Im out of my depth hereTL;DR Im trying to learn how to run a setting I have no experience with. Looking for setting influence. -I would like some help with this concept, post apocalyptic science fantasy. The idea that the world was propelled forward by magic tremendously, but then cataclysmic events reset civilization, and now were living in the post era. Im used to running Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Lancer, but this new group has requested me to run fantasy for them. I agreed, but I told them I wanted to draw from influences that im familiar with, the closest comparison I can think of is the Televison Show Adventure Time where there was technology and then a fall, and now we have magic and some science tech. Disparate cities and no main governing body. -So, im looking to add to my influence, are there any pre existing settings ? Are there any fun things you've ever wanted to do along these lines ?The writing is in its early stages and I have 2 months before session 0, so I plan to read a few books if possible.Aside from searching for influences, im hoping to walk the fine line of "long standing magic" and not having every problem already solved by magic. Like how do I explain not having teleportation after years of world ending magic spells. Can anyone help out, any feedback is welcome. Thank you ahead of time, im here all day, id be happy to answer any questions.
>>97260477>ShadowrunBasically what if the Great Ghost Dance had really worked. Earthdawn is an interesting thing to take a look at if you're 6th world knowledgeable. One of the easier ways to get around magic not just solving everything is some combination of >magic caused the apocalypse in such a way as to make it difficult to use at that scale againlike using magic eats the planet's soul and its tapped out or the magic moon got knocked out of orbit or something similar >magic is hard to teach and the large scale facilities for this and repositories of knowledge were destroyed for the most partgood for quest ideas to retrieve as well. Other thing to consider is most bog standard fantasy is partially post apocalyptic, roughly fall of rome/dark ages based. So you can draw on a lot of the already existing mythology of that most westerners have at least some familiarity with. A points-of-light setting is classic dnd setup of small isolated villages and a wild and untamed outside. Magic doesn't have to be consistent either, so don't worry too much about making sure all the bits line up at macro scale. What are you thinking of running it with?
>>97260517>>magic is hard to teach and the large scale facilities for this and repositories of knowledge were destroyed for the most partI havent chosen the actual plot yet. But this is where im leaning, find an organization thats looking to expand its magic knowledge again. Then create a plot-train that allows the players to visit cool locations with a new quest each month. > What are you thinking of running it with?Im leaning towards PF2E at the moment. I dont have many fantasy systems im familiar with. If theres anything that can copy Lancer, so far thats my favorite system.
>>97260477Watch the early seasons of Adventure Time (maybe up until the Lich episodes), Thundarr the Barbarian, Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, maybe check out the Kamandi comics for a gonzo post-apoc setting (though not with much magic), Gamma World is out there too. Numenera is ostensibly a setting that has undergone many rise and fall technological and magical apocalypses, but it just amounts to generic D&D fantasy with a silly hat on, and maybe you encounter a robot as a monster or whatever. I'd avoid it.
>>97260557> wizards was the verbatim, first thing I went to look at for inspiration Thank you, the comics seem like a very fun place I would enjoy stealing ideas from
>>97260552I'm learning PF2 myself to run another post-apocaliptic setting. The system itself is not too complex, but the amount of character customization (and the feats. So, so many of them) can be confusing at first. I'd recommend you limit the party's options to the basic rulebook and maybe the player guide.If you want to limit the availability of magic that's pretty easy to do by limiting the spell level your party can get to maybe lvl 3, and same with magic items; obtaining higher level spells might be part of the quest, like finding an old grimoire here and there that contains spells they might not be able to know otherwise. You can balance that by increasing the amount of spell charges they get at lower levels>If theres anything that can copy Lancer, so far thats my favorite system.I haven't played it but I have skim over the rulebook because of the mecha related stuff. Maybe you could run your campaign with it, if only because you're familiar with its workingConcerning the lore aspects you might be interested in checking Dark Sun, since its basic premise is practically what you described; unbriddled use of massive amounts of powerful spells in ages past has destroyed nature in the world and people living in the present have receded into low level tech (iron and especially steel are rare and expensive, reserved to social elites) and magical knowledge is forbidden to anyone but sorceror kings and their servants
>>97260477>Aside from searching for influences, im hoping to walk the fine line of "long standing magic" and not having every problem already solved by magic. Like how do I explain not having teleportation after years of world ending magic spells.Society has not yet rebuilt to the levels where there is organised research. Every wizard is an island unto himself, an ivory tower that lets no others in. Any surviving grimoires from before the end are precious items, and anything that requires multiple fields of expertise or long-term study is unlikely to be reconstructed or redsicovered today. In a post-apoc setting, there is no journal to publish in, let alone a board of peers to review your work.From there, decide what knowledge was commonly shared before the apocalypse, and what was guarded. It might be that there are a couple of "common" collections and tomes that every magical research institute had - one that taught the basics of a simple self-defense spell and one that taught you about the four things to NOT attempt to do when you're a basic level wizard.As a result of that, all the wizards in such a setting would know how to cast "I have +4 defense against magical attacks" which would make developing pointy-finger blaster magic kinda pointless, since literally every wizard is walking around with a big defense bonus against that 24/7. And every wizard is politely informed that if you try to develop teleportation magic without "The Threefold Triangles of Pilch and Bergum" you will inevitable end up fatally displaced across all three axis of space.That's just an example of course, tweak it to your needs.From there remember that most editions of D&D require you to study and learn a spell before you can actually cast it, enforce that and make "research" a long term persuit.For that, I recommend cribbing from Ars Magic, but I'll need a second post to ramble about Ars Magica.
>>97260650Please please ramble about Ars Magica, I know nothing, your knowledge is a valuable resource to me
>>97260686Aight so Ars Magica is not a game I recommend you use, for a couple of reasons, but I recommend looking into how it handles some stuff without using the whole game.>The setting is tied quite heavily into the system. >Things work on the dominant paradigm of the place and time, which is Mythic Medieval Europe. God exists as he was conceptualised then, and is thus the ultimate authority. The system is partially balanced around the fact that not only does the church have massive political power and influence, it's backed by the magic resistance that all clergy have and the anti-magic effects of holy ground (there's a lot more to it than that, but "you have trouble casting spells in church" is a good simplification)>The rules are crunchy, detailed, and tied into a very specific magic system. That's probably a whole post (to come in a minute)>The game itself works best when you have a mage and non-mage character per player, because mages are THAT given to spending seasons at a time researching in a lab while their thugs go off on a mission that is fun to roleplay.But that is a good thing to steal in theory - that there are mages who spend large stretches of their career holed up, consuming resources and performing delicate fiddly research into highly specific areas of magic. They probably work with a few other mages whose areas of interest overlap enough to be useful, but not so much that they argue endlessly. Like how if you get three paleoarchaeologists to study one fossil hominid, you want one who specialises in skulls, one in teeth, and one in spines or hands. That way they all know the vague area but each can defer to the highly granular expertise where it matters.Performing this research comes with significant risks, since in Ars if you fuck up casting a spell badly you eat nasty backlash, and a research spell is the definition of "not yet perfected".But those mages are very necessary for their contributions to magical research, and get paid.
>>97260614I dont plan to run Lancer for them, since theyre only familiar with D&D, however I have the intent to steal some mechanics like how they handle downtime, difficulty checks, and I have already stolen its skill system.Its more about asking "what are you trying to achieve" instead of what skill are you using.
>>97260713The other problem with ars magica is that the rules are badly formatted; important parts of a rule might be split up by paragraphs of other stuff, the indices suck, and there are a LOT of splatbooks.Anyway the system. Rolls in Ars are 1d10 + stat + skill + relevant modifiers. In Magic, you get TWO skills - form and technique. You also get the aura modifier for the current place you are - in a church, that's a negative aura because the Dominion impinges on your ability to cast. In your wizard's tower, built to magical specifications, that's a positive modifier for a Magical Aura. Also the d10 is fucky, if you roll a 1 you roll again and double it and if you roll a 0 you check for a botch.Spells are cast using your Stamina stat (because actual spellcasting, channelling magic through your body, takes a lot out of you, and from a meta perspective because it means mages have a stat other than intelligence to buy up regularly) + a form + a technique.the forms are what you are trying to influence, and the techniques are how you influence them>Creo - I create>Intellego - I perceive>Muto - I transform>Perdo - I destroy>Rego - I command>Animal (speaks for itself)>Aquam (water)>Corpus (the human body)>Herbam (plants)>Ignem (fire)>Imaginem (the senses)>Mentem (mind)>Terram (earth)>Vim (power)so a spell to dispel magic is Perdo Vim, a spell to create a mess of spiderwebs is Creo Animal. Everything you can do with magic is filtered through that very specific set of five verb and ten nouns. Downtime research is a huge part of the system AND the setting's traditions. Getting both short texts and longer books is a big part of it. So is the question "Are you gonna spend a week, or a month, or a whole season on this?". Having mages do good research for you gives you the time required to go and GET the thing you're paying them with - it might be that a wizard is constantly doing research A to get the thing needed for research B, to fund C, etc etc.
What could be useful is the ars magica p110 list of materials and their effects when casting spells, a useful crib sheet for things like "well I'm casting a protection spell on this room, I'll make the door itself the focus of the ritual" can eke roleplay out of players. Fudge the numbers as needed.It's also worth considering what the long term goals and proects of the average mage is, in the small leagues, the mainstream, and the big leagues.As they age, wizards tend to start researching longevity rituals. It's only natural to put it off when you're 20, and start thinking "Oh actually it's worth investing a few years now to mean this hip never gets any worse..." when they're 40something. Are wizards distracted by politics? Are they tolerated in politics? Is the court mage a poison pill position, lots of resources but you're constrainted into doing things you don't care about so you never have the time to spend that money and influence doing what you like?>"all wizards know a defense against magic spell" is cribbed from ars magica. The first spell a mage learns upon completing his training is the Parma Magica, a basic magical shield, that is so common you factor it into calculations by habit but also so important that teaching it to anyone outside of the Order of Hermes is an automatic death sentence no matter what.There's the consequences of fucking up magic. Magical fuckups cause Warping, which can effect individuals or items or even areas. Living in an area of a powerful magical aura causes you to check for Warping up to a point, where you become immune to gaining more Warping from living within an aura. This means mages almost always have warping to a certain point. Gaining too much Warping at once causes a Mage to trigger Wizard's Twilight. They may roll to resist it, or they may embrace it. They disappear for an amount of time based on their Warping, then reappear and roll to comprehend their mystic experience, or get fucked up and scarred by it.
>>97260838>>97260795>>97260713>>97260650This is a fantastic way to get started on the spell creation system I was interested in. Ive always wanted to permit the players to make their own spells in the game with a little bit of effort. I hope that I can find a PDF and dig in
Running a new setting is very, very easy. Here's what you do:>pick a system>map out a dungeon>run the gamefigure your setting out somewhere between the first and third sessions. Until then, answer every setting-related question with:>your character doesn't know that
>>97260895> Just run the game I hear you. But I want more than slop. As a GM I love when the story impresses the players, I dont just need to pass a week by week game with creatures. I need to understand the genre so that I can really do something worth while.
>>97260552>if there's anything that can copy LancerTry the things it was copying>dnd 4e>Strike! a bit of savage worlds.
>>97260865I'll throw ars on mega for you, when I last checked the PDF share threads are in a sorry state these days.
>>97260865aight, done. It's on the site I mentioned.folder>ye olde slashe goes herel58k0JwJ>ye olde hashe goes hereThDMYttIeZ>the line above is continued later in this postI'm only obfuscating in order to hopefully stop it getting crawled for "copied rite materials"3tl1dfHYsN2wI hope that is clear, and also serves as an example of wizards taking excess precaution for no reason. Never make it easy, because people respect you if everything you do requires an octogram sketched two meters wide, a surfeit of dribbly candles, five minutes of chanting and swaying, and a ram's skull.
>fantasy apocalypsetry Worlds Without Number
>>97260970>>97261055Thank you good Sage, im glad you have a love for this system and share it
>>97260968Never heard of Strike! But im so glad that I can get even more reading material to work off of. Anything besides making me run god darned 5e again.
>>97261147it's a difficult game to run. I am glad I know a guy who can hold most of a century of european history and politics in his head to the level of granularity required to run a long-term campaign, adapting what happens in response to both the setting's own magical bullshit and the multiple player groups going at the same time in his campaigns.It's hard not to fall in love with it despite and sometimes because of its jank. There are two kinds of roll - normal and stress. Stress means the situation is unpredictable, like a fight. With a stress roll, the fairly high rate of *checking* for a critical success or failure means that you get swingy moments where all the planning in the world can't help you... or where you survive against impossible odds because you lucked out or the other guy botched.In a lot of games, I would hate having a 1/10 chance for an important roll to botch (or crit) but in Ars, you take it in your stride. It helps that not every botch botches and not every crit crits.>roll a 1 on d10>ok roll again and double the die result, treating 0 as 10>this means that a potential "crit" could be a 1 followed by a 2-5, resulting in a die roll within the normal d10 results range>rolling another 1 means you roll again and double double it. But even then, a 1-1-2 means you just got the casino hype moment and then rolled an 8 where you could've rolled a 40>roll a 0 on d10>If you don't botch, you just rolled a zero (plus stat and skill and mods)>But first, check for botch. Ask the GM "how many" and roll that many d10. Each one that shows a 0 is a degree of botchitude>In combat that often means losing turns stunned, in magic it means a magical fuckup with warping.The most I ever saw rolled was fifty-one but that was a very, very special occasion. Usually it's a base of 1 out of combat, 3 in combat, going up to 3-6 total.Ars is in part balanced by the fact that sometimes, wizards just fucking explode when performing an important ritual.
