem.

Do you play with GURPS fans or solo?

Choose GURPS.

GURPS: EverQuest - A Tale of Two Necromancers

So, I was designing characters for my GURPS: EverQuest game, and as luck would have it, one of the characters was a necromancer. Regarding exceptional cases, players will always pick the one that makes your life the hardest. But in this case, it wasn't that hard, but it did bring up a massive issue with Dungeon Fantasy Spells versus GURPS Magic.

Dungeon Fantasy defaults to a lower magic power level, a low fantasy feeling, where magic has actual costs, and its effects are limited in scope and often at the time of the impact. The Dungeon fantasy game has necromancy spells, so we can use those for our skeleton summoning caster, right?

Let's open Dungeon Fantasy Spells and see what we have. And we are hit by this line, under Necromantic Spells, page 59.

Rituals for creating or becoming undead exist, but no reputable temple or guild teaches them.

What? Okay, "by-default you-are-the-hero" assuming game, let's start hacking these spells to let our necromancer work at least halfway decent. And, we referees are much less reputable than the magic guilds in this game. We will have to change a few spells, but don't panic; GURPS lets us do this and not have an army of 5E Internet people come down on us saying we have homebrewed our game, which is terrible. In GURPS, homebrewing is the standard and sane thing to do.

This is a vast difference from 5E or Pathfinder 2, where you are not supposed to change rules. GURPS assumes you hack the game, just like any sane old-school game.

We need to slightly change two spells to do this: Command (Spirit) and Summon Spirit. Command Spirit will be used to grab a random wandering undead and make it ours. If this is a random skeleton or zombie wandering in EverQuest, that would cost 5 for "fodder" creatures (10 for worthy undead like ghouls, and 20 for boss monsters like vampires), last for one minute, and cost 2 per extra minute to maintain (half, and we round down for everything not a cost or weight). When you run out of power and haven't sent the undead away, it will turn hostile (or you can roll a reaction). This is lower power necromancy, where you won't control a skeleton for long.

The other spell is Summon Spirit, which costs a lot more, 20 to cast and 10 to maintain. This cost can be halved if you are over the corpse and halved again if over the site of death. So casting this over a fallen soldier in battle would only cost 5, and wandering around a graveyard would cost 10. This is a pretty hefty cost, and it has a hefty maintenance cost, too (but in the best case, it would still be only 2 per extra minute). So if you can't find a random wandering undead, you need to go make one not-so-fresh. Also, summoning like this and stopping maintenance means the undead just falls down and goes away.

This is, again, low-magic necromancy, so I am okay with it. Only high-powered necromancers can create undead, and they will need power items to burn off some of this cost. Also, remember, if your skill is above 15, you reduce the power costs by one; if it is above 20, you reduce it by two (and one point per five points of skill above that). So, a skill 20 necromancer in a spell will reduce maintenance costs by two, keeping that skeleton around free of any maintenance power cost.

What I thought was unworkable, is now workable, and you can have a necromancer with a skeleton "pet" that sticks around indefinitely without a power cost. Lower-level necromancers are struggling to maintain control and must pay a hefty fee to keep the pet as a companion.

This does not change the rules too much and lets you use the existing spells without adding new ones to a character creation program. This is also a very low-magic solution, and it also aligns well with the Create Animal spell on page 19, with a cost to cast and maintain per minute.

A solution that only makes a minor change to a few spells enables our necromancers (or demonologists) to work, and it has a similar spell in the same book? This very workable solution fits what we already have in the game and keeps the same power level intact.

It feels good when you can hack a mod like this with the books you have, and it creates a balanced and fair solution. I like high-skill necromancers maintaining rabble undead for free, and remember that those maintenance costs go up with minor or significant undead, so even higher-power necromancers need to spend power on maintaining control.

So let's use Dungeon Fantasy 9, Summoners, to fix our necromancer problem. This is a good supplement for the game, but it is much closer to the default GURPS Magic power level and feels super-heroic and high-powered. This uses the Zombie spell from GURPS Magic, which costs 8 to cast, has no upkeep cost, and the undead stays around until destroyed. Control Zombie in this book costs 3 and lasts indefinitely.

Wow. Do you mean our necromancer just pays 8 powers to cast this spell and has a pet undead forever? Yes. This makes low-level necromancers (and summoners) insanely powerful. They do not have to worry about maintaining control of power expenditure, and there is only a minor benefit to a high skill level. This starts to make a difference with "major" undead

This is the difference between Dungeon Fantasy's power level and the regular game GURPS Magic power level. In Dungeon Fantasy, you have (in general) a lower level of power, whereas in the main game, you have the complete GURPS Magic system - which is more on the level of superhero magic. Coming from 5E or PF2, you would expect all magic systems in the game to be unified and one power level. This is not true, and also it is a huge thing to grasp when you want to understand GURPS.

GURPS is a toolkit, and there are systems in the game that do the same thing but on wildly different power levels. It is up to you as a "game creator" to pick the best systems for your game and lay those out for the players to work with. Yes, you can have two fantasy games in GURPS, one where the characters are gritty survivors in a low-magic world and another where they are flying around like superheroes. Looking at all the GURPS books and games you can buy, you don't realize this at first, but after you do a few character designs you begin to see the differences and can make good choices for your game.

"Making good choices for your game" is another thing you should keep in mind as a GURPS referee, and this is another alien concept for 5E and PF2 players to grasp. GURPS is closer to a "game programming language" than it is to an "everything is done for you" experience.

So, TLDR?

Dungeon Fantasy Spells are low-fantasy magic.

GURPS Magic is superhero magic.

GURPS: Everquest

EverQuest is one of those games that is more of a setting than it is a game. The MMO has been going on decades, and the definition of "what a class is" and "what classes have what powers" is a subject really only for the hardcore players, and even then, the endgames is where the action is at, and the numbers are so high damages are in the billions these days.

It is an easy setting for a game like Dungeon Fantasy to simulate, and you can get away with all of the standard Dungeon Fantasy templates as the standard EverQuest classes. Not many will really notice, and to most, a fighter is a fighter in this sort of setting, and the setting is why they are playing. This is almost the opposite of D&D, where people will play more for the classes than the setting, but here, you give me a Dungeon Fantasy wizard, and yeah, that could be an EverQuest wizard easily with very little suspension of disbelief.

The only notable must-haves for this world is Dungeon Fantasy 3 (The Next Level) for shadow elves and other backgrounds you may wish to reskin, and there is also the unholy warrior here for a nice shadow-knight template. Dungeon Fantasy 9 (Summoners) is good for beast-lords  and necromancers. To be fair, these are more "advanced classes" for a game like this, and you can add these in later as needed.

Playing in the classic EverQuest setting is the huge appeal here. There is also an alternate timeline for EverQuest II, and all that really changes is the map and current events. They are both pretty much well interchangeable except for the story and the places you can go.

Monsters are pretty well much standard fantasy monsters, and there are fewer than most OSR games when you start. A lot of these will be goblins, orcs, gnolls, skeletons, giant rats, fire beetles, spiders, and your typical MMO creatures. If you want to simulate the special dungeons you will need a strategy guide with maps and monster lists.

Plenty of online resources exist for EverQuest.

You can "wing it" pretty easily in a world like this, and inventing new dungeons in this world will be pretty simple, as you can just say there are forts, caves, villages, evil temples, and other places not in the main game that are in your world. If you are trying to do a "Guk-like" dungeon, just makes it a twisting maze of hexes with evil frogs, trolls, and other swamp beasts living in there. No one is going to call you out for things not being perfect, they will be happy to play in the setting and not worry about the specifics.

Close enough in Everquest is just fine as long as you get the major cities, locations, and places correct. You can play a "softer lore" setting and include other fantastical races not normally playable, like the Minotaur-like Tizmaks, or the otter-like Othomirs, and be just fine, too. Again, it really does not matter much how closely you play the lore to the game, the game as it is today is very little concerned about lore outside of the RP communities.

You can run an entire campaign out of one of the major cities and be just fine, with limited visits to other locations. Your players, their experiences with the game, and their interests will drive where you need to focus on. There will be factions, conflicts, and races that will play the starring role here, and there are some great ones. The dark elven city of Neriak, the good city of Qeynos, and the evil Freeport are all amazing locations, and they don't really have to be "lore accurate" in terms of maps and locations. If you get the flavor and feeling right, that will be great for most players. These locations have changed over the years, and even during each game's lifetime, and there is also the limited part of the city each game can simulate - so you are free to expand and make up as much as you like about these places.

If you ever played these games, the maps are pretty primitive, so anything you imagine will definitely be an improvement. EverQuest 2 has a few more "interesting points of interest" so you may run into those expectations, but for the most part you will be fine, or the players can help you with lore. Most hardcore fans will be thrilled to play in this setting, and will be more than willing to help out fill in the details.

These games are also free-to-play, so if you needed to log in and see a place, it is certainly possible.

The normal Dungeon Fantasy magic items are also "good enough" for this setting, and you don't need a complete magic item list for the game out of a strategy guide, unless you really want to, or have a favorite item you want your character to get their hands on. Dungeon Fantasy (Magic Items) is a good resource to have here, and you can do some fun items, like making musical instruments as "casting items" (or bonus items), and you can outdo the original game pretty easily. Dungeon Fantasy 8 (Treasure Tables) is also an excellent resource for creating treasures and magic items.

I like this conversion since there isn't that much pressure to "rebuild the MMO" in the GURPS rules. Bog-standard fantasy will cover most of the pieces you need, and you really only need a few flavor locations, gods, and foes to get the feeling right. The games have progressed decades of expansions, and it would be impossible to recreate everything exactly how it exists in the game.

This feels different than kitchen-sink fantasy or B/X conversions since there are more current expectations there that you have a near-complete set of conversions of monsters, magic items, and the standard tropes. We have a feeling that we need to be "much closer to the rules" with B/X conversions to GURPS than does a setting like EverQuest, where in all honesty, if it played and sounded like an "EverQuest the streaming TV show" it would be more than fine in most player's eyes.

This feels more like a novel of TV show conversion than a "game into another game" conversion, which makes the work a lot easier, and sets the expectations bar pretty low. The "realistic feeling" of GURPS will also be a plus here, and put a more realistic lens on the setting than a typical d20 or 5E game, and yes, there was a D&D 3.5E game for this world. 

GURPS will do the setting far more justice and give us some hardcore "grind and simulation" which is what the original game was all about back in the day. I don't want 3.5E "bags of hit points" for this setting. I want realism and drama, and that movie-like feeling that GURPS does so well.

Genres & Games Reorganization

GURPS survives every reshelving and storage run with my library. It occupies my "best shelf" constantly, and I don't see it ever moving. Other games come and go, and the biggest loser this season is 5E; that game is far too huge for its own good; my collection is nearly a dozen boxes, and the game is bloated, unplayable, and makes the sin of relying on computerized character creators to manage it all. The more you buy for 5E, the less happy you are since nothing is supported in one place.

At least with GURPS, I have the GURPS Character Sheet (sidebar link; please support the project), which covers everything the game has published and everything I will ever add to it.

Losing 5E freed up space on my shelves for a few other fantastic games. GURPS, of course, does them all, but some are still worth playing and checking out. I am finding that the "alt boutique" style games, which take one game and slightly tweak it to "play better," are also becoming big losers in this round of shelf shuffling.

Why do I need Castles & Crusades, Shadowdark, Old School Essentials, Swords & Wizardry, and many other games (that I still love) when I have OSRIC and my PoD copies of AD&D (not for play, just for Gary's wisdom)? OSRIC is my Rosetta Stone, while AD&D is like Lord of the Rings.

Sometimes, I want to return to those first days, fire up the time machine, and be there again. None of the new games, OSRIC, or my inspirational material does that. Compared to the OG game, it is all "second source photocopies." AD&D powers the time machine, and OSRIC gives me the rules.

And yes, I get it. Why not just play Dungeon Fantasy? I have everything I need right here, plus GURPS! While I love Dungeon Fantasy, we did not need this in the 1980s when we had GURPS. In fact, GURPS was superior to AD&D, and it did not have to "play to the genre" since GURPS was every genre and every type of game rolled into one.

The "dungeon fantasy" genre was really championed by D&D 3.0 when Wizards took over and turned D&D into a board game, which was cool. They rolled it back massively with D&D 5E, and the game is more theater-of-the-mind. Back in the day, this was "fantasy roleplaying" and not "dungeon roleplaying," if you get my drift. There is a clear difference between the "fantasy" and the "dungeon" genres, and extending this further, D&D 5 is in the "epic heroic" genre more than it is in the other two and arguably closer to the storytelling game FATE.

Sometimes, I feel "playing to a genre" lessens the game. I enjoy Dungeon Fantasy a lot. Still, if I am in my time machine, I am comparing GURPS (3.0) with AD&D. I am limiting my comparisons strictly to the "fantasy" genre without having to pull in all the "needed lists" that must be present for the "dungeon" genre to feel well supported.

Need examples of the fantasy genre? Go back to the classics. Robin Hood, Conan, King Arthur, and even John Carter. GURPS does these out of the box, even with the basic rulebook. You have characters, a low technology level, rare magic, monsters, sword swinging, and many skill tests.

AD&D started more in the fantasy genre, then it was overtaken by the dungeon genre, slowly developing the "dungeon genre," which was once seen as a lesser genre than fantasy. If your game "only did dungeons," it felt less capable. Given that D&D 3.0 elevates the "dungeon genre" to something akin to a professional sport, this comparison is completely flipped on its head. The "dungeon" is seen as "fantasy," and the traditional fantasy genre has been forgotten or is seen as a lesser genre - at least within gaming.

These days, Pathfinder 2 holds the torch for the dungeon genre, given its massive development efforts, strict balancing, and almost religious adherence to its standards and tropes. This is the standard-bearer game. D&D 5 has moved on to epic heroic storytelling and is in the "live play" genre. Even though D&D 3.5E is in the same tactical dungeon genre, Pathfinder 2 is supported and works hard to fix the near-constant imbalance issues. D&D 3.5E is still very broken. 

Pathfinder 2 recently ditched the OGL and SRD, and the game is better for it.

GURPS and Pathfinder 2 are tactical dungeon battle games where "builds matter on the board."

You are not in the dungeon genre these days if you are not delivering a tactical board game. This is mainly due to expectations, and the complexity of character builds in these games. You need to "prove your build on the board" in a dungeon genre game, and there is no real good way to do that in theater-of-the-mind gaming. Especially if part of combat is positioning, pushing, reaction attacks, line of sight, vision, movement, and any "on the map tangible" design element.

Pathfinder 2 goes the extra mile to codify skill use in combat and gives those defined actions to attempt. Pathfinder 2 is the model future GURPS development should follow. Clearly define everything that can be done, and then balance the heck out of it. While you are at it, make every choice equal and enjoyable.

The most significant difference is that Pathfinder 2 puts everyone on the same level of progression regarding combat power. GURPS lets you make that choice yourself. Pathfinder 2 is the more straightforward game to balance and creates encounters for, but that comes at a price.

GURPS does both fantasy and dungeon genres well, with a realistic filter over the game. It also delivers a tactical board game. The fantasy genre gets forgotten in the hype, marketing, and advocacy. In GURPS, you can lean into the storytelling side more effortlessly than in Pathfinder 2. My "Robin Hood" does not need a "class built with archetypes" and a "carefully crafted combat style." My Robin Hood needs skills and abilities to "do that RP stuff."

Suddenly, Pathfinder 2 feels like overkill to play Robin Hood or King Arthur.

Even Dungeon Fantasy feels like overkill, to be honest. Why am I messing with all these class templates? Why 250 points? Where is the "enemy disadvantage" for the sheriff and his men?

The average customer in the gaming market cares very little for any of these distinctions; they just want to play "Critical Role" or "Robin Hood," and they will pick up any game with a fantasy scene on the cover. They will notice if the game makes them do too much work to have the experience they seek or if parts are missing, ones they expect to be there to deliver on the promises in their heads.

GURPS is the best middle-ground in all of these cases. You can have tactical play and depth. You can have rules-light story-gaming. You can have the classic "fantasy" genre without all the dungeon cruft, or if you use Dungeon Fantasy, revel in the "dungeon" genre.

But it isn't the "best in class" game in the tactical or dungeon genre, and it could be argued that it is a matter of choice in the story-gaming genre. GURPS (base rulebooks) is still the best-in-class game in the traditional fantasy gaming genre and has been that way since the 1980s.

I can design my Robin Hood or John Carter character and not worry about classes, tactical abilities, class templates, or +1 swords; I can define a character through skills, abilities, advantages, and disadvantages—and I'll be playing the superior game for the fantasy genre.

Games Other than GURPS: OSRIC & S&W

I have been on a GURPS break and am working on writing and immersion in a few other games. I know, "Why play other games when you have GURPS?" Sometimes, I want to relive things, play games where a lot of work has been done for me, explore the systems I have out, and sort through the ones I consider "core" in my library. I am drawing down my library size, so games will revisit a shelf for a while, and I will ask, "Do I really want this?"

The first I have been pulling out and exploring is OSRIC, which is, at its core, first-edition AD&D, but OSRIC is "just the rules." The first edition is likely the "greatest version of D&D ever written," it invalidates most everything that came after, even the 5th Edition. Sometimes, I want to go back to the start to "rebase" my gaming expectations, but it does not get much better than the original.

I use OSRIC because this is the community-supported version of the game, and it is still open and free to publish expansion work with. The AD&D books sit nearby, just to absorb Gygaxian wisdom, but the 
"rules engine" is all OSRIC, along with a few BRW Games expansions.

AD&D was there when GURPS started, so this game, being one of the inspirations to "make a better mousetrap," is strong here. I can see why GURPS is the way it is when I go back to race and class combos. There is an unmatched sense of freedom in GURPS. The divergence came when GURPS started adding skills and rules, and the game grew away from that "simple core" in the earlier editions.

That sense of freedom that GURPS gives is tempered by a "why?" when I read these rules. Gygax was trying to build a game and world model, almost like a video game, where mechanical balance was created by limitations and allowing some combinations by not others. In GURPS, there are no limitations, and it is as mix-and-match as a modern game, such as Pathfinder 2's near-infinite combinations, though on a far more finely granulated level.

Those choices create a mini-game inside of character creation. There is a "game" here where you are trying to figure out "why Gygax was going for." with these combos and limits, which is more than just slapping arbitrary restrictions everywhere. The racial abilities "in the dungeon" were supposed to play a more significant role in the game, almost like the superpowers we see in 5th Edition, and that "in the dungeon" experience was not supposed to be abandoned or marginalized at high level. There were supposed to be "20th-level dungeons," almost like a video game.

AD&D changed more in the second edition into a story game supporting the novels. They are mostly the same game, but the tonal shift is significant. GURPS is better suited for story gaming since its skill list does much more than several games in the dungeon genre.

Combined.

There are stories I can't tell in the first edition or any B/X clone that GURPS makes simple. When I am just "rolling polyhedral dice in a dungeon," OSRIC works fine. OSRIC keeps me out of the market for newer games and the endless stream of B/X clones, which suits me just fine. Why have the rest when we have the best? The only exception is Swords & Wizardry, which is quite likely the best B/X game ever written.

Still, OSRIC and S&W can't tell the stories that GURPS does. It isn't close.

The first edition was harsh, and characters died regularly. This is just like GURPS, but in this game, creating a character was fast, so you cared, but it wasn't a huge setback. In GURPS, I can spend a few weeks designing a character, both a blessing and a curse.

The first edition I love also has a "survival game element," which is also in GURPS. I love the idea of a harsh world standing in the way of "getting to the dungeon" and "going home." You get a lot of people in the hobby who bemoan "wilderness encounters" as "resource-wasting elements" that "insert RNG into encounter balance inside a dungeon." I hear "video gamers complaining about video game things," which is the optimizer thing again, and "the game is programmed to be won" crowd back at it.

First-edition and many original role-playing games weren't "written to be won"—they were written to challenge a party of a certain level range and present things "as is." The massive push for "encounter balance" wasn't until the Wizards came in with D&D 3.0 and started turning the game into a card game.

GURPS isn't "written for balance" either; it is "written to simulate reality," which gives the game a flatter power level and makes it easier to balance. After a few combats, it gets simple to balance GURPS fights, which are usually over quickly (unless you make dodge and parry insanely high).

The "dungeon games" do "dungeon gaming" the best. GURPS does "everything else" the best. When I use GURPS to run fantasy game worlds, it isn't dungeon gaming, and the stories are much more varied and textured. The stories are better. But the focus shifts. Dungeon games (OSRIC, S&W, etc.) are like handheld game consoles that do that experience the best. GURPS is my PC, which does every other experience so well that nothing else competes.

When I try to "limit GURPS" to do SRD-style fantasy, I always lose more than I gain. I feel constrained to the concepts and rules "from other games" than what GURPS allows me to express. It isn't GURPS but "trying to be AD&D using GURPS." I don't want to be "designing a fireball or magic missile spell" inside of GURPS, but having magic be that strange, unknown, powerful, and "magical" force it is in novels and books.

"Using GURPS to simulate other games" is a lose-lose situation, at least for me. GURPS does a lot more and a lot better, and trying to design "other game stuff" limits your imagination and storytelling capability. So many games are moving away from the SRD and OGL and getting better for it. In my experience, moving away from "SRD magic" makes the entire concept "of magic" a more compelling, strange, and mysterious thing.

Can I simulate the SRD using GURPS? Yes, and it works well.

Do I want to? Not really. The fantasy books I read that present magic as a strange and unknown force don't follow SRD mechanics. GURPS does that well, and this is how I use it. I don't want players "expecting a converted SRD" in my games; I want them to use their imagination and weave together strange effects and powers that aren't possible in any other game.

Again, GURPS tells that "story of magic" better than any other game.

Tying myself to an SRD world limits my ability to tell it.

I want to "express the impossible," not "design inside the limits of another game."

Even the designers of Pathfinder 2 are discovering that tying their concepts too tightly to the old ways limits their ability to create new classes and magical traditions, and adherence to SRD concepts limits their freedom. They have a playtest of their new necromancer class that was impossible with the old SRD wizard concept hanging out there as a junk drawer saying, "I can do that!" This is a counter-example, but it shows how an assumed concept can limit designer freedom.

Why do I like the first edition? It was my first game. This also expresses "SRD mechanics" in their simplest form. While limited in scope, it tells that "dungeon story" well enough.

Having OSRIC out and giving that my "SRD gaming" fix allows me to use GURPS to tell the stories I want it to tell and the ones I feel it does best. OSRIC is also a fantastic GURPS reference if you want to go that route, with plenty of inspiration.

In some ways, this is the fight between Dungeon Fantasy and GURPS over the game's "identity" - at least regarding the dungeon genre (and, by extension, Fantasy). Before DF, we did things the GURPS way. After DF, there is a DF way of doing the genre.

GURPS and the OSR

I read a few comments about a few GURPS players who left for the OSR, and I can understand why. Yes, you don't get the fantastic character designs and total control that I love in GURPS. The combats are bland in d20 systems, and GURPS combat is much more tactical and satisfying. GURPS is learning once and running anything.

The OSR, the other hand, is a treasure trove for those who prioritize classic adventures over intricate character designs. It offers a class and level system that point-design games don't. However, this comes at the cost of limited choices, a less robust skill system, and the absence of advantage and disadvantage systems. Character customization is also more restricted.

The games are the way they are to facilitate group play at a table more than a simulation. Having classes makes creating a character and fitting in a party role easy, whereas, in GURPS, you can get a table full of random and unique character concepts with no role to fit into a party structure. Unless you pre-plan the party and pick roles beforehand, of course. Still, an OSR game is faster to pick up and play, providing a sense of reassurance and confidence in your ability to enjoy the game.

Many OSR games are unique prepackaged experiences: one book, one game, and infinite fun. Some are highly random, like Dungeon Crawl Classics. Others are throwback games to a particular time or version, such as Swords & Wizardry or OSRIC. Recreating all the tables, chaos, options, spells, and monsters in these games is a tremendous amount of work, and it is easier just to play the game as-is to experience what it has to offer. Unless you have a conversion system, like my Basic Fantasy mod for GURPS.

Still, there is fun in just turning off my desire to point-design everything and playing a party-based game with clear character roles. I don't mind "plugging into" an OSR game for a while; it is like playing a console game to change things up and experience something new. Games where I can run a character on a 3x5" index card are fantastic.

Part of me wishes GURPS was as plug-and-play as an OSR game, where the character choices were simple, the skill system did not have a few hundred choices, and what you had to write down and choose were a small number of easy options. You can do this through templating, but the framework behind the scenes is still heavy unless you just used GURPS Lite, which is 100% possible.

Most of my GURPS gaming never goes beyond GURPS Lite, and that framework can drive most games. Even Ultra Lite is a fantastic set of rules for NPCs and quick encounters, and you often only need a little more detail. A giant spider? Give it an "entangle and web skill" and use opposed rolls to avoid the effects.

This is also why I like Dungeon Fantasy. It is nice to have a self-contained game focused on one genre, something I can pick up and not be distracted with "other stuff," and I can have a focused experience in the books. I am not dealing with laser pistols or superheroes in the core GURPS book; this is just fantasy. My mind can focus on that, and the book immerses me from cover to cover.

The huge failing of Dungeon Fantasy is that it goes straight for the superhero fantasy experience with 250-point characters, cutting out the entire zero-to-hero run. That zero-to-hero experience is a part of the fantasy genre, as are the fantasy superheroes! That "growing into a character" and "learning the rules through growth" keeps the OSR games compelling. Dungeon Fantasy is very difficult for a newcomer since the 250-point characters are complex, and nearly a full page of GURPS skills and rules to learn on that character sheet.

The Delvers to Grow books are excellent patches for that problem, but they are third-party books fixing a problem the base game has. Still, not only do you have to learn GURPS, but you also need to learn 250-point characters. Then, you can go back and do these starter templates and finally enjoy that experience. This was my experience with Dungeon Fantasy, and it felt the same as being handed a 15th-level character sheet in 5E and told to learn that first before being able to start a 1st-level character.

Part of my frustration with the "kitchen sink" fantasy in GURPS is that it is way more complicated than it should be. What should be a genre where you get a 50-point noob and go turns into a massive project of learning the rules, endless conversions, choices on top of more choices, and becoming a "fan total conversion project" rather than something where you can pick up a book and play.

In a way, the core GURPS books are more accessible for the zero-to-hero fantasy genre than the Dungeon Fantasy game, which feels like the advanced version of the rules for expert players only. In some ways, Dungeon Fantasy is like a GURPS mod for the genre, and while it strips away the parts of the game you don't need, you get a lot of stuff, and it feels like Dungeon Fantasy is a solution that is a part of the problem.

My ideal version of "Fantasy GURPS" would be more the base GURPS core book but focused on the fantasy genre. But that is Dungeon Fantasy?! Yes and no. The core GURPS game standardized starting levels at 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, etc. When players pick an archetype role, such as "fighter," they get the 50-point template, a disadvantage or two, and they get playing. You could offer higher starting point packages for each role if players want more at the start. The book would have every rule needed to play, including combat.

Even the premade character sheets could be pre-filled in at each starting package deal. Print it out, pick or roll disadvantages, and you are playing. A new player does not need to open the book to sort through lists of choices. They should not. Hand them one character sheet and play.

Yes, I can do all this myself with what I have. But that is not the goal. I would love a GURPS book with the utility and ease of use as an OSR game. Even to the point of standardizing combat around GURPS Lite and making most of the combat rules optional advanced rules. The complexity and design of GURPS are not the problem, and mastering GURPS is a lot easier than mastering 5E.

The game needs to be focused, present experiences that players expect to see, and offer enough options to make it feel right.

It is an accessibility issue, and OSR games do that very well.

Updating the B/X Conversions Page

As I delve into my GURPS fantasy game, I've updated the B/X conversion page. The guiding principle is 'zero design', relying solely on conversions from B/X-like sources. I've opted for Basic Fantasy, a straightforward, ascending AC system that provides all the 'base data' I need for a robust conversion. Its simplicity and solid implementation give me confidence in the design choices.

Versions of the d20 fantasy game past the original B/X, BECMI, or AD&D do not convert well to GURPS. Everything past the video game-like D&D 3.0 scaled the hit point scale and eliminated the concept of hit dice, which are essential for the original numbers to work. Even AD&D 2nd Edition has very high hit points for the more enormous monsters, and they messed with the game's secret sauce when they changed the original damage scales.

An ancient red dragon with 660 (D&D 3.5E), 362 (Pathfinder 1e), 1,390 (D&D 4E), and 546 (D&D 5E) hit points shows you how much they scaled damage up to attract video gamers. In AD&D, S&W, or OSRIC? 88 hit points? BECMI? 90 hit points. OSE or B/X? 59 hit points. Even AD&D 2nd could have been better at 104 hp, but this is where it started. Fighters did not multi-attack in earlier editions of the game, which is what all damage scaling is based on. That 1d8+X longsword can still hurt a dragon in the earlier games, and in all later editions, that "basic attack" became a joke, along with most martial characters.

GURPS? The dragon has an HP of 50. This is an adult dragon, so an ancient red dragon would likely be 80 or 90, putting the GURPS HP scale directly in line with B/X games. GURPS was designed around the time of AD&D, so the numbers in the same area do not surprise me. The only real difference here is the curve, with B/X having a very weak low end, a sizeable middle distribution, and a longer high hit-point upper range. GURPS HP is primarily linear (since HP = ST in most cases) with a floor, starting at the default human 10 HP.

For me, the original B/X, BECMI, and AD&D games are not just fantasy; they are richly defined micro-settings, each inspired by a blend of Vance, Howard, Lovecraft, Leiber, Tolkien, and, surprisingly, the Bible. With their classic 'good versus evil' theme, these games are the authentic roots of the fantasy genre, a stark contrast to today's games that often dilute these classic conflicts with distractions and mass-media influences. They evoke a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for the origins of our beloved genre.

The fantasy genre is not the fantasy genre without biblical influence. Try to remove it, and it is AD&D 2nd Edition all over again.

Why not use Dungeon Fantasy monsters? I want to play the original adventures and directly use the statistics of the monsters and creatures in those books. The characters in Dungeon Fantasy are the heroes, while the converted monsters are the world's foes. It is an odd combination, more like GURPS characters in a strange, almost video-game-like reality, semi-based in the GURPS simulation, but with that classic dungeon-crawling feeling.

Yes, a goblin can have 1d6+2 HP. That is way less than Dungeon Fantasy's 12 for goblins and 14 for orcs. But using a hit-die scale lets me say, "These orcs are level 3 fighters; they have 3 HD." Suddenly, they are 18 HP beasts and have 14-minus skills. With armor, those are fearsome.

The base 1 HD versions of the monsters that serve a crucial role in the game-they are 'minions.' Dangerous in numbers, and with lucky hits, they can be taken down with one solid hit. Their presence adds a thrilling element to the game, making every encounter a strategic challenge.

Realistic characters in a B/X reality are the essence of the game. This means some monsters will be 'boss monsters' that a party needs to take on, while others will be more minion-like. Some monsters may be so formidable that they require modern weapons to defeat them or teams of twelve or more heroes at significant cost. This balance between realism and gameplay ensures that every encounter is immersive and challenging, adding depth to the game.

So, this is different from a typical GURPS game. The monster half is uninterested in simulation and presents that "hit die progression" where monsters start as minions and gradually outclass character power. The character side is 100% GURPS in living in a reality like that.

Please Let Me Design the Character I Want

In my recent gaming adventures, I've delved into the world of Tales of the Valiant, a new 5E game by Kobold Press. It's a compelling alternative for those who may not be fans of Wizards. However, the electronic character sheets in Hero Lab, while functional, seem to have been left in a state of limbo, with no new updates or content for months. I have not been able to buy anything for the designer since it came out (remember this point).

I still like ToV for the "clean room" 5E it is, and it lacks the barrage and drama of D&D 2024/5. It is a good system if you are stuck using 5E.

I am also comparing it to Pathfinder 1e, the classic 3.5 system that refuses to die for me. Pathfinder 1e is my peak, all time best, d20 fantasy game. Having a complete set of books for this makes it hard to play this "D&D style sword & sorcery" with GURPS, so I use GURPS for dark fantasy, gritty fantasy, and other fantasy genres. Pathfinder 1e has never been topped, and I know how broken this game is. Like GURPS, it has exploits up the wall, and we house rule and disallow the obviously broken parts.

So, why bring these two up?

I can design fantastic characters in Pathfinder 1e with the Classic Hero Lab. I did a dual-wielding, short-whip plus short sword drow cleric who wears leather armor. She came out great, so I said, hey, let's try to design her in 5E!

No, please, no, don't.

The 3.5 rules have a relatively open feat list, which allows you to give clerics a two-weapon fighting feat and even weapon finesse to reduce her penalties to a +0 on each hand, so she is doing a d4 and d6 attack every turn with a DEX of 15. All she needs is combat casting, and she is complete. Though I could replace her weapon finesse feat with that, give her a -2 in each hand, and improve her combat casting. At low levels, I will cast spells out of combat and stick to hitting as much as possible until I get that feat when the spells get good.

But designing her in 5E? The designers know better than you. Trying to get a cleric proficient in martial weapons is hard enough, and dual-wielding is out of the question. I was trying to design her with my tools and ran into these "not in our design" roadblocks at every turn.

The trouble is, she is a valid character archetype! I could see a drow cleric like that in my world, using her whip to pull enemies toward her for a quick stab with the short sword. The problem is that most 5E designers can't, and they don't allow you to design anything remotely creative or fun. Between 2024 D&D and today's versions of the game, your options and creativity have gone down to what the designers allow you to do and nothing more.

In ToV, I am the classic D&D plate priest or the cloth-wearing World of Warcraft priest.

She is boring and, in some games, limited to blunt weapons only.

Again, the West Coast "big tech" design philosophy of D&D and these other d20 games comes up, and I feel I am playing a mobile game that won't let me do this with one type of currency and not something else with another. The shell game of 5E involves the designers laying out a maze of options for every character build, forcing players to go to Internet forums to find the best one. Eventually, the really broken stuff gets errata, and the best stuff is the new balance baseline for the next monster book. Everyone else "doing their own thing" gets left behind and seen as amateurs.

More often than not, the designer of a 5E game tells you what you can't do rather than what you can.

Pathfinder 1e, though my all-time great, still needs to catch up in many places, and I had to pay a lot of money for books and Hero Lab expansions (remember what I said?) to get any level of flexibility. This is another pillar of West Coast design theory, taking away as many options as possible in the base game and forcing players to pay to get them back, one at a time.

You can design your dream character once you give the company and its partners a few thousand dollars. This also puts the "sunk cost" strategy in play, where the whales will be vocal about "defending their investment" online, and you get these vocal advocates on social media who have the incentive to turn the hobby into a combat sport to justify all the money they wasted on a West Coast design.

I am being sarcastic and cynical here, and that scent of vinegar is in my words since I am cleaning my coffee maker today, but all this is true. I spent a few thousand dollars on Pathfinder 1e over the years, and I only now have the flexibility I have with the eighty-dollar Dungeon Fantasy boxed set.

I created her in Pathfinder 1e; the flexibility comes within 10% of GURPS. Pathfinder 1e has a lot of options, and I can build a wide variety of character types, but GURPS just blows any of these "dungeon crawl" games out of the water in terms of character design.

Very little here tells me what I can't do.

90% of GURPS is options telling me what I can do.

If it doesn't exist, I can design and have it myself. In West Coast games, I pay for a few options at a time and hope I get what I want someday. In GURPS, I have the full power of the game designer.

I can design her in GURPS easily, and better than even Pathfinder 1e with a bunch of custom spells she can use in her unique fighting style. Is she "system optimal" in GURPS? No, there are clearly better combat builds than hers, but her distinctive style of whip-and-short-sword is a fun, classic drow, evil-fighting style I can see enhanced by her dark cleric magics that I can give her in Dungeon Fantasy.

In Pathfinder 1e, I don't have many "combat enhancement" spells as a cleric, whereas, in GURPS, I can make a bunch of new whip and short sword spells if I don't have them.

The only thing West Coast games have over GURPS is ease of use. I can pop in and play with Pathfinder 1e, though character design takes just as long with as many books as I have. Still, when I play, there are many tables and random charts to make playing the game easy, along with giant lists of monsters and treasures. I have samples of NPCs created. All the spells are there. The magic items are plentiful. Everything is done for me. Though 90% of it I will never use, it is there.

When you boil it down, lists are just worthless lists.

The character is the heart of the game.

And if a game limits my character, it limits my fun.