Dark Fantasy Ideas

[stranger38]

Hello everyone good/morning/day/evening to you all.

Me and a friend are working on a dark (dungeon) fantasy campaign and i am working on game mechanics, so help me with ideas and sugestions, please.

TL4 (Because i like guns!) the world is not so medieval. It`s that Fantasy mish-mash. Guns and gunpowder are known, plentiful and most armies moved from classical warfare to muskets, pikes and bayonets.

Magic
I`m thinking of using that magic system from Monster Hunters. Magic is also known and plentiful, but requires study, time and it is dangerous (may atract THINGS)

Races
Basic fantasy Races (Dwarves, Elf, Men, Halflings, etc)

Professions

Barbarians
No change

Bards
Thinking about making them a sort of courtesan/spy with those Control Emotion skills

Clerics
No change?

Druids
Good and neutral ones are ok. Bad ones? SKINWALKERS

Holy Warriors
No Detect (Evil), the Powers That Be want holy knights to rely on their own moral compass instead of them.

Knights
No change

Martial Artists
No change?

Scouts (my favorite profession btw)
No change

Thieves
No change either?

Wizards?
See magic above

Demolisher
Good ol`blackpowder instead of shattersand, and every race can be one

Musketeer
No change excetp for more realistic gun stats

Scholars
No change?

Artificers
Can make GOLEMS!

Carnies
How to make them extra creepy?

I know for a fact that we can`t scare the other players, but, we`re running this mor for flavour and theme more then scares.

Corruption from Horror: how to implement it?

[Varyon]

If you want Ritual Path Magic (the form of magic in Monster Hunters) in a DF-ish setting, I'll note that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic is an adaptation of RPM specifically for DF. It's Effect Shaping rather than Energy Accumulating (so instead of a series of rolls to gather energy and a final one to cast, you instead just roll once at a penalty based on how much energy the spell had; base time to cast is determined by how many Effects the spell has), and the Paths are adjusted to fit a more DF mindset.

[Flowergarden]

Hi, what about necromancers or demonologists from DF9? Sounds like something for dark fantasy. Or shamans (because after seeing skinwalkers all I can think of is wendigo).

[stranger38]

Originally Posted by Flowergarden

Hi, what about necromancers or demonologists from DF9? Sounds like something for dark fantasy. Or shamans (because after seeing skinwalkers all I can think of is wendigo).

Good idea!

I was thinking necromancers as hermits in far away places, surrounded by the dead (but no necessarily evil, some ARE mind you)

Demonologists on the other hand, will be hardcore, child-sacrificing, power hungry demon worshipers. The kind you deal with a stick and a gun (or crossbow, or bow, or sword, or... you get the picture)

About shamans
Yep, now gotta have some wendingo in the game!

[stranger38]

About The World:

The game is a Dark/Horror Fantasy, but NOT a grimdark place.
I`m working to avoid the Too Bleak, Stop Caring Trope.

The world is beautiful and colorful. The frogs croak, the birds chirp, the giraffes... do... their noises... The water is wet, the mountains tall, the grass green, and all that (taken directly from Ravenloft 3e)

90% of people live plentiful and normal lives. There ARE monsters, but not at every corner, snatching kids, triping old ladies, etc.0

I guess the game will play more like a fantasy monster hunters.
If the players go looking for monsters, they`ll find them and regret it

[Varyon]

I don't have any of the Monster Hunters books, but from my understanding a lot of that is hunting monsters who are able to hide in urban environments. That doesn't sound right for your setting, where it sounds like the monsters are likely to be out in the wilderness (or perhaps in ancient ruins, abandoned villages, and the like).

You mention the world is beautiful. Do you want your monsters to be part of that - beautiful but deadly animals - or are they more a rejection of that - twisted and ugly beasts? Will your monsters all be animal-like, or will there be some human*-like ones in the mix (goblins, undead, etc)? The fact you're wanting to incorporate Corruption implies at least some of the "monsters" may well be terminally-corrupted former humans*.

*Here I'm using "human" as a generic term for the non-monster sapient races - dwarves, elves, men, halflings, and whatever else lacks Social Stigma: Monster or similar.

[Greg 1]

Scouts are tricky.

In real TL 4, scouts will take muskets over bows if they can get them, as loud as muskets are.

On the other hand, maybe stealth is more important in DF than battles or hunting. Also, scouts in DF can be better with their bows than any RL archer.

Barbarians...I kind of like the idea of berserkers with firearms. Not sure how best to handle that mechanically, but I see screaming Cherokee on horseback.

Very strong characters might want to carry huge guns that never appeared in our world.

[johndallman]

Monster Hunters witches are very capable, but they are built on 400 points, not the 250 of DF characters. For 250 points, Incantation Magic, or a really well-optimised conventional magician is likely to work better.

There is a Musketeer template for DF in Pyramid #3/36 Dungeon Fantasy, and they are very skilled, with Gunslinger, Guns (Musket) at a basic 19, and a wide array of Gun-Fu perks available. There's also a handy list of weapons in the article. The great difficulty of TL4 firearms is reloading time, which is 15 to 40 seconds, an eternity in GURPS combat.

I've played a TL4-5 swashbuckler in fantasy-like settings, and reloading has never seemed worth attempting. Pistols are for softening up opponents, and you Fast-Draw them, fire at short range without an Aim, and drop them. Next turn, do that with your next pistol, or Fast-Draw your sword. This seems a bit complicated for berserkers - remember that Berserk is a [-15] disadvantage.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I've played a TL4-5 swashbuckler in fantasy-like settings, and reloading has never seemed worth attempting. Pistols are for softening up opponents, and you Fast-Draw them, fire at short range without an Aim, and drop them. Next turn, do that with your next pistol, or Fast-Draw your sword. This seems a bit complicated for berserkers - remember that Berserk is a [-15] disadvantage.

Berserk explicitly lets you reload a weapon so long as doing so takes no more than a Ready, and also explicitly lets you draw a firearm. So a berserker with a brace of pistols is readily-achievable. The biggest drawback of Berserk is the fact you lose the ability to defend (you must take All Out actions), and that's still in play here.


As for an adventuring rifle, there are a few options to make them more viable. Leaving a socket bayonet on the weapon gives a penalty to ranged attacks - although I let this be negated with a Perk (with the Perk also meaning you don't need to take a Ready to switch between melee and Ranged) - but means you still have a pretty solid spear to use. If you allow for the Bow Fencer Advantage (which lets you use Bow skill in melee, treating your bow as a baton and also letting you stab if you've got an arrow Ready), you may want to allow for a version to let you use Guns in place of Spear to strike and Parry with your rifle (tossing the benefits of the above Perk into the mix would probably be fine while still at [10]).

If instead you want to be able to fire more often, consider a breechloader. Those have a base reload time of 10 seconds, or 8 seconds with Fast-Draw. The Rapid Reload Perk makes it 6 seconds with Fast-Draw, and using paper cartridges halves that down to a 3-second reload. LT only has one breechloader available, and it's a wimpy one (2d pi+, comparable to a heavy pistol) but the design rules from GURPS Classic Vehicles has breechloaders having 1.5x the weight of an equivalent muzzleloader, which should work here. Such weapons are going to be more expensive, and are also typically less reliable (although for small arms - pistols and longarms, but not cannon - this is a less-pronounced effect; Vehicles only has cannon suffering from being less reliable). +50% to weight and +2 CF (basically meaning they cost twice as much per lb), along with -1 Malf, should work. Once you have a breechloader, there's less reason not to rifle your barrel (for a muzzleloader prior to the invention of the Minie ball, rifled barrels made them take longer to reload, but that's not a concern for a breechloader); I'd say rifling gives +50% to base Acc (round up, minimum +1) and is +1 CF (you could justify up to +3 CF, basically making a Fine (Accurate) Rifled weapon cost the same as a Very Fine (Accurate) smoothbore weapon, but I'd be inclined to just go with +1).

Another option is a revolver (although note for a longarm you may need to either wear armor on the arm of your off-hand or have some sort of shielding built into the weapon - revolvers are "leaky," and having high-velocity hot gases hit your arm isn't going to make a for a pleasant experience). A TL 4 version probably requires a Ready between each shot (to rotate the chambers). I suggest a 5-shot revolver - this means you don't need to worry about fouling during the fight (fouling gives a -1 Malf every 5 shots, and a -1 Acc every 10 shots) and also conveniently results in a weapon that is twice the weight of a muzzleloader. Such revolvers are probably going to be more finicky than breechloaders, however. So, something like +100% weight, +3 CF, and -2 Malf would probably work. I'd allow the reliability of the cylinders to be improved independently of Fine/Very Fine (Reliable), for +1 to Malf for +1 CF to represent a better-fitting cylinder (giving the same Malf as a breechloader). Again, rifling would probably be a good idea.

Finally, there's something like the Kalthoff Repeater - Wikipedia article here and a possible GURPS interpretation here - which could potentially let you get off a good number of shots before needing a reload, and was indeed TL 4 (somewhat-late TL 4), so it could be an option (particularly with magic allowing for more reliable manufacturing).

[tshiggins]

For some inspiration, maybe check out Robert E. Howard's character, Solomon Kane.
He's (basically) a TL4 monster-hunter.