The title says it all, When GMs create NPCs they can do so for a myriad number of reasons. Maybe the PCs need a antagonist or perhaps a PC purchased a Ally maybe the GM just wants to have the NPC fleshed out in case the PCs have need of him. Maybe they are bored […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: Delver, Get a Job!
Dungeon Fantasy very explicitly ignores the rules for jobs. It’s about adventuring after all, not boring day to day life – that’s for villagers. Still, Dungeons and Dragons (especially 2nd edition) had rules for working the forge or weaving baskets when your character wasn’t adventuring. There’s always the crafting rules from Dungeon Fantasy 2, but what if […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: One Size Fits All!
Adjustable Clothing is one of those odd spells, it has a purpose and its needed…but the wording just isn’t as clear as it could be (to me at least). I’m sure some will disagree with me, but I had a extremely difficult time parsing exactly how this thing was supposed to work. I figured there […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: A Matter of Price
Dungeon Fantasy has a rather simplified haggling system for selling based on a combination of your wealth, a Merchant skill roll, and your reaction modifier. It rather cautiously omits rules for buying at a reduced price (even though that’s part of the RAW) that’s lower than 10%. After all, if adventurers can get cheap goods at home […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: How Many Skills is Too Much?
That’s a pretty good question. How many skills are too many for a given character? The answer is tricky in my experience and actually depends heavily on two things: the campaign TL and its genre. That’s typically because some genres are going to be skill-heavy because they either expect broad competence or not being skilled at […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: GM and Player Intercommunication
Bad communication between players and their GM is in my experience the number one cause of a campaign exploding too early. I’ve said it in so many posts I’m not even going to bother linking to them all – yes, damn it. It’s that important. So here are a few things which I’ve found over […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Dungeon Fantasy Musings
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is by far the most successful of the various lines for for the GURPS game engine. Up until a few weeks ago I didn’t run it as one of my constant campaigns – in fact I only use it for playtest games that require it or the occasional one shot. All of that changed […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Wildcard Path Skills
I wonder, could you combine all the Path skills into a single Wildcard skill like Magic! I think I asked PK this very question a while back and the answer was: You probably shouldn’t. I went ahead and did it anyways and I can tell you for fact…I really shouldn’t’ve. It wasn’t that it was […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: NPC Frequency of Appearance in Game Time
I don’t have a ton of “house rules” – I pretty much like the GURPS 4th edition system as is, but there are a few things that irk me and one of those is the Frequency of Appearance for Allies, Contacts, Dependents, Enemies, and Patrons. In GURPS you basically purchase a Frequency for which your […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Dirty Laundry
Something odd came up while I was helping a player create their character, he asked “What trait do I use to represent knowing someone’s dirty laundry? You know, blackmailable secrets nadf stuff.” I admit the first thing I went to was Favor + Ally, Contact, Patron and Completely Unreliable or Unwilling. But that seemed a bit […]
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