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Old 03-15-2015, 05:52 PM   #1
Landwalker
 
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Default High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

I've been having "the itch" some lately (no, not that itch, the GURPS-gaming itch), and while I'm in no shape real-life-wise at present to actually start running a game, I've at least been using the few spare brain-cycles I have available to mull an idea. Specifically, what would happen if you took a batch of Dungeon Fantasy delvers and jacked them up to Early-Mid TL 5? (By which I mostly mean "breech-loading single-shot weapons, possibly with multiple barrels.) What about Late TL 5? (Which is to say the neighborhood of Colts and Spencers.) TL 6?

Off the top of my head, there are a few salient issues I would need to address, or be prepared to address:
  1. Firearms are loud. What's more, if you're planning on delving a dungeon, firearms' natural tendency towards high decibel levels is going to be amplified by the fairly close quarters and hard surfaces inherent in such a milieu. Fortunately, Tactical Shooting covers this: -5 to hearing rolls for (20-HT) minutes after a firefight. Unfortunately, the odds of permanent hearing loss are pretty high (delve often enough and you're going to critically fail the recovery roll at some point). More bad news for our TL 5 delvers is that hearing protection (or at least, mundane hearing protection) isn't really available. Which isn't to say the party's magician can't brew up some more arcane assistance in that area. If using the standard magic system, Vigor (from the Body Control school, to grant +HT) and/or Restore Hearing (from the Healing school) are going to be staples. Keen Hearing (from the Mind Control school) might not be a bad idea, either. If using Ritual Path Magic (which I would love to do), anything in those same veins will be useful, as would some sort of "protect hearing" ritual. TL 6 delvers might have access to sound suppressors, at least for some weapons.

  2. Dungeons aren't known for being well-lit. Firefights are likely to ruin the light adaptation of everything still standing at the end of them. The good news for TL 5 delvers is that there are some decent mundane options for light-sources. If the delvers are TL 6, they can even get their hands on electric lights. Obviously, magical illumination will be valuable.

  3. Dungeons are stereotypically close-quarters environments. The odds of engaging at distances of more than, say, 30 yards are probably not great in the usual dungeon. Characters had better be able to handle themselves competently in melee, or have buddies who can plug the line (just don't shoot them in the back!). Fast-Draw (Ammo) is going to be a big deal—or Fast-Draw (Pistol) if a character is taking the New York Reload approach and carrying several loaded firearms (particularly for early TL 5).

  4. Certain types of monsters (corporeal undead, golems, anything that's homogeneous) have quite a lot of resistance to piercing damage! For shooter-heavy parties, these encounters might be especially dangerous. PCs better be prepared (and able) to employ alternative measures against such targets. Having competency in slashing or crushing weapons, magical damage-dealing in general, or other options (explosions!) will be necessary if such enemies are expected.

  5. Explosions! TL 5 may only have blackpowder available, but blackpowder still goes boom, and nothing but common sense is stopping delvers from packing a satchel of 19th-century hand grenades (HT.190, for example)—and for TL 6 delvers, there's a whole smorgasbord of explosive options: TNT, dynamite, nitroglycerin, and more "conventional" hand grenades of the concussion and fragmentation varieties. Dungeons seem like they might not be the wisest place to employ such equipment—hopefully PCs would be aware enough to remove themselves from any potential blast area in advance, particularly given the close confines, but there's also the danger of collapsing the place.

In addition to those issues, there are a few more that I'm less sure of how they might be handled approached:
  • Ricochets. Striking a hard surface at a sufficiently oblique angle is a recipe for unpredictable trajectories. How would this be modeled?

  • Shotguns. Are they useful? I could see a delver grabbing a Colt Model 1855 (or an FN-Browning Auto-5 at TL 6) and loading it with slugs, but even then you'll probably get more mileage and pain-output from a Spencer or a Mauser Kar98k. Do Shotguns have a place outside of going hunting for razorbats?

  • What are the adversaries doing amidst all this technology? Are goblins and orcs regularly packing heat? How would this impact encounters with other foes—whether dragons, gladiator apes, trolls, ghosts, etc.?

  • If I'm a TL 5 adventurer armed with my pair of Colt SAA revolvers and I'm going into a Dungeon Fantasy delve (and honestly, even if I'm a TL 6 delver), I'm going to be wearing at least a steel breastplate and a helmet. The may not stand up to many firearms, but I'd rather have them than not if a gladiator ape jumps on me from the alcove. Are you armoring up? Why or why not? What makes sense for the various roles to be wearing.

  • What other possible issues am I missing or not considering? What would change at TL 6 instead of late TL 5? (Semiautomatic handguns, SMGs, and LMGs, of course. But what else?)

I turn to you, hive mind. Thoughts? Feedback? Ridicule?
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Old 03-15-2015, 06:09 PM   #2
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

1. It seems likely to me that if magic is a thing, somebody would come up with a muffling enchantment for firearms after their first uses in close confines.

2. Throwing fireballs and lightning bolts would ruin light adaptation, anyway.

3. Stick a bayonet on your gun, and carry some kind of melee-friendly murder stick.

4. Enchantments/Imbuements to change your Piercing bullets into Crushing will help with those pesky corporeal undead.

5. If the party is derpy enough to blow themselves up, well, it's not the GM's fault.

6. Aren't there ricochet rules somewhere already?

7. Things that love to melee also love to get close enough for shotguns to enjoy 4x damage as Pi++.

8. Orcs and goblins will take what they can steal, and dragons will learn that fire + black powder = M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL! Anything else will either learn to adapt their tactics, or die off.

9. Armor was still a thing early in the era of firearms, due to the likelihood of melee combat.

10. Rate of fire increases, less weapon malfunctions, and explosions will be more explody.
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Old 03-15-2015, 06:33 PM   #3
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

Quote:
Originally Posted by Landwalker View Post
Shotguns. Are they useful? I could see a delver grabbing a Colt Model 1855 (or an FN-Browning Auto-5 at TL 6) and loading it with slugs, but even then you'll probably get more mileage and pain-output from a Spencer or a Mauser Kar98k. Do Shotguns have a place outside of going hunting for razorbats?
Shotguns are your pleasantly man-portable path to pi++ damage which is more effective against Unliving and Homogenious. Buckshot may have advantages against armor! It won't punch through, of course, but the bonus to hit helps you target uncovered locations, or to hit uncovered locations while blasting away non-specifically. And as always it's helpful for shooters who aren't all that good at shooting.
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What are the adversaries doing amidst all this technology? Are goblins and orcs regularly packing heat? How would this impact encounters with other foes—whether dragons, gladiator apes, trolls, ghosts, etc.?
This is your call. You could give the dungeon enemies classic TL2-3 loadouts, or you could give them anything up to and including the current day. (For that matter, your goblins or kobolds could be packing late-TL6 guns if you like them technically advanced!)

Which way you go changes the game, but either could be interesting. Giving the orcs guns might make delvers' lives a bit more nasty, brutish and short than usual.
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Originally Posted by Landwalker View Post
If I'm a TL 5 adventurer armed with my pair of Colt SAA revolvers and I'm going into a Dungeon Fantasy delve (and honestly, even if I'm a TL 6 delver), I'm going to be wearing at least a steel breastplate and a helmet. The may not stand up to many firearms, but I'd rather have them than not if a gladiator ape jumps on me from the alcove. Are you armoring up? Why or why not? What makes sense for the various roles to be wearing.
By late TL5, it's much harder to get good plate armor than at TL4, at least historically. Armor is as much a good idea as ever if you're going to be in close-quarters combat with people whose weapons aren't guaranteed to blow through it. But it's in much lower military demand...
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Originally Posted by Landwalker View Post
What other possible issues am I missing or not considering? What would change at TL 6 instead of late TL 5? (Semiautomatic handguns, SMGs, and LMGs, of course. But what else?)
Substantially better available medicine, if you're worrying about infection and such...
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Old 03-15-2015, 06:55 PM   #4
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

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Originally Posted by Landwalker View Post
[LIST=1][*] Firearms are loud.

. Fortunately, Tactical Shooting covers this: -5 to hearing rolls for (20-HT) minutes after a firefight.

If using the standard magic system,
Resist Sound p.173 of Magic. That's the Sound College. There's a Bright Vision spell in the Light & Darkness College too.

It's debatable whether the Hush Enchantment can silence guns. It says it will prevent objects from making sounds. It could be argued that it's the gunpowder and not the gun that's making he noise. So maybe you need to Enchant the gunpowder instead. You'd use One Shot Enchantment of course.

Pretty much any other spell a delver could want is in Magic. Prefer RPM if you like but don't do it because there aren't enough spells in Magic.

Realistically ricochets are a very limited concern. Soft lead bullets will deform catastrophically and bounce at shallow angles after losing a lot of velocity on just one hit. Not that you can't hurt yourself with rebounding bullets but it'll be terribly rare except in circumstances like "shooting the lock off" of something.
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Old 03-15-2015, 07:08 PM   #5
Landwalker
 
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
1. It seems likely to me that if magic is a thing, somebody would come up with a muffling enchantment for firearms after their first uses in close confines.

2. Throwing fireballs and lightning bolts would ruin light adaptation, anyway.

4. Enchantments/Imbuements to change your Piercing bullets into Crushing will help with those pesky corporeal undead.
And that's why I come here. Because I hadn't considered any of those things!

Although #2 strongly suggests that "DF does not care about your light adaptation rules" anyway. Still, if I wanted to run a somewhat more "hard-ruled" DF-esque jaunt, recognizing that explode-y magic is just as liable to ruin light/dark adaptation as a hail of gunfire is valuable to store away in the noggin.

Quote:
6. Aren't there ricochet rules somewhere already?
Are there? I couldn't find them in Tactical Shooting, High-Tech, or Campaigns...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin
Resist Sound p.173 of Magic. That's the Sound College. There's a Bright Vision spell in the Light & Darkness College too.

It's debatable whether the Hush Enchantment can silence guns. It says it will prevent objects from making sounds. It could be argued that it's the gunpowder and not the gun that's making he noise. So maybe you need to Enchant the gunpowder instead. You'd use One Shot Enchantment of course.

Pretty much any other spell a delver could want is in Magic. Prefer RPM if you like but don't do it because there aren't enough spells in Magic.
Ah, good catches. I'm not wildly familiar with the full arsenal in Magic, so it's good to have somebody less ig'nant than myself to point out the gaps in my awareness.

My preference for RPM isn't really of the Magic-doesn't-have-enough-spells variety. I just like the flexibility and flavor of the system immensely. It might still be worth me going through Magic a bit more aggressively just in case, but I do love me some RPM...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth
Buckshot may have advantages against armor! It won't punch through, of course, but the bonus to hit helps you target uncovered locations, or to hit uncovered locations while blasting away non-specifically.
Hadn't considered that! Handy for situations where you'd rather shoot that orc in a vulnerable hit location. Also, thanks for reminding me about the pi++ benefits of blasting away at the undead.

I could also see shotguns having "utility-role" service due to their specialty-round possibilities. One episode of Supernatural, for example, I believe claims that a particular malevolent spirit (or maybe malevolent spirits in general) are highly averse to rock salt. I could also certainly see a TL 6 society where dungeon-delving against exotic monsters is a thing developing the "flame jet" shotgun load earlier than it was in "our world."
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Old 03-15-2015, 08:26 PM   #6
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

When I saw High-Tech on the title I thought TL8 :P, I so wish to see a TL8 fantasy game done sometime in the future but anyway.

In TL5-6, you can create interesting dungeons for sure, giant gears, platforms that go up when steam is shot, advanced mines and electricity.

I think a good look for a TL5-6 dungeon would be the water temple from Zelda: Majora Mask, maybe some JRPGs if they are TL5-6, Final Fantasy comes to mind.
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Old 03-15-2015, 08:35 PM   #7
DouglasCole
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

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When I saw High-Tech on the title I thought TL8 :P, I so wish to see a TL8 fantasy game done sometime in the future but anyway.
Dial Monster Hunters back to 250 points? Are you looking for GURPS Shadowrun?
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Old 03-15-2015, 11:58 PM   #8
simply Nathan
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

Shotguns I would expect to be the weapon of choice for delvers much like they are for hunting and home defense. You can load them with birdshot to get lots of tiny hits on diffuse enemies, slugs for high raw damage, and buckshot for in between.

There's a reason that the only better weapon in Spelunky is a magical staff that shoots enemy-seeking death rings. I imagine that, much like that videogame, you can milk a lot of inspiration from Indiana Jones for your post-gunpowder dungeon delving experiences.
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Old 03-16-2015, 02:04 AM   #9
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

Firstly, I really like the idea, and highly recommend you check out the The Demolisher, and The Musketeer templates from Pyramid #3/36.

The only thing that occurs to me that hasn't already been stated, is that you may want to find a way of dialling back the damage of muscle-powered ranged weapons, or increase the damage of guns. As it stands they're not really comparable, a Scout will typically be able to inflict more damage with his bow than a rifle, more accurately, and with a faster recharge. That's not necessarily historically inaccurate, but for Dungeon Fantasy historical accuracy isn't particularly important.
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Old 03-16-2015, 02:37 AM   #10
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Default Re: High-Tech Dungeon Fantasizing

Gun Slinger, Gun Fu, knuckle-duster bowieknife Colt Navy revolvers... sounds so much more fun than Shadowrun (Michael Caine movie).
Gloom-Sprint? Silhouette-Spree? 8D
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