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motoko's ghost
2012-02-14, 08:42 AM
What I want to know is there a system where there is some sort of epic battle between two sides, one magical(think D&D and so on) and one sci-fi(like eclipse phase or cyberpunk2020)?

If there isn't, what systems could I conceivably run this sort of setting in?

I want to mess around with this sort of concept and I'm not sure if I'll have to homebrew it or not.

Thanks in advance.

Eldan
2012-02-14, 08:47 AM
Shadowrun offers both (Post-)Cyberpunk and rather massive fantasy elements, but they are more integrated than at war, in most cases. Cybernetics and other body-replacements weaken a spellcaster's essence (his spellcasting power), but otherwise? You have dragons running multinational arms manufactoring companies, free elven states and non-human rights campaigns everywhere. That said, you could certainly write your own background.

motoko's ghost
2012-02-14, 08:52 AM
Shadowrun offers both (Post-)Cyberpunk and rather massive fantasy elements, but they are more integrated than at war, in most cases. Cybernetics and other body-replacements weaken a spellcaster's essence (his spellcasting power), but otherwise? You have dragons running multinational arms manufactoring companies, free elven states and non-human rights campaigns everywhere. That said, you could certainly write your own background.

I know about shadowrun(played a couple short games with it) but it's not quite what I'm looking for.
I'm looking for one where both sides are at war with one another.

Eldan
2012-02-14, 08:55 AM
As I said: it's a rules basis to add your own setting to. I don't think I've heard about a system with that base assumption in the fluff.

Radar
2012-02-14, 09:00 AM
In a way it's the premise of the World of Darkness (by White Wolf) or at least part thereof (they loaded so many supernatural beings into one world, it's hard to tell). At any rate an ongoin struggle between Technocracy and Mages is a serious point of the world - you could just downplay or ignore all the other sides. As for the particular system, Mage (whichever version) handles the mages obviously and I think there should be a book about agents of Technocracy.

Earthwalker
2012-02-14, 09:01 AM
I would think you can use GURPS for this by getting a cyberpunk and fantasy add on book.

The only game I can think with this built in is Torg, it is of course out of print. It was based on different realms invading earth. One was a fantasy realm, another a cyberware using realm (it was a mix of cyberware and papal inquisition with the Cyberpope in charge of it all)

You also got

Dinosaus lost land invading america.
Corporate intrugie / Martial arts land invading Japan.
The new Nile Empire, a super hero land.
A horror realm

motoko's ghost
2012-02-14, 09:18 AM
Torg, eh? I'll have to check that out. Ironically I got WoD as a gift, I just haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Thanks.

Manateee
2012-02-14, 10:43 AM
Rifts comes close to what you're asking.
Dreadful system though.

I'd use either Mutants and Masterminds or Strands of Fate for this, depending on what role I wanted the PCs to play.

dsmiles
2012-02-14, 10:48 AM
Mutants and Masterminds could do it. M&M can do just about anything.

LibraryOgre
2012-02-14, 12:52 PM
As mentioned above, Rifts has this as a frequent theme, but is not the best system.

You might look at Fadign Suns, which is a slightly more nuanced version of this. The space empire is partially ruled by a technophobic church with a list of approved technologies and a fear of new ones, backed by ritual magic. On the other hand, you have guilds who are attempting to improve their own standings (frequently through new technologies), and the highly discriminated against psychics. In this mix is also the noble houses, who covet the technology of the guilds and want the support of the church.

Voshkod
2012-02-14, 03:54 PM
I'll second Torg. It does a nice job mixing genres.

Ornithologist
2012-02-14, 05:45 PM
I'm going to suggest True 20. because its pretty genre free, I tend to stick to it fairly regularly. though if you are not home brewing the campaign world, you should look into Rifts as another poster said.

Genre free rules

Pros: they work for any setting, so once you find rules that work, you can play pretty much everything.

Cons: there are frequently not good pre-made campaign worlds for you to use, forcing you to make your own...

Desril
2012-02-14, 05:51 PM
I was actually thinking about running a campaign like this, I was just going to use D&D + D20 Future though (then again, I haven't actually carefully looked over D20 Future, so I have no idea how well the two would work together)

jebob
2012-02-15, 07:36 AM
I was thinking about running a variation on this theme where the Future Evil Robot Empire sends assassins back in time to fight the heroes armed with prophecies from past magicians.

STsinderman
2012-02-15, 10:02 AM
The Traveller system offers the opportunity for this kind of campaign, only with it being psionics instead of magic. Plus it stats out all levels of technology from cave man to the most advanced space farer's.

prufock
2012-02-15, 10:21 AM
Mutants and Masterminds could do it. M&M can do just about anything.

"Just about"? What CAN'T it do?!

CondorDM
2012-02-15, 03:00 PM
Yes as stated already, rifts can be used to achieve this, easier if some of the rules are adjusted(tweaking it is all you gotta do).

Friv
2012-02-15, 03:54 PM
"Just about"? What CAN'T it do?!

It's pretty awful at settings that are designed to be gritty and down to earth.

Tengu_temp
2012-02-15, 07:16 PM
It's pretty awful at settings that are designed to be gritty and down to earth.

This, and videogame-like campaigns where you're expected to find loads of treasure and then spend it on better and better loot.

Apart from these two, though, it's pretty damn versatile.

Mighty_Chicken
2012-02-17, 06:51 AM
There was a 2nd Edition AD&D setting that was about robots invading a classic D&D world. I read about it in a magazine.

Regular weapons did no damage to them; magical weapons did only the modifier worth of damage; most magic dealt the regular damage, but electricity magic dealt double (or was it maxed?) damage.

I read about it in a magazine. Too bad I can't remember it's name...

Trinoya
2012-02-17, 07:09 AM
You can run sci-fi effectively in 3.5 or pathfinder with little issues... just be ready to scale things up a bit here and there. In my D&D game there are actually bits of 'tech' laying around, and it's considered some of the most powerful stuff around (one piece of ancient tech shattered a moon).

Starshade
2012-02-17, 08:50 AM
Hm, GURPS is quite good for making such an RPG adventure, but requires usually many books, and is a system where you more or less get lots of tools to make an world, and get to choose gizmos, magic system, and makes everything yourself.
There is an premade world in the back of the Gurps Basic Set: Campaigns book, who basically is about a secret org in our world(or, a paralell universe of ours), who travel to paralell universes' earths, from high fantasy, caveman, dead wasteland, to high tech worlds, telepathy using Nazi worlds using psionic powers to teleport between worlds. Basically any worlds in the GURPS system can be added as an paralell world, or worlds it's possible to make.

What about using the D20 version of Call of Cthulhu as an campagin addon for D&D 3.ed? it's rules in the d20 CoC book for that, and you'd get some spaceship using aliens in D&D :smallbiggrin:

Knaight
2012-02-19, 05:54 AM
I'm going to take a step back, and make a few broad descriptions so as to fit these options together. The first is to note that there are essentially two types of games - setting games, and story games. The first models characters as they relate to their world, and the latter models characters by their role in a narrative. For instance, D&D is firmly in the first camp - BAB represents fighting capability by the standards of the world, spells known is a setting element, so on and so forth. DREAD is firmly in the second camp, as characters have no mechanics, but merely a narrative role, where everything is decided by a pull on the Jenga tower.

Where this gets interesting is generic games. There are Setting Games which don't actually have an attached setting, but nonetheless operate at the character-world level. These provide one of your two main options, with the other being story games where the basic narrative can be put in various settings. As such, some options are outlined below.

Generic/Setting Based
HERO - HERO is basically a complex mechanical game, which can work for any setting, easily. If you like tweaking characters and settings to the most minute detail, and don't mind spending literally hours making characters (or an hour with the aid of a computer program), HERO is for you.

GURPS - GURPS is pretty much the generic system. It can work for most everything, though the magic is going to have to be powerful to measure up to the technology. What makes it convenient is the source books, as there is a pre made GURPS Fantasy sourcebook, a pre made GURPS Ultratech sourcebook, and other options for each. Moreover, all of it is compatible.

Fudge - Fudge is in many ways similar to GURPS. However, it is yet freer, is much lighter, and is mechanically elegant in most respects. On the other hand, it doesn't really have much in the way of pre-made material, so you basically get to build up a particular incarnation of Fudge from scratch. I rather like it, but it really requires the mindset of a tinkerer to appeal.

Fate - Fate is a particular build of Fudge, and is actually complete. There are two main versions, Fate 2 and Fate 3. The latter is much more mechanically intensive, and currently lacks a dedicated generic product. The former is available. In either case, there is a significant focus on a meta game economy around qualitative ties to the setting, known as Aspects in game.

Savage Worlds - Savage Worlds is a complete generic system, that is in many ways like a lighter, classless D&D. If you still want grid based combat, exact mechanical definition everywhere, and similar, you will like Savage Worlds. I, personally, detest it.

Cortex - Cortex is similar to Savage Worlds, but has more qualitative ties, more flexibility in use, and more unity in the system. It also suffers from some fairly large balance issues.

Generic/Story Based
Fiasco - Fiasco operates on a relationship web more than anything else. All the characters are somehow connected, and then something bad happens, which proceeds to spiral out of control along this relationship map. It basically imitates a Coen Brother's comedy - and as such could model a situation where things generally go downhill quickly in the setting. If you want to play out a diplomatic incident which is embarrassing to all involved and starts up a war, Fiasco is for you. I personally consider Fiasco a lot of fun, and would strongly recommend it.

DREAD - DREAD is a horror game, first and foremost. The characters will die, and the only way they stay alive longer is by losing people and things they care about. As such, if you wanted to model a story about a bunch of people caught on the losing side of a battle, struggling to stay alive in the face of a terrifying enemy far beyond them, DREAD is for you.

Cortex + - Cortex + is basically Cortex, but cleaned up. The big difference is that it tends to use ties to the setting in the form of relationships and values more than skills, talents, and similar. Where a character in Cortex is defined by what they can do, a character in Cortex + is defined by who they are and who they know.

motoko's ghost
2012-02-19, 11:25 AM
Wow, a lot more responses than I was expecting and some of them are really in depth, I'll have a look at those systems and see which would work best for it.

Knaight
2012-02-19, 03:36 PM
Wow, a lot more responses than I was expecting and some of them are really in depth, I'll have a look at those systems and see which would work best for it.

It's a D&D forum. Whenever anybody brings up not-D&D, it brings us not-D&D people out of the woodwork in droves.

Oh, and to expand on Fudge - I can put together a Fudge build for you if you want me to. I haven't played with it at the system level for a while, and this looks like it could potentially be fun to mess with. Plus, I've been meaning to expand the system introduced in A New Dimension to Gunfire (http://www.fudgerpg.com/goodies/fudge-files/builds/A-New-Dimension-to-Gunfire/) for a while, and including magic and medieval weaponry with it absolutely should be fun.