Greetings /tg/!
I will be spending most of the next 24 hours painting and cleaning.
While doing so, I'd like to work on rpg ideas in my head, but all my own have reached a research and require more input stage.
If you have any unpolished ideas, or ideas that bring up more questions than answers, I'll whistle them out while I work.
Damn it.
I put the subject in the options field I think.
Rough rpg ideas explained or explored.
I'm thinking fluff more than crunch.
Also, other anons are more than welcome to toss in their two bits.
>>44269988
I've been thinking about a steampunk setting where the industrial revolution never happened, but technology advanced by about as much. Airships are fucking amazing, Guns and cars take a skilled craftsman years to make and are kept for generations, The Amerindian confederacy lives in a neutral zone between the rival superpowers of Albion and The New World. The Law-wheel cult has taken over everything east of india and south of Mongolia, and is sending out missionaries which superstitious monotheists are calling 'the Meek'. 'The Meek' are anti-technology but develop their natural 'magneto-metabolic' powers to a greater degree than anyone else.
Typical classes: Sky privateer (Albian), Scout (Amerindian), Tinker (New Worlder), Falun initiate (Oriental)
Some questions I'm unsure of...
What's happening in Africa? How about the middle east?
Where is technology ahead of ours? Anything where a few products can employ a lot of people would probably be more advanced - so submarines, zeppelins, maybe even rockets, could be more advanced than ours. Meanwhile daily conveniences that require a lot of uniformity, like transistors, would probably be too expensive for all but the wealthiest. How would that play out?
Anything else the setting suggests?
>>44270899
Okay, some questions before I go too far into it.
>industrial revolution never happened, but technology advanced by about as much.
I can interpret this a number of ways:
You do mean that they have roughly the same level of technology as the industrial revolution, 1700's to 1800's, only where those events never happened, and instead "steampunk" events happened?
If so, at roughly what time period did this reality shift from our own?
I imagine steampunk settings diverging at the beginning of the renaissance, with a steampunk renaissance.
>Amerindian, Albion and The New World.
Two big powers, one smaller one in between gotcha.
>The Law-wheel...
Interesting faction, where is India and Mongolia in regards to the other three?
>'magneto-metabolic'
I imagine a sort of telekinesis based on electromagnetic properties. Like a baby Magneto.
If that is right then your name works, if not then what is it?
How common are these powers and what is there scope?
Could, say, underdeveloped African tribes lacking technology utilize their weak powers with great numbers, to achieve greater feats, thereby supporting their false religions with rituals that work?
>Sky privateer (Albian), Scout (Amerindian), Tinker (New Worlder),
I think I get these.
>Falun initiate (Oriental)
Falun is a city in Sweden, so I'm not sure what this is.
>What's happening in Africa?
Tribal shamans vs. Colonists wearing pit helmets with gears?
>How about the middle east?
Old, fanatic religions would be resistant to The Meek. Plus desert applications of steampunk tech.
>transistors
Transistors are huge. Watching Stargate SG-1 made me realize how epic walkie-talkies are for combat. If the Jaffa had used them, Earth would have lost many time over. Of course not all radios use transmitters and crystal rectifier detectors just scream steampunk.
>>44272078
I forgot to ask if it is modern day with that level of tech, or still the 1800s.
It matters because of the amount of time tech and cultures had to develop between the shift and the current period.
I should add that I am not an expert on steampunk or history, I just extrapolate well.
>>44272078
>not all radios use transmitters
not all radios use *transistors*
And now, since I've corrected my own post twice, I look autistic.
Back to cleaning.
>>44272078
Answers...
>Where did the time period shift?
I imagine it as a single event - Eli Whitney (inventor of the assembly line and interchangeable components) dying at a young age, and consequently mass production never really caught on. But comparable scientific advances, and people developing their innate abilities to a larger degree when mind numbing factory work wasn't an option. So it would take place in the same year as now, but technological advances for the last few centuries diverged.
>Magneto-Metabolic
Not the best name maybe - in the 1800's, spooky stuff like seances, hypnosis and faith healing were lumped under the general category of 'magnetism'. It sounds weird, but of course magnetism was the most verifiable example of 'spooky action at a distance' at that time. If rather than being debunked as superstition this school of study stayed in vogue for centuries, there might be a lot of old timey scientific language to explain the Orientals' 'muscle wizard' powers.
As for mass use, I imagine that would be one reason why the Amerindian confederacy is able to resist incursions into its territory despite having low tech.
As for how widespread/powerful it is - I imagine everything parapsychologists seriously study today not only works but is more powerful due to a double placebo effect (damping in our world, exacerbating in that one). Imagine a world where the guy in this video would be noteworthy but not unique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F3ovb2kZ9Q
>Where are India and Mongolia
I would imagine India is nominally Albian with revolutionary elements being sponsored by the new world.
With guns much more expensive, Mongolia might still be a big steppe of tribal archers where armies don't come back from. Or maybe zeppelins with gatling guns have shifted the balance.
>Falun
The 'Law Wheel' faction is based on the modern 'Falun Dafa' movement ('Falun' is 'Law Wheel' in Mandarin). I imagine a totalitarian Buddhist cult with kung fu powers.
>>44272128
I kind of answer this in the first paragraph. Just to be explicit it's this era, without mass production of manufactured goods.
>>44272814
>>44272997
Okay, so a world of craftsmenship instead of industry.
Cities full of crafters, apprentices, and worskhops instead of factories.
You are right in that a lot of modern conveniences would never get made for anyone but the wealthy.
Things like laundry and possibly cooking would be done communally in places outfitted with the tech to accomplish it.
People in cities would have ice for iceboxes delivered, possibly clean water and sewage removal as well, since uniform pipes might not be as prevalent.
Since mass congreation to the cities for factory jobs would not have happened, as workshops could be set up anywhere, and also since crafted parts would need to be transported to be assembled, transportation would be highly advanced.
I'm thinking trains and airships.
I'm working on it.
>>44273505
Cool! looking forward to your ideas
I like the 'steampunk desert tech' idea.
Riddles are magical bitcoins. They wrap a certain amount of magical energy up in a logical binding. Riddles can be transferred, but a lot of business is done on credit though a sphinx middleman. riddles can be transferred into any physical object which can be inscribed upon
>>44269988
Do you take multiple requests at the same time?
Thinking up new concepts for my own high-fantasy setting because reasons, probably never going to use it in anything. I want the defining feature to be about a kind of Elemental Nature, which is basically that every compound, material, and atom that exists has this (almost?) supernatural force not like an electrical charge that sustains and maintains the features of the respective compounds. It makes refined metal hard, that sort of thing. Except, I also want this feature to be how magic works as a mechanism in the setting via manipulating the elemental nature of compounds to subtle effects. E.g. leeching the EN (elemental nature) out of a sword tends to soften the blade and make it unsound.
I moved toward a more strict 'certain elements have certain EN effects' ideology, though I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole. Just a bit of explanation and the rest is "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit."
I've... expanded on this concept to define how stuff like dragons exist. In a way that they are overgrown lizards who got smart and learned to manipulate several kinds of combustion based compounds, even developing glands that store these compounds to be used 'in fire breathing', go figure. Only, to reach dramatic effects, I explain it as the stripping of EN out of compounds to destabilize the whole 'sustain' part and make it explode with specific forms of energy or radiation. In the case of, say, sulfur, stripping the EN from it causes it do burn, explode, and leave poison smoke in it's place.
Essentially, I'm trying to think up how this might define entire ecosystems and cultures based on this concept, as well as destructive and targetted magic (fire balls as a form of deliberate EN stripping of certain compounds, etc).
>>44274844
Desert Steampunk Tech:
My first thought was that sand + gears = bad.
So how do they cover their gears?
What material do they have an abundance of?
Glass.
But then the glass would trap all the heat from the sun in the gearboxes.
And then I remembered that heat is a friend to steam technology.
Solar powered, glass enclosed steam engines with thick, stone enclosures to condense the steam vapors to prevent them being lost to the arid desert air.
Perhaps the desert steam tech would employ another liquid entirely, as clean water is rare.
Their devices would be smooth and glisten in the bright sun.
Any citizen using the tech would wear sungoggles, to shield their eyes from the glare.
The glasswork workshops would export worldwide.
Trains would be be impractical in the shifting sands of the desert, so large skiffs with large wheels would be used on occasions when animal transport is unfeasible and airships too expensive.
I have a few other ideas I might polish later.
>>44275022
One of the problem with all minted currency is counterfeiting.
This remains true of the currency of Riddles as well.
As unsolved riddles may be passed and exchanged for goods and services, just as any form of payment, it is possible for a skilled enough wizard to craft "false riddles" that hold only a fraction of the magical energy a riddle would.
These "false riddles" often bear inscrutable, unsolvable nonsense riddles, to prevent the holder from solving it and revealing the fraud.
The illusion sometimes holds until the riddle passes under the gaze of a sphinx.
Any sphinx will be able to detect the fraudulent riddle immediately.
And, their method of justice for the crime is somewhat dramatic.
They employ djinn to ferret out the wizard that forged the riddle and if the severity of the offence is great enough, they utilize a powerful punishment.
They place the offender under a geas with an accompanying manacle on either a wrist or ankle for the duration of their sentence.
The magic inherent in the manacle compels the wizard to assist the djinn in hunting down other criminals.
>>44275976
>I'm trying to think up how this might define entire ecosystems and cultures based on this concept,
This one was a little too large and abstract for me.
It's difficult to say how this essence magic would affect ecosystems and the like.
If you're suggesting that animals and other unintelligent features of the world are able to sustain or leech this essence, than the effects would be far too widespread to envision.
It would be easier to imagine a scenario or setting aspect you'd like and imagine how these essences would naturally be affected to cause such an environment.
Sorry I couldn't be more help.
I came with a neat little scene to write up about the steampunk setting, but I have to grab a couple hours of sleep.
If the thread survives, I will post it.
If it doesn't, I post it later anyway.
Thanks for the mental chewing gum anons.
>>44279671
>he's an elemental lord of air
>she's a diviner who shorts stocks
>they fight crime
