Problems with GURPS and Age of Nelson stuff - Page 2

hal · 06-24-2010, 10:52 PM

Hello Folks,
As I work towards preparing a campaign set in the Age of Nelson for my players (or perhaps not - time will tell), I'm running into certain "inconsistencies" in the TL listings, and in how material is presented.

For instance, GURPS CHARACTERS page 27 has the following:

TL3 Medieval (600 A.D.+).
TL4 Age of Sail (1450+).
TL5 Industrial Revolution (1730+).
TL6 Mechanized Age (1880+).

The time period I'm interested in for the Age of Nelson, is mid 18th century to early 19th century. By the definition above, this would be squarely in the TL5 bracket. Yet, on page 512 of GURPS CAMPAIGNS, we have the following:

TL4 – Muskets and pikes; horse artillery; naval broadsides.
TL5 – Early repeating small arms; rifled cannon; ironclads.

To the best of my knowledge, naval ordinance (cannons) were all smoothbore for much of the time period in which I am interested in portraying for my players. It isn't until the latter part of the 1700's, that the invention of the Carronade is brought into play, and not until the time of the American Civil War (ie mid to late 1800's) that we find rifled cannons being brought into play (Ironclads for the most part).

So my question now becomes:

What tech level would a 32 lbr naval cannon used in the late 1700's, early 1800's be considered? Best as I can figure, we're talking more like TL4, but the time period listed in GURPS CHARACTERS makes it SQUARELY a TL 5 time period.

So which is it?

06-24-2010, 10:52 PM	#1
hal Join Date: Aug 2004	Problems with GURPS and Age of Nelson stuff Hello Folks, As I work towards preparing a campaign set in the Age of Nelson for my players (or perhaps not - time will tell), I'm running into certain "inconsistencies" in the TL listings, and in how material is presented. For instance, GURPS CHARACTERS page 27 has the following: TL3 Medieval (600 A.D.+). TL4 Age of Sail (1450+). TL5 Industrial Revolution (1730+). TL6 Mechanized Age (1880+). The time period I'm interested in for the Age of Nelson, is mid 18th century to early 19th century. By the definition above, this would be squarely in the TL5 bracket. Yet, on page 512 of GURPS CAMPAIGNS, we have the following: TL4 – Muskets and pikes; horse artillery; naval broadsides. TL5 – Early repeating small arms; rifled cannon; ironclads. To the best of my knowledge, naval ordinance (cannons) were all smoothbore for much of the time period in which I am interested in portraying for my players. It isn't until the latter part of the 1700's, that the invention of the Carronade is brought into play, and not until the time of the American Civil War (ie mid to late 1800's) that we find rifled cannons being brought into play (Ironclads for the most part). So my question now becomes: What tech level would a 32 lbr naval cannon used in the late 1700's, early 1800's be considered? Best as I can figure, we're talking more like TL4, but the time period listed in GURPS CHARACTERS makes it SQUARELY a TL 5 time period. So which is it?