Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-06-2009, 04:15 PM   #51
trooper6
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
Yrth is a good setting, but ultimately it's the SCA + Sleeping Beauty. In canon, there are few interplanar rifts or faerie trods, fairly limited battle magic (but rather extensive strategic spellcasting), and so forth. It's fine if you want to hunt renegade knights, reclaim dwarven mines from orcs, or rescue pilgrims from religious zealots. If you want to play the A-team of a shapeshifting wizard, a hulking barbarian swordsman, a conniving tomb robber, and a clerical antiquarian, you can do it, but you're already stretching the limits of the setting. If you are seeking out a renegade wizard who's stolen a priceless orb and who may be trying to achieve immortality, but who turns out to be a strange, shapechanging humanoid from the eldritch past, you've broken them. If you want to "go slay some frost giants and dragons," you are not adventuring in Yrth.
I don't know why you'd say that. You can play High-powered over the top Dungeon Fantasy in Yrth, no problem if you want to. You can have dungeons, dragons, and giants. How do you do it? Give the players more starting points. It really isn't that big of a deal. Banestorm is flexible enough to accommodate low power or high-power. It would be trivial to minimize the religious conflict or just say they all worship Pelor and Shar. Or whatever. There are already shapeshifting sketchy people from the eldritch past doing sketchy things (one in Caithness and one in Megalos). You can go running around killing Giants all you like...say in the Northlands.

If you can't imagine being way high-powered in Yrth, you have to think a bit more.
trooper6 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 04:31 PM   #52
pawsplay
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by trooper6 View Post
If you can't imagine being way high-powered in Yrth, you have to think a bit more.
I was not talking about high-powered play in any way.
pawsplay is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 04:55 PM   #53
trooper6
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
I was not talking about high-powered play in any way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
If you are seeking out a renegade wizard who's stolen a priceless orb and who may be trying to achieve immortality, but who turns out to be a strange, shapechanging humanoid from the eldritch past, you've broken them. If you want to "go slay some frost giants and dragons," you are not adventuring in Yrth.
Slaying frost giants and dragons seems pretty high-powered to me. But fine you don't like the phase "high-powered." To use only your language: Yrth, would very easily accommodate players who want to slay frost giants and dragons. Also very easily accommodate those who want to seek out a renegade wizard who has stolen a priceless orb and who may be trying to achieve immortality, but who turns out to be a strange, shapechanging humanoid from the eldtritch past.

Why wouldn't it? Frost Giants are easily placed in the Northlands...which is all Conan-esque anyway. Throw some dragons up there, then have your A-Team go off and kill them. QED
trooper6 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 05:06 PM   #54
pawsplay
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by trooper6 View Post
Slaying frost giants and dragons seems pretty high-powered to me. But fine you don't like the phase "high-powered." To use only your language: Yrth, would very easily accommodate players who want to slay frost giants and dragons. Also very easily accommodate those who want to seek out a renegade wizard who has stolen a priceless orb and who may be trying to achieve immortality, but who turns out to be a strange, shapechanging humanoid from the eldtritch past.

Why wouldn't it? Frost Giants are easily placed in the Northlands...which is all Conan-esque anyway. Throw some dragons up there, then have your A-Team go off and kill them. QED
Yrth, as written, has no substantial populations of frost giants. Or any kind of giant of a magical nature. In fact, it has only small populations of giants of any kind. As for dragons, it is unlikely someone would end up facing more than one in their lifetime.
pawsplay is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 05:18 PM   #55
Crakkerjakk
"Gimme 18 minutes . . ."
 
Crakkerjakk's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
Yrth, as written, has no substantial populations of frost giants. Or any kind of giant of a magical nature. In fact, it has only small populations of giants of any kind.
Yrth, as written, attempts to strike a balance between low fantasy and high fantasy with a few real-world elements thrown in such as Christianity and Islam. That said, it is also written (as far as I can tell) with the possibility of dialing the "awesome" up or down a few notches. For arthurian fantasy, caithness. For Conan, the northlands. For ninjas, Sahud. For swashbuckling, Airterre(sp?). There's even cthulhu-esque demon worshiping aztecs. If you want frost giants, the setting can easily accommodate them. Saying "the default flavor of the setting does not match what I want and I don't want to use some of the different options in the book" does not equate to "Yrth cannot do dungeon fantasy/giant slaying/conan-style sword and sorcery".

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
As for dragons, it is unlikely someone would end up facing more than one in their lifetime.
Wasn't there a knight in Caithness that had killed several before finally being downed by the last he tried to slay? I mean, it's unlikely unless that's your shtick, you know, like if you're an intrepid bunch of daring adventurers off to save princesses, delve dungeons, and other assorted badassery.
__________________
My bare bones web page

Semper Fi
Crakkerjakk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 05:20 PM   #56
trooper6
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
Yrth, as written, has no substantial populations of frost giants. Or any kind of giant of a magical nature. In fact, it has only small populations of giants of any kind. As for dragons, it is unlikely someone would end up facing more than one in their lifetime.
Giants are rare on the continent. But if you want to have players being mighty giant slayers set your game in the Northlands where, "there are also a number of giant communities scattered about the north." (Banestorm, pg 169)

If you want there to be hundreds of giants to slaughter just say there are, they live in the mountains of Zarak and in the Northlands...then the PCs go and kill them all day long.

How many dragons do you want the players to kill? Put them in. If you want a dungeon fantasy-ish version of Yrth just place the Dragons, Giants, and Dungeons there...and start killing them. It would be easiest to do it in the Northlands because there is very little civilization, but you can do it wherever you want. You are the GM, you just say that is the way it is.
trooper6 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 05:54 PM   #57
pawsplay
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by trooper6 View Post
You are the GM, you just say that is the way it is.
I agree. But at the point you are including armies of hostile giants and sticking a dragon on every mountain range, you are no longer in Yrth, as I commented above.
pawsplay is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 06:10 PM   #58
trooper6
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
I agree. But at the point you are including armies of hostile giants and sticking a dragon on every mountain range, you are no longer in Yrth, as I commented above.
Sure you are. Yrth is meant to be flexible. It is a place to play in, not a straightjacket. There are no continuity police going to come and arrest you. There aren't going to be flamewars because you have Giant Armies threatening mankind. This isn't Traveller! :)

Last edited by trooper6; 06-06-2009 at 06:14 PM.
trooper6 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 06:17 PM   #59
pawsplay
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by trooper6 View Post
Sure you are. Yrth is meant to be flexible. It is a place to play in, not a straightjacket. There are no continuity police going to come and arrest you. There aren't going to be flamewars because you have Giant Armies threatening mankind. This isn't Traveller! :)
So what if I add cyberware? Still Yrth? What if I change the name of the planet? What if I eliminate orcs?
pawsplay is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2009, 06:28 PM   #60
trooper6
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
Default Re: Fantasy Setting for GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
So what if I add cyberware? Still Yrth? What if I change the name of the planet? What if I eliminate orcs?
Eberron adds cyberware (magical, but still) and it is still D&D. Considering that Yrth has banestorms dropping people off from any time and place, sure add cyberware. Me being me, I'd want to figure out some things about the cyberware...is it magical or technological? If it is technological was it produced off-world and banestormed in? or is there are a group of Underground Engineers who have mastered TL9 cybertechnology? How? Why? Is it secret? You could do it and the different answers would give you different flavors.

Change the name of the planet? Why not? It is exactly the same as in the Banestorm book, but everyone calls the planet Susan. Okay. Whatever.

Eliminate Orcs? Why not, that is what the Dark Elves have been trying to do for ages now. So they succeed. What does everyone think about that? ... How about the Half-Orc PCs? Or where there never Orcs? You'd have to decide about the Banestorm...but the Dark Elves could have been trying to get rid of Lizard Men...or the Banestorm could be a naturally occuring phenomenon on this world.

Just make the tweaks you like to make the world the one you want to play.

ETA: The only time you have to worry about continuity is if you are wanting to publish a Banestorm adventure with SJGames. Though, maybe you just finished playing the videogame Too Human and you really want to do some sort of Techno Medieval Fantasy...maybe if you did a really interesting thing it could be published in Pyramid as an Alternate Yrth.

As GM you can do whatever the heck you want. Even without big obvious tweaks my Yrth and your Yrth aren't going to be the same just because of our different GM tastes and due to the results of player actions (if you are a GM that allows player actions to make a difference in the world). I mean, my idea of fun times would be to create a political wheeling-dealing war campaign in Caithness where the players wage that civil war. And they would want to solve that. So over the course of the campaign, I bet the Civil War would end. That would be a huge difference from what is in the book. So what?

Last edited by trooper6; 06-06-2009 at 06:32 PM.
trooper6 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
fantasy, setting, yrth

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:18 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.