[Fantasy] Standard Fantasy Setting

[simply Nathan]

I'm collaborating with a fellow GURPS-user (who will be the GM in our playtests) to try to make as bland and generic of a fantasy setting as possible. What we want to do is make a GURPS setting that is just a generic, no-frills fantasy world so that such a baseline is actually defined somewhere. Part of the intent is to allow other GMs to tweak to their liking, drop in elements from other genres, and things of that nature.

What we have:

• Playable races are human, elf, dwarf, and gnome.
• - These are the very same gnomes I brought up in the thread on finding weight from ST; more on this further down. A race of little people felt necessary, but hobbits feel too Tolkien-specific and PC goblins would blur the line between "good guy" and "monster".
• - Elves are a few inches taller than humans. They probably have slightly darker skin, just as dwarves are probably paler (and they won't be the same shade; if one goes one way, the other reverses to match).
• Monsters; goblins/orcs/ogres, zombies/skeletons/mummies, lizardmen/troglodytes, vodniks("Bullywug" was copyrighted, so I looked up frog-based mythological creatures and this seemed to be the best match and best name; some of them have seaweed-looking beards), giants, and four unique bosses. The bosses are a human lich, a giant bandit with gigantism, a giant mouth-and-tentacle creature, and a dragon.
• Magic; the spells from GURPS Magic, though the idea of putting Syntactic Magic cantrips in has been tossed around. Sound generic enough?
• TL3 for all game-relevant purposes, despite the presence of magic. If brought up, the religion is Christian because Medieval Europe wouldn't be Medieval Europe without Christianity, so a Medieval European Fantasy would seem odd with any other religious practice in the majority; we don't plan on going into detail on this but may have to and definitely will if vampires get introduced to the setting.
• Templates for a fighter, thief, and wizard (FTW).
• No guns, not even in No-Mana areas.
• No exceptions to stated racial alignment; goblins are always evil, elves are always good. Play a human if you want anything untrustworthy.
• Four civilized settlements(village, town, city, and castle); four wilderness regions(swamp, plains, forest, and mountain); four PC races; four bosses; it started as an accident, but we basically wound up with an Arc Number here.

I have no doubts about the genericness of our elf and dwarf templates, but I'm opening the gnome up for suggestions.

GNOME [20]
Attributes:		ST-2[-20]; DX+1[20]; IQ+1[20]
Characteristics:	HP-2[-4]; SM-3
Advantages:		Honest Face[1]; Huge Weapons(SM) 3[3]; Magery 0[5]
Disadvantages:		Curious(12)[-5]

Avg. Height: 2'0"
Avg. Weight: 32 lbs

We don't want tinker gnomes. They skew the TL expectations and were mostly made up because D&D gnomes were redundant between their similarities to dwarves and the presence of halflings.

One thing I considered was raising HP by one, dropping Honest Face, and adding the Cannot Float quirk due to density.

I'm open to reducing weight even further, but not to reducing ST (8 is the recommended minimum for adventurers, and PC templates shouldn't fall below that) or increasing height (they're already talked up from 1'). Whatever is done, their template must cost 20 points.

So far, all races have roughly equal disposition toward the fighter, thief, and wizard roles.

• Humans have 20 unspent character points.
• Dwarves have good HT, resistance to Poison, tough skin, and Lifting ST 2. (Fighter)
• Elves have Move +1, and DX+1, which is good for little apart from weapon skills. (Fighter)
• Gnomes are smaller than humans, but use the same sized weapons, have near the same ST, and their size gives them bonuses to hit/penalties to be hit. (Fighter)
• Dwarves have racial Greed, which may tempt them to gain money illicitly. (Thief)
• Elves, again, have Move +1 (for running away) and DX+1. (Thief)
• Gnomes have +1 each to DX and IQ, giving bonuses to almost every skill in the system. Their Honest Faces keep them generally below suspicion, though this may be dropped. Small characters can fit into quite tighter areas while burgling. Curiosity encourages them to explore places even when this is dangerous. (Thief)
• Dwarves have a total of 14 FP and Eidetic Memory - while the latter is not directly beneficial, it is still useful for the archetype. (Wizard)
• Elves have Magery 0 and ST-1, cutting points where a wizard normally would anyway. (Wizard)
• Gnomes have ST-2, IQ+1, and Magery 0. Again, dump stat treatment similar to the elves. (Wizard)

You might even say dwarves are pushed toward fighter/thieves, elves are pushed toward fighter/wizards, and gnomes are pushed toward thief/wizards.


After hammering out most of the details (we already have shopping lists and stat blocks/templates done) we'll probably release the results for free on the Internet. Maybe even in this thread.
Is there anything we're missing?
Does anyone have suggestions on how to make this stuff more generic?
Will anyone else be interested when we're done?

[Polydamas]

D&Desque fantasy settings usually seem like TL 4 without gunpowder and possibly printing; there is plate armour, lots of economic specialization and large towns, inns and pubs along most roads, lots of alchemists and libraries, long-ranged sea travel and so on. Most gamers don't grok a peasants and villages and barter society well enough to set games there.

I would strongly advise trimming the spell list from Magic to avoid overwhelmed players and ruined campaigns as soon as an analytical player starts to think about the implications. Tech, Gate, and permanent creation or transmutation should probably be banned or restricted to NPCs; Copy will mean that most books are written by mages using magic.

You should also think about what supernatural beings exist (GURPS Magic assumes spirits, elementals, Zombies, liches, wraiths, and a wide variety of demons) and what supernaturally detectable properties exist (GURPS Magic assumes mana, sanctity, Auras and possibly some others ... it sounds like Good and Evil exist in this setting).

Other than that, good luck with the project! GURPS Caverns and Creatures is showing its age, being based on Basic through 2e D&D and 3e GURPS.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

I'm collaborating with a fellow GURPS-user (who will be the GM in our playtests) to try to make as bland and generic of a fantasy setting as possible. What we want to do is make a GURPS setting that is just a generic, no-frills fantasy world so that such a baseline is actually defined somewhere. Part of the intent is to allow other GMs to tweak to their liking, drop in elements from other genres, and things of that nature.

This may be opening up a can of worms, but why not take Dungeon Fantasy as your rules baseline? It already gives you a well-developed body of work on various well-known fantasy races and adventuring professions.

[Mateus]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

This may be opening up a can of worms, but why not take Dungeon Fantasy as your rules baseline? It already gives you a well-developed body of work on various well-known fantasy races and adventuring professions.

I cant agree mopre with this. Thats is waht I use for my "player introducing" games. For the setting I made a VERY plain regional map is Campaing Cartographer 3 from ProFantasy and use it.

You dont need to do a lot of work for something that already exist. DF IS a generic fantasy game if you dont put yours own specifics.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Mateus

(. . .) You dont need to do a lot of work for something that already exist. DF IS a generic fantasy game if you dont put yours own specifics.

There are, however, opinions around here (often from the authors) –and in other forums also, like RPGNet– about its scope being too much limited, even more than AD&D: non-serious in character, and limited to looting dungeons, as you already know. It has been even equated with SJG's Munchkin . . . That makes some people "uncomfortable" or unwilling to handle things through GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.

I'm aware that many people is perfectly OK with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and doesn't share such "uncomfortability", but it is there for others.

[Mateus]

I use the DF line for my Fantasy game (that is a low fantasy in much regard) because I love som,e options, suggestions, equipments, etc from this series. But when I want a "plain" game (for introduce people to RPG or GURPS) I use DF as written and think that there is alredy a lot of options there.

Now if I want a "serious" and long game I use my homebrew setting and rules and use only what I like most from DF.

[demonsbane]

I agree with your approach, Mateus.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

D&Desque fantasy settings usually seem like TL 4 without gunpowder and possibly printing; there is plate armour, lots of economic specialization and large towns, inns and pubs along most roads, lots of alchemists and libraries, long-ranged sea travel and so on.

It very well might be TL4, then, as I often assumed fantasy settings were. We won't be bringing fencing weapons in unless we do an expansion (likewise with sea travel). Yes, we have inns and alchemists (though we aren't sure about libraries).

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I would strongly advise trimming the spell list from Magic to avoid overwhelmed players and ruined campaigns as soon as an analytical player starts to think about the implications. Tech, Gate, and permanent creation or transmutation should probably be banned or restricted to NPCs; Copy will mean that most books are written by mages using magic.

This'll probably be the hardest part of the whole project, but worth it. I agree that most Technology spells are inappropriate (not just their effects, but that most of them won't have much in the way of subjects anyway). I'd consider the Metal spells to be part of the Earth college anyway, if it came up. Gate will probably be restricted to NPCs, but I'm not sure about the permanent creation/transmutation spells.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

You should also think about what supernatural beings exist (GURPS Magic assumes spirits, elementals, Zombies, liches, wraiths, and a wide variety of demons) and what supernaturally detectable properties exist (GURPS Magic assumes mana, sanctity, Auras and possibly some others ... it sounds like Good and Evil exist in this setting).

Except for Sanctity, those will probably all be present. (We have zombies, liches, and mana at least; elementals may come later, and demons canonically exist even if they aren't tangible.)

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Other than that, good luck with the project! GURPS Caverns and Creatures is showing its age, being based on Basic through 2e D&D and 3e GURPS.

Thank you. I hope this pans out too.

Never heard of Caverns and Creatures before. Sounds like a good read, and might have done some of what I want to do.

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

This may be opening up a can of worms, but why not take Dungeon Fantasy as your rules baseline? It already gives you a well-developed body of work on various well-known fantasy races and adventuring professions.

As far as I can tell, DF is basically what I want out of fantasy game rules. My elf, dwarf, and gnome templates are based on those. I'd aim for a lower starting point for character power levels (I'm aiming for 100-150 points). I've been looking over DF On the Cheap, and it was helpful in informing our fighter/thief/wizard templates.

Originally Posted by Mateus

dont need to do a lot of work for something that already exist. DF IS a generic fantasy game if you dont put yours own specifics.

It's already got half-demons, half-angels, chi, and a bunch of other stuff I wouldn't exactly call "generic". This might be more stripping out elements from DF than putting stuff in. We want only the blandest, most bare-bones elements for a fantasy RPG world we can get; people who like clerics or martial artists or whatever can put that stuff back in easily enough. (Also, we're mapping the four wilderness areas, the towns, and where appropriate the dungeons. After all, out of the whole D&D3e player's handbook, the thing I probably used the most was the sample dungeon.)

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

As far as I can tell, DF is basically what I want out of fantasy game rules.

All the more reason to use it as your baseline if, as you say...

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

Part of the intent is to allow other GMs to tweak to their liking, drop in elements from other genres, and things of that nature.

If interoperability is a significant concern, it might be wiser to go with an "established standard" than to create a very similar new one. The DF line already provides you with worked material, and gives you a ready-made set of references for most things you might want to try, saving you the work of reinventing that particular wheel. For example:

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

It's already got half-demons, half-angels, chi, and a bunch of other stuff I wouldn't exactly call "generic". This might be more stripping out elements from DF than putting stuff in.

Exactly. You start off saying that such-and-such a set of DF (or DF On the Cheap) templates and such-and-such a set of non-human races are available. You hand out a compact set of page references and you're done, having saved yourself a bunch of math and typing.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

If brought up, the religion is Christian because Medieval Europe wouldn't be Medieval Europe without Christianity, so a Medieval European Fantasy would seem odd with any other religious practice in the majority;

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

Except for Sanctity, those will probably all be present. (We have zombies, liches, and mana at least; elementals may come later, and demons canonically exist even if they aren't tangible.)

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

Is there anything we're missing?
Does anyone have suggestions on how to make this stuff more generic?

I would add Sanctity, while reducing the stress about the specifics of that Christianity.