Fantasy Traveller: Adventurer

[locarno24]

That's what I was suggesting - and that's why I thought something akin to a Hanse or Conquista-era trading/exploration expedition would map across so well to the sort of thing that already exists in traveller - just without the fusion plant and battle dress.

Regardless of the fact that it's a 'fantasy' setting, everyone needs to eat something and wear something. If anyone's read the Rough Guide to Fantasy-Land, the old crone in the corner can only be weaving if there's actually a cotton industry in and around the city.

As noted, economics is king. I've no particular problem with effects happening magically - magic is a fair enough cause in a fantasy setting, but the magic itself has to have logic underlying it. It needs to be (relatively) rare, it needs to have rules that constrain it, and so on. A healer's guild that only nobles can afford, but who can afford the outrageous fees for magical healing doesn't seem particularly impossible - and they are a suitably influential organisation that you're going to have to get on the good side of if you want to set up a colony in some gods-forsaken far-flung parasite-infested swamp without all of your soon-to-be-rich-landowner backers dying of malaria in the first eight seconds.

Magic and orcs are optional, but the more I think about it, the more I think Traveller: Columbus or equivalent might be rather good.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

... if you want to set up a colony in some gods-forsaken far-flung parasite-infested swamp without all of your soon-to-be-rich-landowner backers dying of malaria in the first eight seconds.

Nah, in real life they just went... and died of course (à la Roanoke Colony).

It's a well-known fact that if one throws enough peasants at a problem, eventually one will succeed.

 

[locarno24]

True - but the difference if you want to do it properly is that you actually have to acquire batch #2, #3, #3 and #5,442 of peasants from somewhere....which can be a problem since (this being probably a feudal era) they presumably already belong to someone...

 

[AndrewW]

Nah, in real life they just went... and died of course (à la Roanoke Colony).

They where put there by the ancients, when they disappeared the Zhodani infiltrated the colony and used them as test subjects, eventually they ran out of test subjects and abandoned the colony.

 

[hdan]

That's so far removed from D&D's tired dungeon crawling. It's an order of magnitude above D&D, and that's saying something.

Yet dungeon crawls are also fun. Any fantasy RPG needs to play to its tropes.

I'd suggest "Adventurer" would do best to stick to the basic "Swords and Sorcery" setting familiar to D&D and similar games. Maybe a follow-on ("Warlord" or something) could explore the empire-building and mercantile spheres.

/hdan

 

[alex_greene]

It's a well-known fact that if one throws enough peasants at a problem, eventually one will succeed.

And at some point they invented Sergeants to mechanise the process.

 

[alex_greene]

That's so far removed from D&D's tired dungeon crawling. It's an order of magnitude above D&D, and that's saying something.

Yet dungeon crawls are also fun. Any fantasy RPG needs to play to its tropes.

Whatever for? Why not seize the opportunity to play new tropes?

Have medics race to a plague-ridden country, the holds of their ships piled high with a new medicine they hope will cure the disease. Have the characters play the role of mercenaries protecting a caravan on a silk road from a distant East, or on a salt run from the strange inhabitants of the islands to the distant North. Have the characters protect a mad scientist who has just invented something incredibly dangerous to the local guildsmen: an artificial blue dye that could put the murex fishing industry out of business.

Once you've tried the sorts of adventures I could write for this game, you'll never want to hear "You are in a twenty foot by twenty foot straight corridor one hundred feet long, with doors spaced at forty and eighty feet on both sides. You see a band of orcs approaching your party" again!

 

[darktalon]

That's so far removed from D&D's tired dungeon crawling. It's an order of magnitude above D&D, and that's saying something.

Yet dungeon crawls are also fun. Any fantasy RPG needs to play to its tropes.

Tropes are descriptive, not prescriptive. They're not even an excuse, let alone a mandate, to rehash the same old plot a zillion times.

 

[OddjobXL]

I ran across this at a game store in Northern Virginia and the first thing that came to mind was "Oh, this would be handy for a Fantasy Traveller" campaign.

A Magical Society: Silk Road

A Magical Society: Silk Road explores networks of land-based trade routes that span continents. Like its predecessors (A Magical Society: Western Europe and A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture), A Magical Society: Silk Road synthesizes information from the historic silk road and presents trends and information for role-playing and world-building. Unlike its predecessors, we provide information on the historic silk road due to the general unfamiliarity of Central Asian history.

A Magical Society: Silk Road is 160 page supplement detailing great overland trade routes akin to the Historic Silk Road, including:
• What factors engender great overland trade routes
• What elements accompany the existence of silk roads
• How caravans function on the road within two historic terrains and two fantasy terrains
• An entire chapter dedicated to the Historic Silk Road with maps detailing major trade destinations
• A trade system with over 1,000 trade goods for total economic simulation

And, yes, I bought it. With that, basic Traveller, and perhaps some creative adaptations from the Conan Return to The Road of Kings sourcebook for cultural details (Hykranians, Khaitians, etc.) you'd be rarin' to go. Along with, of course, some fantasy-low tech adaptation of the Traveller rules much like Eisenmann is working on.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I ran across this at a game store in Northern Virginia and the first thing that came to mind was "Oh, this would be handy for a Fantasy Traveller" campaign.

A Magical Society: Silk Road

A Magical Society: Silk Road explores networks of land-based trade routes that span continents. Like its predecessors (A Magical Society: Western Europe and A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture), A Magical Society: Silk Road synthesizes information from the historic silk road and presents trends and information for role-playing and world-building. Unlike its predecessors, we provide information on the historic silk road due to the general unfamiliarity of Central Asian history.

A Magical Society: Silk Road is 160 page supplement detailing great overland trade routes akin to the Historic Silk Road, including:
• What factors engender great overland trade routes
• What elements accompany the existence of silk roads
• How caravans function on the road within two historic terrains and two fantasy terrains
• An entire chapter dedicated to the Historic Silk Road with maps detailing major trade destinations
• A trade system with over 1,000 trade goods for total economic simulation

And, yes, I bought it. With that, basic Traveller, and perhaps some creative adaptations from the Conan Return to The Road of Kings sourcebook for cultural details (Hykranians, Khaitians, etc.) you'd be rarin' to go. Along with, of course, some fantasy-low tech adaptation of the Traveller rules much like Eisenmann is working on.

I would SOOOOO play in a game of this.

 

[captainjack23]

I ran across this at a game store in Northern Virginia and the first thing that came to mind was "Oh, this would be handy for a Fantasy Traveller" campaign.

A Magical Society: Silk Road

A Magical Society: Silk Road explores networks of land-based trade routes that span continents. Like its predecessors (A Magical Society: Western Europe and A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture), A Magical Society: Silk Road synthesizes information from the historic silk road and presents trends and information for role-playing and world-building. Unlike its predecessors, we provide information on the historic silk road due to the general unfamiliarity of Central Asian history.

A Magical Society: Silk Road is 160 page supplement detailing great overland trade routes akin to the Historic Silk Road, including:
• What factors engender great overland trade routes
• What elements accompany the existence of silk roads
• How caravans function on the road within two historic terrains and two fantasy terrains
• An entire chapter dedicated to the Historic Silk Road with maps detailing major trade destinations
• A trade system with over 1,000 trade goods for total economic simulation

And, yes, I bought it. With that, basic Traveller, and perhaps some creative adaptations from the Conan Return to The Road of Kings sourcebook for cultural details (Hykranians, Khaitians, etc.) you'd be rarin' to go. Along with, of course, some fantasy-low tech adaptation of the Traveller rules much like Eisenmann is working on.

It and the europe book are absolutely excellent .

And, if I may be so forward as to link to my low tech/S&S traveller, you may find much that is helpful:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=43387

 

[Eisenmann]

I've posted up the Ranger and the Barbarian LPs up on my blog.

Everything can be found via the Adventurer tag.

Free Man, Rogue, and Noble lifepaths are all but complete and are currently undergoing play-testing.

A Magical Society: Silk Road is a great, great resource. A Traveller Marco Polo would be incredible fun.

Edit:

Just added the skills list.