GURPS Shadowgun [Brainstorm]

[Anders]

The premise for this is that it's like Shadowrun but in the Old West. It was brought up in GURPS: Book Titles You Don't Want To See. Turns out there was some demand for it, so let's brainstorm:

So magic has come back, and so has Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, and various magical beings. That is, certain humans are transformed into Elves, Dwarves, etc. In the Shadowrun universe I believe this happened in 2012 (that's not important), but when did it happen in this world? And who got transformed?

[Phantasm]

Part of me wants to go with 1789, the start of the French Revolution, but that makes it almost a hundred years by the time of Shadowgun in the Old West - assuming "Old West" is the classic period of 1870-1900, the time of Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Wyatt Earp, and Bat Masterson. Whereas in Shadowrun it's only really been 50 years, give or take (going by SR3's "Year of the Comet" supplement, 2061).

[Icelander]

I might go with 1816 for the changepoint. The Year Without a Summer, first year of a New World Order after the world wars ended in 1815.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I might go with 1816 for the changepoint. The Year Without a Summer, first year of a New World Order after the world wars ended in 1815.

I posted a riff on this very topic literally two days ago.

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Given that the basic non-human types have more of a Viking myth feel, I'd go with something up in Scandinavia. Making it unrelated to the gargantuan Napoleonic struggle appeals to me; that has enough story hooks as it is. So...

In 1814, Iceland is nearly annihilated by the catastrophic eruption of Hofsjökull. As the ash other detritus fall all over the globe, people change - mutating into creatures out of ancient Nordic myths (or at least, near enough for the 18th century). Stout dwarfs, slender and elegant elves, ugly orcs (or svartalfr, as some of them come to be called), and towering trolls. Children, too, are born thus. About a quarter to a third of the global population is affected.

In the same year, magic starts to work again (or perhaps it never stopped, and now it's just easier). Societies of enlightenment mages are soon comparing notes and fighting over secrets, just as old folk traditions and shamanistic religions acquire new potency. (Organized religion is thrown into a bit of a crisis.)

Of course, this is all against a backdrop of a year or two without a summer and the turmoil that comes with famine, Napoleon's struggle against the Sixth Coalition, and - perhaps - the coming of Ragnarok. There are certainly great dragons abroad in the mountains and oceans.

PCs could be...

• Political and magical operatives in Vienna, trying to shape the new world order after the fall of Napoleon and the ash fall
• Courtiers of an Indian prince, dealing with the English and their John Company, not to mention rakshasas, nagas, and all those sorts of monsters who've just started making trouble.
• Frontier folk in North America - white settlers, native people, or both
• Freedmen in Haiti, looking to stay that way
• Romantic aesthetes/mages trapped in a villa on Lake Geneva by a miserable summer
• Curious scholars in the salons and courts of Europe, discovering new magic and old evils
• Newly changed folk, trying to make a new life for themselves - maybe with or without relations from the old one.

Or really, anyone where power, intrigue, magic, and adventure intersect.

For a proper Old West campaign, I think you need a native presence that's not so effective as to actually resist white settlement - otherwise you get a game where the frontier isn't acting as a "relief valve" for tensions back east, but is instead a border with another power. Probably a good setup, but not the same.

There needs to be the opportunity for lawlessness, and the tension between violence and civilization.

If it's going to be Shadowrun style, there needs to be the opportunity for capers, and colossal organizations that pay for shadowrunners. If it's an Old West game, the usual urban environment is a bit harder to come by, though. Sudden but inevitable betrayals are required, of course.

So here's what I'll go with if I want to run this. Focus is on North America.

Year is 1870. The ACW ended with a Union victory in 1865; unrepentant Confederates, opportunistic Northerners, and ordinary folk of every background continue to settle the West. The settlement effort is dominated by the great railroad and mining concerns based Back East; these huge corporations are branching out into oil, dipping their fingers into birthing big agriculture, chopping down massive forests in the North and Northwest, and of course there's always manufacturing on an unheard-of-scale.

The presence of magic has allowed American Indian tribes to resist white dominance somewhat more than in our timeline, but they still face a massive demographic disadvantage - and of course, they're just as prone to fighting each other as they are settlers. I'd say there are a couple nations that have managed to hold onto territorial integrity, a couple that have joined the Americans as states, and others somewhere in between. (As a nod to Shadowrun, I'd definitely put a Coast Salish nation around the Puget Sound, maybe as a protectorate of the United Kingdom.)

Magic is Path/Book. "Civilized" magicians use Books, because they tend to write things down; "uncivilized" magicians prefer an oral traditions, and so use Path magic.

Tech is unmodified TL6.

[AlexanderHowl]

One of the massive changes would be the massive strengthening of Native American Nations, which would have had the USA forced back to the Mississippi in the best case scenario (no Seattle or Denver in this case). European magical traditions had been largely abandoned, so you would have seen the strengthening of societies that embraced mysticism across the globe. For example, the Boxer Rebellion would have worked, as supernatural martial artists would have made mincemeat of the forces of the European powers and the Qing Dynasty.

Another thing to consider would be the supremacy of magical creatures. A dragon versus a wing of fighter jets is a tough fight for the dragon, a dragon versus a Victorian battleship is just target practice for the dragon. Magic would be the only thing that would really protect metahumans from most magical creatures, so the Awakened would become an essential part of any society. Regardless of their background, being Awakened would trump any issues with race, religion, sex, and subspecies.

While the Awakened would be respected, non-Awakened non-humans would likely face massive discrimination based on subspecies. Social status would be based on subspecies, then race, then sex, and then religion (mystical religions would have more skilled Awakened, so they would gain in respect). Of the subspecies, humans and elves would probably have equal status, then dwarves and trolls, and then orks on the bottom (largely due to their high fertility).

[thrash]

It's probably time to dig back through Kenneth Hite's Suppressed Transmission archives, especially the ones that were never collected into books.

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest dating the change to the Anglo-Zulu War (1879)/First Boer War (1880-1881)/Ghost Dance movement (1890) period, with maybe a follow-up wave tied to the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901)/Second Boer War (1899-1902). The idea is that indigenous struggles against colonialism were prompted and aided by the return of magic, disrupting the course of subsequent history. The campaign can be notionally set in c. 1930, but with technology and politics that more closely resemble 1890.

A key feature would be "glitch" magic, which would make automatic weapons and remote/timed fuses unreliable. This might be more a field effect of magic use in general, rather than a specific spell. If you can't be sure your grenades and artillery shells won't explode in your hand, your will be reluctant to use them. If machineguns and assault rifles jam every dozen or so rounds, you might stick with revolvers and lever/bolt/pump action firearms instead. This is more to maintain the "wild west" feel against technological development, but it could also help balance magic vs. tech.

[Anders]

I would probably scale back dragons so they don't rule supreme. I don't know anything about Shadowrun, really, but if they are made to fight fighter jets, tone them down. I mean, in Fantasy games people with swords are able to fight dragons - you should be able to do the same with a rifle.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I might go with 1816 for the changepoint. The Year Without a Summer, first year of a New World Order after the world wars ended in 1815.

I'm rather fond of that as a changepoint, as I have a few other magical alternate histories that diverge there.


While Western magical traditions are faded by then, they do exist to some degree, and there would be people in Europe and the colonies/former colonies thereof who were already practicing it, and would notice that it seemed to be working 'better.' Depending on how the GM decides that magic works (not just in the sense of game mechanics), artists, poets, and other dreamers might also develop some ability with magic, especially when they're locked in a villa in Switzerland with terrible weather outside and nothing much to do inside.

Of course, at some point you'd need to decide on a magic system. I'm fond of Path/Book Magic (in this context, probably Effect Shaping with two or three levels of the Adept advantage), but for Shadowrun, something like the standard GURPS spell system might fit the source better - depending on how close you want to get to the other game's system.

[Anders]

Path Magic definitely. Fits the world perfectly. Maybe make it an Illuminated campaign, borrowing the Lodges from GURPS Voodoo, to keep things from divering too much from the normal timeline.

[AlexanderHowl]

One possibility to balance the scales is steampunk technomagic. The development of metamagic to enchant objects for mundane use (a variation of Quickening) would likely be suitable, though the metamagic would replace the Karma lost by the magician with Essence invested by the mundane. In effect, you could have steampunk technomagic versions of any augmentations and could create steampunk technomagic cyborgs that could function at a higher effective TL than the mundane technology.

For example, a magician could install four technomagical limbs in a mundane, requiring the mundane to permanently invest 4 Essence to maintain the operations of the limbs. In turn, the limbs would have capacity, which would contain other technomagical devices that draw on the Essence already invested by the mundane. Alternatively, they could do technomagic bioware, representing the implantation of magically quickened tissues to improve the capabilities of mundane.

Creatures like the one created by Frankenstein would be an example of a technomagical cyborg, a fetal tissue brain within a framework of magically quickened tissues that gives superhuman capabilities. Other technomagical cyborgs could be crippled adults attached to steampunk technomagical battleships or airships, perhaps gestalts of dozens of cyborgs, allowing militaries to defend themselves against dragons and other magical threats.

As for magic, RPM is probably best for the high energy magic of Shadowrun. Path/Book magic is too subtle and standard magic is just too clunky. Of course, you could just transfer Shadowrun Magic, giving a Magic attitude equal to Magery, and adding skills as needed.