Steamworks & Arcana

Campaign Introduction

This is a proposal for a future campaign run by Clay.

Setting

Set in The World of Vallia similar to our own during the late 1800's or early 1900's in a European/American environment. This world has evolved in tandem with a high level of magic, so most technology is built around such magics.

• Gunpowder (or its likeness) has not been discovered or utilized, so weapons are still stuck in mid evil levels (swords, axes, bows...).
• Transportation for short distances is handled by horses or other living creatures, automobiles do not exist yet. Long-distance maybe covered by a limited number of trains. Few tracks do cross the continent, but they do cross.
• Humans are the dominant species of the world, but all the high fantasy races do exist (elves, dwarfs, gnomes, demons...). The level of interaction they maintain with the humans will be decided by the players.
• The rest of the make up of the campaign and story will be dictated by the backgrounds of the characters. Example: if someone wants to make a mariner, there will me more ocean mapped out.
• I personally like the idea of a large scale war in recent history (10-50 years ago) but it is not required.

The feel for this campaign will be similar to a steam-punk style with high magic; examples of this would be Fullmetal Alchemist, Final Fantasy VI or Eberon

Story

This intends to be an epic quest with the fate of the world hanging in the balance

The story will be a contemporary character driven piece, i.e. character's motivations and goals will drive the plot forward, no plot for plots sake. Therefore, the plot will be generated from the backgrounds of the characters that are provided to me.

It should also be noted that since I have not run many campaigns (4) and only a handful from this mentality (2), the greater lead time I can have with character backgrounds, the better.

Character Development

Think of someone who'd exist within that world and would be fun to play. The sky is the limit (for the most part) anything way over powered (e.g. Jesus) will be scaled back or disallowed. Anything way under powered will be pitied. This will be a heroic campaign and the character's character should reflect this. That doesn't mean the hero can't be damaged or has to be a boy scout. The Punisher is just as much of a hero as Superman in his own right. Also, some heros don't want to be (e.g. the Hulk, Jon McLane), but are constantly thrown in to such positions. Or the hero who hasn't been in the past but wants to make a change in his life and seek redemption (eventually most Marvel villains).

If the back story requires a political structure, military group or any other organization feel free to create the group as well. In fact the more NPCs that can be created in the back story makes it easier to draw plot hooks and such. Feel free to create as much of the world as you like to fit your character, but do remember that after it is created, it becomes a tool of mine to horribly screw over the party.

Write your background as if you are writing the first chapter of their story. It just introduces them and should definitely not finish their story. But it should also introduce a little conflict that they need to resolve (if no conflict happens in chapter one, few will read chapter two). By the end of the first chapter a motivation (not the motivation )for the character has already been established. In Star Wars, C3P0 and R2 have already shown up on Luke's doorstep, Han is already running from Jaba and Leia has already been kidnapped by Vader. However all the exciting adventure stuff has yet to happen.

I know that GURPS is very adjustable and can be used to create a variety of different characters, but even so please pay little attention to the rules when generating a concept, we'll break the rules to fit your character (within reason of course). The golden rule here is good storytelling, all else is secondary to the story.

Please write a back story as the first chapter of a book, leave room for growth of your character and a reason for adventuring (since you're not getting one from me). The more information you can provide me (i.e. possible plot hooks), the better experience it should be for you. Here is an example of the process.

Another way to look at it is that this is a contemporary story versus a classical. In classical storytelling the how and what are more important. In contemporary, the who is more important. Star Trek is very classical, alot of the stories are "there is a disturbance in the demilitarized zone, go and investigate" it doesn't matter who the crew is the story will largely unfold the same way. Serenity is more contemporary in that many of the events derive from villians from River and Simon's past hunting them down. And other aspects of the characters influence the story. If the captain was someone other than Mal, the stories would unfold differently.

I like to think of it as a line. You create a background (that starts the line) and when I pick up the story, I want to be able to continue that line along its course and direction to complete the story of your character. I don't want to break that line to fit it to my story.

Creation doesn't need to collaborative, the party doesn't need to know each other ahead of time, and small secrets from the party are okay. Just realize that if you create a paladin and the rest of the party are rouges, you may need to adapt to the rest of the part a bit.

Any conflicts (e.g. one player is the last is the sole elf adventuring trying to find traces of his lost brethren, another is a general in the elven army preparing an assault on the human scourge)will be resolve as best as possible (whomever is most passionate about theirs, who ever has another idea...).

Questions to ask

This maybe patronizing for experience role-players such as your self, but some times simple questions are the best:

• Will this character be fun to play, for you and all other players in the group??
• Can I actually play this character? (as in, is it in my personality to play them)
• Will this character fit into a group? (do they play nice with others)
• Would this character adventure?
• Are the character's goals of a long enough term?
• Does the character fit the campaign style? (you don't have much for this, but atleast don't make an astronaut)
• Does the character actually care about other people? (not everyone, but at least some)

the answer to all of these questions should be "yes".

Points

I will do my best to adjust points and abilities to fit character concepts, so please start there and we'll make things fit. But for a ballpark:

• 250 (plus or minus)
• 150 max attributes
• 125 max advantages/disadvantages

If you have a high power concept we can make that work, but remember the rule of escalation: What the players have access to, so do the antagonists (+ a couple more).

Weak characters might be balance up a bit during the campaign, if the point is to be a weak character, it may not be too much. We can talk about it.

Characters

• Martigan Swift, played by John
• Groth, played by Jess