tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post3634754670002359396..comments2024-03-23T02:49:05.115-06:00Comments on Gundobad Games: Brazen Princes: Looking for Feedback on a Bronze Age Setting IdeaGundobadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14335443896772607081noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-1364591748803055082019-05-15T07:52:43.548-06:002019-05-15T07:52:43.548-06:00That to me seems like a worthwhile approach!That to me seems like a worthwhile approach!Ynas Midgardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14972628887096890642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-90000201653699295332019-05-09T11:32:55.275-06:002019-05-09T11:32:55.275-06:00Nice, like I said, really looking forward to this ...Nice, like I said, really looking forward to this project. Have you had the chance to DM with any of the books you listed? (If so, I am jealous, I've only ever gotten to work with Yoon-Suin. SWN is still a far off dream.)<br /><br />So, thinking about lore--I think the thing I like about Yoon-Suin's lore is that it's not binding, it's not specific. It's just flavor (lots of flavor) but no hard quotes on T'oth the Blood Toothed, who in the year 1389 after the War of the Space Hag, made a pact with Yggoth the Cold, etc etc etc. <br /><br />I think the thing about tables that I like is that it helps me as a DM answer the questions What Now? and What Next? I don't know what kinda things happen in a Fantasy Bronze Age market. I don't know what kinda mythical asskicking might pop up in a Fantasy Bronze Age scrub desert. The tables help me quickly develop the scenario.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm tuned in and ready for the next Gundobad broadcast!bgeorge77https://www.blogger.com/profile/14524051055544962510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-17494415684178849332019-05-09T11:26:40.226-06:002019-05-09T11:26:40.226-06:00Thanks very much for those detailed comments and i...Thanks very much for those detailed comments and ideas. What I envision sits closest, perhaps, to 'normal' sword and sorcery settings, just with added depth on a number of social dynamics. In keeping with that parallel, I have in mind a human-PCs, low magic, no special snowflake classes added in, kind of affair. Because I run Into the Odd, I already lean toward using equipment items for the magic system (Arcana, or Cyphers in Numenera), but in my case those equipment pieces would be living elementals that have taken useful forms for human benefit (or harm). <br /><br />I'm curious what you'd think about a strategy I'm considering to cut prose and bulk but still make this thing playable. Most fantasy GMs have heads chock full of archetypes (ok, let's be real and call them stereotypes :-). Why not use those beneficially? I mean, if I wanted to describe a Bronze Age warrior chiefdom along the Amber Route, I *could* write a 400-page guide to culture and customs that I don't have time to write. Or I could say "imagine Celts, except they're not actually Celts yet" or "imagine Cimmerians or some other sword and sorcery barbarian tribe" - and then lean hard into showing "except here are 5 or 6 ways that THIS group is really different from what you have in mind, and how Bronze Age chiefdoms differed from Iron Age ones." Use tables or prose or whatever to highlight how this group specifically differs from the stereotype, and then just let each table's preferred stereotype fill in the rest of the details (does this tribe drink mead from its enemies' skulls? Do they wear golden torcs and arm-rings? Are they ritually tattooed? Is their hair dark and their moods mirthful and melancholy? I don't know and I don't have to care, if you want your version of them to do so then go for it). Essentially, trying to focus most on the places where I can add real conceptual density, and then just painting by numbers on everything else so that GMs can go with their gut on other things. Does that make sense? Gundobadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14335443896772607081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-89920658841972950232019-05-09T11:15:43.105-06:002019-05-09T11:15:43.105-06:00I'm in no way an expert on metallurgy, but her...I'm in no way an expert on metallurgy, but here are some thoughts:<br />+ my sense (and again my actual personal expertise covers much later, Roman periods) is that bronze armor could be very effective. One of the big problems with iron vs bronze is not that bronze is a crummy metal, but rather access; iron is all over the place, but it took a long time for metallurgy to develop the skills to smelt iron successfully. Bronze, however, requires an alloy of two metals from far away, so it is both harder to procure and therefore easier to restrict. Note that once the Iron Age began, bronze did not vanish; lots of classical Greek armor was still made out of bronze even when the weapons were iron (I'll comment on the linen breastplates below).<br />+ that being said, Mycenaean warfare included quite bulky Bronze Age versions of something that we could best call 'ancient full plate' (it's not full plate, but for the period it's a pretty good analogy). <br />+ moreover, any failings of bronze as a metal for armor would be offset by the fact that the weapons attacking said armor also were made of bronze. So in game terms, the whole thing scales pretty well, IMO. I like running Into the Odd, anyway, which has a nice armor system that isn't very fine-grained, so the minute differences would altogether vanish.<br />+ the linothorax - the laminate-linen breastplate that you mentioned - is interesting. A few years ago some archaeologists released an experimental study of that kind of armor. They found (among other cool things) that it is easy to make, very lightweight, and VERY effective - they shot arrows at their home-made armor and even had one of the archaeologists wear the armor while being shot at (uh, don't try this at home, kids...). If I remember correctly, they concluded that the linothorax was an excellent and almost 'democratic' piece of equipment (I'm using that term in a loose and quite anachronistic sense) and that when people wore the heavier, hotter, more expensive bronze breastplates, it may have been to signal their importance and wealth rather than for primarily defensive reasons. Gundobadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14335443896772607081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-4524779673429765842019-05-09T10:16:59.259-06:002019-05-09T10:16:59.259-06:00To be honest I was mainly thinking of armour. You&...To be honest I was mainly thinking of armour. You're right, from a game mechanics point of view a short sword is a khopesh is a short sword. But the old D&D staple of full-plate armour- would old bronze armour count? Is bronze noticeably softer than iron such that it'd require a lower AC? What about the laminate-linen breastplates that Alexander the Great's army wore (probably still too modern, come to think of it)?<br /><br />That said, that book recommendation would probably solve all those questions, thanks for that!Clockwork Badgerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02783269126359946001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-91312400045564162722019-05-09T06:28:48.292-06:002019-05-09T06:28:48.292-06:00Just two more suggestions:
If you are tweaking th...Just two more suggestions:<br /><br />If you are tweaking things like classes, races, etc, a good way to introduce both the mechanics and the setting specifics is to do a sort of life-path system, where you make character building and level-up choices step by step. Shadow of the Demon Lord does this well, I think.<br /><br />Also, you will need good, evocative b/w art because ancient civilizations are harder to imagine than the usual quasi medieval fare. Denis Loubet might be a good inspiration, especially his work on the Ultima 4 / Ultima 5 booklets.Jorunkunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09426891713637954230noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-90649878895036362942019-05-09T05:57:02.038-06:002019-05-09T05:57:02.038-06:00Yes, this does sound like a setting I'd like t...Yes, this does sound like a setting I'd like to run, because I like thoroughly built, quasi-historical worlds and think the Bronze Age is underrepresented in the RPG market. In particular, I find what you intend to do with religion and the Flesh Lords interesting. <br /><br />I would expect that your historical expertise will shine through in the details of the setting - for example, what do settlements look like, what kind of equipment is available, and at what price.<br /><br />As others have said, I would suggest you try to express your setting in the form of tables, templates, and processes for the GM to generate their own (sandbox-y) game. The less prose, the better.<br /><br />My personal tastes run more toward the historical than the fantastical, but many in the OSR skew toward high fantasy and weirdness, as with Yoon Suin. Maybe you could somehow tier or key-word monsters, spells, and magic items to make it easier for the GM to dial fantastical elements up or down? <br /><br />Given the fragmented nature of the RPG market, I think it is best if the product is system neutral or easily adapted, and no less useful piecemeal than as a whole.<br /><br />But, yeah: Godspeed!Jorunkunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09426891713637954230noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-37091832531467721862019-05-08T22:17:13.811-06:002019-05-08T22:17:13.811-06:00Hey, thanks very much for the substantive feedback...Hey, thanks very much for the substantive feedback, which I really appreciate. I am studying Yoon-Suin, along with Red Tide (a fantasy version of Stars without Number, essentially, by the same author) as well as SWN and the Midlands Low-Magic Fantasy Sandbox setting as some possible role models. I will cheerfully note that even Yoon-Suin indulges in a 17-page fictional lore-dump, :-), but I take your point overall.<br /><br />I think that I gravitate toward something kind of in the middle. To my taste, Yoon-Suin pushes toward random tables a bit more than I'd prefer. That being said, I completely understand why GM-binding lore-dumps all over the place are bad news at many tables. The lore that I put on my blog comes in at about 2.5 pages in document form, and there's not too much at all more that I want to add in terms of overall setting lore. <br /><br />I've articulated the following project goals for myself:<br />+ provide one or two 'micro-gazetteers' (if you will) that each focus on a region within the broad world I've described (probably starting with the Amber Route, modeled on Urnfield/European Bronze Age societies plus a kind of Mesopotamian-meets Carthaginian colonizing power);<br />+ make something that a busy GM could use to run a short campaign of 4-8 sessions with minimal prep, through some pre-made adventure content and location design, but...<br />+ make the same product flexible enough to support a sandbox approach for GMs who want to run that way, and leave big gaps that GMs can use to fill in their own preferred modules or own content;<br />+ finally, I've realized that I'm not really motivated to create a 'clone' mimicking real-world Bronze Age societies (there are already some decent things that do that out there); rather, I'd really like to present a setting that evokes those societies but instead unpacks some of the historical social dynamics I discuss on my blog, albeit in a fresh, fantastical setting. This means that I don't need to duplicate the cults of Canaan, per se (which frees me from too much lore on the one hand) but I do want to have the depth to explore some interesting social relations - which does require me to have a certain level of fixed content, otherwise it just falls apart. <br /><br />Anyway, I am taking your feedback seriously and I appreciate your input. Cheers!Gundobadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14335443896772607081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-6211204381900878002019-05-08T22:06:05.052-06:002019-05-08T22:06:05.052-06:00Thank you, I really appreciate the feedback.
Rega...Thank you, I really appreciate the feedback. <br />Regarding equipment...a lot of that, to be honest, can be handled just with abstraction - I mean, to a certain extent it all depends on whether one really wants to distinguish between "swords" and khopesh-blades, etc. ... :-) (But if one does want to, a nice place to get acquainted with period weaponry is here: https://ospreypublishing.com/bronze-age-greek-warrior-1600-1100-bc-pb <br />Beyond weaponry, are you thinking of other equipment/adventuring supplies? Many were already around in Mediterranean Bronze Age societies - I mean, poles, nets, ropes, spikes (just not iron), etc. were there. What kind of constraints do you have in mind? Gundobadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14335443896772607081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-45034557230926702402019-05-06T20:45:03.363-06:002019-05-06T20:45:03.363-06:00Nice project!
So, I guess you have to ask yourse...Nice project! <br /><br />So, I guess you have to ask yourself a few things: Who are you writing this for? DMs? Players? Both? The answer to that would obviously really change what your approach is. <br /><br />There are many potential approaches, but this is what me, a random internet guy, would like to see, as a DM: more books like Yoon-Suin, Stars Without Number, or Veins of the Earth, (possibly the Gardens of Ynn?) that don't dictate to me the specifics of the world in any really binding way, but rather that give me a general flavor and then a whole lot of tools to quickly generate ideas. <br /><br />What I don't need: more variations on the Mystara Gazetteer model from back in the day, which lists out a huge number of specifics. Or, even less helpful, the Half-Baked Novel, basically people's scrap world-building notes. There are tons of settings books like that.<br /><br />Or as another example of too-much-info, see the History of Space on p121 of Stars Without Number. I basically ignore that kind of thing, the timelines an specific events and stuff. Fortunately that section is short, cause on page 129 you get the good stuff, Sector Creation, quick ways to generate lots of locations with adventure hooks baked in.<br /><br />Read Yoon-Suin. The things that are great about that setting is that very little is spelled out. Like really only a few things: There are slugmen, who are rich, and there are crab men, who are slaves, and maybe a few other things, mostly ignorable or not, to DM taste. Almost everything is cooked into the tables, meaning that the world generated is unique though still recognizably in the Yoon-Suin setting. Persons, Places, and Things--tables of all that, and boom, the lore basically writes itself. Ain't nobody got time for lore. (Well, I don't anyway, I have friends who eat that stuff up.) You already have a lot of lore up in your post--it's good lore, for sure, but in the end, I think for me anyway, it's not *my* lore--part of the draw of DMing for me is that I'm ultimately the lore arbiter. (Though I let my players have a wide rein there too, especially on good Int rolls.)<br /><br />I guess, in short, my hope would be: start with the tables. Tables, tables, tables. Leave the lore stuff to the very last and very least, if you even need it at all. My not-so-humble two cents. I look forward to seeing what you cook up!<br /><br />bgeorge77https://www.blogger.com/profile/14524051055544962510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7978585450395254487.post-70043317567413547262019-05-06T17:28:29.211-06:002019-05-06T17:28:29.211-06:00Wow, talk about loads of scope! I love that, while...Wow, talk about loads of scope! I love that, while some parts of it are identifiable as early Mediterranean culture, the whole still comes across as a unique world rather than just a tweaking of the real world or the standard fantasy world.<br /><br />I've toyed with the idea of building a bronze/iron age campaign before (though probably using British and Irish myth and culture) but the thing that always put me off was having to curate the list of weapons, armour and other adventuring equipment so that it was at least vaguely era-appropriate while not estranging the players. Is that something you've looked into for this project yet?Clockwork Badgerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02783269126359946001noreply@blogger.com