Fantasy + high tech

[catty_big]

Had a discussion with Nijineko and AstroMcguffin earlier about different types of games, which started with Pathfinder and ended up with then Shadowrun. Then we ended up talking about games that merge fantasy with high tech (one of my fave genres). Nijineko mentioned Rifts- anyone played it? Any other suggestion for games within this genre?

[nijineko]

i think i already mentioned this one too: dragonstar. and dragonmech comes to mind, as does good old original d&d. (a lot of the early adventures had high tech in them as artifacts.) i believe earthdawn took a terry brooks approach of long forgotten and now useless tech as backdrop of a fantasy world. i know there are others, but i'm not recalling them.

[catty_big]

Yes, you did mention those games. I was just separating this discussion out because it looked as I if was de-railing AstroMacGuffin's thread.

I tend to prefer high tech now rather than old tech as backdrop, my ideal is something like Shadowrun, i.e.- I think I've got this correct- gnomes with lazguns hunting down dissidents etc. I would even give the mice from MG such tech. Perhaps war geese that are more like mechanical James Bond vehicle-style bald eagles say.

[nijineko]

you would like rifts and dragonstar then. i have some of both, any questions?

[catty_big]

Either or both would be welcome. Do you have anything in free downloadable pdf form (as mentioned before I'm pretty cash-strapped atm)? Or have you got any entry-level scenarios? Wouldn't publish of course- but would give you a mention on my blog when I finally get it cranked up, and of course would do you an AP report and solicit FB from players .

[nijineko]

all i have is stuff i have purchased. hmmmm, if you go over to the palladium site, you might be able to find some free downloads. there is not much out there for dragonstar at the moment.

[QT Games]

Had a discussion with Nijineko and AstroMcguffin earlier about different types of games, which started with Pathfinder and ended up with then Shadowrun. Then we ended up talking about games that merge fantasy with high tech (one of my fave genres). Nijineko mentioned Rifts- anyone played it? Any other suggestion for games within this genre?

Another game? Most definitely. I started creating the Cosmothea RPG back in 1980 (the setting in '79), and it is a thoroughly blended-genre and multi-genre RPG. In the setting you can run mages in high tech society, run a dwarven space marine, elven star pilots and more exotic mixes and species, all without breaking the rich setting's backstories. Those that don't want to blend the genres can find more than one world that hasn't been touched by other genres, but most worlds are a blend of fantasy and science fiction, with some worlds also having superheroes (including fantasy worlds, though not traditional "in-tights" type. With the core rulebook, you can make a character for just about any genre, but it isn't a generic RPG. It's just that the setting storyline was designed to support it.

We've been playing regularly since the early 80's, and are currently on our 5th major revision and are preparing it for publication. We have some very beautiful art on the game so far - all of the major species and many of the career paths, some monsters and locations. More on the game at my site.

I also put an overview of the setting HERE.
Of course the game is under construction, so the game books aren't available just yet, but we are always looking for playtesters as we revamp the latest version and prepare for publication and are always running PlaybyPost games in the setting. And of course playtesters get credit in the game book. Anyway, I'm well aware that for every one that loves a game, there's someone who hates it. I've heard both regarding Rifts, though I hear it's an interesting setting (and every game has those who love and those who hate it. No game will please all gamers, but my team and I will certainly do our best with our blended-genre game). Cheers!

[nijineko]

nice read. i'll be interested to see more details, and rules.

[QT Games]

Thanks, nijineko. My main focus is on the actual revamping of the rules, art, etc. but I definitely have plans to put more and more up on the site over time. In January, we started our latest revamp, so I actually took down some of the information on the site, as it was out of date, and the current version of the game is still under heavy construction, but it's playable and we're having fun Right now, I only have 1 PbP game running, I usually have more than that, but I'm hard at work designing.

I just recently added to the main page of the site, 3 areas and will start to flesh them out here and there. I just can't get enough blended-genre, so naturally I'm very excited about Cosmothea. When the movie, Avatar, came out, I was stoked!

In my gaming group, I still have one member who's been playing Cosmothea since the game's first year - 1980! The game wasn't all that hot back then. I'd like to think I've learned a great deal since those early days. We've played other games over the years too, of course, and I like reading game books, but I keep coming back to Cosmothea. Of course I'm biased, as I designed it to be exactly what I want to play. Only in recent years have I started to revise it, to make sure that it is also something that others outside of my group want to play, and that it is more professional. I spend a lot of time studying the market and what gamers say they like, and let that affect my choices. After all, I want lots of people to play it and enjoy it, not just my group. It's as blended as a group wants it to be, and the setting handles that notion just fine, since we're not talking about just a handful of worlds or a story that's being forced to handle multiple (i.e. pure genres kept separate, but in the same universe) and blended-genres (i.e. high tech adventurers exploring a magical world, a scientist who's figured out how to use magic as the new green energy to power appliances, starships, etc.), but was designed with blending in mind.

Oh, read your "What are you looking for" section on your profile. Very nice! I place a very high value on integrity and a person's character.

Cheers!
Bob

[Skunkape]

I've played RIFTs in the past and it can be a lot of fun, but the problem I see with it is you're looking at a high powered campaign. So many of the things in RIFTs will kill most normal characters just because of how the game world is created.

But it does a pretty good job at mixing fantasy and scifi!

[Soft Serve]

The Eberron campaign setting for D&D kind of accomplishes this with Warforged and mage-tech. Lightning Rails are essentially maglev trains, and floating airships with large flaming rings for stability (I think).

Most mage-tech is powered by trapped elementals of varying types, though the Warforged are built through some unexplained process involving bits of wood, magic, metal, and so on.

Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but it's as close as I've ever gotten to the topic with an official publication.

[QT Games]

Hi Soft Serve,

I really like the Eberron Campaign Setting, but personally, I wouldn't call it blended genre. It's very cool, true, but it's firmly grounded in a magical environment and to me at least, blended genre is like what you see in the movie, Avatar, with futuristic marines going up against a primitive species, when you have a crashed alien space ship in a magical environment - something like Cowboys v. Aliens - that's blended genre, not just taking something futuristic and making magical equivalents with no crossover of societies from different genres. Just making a magic toaster or magical robot probably isn't enough. Again, cool, but not quite the same thing. Dragons attacking jumbo jets, that kind of stuff is blended-genre to me, even a hint of blending can be fun, to be sure though.

[Soft Serve]

Hi Soft Serve,

I really like the Eberron Campaign Setting, but personally, I wouldn't call it blended genre. It's very cool, true, but it's firmly grounded in a magical environment and to me at least, blended genre is like what you see in the movie, Avatar, with futuristic marines going up against a primitive species, when you have a crashed alien space ship in a magical environment - something like Cowboys v. Aliens - that's blended genre, not just taking something futuristic and making magical equivalents with no crossover of societies from different genres. Just making a magic toaster or magical robot probably isn't enough. Again, cool, but not quite the same thing. Dragons attacking jumbo jets, that kind of stuff is blended-genre to me, even a hint of blending can be fun, to be sure though.

I completely agree, it's not a blended genre at all. Was just spitballing suggestions from my experience.

[nijineko]

i'm personally seriously into psionics in my games, and as a player in others' games. out of curiosity, have you ever researched the history of blackmoor? it introduced more high tech into d&d than any other source. i recall one bit of history in that the clone spell was originally developed by a certain wizard and fighter who discovered the remains of a ancient crashed starship, and studied the writings and tech within, which is what enabled them to develop the new spell. Apparently the sick bay was quite informative for them, or something. ^^

[QT Games]

Blackmoor. Ah, it's been a long time since I've heard that name and read on it. Yes, fun stuff.

As for psionics, I have something sort of like psionics in Cosmothea (I assume you mean psionics as in D&D's psionics). Our magic system is quite different than anything I've seen and very robust. It's one of our selling points, but if you like psionics, what you like about psionics might well be represented in the game - I can't say without hearing more, but I'm not trying to hijack this thread either. Cosmothea has never done magic like in D&D or other games. It's a very different animal, but it has some familiar things too, such as using a pool of points, rather than how D&D has done it in their various incarnations.

Hi Simetradon, looks like you've been up to some fun stuff yourself. From what I know of Chaos 6010, it's quite a different thing from Cosmothea. I'm not trying to hog space, my latest version of Cosmothea is still under construction, though I think it has a lot of promise. Chaos 6010 is already done, so let's here some about Chaos 6010's genre blend.