Dungeon Fantasy--TL8!?!

[NorphTehDwarf]

So, I like magic, and goblins, and stuff. A lot. Probably in ways that sane men weren't meant to. What happens when you move DF into the present day? I'm imagining some kind of crossover DF/Action game in which players are some kind of paranormal swat team. They'd work for a government bureau/secret conspiracy/secret Inquistorial sect/the Cabal, and their organization would interested in keeping things that go bump in the night contained, but would not necessarily be out to destroy the non-mundane because of its freakiness. How well would the DF/Action templates work with each other? I'm aware that the action templates are basically 250 points or 200 point templates +50 point lenses, but don't have Action.

If I was interested in putting together some sort of secret-magic swat team campaign, how well do you think the templates would work? How would obviously nonhuman races work in a human-dominated world?

What else haven't I thought of? I bet there's a lot, and would love to hear anything about high-TL Dungeon Fantasy y'all have got to say.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

This may be a case where you could just wait for nature to take its course. I may be misreading the signs, but for the past few months, RPK has been teasing a series he's working on which sounds a lot like what you're describing.

[Stone Dog]

There is also a setting riff over on RPGnet called "The Long Stair."

Check it out for some particularly odd ideas.

[hari]

I'm with the good Turhan's Bey Company on this one. Taken from Jalapeno Dude's speculation thread:

-Volume 1 of RPK's "Project M", described as "Mix 2 c. Dungeon Fantasy, 2 c. Action, 2 c. Black Ops, 1 c. Voodoo, 1 c. Powers, and 2 tsp. Psionics into 1 qt. Horror:" (first draft (including "powers, magic, vampires, and violence") reviewed as of October 22nd; will be compatible with Divine Favor, Gun Fu, Thaumatology, Psionic Powers, etc; first leaked here; confirmed as multiple volumes here and here)
-Volume 2 of RPK's "Project M", described as "Mix 2 c. Dungeon Fantasy, 2 c. Action, 2 c. Black Ops, 1 c. Voodoo, 1 c. Powers, and 2 tsp. Psionics into 1 qt. Horror:" (first draft (including "chupacabras, rogue angels, and axes" and "curses, hunting, undergrounds, and plagues") reviewed as of October 29th, RPK edits for final draft in progress as of October 27th; includes "Chapter 2: Being Awesome")
-Volume 3 of RPK's "Project M", described as "Mix 2 c. Dungeon Fantasy, 2 c. Action, 2 c. Black Ops, 1 c. Voodoo, 1 c. Powers, and 2 tsp. Psionics into 1 qt. Horror:" (being written; will provide uses for wildcard skills at higher relative levels, "stats and details for a bunch of monsters" and SEAL teams fighting mutated animals)

[Cernig]

"Mix 2 c. Dungeon Fantasy, 2 c. Action, 2 c. Black Ops, 1 c. Voodoo, 1 c. Powers, and 2 tsp. Psionics into 1 qt. Horror:"

Ooh, shiny!

Been running one of these for over a year now, to considerable player acclaim. "Action" templates work just fine as guidelines for starting characters, newbs just beginning to go toe-to-toe (ish) with modern preternatural foes, but I found you then had to customize them with a goodly bit of "fringe" themselves as they progressed, learned more, and met bigger Big Bads. The party works for Dept. 23, the domestic enforcement arm of the NSA's Black Chamber (think US counterpart to Stross' Laundry), keeping the nasties in check and making sure the mundanes don't go into full panic mode. We've got an ex-mob enforcer with Wishing Luck, an ex-FBI investigator with a nifty sideline in technology-based Book magic (FM23-666 is the standard NSA spellbook, comes loaded on a secured i-phone), an archeologist who is working on becoming a Spirit Path shaman, a martial artist with chi-based powers, and a drunken Irish priest with healing.

Looking forward to seeing what RPK comes up with, now.

[Dalzig]

Sounds a little like D20 Modern's Urban Arcana. If RPK's project is anywhere close to being similar, I'm greatly looking forward to it.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

A high-tech Fantasy campaign sounds okay, and can be lotsa fun (I enjoyed Shadowrun a lot back in the days of 1st edition)..

But a TL8 Dungeon Fantasy campaign screams "post-apocalypse with magic" to me.

[Greg 1]

There are many different and interesting ways you could do this.

You could take characters from one genre and drop them into a scenario from another genre. A modern infantry squad out on patrol suddenly finds themselves deep underground in a strange new world.

You could hold an armageddon and raise DF from the ashes of the modern world - it could be something like Gamma World with lots of indoor combat and treasure recovery.

You could take a standard TL 3 DF world and ask what it would look like if technology advanced to TL 8. Heros still go exploring underground in search of gold and magic, but swords are out and auto-rifles are in. Unfortunately, Orcs like them too.
.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

You could take characters from one genre and drop them into a scenario from another genre. A modern infantry squad out on patrol suddenly finds themselves deep underground in a strange new world.

Why infantry? Why not cops on patrol? Or just some hunters? Or a group of people picked off the street?
The challenges of normal people in a fantasy world appeal to me more than dakka vs sword.

If you want gunfights, though, no problem. For a group of Americans, the odds of any given individual having a firearm on his person is one in eight; if the person is from a rural area and you take his vehicle, the odds go up to one in three. The odds are good for any random mass of Americans to be able to shoot something. You can figure out the numbers for other nationalities.

[Randover]

I would strongly suggest GURPS: Blackoups (spelling) it was for 3e but I guess the conversion is easy thing as always.

Agents solving imposible things, niche protection is there as well. Yes your people aren't freelancers, but it all makes sense for TL8. Unlike normal dungeon crawl nowdays are far more organized, so I would addopt it without much of debate.