Saturday, September 2, 2023

What is DFRPG? Summary

"OSR" is a word with many definitions, but DFRPG fits some of them, e.g. it doesn't really have a concept of "balanced encounter difficulty" beyond having the GM eyeball it, and it works very well with the "if you can describe it, you can attempt it" mentality of the OSR including stuff like "I invisibly sneak up and stab it in the eye!"

The biggest difference between DFRPG and GURPS IMO is that GURPS is a setting-agnostic toolkit with lots of rules for making hypothetical powers and abilities and assigning point costs to them, and DFRPG is a D&D-ish game made using GURPS and has a specific set of professions (i.e. classes) with specific powers available to each (e.g. bards can mind control intelligent creatures with music, if they buy that ability). Since I dislike GURPS chargen but like its gameplay rules DFRPG is a good choice for me, especially when it comes to tactical complexity like "what are some nasty things I can do to incautious players with two minotaurs in a maze, and how can I make that experience different from six goblins in a night raid?"

It has terrific balance between wizards and warriors (both are fun and OP, especially when working together, and BTW I'm including bards, clerics, and druids under "wizards" here) and between melee and ranged combat, and coming from 5E that is a breath of fresh air because my 5E players towards the end were mostly wizard X/cleric 1 with a light smattering of Sharpshooter Fighters. It's nice to see some actual melee warriors (Knights and Swashbucklers) having fun at my table now.

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