Magelight

[jwdh71]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguisable from magic"
Clarke's Law

"Any sufficiently advanced magic would be indistinguisable from technology"
Corrolary of Clarke's Law

I'm working on a new campaign, that will allow my SF averse players to transition from fantasy into at least Space Fantasy, if not full blown Hard SF gaming. THe name I came up for it is Magelight, which I will probably stick with since I like the sound of it. Basically it is a universe where you have all the tropes of your average SF RPG, but the underlying background is that all the weapons, equipment, computers and vehicles are based on magic, not technology. All the standard D20 races will be there, much of the monsters, and the character classes will be adjusted to fit a more advanced universe (yes there will be clerics in space). I will probably use many of the T20 character classes as well (suitably modified for the universe of course), and much of the weaponry will come out of the D20 books Arsenal and Factory that came out several years ago, and vehicle and starship design will be slightly modofied versions of the T20 design sequences.
What I'm looking for is ideas from the COTI gang that might work for such a setting, any recommendations for mods that might work would be helpful and greatly appreciated.
As I get more of the background in line I will post it here for comment and/or ripping apart.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by jwdh71:
"Any sufficiently advanced magic would be indistinguisable from technology"
Corrolary of Clarke's Law

aka Niven's Law

But the corrolary to Asimov's 3rd Law that I like best is Gehm's Corollary "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

The point being, if presenting technology as magic to your players it sounds like you're going to have to make sure they don't see the wires, so to speak. At least initially. That'll take a little creative work.

Good campaign title...

...but (you knew there was a but coming ) I have a devil of a time trying to read your* posts. It's all one block of text. You'll have to put a little effort into structuring your thoughts if you expect people to actually read them. I only skimmed this one, and that only with much effort and only because of the laws quoted. I almost didn't even bother. I'm sorry to say I don't read much of anything posted in such fashion and fear I'm missing the occassional gem, such as this perhaps. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

* Not just yours either fwiw, there are others and worse

 

[jwdh71]

Sorry about the formatting, trying to type and do anything else means I don't pay attention to either.

It isn't actually technology, it's magic, but with the same results as technology. The background will be a standard D20 world that had the same progression in magic as our world did with technology, with the result that the things a normal Traveller universe would do with tech, like grav vehicles or starships, would be done with magic. Same results, different way of getting there.

The other advantage is that my players who are more comfortable with fantasy get to keep their mages, sorcerers, clerics, elves and dwarves, but I can use put them into situations and adventures MUCH more like I would run for standard Traveller, which I would prefer to run, but my current crop of players are very Hard SF allergic.

This seemed like a good compromise, and the campaign setting that I've been tinkering with has intrigued them enough that they might actually give it a shot.

As I said before, any ideas, hints or contructive criticism will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Golan2072]

There is (was?) a D&D setting in print called Dragonstar (IIRC - or was that Dragonsphere?); I've never seen it, but I recall hearing about magical FTL drives, kobolds with blasters and similar matters. It might be worth buying (or, for the very least, if a friend of you has it, borrowing it and reading through it) as a mining-source for ideas and rules.

 

[epicenter00]

Ever consider Spelljammer? It's actually a good bridge between sci-fi and fantasy I've found. (Hey, it's a lot of fun - I'm not knocking it.)

On a more serious note, I've noticed that most people who are sci-fi adverse are leery of sci-fi RPGing (especially hard sci-fi) because of there's the feeling that there's an emphasis on science and numbers over adventure. This is the idea that has been told to me by a number of my players over the years. I've spoken to such players at length, so I suspect I understand your pain. In short, there's a feeling that in hard sci-fi stuff like gravitational gradients measured in .001s, 1G burn time calculations, the effects of different atmospheres on laser attenuation, bullet weights and hydrostatic shock matrices, and so on are of greater importance than adventure and drama.

Unfortunately for us GMs, the fears of these players aren't entirely unjustified. Just a cursory glance through the CotI boards will yield very popular threads arguing thrust-to-weight ratios of different of atomic engines versus hydro-oxy engines, the nature of subatomic particles accelerated to nearlightspeed, and so on. While this stuff can be fun for some of us (myself included), this is the kind of stuff that is, simply put, coyote ugly to these people - like gnaw your arm off to get out of the game stuff.

Fantasy has very well-known (some cads might suggest "tired") archetypes, fueled by decades of D&D. Sci-fi (especially hard sci-fi) doesn't. Players don't have comfortable archetypes to fall into - or at least they don't feel they do.

The trick is to bridge the gap and show your players that adventure and discovery are fully possible in sci-fi games just as much as in fantasy games.

I think your approach has merit, though admittedly that view has always been at odds with my view on things. I've always preferred the "reverted world" campaign myself - that is, a world that was once dizzingly high tech, but for whatever reason has reverted back to (an admittedly unrealistic but still fun) kind of feudalism.

There was an old TNE game I ran some time back for a few players over the internet - people who were vaguely curious about sci-fi RPGing but didn't like the "nerd factor" of hard sci-fi games. I'll pop up what I remember here. Obviously your game sounds very different, but I think some of the ideas I had might help inspire your setting. Good luck with it!

It wasn't canon TNE at all - the year was long after 1200 or even 1248. Probably more like 1700 or 2000. Since it wasn't expected to be much more than an one-shot campaign, I never thought out what happened to the Regency or anything else. Note that most of this knowledge is simply GM's rationalization - I actually presented most of the stuff you're about to read very differently to the players and much of this knowledge, the players would never have - it was only there to provide me a logical framework for the world so I could figure out who would do what next and why.

To let players have their familiar races, I tossed them humans, dwarves, and elves as playable "races."

The dwarves were the natives of the world, genetically engineered for mining on high-G worlds during the Third Imperium. Though this world was much more amiable than the high-G hellworlds they usually dwelled on, the "dwarves" decided to mine here because of the concentration of naturally occurring alloys of titanium on the world. Even before the AI Virus, the "dwarves" of the world were cut off from markets by the Hard Times and much of their sophisticated mining equipment had begun to fail and they were increasingly forced to use lower and lower tech alternatives - as my players were avid fans of "steampunk" type fantasy, I knew I could continue to let the dwarves operate steam engines.

The humans and elves were initially the same human stock, a refugee convoy fleeing the Corridor Sector into the Great Rift from Vargr raiders, but most of their damage actually came from Dulinor's and Lucan's long-distance commerce raiders lurking around the remnants of Strephon's enclave. From my experience, fantasy worlds have a strong "past fixation" (as opposed to sci-fi which is about the future) - that is, fantasy worlds always go on about how things were a lot better than they are now back in some past. For me, fragmented memories of the Third Imperium and space travel, mutated from history to myth to legend - legends of a glorious Sun Emperor (Strephon) whose wisdom was so great that even the stars in the sky bowed to his knowledge, but that the Emperor's brother grew jealous and this Black Brother (Dulinor) struck down the Sun Emperor and for that, the heavens shook and man fell from grace to Earth, exiled forever from the heavens. Ironically, most "educated" men and women of reason don't believe these tales, thinking of them as mere myth and instead believe that the "sea of stars" at best refers to some terrestrial ocean.

The ancestors of latter-day "humans" were those who chose to land their vessels on the surface of the world. They initially abandoned much of their high technology as they feared orbital sweeps by Lucan or Dulinor factional vessels. Such vessels never came, but the fear of them long outlasted the factions themselves.

The ancestors of the "elves" were those who chose to dwell on the moon of the world, which like Luna, was an airless rock with lower gravity. They had to utilize higher technology to survive, and though they drilled into moon's crust to escape detection, their moon cities were wondrous places even at lower tech levels - climate controlled hydroponic gardens where the battered colonists recovered then rediscovered the arts to pass time.

The last and most shadowy faction of "good" are the Droyne and the "wizards." When the Third Imperium was doing their Ancient excavations, a number of Droyne specialists and their families were brought along. And if the vast majority of the Droyne left with the Imperials, a few stayed behind. About a dozen in number (insufficient to provide for a viable genepool), these Droyne discovered Droyne-type anagathics amongst the ruins and thus are effectively immortal. As they worked with humans, they're favorably inclined towards them (though they've worked closely enough to also have a certain knowledge about human nature) and over the centuries, they've taken in individual humans and certain families who are taught psionics by the Droyne, as well as scientific knowledge (which allows them to make uncanny predictions and utilize natural phonmena to make it seem like they have much more power than they do - dates of solar/lunar eclipses to seem like they can blot the sun, extremely low tides for evading the Pharoah's forces, and so on). Though they don't have anagathics for humans, they do have very high technology so "wizards" tend to be extremely long-lived and very well preserved for their age. Their use of psionics and selected Ancient technologies effectively make them spellcasters.

On the side of evil, I have my Orcs, Trolls, Gnolls, and Demons.

Orcs, Goblins, and Trolls are reverted humans. Early explorers stumbled on an Imperial Research Station exploring an Ancient site on the planet. The Ancients had been developing "Nodokundu" type retrovii to turn slave human populaces into terror troops to use on Grandfather's faction. Though the station was abandoned even before Lucan's transfer order, the world was in such a remote spot that they simply mothballed everything and left, fully intending to return after the crisis. They never did. Instead, the explorers broke in and released the retroviruses, which killed most of the humans. However, by the time my game took place, the retroviruses were gone, but the mutations themselves had stabilized leaving savage and cannibalistic humans to fulfill the role of orcs and trolls and similar races.

Gnolls are fulfilled by Vargr. They're not actually "evil" per se, but long generations of humans hunting them (out of revenge for making them flee Corridor sector at first, but eventually just a vague sense of hatred) have left gnolls with a dislike of the "good" races that is practically bred into their bones.

Then there's the Virus. Though the infected ship was a cripple, it was a megacorporate bulk freighter fulfilling a large robotics order from the Spinward Marches to some world in Corridor consisting thousands of different kinds of robots. Instead, the psychotic Virus-infected ship had factions of robots fighting within it for supremacy as it arrived in-system. Though the ship itself oriented itself towards the planet, hundreds of robots (the losers of some intra-Virus factional fighting aboard the vessel) abandoned ship and decided to try their luck on the moon. The larger ship, spewing Virus signals over the coms and spilling lifeboats filled with robots managed to make partial re-entry in the north pole.

The Virus infected robots would fight the moon colonists - bitter seesaw fighting which the "elves" eventually won, but at great cost - their artificial gravity failed them and without repairs the "elves" grew tall and thin over the generations in the lower gravity - as well as giving them weaker constitutions. Devices that couldn't be repaired continued to fail the "elves" though the decline was slow. It was only a good 200-300 years after the Virus struck that the elves finally had to abandon their cities in makeshift re-entry craft to the surface. Though decivilized due to the failure of computer information systems even while in orbit, the elves still have a reputation for technical excellence and are considered cultured and erudite, a legacy of their idyllic years in hydroponic gardens reading poetry and making music.

On the world itself, things were worse. The Virus strains beamed into the terrestrial colonist's networks destroyed much of their high-tech equipment (and those of the dwarves), while the robots that made re-entry wreaked havoc on the colonists, destroying their settlements and hunting them until they were reduced to tiny bands nomads - at least until the robots broke down and their power supplies were exhausted, but by then the damage was done - humans on the surface were reduced to savagery.

Robots that went into the tunnels of the dwarves drove the dwarves out of some of their greatest holds where the robots could conserve their power and recharge themselves using dwarven geotheral taps and make modifications themselves using steam parts - the Balrog of the deeps, in other words.

However, the Virus robots aren't totally out of the picture. Though the ship that made re-entry onto the north pole wasn't designed for such, many robots survived, and worse yet, the fusion reactor survived in a capacity to generate power (though no human could get near it - the shielding is compromised and highly radioactive). The robots have been busy, mining and setting up factories to produce more of their kind - with the single-minded imperative to destroy all humans. However, progress has been slow, and due to the Shulshadam Accords, none of the robots actually have true weaponry, only vibrosaws, cutting lasers, and similar industrial tools, in addition, gaps in the robots knowledgebases mean that they simply don't know how to do key things to mass produce their armies, a deficiency only concluded so they've been sending robot agents (think Terminators except with plastic or rubber skin) with "magic weapons" (vibrocutters, waterknives, and such) to hire tribes of gnolls, orcs, and unscrupulous humans to try and find sources of knowledge in the wider world for their quest. While their factories aren't ready yet, they soon will be, and in many icy polar caves, there are tens of thousands of robotic chassis under a hoar of frost, waiting for certain key parts to make them operational (yeah, so Angmar/Mordor, anyone?). I had a plan at one point for the "golem"/"elemental" armies to test out an ornothopter type bomber - a dragon.

Those were the basic factions. The game was an epic quest about the players discovering something about the "true" past of their planet (there were plenty of clues) and eventually stopping the Virus controlled "golem factory" in the far north before it could fully come on-line. There would be intrigue (networks headed by robotic agents), dramatic rescues, toppling of thrones, negotiations and alliances (helping dwarves reclaim holds and negotiating with the elves for what remains of their technical knowledge and finally being (of course) the few humans ever allowed to glimpse the fabled Golden City of the Magi and to ride the Bright Chariots to the moon itself), seeking out "magic items" (like deactivated robot's industrial tools and finding TL16 first aid kits in wrecks of survival pods and ship's boats), epic trips to the moon to find technical devices preserved in vacuum, and so on.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by jwdh71:
Sorry about the formatting, trying to type and do anything else means I don't pay attention to either.

Ah, distraction and no doubt pressed for time, I understand.

Originally posted by jwdh71:
It isn't actually technology, it's magic, but with the same results as technology.

Sorry, my interpretation was way off then

I was thinking it was a tech become magic deal, like that ST(TOS) episode where the people worshipped at a temple to a god that turned out to be a big computer running things with technology (set up by their distant ancenstors iirc) that the people thought was magic.

Got you now, have to give it a think.

 

[Plankowner]

A wand of Magic Missiles makes a reasonable substitution for a Laser Pistol...

 

[kafka47]

Clarke's law is fine and dandy when doing the Wonder effect and the Corrolary makes think of Photus. I have no objections of mixing Science Fiction and Fantasy, after all that's what Lucas' Star Wars is all about, isn't it. And, Traveller & Star Wars while they are not best of bedmates they at least sleep with each other.

I do take exception at pulling them together on a routine basis. I tend to like the idea of handwaves, certain parts of MTU will always be susceptible to them just to tell a good story but I would like some sort of science to back it up, even if it is pseudoscience (a la Fading Suns).

Part of me longs for a real Hard SF milieux for Traveller, as it seems like the world would need to get much more gritty, as that is the MT/CT that I always enjoyed playing but then I think about newbies and wonder if the grit would cover the chrome and hence tarnish a future that is premised upon the characters are players in a greater destiny.

However, that is the tension that has always existed in Traveller and I think, if we can explore worlds with words. It doesn't really matter whether we call it technology (i.e. language) or magic (i.e. imagination) both will continue to capture us and bring us closer to rapture.

 

[jwdh71]

Employee 2-4601: Yes I've both read and playerd Dragonstar. An interesting game, but the background wasn't really to my taste, and it was really a high-tech universe. Yes they used some magic, such as the FTL system for starships, and you could play spell-using characters, but most of the weapons and equipment were based on technology, not magic, with the exception of spellware and the like. The concept I'm trying to go for is a complete replacement on technology with magic, so that everything we would see in a high-tech world is there, but everything is powered by magic, not electricity.

epicenter00: I've played and ran Spelljammer, it's a great background, but I'm going for a different look with this game. I like your background for your game, it sounds like it was a hoot to play in. As I said before, I'm not going for a "high-tech as magic for the unsophisticated locals" type campaign, its more like high-magery as complete replacement for high-tech.

A little about the background, it's set in an area of space known as the Four Sectors, which was colonized by various races during and after the fall of the Meran Empire, a large empire to coreward of the Four Sectors. The Meran fall was long, hard, and brutal, leaving many dead worlds , some from the wars, some from what came after. THe Four Sectors area is home to many nations, some of which are peaceful, others not so much. Here are some of the polities I have started working on:

Star Empire of Montrose:
Human empire of about twenty worlds, capitol is on Montrose. Ruled by Empress Arieta, and a two house Parliament, with a Noble House and a Freepersons House. A small but powerful polity, most of its economic might comes from its central location, so it is a hub of trade. It has a powerful navy, and substantial ground forces.

Confederate Republic of Derago:
A mixed (mostly human) polity of 51 worlds in the Derago Deeps area of space. The Confederate Republic (or CR) is an economic, technomagical, and military powerhouse. The CR maintains one of the largest militaries of any of the human polities. It has a large Navy, a Marine Corps, and a large and capable Army.

Sybaris:
A truly open and neutral single system polity. Ostensibly ruled by humans, you can find any sentient species there. It is a hub of trade and diplomacy, and you can find literally anything for sale there.

Sylvanus League:
The largest of the Elven polities, this is a mutual defense and free trade league. It has good relations with Montrose, less so with the CR, and very good relations with the Dwarvish kingdom of Mirtheim. Few but Elves and their client races live in the League, as they are not welcoming of strangers who settle permanently in their lands.


Mirtheim:
A fortunate placement of systems gave the Dwarvish Kingdom of Mirtheim access to vast mineral riches, which they have parlayed into even vaster fortunes. They have trade relations with most of the human and elvish star nations, though they have no trade with the Drow or Hobgoblins, except through long chains of intermediaries.

The Spider Kingdoms:
A number of Drow polities united under the banner of Lolth, their Spider Goddess. They are almost always at war with one or another enemy, or even each other; though for all their power they are rarely long on the winning side. Trading partners are few although several of the Hobgoblin polities trade with them, and everyone can trade with Sybaris.

The Orc Barrens:
A wild frontier populated by humanoids of all types, but mostly by Orcs. While they are themselves not very proficient with technomagic, they are more than willing to steal, or if necessary trade, for what they need. They often hire out whole clans as mercenary troops for the chance to gain modern weapons, armor, vehicles, or even ships. There is a steady trade in old obsolete ships with the Orc tribes, for several of the worlds in the barrens are rich in resources. Many clan chiefs that manage to get a hold of a ship or two try their hand at piracy, with decidedly mixed results.

The Hobgoblin Holdfasts:
The most successful and disciplined of the Goblinoid races, the Hobgoblins have managed to take and hold a large number of planets. Each individual planet is independent, but most of the Holdleaders gather to settle disputes and come to agreements over trade and foreign relations. They do not use robots as fighters like many other races do, as they see that as cowardly. Besides they have their Goblin and Bugbear cousins to use as cannon fodder and shock troops.

The Aetrean League:
A mixed Human and Halfling polity, this group of 7 worlds is perilously close to both the Orc Barrens and the Spider Kingdoms. With the threats all around them they are constantly in a state of readiness. Most of the adult population has some type of military training, and are part of a militia.


The Meghran Empire:
A human empire of approximately 45 worlds (and growing), the Meghran Empire is a blight on the stars. Its rulers are corrupt racists; it makes treaties and breaks them as soon as it is to their advantage, and they are conquering all nearby independent systems. They have poor relationships with most of the human polities, all the Elven and Dwarven ones, and even the Hobgoblins don’t get along with them. They do some trade with the Spider Kingdoms, but it is limited due to the mistrust they have for each other. Their army and navy are first rate, however, and the only thing that prevents it from being the largest and most powerful human empire is the relative incompetence of their noble commanders.

High Elven Worldships:
The High Elves have been in space for longer than most races have been civilized. They have completely given up living on their home worlds, and live aboard miles long worldships, traveling through charted (and uncharted) space. They consider their world bound elvish cousins as uncouth barbarians, and barely deem to speak to lesser races. Their unbelievable technomagic and power allow them to go almost anywhere, even areas where no other races will go. While it is possible to cripple or even destroy a worldship, it has happened very few times in recorded history, and every time, the attacker has been terribly weakened, or even destroyed themselves.

I'm still working on the others, as this is a big area of space I'm planning to use, but those are a few of the biggest. Comments, questions and arrows welcome...

 

[jwdh71]

Plankowner: The books I'm using, Perpetrated Press's Arsenal, and Factory, do just that. The standard blaster type weapon is decended from the wand of magic missiles. They make other weapons as well, decended from other magic spells and items, but usuable by anyone.

kafka47: I would love to run or play in a hard SF setting, but the group I play with is very allergic to Hard SF. It's a bit of a stretch to get them to play this, and since I live in an area with few gamers, it's do magic or not play...

 

[Plankowner]

There was a trilogy of books written about Hi-Tech Magic, they even had witches on broom-sticks flying between stars! They were very good and I will pull them out and pass along the info for you, they might be a good inspiration.

 

[Plankowner]

Just had another thought. Harry Turtledove wrote a series of books about a World War in a Magical setting. I think there were six books in all; all of the titles had "Darkness" in them... Decending into Darkness, Out of the Darkness, stuff like that. I thoroughly enjoyed them and they are all out in Paperback now.

Soldiers used "Sticks" that shot magical beams and dragonriders were the airforce. There were groups of mages coming up with new spells and trying to develop the ultimate weapon, similar to an atomic bomb, but based on Magical Laws.

 

[Golan2072]

D&D in space could be fun - and D&D itself offers quite alot of useful stuff for the propective explorer. Bound elementals/djinni (or demons if you use MSWIN-XP

) could handle computers quite well; various teleportation spells (or better yet, dimension travel spells - using the Ethereal or Astral as "jumpspace" - and meaning that interstellar travel faces a threat from Ethereal/Astral monsters); wands could easily be used to replace energy weapons; golems could replace monters; and wizards would be the technologists of the setting.

The big difference between that setting and D&D would be that magic items could be manufactured in mass-production (or, for the bery least, semi-mass-production) in the D&D-in-space setting; the "industrial revolution" in that setting will come after some wizard or dragon (or even god of magic) will invent some way to icrese the rate (and reduce the cost) of magic-item crafting.

 

[far-trader]

Hmm, another writers law is dancing around the periphery of my consciousness, something about magic as technology becomes mundane. Not sure you're going that far but it's an idea. So not just the powerful have magic but everyone does...

All the shops have glyphs (alarms) that alert the police if a break in happens, with panic glyphs as well.

Everyone has small portable crystal balls (video cell phones), perhaps with a little total recall demon with 2D illusion and auditory creation trapped inside (camera/mp3 player).

People, industry, and business use golems as servents (robots).

"Horseless" carriages (and other vehicles) are powered by magic fire contained in braziers (engines) that run on liquid magic (fuel).

Some injuries are treated with special ceremonies (operations) where charms (artificial organs) are used to replace damaged organs.

Missing limbs are routinely replaced with magical constructs (bionic replacement).

...and so on.

 

[jwdh71]

Plankowner: Yes I read some of that Turtledove series, pretty good IMHO, haven't finished it yet though. I took some of my inspiration from it, but went further into the future.

Employee 2-4601: Exactly! there was a magical industrial revolution in this universe, so manology (magical technology) is indeed mass produced. I'm using teleportation spells as the basis for the FTL drive, computers are bound spirits so there is a sort of AI in computers, most modern vehicles levitate or fly as per the spells (the magical analogue to grav vehicles), power (mana) is provided by bound elementals, so that your ships engines are powered by it, etc.

far-trader: Yes I am going that far and then some. Pretty much everything you could do in a High-Tech SF universe you will be able to do in this one, just with manology instead of technology.

 

[epicenter00]

Ah, I see. Very interesting universe you've set up. I've been toying with making a fantasy world 'high magic' and trying to think through the implications of what 'high magic' would be like without going down the road of the "Flintstones" in order to create a world with logical and reasonable basis for high magical society.

I've run into some snags, one of which is Teleport, ironically. I would be careful about using teleport as the basis for interplanetary travel. Fantasy players (assuming they've been playing D&D and are used to lots of magic) are pretty familiar with Teleport. Unless you're blessed with a group that does very little metagame thinking, players will sooner or later (usually sooner) ask questions about Teleport and starships and why.

In most fantasy worlds, Teleport exists as a personal (or group) spell with the resolution to be cast by a single caster to move with accuracy over long distances. Fantasy worlds don't worry about differences in velocity and so forth, making it easy and safe. So why do you need starships? Unlike typical Sci-Fi FTL drives that are messed up by gravity, fantasy players know that Teleport works in gravity - they use it quite often on planetary surfaces. Just have your spellcaster cast teleport on a planetary surface and teleport directly to the other planet's surface - no need for ships. If there's an issue with a power requirement for the spell, you could simply build portals (a la "Stargate") on a planet's surface to go from planet to planet with a handy bound elemental type to provide power.

There's any number solutions to the teleport dilemma, but it's something to consider if you haven't already.

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
A wand of Magic Missiles makes a reasonable substitution for a Laser Pistol...

Actually, there's a nifty precedent in the literature that might fit right into this sort of campaign.

In the manga (and later anime) "Outlaw Star" (itself set in a magic-rich, high-tech universe), the protagonist carried, in addition to a conventional sidearm, a cartidge-fed magic wand referred to as a "'caster" (presumably short for "spellcaster").

It was essentially a top-break, single-round shotgun pistol into the breach of which were inserted pre-purchased shells. Shells which, when fired (or, as it were, cast) activated and discharged destructive effects in the direction the (itself magically-inscribed) device was pointed. There were several assorted types of spell effect available (for appropriately-high prices) from specialty arms merchants, identified by a number corresponding to their resulting magical effect.

I'd suggest a pricing scale comparable to that of potions (which the device does not replace, since potions tend to affect the user, but the caster affects the user's opponent); it might make a nice way for the non-magically-inclined to weild a bit of the mana as needed...

 

[Plankowner]

Teleport does pose a problem. One possible solution is to tie Teleport to Gravity. Teleport ONLY works in a strong gravity field (on a planet), so that it cannot be used for Interstellar travel.

Using the Astral or Ethereal planes as Hyperspace, would keept the fantasy framework, allow for very fast travel and give you built in encounters.

Maybe all the Planes out there are really just other planets...

 

[jwdh71]

The solution I use is simple, and given to me by one of my former DM's, who really hated the Teleport spell. He made a ruling that, if you didn't know the place you were teleporting to, it had to be able to see it. So while it was fine for wizards to use it to go back to their towers for something they forgot, or bad guys to escape to their lairs, it was not good for long range planetary transport. What I did is tie that into the idea that an astrogator or the astrogator "spirit" being used, was first and foremost an astronomer, who would search the skies with his magescope to find where he wanted the ship to go, then feed that information into the ships FTL drive. So no long-range interstellar planet-to-planet teleports.

I'm also thinking of creating a drive based on the magical concept of Ley lines. Like the Ley lines that connect places of magical power, they also connect star systems, and the drive would allow ships to "leap" these lines from system to system.

 

[Icosahedron]

Originally posted by epicenter00:
I've always preferred the "reverted world" campaign myself - that is, a world that was once dizzingly high tech, but for whatever reason has reverted back to (an admittedly unrealistic but still fun) kind of feudalism.

There was an old TNE game I ran some time back for a few players over the internet

A well thought out rationale, Epicenter, and an entertaining read.
I like hard SF and Fantasy, but would never, ever mix them - it's an arm-gnawing aversion - however, your game actually sounds workable since the fantasy doesn't *really* exist, it's just Clarkean tech.

I, too, would go with science as explanation of magic rather than the other way round. Let the players to be weaned *think* they're using magic and allow them to slowly realise the technical truth as they get into SF.