Dungeon Fantasy RPG (2017) [+]
Jul 14 2025
Dungeon Fantasy RPG is GURPS 4E cut down for running D&D-style dungeon crawls (DF RPG not to be confused with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy which is the same and previously done concept as GURPS 4E PDF supplements). The physical box comes with five books, two large double-sided battle maps, thick cardboard figures and stands, and dice.
DF Adventurers (128 pages) - Basic character creation rules and later on advantages, disadvantages, skills and gear much like in GURPS Basic Set. 95%+ of stuff in Dungeon Fantasy has the same names and characters as in GURPS. A couple of things are rewritten slightly or clarified but it's not an issue taking a DF character into a regular GURPS campaign.
The big addition are professions and races. Professions are templates and they mirror D&D classes. They give you set attributes, advantages, disadvantages and skills with extra points and lists of things to pick out. For example Barbarian has ST 17 DX 13 HT 13 with High Pain Threshold, Outdoorsman, and 40 points of advantages from their list and then it goes on. Every profession has their own list of advantages, disadvantages and skills that they choose from so every profession has their niche set up.
Races are done the same with less points. Every profession is 250 points but races are 0 to 40 points and the racial point cost comes out of the 250 profession points so every starting character is quite proficient and more like an 8th to 12th level character in D&D. Gaming Ballistic has Delvers to Grow for creating 62 or 125 point heroes for a more "zero to hero" campaign.
Spells (80 pages) - Standard GURPS 4E spell mechanics where spells are skills, have pre-requisite spells to learn, and cost magic points to cast. In Dungeon Fantasy Clerics, Druids, Wizards (and Bards) have different spell lists so PCs don't have access to just any spell and once again we have niche protection. Since GURPS Basic Set is mostly fantasy spells Dungeon Fantasy has almost all the same spells with the same characteristics.
I don't think Dungeon Fantasy has multi-classing. Each profession tends to have a few unique advantages or extras (e.g. with a starting ST 17 Barbarians can also add up to +4 ST and none of the other professions can get to ST 21). Still, this is GURPS so there is a sidebar on creating custom professions which is basically pick whatever you want from any profession with a few prerequisites in mind such as Bard-Song abilities need Bardic Talent.
Exploits (112 pages) - The kind of material in GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns. Two extra chapters are Dungeon Delving and Treasure which give specific advice and rules for a dungeon crawl campaign. For example if you find look what skills are used to determine value and what skills for finding a buyer and selling. I like that it points out the skills because sometimes you're thinking "what is Hazardous Materials skills for" and the answer is extracting poisons and toxins from a monster for sale (or use) — and in Dungeon Fantasy trap descriptions include resale value if you disarm and grab the trap and monster descriptions include which parts are valuable.
Monsters (64 pages) - Standard GURPS format monster descriptions. Every monster is one of 13 classes which affects some advantages and spells. Also since some advantages work against Evil the end notes of a monster might say "Truly Evil" so you know and don't have to guess (GURPS doesn't stat list alignment so Good and Evil are more like descriptors in the notes).
Monsters aren't really patterned D&D monsters. Even similar monsters tend to have differences intended to make them different than D&D. There is no D&D monster = DF monster table here (though maybe in a supplement) which would be helpful for converting D&D adventures to DF. One thing I like about Gaming Ballistic's Nordlonder Ovinabokin (their Nordic-themed monster book) is that they do have that table.
Dungeon (24 pages) - One 16-room dungeon also serves as an example of how to do a Dungeon Fantasy dungeon.
Dungeon Fantasy RPG is a fairly impressive package boiling down GURPS to just the heroic high fantasy genre. It is still full GURPS mechanics though so still a fairly complicated game but professions, races, and spell lists show the way to keeping a PC focused on the stuff they need to know (D&D is the same, you don't need to know what every other class can do).
Overall I like this format. Too bad there might not be any other genre big enough for the same treatment. Then again few RPGs are as detailed as D&D — a Call of Cthulhu conversion is fairly simple (except maybe for spells) and doesn't require a new RPG (and then again, Supers would be nice with it's own RPG with a customized powers/advantages chapter that makes more sense for super-hero games).
DF Adventurers (128 pages) - Basic character creation rules and later on advantages, disadvantages, skills and gear much like in GURPS Basic Set. 95%+ of stuff in Dungeon Fantasy has the same names and characters as in GURPS. A couple of things are rewritten slightly or clarified but it's not an issue taking a DF character into a regular GURPS campaign.
The big addition are professions and races. Professions are templates and they mirror D&D classes. They give you set attributes, advantages, disadvantages and skills with extra points and lists of things to pick out. For example Barbarian has ST 17 DX 13 HT 13 with High Pain Threshold, Outdoorsman, and 40 points of advantages from their list and then it goes on. Every profession has their own list of advantages, disadvantages and skills that they choose from so every profession has their niche set up.
Races are done the same with less points. Every profession is 250 points but races are 0 to 40 points and the racial point cost comes out of the 250 profession points so every starting character is quite proficient and more like an 8th to 12th level character in D&D. Gaming Ballistic has Delvers to Grow for creating 62 or 125 point heroes for a more "zero to hero" campaign.
Spells (80 pages) - Standard GURPS 4E spell mechanics where spells are skills, have pre-requisite spells to learn, and cost magic points to cast. In Dungeon Fantasy Clerics, Druids, Wizards (and Bards) have different spell lists so PCs don't have access to just any spell and once again we have niche protection. Since GURPS Basic Set is mostly fantasy spells Dungeon Fantasy has almost all the same spells with the same characteristics.
I don't think Dungeon Fantasy has multi-classing. Each profession tends to have a few unique advantages or extras (e.g. with a starting ST 17 Barbarians can also add up to +4 ST and none of the other professions can get to ST 21). Still, this is GURPS so there is a sidebar on creating custom professions which is basically pick whatever you want from any profession with a few prerequisites in mind such as Bard-Song abilities need Bardic Talent.
Exploits (112 pages) - The kind of material in GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns. Two extra chapters are Dungeon Delving and Treasure which give specific advice and rules for a dungeon crawl campaign. For example if you find look what skills are used to determine value and what skills for finding a buyer and selling. I like that it points out the skills because sometimes you're thinking "what is Hazardous Materials skills for" and the answer is extracting poisons and toxins from a monster for sale (or use) — and in Dungeon Fantasy trap descriptions include resale value if you disarm and grab the trap and monster descriptions include which parts are valuable.
Monsters (64 pages) - Standard GURPS format monster descriptions. Every monster is one of 13 classes which affects some advantages and spells. Also since some advantages work against Evil the end notes of a monster might say "Truly Evil" so you know and don't have to guess (GURPS doesn't stat list alignment so Good and Evil are more like descriptors in the notes).
Monsters aren't really patterned D&D monsters. Even similar monsters tend to have differences intended to make them different than D&D. There is no D&D monster = DF monster table here (though maybe in a supplement) which would be helpful for converting D&D adventures to DF. One thing I like about Gaming Ballistic's Nordlonder Ovinabokin (their Nordic-themed monster book) is that they do have that table.
Dungeon (24 pages) - One 16-room dungeon also serves as an example of how to do a Dungeon Fantasy dungeon.
Dungeon Fantasy RPG is a fairly impressive package boiling down GURPS to just the heroic high fantasy genre. It is still full GURPS mechanics though so still a fairly complicated game but professions, races, and spell lists show the way to keeping a PC focused on the stuff they need to know (D&D is the same, you don't need to know what every other class can do).
Overall I like this format. Too bad there might not be any other genre big enough for the same treatment. Then again few RPGs are as detailed as D&D — a Call of Cthulhu conversion is fairly simple (except maybe for spells) and doesn't require a new RPG (and then again, Supers would be nice with it's own RPG with a customized powers/advantages chapter that makes more sense for super-hero games).