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Old 10-12-2024, 03:20 PM   #6571
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this, in Homeline history, after Kara Mustafa failed to take Vienna in 1687, the Trukish court and elites entered into a sixty year long power struggle of each against all. When Turkey, still a powerful state recovered, improvements in nautical technology had finally rendered the overland trade routes that were the basis of Turkey's wealth and power irrelevant.

Now, let us embrace our inner Alien Fruit Bats for a moment. Allow someone in the 1690s to win the fratracidal struggles in Istanbul. And since we are going full AFB here, allow them to realize that basing the entire Turkish military exclusively in and around Istanbul had limited western expansion. So this new Grand Visir creates forward bases. This Grand Visir also licenses printing presses and mandates the study of Western techniques. (Yes I know that in real History the Turks fought tooth and nail against that sort of thing well into the 19th century. AFB remember.)

Have Vienna taken in 1709, and Bavaria conquered two years later. King Louis XIV sees the Turks based on the Rhine. He ends the Wars with other Europeans and begs for a coalition to turn back the Turks.

This gives you a glamorous and lively setting that can go in many directions. As a straight military adventure setting with espionage and swashbuckling it's fun. Toss in Path/Book magic of several flavors (aren't all powerful Grand Visirs supposed to be evil sorcerers?) and you get a different flavor. The Barbary Corsairs, still an active threat in the early 1710s (ship were captured and their crews and passengers captured for the slave markets in the English channel, in sight of land, as late as the 1740s) could attack in the Caribbean, the Spanish Main (Spanish speaking Latin American coastal areas) and the British North American colonies. Pirates versus corsairs to the death!!!
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Old 10-27-2024, 08:01 AM   #6572
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Operation Unthinkable was clearly thinkable. Churchill was right about the Russian threat. Containment worked even if some people argue that the Cold War did more damage to society and civilization that a second WWII in the lake 1940s would have done. This scenario is based on a worst case scenario for Operation Unthinkable, neither side wins, Europe loses.

This is a Q5 low Mana parallel where Operation Unthinkable, forced on by Soviet aggression, brought state collapse from the Urals nearly to Paris. The local year is 1950. The Soviet Union has collapsed, the Communist cause has collapsed in China. From Paris to the Yalu war lords and chaos rules. Britain is exhausted, Japan, Italy, and France are wounded. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Finland South Africa, are allied and striving to bring stability to the planet.

Basically, this is an espionage game in a post-apocalyptic Europe. Mad Max meets James Bond with Harry Potter sprinkles. The Cabal is looting the ruins and building power bases with easy access to Homeline. The Cabal's activities are screened by looters and other thugs from all over the Multiverse.
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Old 10-27-2024, 07:51 PM   #6573
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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post

(SNIP)

Basically, this is an espionage game in a post-apocalyptic Europe. Mad Max meets James Bond with Harry Potter sprinkles. The Cabal is looting the ruins and building power bases with easy access to Homeline. The Cabal's activities are screened by looters and other thugs from all over the Multiverse.
This is no better than a borderline-craptastic setting.

Stunted technological development due to the need to spend huge quantities of resources to alleviate widespread suffering and suppress local warlords and crime-bosses in what was (in OTL) one of the areas that recovered steadily after WWII.

The collapse of China and France means Vietnam gains independence easily, which means no Vietnam War, but that's one of the few positives. The collapse of the Soviet Union means no space-race and its attendant technological advancements, in a world with far less wealth to spend on medical breakthroughs or other benefits to humanity.

To me, this feels like the Great Depression returned with a vengeance after WWII, and has lasted for decades.

So, yeah, lots of dramatic conflict, but the setting is even more depressing than the Cold War -- and that's saying something.
Heck, since opposition to the Vietnam War supercharged the Civil Rights movement, would that have been delayed in the United States, as well?
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Old 10-27-2024, 11:08 PM   #6574
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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Operation Unthinkable was clearly thinkable. Churchill was right about the Russian threat. Containment worked even if some people argue that the Cold War did more damage to society and civilization that a second WWII in the lake 1940s would have done. This scenario is based on a worst case scenario for Operation Unthinkable, neither side wins, Europe loses.

This is a Q5 low Mana parallel where Operation Unthinkable, forced on by Soviet aggression, brought state collapse from the Urals nearly to Paris. The local year is 1950. The Soviet Union has collapsed, the Communist cause has collapsed in China. From Paris to the Yalu war lords and chaos rules. Britain is exhausted, Japan, Italy, and France are wounded. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Finland South Africa, are allied and striving to bring stability to the planet.

Basically, this is an espionage game in a post-apocalyptic Europe.
Is it? What would you be spying on? Seems more like a place for small scale military operations and high risk merchant expeditions.

Fog-1

A world in which the behaviour of water droplets in air has been tweaked just a tiny bit. The result is a world where fog is a nearly everyday occurence everywhere except the least humid and highest altitude parts of the world which may have something to do with the fact that Fog lacks bows, firearms and lens grinding in the Eastern Hemisphere. Other than that it has roughly 18th century technology despite the local year being 2009, but it is advanced in the sphere of light than air aviation, an appealing technology in that it allows people to rise above the low lying fog banks and see where they are going. Water travel is rather challenging, and tends to be carried out in shallow draft vessels along carefully charted coastlines. Fog's equivalent of the Americas has never been colonized and the natives of the Great Plains are the only people on Fog who have developed the bow, although they still don't have horses. It is also well known that there is some kind of predator that prefers the lowest visibility parts of the world, and has no qualms about preying upon humans who walk alone in the dark and the fog.

Last edited by David Johnston2; 10-27-2024 at 11:50 PM.
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Old 10-28-2024, 12:15 AM   #6575
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This is a Q5 low Mana parallel where Operation Unthinkable, forced on by Soviet aggression, brought state collapse from the Urals nearly to Paris. The local year is 1950. The Soviet Union has collapsed, the Communist cause has collapsed in China. From Paris to the Yalu war lords and chaos rules. Britain is exhausted, Japan, Italy, and France are wounded. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Finland South Africa, are allied and striving to bring stability to the planet.
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The collapse of China and France means Vietnam gains independence easily, which means no Vietnam War, but that's one of the few positives. The collapse of the Soviet Union means no space-race and its attendant technological advancements, in a world with far less wealth to spend on medical breakthroughs or other benefits to humanity.
I'd think not just Vietnam, but all of the colonial empires of European nations are going to become independent sooner than in OTL. Except for the British empire. And even the last is a maybe.

What is the the alliance's policy on this? Are they trying to take over the colonies, helping them develop stable governments, or just ignoring anyone who is isn't actively fighting their neighbors?

Where are the European refugees going to?
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Old 10-28-2024, 08:16 AM   #6576
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I'd think not just Vietnam, but all of the colonial empires of European nations are going to become independent sooner than in OTL. Except for the British empire. And even the last is a maybe.
I'd be leaning towards a more rapid collapse of the British Empire. If the war broke out before Japan surrenders, the occupying forces in South East Asia might see the writing on the wall and hand things over to the locals before bailing (or possibly switch sides), I don't think India would be willing to wait out a third war before demanding independence, and Britain would likely be too distracted to deal the war to deal with the coming crises in Mandatory Palestine and Malaya.
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Old 10-28-2024, 12:37 PM   #6577
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Fog sounds interesting! Perfect for swashbuckling sky privateers.
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Old 10-28-2024, 01:52 PM   #6578
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins View Post
This is no better than a borderline-craptastic setting.

Stunted technological development due to the need to spend huge quantities of resources to alleviate widespread suffering and suppress local warlords and crime-bosses in what was (in OTL) one of the areas that recovered steadily after WWII.

The collapse of China and France means Vietnam gains independence easily, which means no Vietnam War, but that's one of the few positives. The collapse of the Soviet Union means no space-race and its attendant technological advancements, in a world with far less wealth to spend on medical breakthroughs or other benefits to humanity.

To me, this feels like the Great Depression returned with a vengeance after WWII, and has lasted for decades.

So, yeah, lots of dramatic conflict, but the setting is even more depressing than the Cold War -- and that's saying something.
Heck, since opposition to the Vietnam War supercharged the Civil Rights movement, would that have been delayed in the United States, as well?
This is a damaged Earth. That might attract impractical idealists with "surefire plans." That could keep the PCs busy.
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Old 10-28-2024, 02:00 PM   #6579
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Is it? What would you be spying on? Seems more like a place for small scale military operations and high risk merchant expeditions.
Spector in the James Bond books was an amalgam of Fourth Reich sliminess and organized crime. It was rewritten to to Communist. So there would be agents trying to stop 4th Reich wannabes, mobsters, stomach Communists, and other low life's. The PCs would be trying to prevent the Cabal from taking over Europe.

Quote:
Fog-1

A world in which the behaviour of water droplets in air has been tweaked just a tiny bit. The result is a world where fog is a nearly everyday occurence everywhere except the least humid and highest altitude parts of the world which may have something to do with the fact that Fog lacks bows, firearms and lens grinding in the Eastern Hemisphere. Other than that it has roughly 18th century technology despite the local year being 2009, but it is advanced in the sphere of light than air aviation, an appealing technology in that it allows people to rise above the low lying fog banks and see where they are going. Water travel is rather challenging, and tends to be carried out in shallow draft vessels along carefully charted coastlines. Fog's equivalent of the Americas has never been colonized and the natives of the Great Plains are the only people on Fog who have developed the bow, although they still don't have horses. It is also well known that there is some kind of predator that prefers the lowest visibility parts of the world, and has no qualms about preying upon humans who walk alone in the dark and the fog.
Good atmosphere and interesting challenges. I envy your mind.
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Old 10-28-2024, 02:04 PM   #6580
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I'd think not just Vietnam, but all of the colonial empires of European nations are going to become independent sooner than in OTL. Except for the British empire. And even the last is a maybe.

What is the the alliance's policy on this? Are they trying to take over the colonies, helping them develop stable governments, or just ignoring anyone who is isn't actively fighting their neighbors?

Where are the European refugees going to?
I assume that the US is divided. The New Dealers want to prevent wars. The Dixiecrats and the Republicans tend towards isolationism. So unless the New Deal Democrats are riding high, I assume the Anglo-American alliance is diffident.

The European refugees are going to America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America.
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