Goodman Games

Im glad that Dragonmech seems to have allot of people willing to support the system, so here are some things I noticed:

Overlapping Powers:

Allot of Steam Powers/ Steam Engines seem to overlap:

Like the Rotor arm and the wheel/Fan. If I already have a rapidly spinning mechanism, then why do I need so much effort to just add a propeller?

The Necrotic Steam Engine/ The Necroborg Class overlap allot.

No Mention of Limbs in Cost for Dragonmech:

This Highly surprised me: Why was there no mention of the Different Kinds of legs, Heads or arms in the Mech Making section? If My Mech was on wheels and only had a head then that would cost much differently from just a walker.

Why Could I make a Flame Nozzle (Thats like...A Pilot Light, Amplifier, Nozzle, and Pump) 50 times, yet I am limited to making a Steampower Version?

If I know how to Make Clockwork puppets, then doesn't that mean I know how to make Arms/Legs?

How the Hell they cannot make oil yet at the same time can make TV's, Radios, Holograms, and FORCEFIELDS? (I edited them to be Magically enhanced)

In answer to the oil question: I forget which book covered it, but that one has been explained: oil comes from deep underground - the Underdeep, in DragonMech. There exist lots of creatures that consume oil to live. In biological terms, chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis is the keystone of the ecosystem. If you want to get oil, you pretty much have to declare war on the Underdeep - and then win it! Things are bad enough as is without adding another front to the conflict.

Oh, that was just rhetorical. I knew they answered that.

I meant like lightbulbs, Solar panels, stuff like that.

Just that thier barely into steam powered engines yet they already can make forcefields.

Oh...Still though, you get my point? Its supposed to represent pre industrialization era.

Welcome to steampunk. Really, that's the whole basis of the genre: futurstic stuff in an anachronistic setting. I'll return with my own question: who says you have to invent solar panels before you invent force fields? Think about everything we have today: did it all have to be invented in that order? Probably not. So place yourself in an entirely different universe, like DragonMech is. Even if we assume that the physics are the same, discoveries could have happened in a different order. Between the existence of arcane and divine magic and the impending apocalypse, plus the territorial disputes creating a prominent Cold War mentality, different avenues may be explored, and different discoveries are made.

But it still has to follow logic! How can you make a force field using steam power?

How can you make a fireball with bat guano, words, and gestures? It's fantasy. *shrug*

Its Magic. Its a mystical and very powerfull powersource that uses ingredients to activate ripples in reality.

Steam is heated water that rises and can create lots of pressure.

There is a big difference.

As a casual observer, and not having played DragonMech, I imagine that the world of DragonMech is powered in large part by steam, since that is the milieu (Steampunk/Fantasy). So why wouldn't some magic be powered by steam, too?

Wha?

First off: Magic being Steampunk powered? Wha?

Two: Because magic existed separatly from steam before mechs where introduced.

If bat droppings make a fireball spell possible, why couldn't steam make a magic force field possible?

I'm not sure what the connection is between bat droppings and a fireball, but maybe just accepting it as an 'alchemical' process was all wrong on my part.

Because its part of the Arcane Ritual which activates the Spcific keys to cast a spell.

Steam has to either replicate the same arcane magic activations Or be so advanced that steam would lack the electricity to replicate it.

1) In DragonMech, steam power and magic are compatible to some extent. The steam mage can augment wands with steam powers. Some steam powers (darkness generator, cold generator) require spell input during creation, but are themselves non-magical. Think of it as "attuning" the item. I mean, magic is a form of energy - it can run engines. During creation the energy change is monitored, and it's calibrated to recreate it. I'll admit, it's odd, and I don't entirely buy it - but it fits with everything else established in the setting.

2) What the hell is wrong with non-magical force fields? It works in sci-fi all the time. And what is steampunk? Retro sci-fi. Hello? Mechs? Or The Time Machine? If it doesn't have technology we don't/can't have, it's not sci-fi. It's not steampunk.

It seems like something from Gundam or NGE, not an Steampunk creation. It seems too advanced for a society that still hasn't realized that mounting a city on wheels would be stabler, and more powerful than attaching it to a poorly walking rickety machine.

I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. From my experience, steampunk almost always has more advanced technology than we have today, and it's just the trappings that make it retro. Taking the example of more traditional Victorian era sci-fi steampunk, I don't think it would make much of a difference if we set it back then with more advanced technology or set in an alternate history future where cultural changes and a few scientific discoveries didn't happen, leaving the world more Victorian in feel.

As for a city on wheels being stabler, I'd like to offer a counterpoint. Due to all the craters created by the lunar rain, the terrain is often quite rough, and wheels wouldn't work so well - especially rough terrain is probably off-limits, which I'd call a bad thing, and I'd expect mid-roughness terrain to be a bumpier ride on wheels. I could be wrong, but it sounds plausible enough to be justified in sci-fi. Keep in mind, sci-fi =/= science, and if you limit yourself to stuff you've researched enough to be physically possible, the work may suffer. As another example: take the Mythbusters - they're always busting myths from Hollywood special effects. That doesn't make the movies that created the myth bad. Anyway, point is, a rougher ride is really bad for city-mechs - mechsickness is already a really bad thing - maybe wheels would have made them too difficult to live in?

I could see the wheel issue being worked around with treads or the like - after all, tanks use them and can operate in considerably un-smooth terrain. But there's a trade-off there - you're forced to put a lot more of your volume into the horizontal plane and not the vertical plane. Come to think of it, that might be the same issue for wheels - you can't build too high if you're going to be moving by rolling. And if you increase the horizontal component of volume, you're raising the surface area. Why were city-mechs made? Because of the lunar rain. A larger surface area means more of the city-mech is exposed to the ravages of the lunar rain. First off, there's now an increased chance of getting hit by a large and severely damaging meteor. The advantage of city-mechs is fitting a lot of people into a small surface area, making it hard to get hit. Even if we ignore this, more of the city-mech is going to be hit by the small stuff, increasing the maintenance cost.

And if its hit by a large meteor in walking form it will simply topple over killing everybody. Great trade off.

Look im simply saying that going from 0-1-2-Force field in a couple of years, especialy only powered by steam, is ludacrist.

But ignoring fluff, what about the other flaws?

Since you find it so implausible, may I make a suggestion? Don't play. Go whine about some other game, that has believable stuff like big floating heads with eyes on tentacles that shoot magic rays. Now, thats silly!

Which comes from a realm is distorted reality where looking at it drives you insane and warps the flesh into mockeries of life. So No, you don't get a cookie.

I said that that can be ignored for the sake of fluff, Im more concerned about the rules problems.

Like if Im a Steambord and I take the extra limb powers twice THEN take the arm Steampower then I could possibly have 8 Arms?

I felt that sort of made sense when I wrote them. I haven't looked at the system in ages though. I'm happy to see such huge fan support.



The 'Mech making system is relativly (cough, very) complicated. It works though and it's clever. Before 4th edition steam rolled in, it was my proposal to create modular elements for DragonMech. This meant tons of math. I started the project. There is an unfinished PDF floating around that Joseph gave me permission to post. Makes me think about asking him permission to finish the project. (Link to Revised Mech Creation Rules)



That's for game rules balance. Clockwork Puppets were always a problem because, in theory, you could make anything after making them. Of course, making a doll doesn't make you a surgion.


Why can't we make Cold Fusion? We know about it. We have concepts. We're just missing something. It's the same thing with the internal combustion engine. It's very complicated. The entire genre of steampunk is always on the cusp of making itself obsolete. That is it's nature. Realistically if you take steam technology to it's extreme, you'll could advance into the industrial age and even into the information age and beyond.

Sigh. I visit Goodman Games for "just a glance" and I'm thinking about writing a book. Cool.

Mark Charke

Its that I can become a Vampire just by switching an engine instead of leveling for a long time.





Wierd huh. Cause I find them WAY too simple.





Why not make them a separate construct?