Aubrey's Steampunk Campaign

Game Master Aubrey the Malformed

Here is the description of the new and changed skills for the game. They are mostly d20 Modern skills, lightly amended.

One of the things I'd particularly like comment on is:

- I've amalgamated Disable Device into Craft (Mechanical); does this feel right?
- I've got a separate Repair skill; should that be amalgamated into Craft (Mechanical) or left as it is?

Do we need to sign in to see that document? I can't get to it (I'm sure I have a google login and password around somewhere, but bugger me if I know what it is ...)

Regarding Disable Device, Craft (Mech) and Repair, honestly I think there's a case to be made for keeping them all seperate, but I have no real problem with combining some or all of them. To me, repairing something (Repair) has more in common with making something (Craft) than breaking, disabling or otherwise manipulating it does. Although the jury-rig use of Repair (assuming you are using this) probably does sort of gel with Disable Device (ie, dodgying something so that it either doesn't work, or works just enough to get you by, rather than actually fixing it).

Aww man,....fatey said on facebook he's evacuating; his basement's flooding and his front steps are underwater.

Aww man,....fatey said on facebook he's evacuating; his basement's flooding and his front steps are underwater.

Crap.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Here is the description of the new and changed skills for the game. They are mostly d20 Modern skills, lightly amended.

One of the things I'd particularly like comment on is:

- I've amalgamated Disable Device into Craft (Mechanical); does this feel right?
- I've got a separate Repair skill; should that be amalgamated into Craft (Mechanical) or left as it is?

Do we need to sign in to see that document? I can't get to it (I'm sure I have a google login and password around somewhere, but bugger me if I know what it is ...)

Regarding Disable Device, Craft (Mech) and Repair, honestly I think there's a case to be made for keeping them all seperate, but I have no real problem with combining some or all of them. To me, repairing something (Repair) has more in common with making something (Craft) than breaking, disabling or otherwise manipulating it does. Although the jury-rig use of Repair (assuming you are using this) probably does sort of gel with Disable Device (ie, dodgying something so that it either doesn't work, or works just enough to get you by, rather than actually fixing it).

You shouldn't have to - maybe your computer security settings? Anyway, I've made it completely public now.

I'm inclined to agree with you. I think the term "Disable Device" is a bit naff for what is basically locksmithing and so on, but everyone knows what it is. I'll separate them (and Repair) as individual skills.

Aww man,....fatey said on facebook he's evacuating; his basement's flooding and his front steps are underwater.

So long as he and his are OK.

OK, here is the current draft of the Tough basic class. As noted above, the intention is to have two more - the "savant" and "sneak" (for want of better terms).

Here is the description of the new and changed skills for the game. They are mostly d20 Modern skills, lightly amended.

Well, I've just discovered I managed to completely delete this page, which is annoying.

Despite having thought up a rather amusing/annoying character I'd love to try out, I think I'll need to take a pass at this. I honestly don't think that I'll have the time or energy for one more campaign. I'll be lurking, though.

I suggest people decide when the game actually starts - I'm designing the system and working on the setting (largely in collaboration with you lot) - whether they have the time, as circumstances may change in the intervening likely several months. And even if you feel you can't play, I'd still be really keen for views and musings on the setting and game as you see fit.

Yeah, we're fine. Waters have receded from our street and they're letting us back into the building tonight, though we won't have power or hot water for a couple more days yet.

RE: Repair/Disable Device/Craft (Mech) - I am in favor of lumping Repair into Craft (Mechanical) since Craft is not often used but almost every class has it in-class. Disable Device, on the other hand, is a fairly exclusive skill for rogues only. It's also Dexterity-based, implying that it is a task more for nimble fingers than intelligent minds. Delicately removing a trap's spring mechanism is something that doesn't really require intellect (since your ranks in the skill presumably cover your "knowledge" of how to disable such devices) but is certainly a task for deft hands.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Here is the description of the new and changed skills for the game. They are mostly d20 Modern skills, lightly amended.

Well, I've just discovered I managed to completely delete this page, which is annoying.

That is annoying - do you have the info somewhere else that you can recover it from?

I hope there was not too much damage done Fatespinner.

Okay.

Lief Ericksson discovers Vinland.

For whatever reason, the "skraelings" DON'T drive him into the sea; they end up trading, and the great plains horsemen get going hundreds of years before the Spaniards would've marched into Mechica and do the place in.

Also,....I don't think the "Aztecs" were even there yet, the Mayans were though.

So......the great plains horse tribes, new and improved with viking steel, do what any good hyksos/scythian/mongol/horde of horse barbarians would do to a farming civilization without horses: they ride in and take over.
What you end up with is a crew of mandans (think Man Called Horse) with the fun "Sun Ritual," overseeing the Mayan Empire, instead of the "Mechica."

Just a thought.

Doty dot!

This looks like it's coming along nicely...

Just to throw a spanner in the works. How would you see an Alchemist style character fitting in? Drop the mutigen/potion angle, and stick to the bombs/skill monkey parts....

Doty dot!

This looks like it's coming along nicely...

Just to throw a spanner in the works. How would you see an Alchemist style character fitting in? Drop the mutigen/potion angle, and stick to the bombs/skill monkey parts....

I thought about it, but concluded "No". The system in PF is too magical to really fit well with a low magic setting. However, the Craft (Chemical) and Handle Explosives skills will probably cover this off anyway.

Okay.

Lief Ericksson discovers Vinland.

For whatever reason, the "skraelings" DON'T drive him into the sea; they end up trading, and the great plains horsemen get going hundreds of years before the Spaniards would've marched into Mechica and do the place in.

Also,....I don't think the "Aztecs" were even there yet, the Mayans were though.

So......the great plains horse tribes, new and improved with viking steel, do what any good hyksos/scythian/mongol/horde of horse barbarians would do to a farming civilization without horses: they ride in and take over.

What you end up with is a crew of mandans (think Man Called Horse) with the fun "Sun Ritual," overseeing the Mayan Empire, instead of the "Mechica."

Just a thought.

Mayan civilisation largely collapsed under its own steam. Plus I like the Aztecs as they were raging psychos (no one does a blood ritual like an Aztec), I've been to a couple of Aztec exhibitions so I've got vague knowledge, and anyway I have other reasons. In any case, I'm envisaging a much larger Mexica empire (up into what is the southern United States - yep, in my world you're an Aztec, Heathy) which would also absorb the Mayans anyway. The original Vinland colonists may have sailed south to have contact with the Mayans, but they would have had their hands full with their local skraelings so maybe didn't push that far. After all, for hundreds of years they wouldn't have had much of a technological advantage anyway.

However, I like your suggestion that the Vinland raiders would have reintroduced horses into the Americas, as it gives a good reason for why the Castillian's lost. And with the plains indians now on horseback and toting guns, we have a plausible cowboys and indians - only the cowboys are European settlers or Vinland traders/raiders.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Here is the description of the new and changed skills for the game. They are mostly d20 Modern skills, lightly amended.

Well, I've just discovered I managed to completely delete this page, which is annoying.

That is annoying - do you have the info somewhere else that you can recover it from?

No - but I can reproduce it fairly easily.

To possibly expand on the earlier list of careers (as follows):

Soldier
Navy
Criminal
Professional
Mill Worker
Farm Worker
Aristocrat
Academic
Doctor
Urchin
Clergyman
Policeman

I think there is a place for the following careers / occupations:
Adventurer (Adventurers include professional daredevils, big-game hunters, relic hunters, explorers, extreme sports enthusiasts, field scientists, thrill-seekers, and others called to face danger for a variety of reasons.)
Athlete (you probably wouldn’t have professional athletes in this time period / setting, but you could have skilled amateur athletes).
Creative / Artist
Dilettante
Investigative (I can see sort of quasi Sherlock Holmes style investigators or spies fitting this setting).
Occultist (Something like the Shadow Scholar occupation – doesn’t know any magic, but a student of the occult.)
Scientist (Something like the Apothecary occupation)

I realise that you’ve covered some of these (or similar) with PrCs, but I can see all of them having a place as backgrounds / careers as well.

Also, on your original list, is ‘Mill Worker’ like a factory worker, or someone who works in a rural setting?

"Mill" is northern English for factory ("There's trouble at' mill!"), which is why I went with a bit of local colour. Maybe you guys don't sing "Jerusalem" so much down under (it's compulsory every morning here) but the line about "dark Satanic mills" is talking about factories.

Happy with Adventurer. Happy with Athlete (I assume you are talking about cricket?). Creative/Artist - yes.

Dilettante - no, not so much. A dilettante is basically covered by aristocrat, since the classic dilettante is an American plutocrat and, in this world, they don't exist - most rich industrialists in Europe (in the UK anyway) bought titles or married them, and so joined the aristocracy that way. Nevertheless, the dilettante and the aristocrat would be similar mechanically, so it's more a re-skinning for the setting than anything else.

Investigative - I was thinking of creating a "Consulting Detective" PrC. I'm a bit reluctant to make it an opening career. We have Policeman for that and while Holmes isn't one of them, I could see him as an academic (which I might re-skin to "Scholar" to cover off the non-professional aspect rather than exclusively someone who works at a university).

Occultist - that would be a PrC, probably most likely to be entered via the Scholar occupation. Again, reluctant to make magic too easy for reasons of setting.

Scientist - I'd imagine that this could be covered off by Scholar. The term "scientist" is, in any case, a fairly new invention in the 19th century.

I thought about it, but concluded "No". The system in PF is too magical to really fit well with a low magic setting. However, the Craft (Chemical) and Handle Explosives skills will probably cover this off anyway.

That's cool.

Jerusalem? Rock on.

Oh, something else … no, we don’t sing it much, to be honest I had to look it up to see what you were talking about. I don’t know, my mother was born and bred in the UK, you’d think she’d have taught me these things, I blame her heathen upbringing …

All good with the other points, just thought I’d throw some things out there. Changing academic to scholar does seem a good choice, throws the net a little more widely.

Craft, Repair, and Disable Device
My initial reaction to say they all deserve their own skill, at least from a conceptual standpoint. Admittedly, there seems to be a lot of redundancy (mostly between Craft and Repair), but I'm okay with that - as it allows characters to choose what's appropriate to their background and niche.

Craft remains the most robust. A person has been trained to make and repair objects within a certain field. Seems straightforward enough.

Given that, the Repair skill could be the ability to see something, be able to gauge roughly what would make it work again (without necessarily knowing all the little details of how it was put together), and get it running. I had an uncle like this. He wasn't trained as a AC guy or a plumber or anything, but the guy could spend a few minutes tinkering with something and come up with a solution that would make it run again for somewhere between 5 minutes and a year. IF you went this direction, I'd base it on Wisdom because it kind of depends on a character's ability to see the problem without knowing all the details of the design. The other benefit of this is a character with Repair could repair anything... regardless of what Craft skill it required to make.

Disable Device (as Mothman pointed out) also seems like another animal altogether. Seems like something a light-fingered, soft-touch thief could do. The only question I have is how would this skill interact with explosives? It seems like they should be related, but then it feels like your thief all of a sudden is an explosives expert of some sort. I don't know.

Background careers
Seems like there should be a Mechanic starting career? The guy who runs/upkeeps the train? The guy who works as a general repair man in factories or on ships? That's the only one I thought of that didn't seem to be represented on that list.

The Colonies, Mexica, Native Columbians (skraeligs), and the Wild, Wild West!
Being from Texas, the collective ideas make me happy in a possibly-inappropriate way.

I whole-heartedly embrace your desire for a Wild West element. To me that's just as much about geographical location as it is technology and societies. It's about Europa-descended folk mixing with fringe Mexica and savage natives in a variety of settings, from plains to desert to mesa to mountain. And this is where I'm not sure what your vision is. Would this Wild West happen along the east coast of Columbia? That feels like the wrong backdrop for the Wild West.

Maybe - given the fact that the colonies might have been planted via air-ship instead of traditional water-passage - the colonies that thrived did so in places where they could simply get a toe-hold. On the east coast this was due to a less aggressive native people? Maybe the native columbians along the coast are a bit less aggressive to outsiders and actually worked with the colonies to help them survive the brutal winters? But maybe some of the colony-planting air-ships made it south around Florida and into the gulf - depositing settlers in and around Louisiana and the Texas gulf coast? They might have gotten a toe-hold in an area where the Mexica peoples didn't dominate (too far north) and spread west/northwest from there, making their way into more and more inhospitable lands?

The only reason I suggest this is because then you get very wild-west-lookign colonies in western Texas and New Mexico areas, which seems appropriate. They kind of landed in the lands the Native columbians were less interested in because of the harshness of the land?

I don't know..just some thoughts.

Craft, Repair, and Disable Device

My initial reaction to say they all deserve their own skill, at least from a conceptual standpoint. Admittedly, there seems to be a lot of redundancy (mostly between Craft and Repair), but I'm okay with that - as it allows characters to choose what's appropriate to their background and niche.

Craft remains the most robust. A person has been trained to make and repair objects within a certain field. Seems straightforward enough.

Given that, the Repair skill could be the ability to see something, be able to gauge roughly what would make it work again (without necessarily knowing all the little details of how it was put together), and get it running. I had an uncle like this. He wasn't trained as a AC guy or a plumber or anything, but the guy could spend a few minutes tinkering with something and come up with a solution that would make it run again for somewhere between 5 minutes and a year. IF you went this direction, I'd base it on Wisdom because it kind of depends on a character's ability to see the problem without knowing all the details of the design. The other benefit of this is a character with Repair could repair anything... regardless of what Craft skill it required to make.

Disable Device (as Mothman pointed out) also seems like another animal altogether. Seems like something a light-fingered, soft-touch thief could do. The only question I have is how would this skill interact with explosives? It seems like they should be related, but then it feels like your thief all of a sudden is an explosives expert of some sort. I don't know.

Background careers
Seems like there should be a Mechanic starting career? The guy who runs/upkeeps the train? The guy who works as a general repair man in factories or on ships? That's the only one I thought of that didn't seem to be represented on that list.

The Colonies, Mexica, Native Columbians (skraeligs), and the Wild, Wild West!
Being from Texas, the collective ideas make me happy in a possibly-inappropriate way.

I whole-heartedly embrace your desire for a Wild West element. To me that's just as much about geographical location as it is technology and societies. It's about Europa-descended folk mixing with fringe Mexica and savage natives in a variety of settings, from plains to desert to mesa to mountain. And this is where I'm not sure what your vision is. Would this Wild West happen along the east coast of Columbia? That feels like the wrong backdrop for the Wild West.

Maybe - given the fact that the colonies might have been planted via air-ship instead of traditional water-passage - the colonies that thrived did so in places where they could simply get a toe-hold. On the east coast this was due to a less aggressive native people? Maybe the native columbians along the coast are a bit less aggressive to outsiders and actually worked with the colonies to help them survive the brutal winters? But maybe some of the colony-planting air-ships made it south around Florida and into the gulf - depositing settlers in and around Louisiana and the Texas gulf coast? They might have gotten a toe-hold in an area where the Mexica peoples didn't dominate (too far north) and spread west/northwest from there, making their way into more and more inhospitable lands?

The only reason I suggest this is because then you get very wild-west-lookign colonies in western Texas and New Mexico areas, which seems appropriate. They kind of landed in the lands the Native columbians were less interested in because of the harshness of the land?

I don't know..just some thoughts.

I'm seeing the airship as a relatively new invention, and an extremely expensive one, so it wouldn't be a mass transit system (think of aviation in the 1930s, for example). So I wouldn't expect it necessarily to have a big impact on settlement in Columbia - most people would move large distances by boat, with only a very wealthy few travelling by airship.

Also, there is the possibility that settlers from other European powers may also be in Columbia - the Louisiana Purchase was actually as massive tract of land bought by the US Government from Napoleon to finance his wars (i.e. not just the modern state of Louisiana) so there could be some big tracts there.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Great Plains are more or less west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies. That's obviously quite a long way away from the east coast, but it doesn't preclude Europeans being there, and maybe having a few settlements (particularly along the Mississippi).

But it is true it would be quite different in character to the "standard" Wild West ideas, particularly with the wagon trains and so on. It would probably have more of a Lewis and Clark feel over much of it, as the "Native Columbians" would be the norm, rather than the later period when the Indian Wars were going on or had ended. But certainly on the edges, say down near the Mississippi, where the Europeans of New Orleans speak French and Aztec agitators stir up the locals, you can plausibly see some gun fights, saloons and so on. So a Wild West, but a different Wild West.

On the other stuff, Mechanic might be a good idea - it could be the Chief Engineer of an airship, maybe. And like you I'm coming round to demerging Disable Device, Craft (Mechanical) and Repair.

To some extent, this isn't something I'm going to agonise over too much - the campaign will primarily take place in Asia - though I appreciate it helps to orient people in the world (and I guess several of you are American, and so are interested).

i wondered if that was going to be the case about the Wild West not really being the central back-drop or anything, but it's still cool to see how you're thinking of implementing it.

... the campaign will primarily take place in Asia...

Now this is a fun little drop. Now all i want to do is concept out a Short Round character (this is in no way a joke :D). Anyone in the market for a side-kick?

"Hey lady! You call him Doctor Jones!"

"Wow! Holy smoke! Crash landing!"

Eben's character will be the first to die.

Just to let you know, this is still alive, I've just had less time to devote to it lately.

Ha! whaaaaaaaa?

Alas, poor Short-Round! I knew him….

Here is the long-promised list of skills for this campaign. Your comments would be welcome.

Hey, Aubry, sorry to barge in. I know that I'm not a player in this game, but I would love to see the skills.

Here is the long-promised list of skills for this campaign. Your comments would be welcome.

Possible to set them so that we don't need to sign in to view?

Duh - forgot to change the sharing settings. Hopefully it should work now.

Before anyone gets too excited, these are pretty much the ones from d20 Modern that are suitable to a semi-Victorian steampunk setting.

Duh - forgot to change the sharing settings. Hopefully it should work now.

Before anyone gets too excited, these are pretty much the ones from d20 Modern that are suitable to a semi-Victorian steampunk setting.

Those look cool, they sparked two character concepts anyway.......

Quick question about Craft and Repair. If I want a character capable of both creating a lock and repairing a lock, do I need ranks in both Craft and Repair? Or can Craft do double-duty as long as it's within the specific Craft skill?

The rules look like I would need both skills to do both, but I wanted to know if that was the intention. (Or if i missed some piece of text somewhere.)

We had a brief discussion earlier in the context of Repair, Craft and Disable Device. I think the way I am seeing it is that if you want to create a new lock from scratch, you need Craft. If you want to fully repair one as good as new, you still need Craft. If you want to quickly bodge one together, or get one to work for the next few minutes (so you can run away or whatever), Repair is the skill. That, at least, is how I read it, anyway. Repair gives you a sort of knack with string and chewing gum, but not how to genuinely make something good in the long term.

A quick post to stop this dropping into the archives and losing all of its dots.

Just glad to see this idea hasn't died. I like where you're taking it.

Aubrey, you care if I steal a whole bunch of these ideas for a game I may end up running? I just really like a lot of the work you've put into this thing, and it'd work so well with what I'm thinking.

Thief!

No problem. It's gone into abeyance a bit and it's not like I own any copyright, so go ahead.

Well, how about I use it, and make sure to give you credit all over the place? :)

Copyright or no, I want to make sure to respect your creative thoughts here.

Sure - let me know what you do and how it goes, I'd be interested.

Resurrection dotting.