Ideas for House Rules

             I put out a poll to my players detailing some ideas I had for the game. A few things were split quite evenly between "meh" and "sure!", so I don't know what I will add. I have also been struggling to find the energy to write up a new document for it recently, which sucks. However, combat tweaks are something that people WERE interested in! Here are a few of those that I was thinking of implementing. For the players: let me know what you think of these.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 13: Attack of the Jotunns!

September 27th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic

Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
Teragen as "Bea"
A Paid Actors off the Street as "Gary" and "Steven"

        Kip Ironhead, a female thief, approached the delvers and came with a peace offering of a single blunt of orcweed. (Orcweed reduces the user’s IQ to 7, but gives the user extra levels of ST equal to the amount of IQ lost for a number of minutes equal to 10 x IQ-20.) Kip explained that her group is planning on sharing the cost of the Old Watcher Keep with the party as well, with Bea also funding the work on the keep.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Pre-Session 13: Strange Happenings in Town

September 26th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.

        In the afternoon of the 26th, a few adventurers from an unidentified party started climbing around on the statue of Skafith II in the center of town. Quite quickly, they managed to screw off one of his fingers and claimed whatever was inside, and didn't bother to put it back.

        While it wasn't clear who they were, many note that the adventurers were associated with the missing adventurers which Bob's Berserkers returned previously. They were five in number, or six if you count the mercenary which they had with them.

        On the evening of the 26th, a group of Antresian soldiers (6 in number) wearing thick hauberks along with lamellar wandered into town, joined by two Sternmen wearing similar armor but with furs along their shoulders. The group of eight were led by Jonas of Kent, an awfully smug Shireman. He is visiting the local area, probably surveying opportunities for mercantile connections.

        The group do carry the banner of the Kent family and are led by a Shireman Baron's Son, so harming them would either incur a hefty wergild payout for the Kent family or death for anyone trying to mess with them. In the meantime, however, they have taken up a few rooms in the Lonely Crest in Rosethorp, as both Rage Against the Wizard and the Princes of Agony have not been in town recently.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 12: Those Who Seek The Infinite Treasure

September 20th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic

Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
Zomniak as "John"
A Paid Actor off the Street as "Gary"

        Fleck, Buckles, Kojack, and John headed out to the dungeon with their “specialist” Gary in tow. On the way there we see about seven orcs riding some spiny kind of large flightless bird-like creatures. They had a banner bearing a copper border with a boring brown backdrop, looked like it was part of a carpet ripped off and put on a pole. When they saw the party, they fled.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 11: On a Mission from God

September 6th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic

Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
A Paid Actor off the Street as "Robert"

    The party members (Fleck, Buckles, and Kojack) attended a memorial service at the temple for the fallen Grimnir, and Buckles was Blessed by the encounter. While the party tried to hire a cleric, they found none. They did hire Robert, however—a “specialist” of sorts—for 1% of the loot. After some time hiking, the party found the Halls of Horror’s secret staircase entrance, hidden under brambles and such.

Why Do They Keep Dying?

         In my games, death is something that kind of happens a lot. It has gotten to a point where I have a stack of character sheets in my bedroom of characters that have died, all labeled "dead" at the top in big letters. "Why?", you are probably asking at this point. The answer is: I hate my players with a burning passion!

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 10: One-Punch Ghoul

August 30th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Krusher

Characters:
Terragen as "Bea"
Krusher as "Fleck"
Zomniak as "Jon Priest"
Omegaman as "Grimnir"
Vic as "Buckles"

    The group arrived to the new city, unsure of it's contents. What remained of the group meet up with others who had wealth on their minds and joined together. Ofydd went drink for drink with Fleck the night before and wasn't attending the delve today due to that. The additions of Buckles, the dwarven wizard, Grimnir, the holy warrior were welcomed.

My Dungeon Fantasy Rules: Combat, Magic, and Dungeon Procedures

     In this post, I will go over the rules for combat (which are few), the rules for magic (which are many), and rules for actually doing the "dungeon" part of "dungeon crawling". My dungeon crawling procedures are based on Charles Saeger's dungeon crawling procedures, found here. This post was suggested by a commenter on one of my posts; that could be you! If you have suggestions, let me know.

My Dungeon Fantasy Rules: Resurrection

     I want to preface this post by saying I know using Character Points as a metric for anything is quite meta. It can produce weird results and at times just be a plain bad metric for things, but for this specific case, I have not had many issues with it. Now, let me explain how I run resurrection in my games.

    To start, players can get resurrected as many times as they want. Whatever, it is your gp, who am I to tell you how to spend it (though, that can be my job as the GM at times). However, there are some baseline restrictions and other things that happen when you get resurrected:

1. Upon resurrection, you must roll against HT+2 to see if you survive the resurrection. On a failure, the character is permanently dead and may only be resurrected from a Wish (or Great Wish) spell. 
2. On a successful resurrection, you STILL lose one level of HT! This doesn't detract from your racial maximum and may be bought back as normal.
3. Resurrection costs a number of gp equal to your character point total when that character died, with a minimum cost of 50 gp. (Yes, I know, a tenth of you just groaned at using character points as a metric. Whatever. It is my game and my rules.) 

    Additionally, players cannot actually learn the resurrection spell! They can find scrolls of resurrection or NPCs to resurrect them, but it is a spell they cannot possess. There are also some further clarifications, which I must state:

1. A PC who reaches -5×HP via corrosion may never be resurrected; they are turned into goop!
2. A PC who is decapitated makes their HT+2 roll at flat HT instead of HT+2.
3. Disintegrated PCs, as stated in GURPS Magic, may not be resurrected.

    Finally, I want to talk about the reasoning behind this, which is a frankly gamey one. Of course this makes the table-top roleplaying game feel more like a video game, which is somewhat the point: these mechanics were taken mostly from Wizardry I. However, there is a good setting reason I am including them, being that the amount of accumulated experience, power, and skills that a character has acquired makes a more powerful spirit, which is harder to call upon and restore into a body than a "normal" spirit. Yes, that seems lame, but I think that it is a fine justification for this. 

    Also, it makes death stay scary. It also accentuates one of my favorite parts of TTRPGs (and life, in general): the finality of it. If a character dies, they might be dead forever, no matter what you try to do. Of course, you can always go get a Ring of Wish (I say that like it is easy!) Your character is a person in this world, and in real life, when people die, they (most of the time) stay dead. Make the most of this character before they are gone, then sing their feats in the party until nobody remembers their name!

The Great Dungeon Crawl: Jeff's Twenty Questions

     By the recommendation of Charles Saeger over at Nature Kills, I checked out this post by Jeff Rients, which made me then set out to answer all of the questions. Some of the language doesn't make sense from the perspective of one of my players using my rules, and is edited to make more sense in that regard. Edited passages are marked with brackets.

The Great Dungeon Crawl: County of Dirk Gazeteer

     This is an overview for the region of the County of Dirk. The Ruler of the Dirk County, Count Zach III, has three vassals: Baron Saquedall of Stonebark, Baron Johann of Hochmoor, and Baron "Black" Karl of Thornwick. The County of Dirk is allies with the nearby Dwarven peoples of Thaim and its colonies and mines. Here is some basic information about each settlement in the area, any landmarks near it, and who rules it. Players, if I missed anything, let me know and I will amend it. As the party explores stuff, I might add it here if the players request it to be added.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 9.5: Skipping Town!

August 23rd, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.

     Late at night, Bea bursts into the Inn near Nickstown that the party was staying in. There was a lot of shouting and a lot of packing, but apparently, a company of 40 mercenaries from the Silver Broach company were after the party. Uh oh.

    They quickly got their stuff ready to go, but couldn't find Lyons. He had left the party to become the apprentice of a Knight Errant in the Fighter's Guild and they hadn't seen him in days at this point. Bea recalled that there was an abandoned Keep she had been looking at near a small town in the East of the Kingdom. They rushed into the Mages' Guild near midnight to get as far away from here as possible.

    Apparently, the man who runs the small Mages' Guild had a good friend in town, who is a licensed teleporter, meaning they were able to get to that small town near the Keep tonight, in a very sneaky manner. They had no time to break change and fish out treasure, however. They were told that they should speak to Frank, the local Wizard in said town, when they get a chance to pay back the Mages' Guild.

    The four of them (Fleck, Ofydd, John, and Bea) darted away in an instant, and then appeared in a Mages' Guild tower, where they were escorted to an inn, named The Lonely Crest, where they bought some rooms and prepared themselves for the coming days. They then got rather shitfaced, carousing with the locals, hearing rumors, and even possibly finding new companions to take with them.

    Who knows what this new chapter of their life will bring: fame? fortune? death? That is still up to the Gods and fate itself. They do know one thing, however. They need more cash to support their frankly bum-like lifestyle of sleeping where ever they can, getting drunk when possible, and killing whatever monsters stand between them and their treasure. 

My Dungeon Fantasy Rules: Races, Classes, and new Traits

     In this post, I will go over my classes, races, and some new traits I made for my game. As a note, character creation starts at [100], and you get two buckets: [70] to go towards your class as well as [30] to go toward either playing as a demi-human or buying other things on your template that you couldn't afford. Each class has [-30] in disadvantages, which is the limit, and it is baked into the choices; omitting disadvantages from your class will screw up the math. Characters can also take [-5] in quirks for bonus spending points during character creation as well.

    If you notice math being incorrect, skill difficulties being incorrect, or anything else weird, please leave a comment here so I can edit it. Anonymous comments are turned on now, so anyone should be able to comment. If you have questions on design decisions, please ask them, because you might have me thinking about something in a way I hadn't before.

Level Drain in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy

    Anyone who has played GURPS knows that GURPS doesn't have levels; at least not the traditional sense of levels. Compared to D&D, which has breakpoints for XP which grant batches of abilities, skill increases, and otherwise bonuses at once, GURPS is incremental. That makes one thing, one stupid little thing, so annoying in GURPS. Energy Drain.

    The closest thing GURPS has to levels is present in Dungeon Fantasy. The levels could be expressed by the two additional ranks of characters present in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, being [62] and [125] point henchmen respectively. This would make our levels [62], [125], and [250]. How would you even lose that many points?

My Dungeon Fantasy Rules: Attributes and Skills

     I am going to start putting my rules out there for prospective players (or those who are simply interested) to peruse. The first bit here is going to be about my rules on attributes and the new combat skills. These rules come form playing GURPS for a while in a high fidelity environment and wanting something less complex for a change.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 9: Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

August 16th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Zomniak

Characters:
Terragen as "Bea" [185]
Krusher as "Fleck" [165]
Void as "Ofydd" [148]
Arthur as "Lyons" [149]
Zomniak as "Jon Priest" [102]

    We went into the dungeon to investigate rumors of a secret room opening up deep in the dungeon.

The Great Dungeon Crawl: House Rules and Such

     We have some special rules at my table, as always. This post sets out to detail them to those few who read my blog. To preface, this campaign is heavily inspired by both old-school Dungeons and Dragons as well as the games of dripton and Peter Dell'Orto, who have been running games in GURPS for much longer than I have. I also often draw inspiration from whatever music, games, or literature I am indulging in at any given time. I also take heavy inspiration from the games that my father used to run; I played in his D&D 5th ed. games, which he ran using a mindset he got from playing B/X, BECMI, and 1st ed. AD&D. Now, lets dive into the actual rules.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 7: The King's Delivery

July 25th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Krusher

Characters:
Terragen as "Bea" [152]
Krusher as "Fleck" [130]
Void as "Ofydd" [120]

    The group decided to venture forth and deliver the King’s letter at Castle Himmel. While smaller than the usual group, they set off regardless.

    The group traveled confidently with the aid of Bastille the scout and made their way to just outside Sanders. The group came upon several holes in the ground and knowing that danger obviously lurked nearby, tried to move past the holes without awakening the occupants.

    The group failed to remain quiet and a large creature emerged from a hole and proceeded to threaten the group. The creature flailed about and seemed to collapse the hole it had emerged from as it could never quite get it’s footing as the party brought the beast down. Once the creature was neutralized, the group passed around the holes and continued to Sanders.

    Once in Sanders, the group questioned the locals about goods for purchase, nearby dwarven smiths and recent events. The location of the dwarven smith was somewhat vague and the group left the next morning to find the dwarf. Hours of searching finally found the dwarf and after a brief conversation between Fleck and the dwarf, the group returned to Sanders.

    The group traveled further on to the Town of Rok and questioned the locals once more about their goods and recent events. The locals spoke of a necromancer to the NE of the town, but the group decided to stick to their original slavery DUTY to the King and deliver the letter.

    The group left the town of Rok and approached the town of Tauk where a group of bandits blocked their path. They claimed to be tax collectors of the King. The group shook their heads and paid the very small amount rather than fight the group, mostly out of pity and to avoid unnecessary conflict. 

    Once in Tauk, the group questioned the locals again and failed to find anything new. The group became aware that perhaps many eyes were watching them as they left Tauk and on their way to Castle Himmel.

    Before preparing to camp for the night, the group left the road and found a safe spot to watch the road. Another group soon came into view and they were identified as The Men of the Silver Broach were trailing them. Unable to stay hidden from the Broaches, the group prepared for combat. Thanks to a gift from Sif, Bea was able to chase down some of the Broaches that had fled the combat. Not wanting to violate codes of conduct or the doctrine of their Lord, the group merely stripped the men of their possessions and left them in the woods.

    Finally making it Castle Himmel, the group found the castle nearly as Bea had last seen it, deserted. The group surprised a small group of looters within and quickly scattered them after destroying their weapons to prevent an attack later on. Delving into the castle, the group discovered orcs who mentioned something about treasure and horrible shades that hurt people through their armor and left their bodies weakened. Taking what they had gained so far, the group returned to Tauk to offload what they earned.

    And welcome Hay, the team Donkey!

Author's Notes 
    No notes were provided.

GM's Notes         
    Interesting session to say the least. They learned a decent bit about the surroundings of the land and had very few random encounters. The Ankhegs they encountered might pose a threat in the future, but they didn't bat an eye at them otherwise. Session 8 will be interesting for sure.

Character Advancement
    +1pts from Loot
    +1pts from Roleplay
    +2pts from Exploration
    +0pts from Freeing Prisoners
    +0 Bonus Points
    No Characters Died 
    Total: +5 points

 

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 6: Points Galore!

July 11th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Arthur

Characters:
Terragen as "Bea" [136]
Krusher as "Fleck" [114]
Arthur as "Lyons" [109]
Void as "Ofydd" [104]

    On the 11th, Bob's Berserkers inc. was summoned to the castle by royal decree of his majesty King Winston II, of a forgotten (by the GM) house. Upon arrival to Castle Berry, the present members entered, hearing rumours of a gryphon along the way (Lyons placed a bet on that being their task. It wasn't), and introduced themselves to the king and his wife Cleopatra. The king, a tall handsome black man in his 60s with the look of a conqueror to be and no flaws whatsoever, received them and gave them the task of delivering a parcel to Himmel castle some 115 miles from there.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 4.5: Even More Hex-ploration!

May 31st, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Teragen

Characters:
Terragen as "Bea" [119]

    The Party found itself finally leaving that dungeon, but Bea’s journey was not over. Losing one of the most key spells in her clerical arsenal, Major Healing, now tasked with a journey to Castle Himmel to the far unknown North! Setting off with the newly joined Elven scout by the name of Bastilles. Setting off without much hassle, constantly foraging and using her divine prayers to ensure that the party was never beset or ambushed, casting ‘Watchdog’ the entire way north.