OSR The Monster Overhaul

[RealAlHazred]

Magical Industrial Revolution... doesn't have quite the tone I want. (The book is basically the wizards of Ankh-Morpork + Bridgerton, which is a very funny combo, but it doesn't really have a place for the grotty adventurers that are in so many of my campaigns. I think I need something like Swyvers' The Smoke, but with places for standard D&D races.)

I would read MIR more like Hogwarts + Charles Dickens. The two main factions, after all, are the Gumperts (representing Good Ol’ Days Conservatism) and the Bogs (Free-Market Military-Industrial Neoliberalism). Since both parties are run by self-centered narcissists, there is plenty of call for expendable assets grotty adventurers to pick up the slack!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Since both parties are run by self-centered narcissists, there is plenty of call for expendable assets grotty adventurers to pick up the slack!

Yes. But the setting is also structured around The Season and the implication is that PCs will be nobs rubbing elbows with the high and mighty. The Season is also when the various magical technologies/calamities advance.

All of which is very fun, but it's also a different focus from the PCs being complete menaces when they're in town and then periodically being disgorged into the rest of the world to go loot some dungeon or some other scheme. I think I just need a grotty urban hub for those kinds of characters. I should probably pick up Into the Cess & Citadel and use it to generate a Lankhmar-esque hellhole for them to use.

I'd rather use MIR for a game focused on the magical advancements and technologies, rather than stomping off to plunder dungeons or rob the mansions of the wealthy.