10-09-2016, 06:36 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Oct 2016
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Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
I am currently working on a fantasy world for GURPS, but am having trouble determine an overall tech level. The world is more or less D&D crossed with Dark Souls. Most countries are in a transition between a feudal state and a nation-state. The world has a fairly medieval feel to it, with knights and lords, but includes technologies like full plate armour.
So, I guess the question is would this be late TL3 or early TL4? I suppose it would be largely TL4, but firearms are very rare and it has the classic TL3 fantasy feel of wizards, knights in shining armor, and walled cities and castles. Thoughts? |
10-09-2016, 06:43 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
Knights in full plate and walled cities ad castles strike me as mature TL4
Any tech you dont like your free to ban and also you can have split tech levels. However I prefer TL4 for my fantasy for the infrastructure and medical mostly.
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My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
10-09-2016, 06:43 PM | #3 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
That's TL Olden Tymes. :)
Seriously though, you can just say that the setting is TL4 for melee weapons and armor but is TL3 for everything else. The official notation would be TL3 (Melee Weapons and Armor TL4) (see p. B511). |
10-09-2016, 07:05 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
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10-09-2016, 07:20 PM | #5 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2016
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
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10-09-2016, 07:34 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
The infrastructure improvements make it a lot easier. So if you have a lot of castles you need good and common transportation, architecture and masonry tech.
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My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
10-09-2016, 07:45 PM | #7 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
Yes, but the common image of a castle blends in a lot of very late TL3 and early TL4 elements into the architectural blend (and often take a lot of inspiration from the 19th century Romanesque revival).
As an aside, film/television castles tend to be on vast, open moorland. Winterfell is a good example. Always leaves me wondering what the lord of the castle eats.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
10-09-2016, 09:07 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
It's not that simple. The official starting point of TL4 is 1450. People stopped building castles, as such, toward the end of the 1500s. And only because the threat became armies with increasingly heavy gunpowder artillery. Castles would be perfectly practical defenses against, say, zombie legions, or giant monsters,
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10-09-2016, 09:28 PM | #9 | |||
Join Date: Oct 2016
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
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10-09-2016, 09:53 PM | #10 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting
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Absolute monarchies and anything resembling the modern concept of the state are largely absent in historical TL3, but are a staple of fantasy worlds. Across most of Europe during the medieval period, the king functioned as something like the chairman of the nobility, and land that was nominally in one "country" would often be held by the king of another. When a king held two different lands with different inheritance traditions, wars could start over who was the proper king of what. To say nothing of the patchwork of little semi-independent German duchies and archbishoprics that pretended to be Holy, Roman, and an Empire.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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Tags |
fantasy, medieval, tech, tech level, world creation |
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