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Old 05-23-2009, 12:53 AM   #1
younglorax
 
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Default Spare a minute to help me out with this prospectus?

Let me know what I should change in following prospectus -- including if you think it should just be completely reworked. Comments on the content of the campaign are also welcome (especially choices of house rules), but I'm mostly wanting help in how I present the information.

Shattered Magic

GURPS 4e, TL3, high magic fantasy, Play-by-Post on the Steven Jackson Games forum

Background

The conflict:
Strange and unfortunate things are happening with magic. Most significantly, healing magic and some healing herbs have stopped working well. This has resulted in rather sudden events: outbreaks of plague, shifts in balance of power leading to wars, and a decrease in production of some agricultural goods (due to sick animals and workforce).

The PCs must determine what is causing these changes and decide what to do about it.

The Setting:
Geography:
The known world consists of four continents, but the story takes place on a continent called Verold. Verold is divided by a mountain range into the East and the West. The East is where the story begins. In the East, most political systems are deeply legalized, with monarchies, organized republics, or oligarchies, all with clear rules for ascension to power. Most of the magic from there uses Ordered Mana (see the Magic section in Game Mechanics). The West has fewer written rules of law, and most of its magic relies more on Wild Mana. Just to the East of the Dividing Range lies a powerfully magical city-state called Quanton, considered by many the magic capital of Verold.

The game begins in the East, in the foothills of the Dividing Range. Characters can come from East or West.

Magic:
The world is permeated with magic. Although powerful wizards are not exactly common, nearly every village will have at least one practitioner of magic, there to heal the sick and bless the crops. Material magic is especially in evidence -- wands for the same purposes passed down for generations are a well known fact of life, and Herb Lore is is known by most of the best healers and midwives.

Play time allocation (very rough estimate):
Travel -- 10-20%
Interaction/Commerce -- 20-30%
Exploration -- 30-40%
Combat -- 20-40%

Relevant/useful characters:
Essentially any type of character could be helpful to the party. Unless at least one member of the party is major outdoorsman (and this could be an ally or hireling), having some wilderness survival skills will be pretty much necessary for all characters. The only type of characters that would not be relevant are characters that can't or won't travel.

Character must have a reason to be going on this trek, but this could be a broad range of motivations. Some examples:
-Sick relative, friend, etc. needs magical healing
-You are a healing mage, and want your powers to work right again
-On a rite of passage type quest, or simply enjoy adventure
-A merchant who sees a bunch of muscley types heading off to visit many towns and thinks "Hey! Free bodyguards!"
-Your kingdom is at war, and healing magic will help you win
-....etc.

Game Mechanics
This will be using GURPS 4e.

Point total: 175cp, but at least 35cp must be put into background skills and advantages.
Disad cap: -50cp or so, as a guideline. The only hard and fast rule is it must be playable, and not overly disruptive.
Base TL: 3

Books in use
You MUST have:
4e Basic Set: Characters or at least 4e GURPS Lite
The books I have and will be using:
4e Basic Set: Campaigns, GURPS: Magic, GURPS: Thaumatology, GURPS: Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, GURPS: Power-Ups 2: Perks.
You are allowed to use things from other books, but like anything on your character sheet, they're subject to my approval. Magic as powers will be allowed, so I understand Powers may be useful, but you'll have to tell me the details of what things do, since I don't own it.

Allowed and Disallowed Traits
-Races: Only humans exist in the gameworld.
-Psi is banned, but psi-like powers from magic may be allowed.
-Magery up to 3 is allowed (see Magic, below, for details)
-Magic Resistance up to 2 is allowed without any UB
-Mana Enhancer and Damper are specifically not allowed
-Basic Attributes above 13 need a good explanation
-Increased TL is not allowed
-Magic susceptibility is allowed
-Mundane Background is allowed with an appropriate backstory
-Reduced TL is allowed with an appropriate backstory, including how you wound up leaving your backwater town for this adventure

I also will allow some cinematic advantages if they fit your character. For all other Exotic and Supernatural traits, ask me.

House and Optional Rules
-IQ! is separate from Per and Will, and costs 20 CP/lvl.
-Using Skills With Other Attributes (B172) will be used rather liberally... and if you can convince me that it makes sense, I may let you use a different attribute by choice sometimes
-I will generally not be using Familiarity penalties for using new weapons and items, but reserve the right to if using something very foreign to your character
-First Aid will function as 1 TL higher than actual TL (TL4, for most players)
-New advantage: "Magic Senses" (explained below)

Magic
My original motivation for running a high-magic game was to kick the tires of Thaumatology -- see how (and if) the various systems work together. As a result, there are a lot of possibilities for what game mechanices are used for magic.

Game mechanics specifically allowed:
-Standard magic rules, as given in the Basic Set and Magic
-Flexible/Syntactic Magic
-Advantage-based powers as magic
-Ritual/Path/Book magic

Additionally, creating your own spells will generally be allowed, and if you want to use a different magic system (especially one mentioned in Thaumatology that I forgot in populating this list), that may be allowed as well.

Clerical magic is not allowed. However, some magic may be a secret of a religious organization, and its practitioners may believe that it is holy; in this case, the same rules for spell availability apply.

NOTE: Due to the nature of this game, we may make some tweaks to balance magic during the course of play; however, these will not be unilateral decisions on my part, but instead motivated by how we as a group think balance it working.

Magery
Magery 0 is universal across magic forms. Regardless of what sort of magic is being used, someone with Magery 0 can detect it.

Magery 1+ is specific to a type of magic. A PC using syntactic magic would have to buy a completely different advantage to get a bonus to Standard magic. You are allowed to have multiple types of Magery, but it may not be cost effective.

Mana
Mana will be aspected in two dimensions:
by College or Theme - Certain mana works better or only for spells and abilities that fit a particular theme (fire, water, the four elements, healing, etc.).

It is possible for certain magic to not work at all with mana that is improperly theme-aspected, although usually if there is one kind of mana around, there is at least a little bit of the other kinds.

Ordered vs. Wild - Mana comes in two general flavors. Ordered mana is used for certain kinds of magic -- especially magic that involves reciting the words of spells. Wild mana works better for other kinds of magic -- especially abilities that stem from innate talent, and are not triggered by memorized encantations.

It is never possible for certain magic to not work at all with mana that is of the opposite state of order. In areas with extremely ordered magic, wild magic abilities will work less strongly or strangely; likewise, in areas with completely wild magic, spells will work strangely or weakly. (Note: I am not using "Wild Mana" the way that GURPS: Thaumatology does).

The most common form of magic where the players begin is spell-based and ordered. The mana in the starting location is mostly ordered.

Magic Senses:
By buying Magery 0, you automatically have the ability to detect magic when in tactile contact with it. Additionally, you get one other sense as a feature of your Magery 0; you choose this when purchasing Magery 0.

Magic Sight -- If anything in your line of sight is magical, you see it as having a faint aura. Except in extremely powerful cases, you can discern little more than that.

Magic Hearing -- If any object is magical, it produces a sound. You can sometimes discern what sort of magic it is from the sound, although you must be able to hear it quite well for this. You can also hear mana gathering for a spell even before it is cast.

Magic Smell -- When you are near enough to magic that if it were a very strong smelling object you could smell it, then you can smell that it is magical -- however, like the sense of smell, you cannot necessarily discern what it is that it creating the smell at a distance. Although limited in range, this ability lets you distinguish what theme the magic you can smell is. Moreover, the smell of magic remains for a little while after whatever effect it was wears off.

Magic Taste -- If you taste an object, you can determine very precisely waht sort of magic was put into it. If a spell was cast on an object (be it the ground, a weapon, of a person) if you taste the affected area, you can determine a great deal about it. Yes, using this ability will get you funny looks.
-----

Thanks!!

Last edited by younglorax; 05-23-2009 at 08:57 PM. Reason: implemented changes suggested by responders; thanks guys!
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:02 AM   #2
Jovus
 
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Default Re: Spare a minute to help me out with this prospectus?

Sounds like an interesting game. A few points:
  • Don't run this as PbP if you can help it. The world and goals sound too complicated and long-term to work well.
  • If you aren't planning on using them (which, again, you shouldn't, if you want to do PbP) drop the other continents, or at least just leave them as flavor-text. You have enough ground to cover with one differentiated landmass.
  • Drop the magic senses section. Detection of magic due to magery is the underlying ability; how a mage goes about that is simply a special effect.
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:56 AM   #3
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: Spare a minute to help me out with this prospectus?

Start with "The conflict", not "Races". Move that detail down into the character creation section, about where Allowed Traits is.

"he PCs must ... try to reverse [these changes in magic]." Sounds a bit on the heavily-plotted end of the spectrum. What if the PCs are fans of Wild Magic and want to overthrow the old order completely? What if they like the diversity and want to strike a balance? Could be those just aren't the story you want to tell, in which case it's good that you require this motivation right up front. There's also the possibility (or risk) of the party having a mix of motivations and thus internal conflict.
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Old 05-23-2009, 02:13 PM   #4
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Default Re: Spare a minute to help me out with this prospectus?

I agree with Anaraxes, simply discovering why the healing magic is failing is sufficient as a goal to get the campaign rolling. Let the players' reactions to what they discover and what their options are guide what the party thinks they need to do next.

If I had enough time free to even decide what kind of character I'd like to play, this would be a tempting campaign to join as a player myself.
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Old 05-23-2009, 02:49 PM   #5
younglorax
 
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Default Re: Spare a minute to help me out with this prospectus?

Thanks guys!

@Jovus: Good idea about the magic senses thing; I'll just say that Magery 0 lets you choose a sense for it to work through. The continents are supposed to be just flavor; I'll make that clearer. Re: PbP: Unfortunately, I already have two players lined up; one in another city and one on another continent. Also, I think my entire city has two other GURPS players, and I haven't met them :P.

@Anaraxes: Thanks for pointing out the races thing; it definitely does belong down in the Allowed Traits section.

@capnq & Anaraxes: Reducing plot complexity is always a plus, thanks for the idea.

---

I'm gonna go ahead and make those changes now, so that any more comments will still be relevant.

Last edited by younglorax; 05-23-2009 at 02:55 PM.
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Old 05-23-2009, 03:37 PM   #6
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: Spare a minute to help me out with this prospectus?

How about "The PCs must determine what is causing these changes and decide what to do about it"? Biased a little more toward the action end of the spectrum: "... and do something about it".
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:57 PM   #7
younglorax
 
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Default Re: Spare a minute to help me out with this prospectus?

I adopted that wording exactly.

Do you think that this prospectus is too long, or includes the wrong details?
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