Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
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Post by Hogscape on Jun 12, 2009 21:03:40 GMT -5
Ragnorakk, those are awesome ideas. I exalt thee (and steal the term Aethernaut, later to claim it was all my own idea)!
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Post by feldrik on Jun 13, 2009 8:49:31 GMT -5
Exalt for the term 'Aethernaut'...I have high hopes my game will get running soon and I can use it! By doing a search of the word Aethernaut I found this thread which contains some inspiration for a fantasy space campaign. It is not quite high fantasy but the concept is well thought out. forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1008762 |
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unclecranky
5th Level Troll
(mutter...grumble)
Posts: 656
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Post by unclecranky on Jun 22, 2009 13:53:02 GMT -5
Howzabout a world where the orcs, trolls, skeleton men and such were the good guys? Oh wait, St. Andre already did that one. It's called "Kaball". (sorry, couldn't resist)
Okay...The dominant life forms on one world could all be rodent-based. With white gloves and spats, no less. Men and all the rest are subject beings, striving for liberty from these monstrous mices.
Another world could have incredibly high gravity, thus being inhabited by energy-beings who have no need for bodies as such, but who toss their inner selves around to create magical effects whenever they have to interact with the solid world.
A third could have a sort of spell upon it that walking under any arch would either teleport someone a given distance, or cause some sort of magical effect, or summon a beastie or six dozen to their location. Or a combination of two or more of these effects.
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unclecranky
5th Level Troll
(mutter...grumble)
Posts: 656
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Post by unclecranky on Jun 22, 2009 13:54:45 GMT -5
or you could put together a world where the humans, elves, fairies, dwarves, hobbits, and leprechauns were banded together against various monsters and evil people (and occasionally each other) in a contest for superiority.
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Post by thorswulf on Sept 12, 2009 0:08:20 GMT -5
I've been toying with this idea for about a week now. The rocketships and rayguns feel of Flash Gordon is spot on! Ever watched Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe? There's this stock footage of strange temple dancers and some 30' tall statue/creature thing that sways around... dark sorcery on Mongo! I wanted to take the essence of the T&T rules and shift it from Ralph/Kaball to an alternate universe.
I knocked out a crude spacial map in 2d as a 6x6 grid. The center 4 squares are the well known and well travelled areas of trollspace. The rest are less well known, some even unexplored regions of trollspace. Each of those 36 squares gets it's own 6x6 grid- like the old subsector idea from Traveller. So the Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Skeleton Men and so forth have home systems, and there are a number of freeports or stations where life is cheap, hard, and fast!
I decided to more or less keep the character types the same, with a few tweaks so they fit into the science fiction atmosphere. I decided to base this off of 6th edition because they seem to fit a little better. Warriors (aka Armsmen, Solos, etc...) retain their ability to use any weapons or armor, as they would train with many different types of weapons and armor or end up dead real quick. Instead of doubling the effectiveness of armor, the warrior adds his level to the ammount of hits taken by armor. They retain the ability to fight in unarmed combat with 2 dice instead of only one. They way specialise with a specific weapon at 4th level also.
Wizards are called Psions instead, and have a PSI attribute to power their "spells" instead of ARCANE or WIZ. Some spells will have to be slightly modified to fit better, but most transfer over pretty well. O.k. I love lightsabers, who doesn't? Psions are the only class able to use a Star Plasma Blade, or Star Blade. This is generated by using the spell Vorpal Blade, which creates a 4 dice weapon. Whammy creates a 6 dice weapon, while Zappathingum creates an 8 dice weapon. The other spells really are just calle other things by science. Obviously elemental based spells are just pyrokinetic energy, or other element based forms of energy. Most manipulative spells are extensions of telekenisis. You get the idea. Psions belong to one of two major organizations: The Brotherhood of Free Thought, or the Circle of Thought. The Brotherhood is a very illegal, and underground movement of psions who resist the Circle of Thought. The Circle is legal institution, who have establishments on all civilized worlds. If there is an intergalactic government, this is the closest thing to it! Most governments never realize that they are manipulated by the Circle....
Rogues are called many things, mostly rude! They retain allof their abilities, including the use of Psi powers if they can find a teacher! They can use any common weapon, but not the heavy weapons that Warriors can use. They also start with 2 extra skill points.
Well that's most of what I have so far. Space ships will ahve attributes likea character, but they won't be self aware necessarily.... And the list of potential weapons is staggering. What do you think?
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Post by feldrik on Sept 12, 2009 2:34:36 GMT -5
That sounds great!
Look at the Dark Isles thread. The ship combat method I gave to Hogscape was derived from my space craft combat method.
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Post by Aramis of Erak on Sept 12, 2009 4:59:41 GMT -5
I'll point out that, in general, with magic instead of technology, a lot of things will be VERY different from even Buck Rogers tech.
For example, the hull. It will only need to hold 1 atm in... so it's able to be thin sheet metal, or even lacquered leather over a frame... but a fly spell on it will mean it only has to be strong framed on the load-bearing platform. You won't need engines, so much as the correct spell focus. And that can be MUCH smaller... unless you come up with some metamagical theory that precludes small foci for large effect spells.
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Post by feldrik on Sept 12, 2009 7:52:17 GMT -5
To have a world with magic and tech the Psions could only have the non-combat, mentalist type spells. The other typesof spells become the mechanics for devices and wierd science.
Most players will equte the universe to Star Wars but that was based partly off of Buck Rogers as well.
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Post by feldrik on Sept 12, 2009 21:27:06 GMT -5
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Post by thorswulf on Sept 12, 2009 23:48:45 GMT -5
The whole Sword and Planet genre works well with T&T. I have some issues to hammer out about ranged combat. I like 4th edition mechanics for missles, but it does tend to get progressively nastier as your DEX gets higher. Of course a warrior who's one mean gunslinger with his blaster should be a bad ass in a fight! The standard SR ranged combat seems a bit out of proportion to the higher technology weapons at first, or is it? It certainly can be a bit more complicated, but not enough to hamper game play. And it allows for really high Dex characters to havea better chance to hit something. I think though that a beginning character with a DEX of 12 is going to have some serious problems.
One way around this the use of smart rounds for slug throwers, or some other high tech aiming gizmo that assists in hitting the target likea laser dot. Or perhaps weapons have an accuracy modifier that reflects the general ease of use due to handling, hand eye coordination, area affect versus linear fire, or something.
Thanks for link Feldrik! I love the old comic series! Some of my influence was from a short lived magazine that featured Frank Frazetta covers and had lots of indie comic strips in it. One was done by ONe of the Hildebrandt brothers that featured pirates in space. Cool art, cool gizmos too.
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Post by thorswulf on Sept 27, 2009 0:53:53 GMT -5
Had some more thoughts in recent light of some revelations concerning Flash Gordon/Sword & Planet gunplay. Most of the time, even in the serials, most shots are fired at a fairly close range. Extras get zapped, heroes narrowly avoid getting zapped and bad guys usually end up losing the gat and resort to fists or swords. So maybe saving rolls would work. Besides, what relly is the range of an atomic pistol?
Maybe some rethinking of races is in order too. I like Orcs, Ogres, Trolls, and so forth, but they really don't sound too sword & planet. But if we change them to Oroks or Urooks, Ogrons, and call the trolls Heltrolls or something they sound better. Most of the Flash Gordon races are simply Lion Men, Hawkmen, Fish men and the like. I'd guess use the closest monster multipliers, or weres for stat modification. Robots could be like living statues with a natural armor score equal to 1/5 to 1/3 their CON or STR, or something. More later
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kopf
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 211 
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Post by kopf on Dec 22, 2009 0:38:16 GMT -5
I'm working on a science fiction version of my Dark Isles setting for T&T. It will be different from some of the other sci-fi games in that technology never developed....
I am not that well read on "sorcery and space" games, like say Spell Jammer, so I do not have much of a comparison base to make a more informed comment. But I really hope to see this setting come to fruition. I especially love the term Aethernauts. |
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kopf
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 211
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Post by kopf on Dec 22, 2009 0:41:59 GMT -5
...Maybe some rethinking of races is in order too. I like Orcs, Ogres, Trolls, and so forth, but they really don't sound too sword & planet. But if we change them to Oroks or Urooks, Ogrons, and call the trolls Heltrolls or something they sound better. Most of the Flash Gordon races are simply Lion Men, Hawkmen, Fish men and the like. I'd guess use the closest monster multipliers, or weres for stat modification. Robots could be like living statues with a natural armor score equal to 1/5 to 1/3 their CON or STR, or something. More later |
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Post by feldrik on Dec 22, 2009 9:03:47 GMT -5
I watched the movie Flash (again) and, using that as a starting point, I am thinking most races on Mongo are varient human (transhuman is the term used these days). Even the Hawkmen seem to be using 'flight harnesses' designed to look like wings.
The only non-human species I see are the lizard men (and they look horribly oppressed) and those clunky gaurds in the football fight. They may just be varient humans though.
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kopf
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 211
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Post by kopf on Dec 24, 2009 23:59:25 GMT -5
I watched the movie Flash (again) and, using that as a starting point, I am thinking most races on Mongo are varient human (transhuman is the term used these days). Even the Hawkmen seem to be using 'flight harnesses' designed to look like wings. The only non-human species I see are the lizard men (and they look horribly oppressed) and those clunky gaurds in the football fight. They may just be varient humans though. |
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