TL2 Fantasy Tips

[fritzbc]

Hey all. I am going to attempt to run a TL2 Fantasy game at some point soon to test the waters of TL1 or TL2 gameplay. I have ran "standard" GURPS Fantasy (à la Dungeon Fantasy), but I haven't yet experimented with earlier tech-levels than TL3. As well as this, do people have worldbuilding or adventure tips? I haven't quite thought up an adventure yet, but my ideas have been ranging from a fallen TL11 civilization that the players discover, to a classic evil dungeon crawl with a dragon or necromancer at the end, to running a pre-existing module from a different system.

[whswhs]

Do you have GURPS Fantasy (the one that I wrote)? Its final chapter portrays a TL2 fantasy setting, Roma Arcana, that provides a possible model. It's partly inspired by a campaign I actually ran back in the 1990s, with a group of player characters who were secret operatives for the city government of Burdigala during a time of troubles ca. AUC 1000.

[fritzbc]

I do have GURPS Fantasy, although I might lean toward more Eastern European influences rather than the Roman Empire. As well as that, the Roman Empire is a little too big of a scope for the country size of this world I am looking at.

For a reference, the world would have just entered the Iron Age less than one hundred years before the characters would have been born. I do like the concept of Roma Arcana, however. I just would like to play in a campaign of it first before GMing it.

[Donny Brook]

TLs 1 and 2 make a great break for fantasy from the traditional faux-medieval tropes.

If you don't have them already, you might find the GURPS Low-Tech Companion series to be helpful in worldbuilding.

[fritzbc]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

If you don't have them already, you might find the GURPS Low-Tech Companion series to be helpful in worldbuilding.

Do you know which one exactly? Or just the entire series?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by fritzbc

Do you know which one exactly? Or just the entire series?

Depends what you want. LTC1 covers political organization and the professions and sciences; LTC2 is about weapons and war; LTC3 is about productive activities. But all three are really only fully useful in conjunction with the core volume, GURPS Low-Tech.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by fritzbc

Do you know which one exactly? Or just the entire series?

Depends on what you're looking for. LTC1 is about society, learning (it has the rules for libraries and the like), etc, hence the subtitle Philosophers and Kings. LTC2 is all about arms and armor, with quite a few options for modifying such (also has rules for damage to armor if you want that to be a thing). LTC3 is about hunting (including rules for butchering, working out how much meat you get from a deer, cow, etc), farming, crafting, etc. For world-building, the first and third are probably the most valuable - but for a combat-focused campaign, the second can be very useful indeed.


Another book to check out is Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality. This contains a lot of TL 1-2 items and materials from myths and the like. Archimedes' Heat Ray, Azzalum (basically a fantasy treatment of Damascus Steel), Vimana (flying machines from Hindu epics), Baghdad Batteries, Magnet Traps, etc, are all included, amongst plenty of other bits (the steam cannons are pretty neat, although they're listed as TL 2+2 - Leonardo da Vinci wrote of them and made designs, but attributed them to Archimedes). The second book in the series is pretty much exclusively TL 3+, although some of the items might work - the Diabolical Whips would be appropriate for a civilization that's extremely big on slavery (which was pretty common at TL 1 and 2), and there's really no reason they couldn't be made prior to their listed TL 3^ (they're basically just whips from Hell, made from the hides of Hell cattle, from demonic, thorned vines, etc).

[fritzbc]

Sounds like it's absolutely perfect for what I need. I'll have to pick them up sometime soon then.

I have one or two further questions, mostly about handling plot hooks. What type of adventure would work best? I haven't really got the best idea for dungeons, as I usually roll with the classic Dungeons of Doom or another classic media inspiration. As well as this, how should I handle magic? There might be a disconnect between the damage that a mage can produce and the damage that a fighter or archer can produce.

[fritzbc]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Depends on what you're looking for. LTC1 is about society, learning (it has the rules for libraries and the like), etc, hence the subtitle Philosophers and Kings. LTC2 is all about arms and armor, with quite a few options for modifying such (also has rules for damage to armor if you want that to be a thing). LTC3 is about hunting (including rules for butchering, working out how much meat you get from a deer, cow, etc), farming, crafting, etc. For world-building, the first and third are probably the most valuable - but for a combat-focused campaign, the second can be very useful indeed.

Agreed, first and third seem like the most useful for world building, but personally the second seems like the most interesting to me. I have been recommended LTC3 before for a UnReal World inspired game that never got off the ground.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Another book to check out is Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality. This contains a lot of TL 1-2 items and materials from myths and the like. Archimedes' Heat Ray, Azzalum (basically a fantasy treatment of Damascus Steel), Vimana (flying machines from Hindu epics), Baghdad Batteries, Magnet Traps, etc, are all included, amongst plenty of other bits (the steam cannons are pretty neat, although they're listed as TL 2+2 - Leonardo da Vinci wrote of them and made designs, but attributed them to Archimedes). The second book in the series is pretty much exclusively TL 3+, although some of the items might work - the Diabolical Whips would be appropriate for a civilization that's extremely big on slavery (which was pretty common at TL 1 and 2), and there's really no reason they couldn't be made prior to their listed TL 3^ (they're basically just whips from Hell, made from the hides of Hell cattle, from demonic, thorned vines, etc).

I don't think I would need most of the Fantasy-Tech items, as I am leaning into a more grounded approach - think A Song of Ice and Fire, rather than the generic fantasy setting or classic myths. I think something like Valheim would be a good fit for a description of this style of campaign that I am running.

[Stormcrow]

How you handle these things depends very much on how you want these things to work in your setting. GURPS doesn't balance things a specific way automatically for you, since it doesn't know what kind of balance you want.

What type of adventure would work best?

Really, anything you want. The sky's the limit. If you're not good at dungeons, don't make 'em. Maybe an overland journey, maybe a stay-at-home social drama. Anything.

how should I handle magic? There might be a disconnect between the damage that a mage can produce and the damage that a fighter or archer can produce.

GURPS does not assume that the point of magic is to compete with warriors in combat, and it certainly doesn't try to match damage output of spells with that of weapons. If that's your only goal, you'll have to tailor the available spells to make sure that's what you're getting. Maybe an Explosive Fireball spell can only be prepared for one turn, and so on. Traditionally, it's said that magic in GURPS isn't as damage-oriented as it is in D&D, but that wizards need to use their spells creatively.

The GM has full authority to limit the spells or colleges available. Don't want Explosive Fireballs and Lightning spells? Then nobody knows those spells, and the players can't get them. Or maybe none of the elemental colleges are part of the local magic tradition and are unavailable. Not every spell-casting tradition has Earth, Air, Fire, and Water as part of its system. Or maybe all spell-casting requires ceremonial magic, which would make Explosive Fireballs and Lighting possible but too slow to use in hand-to-hand combat.

Decide what you want magic to look like, then do that. It's meant to be tailored to your setting.