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Old 07-26-2015, 10:03 PM   #41
Christopher R. Rice
 
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

My personal favorite is TL3+1^ (Clockpunk/Sailpunk), but TL5, TL4+1, and TL5+2 are fun. I tend to run a lot of TL8(ish) campaigns because that's what best fits the genre my group and I have decided to work up.


My current campaign is actually a look at evolving TLs (as well as genres) from TL2^ all the way up to TL6+4. Each series of interconnecting stories is broken up into a campaign eras with 10 to 40 sessions per eras and each era taking place several hundred to thousand years between each other.

The players have two roles: their deity (which is designed using a custom framework derived from GURPS Boardrooms and Curia) which measures their approximate power, influence, worshipers, etc. and their deity's "instrument." Instruments can be avatars of the gods themselves, their offspring, or favored heroes. The players can use their deities powers to help out their instruments, but can't do it too often or else risk drawing the interest of other deities who may not be helpful to their cause.

Currently I have five eras planned and one is past, one is nearly done, and several more to go. The first was straight up myths and legends, the current is epic fantasy, the next will be dark fantasy.

And I've babbled far too much at this point. Basically, I like Clockpunk and Sailpunk y'all.
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Old 07-26-2015, 10:30 PM   #42
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I retain a fondness for TL(5+1)—steampunk—though I don't get a lot out of what the movement has become now; it's less alternative history of science and more fashion statement. Not to mention the last exhibit of "steampunk technology" I saw that was entirely made up of post-WWI electronics: cool but not remotely historically authentic. Where were the coherers, or the spark gaps?
I'm perfectly willing to accept a "steampunk aesthetic" apart from steampunk as a genre or technology, but you can get lazy with it. Sometimes nothing but spray painting things a bronze-ish color is passed off as steampunk. And one reason I never ran a steampunk game was that last time I pitched one, the character ideas my players proposed were clearly their usual range of character with gears glued on.

Right now, I'm contemplating three settings: early TL3 low fantasy (either England during the conversions of the Anglo-Saxon, or a fictional equivalent), TL6 fantasy using Path/Book (and averting all of Magic Versus Science, Magitek, and Masquerade), and TL9/10 hard(ish) science fiction (FTL as the only superscience).
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Old 07-26-2015, 10:31 PM   #43
simply Nathan
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

My favorite is a split TL.

Weapons and armor: TL4 in a world that skipped the stone and bronze ages entirely and couldn't manage "boom powder" so much as an expensive "smoke powder". Rapiers, longswords, plate armor, and so on.

Medical technology: TL0+7^, combining magic spells, alchemy, and modern-equivalent scientific research to produce the Physician skill (helping to eliminate critical spell failures!). No cross-race specializations needed.

Transportation: TL3 equestrianism, sometimes applied to non-equine quadrupeds such as tigers and dire wolves. TL4 ships (with no cannons).

Information Technology: TL4, early printing presses allowing widespread publishing of schooling material, religious writings, and entertainment fiction (fantasy people like fantasy too!). Literacy is the norm.

Farming/Biotechnology: TL3^, small farms are enclosed within city walls (so monsters don't kill the farmers and eat the crops) but produce ample food due to the aid of magic spells. Selective breeding practiced and works significantly better than in real life because it's actually possible for new traits to pop into existence and be selected for because magic.

Starting Wealth: At least TL3 but no more than TL5. Never really sure where I want to put this.
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Old 07-26-2015, 10:33 PM   #44
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

I usually do sci-fi, so TL9-10 with some TL11 pieces. Usually with a ^, of course.

I also like Banestorm, so whatever that is...TL2-4.

But I'm eager to try TL8, so that's what I'm doing next.

Oddly enough, I have little use for TL5-7.
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Old 07-27-2015, 03:51 AM   #45
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

I am currently running a hard sci-fi TL10 campaign. I also have ideas for some TL11 stuff. Still hard sci-fi, but maybe with the inclusion of jump drives.

I am also ready to start a napoleonic fantasy campaign. So that would be late TL 4/early TL 5 + magic. Just cannot decide on the magic system...
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Old 07-27-2015, 08:17 AM   #46
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

I don't know why but I really feel that my favorite is TL9, it just seem so exotic but earthbound as well I guess, I just feel close to it :p.

As for super science, I just assume the universe's laws of physics are different.
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Old 07-27-2015, 11:39 AM   #47
malloyd
 
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

I think we all know what this sort of debate ultimately reduces too: "I don't like X so it can't be part of my favorite genre Y".

It's only the people who really love a genre and have strong opinions about the peripheral stuff that even care. For everybody else, genre labels are pretty loose and not mutually exclusive guidelines.

For the actual question, I mostly don't worry about what the TL is a lot. It's not all that useful a number. If it's a historical setting, I have a date, and if it's not, I probably have an "About like [place] in [year], except..." sentence.

It'll probably be 9ish for SF and 4ish for fantasy, but the paragraphs explaining the ish part is likely the most important part of that.
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Old 07-27-2015, 12:31 PM   #48
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

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I think we all know what this sort of debate ultimately reduces too: "I don't like X so it can't be part of my favorite genre Y".
Not always the case. I read science fiction, I read a fair bit of alternate history and enjoy it, but I think a case can be made that AH as such as not SF but simply realistic fiction. After all, if Sinclair Lewis can be one of the big names in twentieth century social realism with a series of books set in an alternate United States with an extra state called Winnemac, or if SS GB can be a best-seller with all sort of buyers who don't read SF. . . .
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Old 07-27-2015, 12:42 PM   #49
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
For the actual question, I mostly don't worry about what the TL is a lot. It's not all that useful a number. If it's a historical setting, I have a date, and if it's not, I probably have an "About like [place] in [year], except..." sentence.

It'll probably be 9ish for SF and 4ish for fantasy, but the paragraphs explaining the ish part is likely the most important part of that.
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Old 07-27-2015, 03:53 PM   #50
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Default Re: Do you have a favorite TL?

When I am the GM: yes, I have: TL11^

I can have all the marvels of technology that I want to dream about while avoiding the "drop-all-that-fits-nowhere-else" box of TL12^.

I have currently two games running at that TL:
1. A homegrown adaptation of a galaxy far, far away
2. A colonisation game with 100 CP chars, on all of whom I patched a 750 CP "Super-Nanotech-Upgrade" template, then crashed them into a TL2 environment with just basic (for TL11) survival gear. Hilarious fun, runs for the players much like portraying gods, especially as the template includes Unkillable 1.


When I am a player: Meh, I just play anything fun
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