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Old 07-31-2020, 02:07 PM   #81
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara View Post
While it is true they would not see a rise in the real TL I was asking about ETL ie Equivalent TL which is a totally different thing from actual TL.

Equivalent TL is what the setting appears to be while Divergent TL is what it "actually" is for the purposes of calculating TL penalties with the superscience ("^") mark to help denote this fact.

Here are examples from canon realities using the Guidelines in GURPS Fantasy p. 66

Reality - Actual TL - Equivalent TL; TL Category
Azoth-1 - TL(4+3) - ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Azoth-7 - TL(4+2)^ - ETL12; Faster "interstellar" space flight
Britannica-5 - TL(5+1) - ETL10; Antimatter bombs
Etheria - TL(5+1)^ - ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Futura - TL(5+1)^ - ETL7: Manned spaceflight
Igor-1 - TL(6+1)^ - ETL9 with some inventions

So D&D's Spelljamer would be actual TL(3+2)^ but have ETL9 (Manned interplanetary spaceflight)
I'm pretty sure you're using that wrong. It sounds like you're going by the highest TL-equivalency of spells that are heavily used in the setting, rather than looking at the clustering of 'equivalent TLs' of spells. Being able to perform a few wildly-outlying capabilities does not imply a higher tech level with technology, and it doesn't with magic-viewed-as-technology either.

By those terms, Test alone is potentially TL8 equivalent or higher, depending on what you're testing for! But those are the wrong terms.
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Old 07-31-2020, 03:17 PM   #82
David Johansen
 
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

Okay, you got me. That's the very thing I need for the new wizard school game I'm running. Very nice.

The required first year template:

ST 8 [-15];
DX 10;
IQ 10;
HT 10.

Advantages:
Magical Aptitude 0 [5].

Disadvantages:
Social Stigma (Child) [-5].

For those who would argue the stats are too good, bear in mind that these are children in children's literature where they routinely trick and outsmart adults. (The adult template is probably IQ 8) With 0 point characters and up to ten points of disadvantages, that gives beginning characters 25 points to play with. Buying Will and Per down from a raised IQ isn't being counted as a disadvantage as long as they don't go below ten.

Last edited by David Johansen; 07-31-2020 at 03:20 PM.
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Old 07-31-2020, 06:57 PM   #83
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

ST 8 [-15]? Shouldn't that be [-20]?

And I think Psis makes a distinction between Social Stigma (Minor) [-5] and Social Stigma (Child) [-10]
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Old 07-31-2020, 10:41 PM   #84
David Johansen
 
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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Originally Posted by Gumby Bush View Post
ST 8 [-15]? Shouldn't that be [-20]?

And I think Psis makes a distinction between Social Stigma (Minor) [-5] and Social Stigma (Child) [-10]
Doh! Yup, first edition strikes again.
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Old 08-01-2020, 09:35 AM   #85
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara View Post
While it is true they would not see a rise in the real TL I was asking about ETL ie Equivalent TL which is a totally different thing from actual TL.

Equivalent TL is what the setting appears to be while Divergent TL is what it "actually" is for the purposes of calculating TL penalties with the superscience ("^") mark to help denote this fact.

Here are examples from canon realities using the Guidelines in GURPS Fantasy p. 66

Reality - Actual TL - Equivalent TL; TL Category
Azoth-1 - TL(4+3) - ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Azoth-7 - TL(4+2)^ - ETL12; Faster "interstellar" space flight
Britannica-5 - TL(5+1) - ETL10; Antimatter bombs
Etheria - TL(5+1)^ - ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Futura - TL(5+1)^ - ETL7: Manned spaceflight
Igor-1 - TL(6+1)^ - ETL9 with some inventions

So D&D's Spelljamer would be actual TL(3+2)^ but have ETL9 (Manned interplanetary spaceflight)
I'm pretty sure you're using that wrong. It sounds like you're going by the highest TL-equivalency of spells that are heavily used in the setting, rather than looking at the clustering of 'equivalent TLs' of spells. Being able to perform a few wildly-outlying capabilities does not imply a higher tech level with technology, and it doesn't with magic-viewed-as-technology either.

By those terms, Test alone is potentially TL8 equivalent or higher, depending on what you're testing for! But those are the wrong terms.
Uh we don't have a list of spells/superscience in most of those examples only the results. As Fantasy itself says "Magic may make some things easy that look like TL12, while straining to do other things that look like TL6."

Take Etheria for example. They regularly travel to Mars and Venus which is "manned interplanetary space flight" which per B512 is normally TL9 but they are TL(5+1)^ across the board. Ergo they are TL(5+1)^ (ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight). At first glance they look like they have TL9 but when you get under the hood as it were you find out they are really at TL(5+1)^

I should also mention that split TL doesn't have to be across a single category.

Alexander Athanatos: TL2 (biotech up to late TL8)
Caliph: TL11 (Biotech TL8)
Cyrano: TL(5+4) (space travel, TL4^)
Etheria: TL(5+1) (etheric spacecraft, TL5^)
Gernsback: TL(6+2) (weapons, up to TL(6+3); broadcast power, TL6^)
Johnson's Rome (Rome-2): TL4 (Medicine TL5/8)
Lenin-1: TL7 (Space TL(7+1))
Leviathan: TL5, TL(1+8) for Atlanteans
Macedonia-Weird: TL5 (offworld TL11^)
Null-Pasteur: TL5 (Medicine TL4)
Roma Aeterna (Rome-3): TL5 (Weapons TL6)
Taft-1: TL7 (Elder artifacts TL10^ and up)
Tripod: TL(5+1) (Martian machines, TL(6+3))

The realities in bold are some of the largest gaps between the normal baseline TL and the subcategory TL for canon realities. Alexander Athanatos has the largest main TL (subTL) in the game with Cyrano a close second.

Tripod is the most localized as it is basically Wells' War of the Worlds novel (all the machines are in England in the navel not worldwide as some assume).

I should mention the some of this is using the guidelines in GURPS Adaptations which makes a distinction between what the TL appears to be (ETL) and what it actually is ie "This is also largely true for historical fantasy, as magic doesn’t usually count as part of TL."
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Last edited by maximara; 08-01-2020 at 10:25 AM.
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Old 08-01-2020, 10:23 AM   #86
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Uh we don't have a list of spells/superscience in most of those examples only the results. Take Etheria for example. They regularly travel to Mars and Venus which is "manned interplanetary space flight" which per B512 is normally TL9 but they are TL(5+1)^ across the board. Ergo they are TL(5+1)^ (ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight).
The key paragraph on Fantasy p66 goes:
"In either approach, the TL may be difficult to define. Magic may make some things easy that look like TL12, while straining to do other things that look like TL6. Look at a number of commonly used spells, assign them to approximate TL equivalents, and see if they cluster around one or two TLs as usually defined; if so use a rough equivalent TL in that range. If that doesn't work, the TL concept may not fit the setting - but don't simply assume that it's 'Just like TL3 but with wizards.'"

You're not showing anything like that for any of the settings. You're citing singular capabilities, magic spaceflight in almost every case, and declaring the ETL is based on that. Which is explicitly not how to do it.
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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
I should also mention that split TL doesn't have to be across a single category.
When did we start talking about split TL?
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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Alexander Athanatos: TL2 (biotech up to late TL8)
Caliph: TL11 (Biotech TL8)
Cyrano: TL(5+4) (space travel, TL4^)
Etheria: TL(5+1) (etheric spacecraft, TL5^)
Gernsback: TL(6+2) (weapons, up to TL(6+3); broadcast power, TL6^)
Johnson's Rome (Rome-2): TL4 (Medicine TL5/8)
Lenin-1: TL7 (Space TL(7+1))
Leviathan: TL5, TL(1+8) for Atlanteans
Macedonia-Weird: TL5 (offworld TL11^)
Null-Pasteur: TL5 (Medicine TL4)
Roma Aeterna (Rome-3): TL5 (Weapons TL6)
Taft-1: TL7 (Elder artifacts TL10^ and up)
Tripod: TL(5+1) (Martian machines, TL(6+3))
Are you...just listing split TL examples here?
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Old 08-01-2020, 04:09 PM   #87
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
When did we start talking about split TL?

Are you...just listing split TL examples here?
My first comment was in regards to split TL with ETL being how the TL first appears.

Let me ask you this. If I told you the setting has antimatter bombs what TL per the books would think it was? TL10 (B512), right? But Britannica-5 is TL5^. So Britannica-5 is TL5^ (ETL10 antimatter bombs).

I should mention that Gernsback lists Broadcast power as TL6^ which is on par with microwave power transmission aka Beamed Power (TL9) while Ultra-Tech lists Beamed power as TL10^. But in both settings Broadcast power ETL9 to separate it from the real world Wireless power transfer which is TL7 (that is how those little batteryless crystal set you built from a kit work)
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Old 08-01-2020, 04:49 PM   #88
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
My first comment was in regards to split TL with ETL being how the TL first appears.
That's not what Fantasy defines ETL as...and your definition of 'first appears' is pretty twisted here.
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Let me ask you this. If I told you the setting has antimatter bombs what TL per the books would think it was? TL10 (B512), right?
If I was assuming that you were doing your setting building by taking a TL straight out of the Tech book series...which is a terrible assumption unless you think the setting designer was quite lazy and working out of those books. Mostly I'd tend to suspect that antimatter bombs imply superscience, because while they're possible without it they're tough to justify.

But the more important problem is that you've decided to present the antimatter bombs as the first and only fact of the setting. Antimatter bombs tell you pretty much nothing about what the setting actually looks like! Though looking it up I see why you're being so sparse: At least in 4e sources Britannica-5 is throw-away line. We know it's a steampunk setting with British antigravity dreadnoughts dropping antimatter bombs, and about four events of the divergent history. The longest form of the description is about 70 words.

I could believe Britannica-5 being anything from looking almost entirely like TL5 outside the Royal Sky Navy and the occasional inventor's lab to being vaguely like TL7 (with more antigravity and less nuclear fission). I wouldn't expect it to have the computational technology to look like TL8+, but you could put that in without contradicting the minuscule amount of information we have!
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Old 08-01-2020, 04:52 PM   #89
Andrew Hackard
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

Mod note to Ulzgoroth and maximara: This is getting a bit heated. Tone it back. Maybe walk away from this one.
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Old 08-02-2020, 03:20 PM   #90
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Default Re: GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells

Widespread martial training wasn't uncommon, the English longbowmen being a good example. Which of these do you think might be mandatory learning for the general population to support the military?

My first thought would be Analgesic and Aide (preferred combat wizard college).
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