Modern Level Fantasy

>>52025209
Scion comes to mind.

Granted that brings up the whole mythology element and masquerade you may not want.

>>52025209
Seems like you've already captured the core concept.

>heroes, villains and monsters to hold their own against the level of power a modern military
means that individuals have extreme power compared to what modern soldiers have, but more importantly that this setting's equivalent of modern soldiers do NOT have access to this power. It could be prototype tech, but it's probably not; whatever superpower source the individual characters are using, it can't be mass produced. Work from that.

Now, you said setting, and not system, but assuming you wanted to design a new system and are not one of those ludicrous bastards that thinks that system doesn't matter (if you are, just play Fate or GURPS depending on how crunchy you like your systems), you should embrace that theme of exceptional characters and create a base system a la nWoD that represents the power level of ordinary people. A simple, cynical, system where a person getting shot will be out of the fight and probably die rather than just lose HP. You know, a desperately un-fun system to run a lot of combats in. Use that as your baseline, and having established that baseline, make the PCs and villains exceptional as compared to that baseline.

As an example, my 5th level Fighter can take an arrow while unarmored, restrained and completely unaware of his opponent; that's normal for DnD, and it's a bit boring. But if you establish that there is no one in the world who can just shrug off being shot in the face, tying that perception into the world that we live in now and recognise, and then give a character the ability to ignore bullets, and then allow your NPCs to react to the fact that that's happening, then you've got a system and a setting that work together. You've also got a potential situation where you can have two of these guys meet on a battlefield after massacring each other's rank and file soldiers, recognise each other, and then drop their guns and draw swords.

PhD in medieval history and 20 years' experience instructing German longsword HEMA. Knows his shit. Most of his stuff is shonen-style historical fiction, a little straightforward maybe but would recommend nonetheless

ok fuck me with that aborted reply. anyway as I was saying I know the author of Swords vs Tanks. Cool guy. Super knowledgeable. have a nice day

>>52025209
I'd like to see a high-level 3.5 character vs a d20 Modern tank (mechanical).

>>52026863
>>52026863
I've done it.
The important parts of the fight are:
1. Tanks have absurdly low AC, but materials based damage reduction through hardness.
2. A main battle tank's large gun has a measurable traversal time. A tiger I tank takes 90 seconds to fully traverse, q tiger II takes 19 seconds.

>>52025809
>means that individuals have extreme power compared to what modern soldiers have, but more importantly that this setting's equivalent of modern soldiers do NOT have access to this power.
It works, but it's not exactly my intention. If the threats the races of man face are on the level of military hardware then handfuls of overachieving adventurers wouldn't be enough to prevent constant wiping out of populations. Not really sustainable unless the secrets of power have at least trickled down more generally. If players can survive artillery the town guard should at least be bulletproof. A castle should have some defenses against the draconic equivalent of a bombing run.

I like to think of the setting having had a long, increasingly violent arms race between civilization and everything that would tear it down.

>Now, you said setting, and not system, but assuming you wanted to design a new system
I brought up gameplay, thinking that if nothing was a good fit right out of the box maybe something existing could be hacked into proper shape. Maybe a system supporting that an unprotected, unaugmented human is easily gibbed is appropriate but it needn't encourage people dying hand over fist.

>>52025209
>swords versus tanks
Gygax was working on exactly this when Lorraine Williams had him sacked.

>>52027944
Different Anon, but

You can do the long-term escalation idea, sure. In the example of a castle vs dragon bombing runs, you'd have the walls enchanted to resist breath damage or physical attacks, and there would be deep cellars and basements to hide everyone while the run is happening. Offensively you can look at wicked stuff like magically automated ballistae with multiple barbed heads to do the dirty work while everyone hides.

I agree with >>52025809 in a general sense, however. Your average Joe Shmoe or military mook needs to be handicapped power-wise, and the PCs are going to be doing (I'd imagine) one of the following:

1) Have prototype tech
2) Superpowers or equivalent strengths that far exceed the baseline
3) Blessed by a higher power or deity

I suppose I'm trying to stress the idea that any power or equipment that the normal world uses against the other side needs to be automated, strictly controlled and regulated, or otherwise unavailable to 95% of the population. By definition, the PCs are going to be the center of the story, and if they're not made exceptional in a setting where everything's up to 11 already, then there's no reason to play (from my perspective, at least).

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37KB, 500x375px

>>52028704
what could have been...

>>52025209
Well I have some notes on such a setting.

6 gods created a world. A star and a planet. And they set it to expand from this point with new stars, asteroids and planets springing in existence from time to time depending on the distance to other celestial bodies and some complicated formulas. They partially tied their powers to that so that creation will go as it should without need for additional oversight and set to work on their first world.

So next they populated the world with their first and second drafts of animals and sapient species. they were not that excited about the results and so more new creatures were made. So in the end say humans and other races have a couple of pretty different types. Like first humans were more resembling neanderthals though more massive and elves were really tall and thin with strange skin colours and sharp triangle faces.

But the thing that they gave to all the living creatures was the Spark. Or just magic though there is many names for it. Depending on the creature species they all have some natural magic but sapients can also learn and develop new types of magic. Magic is also almost exclusively tied to living beings. As such things like magical swords are not a normal thing though some biologically inclined scientists/mages found ways to overcome this obstacle.

Depending on individual initial spark cab be stronger or weaker and it is mostly "genetic" but in theory anyone can reach the top levels possible for mortals. Problem is while more powerful spark gives longer lifespan training it is incredibly hard. Especially if you try to use it for non-natural things. So training to be stronger beyond what your muscles should give you is possible for anyone within a reasonable if long timeframe. Learning tor throw fireballs or even more complex spells without inborn talents is more like trying to climb on mount Everest naked and without equipment.

>>52030266
Cont.

As a result of all this professionals, for example soldiers, have much bigger advantage over civilians and amateurs. Special forces operative is somewhere around action hero tier and may be able to use invisibility, breath fire or do some other clearly magical things. Some defensive spells or passive abilities may very well allow him to tank artillery barrages or wear power-armor tier plating. And there is those who have talents or so much determination that they were able to climb higher. Something like Captain America with an array of magical powers or proper wizards capable of a whole arsenal of spells.

In such a world big armies never got their time. It was almost always more effective to deploy a smaller but better trained army. Especially since those who survived were going to live longer lives due to their more powerful sparks. Tanks too didn't get to shine - they were too cumbersome to stand up to prepared fighters with good enough weapons and while newer designs exist their last real deployment was as WW1 models.

On the other hand planes and transport vehicles exist in many forms. While dragons and other flying creatures exist and can put up a real fight against fighter squadrons (if they are trained properly) it is too hard to fly for those who have no natural ability to do so.

Heavy armor is also much more prominent and is closer to anime-tier with soldiers supporting it's weight with their enhanced strength and specifically designed spells.

>>52028704
>>52029664
Thank G-d it never came to be. It sounds tacky as fuck.

>>52025209
If I were to do this, I can not thing of a single reason to have it be anything other than "Nazis go to fantasyland and conquer, but fantasyland rallies and fights back."

It's silly as shit from the start, so go full-speed and let the fun-factor carry the ball.

>>52027810
Why are you using old tanks though? A modern MBT can generally traverse it's turret in around 9 to 10 seconds.