Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders
I recently got hold of an old AD&D campaign module called Charlemagne's Paladins. How would you set about roleplaying in 8th-century Francia? It's just on the edge between TL 2 and TL 3, but most of what's important to my players - i.e., weapons and armor - would still be TL 2 (no longswords, mail and plate, etc.) For priests and saints, I'd probably go with some restricted version of Divine Power. The few wizards that existed would use RPM - but no PCs would be allowed to use it! Any other thoughts?
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GURPS Divine Power tends to offer some very blatant effects, and that's decidedly suboptimal for historical fantasy. Most often it's preferable to have subtler effects instead. Ones that leave plenty of room for doubt and uncertainty. One that don't enable any one religion to prove to followers of other religions that it is the one religion that is actually true whereas the others are collective delusions with no substance behind them.
The Crusader template offers a few suggestions, in GURPS Monster Hunters. Very much the same concept as a Paladin or a Saint, but the effects are less visible. There are very few actual write-up examples in MH1, but if you read them and can get into the "mindset" behind them, then GURPS has a fairly large amount of building blocks with which you can build many more similar ones.
There's also this
old thread, especially the posts from me and Polydamas
You can use some of the suggestions outright for player characters who are Germanics, especially if they're pagan Germanics.
But also, there's the whole mindset, of seeing supernatural as being a much wider concept than just robed wizards shooting fireballs out of their fingertips. The whole stack-of-Skill Talent as a supernatural boon, defined by supernatural Limitations, for instance (an idea originally proposed in GURPS Fantasy).
Christian/Abrahamic powers can often be handled via Luck or Serendipity. Sometimes with a bunch of Limiations, but Aspected doesn't fit. That fits a lot better with polytheism, e.g. where a Germanic pagan sacrifices to a god and in exchange gets Luck or Serendipity or similar that is Aspected towards the portfolio of that god. A Christian or other Abrahamic character is much more likely to get generic (non-Aspected) good fortune, in some cases in exchange for prayer (some kind of Preperation Required).
Healing also fits. After all, that was the main scthick of the Christian prophet. The Healing Power is extremely blatant, though; there are many better options, better in that they're both subtler and cheaper. One thing you can do is simply take a Healing Skill Talent, affecting all medical skills, with Limtiations to represent it as a supernatural power. A stack of 4 ain't so much, but if you allow a stack of 6 or even 8, it could begin to get very interesting. Also you could have half the stack have few Limitations and the other half of the stack having starker Limitations. Another idea of mine is a stack of High TL, Aspected to Medical Only, Enhanced to Works With TL3 Tools (or even Works Without Tools!) and with further Limitations to reflect that it's a supernatural ability.
Another option again, for supernatural healing, one that actually isn't well supported by GURPS' RAW, is the ability to "confer" medically useful Advantages to others. Specifically slower forms of Regeneration (or Rapid Healing). That should be an Enhancement or Limitation reflecting that the trait never benefits the character himself, but only the one target he confers it to, and reflecting how difficult, expensive or time consuming the process is, and whether the character has multiple instances of advantage that he can confer (so that he can have 2 or even 3 or 4 Very Slow Regeneration "out" similtaneously), and also such things as whether the target sleeps constantly for the duration.
GURPS' RAW doesn't support that out of the book, but if you work with good system engineers, you can create it. It's a bit odd but not actually against the "spirit" of GURPS in any way.
Also other Powers. Clairvoyance doesn't really fit Abrahamic well, but could be a powerful ability of a secular, scholarly wizard ("arcane" magic). Or the result of Germanic seidr magic. The later probably may not be correct for the period (the Norse got seidr from Finnish or Lappish shamans, and probably later in the Viking Age - I don't think the Germans ever had it), but could still "feel" right.
And so forth.
Most of the Power-type Advantages in GURPS Powers are silly, but if you modify them with flavourful Limitations (or sometimes Enhancements - Low Signature and No Signature are very good for maintaining room for doubt and uncertainty) they stop being silly and become good, often
very good.