Anyone playing Second World?

[tsadkiel]

Just thought I'd raise this thread. One of my players expressed an interest in the second world and really dug that you could play things like a "soccer mom".

Heh. Soccer Mom was one of my suggestions during playtest.

One nice source of flavor bits is the "Notes from the Second World" section on the 2WS website. I'm especially fond of the one with the movie theatre that runs a side business showing old movies to the dead.

I was about to start a d20 Modern/Second World/Urban Arcana game, but we just put it on the back burner in favor of "Iron Lords of Jupiter." (Though ILOJ fits seamlessly into the Second World cosmology.) My campaign concept was basically ripped of from Planetary; the PCs would have been "mystery archeologists", exploring the truth behind various stories and legend. They'd travel around visiting places like the Island of Dr. Moreau, battling escaped hook-handed maniacs, and discovering leftover Martian tripods in a warehouse in New Jersey.

The bad guys would have been a modified Enlightenment from the UA book combined with the Technocracy from Mage, only with supertech produced by a number of mad geniuses over the years. The conspiracy would use Moreau's and Frankenstein's methods to produce their super soldiers, use the Griffin formula to give their assassins invisibility, outfit their agenst with reverse-engineered Martian heat rays, etc.

 

[tsadkiel]

And since Hong Kong is the "City of Motion", there'd be ample opportunity for flying-around, running-on-air, kung fu goodness.

Motion Wardens are teh r0xxor. And with the Warden Feats, you can pick up Bullet Time and wuxia leaping without needing the class.

There's been some articles and whatnot going up atwww.second-world-simulations.com, don't know if you've seen those or not. My favorite was "Alternate Endings", I just like the idea of the dead killing time by watching old movies.

Great minds think alike, apparently.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Tsadkiel's post gave me an idea. With "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" coming out soon, there's a lot of people whipping up their favorite literary characters for campaigns. So have the Second World be the sort of "fictional" world where the guys like Allan Quartermain are running around.

Different countries or continents could have different eras or genres depending on whatever contribution of fiction the DM wants to focus on. England could be Victorian literature and science-fantasy, America could do westerns & tall tales, central Europe is perhaps medieval epics, etc. Then the characters have to cross over to the 1st World in order stop the villains from turning all the mundane citizens into their devoted henchmen, or whatever.

The fun part would be the Second World natives trying to fit in over here. It would sort of be the inverse of the Shunting the book talks about- everyone would know who they were, but no one would believe them. Not to mention all the problems they'll have when their weird gadgets stop working.

"No, I really AM Captain Nemo! My ship shouldn't have just sunk like that, it can swim underwater!"

"Look mac, just get in the ambulance and no one gets hurt, ok?"

Great minds think alike, apparently.

Apparently so.

 

[Psion]

For the technomagic/arcane robots, you may want to go back and take another look at the information on Japan and the Lightning Wardens. Essentially, you'd have fantasy with electric/silicon style tech, but no annoying firearms or gunpowder. At least, not unless there were a Metal Warden involved.

That's sort of where I was going.

I'm not sure how much you know about Arsenal and Factory, but basically, the concept is that
a) You should be able to develop "magical firearms" "magical robots" by extending the magical concepts behind things like wands and golems.
b) You should also eventually be able to mass produce these things.

Now the whole "elemental lightning mastery makes computers possible" fit right in that line of thinking. I was thinking you can still do it the hard way (with item cretion feats if you don't have elemental lightning technology i.e., outside of Tokyo, but elemental lightning mastery makes mass production possible.)

I'm getting images of BGC and Metropolis dancing through my head.

I was very close to running a "Second World wuxia" game using a combination of Modern and Oriental Adventures.

Anyone looked at "Blood & Fists" yet?

There's been some articles and whatnot going up atwww.second-world-simulations.com, don't know if you've seen those or not. My favorite was "Alternate Endings", I just like the idea of the dead killing time by watching old movies.

Cool. I didn't see that. I did like the wandering damage thing, but that didn't seem that second world to me... it seemed more like a "magic in the first world" type of scenario, but with a little tweaking, it seems it could be used as a trigger to make new exiles.

Tsadkiel's post gave me an idea. With "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" coming out soon, there's a lot of people whipping up their favorite literary characters for campaigns. So have the Second World be the sort of "fictional" world where the guys like Allan Quartermain are running around.

This reminds me a bit of the "bermuda triangle" plot hook in the campaign chapter. Perhaps the reality of the situation is that these tales were based on real characters that were shunted to the second world because they got a little too wierd.


On another note, I considered switching to Elements of Magic for my default non-warden magic type. Anyone tried that?

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Looks like I'll have to put "Factory" down on my to-buy list, especially since I'll be getting Blackmoor as soon as it comes out. "Arsenal" looked mostly like a collection of equipment to me- is there anything more in there?

As for the martial arts, I was going to use Game Mechanic's rules. I haven't seen anything in Blood & Fists other than the preview info.

I've got Elements of Magic, but haven't really gotten around to reading it yet. It would probably depend on what sort of game I wanted to run. I was also looking at Penumbra's Occult Lore for some of my London material, giving it a more real world "secret society" kind of feel as opposed to "I cast fireball!"

Incidentally, the next 2nd World book is supposed to have the rest of the Wardens, including alt. magic systems like Gate and Rune Wardens. So once that comes out, I may just use those classes and chuck regular D&D magic altogether. As I said, it mostly depends on what kind of feel you're going for.

 

[Psion]

Looks like I'll have to put "Factory" down on my to-buy list, especially since I'll be getting Blackmoor as soon as it comes out. "Arsenal" looked mostly like a collection of equipment to me- is there anything more in there?

Arsenal is pretty much just a selection of magical weapons and armor. That said, I still found it pretty neat, with things like living psionic weapons.

If arsenal didn't trip your trigger, factory should do the trick, as it actually has some excerpts from Arsenal, enough to get you going. (It doesn't have the psionic weapons through, which are cool.)

I'd want to adapt the weapons to the penetration rules in Second World Sourcebook (which are surprisingly not unlike some old SF homebrew rules I made pre-3e.)

As for the martial arts, I was going to use Game Mechanic's rules.

Which are those? The only TGM thing I have for modern is their adventure and the modern player's companion, which only has a martial arts type Advanced Class.

I've got Elements of Magic, but haven't really gotten around to reading it yet. It would probably depend on what sort of game I wanted to run. I was also looking at Penumbra's Occult Lore for some of my London material, giving it a more real world "secret society" kind of feel as opposed to "I cast fireball!"

Cool. What part in particular were you looking at?

Incidentally, the next 2nd World book is supposed to have the rest of the Wardens, including alt. magic systems like Gate and Rune Wardens.

I anxiously await...

 

[jaerdaph]

Which are those? The only TGM thing I have for modern is their adventure and the modern player's companion, which only has a martial arts type Advanced Class.

Hey Psion,

Check the Experiments section at The Game Mechanics Web site:

http://www.thegamemechanics.com/freebies/index.asp

See Martial Arts Mayhem under Modern Experiments - there are three ZIP files of feats, schools, and secret techniques.

 

[Psion]

Check the Experiments section at The Game Mechanics Web site:

http://www.thegamemechanics.com/freebies/index.asp

See Martial Arts Mayhem under Modern Experiments - there are three ZIP files of feats, schools, and secret techniques.

Cool, thanks.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Umm... what Joe said.

I was mostly using the Mayhem rules because they were free, and because Blood & Fists hadn't come out yet. Also, I didn't want too many new rules getting tacked on.

As for occult lore, sympathetic magic was probably the main one I was looking at. And perhaps alchemy and dream magic as well. I've barely looked at the book so it's hard to say. Most of them still worked within the D&D paradigm IIRC, so it's not going to get me past the "fire and forget" routine. I may take another look at Elements of Magic, see if that's more of what I had in mind.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Since we've been discussing this recently, I thought I'd mention that there's a new Organization book PDF at the Second World site, this one on the Ved Qayat Amethyst Legion. There's some history background and a section of the Forge described, along with new monsters, NPCs, and influence/organization rules.

I haven't had a chance to read it yet (it's thirty pages long), but it looks excellent as always.