I can remember back in 1985 seeing ads and in stores for a new product called Man to Man. This system allowed you to create your own type of gladiator and face off to the death in arena combat. This system evolved and eventually became GURPS (which stands for Generic Universal Roleplaying System). As time wore on, GURPS seemed to fade into obscurity, but all that is about to change.
Steve Jackson Games have always wanted to revisit the GURPS universe and for the 30th anniversary, they are trying to unleash a new version for a new audience. A Kickstarter was announced called Dungeon Fantasy. This new system is powered by GURPS and is going to contain everything that old and new fans alike will need to play. The box will contain five books that will consist of:
Adventurers: Customize the character you want with 11 professions and 9 races. You will be able to customize your character by either using a quick start template or a powerful point based system. Then gear up with dozens of weapons and armor to choose from and you are ready to explore some dungeons!
Exploits: The meat and potatoes of the game as you will learn how to perform all your actions. From engaging in combat with monsters to skulking through shadows to try and avoid patrols this book will tell you how to do it all.
Spells: What would a fantasy world be without magic? Boring I tell you! This book has over 400 spells that can be used by the four spellcasting professions (which are a wizard, cleric, druid and bard). Not only will this book show you all the spells that you can cast, but gives you rules for customizing them as well.
Monsters: There are hideous things that creep around every turn in the dungeon and those are listed in this book. Over 80 monsters are presented in this tome with variants on some of the monsters to keep things fresh for the heroes. It also deals with how some of the heroes can deal with these monsters or better yet, how the monsters deal with the heroes.
Dungeon: The introductory adventure called “I smell a rat” is your first starter adventure in the pack and it starts out at the inn. However, things are not what they seem as this adventure will put the players through a series of twists and turns. There is also adventure hooks to continue the quest past this first dungeon.
Also the box is going to come complete with maps, dice and even cardboard miniatures. Yes, you heard right! You will get everything that you need to play right out of the box and you won’t have to spend a dime on anything else! What I love about this is that it is compatible with the previous incarnations of the GURPS system so any supplements that you had will work with this new version!
As of this writing the project has around 27 days to go and has raised over $50,000 of its $100,000 goal. There are tons of neat stretch goals and backer awards, including some private sessions at Gen Con with one of the creators of the game! If you are a fan of GURPS or are just curious about this new system I implore you to check out the Kickstarter here . Check it out and for more information on this and other projects that Steve Jackson Games has in the works head over to http://www.sjgames.com/ and get ready to enter the dungeon.
