Using Luck on Secret Rolls

Luck is probably my favorite GURPS advantage.  I've said many times that if you don't take Luck, and your character dies, it's your fault for not taking Luck.

For those who don't play GURPS or Dungeon Fantasy RPG, the way Luck rolls is that, once an hour you get to reroll a bad roll, twice, and then take the best of the three attempts.  (And there are more expensive versions that work more often.)

That's simple enough, if the player makes the roll.  You try to parry the boss monster's attack, you roll an 18, you know this will result in both a failed parry and a fumble, you don't like that outcome, you announce that you're using Luck, and you hope to roll better on one of the other two tries.

It's a bit more complicated if the GM makes the roll in secret, but the player knows what the GM is rolling for.  Like, if you have Weather Sense and want to predict the weather for tomorrow, and it's important to get this right, the rule is pretty clear.  "When the GM rolls in secret (e.g., to see if you notice something), you may state that you’re using your Luck ahead of time, in which case the GM will roll three times and give you the best result."  So, if you happened to roll great the first time, you didn't need the Luck and wasted a use, but better safe than sorry.

Where it gets tricky is when the player doesn't know the GM is rolling dice at all.  For example, the Per-based Traps roll to detect a hidden trap is a passive roll: it happens whenever the PCs come near a trap.  But if the GM tells them that he's rolling to detect traps, then if the PCs fail that roll, they will probably immediately switch to an active roll to detect traps again, or go the other way to avoid the trap they shouldn't know about.  So, they need to not be told.  But if you don't tell them, how do they benefit from Luck?

I see a few options here:

- If you don't know the GM is rolling, you don't get to use your Luck on that roll.  Harsh, but simple and following the rules.

- Tell the GM to always use Luck on secret rolls.  Simple and following the rules, but it means you'll probably burn your Luck on rolls that don't matter very much, or rolls that would have succeeded without it.

- Leave it up to the GM's best judgment.  "Hey, if a secret roll goes really badly, use my Luck."  Though this implies that Luck works if you don't know about the roll, which may or may not be true.  So this requires a generous GM.

- Give the GM some specific rules.  "If I fail on a secret roll that would have succeed on a 14, use my Luck."  Or "if I critically fail on a secret roll, use my Luck."  This implies that Luck not only works if you don't know about the roll, but that you can trigger on the details of a roll you don't know about.  This requires a more generous GM.

The Whiterock game features a PC with both Luck and really good Perception who likes to scout ahead, so this will come up constantly.  I need to make a decision before our next game on Friday.

Spending Earned Character Points in Dungeon Fantasy RPG

Last time I talked about awarding bonus character points in DFRPG in general, and in the DF Whiterock game in particular.  Once players have some points they're going to want to spend them, so I need to come up with rules for that too.

Let's start with the default assumptions built into DFRPG.  It says that anyone can spend points at the start of a game session, but only Knights buying melee weapon skills and spellcasters learning spells from scrolls can spend points mid-session.  It says that improving traits you already have just costs the points, and that you can only buy new things from your template unless the GM gives permission to buy something off-template, which might require Exceptional Training.  And that (if the optional training expenses rule is used) it costs $40/point to buy new things on-template (with only the first point needing training for skills), $80/point or more to buy new things off-template.

DF Whiterock doesn't require strict templates, so the on-template vs. off-template rules won't apply.  Also, I don't like requiring training for things the PC seems to have already picked up on their own.  So, I want to go with something like this:

- With the exception of Knights learning melee skills and spellcasters learning spells from scrolls, character points may only be spent in Town.  (That will usually but not always mean at the beginning of the session.)

- If you already have points in the ability and want to improve it, and you used that ability at all in recent adventure sessions, you can just pay the points.  You don't need training; you learned from actual experience in play.

- If you don't have points in the ability but it's something that you used at default, for real, when it mattered, in the actual adventure, I'll usually let that count as learning from actual experience in play, too.  For example, in our first session, Garreth quite effectively bashed a lock using a club.  He doesn't have Forced Entry, but if he wants to put a point in Forced Entry, he can.

- That also applies to advantages.  If you're running around in a dungeon dodging blows from monsters, that's on-the-job training for Combat Reflexes.  If you sometimes fail to dodge and need to make HT checks, that's on-the-job training for Fit.

- If you want to learn a new skill that you haven't practiced during an adventure, whether because you didn't get around to it, or because it's one that doesn't work in any way by default (like spells and some advantages), or because it requires something you didn't have (like deep water or a horse or some gems) then you need to find a trainer in Town.  Price may vary widely.

- Learn new things gradually, one level at a time.

- Don't pile all your points into one thing.  The character with one weapon skill or offensive spell at 30 and not much else is boring.

Awarding Bonus Character Points in Dungeon Fantasy RPG

Now that the first session of DF Whiterock is done, I need to figure out how to give out bonus character points.  (Of course I thought about it before starting the campaign -- but eventually you have to make a choice and stick with it.)  I have noted before that this is designed to be a zero-to-hero game, starting at only 150 points instead of the usual 250 for Dungeon Fantasy, but with advancement also expected to be faster.  So, whichever system I come up with, it should be pretty generous.

The DFRPG default rules for giving out character points are on Exploits page 92.  There is a detailed list of session awards based on winning battles, overcoming various non-combat challenges, and finishing an adventure.  (The GM has to decide what counts as an adventure, though.  If the game hops from small dungeon to small dungeon, maybe each dungeon.  For a multi-level megadungeon, maybe each dungeon level.  For a quest-based game, maybe each quest finished or story arc.)

The other obvious place to look is GURPS Basic 4th Edition Campaigns, page 498, which says the GM can give out any number (which doesn't need stating because of Rule Zero: the GM can always do whatever) but recommends 0-5 points (most commonly 2-3) per session, based more on roleplaying than mission success, plus possibly bonus points roughly equal to about that given in a session upon concluding a major thing.  Not a whole lot of detail, but the basic ideas are solid: give some every session, maybe give more when the PCs complete a major thing, and vary the points based on how well they play.

Another good set of rules are the ones for Felltower, which are about loot, exploration, roleplaying, awesome bonus, and most valuable PC.

Finally, there's what I did last time I ran Whiterock (for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy rather than DFRPG, but they're almost the same game): pull a number out of the air every session.  Pull a larger number out of the air in sessions where the PCs complete a major goal.

So, the first question is, do the players know the precise rules for earning character points and have something concrete to aim for, or does the GM keep them secret?  ("Secret" could mean well-defined rules that the GM just doesn't share with the players, or it could mean the GM makes up the rules on the fly.)  Both the DFRPG rules and Felltower rules are player-facing, but there's still a great deal of leeway for the GM.  (What counts as a boss monster vs. a worthy monster?  Which areas are secret bonus zones?)  So the difference between these two may not be as large in practice as it looks in theory.

Another question is whether all PCs who participate get the same number of points, or some get more than others.  The GURPS 4E system that gives points mostly based on roleplaying is naturally going to reward the better or more careful roleplayers more.  The Felltower system explicitly has one MVP per session, who gets a bonus point, so if the same character is MVP a lot, they might start to pull away.  The DFRPG system feels more party-oriented, so all members of the party who show up probably progress at the same rate.

If there are NPCs in the party, do NPCs advance or not?  And how fast?  GURPS (but not DFRPG) has rules for Allies, who are purchased based on a percentage of the allied PC's points, and advance proportionally to their PC.  For other NPCs, it's not clear.  Last time I ran a game featuring non-purchased NPC allies, I arbitrarily gave them half as many points as the PCs, rounded down, purely to keep NPCs in secondary roles and the PCs in the spotlight, while still letting the NPCs improve a bit to be less of a drag on the party.  ("Sixth level of the dungeon and you still can't hike?  Maybe we should just leave you home.")  I think we have enough players that we shouldn't need NPCs in the party this game, though, so I can probably ignore this.

Here's what I'm thinking:

- Aim for about 5 points per PC for a normal session.  Only if the player and PC were involved in the session.  So participation will be key to advancement.
- If the party clears a major area (which may or may not directly correspond to a dungeon level), a bonus in the 5-point region will be given to everyone who was involved in the entire effort.  Since earning such a bonus will probably require multiple play sessions, I may do some scaling, such that if a player and PC were there for 4 of the 5 sessions during which an area was explored, that PC might get 4 bonus points instead of 5.
- Various 1-point bonuses may be possible for doing various cool things, but they won't be common or known to the players in advance.
- When the PCs reach a more difficult portion of the adventure, the starting points given to new PCs will be increased a bit, so they're not so outclassed by the most active and experienced PCs.  I don't want to give an exact formula yet.

The first session of Whiterock didn't achieve anything bonus-worthy yet (though the party is in a good position that may help lead to future bonuses), so I'm giving the 4 PCs 5 points each.  I think that will be a pretty common result.

Next time, rules for spending character points.

DF Whiterock Session 1: Follow That Cat

Date: 

2018-04-27

Weather:

Cool, with light rain

Player Characters:

Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 150 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 150 points
Durkerle (M.C. Warhammer) Dwarf Cleric, 150 points
The Redcap (Humabout), Gnome Bard, 150 points

Significant NPCs newly met or first mentioned:

Quintus, Human Wizard and Alchemist
Lady Chauntessa, Human Sorceress and Inn Owner
Rufus, Human Druid
Dodger, Cat Familiar
Brie, Half-Elf Bard
Arien, Human Drunk
Ulan, Human Stableboy
Lord Granger Flitwick, Human Noble
Lyssa, Human Apprentice Wizard


The potential heroes were sitting around the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar, listening to a bard named Brie, hoping for interesting work to turn up.  In barged Quintus the aged alchemist and alleged wizard, followed by a big black cat.  Quintus got the serving ladies to summon Lady Chauntessa, owner of the Inn, and then told everyone in the Inn that the cat was his apprentice Lyssa's familiar, that Lyssa was missing, that Lyssa was never separated from her familiar, that something horrible had therefore probably happened to Lyssa, and that the cat almost certainly knew more, if anyone in the Inn could speak to it.

Disappointingly, nobody in the Inn could speak Cat.  Chauntessa suggested Rufus, a local druid, who lived in a grove about a mile outside town.  She sent Ulan, a stableboy who knew the way and could run, and asked that anyone else who would also run fast accompany him so that he'd be taken seriously.  Failing to take the hint about speed, all of the PCs decided to go, including the slow dwarf and the very slow gnome.  The cat went too.

After some minor harassment by a guard at the King's Gate who didn't much like Half-Orcs, Ulan led the party to Rufus's grove.  Rufus was cooperative and cast Beast Speech.  He then was able to relay Dodger's story: Lyssa had been gathering alchemical ingredients in the woods a few miles east of Cillamar, when she was abducted by evil humans and shoved into a wagon with cages and manacles under covers, clearly some kind of organized kidnapping operation.  Dodger followed them all the way to the ruins of Castle Whiterock, a two-day wagon ride away.  The slavers then turned Lyssa over to some orcs, who tied her up and gagged her, then threw her into a slave pen with some other kidnapped people, under the ruins of the castle.  Dodger then slipped back out and ran all the way back to Cillamar to get help.  Rufus also mentioned that Lady Chauntessa was known to have an interest in Castle Whiterock, and that the party should check with her before heading out.

After the group made it back to the Inn, Quintus implored anyone who could to follow Dodger back to the Castle and free Lyssa.  Lady Chauntessa also encouraged them to hurry, and provided some provisions for the journey, but had no significant information.  Redcap had some questions about payment, but Quintus convinced the party that there was no time for dickering and that they would be appropriately rewarded when Lyssa was safe, and they didn't press the point.  

The party then began a long and intricate process of moving items from one bag to another and bags from one person to another in an effort to make the party able to march a bit faster.  While they were playing with their inventory, they heard the local drunk Arien mention that the exact same thing that happened to Lyssa had happened to him, but he had eventually escaped, and nobody believed the story.  Lord Granger Flitwick rolled his eyes, having heard this story before, but Durkerle and Redcap both thought the story sounded pretty good.  Durkerle went as far as casting Compel Truth, but unfortunately the spell failed horribly, causing Arien to start singing a childhood nursery rhyme, then pass out in his beer.

The group set off on a long walk toward the ruined castle, late in the afternoon.  They spent the first night outside without a fire, in cold rain, on the edge of a small forest.  Redcap had a one-Gnome tent and a sleeping fur, and invited Dodger in, but the rest were fairly miserable with only their shields for shelter.

The next day, the group continued walking through the forest, until they were ambushed by a couple of bandits, right after fording a stream.  They were well-hidden in a tree branch, and planned tried to jump down onto the point-Elf Seépravir and club her with surprise, but they completely failed to execute the plan.  The first one missed her completely, broke his leg from the fall, and was out of the fight.  The second one almost hit her but didn't account for her ability to Levitate back over the stream, also took some damage from the fall, realized he was outnumbered, ran away, and then went down due to a very well placed thrown knife from Garreth.  Redcap killed the knifed bandit with his sickle, while the party interrogated the one with the broken leg.  The PCs commenced a good-dwarf, bad-gnome routine, with Redcap wanting to do terrible things to the prisoner and Durkerle wanting to heal his wounds and send him back to Cillamar to repent his sins, with an extra silver piece in his pocket.  The dwarf won the argument, his Major Healing spell fixed the broken leg, he threw in a free meal he'd just made with Create Food, and the bandit was grateful enough to warn Durkerle of two more ambushers a bit further into the woods.  That was enough to make the remaining two bandits break and run.  Meanwhile, a raven harassed Dodger, but no damage was done and the bird flew away.  The total profit from the fight was two suits of light leather armor (one immediately used by Garreth), two daggers, two clubs, and 2 copper coins.  Minus the silver coin that Durkerle paid the surviving bandit.

The PCs continued their trek toward the dungeon, eventually reaching the top of a hill and seeing the ruins of the white castle on the next big hill over, overlooking a small lake.  It would still take a few hours to get there, so they decided to camp out another night in a gully near the castle, and attempt a pre-dawn ambush against hopefully sleepy enemies.  It wasn't raining anymore, but two nights of sleeping rough in cold weather took its toll, and everyone except Redcap and Dodger (comfortable in Redcap's tent and sleeping fur) was down 1 FP until they could get more restful sleep.

They awakened a bit before dawn, Seépravir cast her medley of scouting spells (Hush, Infravision, Keen Vision, Lighten Burden), and then they followed the switchbacks of the wagon trail up the hill.  It eventually led to a tunnel into a sheer rock face, with the castle entrance inside the tunnel.  After a brief discussion, the group decided (for meta-game reasons) that it was probably safer to go through the tunnel than for Seépravir to Levitate over the cliff.  They did so, and eventually found a door.  After much searching for traps, they continued on down the tunnel to another door, this one with a 1' square panel in the center of it.  Both the door and the panel were locked.  Redcap tried picking the lock, and failed.  Plan B was Seépravir casting Silence on the door, and then Garreth beating on the lock with a club.  This plan worked remarkably well; despite Garreth's lack of Forced Entry skill, it only took him two whacks to break the lock.

Gazing through the hole where the lock had been, Seépravir saw another room, some kind of gatehouse, with murder holes and a trap door in the ceiling, a ladder leading up to the trap door, and double doors on the other side.  While she was minutely inspecting the room for other dangers, Redcap got bored and decided to just open the door.  This annoyed Seépravir enough that she tried to Levitate Redcap to keep him out of trouble, but the spell failed.  Garreth was visibly pained by the lack of cooperation, but fortunately no enemies noticed, and the group eventually moved into the gatehouse room.  Where Seépravir noticed three covered pit traps on the floor, between the party and the other doors.

And that's where the would-be heroes stopped for the (real-world not game-world) night.  The meta-game pact to return to Town after each session was overruled, since they just got to the castle and didn't want to repeat that walk.

GM's comments:

The whole first session was taken to find the quest and get to the dungeon.  Which seems a bit excessive.  The time was consumed by a combination of factors: talking to people in the Inn, finding Rufus the Druid and getting him to translate Dodger's story, a lot of fiddling with inventory to try to get the party from Move 2 to Move 3, a lot of very cautious travel and camping, a rather underwhelming combat, an interrogation, and then some very careful sneaking up to the castle.

The PCs will probably make that trip many more times, and it will probably take a fraction as long in the future: they'll know the way, and either something interesting will happen (like the ambush) or it won't.

They had a lot of intra-party conflict, mostly over how to treat the surviving prisoner.  Redcap wanted to murder him, Garreth was mostly okay with that, Seépravir wanted to pump him for information and didn't care beyond that, and Durkerle wanted to save his soul.  Somehow Durkerle won.  The group was clearly four individuals with their own opinions, not a cohesive team.  Which kind of made sense, since it was their first mission together.  But will they get better at working together, or will they keep squabbling?

This session was played using text only rather than voice, due to a combination of one player's preference and two players' technical difficulties.  I'm not sure which I prefer.  Text is a lot of typing, and sometimes it takes a while to get all the players to answer "yes" to a simple question.  On the other hand, voice invites technical problems and also people speaking over each other.  And text provides the ability to scroll back -- if someone needs to take a short break when they're not the focus of the action, they can do so and not miss anything.  And text leaves a great log.  So, I think we'll vote again at the start of the next session on which to use.

This session used 3 Roll20 maps: one of the Inn of the Slumbering Drake, one of some random woods with a stream where the ambush happened, and then the entrance to Castle Whiterock proper.  The biggest Roll20 annoyance for me was needing to copy player tokens from one map to another.  (There might be a copy-all paste-all command, but I don't know it, so it was [copy, switch map, paste, switch map] times five, each time we switched maps.)  Also, there were some glitches with dynamic lighting leading to some accidental dark areas on the Whiterock map.  Hopefully I'll get those sorted out before the next game.

I wanted players to return to town after each session, but it would have been silly this time, because they were right at the entrance to the castle, uninjured (except for three of them being down 1 FP due to bad sleep), and with the time pressure of needing to save Lyssa before something bad happened.  So, if we end up adding or subtracting any players next week, I'll need to do some handwaving.  That's fine.  Any added PCs were clearly late volunteers sent by Quintus and Chauntessa who made better time than this group, due to faster Move and less careful travel and not getting ambushed.  And any players who don't show up will have their characters assigned to guard the group's back, or possibly (if Redcap) something worse.  (They do all have Sense of Duty: Friends and Companions, so probably not that much worse.  The threat to leave him Levitating and Silenced was probably just a joke.  Probably.  Actually, if that didn't cause an extra -2 for 2 more spells on, Seépravir might not have been kidding.)

Next time: the party actually attempts to breach the castle.

What Kind of Dungeon Fantasy RPG Party Do You Get With 150 Points and Freeform?

Looks like the first session of DF Whiterock is tonight.  We have seven players interested, but only five of them have PCs ready to go (maybe with some tiny tweaks remaining), so looks like we'll be rolling with five PCs the first week.  So what kind of characters did the players come up with?

Well, they're a very diverse group species-wise: one each of Human, High Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, and Half-Orc.  (I was really happy that someone made a Gnome, because nobody ever plays Gnomes.  And I was happy that someone made a Half-Orc, because nobody ever plays Half-Orcs, but the negative Town reactions to Half-Orcs are mildly annoying for everyone, so not quite as happy.)

And they're pretty diverse in terms of professions too: we have a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, a martial artist, and a bard.  (Because they had fewer points to work with and I didn't require strict templates, they're all a bit different than you'd expect if you're used to stock Dungeon Fantasy characters, but they basically fit those niches.)

I gave a few hints, besides general Dungeon Fantasy advice like Have a Cleric: speak a lot of languages because languages will matter, try to have a small character because fitting into small spaces might matter, buy your Special Order items now if possible because Cillamar is a small town and odd items might not always be available for sale later, if you have a Druid make sure they have Beast Speech because speaking to animals might matter.  The players seem to have taken that advice to heart, except nobody made a Druid.  (Yet?)

Over the course of a week-long Session Zero in Discord, the players shared their character concepts with each other, made suggestions, and sometimes actually acted on the suggestions.  I think this worked really well.  I wouldn't say all the characters are hyper-optimized, but they're all well-designed and interesting.

I gave everyone a free extra language at Accented, and they coordinated so the group speaks a wide variety.  (Everyone has Common, and then Elven, Dwarven, Gnome, Orc, and Halfling are also known.)  Amusingly, not one but two PCs are illiterate, so they won't do as well with written languages as with spoken ones.  Also, some of the non-humans speak Common better than their mother tongue, which probably makes their mothers grumpy.

The most obvious effect of not requiring strict templates is that if you don't force the Wizard to take -3 to Perception, they get a ridiculous Per as a side effect of their ridiculous IQ.  (And our Wizard doubled down on IQ; I expected that giving fewer points would result in lower-IQ more-Magery, but that didn't happen.)  So the Wizard does a pretty good job of filling the Scout / Thief niche of finding hidden enemies and traps and secret doors.  (But not other Scout skills like filling opponents with arrows, or other Thief skills like disabling traps and opening locks.)  But you'll notice that the group lacks a Scout or a Thief, so that's fine.  The Wizard is also halfway to being a Bard by virtue of being a High Elf (Attractive appearance, Voice, Musical Ability), so there may be dueling banjos at some point.  The Martial Artist, with her high DX, also appears ready to fill some of the Scout and Thief roles, with ranged attacks and (maybe?) learning some Lockpicking or Trap disarming.  So, there's more than one way to skin a dungeon.

From my point of view, the team's big weakness is a lack of big tough front-line fighters.  They only have one who kind of fills that role, and he doesn't have any armor yet.  Nobody bought Wealth or put any character points into extra cash, so nobody could afford much DR, so they're all a bit vulnerable.  Of course the upside is that if they defeat even a mook with DR1 Light Leather Armor, that's actually an upgrade for someone, if it fits.

Other weaknesses include the lack of Druid spells, the lack of a Heroic Archer, and the lack of a Thief.  But you just can't fill all the niches with 5 lower-point PCs, so this is fine.  If they survive they'll learn new abilities with their earned character points and get better, and if they don't survive the players will get to make new PCs.

Overall, I'm very happy with the characters, and the pre-game player cooperation.  I have no real worries about PC design or party cohesion.  My main worries going into the session are technical and revolve around Roll20.  Are my maps too big and slow?  Did I leave a gap somewhere that will give away a secret?  If we decide to go text-only, can I type fast enough to keep the players engaged?  I guess we'll find out tonight.

Using Real-World Weather and Time In a Fantasy Game

Just got a question from a player about what the weather's like now in the game world, which determines whether the PCs should have winter clothing and sleeping furs.  I decided that actually generating random weather and keeping track of an in-game calendar with seasons sounded too much like work, so I'm going to steal an idea from Peter's Felltower game and use real-world seasons and weather from a location that could stand in for Cillamar.  (This also implies that game time mostly moves at about the same speed as real-world time.  So if we play every Friday, the PCs typically get a week of downtime in town between game sessions.  And if things in the real world force us to miss a weekly session, the PCs probably stayed in town for an extra week too.)

The Kingdom of Morrain is kind of far north and kind of hilly, so at first I thought maybe somewhere in Eastern Canada would make a good match.  But I'm an American and I'm more familiar with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's weather.gov site than with the equivalent in Canada, so I went with Syracuse, New York.  For those who haven't been there, Syracuse is inconveniently cold and snowy in the winter, but not usually Drop Dead Instantly If You Go Outside Naked Without A Warmth Spell cold.  (Sometimes, but not usually.)  It's mostly pleasant in the summer, with some hot days and humid days and thunderstorms mixed in.  There are a lot of cloudy days year round, so it's not the place to live if you need sun to be happy, but the natives of Cillamar, like the natives of Upstate New York, are mostly used to that.

The game is starting in late spring, which is convenient for the PCs, because it means a long time until they likely have to deal with snow.  And by the time winter rolls around, the (surviving and/or replacement) PCs will probably have more money and character points.

Using GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Rules to Play in a Dungeon Fantasy RPG Game

I wanted the Whiterock campaign to be new-player friendly, so one goal was to ensure that players only needed the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game box set, not a huge collection of GURPS books.  But we found an interested player who has a bunch of GURPS books, but not the DFRPG box set.  How much of a problem is this?

Well, DFRPG is pretty much GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, streamlined and condensed.  For the most part, it's a subset of existing GURPS rules (Basic Set, Magic, Low Tech, Dungeon Fantasy 1-3, Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1-2), repackaged in a slimmer, cheaper, prettier, less intimidating way.  (And there's new material too, but most of the new material is not needed for a player making a character.)  So, if you have the unabridged version, things are mostly compatible.  You'll just have access to a lot of material that this game isn't using, that you have to read around.

So the trick becomes describing exactly which options from the giant toolbox that he has are in play in the smaller toolbox we're using.

I think one helpful tool here is GCS because it has good data files for DFRPG, that show what traits are allowed in DFRPG by default.  Of course that doesn't include full descriptions, but for the ones that are the same as in GURPS Basic Set or Dungeon Fantasy, they're mostly pretty close.  If the trait is new in DFRPG then the player is going to need to ask the GM what it does, and then the GM can explain it.

The Whiterock game isn't using strict templates (partly because they're 250 points, and partly because I thought giving players more options would be fun), so we don't really have to worry about the exact composition of those.  The Dungeon Fantasy 1 templates are pretty close to the DFRPG templates, so good enough for inspiration.

So, I think we'll be okay, but I'm curious to see how much back and forth it will take to get a rules-legal DFRPG PC using only the previous GURPS DF rules.  If we can do it in a couple of passes, that's a good sign that the compatibility is strong.  I'll try to remember to add an edit or comment later, to say how it went.

Update: We have six interested players so far.  I've said we need at least three PCs to start, preferably four.  We have one PC I consider done and approved (though the player can still tweak if desired), three I consider almost done, one that the player seems to be almost finished with but hasn't submitted for approval, and one not done yet.  A couple of the players have GURPS books but not the DFRPG box set, and they seem to be doing okay making valid DFRPG characters with help from GCS and the other players.  So, I think the theory that GURPS DF and DFRPG are close enough that players can bridge the gap is working out.

Also, having a Discord server for your game is great, as it serves as kind of a constant asynchronous Session Zero in the background, assuming you have players who hang out on Discord at least some of the time.  Highly recommended for any kind of online game.  (Of course any other kind of persistent chat channel works too; Discord just seems like a good choice right now, as it's free and cross-platform and popular among gamers and doesn't require much technical skill to use.)