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Old 12-19-2015, 03:14 AM   #1
scc
 
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Default Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

OK, I'm kicking around ideas for a DF/Fantasy game and one of the things that needs to be addressed is tech and TL. Normally a setting like this is TL3, but a large number of TL4 items seem to show up, most common are: Full-rigged ships, the printing press, celestial navigation, Nation-states and absolute monarchy, widespread literacy and formal military drill.

For the setting I'm working with overseas empires are basically a prequresite (OK, interplanear, but same thing) and telescopes and sailing warships armed with cannon wouldn't be THAT out of place.

So does all of that push the TL up to 4 or is it stuck at 3? And it there anything that probably SHOULD be on the list? Anything that the other items would require?

And finally with a lot of magic around how likely it starting money likely to go up?
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Old 12-19-2015, 03:28 AM   #2
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

Personally, I feel that most D&D-inspired fantasy settings are TL4 lacking in gunpowder, not TL3 or TL3+1 (as some have called it). Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are especially notable for being in the TL4 blanket, IMO.

The full-rigged ship and the printing press are more signature technologies for TL4 than gunpowder, IMHO. Adding in nation-states, absolute monarchy, and widespread literacy only strengthen the TL4 trappings.
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Old 12-19-2015, 06:13 AM   #3
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

I generally use TL 4- for fantasy. No gunpowder, but everything else is up to TL4.
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Old 12-19-2015, 09:38 AM   #4
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

Most "dungeon fantasy" settings are mature TL4 with some TL5 elements but a love of TL2-3 warfare (castles, mail armor, big axes, mechanical siege engines, and so on). They're set in worlds that include mercantile empires, cash economies, and bespectacled professional accountants. Urbanization has already begun, and there are genuine cities, plural, of hundreds of thousands of souls a day or two apart – cities in which dandies with rapiers and smallswords act like something straight out of a Renaissance costume piece. They feature entire libraries of bound, often printed books; royalty traveling about in carriages; sailing ships suited to transoceanic voyages, manned by crews with telescopes, quadrants, and often sextants; usually clockworks of some kind (including pendulum clocks), most often blamed on gnomes; and strong (distilled) drink, most often blamed on dwarves. As others have said, they mostly just lack gunpowder.
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Old 12-19-2015, 11:28 AM   #5
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Most "dungeon fantasy" settings are mature TL4 with some TL5 elements but a love of TL2-3 warfare (castles, mail armor, big axes, mechanical siege engines, and so on).
Historical authenticity in fiction is a modern (well OK, 19th century and later) consideration. Once upon a time people telling stories set in once upon a time freely adapted the set dressing to include anything cool or impressive they were familiar with themselves that didn't actually violate the requirements of the plot. Rather like modern game setting designers really.

Anyway, the conventions of fantasy were set by the forms of the stories had when they were frozen by popular printed editions, so fantasy stories have essentially the technology of the 16th to 18th century minus those plot violating innovations, which mostly amounts to no widespread firearms. Fairy tales written down in the late 18th century may even include the textile mills. For something as loose as DF, there's no reason to even care very much. Why do you care what the TL is? If there is some bit of cool equipment that won't break the genre, feel free to put it in even if it wasn't invented until last year.
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Old 12-19-2015, 12:13 PM   #6
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

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Why do you care what the TL is?
In my experience, the biggest consideration for TL for a game world is to help set both the overall "feel" and, from a more game-mechanical aspect, starting Wealth (and by extension, Starting Cash, if you assume the 80/20 split is in effect for settled lifestyles).
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Old 12-19-2015, 02:48 PM   #7
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

So would it be alright to allow TL4 skills, except for gunpowder based ones? (The way the setting I'm thinking of is set up TL3 bombards are available, and there might be field pieces from TL4 but that's it)

And starting cash can be set to TL4 levels? At at level you can probably enforce the 20/80 split.
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Old 12-19-2015, 03:40 PM   #8
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

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Why do you care what the TL is?
It matters for Low TL characters (or high TL gadgeteers), and as others have noted, for starting money, wealth levels, and such. The Barbarian with a copper-tipped spear and a leopard skin is TL 0, is that -15, -20, or -25 points?

It also matters for how much HP is healed by First Aid, and for physicians doing daily care for long-term HP recovery. Not every DF group has a healer on hand and First Aid is a lot cheaper than potions.

It's a big help for "I have no firm opinion on whether this is in the game" too. "My game is ostensibly TL 4" lets people start somewhere.
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Old 12-19-2015, 03:50 PM   #9
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

I'd make a typical dungeon fantasy as generally TL3, but allow characters to take perks to enable access to TL4 skills for almost any skill that isn't specifically excluded by your campaign (such as gunpowder). That way, TL0 characters don't get too many free points.
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Old 12-19-2015, 04:22 PM   #10
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Default Re: Tech for DF/Fantasy Game

Also, fantasy doesn't always have to exclude gunpowder. They had gunpowder in Lord of the Rings for example. All that matters really is balance.
For example, it would be cool if some kind of magical or technological gun could be rarely found in secluded Dwarven societies.

Guns aren't really all that powerful really, especially if magic is involved. They just can't get out of hand or become common enough that swords and bows disappear. Plus, it would make sense for Dwarves mining deep underground to discover gunpowder.

They would definitely have a Legality Class of 0.
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