I couldn't tell if there was a thread on this or not. So my group of 5 players is playing 5e and I am a Patreon subscriber. I have the 5e Zeitgeist conversion up to the most current release. I brought up wanting to play Zeitgeist to my group and they all thought it sounded great.....except the whole steampunk thing. I like the steampunk setting, and feel that Zeitgeist really is at it's best in that genre. Not so for my players. I did explain that it's more pre-steampunk than full fledged steampunk, but I got the whole 'no guns in my D&D' arguments. We agreed that if this campaign did not contain steampunk, but instead was more generic fantasy - standard 5e D&D, they would like to play it. So now I am trying to convert the fluff of the setting from proto-steampunk to standard fantasy. The story itself can be easily converted, except a few areas which I'll get to. I'm definitely using the recommendations at the beginning of each book to adapt to non industry settings. So I am a bit stumped on a few areas that need to change setting wise:
1. If technology and industry is being replaced as the thing that so many are either for or against, what could possibly take it's place? What would the conflict be? In the default it is progress vs tradition. Maybe arcane vs Divine magic? New Gods vs old gods? Emerging technology vs magic? I've decided that pretty much anything that is 'technology' will instead become 'arcane'.
2. Even though my players have specifically said 'no guns' I think having Danor be in a dead magic zone (which I don't think needs to change) will still advance them somewhat and I am going to give Danor access to the earliest versions of firearms - muskets, arquibuses, ect. Danor having muskets in the fourth war is what helped them win. I'll change it so that King Aodhan tried to get his nation to use firearms too, but Parliament voted against him, outlawing firearms in the kingdom. Maybe a powerful wizards guild or the Unseen Court had a hand in that vote. So the question is, how would the King be able to defend against Danor's firearms? In the default, he has the nation industrialize......what does he do if he couldn't get industrialization moving forward? Increase artificing? New types of magic weapons? Create an order of magic wielding psychic knights to protect the Republ....I mean Kingdom?
3. Book 4's Avery Coast Rail. The adventure mentions a psuedo-medieval caravan of pilgrims. What would this look like? I'm having issues wrapping this idea around my head for some reason. What is the purpose of such a caravan? How long would it take? A train takes 5 or 6 days, I think, a caravan would take much longer.
4. I'm keeping the backgrounds but changing the technologist to artificer and the similacrum will be a tiny creature familiar, or elemental, or maybe a tiny golem. The gunsmith I have no clue about, maybe just removing it completely?
How else would you change the setting to make this a non-industrial setting?
1. If technology and industry is being replaced as the thing that so many are either for or against, what could possibly take it's place? What would the conflict be? In the default it is progress vs tradition. Maybe arcane vs Divine magic? New Gods vs old gods? Emerging technology vs magic? I've decided that pretty much anything that is 'technology' will instead become 'arcane'.
2. Even though my players have specifically said 'no guns' I think having Danor be in a dead magic zone (which I don't think needs to change) will still advance them somewhat and I am going to give Danor access to the earliest versions of firearms - muskets, arquibuses, ect. Danor having muskets in the fourth war is what helped them win. I'll change it so that King Aodhan tried to get his nation to use firearms too, but Parliament voted against him, outlawing firearms in the kingdom. Maybe a powerful wizards guild or the Unseen Court had a hand in that vote. So the question is, how would the King be able to defend against Danor's firearms? In the default, he has the nation industrialize......what does he do if he couldn't get industrialization moving forward? Increase artificing? New types of magic weapons? Create an order of magic wielding psychic knights to protect the Republ....I mean Kingdom?
3. Book 4's Avery Coast Rail. The adventure mentions a psuedo-medieval caravan of pilgrims. What would this look like? I'm having issues wrapping this idea around my head for some reason. What is the purpose of such a caravan? How long would it take? A train takes 5 or 6 days, I think, a caravan would take much longer.
4. I'm keeping the backgrounds but changing the technologist to artificer and the similacrum will be a tiny creature familiar, or elemental, or maybe a tiny golem. The gunsmith I have no clue about, maybe just removing it completely?
How else would you change the setting to make this a non-industrial setting?