[Interest Check] GURPS in a feudal/fantasy setting - elements of Pendragon. (GMT)

Hello! This isn't a fully fleshed out advert as I am not sure if there is sufficient interest in it, but I have been considering running a GURPS campaign set in a feudal/medieval setting with elements of fantasy. It would be analogous to the mid-late medieval period, pre-gunpowder, where the mounted knight still maintains the pride of place as being the quanta by which all military forces are counted. I envision a setting where magic is common enough that it is welcomed and utilised, but rare and weak enough that it does not dominate the setting. Currently, I plan on using several different magic systems - Incantation magic for "Wizards", Sorcery for... well... "Sorcerers", Imbuements for more combat orientated magic users (also known as "Sports") and magic as advantages with a different power modifier for Divine and Druidic magic. The main elements I've considered are that magic is fleeting and enchantment is both very hard and very slow. Magic users are often able to do things that are impossible, too difficult or simply too time consuming for a normal man, but they are very rarely able to do them anywhere nearly as well as a skilled craftsman might. Lastly, I'm looking at incorporating some of the elements I most enjoyed when I last ran a full campaign of Pendragon. Either sessions or campaign arcs would be encapsulated into in character years. Alot of time within those years will be consumed by travelling, maintaining lands or performing other tasks that don't need to be focused on - the meat of any session should be the adventures and hijinx the characters are up to this year. In terms of timings, currently I could only run reliably on a Monday or Wedneday evening, GMT. I could run on a Friday evening, but probably only twice a month. Please let me know what you think, or if you want more information - I'm still in the process of writing this but didn't want to get too deep if no-one was interested. :)

I'm tentatively interested, but have a few questions. 1. Why all these different kind of magic, when the focus is on the knightly stuff? To me, that seems like it might well distract from the actual crux of the campaign. 2. How will you ensure that the knights are going to be actually half decent rulers in GURPS, where all such skills are going to be IQ based, and thus would strongly favour the non-fighting / magic-using characters? 3. What do you have in mind for Status / Rank rules? 4. How about religion?

Cheers for responding, good questions and they're things I'm still trying to fully decide on. For example, I'm very tempted to drop Sorcery. 1) While I want the focus of the campaign to be on the interactions and adventures you find in a feudal setting, I definitely want it to be a fantastical feudal setting. Knights with sufficient wealth will often retain wizards in their courts, if only for the status doing so brings. I am spending quite a lot of my time trying to work out how best to represent these magic users and fit them into the world so that they add to it, rather than detract from or dominate it. 2) I would not expect a knight with a low IQ, or one that not invested in the relevant skills, to be a good ruler. They might well be a powerful warrior, but if they lack the skills to manage and govern their fief, or engage in diplomacy and espionage, they won't be capable rulers. I think that how I intend to prevent magic users from dominating the setting should be expanded on. Firstly, Incantation magic is the primary form of magic. Incantation magic takes along time to cast and the effects are quite limited in both scope and duration, with wizards also being limited to having only a dozen or so spells prepared at any one time. A well prepared wizard is likely the match for a group of knights in a single skirmish and may well be able turn the tide of a pitched battle but they will not be able replace the need for knights and their levies. Secondly, the imbuement skills run almost exclusively off of dexterity and suit the "spellsword" quite well. Thirdly, I plan on using inherent biases within the setting to control the effect that magic has on it (this is primarily aimed at NPC's). Only those people born with the ability to use magic will be able to learn imbuement skills or incantation magic. These ability will be quite rare and most will never learn to control their magic, beyond perhaps a few very simple spells no better than a cantrip. On top of the rarity of magic, there will be a literal bias against magic users - knights born with the gift are likely to be pressured down the route of the spellsword. For users of incantation magic there will be schools of magic, no great colleges or academies. Those who wish to learn it must either muddle through contradicting grimoires and tomes on their own, or seek an apprenticeship with a court mage or wealthy mage. Such a route might be suitable for a spare son, but a knight's first or second born sons will have be groomed to rule in their father's stead and even then, would be looked down upon as being less honourable. Lastly, divine and druidic magic will probably end up being Will based, which is as good as being IQ based - but they are even rarer still and in all but the rarest cases manifest only amongst members of their religions clergy. Men who join a priestly order (or who eschew civilization to live the life of a druid) ore not eligible to inherit and while more respected than the path of a wizard, are still seen as being of lesser status. 3)  I intend to use status and rank to represent how affluent and important characters are and will become. While I have not completely made up my mind, I do not really expect any of the starting characters to be land owners in their own right - though they may well be in line to inherit. Characters will need to purchase an appropriate level at the start of the campaign, but it will be a cooperative effort. To go into a bit more detail, status will likely be split between religious importance, professional status (burgher, mayor, court mage, castellan, etc), feudal status (errant knight, first born of a banneret, baron, duke) and military rank assigned above and beyond the rank feudal status would implicitly grant, or instead of it in the case of mercenaries. A free man would have no status or rank, whilst an errant knight with no likelihood of inheriting land would have two or three levels of status depending on their lineage. A wizard would have status based on their competence and desirability - a self-learnt hedge mage would likely have none, an apprentice of a court mage might have one rank and a court mage would have status relative to their station in feudal society. Theoretically players may choose to play a bondsman or even a serf and might have negative status and a duty. I do not plan on using wealth. At character creation equipment would be assigned based on each characters station and profession, in play it would be found as loot whilst adventuring, recouped from lands owned by the players or earned in honest trade. This is part of where I plan to incorporate some elements of Pendragon though I intend to keep the mechanics behind the GM screen. If in play status or rank is earned/bequeathed/stolen then I will likely just have it arbitrarily added to the individual character - even though their total points value would increase ahead of the rest of the party. It would mean that they would have more points and a greater ability to affect the campaign, but it wouldn't make them any better at what they do. I think that awarding the points to everyone would actually penalise the one being elevated. If someone started an errant knight and continued to play them, whilst their fellow knight eventually became King, that errant knight would have vastly more points spent on hitting things, sneaking into castles and seducing fair maidens. Plus what can be gained can also be lost, if a knight has his lands raided and his farms razed his status will likely be reduced as a result. More so if he loses a portion of his demesne to conquest! 4) I haven't gotten as far as religion yet. If I had to write this fully tomorrow, there would be a  dozen or so "major" gods each epitomising a positive or negative feudal value and then a plenitude of "lesser" gods which would be worshipped by individual villages, or by very particular trades and professions. Some but not all of these religions would have openly successful churches, others would be worshipped only by lay followers whilst others would be proscribed cults - or too small to be worth noting. I've always been a fan of "gods are the manifestation of the unconscious will of the people", but keeping an element of mystery is probably for the best!

That sounds promising. Fair warning, though: Status is far too cheap if it comes with "free wealth based upon position in society". That may need some adjustment, or everyone's going to be a duke.

Cheers, that last bit shouldn't be an issue though - while I don't intend to force players to pick from a selection of templates or lenses, many advantages will be prohibited and the number of levels of advantages, including magery, status and rank, that can be taken will be limited. Some of those prohibitions would be global, others would be based on each characters profession and likely open for debate. :) For example, most if not all exotic and supernatural would be prohibited. The exceptions would be incantation magic, imbuements and certain exotic or supernatural advantages for divine and druidic characters. I have not decided whether or not to include any "standard" fantasy races, come up with a few of my own, or stick with humans making up the bulk of the civilised world. I do intend on having an inhuman/otherworldly threat to the setting, but one that has slowly become (apparently) less important over time. It is very unlikely that I will simply "port" elves, dwarves and haflings though... I also haven't decided yet whether or not to start the campaign with players having the option of possessing a small holding, but I would not allow a character to start with anything more than a small fief. A manor, perhaps a rude fort and two or three square miles of arable or profitable land.

(Just removing the open link.)

Hello, I don't mean to intrude on your conversation or anything, but I figured I should at least comment because it seems are are interested in many of the same things. I have been developing a fantasy RPG over the last several years which is attempting to create a more "authentic" medieval fantasy world using my own setting and mechanics. I have a degree in history, my focus was on Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. I don't mention this to brag or anything, I would just say I have a pretty wide perspective on how to incorporate a more "authentic" medieval tone into an RPG. Anyway, I am commenting just to see if you would be interested in bouncing some ideas off one another. Unfortunately, I am not sure if I would actually be able to play in your game. My availability is pretty much just weekends and I have pretty mixed feelings about GURPS (though I admit that my experience with it was a long time ago). So, at the very least I would like to offer my support and encouragement for your project and let you know that there are some people VERY interested in it. If you want to share some ideas, particularly about status because I think the concept of status is vitally important to constructing something resembling the medieval world, I would be more than happy to participate. Who knows, perhaps I can even swing becoming a player. Good luck and it is nice to see people branching a little bit for 5th Edition D&D.            

Sure, always happy to have more information to work with! Currently I'm digging into online sources, my old Pendragon books and a few GURPS publications on the topic (mostly Pyramid articles). That said, my end goal isn't to have a fully fleshed out system for medieval economics, but to have enough of an understanding and a robust enough framework to make it look like there is one behind the scenes. I want to run a game where the players involvement with feudal economics is based on their choices, interactions with NPC's and events beyond their control such as the weather and war, rather than a set of arbitrary generalisations reflecting the profitability of individual manors.

Then I think you are really on the right track. So I would argue that status in the middle ages has less to do with economics and wealth and more to do with interactions between individuals. For example, you see a lot of non-noble families which are able to acquire enough wealth to rival elite noble families...even kings in some cases. This happens in late medieval and renaissance Italy with banking and merchant families.  You all so see alot of landless nobles or nobles with barely enough land to keep themselves and some nearby villages fed. Historians have pretty much debunked the whole idea of Feudalism. Two historians, Elizabeth Brown, who wrote the article, "The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe "  and Susan Reynolds who wrote the book Fiefs and Vassals: the Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted , demolished previous arguments of Feudalism. Right now the debate is mostly about rather the model of Feudalism is helpful in understanding medieval politics. Overall, historians cant agree what Feudalism is: some write more about it as a political hierarchy, others see it as an economic systems, still others see it as mostly military. The bottom line is that no definition of feudalism seems to fit particularly well in the middle ages. Take William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy as an example. As Duke of Normandy, he should be vassal to the King of France, however he conquered England and made himself King of England. So after 1066 he was simultaneously an equal to the King of France and his subject. No pyramid model of feudalism particularly explains how this works. So medieval politics seems to have more to do with relationships between individuals and families, with the Church occasionally sticking their noses into it. Lets say you were a king and I was a duke ruling within you realm. Lets say you want to go to war. You cant just press me into service. My knights and I may simply not so up to your call to muster in the royal army. What would you do about it? Perhaps you would march your army to my castle, but do you really want to distract yourself with a siege? Furthermore, if you deal with me to too much of a heavy hand, you risk appearing tyrannical. If you can use your army to press me into military service which I dont feel I have to render, you can do the same to my peers. Do that too many times and you may have a rebellion on your hands. So the best way to get me to fight for you is to make it worth my while. Perhaps you can offer me a prestigious position in your court, and/or throw some money at me. Maybe you can offer a portion of the newly conquered land. Maybe you will grant me lower taxes or some more autonomy in ruling my duchy. Likely, you would use a combination of all of these strategies, but the point is our status would be relative to one another given the specific situation. We would both do what we feel comfortable getting away with and enjoy the benefits of good interactions and deal with the consequences of poor interactions. In a RPG with makes roleplaying a key component in getting what you want and influencing people. To me this is more fun than having a king who is an absolute ruler like in most RPG settings. Absolutism existed in Europe, but only beginning around the 17th century. As for economics, I have has a lot of luck with using a barter system more often than a monetary economy. Once again, it encourages roleplaying...but can be a little tedious. I go back and forth with how much the medieval economy was based on bartering and how much was based on coinage. In a world where most people live one bad harvest from starving....do you really want silver coins? Also, it seems to me that most coins would be pretty labor intensive to produce. Producing coins of low enough values for ordinary people to use to buy bread seems like a poor idea. The cost of producing such a low value of coin would be far more than its value. So I think that ordinary people did a lot more bartering. Also, perhaps there was a more robust patron-client system. For example, if I am a knight I need armor. Not only that, I need that armor to be routinely repaired and maintained. Since armor isn't one size fits all, it seems doubtful that I would buy that armor in a shop. I would have to commission that armor to be made specifically for me. So, do I pay the armorer in gold coins? Maybe, but can that armorer turn around and spend those gold coins on food? I am not so sure, that would be like buying a wedge of cheese with a hundred dollar bill. But in this world, the only denomination of currency lower than a hundred dollar bill is a 50 or maybe a 20. You would have to buy in such bulk, your food would likely rot before you consume it. So my idea is that you commission someone to make your armor. For the month or so the armorer is working on it you house him, feed him, and cover some modest expenses. But once again, this opens up more opportunities for roleplaying and forging relationships with RPGs. So my question is, do players really like to devote time in forging more mundane relationships over the course of roleplaying, or do they want to focus on saving the day from the Lich Queen and collecting loot?                     

With regards to your last question, I'm totally sure yet. It is the kind of thing I would need to discuss with players with the emphasis on adventuring and feudal interactions likely swinging back and forth until everyone is (relatively) happy. I certainly don't intend it to be the primary focus of the game and had planned on treating it in a similar manner as does Pendragon - i.e. an end of year catch up with your reeves, tradesmen, yeomen, vassals and lieges. In terms of coinage and barter, assuming that the bulk of the party are land holders or their direct subordinates, I intend to abstract a lot of the bribery, trade and scutage into status and its associated lifestyle costs. I'm still working this out, but between "Low Tech", "Low Tech Companion 1-3", "Pyramid 3-33 Low Tech" and "Pyramid 3-52 Low Tech 2", I have a fairly robust framework for working out how much "value" a given fief will be able to generate and therefore what kind of lifestyle it can support - both for the lord of the fief and any unlanded knights or other servants he may choose to support. Assuming that the value is sufficient to cover the lifestyle expected at his status level, his lands will be able to support any of the bribes, taxes or trades that he is expected to make in any given year - if it comes up in play, it is more of a roleplay interaction, "Yes of course my lord, thank you for the rights to hold my faire near your market, I shall have my men deliver a hundred weight of honey by the start of the next moon." The only time that the character would have to really worry about this is if they have an unexpected windfall or shortfall. Do they put aside the treasure from defeating the Wyvern and recovering its hoard as insurance against a series of poor harvests, or spend it lavishly on the latest fashions, arms and equipment or such. Likewise, if their lands have a terrible harvest or their fighting men have been slain or taken ransom, do they accept that their lifestyle will be reduced at the cost of being looked down upon by their vassals, neighbours and liege, or squeeze their tenants to make up the difference? I will almost certainly have coins of various metals and sizes in the game, because finding a pile of silver at the bottom of the dungeon is always nice, but I won't expect tenants and villeins to be trading coppers and silvers in the tavern for an ale. Likewise, whilst a peasant is unlikely to turn down a gift of coin from a generous lord, they would probably prefer the lord instead waves the customary tax that they would have had to pay for the right to fish at the local stream or make use of his mill. A coin means that they need to travel to the nearest market, or trade with a passing merchant at a likely ruinous rate of exchange. Lastly, I don't envision that all of the adventures will be fantastic in nature. Some campaigning seasons will be spent off in strange lands, fighting weird creatures down dark dungeons or in the employ of a lord engaged in foreign wars, but others will be spent in the home territories - perhaps engaging in local tournaments or fighting in local disputes over land, rights or insults that could not be ignored. In those years, the relationships that the players have forged with their neighbours, their vassals and their lords will be of great importance and may change drastically.

Well, this is certainly something I am interested in. It sounds like you have put a lot of thought into this. Many GMs put a lot of work inventing plots, however it sounds like you have thought a lot about how your world functions on a daily basis...which is refreshing to me. I certainly am the type of player who rather perform more mundane tasks which are in the best interests of my character than I am accomplishing epic quests for someone else. I can probably play on Friday evenings, but other week days would be really difficult.  

While I can do Fridays, I would probably only be able to run 1 in 2 due to prior commitments. I'll leave it open to the potential players to discuss. :)

Lucas has a lot of good points. I'm only sideways a historian myself (my main field of study is anthropology, which has a lot of overlap but isn't identical), and what he says rings true. It's worth keeping in mind that RPG systems tend to take a blanket approach, which rarely translates well to actual historical situations. The most egregious is techlevels, which isn't quite so cut and dried as "TL3 across the land". Rather, you'll have minute differences everywhere. Maybe one nation developed new methods of rigging sailing boats, allowing them to make better use of trade winds (with the results thereof), whereas another is better at cultivating food, leading to early discoveries in healthcare and medicine. Things like that matter a lot, both from a realism perspective and from a game balance one. It might be worth considering taking actual historical Earth and just adding those fantasy elements you deem important. It can save you a lot of work. Granted, you may need to use a careful hand in the treatment of various cultures, so you don't appear insensitive (or a racist). Not that those sentiments were all that unknown in the "middle ages", but they may not be very desireable in a game with modern people froma  variety of backgrounds. As far as personal preferences goes: I am all in favour of never seeing a dungeon. Gurps, much as I love it, is just not very suited for a combat-dominated game, and as a result I tend to make characters that are perhaps combat-capable, but strong inclined never to deal with that if they can help it. Pleasingly realistic, it's quite deadly (especially once you factor in hygiene), and thus something that sane people should do their best to find a workaround for, if they can. [That doesn't mean they won't fight for honour or obligations, of course, if those are strong enough. Just don't expect me to go on D&D style adventures.]

Cheers, I'm aware of how a lot of systems (including GURPS if implemented in that way) tar entire societies with the same brush. I have not got as far as constructing the geographical or political landscape yet, but I am working on it. I do envision a relatively large kingdom, or group of kingdoms, that are all relatively equal in terms of technology, which will dominate the campaign. Other countries will exist and their technological propensities will likely very, but I intend for them to be distant and strange foreign lands that have little impact on the characters lives apart from explaining the ridiculous cost of certain rare ingredients or spices. In terms of the tech level throughout the main campaigning areas, it'll vary from place to place and not always consistently. The bulk of the campaign world will be at TL3 for the purposes of agriculture and trade, but gunpowder will be absent completely. Most villages will be no better than TL2 for the purposes of architecture, construction or smithing, whilst there will be parts of the world that are as high as TL4 when it comes to constructing fine weapons and plate armour. Currently the only real dungeons I have in mind are literal dungeons, either currently functional or the burnt or collapsed remains of castle dungeons (and maybe the odd catacomb). I do intend on there being the odd grand adventure, or war, as well as a constant but tolerable risk of horrible monsters eating the peasantry. But I also intend for there to be just as much of a focus on the local disputes, raids, skirmishes and wars between fief holders and their lieges. I hope, perhaps against my better judgement, that players will also not be quite as blood thirsty as they have in other games I've run. After all, if you raid a neighbouring knight's lands under orders from your liege and just damage some property, maybe take a few squires hostage, you will perhaps earn his enmity but also a little coin in randsom. If you raze several households and slay their tenants, you drastically reduce his available income and likely open yourself up to a series of punishing raids and counter raids that will earn the ire of both your opponent, his much more powerful liege and quite possibly your own, who covets the lands you have just depopulated. Combat will also likely be quite deadly, because healing magic will be rare (it isn't possible via Incantation magic outside of a few vampiric effects) and only certain druids and priests will be blessed with the power. I still need to review the various optional combat rules, but will almost certainly use edge protection and a few of the additional hit locations to further distinguish how good full suits of armour are compared to what most mercenaries or men at arms would wear - likely to be at most a helm, chest armour, thick gloves and perhaps vambraces and greaves over a gambeson.

That still sounds like there will be an overall combat focus, which is regrettable. Then again, there's a lot of people who do like it, so I cannot complain too much when you cater to that preference!

Likely there will be, but I can't really predict how players will want to go about solving problems!

Wow! I had to stop reading after the second paragraph because... wow. A Gurps GM that knows about Incantation, Sorcery, Imbuements and Magic as Advantages and is not afraid to delve into them simultaneously?! What Weird Parallel did you come from? Did Centrum reach us already? I'm about to say "where do I sign?" but first let me wipe the drool off my chin and read the entire thread. I just had to post a response. Update: Ok, world building phase. I don't like to intrude onto others' game world design, specially when I'm interested in playing, feels like gming by proxy. So I'll limit my response here to the following: (1) Sounds interesting, I'd like to give it a try if there's room for a fanatical mage player. (2) Be very careful when mixing flexible magic systems (like Incantation) with "realistic" or "authentic" representations of medieval economics. Even very simple and basic spells can wreak havoc on such systems and completely ruin hours of work if not accounted for. Notable examples: making it rain, creating stuff out of thin air, divination, magical lights, etc. I know there's published material on the subject but I can't remember the name, something about the enchanted city, I think. Might be worth checking out.

I'm interested in playing this type of game but you haven't gave a time, just GMT.

I agree with Kobolum. Once magic is accessible to players, you can forget about it being a decent representation of feudalism - or any other kind of historical society. Might work to introduce minor witch craft and to make sure that it is sufficiently distrusted that it will never be used on a scale beyond villages and single buildings, but if it's an accepted part of daily life, things like agriculture, health care, prognostication etc will wreck standard economies. And that's not even getting into the effects of divination upon warfare, or charm spells upon politics! Remember: Gurps is a system that assumes intelligent players using the means are their disposal (it's far less forgiving than most other systems). Magic in the hands of a creative player will throw expectations out of the window, unless severely restricted.

Cheers for the responses, I will get back to them this evening after work! I can quickly answer about timings though, from about 19:00 on either a Monday or Wednesday weekly, or fortnightly on a Friday.

Just remembered the book I mentioned: Thaumatology - Urban Magics. It works out the social/economical impact of many effects of the standard magic system on city scale.

I am not sure what edition you are using exactly. I am interested in the game. ^^" Most of my questions already have already been answered not sure what else to put here.

never played gurps. but sounds interesting :)

4th edition. :) Nearly home time!

Alright thank you. :) Like i said i am interested

Home at last, thanks again for the responses and questions, because I'm still so early in the world building stage they're all very much welcomed. :) I have put quite a lot of thought into how magic will interact within my feudal setting as well as how to prevent it from being too disruptive without just hand waving the problem. I'm going to ignore imbuements for the purposes of this discussion, because all it can do is allow combatants to perform difficult or otherwise impossible feats via magic. It will have an effect on the tactics used within the setting, but will be rare enough to be the exception rather than the rule. When I started putting this setting together, I was aware that incantation, sorcery and magic as advantages being free form would cause issues. I feel it is worth breaking these apart and discussing them individually, but there are a few universal "truths" that I intend to apply to the setting, which will mitigate the effect to an extent. 1) Magic is rare. Magic is trait that only a small number of people are born with. Not only that, but most people who are born with the ability to use magic have only a very weak talent and will never become capable of manifesting anything but the simplest of cantrips. One example of this would be a person with a limited version of the imbuement talent, such that they can learn only one imbuement skill. 2) Most people are serfs, villeins or slaves and are therefore uneducated, worked tirelessly and are of intrinsic value. There are no grand academies or schools of magic, because the vast majority of people who are born with the ability to use magic are of more value to a lord as a farmer or shepherd than they would be spending a few years of their lives (at his expense) learning to control their meagre talent. 3) Magic is unreliable. When a spell critically fails, it does so in a spectacular fashion proportional to the amount of power invested in the spell. A farmer who critically fails a daily farming roll might damage his crop slightly, or fail to spot an infestation, but he is very unlikely to accidentally blight his lands. Therefore, the only people who will ever likely be trusted to use their magic in a way that would have any significant economic impact are the people who are so skilled as to be very unlikely to fail. These people will obviously be of great value and likely able to demand a king's ransom for their work. They will also want to rock the boat as little as possible, lest they do eventually have a critical failure and find themselves in trouble. This at once makes skilled and reputable magic users valuable and desired, whilst rendering unskilled (or just unlucky) magic users something to be looked upon indifferently when they ply their trade in a manner unlikely to be catastrophically harmful, or reviled after they an entire harvest crop to fail! 4) Magic is never free. Generally the cost of casting any given magic spell will be one that the caster is willing to pay and that will have no appreciable effect on the campaign setting. Casting a spell that creates a fireball might reduce the ambient temperature, or consume a token amount of fuel - neither of these costs are going to prevent a user of incantation magic from throwing a fireball. But as spells become greater in their scope, in their ability to fundamentally alter the campaign setting, their associated costs become less bearable. A spell that might alter the makeup of the soil in a field might enhance the harvest one year, but would draw so many nutrients from the surrounding soils to the surface as to ruin the field for the next ten harvests. There will also be certain spells and powers that are just flat out impossible, though that will not stop people trying, such as attempting to turn lead into gold or summon valuable raw materials from thin air. Obviously there are a lot of ways to use magic indirectly in order to earn money, such as using magic to scry for the location of valuable metals and then move the earth to open a passage way to them or draw them directly to you. But this would require a lot of skill, a lot of time and a lot of luck. Once the metal was found, a lord would likely find it cheaper to simply employ hired labourers to erect a mine. 5) Magic cannot replace skill. Ignoring the homing magic arrow and quite a few other possible interpretations of that sentence, this truism implies that a magic user cannot replace years of knowledge learnt the hard way. While a magic user could take a lump of raw iron and transform it into a suit of armour in a fraction of the time it would take normally, the end result would be a lumpy, uneven, brittle mimicry of a well crafted suit of armour. The only way around this is for the magic user to themselves learn what it takes to make well crafted armour themselves, to gain a high enough skill in the relevant armoury or crafting skill to offset the intrinsic penalties that incantation magic applies for creating anything other than raw materials. In order to enforce this I will have to remove the ability to use bestow bonus to offset the penalty. As with any limitation, there are ways around it, a magic user could borrow or steal the memories and skill of a master smith, but likely at the cost of slowly weakening those memories and skills over time - not enough for it to be an issue in times of great need, but enough to prevent it being desirable. 6) Most people just aren't great, they're just good enough. This truism doesn't just apply to magic, but it has perhaps a greater impact on magic due to the high character point investiture required to be able to do anything noteworthy. The player characters will likely be exceptional, brighter, stronger, more skilled and luckier. Not so much that they will be necessarily instantly recognised as such, but in all likelihood their abilities will grow far beyond the norm. Next, I'll break down the individual magic systems and how (I hope) I've compensated for the worst ways they could affect the campaign setting. Obviously they will have a fairly profound effect, but that isn't a bad thing. I fully expect lords who are rich enough to employ users of incantation magic to auger the location of their enemies forces, just as I would expect those same enemies to employ their own magic user to foil those attempts. Incantation Magic is already limited in several profound ways. It cannot affect control the minds of animals, nor can it affect the weather in any meaningful way. It cannot control, summon or interact with world ending creatures from beyond the boundaries of time and space - perhaps a little bit of a niche limitation, but one I quite like. It does not allow for gates, teleportation or any other form of transportation magic. If a magic user wishes to get from point A to point B, they must walk there or transform themselves into a sparrow and fly, running the risk of being permanently trapped in that form should they critically fail casting the spell, perhaps. But most fundamentally of all, it can neither heal the living nor effect plants in any way other than indirectly. I still need to trawl through the rules to try and find anything that could drastically upset the campaign setting, but I think they've caught most of it themselves. What little is left would require the caster to be so powerful and highly skilled that they could likely rule the world if they so chose. Sorcery is probably the most likely form of magic to cause me issues, because it is less prone to spectacular failure and has fewer inherent mechanical restrictions. As such, I will be much more careful in what I allow and what is prevalent amongst none player characters in the campaign setting. I haven't yet decided if I am going to include it in the game at all, but I do quite like it and probably will. That said, I am most likely going to only allow it to be taken with limited scope, i.e. sorcerers who are either gifted with the ability to control of a particular element or another thematic set of powers. It will also be found more rarely than incantation magic. Priestly  will be a form of magic as advantages. I haven't fully determined how it will work, but it will likely have a combination of the limited uses per day, pact and unreliable limitations to represent the fickle nature of the gods and their followers. If there is a better implementation of this already written in a Pyramid article or source book, then I have yet to find it. The nature of the advantages that can be chosen will also be limited by the portfolio associated with each deity, which I still need to write. Druidry will cover pretty much everything else. It will also be a form of magic as advantages and it will allow the control over the minds of animals, plants and the weather, but it will also come with a pact limitation requiring the druid to uphold their vows to nature. Their magic will not be "free" either and therefore they will not wander from village to village massively enhancing the growth of crops as this would lead to a ruinous famine in years to come. It too will likely have some form limitation such as limited use, the requirement for preparation or simply a fatigue cost.

WALL OF TEXT! :)

I honestly don't think i could ever type that much. Any info for the non magic people? About the world and so on and so forth? And i am guessing due to bias against magic there will be certain groups that fight them? Sorry if these are dumb questions

are there witches to burn for example?

Going by historical example, a witch is any person you don't like for political reasons. Burning one only takes a soapbox and sufficient numbers of uneducated people to yell at. Which, of course, leads to the next point. Will there be a Social Stigma for magic users, and if so, will it differ between the various styles?  It won't prevent them from earning high Status (or Rank), but they'll never be quite as trusted as the guy or gal doing it the hard way - especially the way people can understand.

Devin, I'm still working on the world - one of the things I am doing tonight is dusting off my campaign cartographer skills to get a rough world map done. I find it easier to fill in the blanks once I have a rough framework to work from. But suffice to say, there will definitely be a place for characters that aren't magic users, with inspiration to be drawn from pretty much every medieval tale. Yeomen levy, mercenary men at arms, bold and noble knights, cloistered and well learnt monks, the stalwart peasant archer, rough and ready town rogues and travelling troubadours should abound. Magic users will not generally have any form of social stigma (although I might make an exception of that rule for sorcerers), but there definitely will be certain social stigmas in the game that are only applied to magic users. One stigma I quite like from a novel series I am currently reading relates to "footwizards", magic users who travel from village to town plying their trade, often only one step ahead of their last angry customer. While it is unlikely that I will have any large organisations dedicated to the control of magic within the setting, it is likely that rulers will appoint magic users to police their own, just like they might appoint a knight to bring rogue vassals to account. Druids will almost certainly have some form of of suitable social disadvantage to reflect how removed and ostracised they are from normal society. As for witches, there will certainly be evil magic users and not all of them will have the favour of a powerful lord to shield them (or an army of their own). Plus as Patrick noted, all it takes for someone to be accused of a horrible crime such as treason or witchcraft is a believable witness and a sympathetic court. That said, people that have magical powers but do not have a lord's express permission to practice magic in their lands or do possess a suitable office will not automatically be accused of witchcraft. While magic is rare and powerful magic rarer still, magic will still be common enough for there to be a few people in any given village with minor gifts. Who would want to burn to death the kindly matron with a knack for soothing the pain of childbirth, or the carpenter whose axe mysteriously never dulls. Separate to the discussion, there definitely seems to be enough interest! I'm going to redouble my focus on writing the actual setting and getting more information up. If people are interested now and would like to put their names down anyway, and can likely play on a Monday/Wednesday/Friday evening from about 18:30 - 19:00 for at least three hours, let me know and I will send you a game invite. I only plan on running for 4 to 5 players at most, because I don't think I could do right by the group if it were any larger! (One slot in the campaign is currently taken up by a friend who likes to lurk, but don't count him - I've increased the number of players to compensate.)

Well it's awesome to hear that you are going in great detail for the game and it's setting. But put my name down the time and the days work for me and i would love to be a part of the game and if there is anyway i can help let me know.

Quick update, now that I've read the divine favour rules, I'll use that for priestly magic. Still looking for something for druidric magic.

i would join. have already an idea for a char. this system looks like i can finaly play it :D

Sounds like a fun and interesting setting that you have put a lot of thought into and i would like to join this group. The time and day works for me but i’m pretty flexible in case you want to change the day. (I’m free on all days except on Sundays and Mondays)

I've sent an invite to everyone who has expressed interest, theoretically that would make for 6 but if everyone does want to play I'll manage somehow.

Priestly magic: I was going to mention Divine Favor for priest, seems to be quite close to what you envision. Druids could also use it, but it would require considerable horseshoeing. Incantation magic: One thing I'd like to point about magic not being "free" is to watch out for marauders (like in Mage the Ascension). The problem is that by charging an external cost for magic, or making magic too reactive, you risk creating a double edged sword and having it used against you. Players will try to weaponize the drawback: "10 years of bad crops for 1 great harvest? How does it sound conquering our neighbor 7 years from now, my Lord? We can enhance their next crop, burn it down and 7 or 8 years from now they'll be in such bad shape they'll beg to be taken under our banner." Antagonistic drawbacks also open a door for antagonistic GMing, which can be pretty bad at the table. Two things I learned from experience that you may be interested in considering. If you want more limited magic, I'd recommend limiting it's power instead of enacting post-effect taxes or consequences. By that time the mage already got what he wanted and may be crazy enough that he doesn't care about those other things. Something else about Incantation: Catapult Spell Effects: Control Elementalism. Inherent Modifiers: Duration, Speed, Subject Weight. Skill Penalty: Path of Elementalism-2. Casting Time: 5 minutes. Utterly messes up the target area. Caster should roll to hit his target accurately, but consider the size of the projectile. Also consider the collision rules from the basic set. Caster may sacrifice a Good Magical Component (worth $100) to get +2 to his roll. Typical Casting: Control Elementalism (5) + Duration, 10 seconds (1) + Speed, 1,500 yards/second (17) + Subject Weight, 5 tons (6). 29 SP Sorcery: Two things to consider here. First is that it allows a more affordable enchantment system than the standard, doesn't seem to fit your game world. Second is the hardcore improvisation rules. Those don't seem to fit anyone's game world, heheh.

Glad to see other people like Divine Favour, having only just found it. I'll only use it for druidic magic if I cannot find or write anything more fitting. I may well just allow them to take certain advantages with the druidic modifier and leave it at that, or add a "requires attribute/skill roll" and fatigue cost limitation. As for Incantation magic, while it explicitly cannot be cast on plants, if players were both powerful enough and cruel enough to contemplate a working that would blight the land and sentence hundreds of people to death then so be it. There are checks and balances that have nothing to do with magic that discourage that sort of behaviour. It is also something that could be achieved by a determined war band razing the village and destroying the crop, which would also raise less ire from the world at large. I will have to be careful with what spells are allowed and how they are costed. I'm not sure whether or not a spell such as that catapult should be costed based on the damage it would inflict? Similarly, I'm also unlikely to allow anything that requires me to work out what mach number it equates to. :) Lastly, given the nature of a feudal setting, there will definitely be a lot of antagonists. Simply following the lawful orders of your liege will incur a character enemies amongst his rivals, the vassals of his lords nearest rival and likely the populace subjugated by those orders. I hope that I will be able to portray a somewhat antagonistic setting, without necessarily being an antagonistic GM. (Quickly off the top of my head, that stone would have about 150 hit points - doubled for a collision as it is a hard object - so 300, at 1,500 yards per second that would inflict... Alot. Easier to work it out in terms of kinetic energy, which turns out to be about equivalent to a ton of TNT. Sorry, went off on a math nerd tangent. :) )

The time and day works for me if your still accepting players.

Considering the 150HP rock, it would inflict 4500d6 cr damage, in theory (HP*2*velocity/100). Or 6d6*750, which is 4.500 (minimum), 15.750 (average), 27.000 (maximum). Now you have to consider what happens to a 5 ton rock when it suffers that same amount of damage.

What happens to the 5 ton rock is what happens to everyone in the vicinity, which is to say, shrapnel happens. :) Either way, it is definitely beyond what I would allow incantation magic to do. [Edit - Side track...] I wonder what the shrapnel RoF and damage would be?

Daniel G. said: What happens to the 5 ton rock is what happens to everyone in the vicinity, which is to say, shrapnel happens. :) [Edit - Side track...] I wonder what the shrapnel RoF and damage would be? I really don't know, depends what it hits... lake, keep, sand, a mob. But it could go from simple crushing damage to cr ex. This was my first spell built for Incantation, a simple movement spell, but nobody will let me use it... Getting back on track, this is the kind of thing you have to be aware of. You'll probably end up editing all Incantation paths to suit the game. Not a bad thing, but even more work considering there are yet other magic systems in play.

That's fair enough, though at first glance the paths actually look to be quite reasonable for the type of campaign I want to run. They're highly dungeon orientated, but have enough scope to be of use in the wider world without distorting it too greatly. Obviously they'll have a massive impact, but ultimately at the highest levels of courtly intrigue, mages probably spend most of their time ensuring that they and their wards aren't being messed with by other mages.

Well, it's meant for Dungeon Fantasy so it automatically excludes effects that don't suit that genre and those are the ones that happen to be more problematic on the large scale. Just as a fair warning, I sent quite a few GMs crying to their therapists with PTSD after they had to deal with my mages, so make sure either the magic systems are implemented to satisfaction or your health care is up to date. Hehe.

I will definitely read more into it. Until I have more time under my belt having run games with freeform magic, I'll ask for the breakdown and intended effect of any spell up front. That shouldn't be too hard with incantation magic as it is primarily a prepared form of magic. That said, if a spell is cool or very fitting, I will be generous. If I think it is too powerful for the cost, or doesn't fit the setting, I'll say as much before it is cast and either ask for it to be reworked or veto it.