| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pathfinder friends,
I've taken a break from the forums since the summer to get through my first semester of nursing school, but I'm contemplating offering a new game in 2022 now that the next semester will only be 3 days a week.
I've become sort of interested in the steampunk genre, and was thinking of using these settings and some homebrew:
The Thunderscape pdf, and about a half dozen supplements, can be had for a dollar each, so it's fairly accessible for anyone who wants to take a look. I'd be happy to cut and paste individual races and classes, but I don't want to get into reproducing whole sections of the book -- like all the races or all the classes or all the kingdoms.
So, the major issue I would want to talk about is campaign format and expectations. This would not be an AP style with a really strong central arc, but more of an episodic, sandbox open world, MMO style game. Think something like Daggerfall or Everquest.
What's the difference? For example, many of the city maps in APs or campaign supplements are impressionistic and only detail major areas. I'm imagining something very different. Here's a city map with every one of its 30,000 + individual buildings drawn in Sample City. In this format, you'd be moving through the different sectors street by street, building by building, and I'd generate what you'd encounter with a combination of homebrew, procedural generation tables, and improvisation. Same thing with wildernesses and dungeons -- if you start on a journey/encounter, there will be a huge map and you move through areas and decide what to do on a sector by sector basis.
This would necessitate a different approach to story telling -- most of the narrative will emerge from player choices and exploration, and so will require a more proactive player-style than most APs. I think that's necessary to make clear at the outset in a recruitment thread 'sessions zero' because the game would bog down quickly if everyone is waiting for 'the plot' to happen when there isn't really any assumed narrative. The starting scenario might be the players hanging out in a saloon and they have to decide which of 36 patrons, if any, to talk to, after hearing some local rumors, and there's no assumed course of action.
This means the focus of the game will be heavily on scenery and worldbuilding elements like made up languages (I have a conlang generator I'll be using that makes entire languages with grammars and 2,000+ word vocabularies), descriptions of strange locales, and other local color. If that kind of detail/emphasis seems unnecessary, completely unimportant compared to a plot arc, or otherwise unappealing, I think this will be a frustrating experience.
The style/genre would be something like Cowboys and Aliens, Bone Tomahawk, and Deadlands. I.e. 'Weird West.
For battlemaps, I'm interested in using Foundry VTT. Player accounts are free, and I own a dm account. It is very pretty -- like playing a video game. The way this would work is I'd chop up my 46,000 pixel square pixel city maps into 100 sectors and post individual ones to explore like an old bioware isometric. Some of the maps are going to be like 8,000-16,000 pixel squares, so it will be helpful to have a good graphics card and memory.
I'm thinking much simpler build rules than I normally propose. Something like 3rd level, 20 pt. buy or some simple rolling scheme, some additional traits, feats, and cantrips, maybe elephant feat tax rules and background skills. I'm interested in focusing on the story-telling and role-playing element.
Another option, because of the magitech elements, would be to use the FFd20 rules.
I've been wanting to play with the FFd20 rules for a long time, if that's the direction taken I'd be very interested
I think we can probably model everything mechanically from the steampunk material with the FFd20 material, so I'm open to that if that's the preference.
I do love some steampunk, and I own Pure Steam already.
With using a virtual tabletop, would this be something where there would be scheduled sessions or would it be used more as an aid for a forum style game?
It would be play by post with the virtual tabletop as a visual aid. I'm only interested in players that would find that engaging and exciting -- if it seems like too much work, or unnecessary, or big images are going to annoy you for some reason, this is definitely not going to be a good game for you.
The question was to understand the time commitment the game would require. It's one thing to have an established play time for multiple hours in comparison to being able to dedicate some time each day to getting caught up and responding. I've been working to better myself in my commitments to play-by-post, but would not want to attempt a session style game online at this point in time.
I'm really not familiar with Foundry, but I've heard of it. It could be a great chance to experience a bit of what it has to offer.
I have a crazy school schedule and I think people are frequently in different time zones, I'm not even contemplating trying to do scheduled sessions. The way I'm imagining DMing this will also only work as play by post since I may roll on a bunch of tables to generate an encounter. I wouldn't be able to do that easily in real time if I have to go look for maps or something.
Makes sense. The game sounds interesting. It could be fun to have a bit more free reign to develop our characters' stories in a collaborative way. I'll pick up the PDfs and take a look. Thanks for getting back to me.
Is the Pure Steam and Thunderscape the only third party material allowed, or is other stuff - like the Machinesmith and Spheres of Might Technician - also on the table with you permission? Might as well winnow down my options before I start seeing what I can make.
FFD20 was also mentioned as a possibility.
Is the Pure Steam and Thunderscape the only third party material allowed, or is other stuff - like the Machinesmith and Spheres of Might Technician - also on the table with you permission? Might as well winnow down my options before I start seeing what I can make.
I'm open to other stuff, including ffd20, though we should just use the latter if we're going to use it.
We're still short several players for a game, so that's just prospective
The FFD20 rules work for me, too. Hopefully more people come to have fun.
This looks really cool but my computer is a potato at the moment. Like a hand-me-down-from-a-business potato. I don't think it'd handle it very well, it gets chunked when maps on Roll20 get too big.
I've got several irons in the fire, but FFD20 sounds really interesting. Count me interested.
Ok I'm thinking about it a bit more, and what I'm going to propose for a setting is going to be a bit of a mash up.
I'm thinking of taking Khorvaire from Eberron and re-mixing it together with the true steam north America setting and Aden from Thunderscape, as well as some ideas from the homebrew settings from this FFd20 adaptation, as well as al-qadim and Valisthea from FF XVI. The setting would be the Blade Desert and Valenar on Khorvaire, which would have a pulp Arabia vibe -- this are would also have elements of the Rhanate. There would be more explicit steampunk elements than the canon setting.
I'd try to string together some converted Al-Qadim adventures from TSR and dungeon magazine.
I'll make up a discord channel if that sounds interesting and we can discuss some ideas.
Sounds potentially interesting, yeah.
I am very interested if it is the FFd20 rules. Been wanting to play them since I found out about them.
Looks like someone else is doing FFd20, and Monkeygod and I have come up with a different idea for a game if anyone is interested: Mythic Campaign
I'll consider doing a homebrew steampunk idea with the following caveats/requirements:
I don't want to run the recruitment besides setting some basic parameters (level, allowed races, classes, etc.). If someone will volunteer to do that, I will be more likely to feel like I can do another game.
I also want a DM helper to help track combat rules (hitpoint totals and effects per character, etc.). I basically just want to be responsible for rolling for the monsters' attacks.
These can be the same or different people.
Also, I've been experimenting with different VTTs, and I'm interested in using Astral right now (is free). I would basically be interested in this game as a platform for testing out some mapping and VTT tech like animations and sound. Here's an example of the kind of map i make for VTT: Mountain Fort Map. This map is 50,000x50,000. I made it from some pre-made vtt maps and some of my own editing and assets. You'd have to be interested in wandering around something like that with animations (there's stuff on Astral that can put a glowing wall of fire around things, etc.).