Dungeon Fantasy--TL8!?!

[Flyndaran]

I'm a ordinary guy, and my first instinct when faced with danger is to run away to somewhere safe. I don't see how that behavior is automatically incompetent or bad.

[CousinX]

I've been toying with an idea similar to this for a while, which I've been calling "Paradox Cleanup" ... the Action templates make a great starting point, but RPK is spot-on: you'll have to beef them up from there in order to handle supernatural threats, whether than means supernatural abilities, near-superhuman stats and skills, or gobs and gobs of Luck and related.

As for handling non-human characters, you have a few choices. One is the approach taken in White Wolf (especially Werewolf: the Apocalypse), as well as in such timeless classics as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: something about the human psyche makes most people repress their memories of "supernatural" experiences, so the PCs don't really have to worry all that much about it.

Otherwise, if you want them to have to actively avoid discovery, they either need to be able to blend in (and thus have a fairly normal appearance or "form," like a vampire), exist unobserved among normals (Invisibility, and maybe Insubstantiality), or spend a lot of time waiting in the van while the more normal-looking PCs do social things.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm a ordinary guy, and my first instinct when faced with danger is to run away to somewhere safe. I don't see how that behavior is automatically incompetent or bad.

Me too! I don't think they're saying that it's a bad or incompetent behavior in the Really Real World, but not very suited to high-action supernatural RPGs.

Although, I've run a very satisfying "modern horror" game where the PCs were pretty much just "normal folks," and they spent most of their time running and hiding... they killed their first vampire in session 4 or so, and it was a huge deal, requiring detailed planning and more than a little luck.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by CousinX

Me too! I don't think they're saying that it's a bad or incompetent behavior in the Really Real World, but not very suited to high-action supernatural RPGs.
....

Well as a normal coward, I didn't mention that if I couldn't run, I would go all out postal on the danger and feel bad about my actions after I'm safe and having cocoa at home. :)

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Well as a normal coward, I didn't mention that if I couldn't run, I would go all out postal on the danger and feel bad about my actions after I'm safe and having cocoa at home. :)

That's not really what I'd call cowardice.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Well as a normal coward, I didn't mention that if I couldn't run, I would go all out postal on the danger and feel bad about my actions after I'm safe and having cocoa at home. :)

And if you survived running amok / "going postal" on a supernatural danger a few times, I'd say that you're roughly equivalent to a "Super Normal," e.g. Wesley and Gunn on Angel, etc. Hero material, all the way! :)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

That's not really what I'd call cowardice.

I'm a coward in my numerous phobias, daily fear, and how I avoid situations in which I may need to show any bravery or responsibility. My life is ruled by fear, which in my opinion labels me a coward. No biggie. No one's perfect.
But that's an off topic semantics issue.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

[...]
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.
.

This is what I first thought of when I read the thread title ... the setting that NorphTehDwarf went on to describe sounds more like Black Ops or Cabal to me. In honest-to-goodness DF, magic and the supernatural are no secret -- elves, goblins, magic, and monsters are an accepted part of everyday reality.

This kind of setting would require a little more work to "do it up right," though ... a TL8 world that has always had magic will probably look a lot different than one in which magic was dropped in at TL5 (like Deadlands or Castle Falkenstein), TL6/7 (like the old GURPS Technomancer setting) or TL8/9 (Shadowrun). You'd have to look at each TL in sequence, and how it evolved differently because of the existence of magic ... what technological innovations would come late, early, or not at all? How would civilization and society(-ies) evolve differently when there are wizards and orcs? It could very well end up with a TL like 5+3, where magic replaces the technological advances at TL6-8 (or TL4+4, 6+2, etc, depending on your assumptions at each TL).

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Exactly. Consider my earlier suggestion, of using GURPS Action templates + heavy lenses to represent "nifty stuff that lets me survive when fighting the supernatural." There's no reason one of those 100- or 150-point lenses couldn't be Lucky Protagonist, with a bunch of Luck, Serendipity, and Wild Talent.

Taking it back to DF, look at the Seventh Son template that aesir23 and I bashed out. As the notes say, this is one way you can feel like you're playing an underdog without actually sacrificing competency. He's missing some of the skills a delver takes for granted, and isn't all that well trained in general -- but his solid attributes and tons of luck-related advantages allow him to hold his own anyway. So, he feels more like "normal peasant folk," but he's still a 250-point adventurer.

Sure, that's what I'm saying. You could run a game with 25 to 50 point "normals" and then just give them all a free laundry list of traits that emulate how "normals" are in action-comedy movies. The characters will feel like normal people but act like the protagonists of films.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm a coward in my numerous phobias, daily fear, and how I avoid situations in which I may need to show any bravery or responsibility. My life is ruled by fear, which in my opinion labels me a coward. No biggie. No one's perfect.
But that's an off topic semantics issue.

Well, at least you understand that fear is a problem in your life. I wish you the best of luck in overcoming or at least mitigating that condition.

Okay, sorry for sounding all PSA. I'll get back on topic.

TL 8 dungeon Fantasy sounds pretty wild and wahoo. X-Crawl is kinda like this, isn't it?

Would this proposed setting be late/mature TL 8, just for extra jazz?