That's what i'd call the genre of fantasy that i'd be interested in these days. Rooted in western fantasy culture, but not in a twee way like Tolkien. More a dark fairy tale way, more akin to the Old World (specifically the Empire) in woofrup, or evoked, perhaps haphazaerdly, in the Brothers Grimm movie (from what little of it i've seen, the one by terry gilliam).

But how best to evoke this? It's not dark per se, but darkling - mysterious, at times scary, fay, and still heroic (who wants to catch rats!)?

Some uncollected thoughts:

Get a good, frank version of the Grimm's tales (or whichever other folklore sources you'd like to look at) for your adventure seeds. Some other ones worth looking at might be, off the top of my head the Russian folktales book by Afansev and the Italian folktales by calvino. Oxford just came out with a new translation of the Perrault's tales. Basically you want to refresh the motifs in your mind and be able to draw on them to improvise

Keep things to a smaller scale - what's happening in this village or these woods and is an insurmountable problem there. Travel from town to town should be a pretty big deal for most people. Of course many tales involve being a prince or saving the king but then the character retires at the end of the tale. A number of the grimms tales have as the main character some haggard soldier reduced to begging. that'll probably work better for you. I think at least as far as the grimms the tales are collected in the 1800s but i think the mise en scene often kind of hearkens back to the clusterfuck that was the 30 years war and its aftermath; in its messed up was Mother Courage is a kind of fairy tale.

monsters and magicians and such are going to be interested in talking and have a very specific, if usually obtuse, motive. as many conflicts are going to be as much of puzzle as a fight. the solution to a problem tends to strike a particular balance between "obvious" and "pain in the ass" that you will start to get a feel for after reading enough tales in a row. often its sort of a Chekhov's gun kind of thing. But dont forget to allow solutions beyond the 'correct' one as long as they are creative. there can be fighting but generally speaking a fight should involve a formal challenge. the monsters and magicians might be thought of as demigods fallen on hard times so they'll take offense, be bound by certain kinds of propitiation, etc.

try not to get deconstructive or Fables/Neil-Gaimany about this. It will undermine the atmosphere. Player choices will do all the deconstructing a mother could hope for already.

In my opinion you do not want any PC to be any kind of magic user and overall you want magic to be only semi-comprehensible. Magical effects should make their own kind of weird sense but the logic behind it should be protean and elusive. you don't want your fairy magic to have to follow the printed rules of some spell; that will be counterproductive. characters might get magic items by gifts or thefts, etc; these should be narrow in function and/or have unintended consequences to their use. in a number of tales the main character gets some preposterously deadly weapon - you are probably going to want to refrain from that. you could have the giant-slaying sword or the gun that never misses rust in the blood of the foe or disappear in the owner's sleep, i suppose, but I feel like that would just annoy the players; better off to avoid that motif, i think.

i don't know what kind of rules you're thinking of using but i'd say you want something that keeps the PCs at a mundane scale and has a flatter power curve. maybe like something in the BRP family. if you want to move into a less Early Modern space, Pendragon might work. of the Warhammer FRP games i really only know the first edition but i suppose it could work. one option might be to have characters who are basically normal but have one extraordinary knack at something - maybe going with a ruleset that has Aspects could provide for that.

I'll see if I can come up with more ordered ideas later.

I guess steampunk tech is out then

This is my favorite flavor of fantasy... low-powered, a bit scary and not particularly epic in theme (no saving the world).
IIRC was an inkling of steampunk in Gilliam's Brothers Grimm movie, giving it a baroque flavor... but it was unique and imperfect... kind of like the magic Cole recommends. Not something the PCs could get a lot of or rely on for long.

I'd be curious for more ideas on how to pull off that sort of fairy tale magic... weird and shifting and wild... 'semi-comprehensible' as Cole put it... definitely not codified in some magic textbook... and have it remain 'fair' in the eyes of the players... not the GM 'just making shit up' in regards to what the NPC stump witch can do. A magic that is distinctly unlike regular combat... not an alternative form of arrows/bullets/hand grenades... that has it's own physics that retain a feeling of being unknowable... mysterious, even to the folks using it.

Steampunk is the wrong word.

More Baroque, less steam.

Certainly no elves and dwarves in toppers and tails.

Magic draws on the energy of the Wyrd; a realm of prophecy and vision and ancient power. It is the wellspring of dreams and nightmares that can impact on reality in great and terrible ways. Those who practise it are called Magi.
A Magus begins his career from childhood. A sickly child that cannot be treated by normal medicine is often brought to the local magus school; a place known as a Numinous College. There the Seer’s Runes are cast: the child is either fated to die or depend on the power of the Wyrd, the source of magic, for the remainder of his life. Though this means the child will not expire it means he cannot return to his family. Though such news is sad it means the blessings of the Wyrd have shone on the parents through to the child; consequently the parents are honoured and given a handsome reward from the College.

The child begins his training with the fitting of a Skein; this is vital to preserving the physical form of the acolyte, already frail (an unfortunate consequence of mystical ability). The Skein will grow with the child who can rarely remove it, except for very short periods (and usually only within the sanctuary of a Numinous College). It’s properties are naturally mystical themselves; the material comes from cloth treated with Dragon’s blood (the liquid fire that burns eternal), and is adorned with magically prepared runes. These are the same as those produced at the child’s reading, or ‘foretelling’, and represent the power of the Wyrd to protect and keep him.

Fitted with a Skein the acolyte will train to manipulate the Wyrd through at least (though usually) one of its many arts - perhaps mastering the art of the Seer’s Runes. This is a process that takes a lifetime, but it will be at least a couple of decades from the point of initiation before the College deems the acolyte worthy of the title of Magus, at which point they may enter the world at large to offer their service in accordance with the Magus Compact between the Colleges and the Kingdom. This compact sets the terms of the relationship between the Colleges and the Kingdom allowing Magic to operate as hired experts and obligates them to serving the Kingdom where the latter is under threat. It grants the Colleges power over their charges as well as matters concerning the Wyrd.

Eventually the Magus will outgrow even his Skein. The physiology of a Magus is frail, but as they grow older they grow in power. There comes a point when the Skein cannot contain the Magus’ Wyrd energies. At this point the Magus has reached the level of honoured elder, Master Magusian, but with that comes the beginning of the end of his physical life and he must enter the most secret part of the Numinous College he has served so well. This is the Chamber of Secrets, and every College has one within its vaults. To be accurate it is more a part of the Wyrd than a basement within a physical building, and it’s becuase of that the Master must enter. Within he has his own laboratory and may be attended by familiars and minor Wyrdlings. Conventional laws have little meaning within the Chamber and so one may contain potentially an infinite number of Masters working in their own spheres. They are able to commune, though it is a trait of their stage of development they prefer isolation. Within their physical forms begin to ebb and flow as they become one with the Wyrd.

Finally the Master will step beyond the Chamber, through the nexus that anchors it with the Wyrd, and step into eternity, never to return (at least that is the tradition, none can say what happens to the Magus beyond in the depths of the Wyrd). At this point even the Chamber cannot sustain them and they exit through what is called the Raven’s Gate. Before that point they are able to serve the Colleges, and indeed the kingdom, just as effectively; powerful magic and science has made it easy for them to participate in activities beyond the confines of the Chamber. When not doing so, Master Magi spend their time studying the deeper arts of the Wyrd, communing with Wyrdlings and oracles and adding to the College’s library of magical knowledge.

EDIT Designers Notes (heh): the idea comes from way back in time when I read about an rpg called Tales of Gargentirh which has a couple of interesting ideas (it's a wierd renaissance esque steampunky rpg). The main one is that mages are called Kyromancers and they suffer from a disease that requires they wear mechanical implants to prevent them from being consumed by astral energy. They look a bit like the Strangers from Dark City.
I always thought wizardry like that would be very cool and the idea here is that only people who are frail and sickly and would otherwise not last are capable of magic. That level of physiological weakness is a cosnequence of an affinity for working magic. Hence the Skein.
It also borrows from ideas that Changeling the Lost touches on, which is a very good source for darkling fantasy and is how i would (and will) do elves. The concept of the Wyrd.

Quote from: Simlasa;459906I'd be curious for more ideas on how to pull off that sort of fairy tale magic... weird and shifting and wild... 'semi-comprehensible' as Cole put it... definitely not codified in some magic textbook... and have it remain 'fair' in the eyes of the players... not the GM 'just making shit up' in regards to what the NPC stump witch can do.

Well, it might be kind of a tightrope to walk but I think that there's a difference between having specific mechanics like most RPG's spell systems, and having it be completely 'made up." The way I look at it is magical effects should make a certain kind of sense in context - basically a magical spell an NPC uses would be like a puzzle. This isn't alien to RPGs; even old TSR models had location-based magic effects that didn't really function like spells.

Zak Smith (author of Vornheim) had an article wherein he argued that fairy-tale magic is an all or nothing, either/or kind of thing but I don't think you have to go that far if you don't want to. You could have rules you as the DM use for the strength and scope of effects relative to the PCs or whoever else falls under them. But I think that letting PCs be actual magicians makes it likely you'll have a 'can't have your cake and eat it too" situation - either they know enough about magic that NPCs' magic is no less knowable than if you're using any effects-based or sphere-based magic rules.

PCs might still be able to use some magic by gaining items, learning magical rhymes in play that they can speak to a certain effect, or have some kind of blessing or power they can use - e.g. can talk to birds, can turn invisible all day sunday, can open any lock that takes a key - some of them could even be fairly powerful. But I think having the command of knowledge of magic a "wizard" does pushes things more into swords-and-sorcery or high-fantasy, depending.

Edit : That last part is why I was speculating a system that uses something like Aspects might be good for this - you know, if a PC has "Can shrink as small as a mouse (5)" you could probably have fun with that and still have some flexible rules guidelines if you wanted.

Quote from: Cole;459877Some uncollected thoughts:

Get a good, frank version of the Grimm's tales (or whichever other folklore sources you'd like to look at) for your adventure seeds. Some other ones worth looking at might be, off the top of my head the Russian folktales book by Afansev and the Italian folktales by calvino. Oxford just came out with a new translation of the Perrault's tales. Basically you want to refresh the motifs in your mind and be able to draw on them to improvise

Keep things to a smaller scale - what's happening in this village or these woods and is an insurmountable problem there. Travel from town to town should be a pretty big deal for most people. Of course many tales involve being a prince or saving the king but then the character retires at the end of the tale. A number of the grimms tales have as the main character some haggard soldier reduced to begging. that'll probably work better for you. I think at least as far as the grimms the tales are collected in the 1800s but i think the mise en scene often kind of hearkens back to the clusterfuck that was the 30 years war and its aftermath; in its messed up was Mother Courage is a kind of fairy tale.

monsters and magicians and such are going to be interested in talking and have a very specific, if usually obtuse, motive. as many conflicts are going to be as much of puzzle as a fight. the solution to a problem tends to strike a particular balance between "obvious" and "pain in the ass" that you will start to get a feel for after reading enough tales in a row. often its sort of a Chekhov's gun kind of thing. But dont forget to allow solutions beyond the 'correct' one as long as they are creative. there can be fighting but generally speaking a fight should involve a formal challenge. the monsters and magicians might be thought of as demigods fallen on hard times so they'll take offense, be bound by certain kinds of propitiation, etc.

try not to get deconstructive or Fables/Neil-Gaimany about this. It will undermine the atmosphere. Player choices will do all the deconstructing a mother could hope for already.

In my opinion you do not want any PC to be any kind of magic user and overall you want magic to be only semi-comprehensible. Magical effects should make their own kind of weird sense but the logic behind it should be protean and elusive. you don't want your fairy magic to have to follow the printed rules of some spell; that will be counterproductive. characters might get magic items by gifts or thefts, etc; these should be narrow in function and/or have unintended consequences to their use. in a number of tales the main character gets some preposterously deadly weapon - you are probably going to want to refrain from that. you could have the giant-slaying sword or the gun that never misses rust in the blood of the foe or disappear in the owner's sleep, i suppose, but I feel like that would just annoy the players; better off to avoid that motif, i think.

i don't know what kind of rules you're thinking of using but i'd say you want something that keeps the PCs at a mundane scale and has a flatter power curve. maybe like something in the BRP family. if you want to move into a less Early Modern space, Pendragon might work. of the Warhammer FRP games i really only know the first edition but i suppose it could work. one option might be to have characters who are basically normal but have one extraordinary knack at something - maybe going with a ruleset that has Aspects could provide for that.

I'll see if I can come up with more ordered ideas later.

That's all damn good advice.

RPGPundit

Zak's article on fairy tale logic that Cole mentioned has some useful ideas. LINK
I've always liked the idea of puzzle monsters... and having personal taboos and a nemesis from birth.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;459872That's what i'd call the genre of fantasy that i'd be interested in these days. Rooted in western fantasy culture, but not in a twee way like Tolkien. More a dark fairy tale way, more akin to the Old World (specifically the Empire) in woofrup, or evoked, perhaps haphazaerdly, in the Brothers Grimm movie (from what little of it i've seen, the one by terry gilliam).

But how best to evoke this? It's not dark per se, but darkling - mysterious, at times scary, fay, and still heroic (who wants to catch rats!)?

Dragon Warriors does this to a T. Specifically, check out the Bestiary and the Sleeping Gods campaign for loads of fairy tale flavour with a creepy edge.

Quote from: The_Shadow;460204Dragon Warriors does this to a T.

Yeah, I remember a big ad for Dragon Warriors in White Dwarf... going on about how fantasy folklore had gotten too cutesy and 'twee'... how the Green Knight was an 'elf' and there was nothing cute about him... how in Dragon Warriors elves are scary bastards because they have no souls.
It all had a spooky, Halloween feel to it...
I should really go check that stuff out.

Quote from: The_Shadow;460204Dragon Warriors does this to a T. Specifically, check out the Bestiary and the Sleeping Gods campaign for loads of fairy tale flavour with a creepy edge.

I don't even own Dragon Warriors and I bought that Bestiary after reading the entry for Blue Men (no relation to the performance art trio. Think riddle-obsessed undead Vikings). It's pretty good.