Man-to-Man With Dungeon Fantasy

Back in 1985, Steve Jackson Games published “Man to Man” – the combat system for GURPS – as a first taste of the full roleplaying game to come. Yesterday, I took a look at that first publication and was reminded of some words from the excellent, “How to be a GURPS GM”:

The single most important factor in helping fight scenes move along quicker is simply to practice using the combat system. This doesn’t have to be confined to the usual game time. The GM and players can get together at any time just to play some “arena matches.”

Being a fan of the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (a “Powered By GURPS” system), I feel that this learn by doing approach has a lot of value. In recent games with students at the school club, the fight scenes (while fun) are slowed because players don’t really know the rules for combat. They are spending a lot of time looking things up and not really grasping what’s on their character sheets.

Combining Man-to-Man with Dungeon Fantasy (DFRPG) means I can create some “arena matches” that are designed to teach the hardest part of any roleplaying game – the combat system – and prepare players for building and then playing a full game with their own heroes.

Going Man-to-Man

The original GURPS combat game emphasised low-points value characters who would grow over time. Looking at the scenarios at the back, the focus was mostly on 100 point player characters but there was encouragement to play with 40- or 60-point versions too.

Given that the GURPS (4th Edition) Basic Set suggests that 75-100 points makes for exceptional heroes, I’m going to suggest a 75 point basic level with a view to extending each character to a 100 point version. It seems reasonable to allow a maximum of 25 points for Disadvantages.

These heroes will be focused on combat in the arena, in the vein of the original game. From there, players can learn to build a full character and aim towards the baseline 250 points for a full Dungeon Fantasy starting hero.

Building Some Pre-Gens

If I’m going to run some arena games, I want the first few to be using some pick-up pre-gen characters. I’m going to build four such heroes. To guide me, and to make sure I reflect the themes of the Dungeon Fantasy Professions, I will pick four of the templates from Adventurers: a Barbarian; a Swashbuckler; a Knight; and a Martial Artist.

A 75 point Barbarian, just 30% of the usual Dungeon Fantasy points allowance, will be a tight budget. Looking at the useful summary on what attributes mean in “How to be a GURPS GM”, I can see that scores of 10 are average, 11-12 is Above Average, and 13-14 is Exceptional. Looking the DFRPG template I see 17 Strength, 13 Dexterity, 10 IQ, and 13 Health. I’m going to plump for 14 Strength (ST), 11 Dexterity (DX), 10 IQ, and 11 Health (HT) [70 points spent]. I leave the secondary attributes alone for now, although it’s tempting to boost Hit Points and Perception as per the template.

I feel the High Pain Threshold [10] advantage suits the theme but drop Outdoorsman as not so useful inside the combat focus of the arena. No shock penalty for injury will give him a big edge. As I am already over 75 points, we need to soak up some disadvantages. Those have to be meaningful, however, so I think Bloodlust [-10] boosted to a 9 or less self-control roll [-15 total] is a good start. Ham-Fisted will affect things like Fast-Draw, so I grab Ham-Fisted 1 [-5]. Although it might not come up much, I take Overconfidence [-5] to round him out.

On to the Skills. I grab a melee skills package – Weapon and Shield – but limit the points to 8. I choose Axe/Mace which is a DX Average skill. I decide to make it Axe/Mace-12 [4]. That leaves 4 points for the Shield skill, giving Shield-12 [4]. Adding Thrown Weapon (Spear)-12 [1] seems worthwhile too, as does Brawling-12 [1]. With 10 points left, I decide to buy Fit [5] and Tough Skin 1 [3]. With the last 2 points I grab +1 Hit Point [2]. Done.

With the first Man-to-Man character designed, I just need to create a simplified character sheet for him. You can take a look here: Ekdal the Barbarian (75pts)

Just three more heroes to design.

Game on!