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Old 10-09-2016, 06:36 PM   #1
TheOneTrueClockWorK
 
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Default 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?
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Old 10-09-2016, 06:43 PM   #2
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Default 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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Old 10-09-2016, 06:43 PM   #3
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Default 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).
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Old 10-09-2016, 07:05 PM   #4
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Default Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheOneTrueClockWorK View Post
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?
What is the infrastructure? Do they have printing? Reliable transportation systems?
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Old 10-09-2016, 07:20 PM   #5
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Default Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting

Quote:
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.
Are castles not defined as TL3?

Quote:
What is the infrastructure? Do they have printing? Reliable transportation systems?
Printing would be a no, transportation would be mostly by horse and wagon, possibly carriage.
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Old 10-09-2016, 07:34 PM   #6
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Default Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting

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Originally Posted by TheOneTrueClockWorK View Post
Are castles not defined as TL3?



Printing would be a no, transportation would be mostly by horse and wagon, possibly carriage.
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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REFPLace GURPS Landing Page
My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items)
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Old 10-09-2016, 07:45 PM   #7
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Default Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheOneTrueClockWorK View Post
Are castles not defined as TL3?
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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Old 10-09-2016, 09:07 PM   #8
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Default Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting

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Originally Posted by TheOneTrueClockWorK View Post
Are castles not defined as TL3?
.
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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Old 10-09-2016, 09:28 PM   #9
TheOneTrueClockWorK
 
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Default Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting

Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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,
So the impression I'm getting is that the setting is better fitted to TL4, just without all the society changes? And the lessened existence of firearms explaining a few less advancements?
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Old 10-09-2016, 09:53 PM   #10
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Default Re: Tech Level for a Fantasy Setting

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So the impression I'm getting is that the setting is better fitted to TL4, just without all the society changes? And the lessened existence of firearms explaining a few less advancements?
Actually, you may very well likely want some of the society changes.

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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