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Messages - MAK

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
« on: May 02, 2012, 05:29:59 AM »
Quote from: eri on May 01, 2012, 11:01:26 PM
... Maybe something like have the top point be whatever time you're going for, hex just the top part if you're a focused practitioner, top three for sorcerers and their ilk and top five for wizards. Still on the No Way / Problematic / Ok scale of course. You'd have to extend the list of course.

First you'd have to define what approximate time periods you aim for and what is the High Tech for each, of course. Some sort of "tech level" definition that some games have - any existing usable scales that anyone knows of? Some relevant breakthroughs were already mentioned: gunpowder - steam - electricity - eletronics

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
« on: May 01, 2012, 08:38:57 PM »
Well, finally...

As for magic vs tech, I'd say any high tech appropriate for the period should pose problems. Once something has become "mainstream" enough, magic should not affect it any longer. Examples (no way / problematic / OK):

Present day - digital circuits / analog circuits / electricity
WWII - analog circuits / electricity / internal combustion
Victorian - electricity / internal combustion / gunpowder
Napoleonic - steam / gunpowder / ??
Renaissance - gunpowder / ?? / ??

As one goes further back it becomes harder to find susceptible technology and the whole hexing idea should be examined again (as discussed earlier in this thread)

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
« on: April 26, 2012, 04:54:49 AM »
Quote from: Orladdin on April 25, 2012, 01:36:06 PM
  Very sorry to derail your thread, but we slipped into the other topic slowly and I don't have authority to "split" it to its own without humungous effort (reposting everything).

Well does someone have that authority? I'd like to be able to continue to follow this thread now that there finally is discussion on the topic again...  ;)

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
« on: March 29, 2012, 05:48:42 PM »
... and it's not just about weapons, either. Hexing makes the use of pretty much any tech (basic communications, long distance travel, research with computers, etc, etc) hard/impossible for supernaturals and they must come up with magical alternatives. When you go to an earlier time period, these magical alternatives are still possible - but the mundane tech is not yet there.

So the balance shifts. Whether that is good or bad is of course up to the campaign, but it is a fact that should be understood when deciding to play in other time periods.

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
« on: March 26, 2012, 07:55:47 AM »
We gave mortals a bit more kick by incorporating the gadget rules from Spirit of the Century, which allowed "steampunkish" equipment to be available in limited amounts - think Leonardo's inventions in Assassin's Creed 2...

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
« on: March 24, 2012, 10:21:45 PM »
    Quote from: Pbartender on March 23, 2012, 03:36:37 PM

    • Hexing Complex electronics don't exist, and so another target for hexing will need to be identified...  Gunpowder and chemical processes?  Early clockworks and other machinery?  Compasses?  Or perhaps it's the classic signs of of the power of witchcraft, like nearby fires burning odd colors, animals spooking in the presence of wizards, milk curdling, etc...
    • Other Incidental Changes There's going to be some other relatively minor changes that are simply based on the change in scenery...  In a pirate game, for example, the list of gear will need to be changed to include muskets, cannons and cutlasses, but it doesn't really affect any mechanics, it is a rather obvious change, and can be handled as you play the game.

    Am I missing anything?  It seems that, mechanics-wise at least, there aren't a lot of changes to be made.  Most changes will lie in the historical background and plot.
    Something we noticed in the renaissance campaign was that the balance between mundane and supernatural characters became skewed because the level of technology available to mortals (and unavailable to wizards due to hexing) was not powerful enough. Without automatic or even breech-loading weapons, for example, the combat abilities of mortals are quite a lot lower than in the modern period. This is a topic you should think about when creating the equipment list and deciding how hexing works.

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    DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
    « on: March 22, 2012, 09:04:50 PM »
    Of course you don't have to. My point was that the further away you go from the way the game is described in the books, the more stuff you have to figure out by yourself. At some point the game can cease to be Dresden Files and become another FATE variant. So if I think about DFRPG in other time periods, I focus first on settings that produce something that is as close to DFRPG as possible except for the time period. What is it after all that makes a game Dresden Files? The mechanics? The genre? The setting?

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    DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
    « on: March 22, 2012, 08:23:35 PM »
    Yep, if you want to go back to a medieval-style fantasy there more fixing to be done. I considered that in the beginning when starting DFRPG, as we had played a pseudo-historical crusades-era setting before, but ended up forwarding the timeline a few hunderd years to get a more pulpy/swashbucklery feeling. Noir does not translate to heroic fantasy that easily. The basic premise of having the city as a fixed setting does assume a certain level of civilization - pretty much any age after gunpowder weapons is easy to use, but I could see a campaign set in late Roman Empire as well.

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    DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
    « on: March 22, 2012, 07:58:13 PM »
    Quote from: Pbartender on March 22, 2012, 07:45:22 PM
    Craftsmanship?

    I'd have thought it would have been split up between skills like Athletics (rowing), Scholarship (navigation), Presence (commanding a ship) and Survival (driving a team of horses).

    A lot of common sailor's skill is knowing the boat and what to do with all the equipment. So - craftmanship. Not that it has ever come up in the game... Commanding a ship and the kind of marine navigation skills needed in that era wouldn't really be covered with a "drive/pilot" kind of skill anyway. There could be a skill called Boating or something that covers handling of small sailboats (if really necessary in the setting), but commanding a large ship is a lot more specific than that.

    Drive skill is there for car chases but naval chases are lot less common - the heroes are supposed to fence on the deck and rigging, not work the rudder.

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    DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
    « on: March 22, 2012, 06:45:46 PM »
    Quote from: Orladdin on March 22, 2012, 06:33:30 PM
    Did you add a pilot/sail/teamster skill in its place?  After all, cars did not exist, but carriages, gondolas and ships were far more common.

    No, we rolled those trappings into Craftmanship and Survival instead. Situations where the characters drive or pilot a vehicle themselves (instead of using a driver or rower) don't really come up that much. Hired help is also far more common in that time period, after all.

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    DFRPG / Re: DFRPG In Other Time Periods?
    « on: March 22, 2012, 06:31:09 PM »
    We are currently running a renaissance era campaign set in Venice. Other than tweaking gear a bit and removing the Drive skill, everything works with only very minimal changes.

    Some logs in RPG Geek http://rpggeek.com/thread/672156/venetian-masks-1-city-creation

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    DFRPG / Re: A Compressed Skill List For Your Enjoyment
    « on: March 20, 2012, 07:21:30 AM »
    Quote from: Sanctaphrax on March 19, 2012, 10:49:33 PM
    I think that reducing the skill points you get by the ratio that the number of skills has been reduced by is a mistake. By that method, a Feet In The Water character using this skill list would have a grand total of 8 points. Not even enough for 1 Great skill.

    Yes, you are right in that the linear ratio approach does not work for as big a reduction as down to 10 skills. Seems to have worked fine on my homebrew of 18 skills, but I admit it was not tested for all power levels.

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    DFRPG / Re: A Compressed Skill List For Your Enjoyment
    « on: March 19, 2012, 09:05:15 AM »
    In my experience, the more a certain area of play is emphasized, the finer the distinctions between skills defining that area need to be. For example in a military campaign with very little in-game social activity you could increase the number of combat skills, while radically reducing social skills. On the other hand, for a campaign that focuses on character interactions the opposite is probably true.

    That's why I'm hesitant in accepting such a minimal skill list as originally proposed. When I tried the same, I could not compress the list to less than 18 skills (and that includes throwing out some trappings altogether).

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    DFRPG / Re: A Compressed Skill List For Your Enjoyment
    « on: March 19, 2012, 08:00:41 AM »
    I get your point and assume that the modeling of canon DF characters is one of the big reasons why the skill list is currently as it is. This is what I mean by "simulation" in my post: simulating the genre/source material as faithfully as possible. By the "story" end of the spectrum I try to say that it is not so important to have an accurate mechanical representation of the world, descriptions are enough ("anti-simulation"?)


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    DFRPG / Re: A Compressed Skill List For Your Enjoyment
    « on: March 19, 2012, 06:59:46 AM »
    I don't think there is a "problem" per se in the canon skill list, it's more a question of playstyle preferences... Some points I've previously thought up:

    Few skills <- vs -> many skills
    faster/fluffier <- character creation -> slower/crunchier
    more story <- gaming style -> more simulation
    simpler <- mechanics -> more complex
    more generic/similar <- character niche -> more optimized/individual

    These points of preference depend totally on the gaming group and campaign, so there is no correct answer or problem that needs solving. Some like less complexity in rules, some more.

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