I'm trying to create a world where a town is transported into the Triassic period...

I'm trying to create a world where a town is transported into the Triassic period, what would be the best system to run it on

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Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

GURPs

Can you guys explain?

FATAL

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Kek

GURPS can do anything.
And since you didn't tell us if you want your game to be silly, autistic-realistic, an action movie or pulp, we can't tell you what system to use other than GURPS.

I was thinking semi realistic/ action movie like

Dungeons and Dragons

Savage Worlds, literally made for games like that.

GURPS, literally made for games like that.

FATAL literally made for games like that.

What's so special about it

GURPS has stats for modern stuff and dinosaurs.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs has dinosaur stats that include amount of edible meat each type has. Use this book as a reference even if you run different rules.

I recommend Mutants & Masterminds, 2e if your players know D&D, 3e otherwise.

Use Google Earth and grab a freal town, your own is best. If too big, just send part.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't atmospheric composition significantly different during the Triassic? Would people even be able to survive?

They wouldn’t

Go on.

Atmospheric CO2 was far higher and oxygen content was significantly lower. Humans might not have the best time surviving, which might necessitate enclosed living spaces with large greenhouses and breathing gear when working outside.

Well they are being sent back through weird science shit so I can negate some of that

>handwavery
I give this setting no more than a week before you drop it and move onto something else

Nah, man, roll with it. Say that the atmosphere is unbreathable for modern humans, so everyone seals up their homes, connects 'em to big ol greenhouses to keep oxygen content up and wears rebreathers when they're outside. It'll be a rad as fuck aesthetic.

Not everything has to be ultra realistic

That does sound rather cool

>Atmospheric CO2 was far higher and oxygen content was significantly lower
Wasn't the oxygen content a lot higher which is why there were such huge insects

I believe that's the Carboniferous.

It also gives you some plot hooks for players.
>A marauding [insert Triassic creature here] is encroaching on a communal greenhouse! Drive it off so it doesn't break the seal!
>Rumour has it that some explorers found a new(old) species of moss that produces oxygen at an astounding rate. If you can bring us some samples, some of the university's scientists think they might be able to improve greenhouse efficiency and upgrade your life support equipment to support longer expeditions!

How do you feel about having made up creatures in the setting?

While I feel sticking to real triassic creatures would be rad as fuck because, let's be honest, shit was WEIRD back then, I think a few original creatures is fine so long as you keep them plausible and make them consistent with everything else. Don't make them *too* large, because of the lower oxygen content, and do your homework on what was around at the time - you might be able to get away with pterosaurs in the later triassic, since that's when they started to crop up. (Also, IIRC the triassic tended to be pretty fuckin' dry, so conflict over water sources might be a thing. I don't really know what I'm talking about, though, so do whatever you think is best.)

Don't think making up dinos is necessary for the Triassic period, the fauna of that era is pretty wild.

Though you might want to give them Land Before Time style nicknames like "Sharptooth" or "Longnecks", something a bunch of non-paleontologists would name a six foot lizard trying to bust into the greenhouses.

Imagine the reaction of a bunch of random people upon meeting a therapsid.
"AH JESUS FUCK WHY DOES IT HAVE HAIR WHAT THE FUCK"

I was more or less thinking of a sentient species that is unknown to paleontologists kind of deal

Hell, why not? Be good for when you want some local NPCs for exposition or non-feral antagonism.
There's a long and storied history of weirdo sentient lizard people in this particular subgenre of time traveling.

Would you mind if I bounce some ideas that I have off of you, to get another opinion on the setting? Everything that i have at the moment is a Work in progress and subject to change and I'd like an opinion from someone who wouldn't be in the group I'd be running this with

Hell, it could work. A particularly intelligent coelophysis relative that's not as smart as an average human, but smart enough to be communicated with and, to a degree, reasoned with.
Hit me, boss. Kinda tempted to steal this and run a game in this setting myself.

Basically the town that gets transported back in time is a small river town that agreed to try out a bunch of green technologies and other science experiments to get money. I'm not entirely sure on how big to make the town though.

A few hours before the town got transported back a weird light by the nuclear plant was reported.

The players could be either residents or people that were traveling through the area.

And besides the town itself some of the outlaying areas got sent back in time too so the players could check some of those areas out as well.

Given the atmospheric differences I'd advise a timeskip between The Event and the campaign starting, otherwise session 1 may just be the whole party asphyxiating wherever they were when it happened. Remember, this event would kill a SHITLOAD of people, so this would heavily discourage any form of interhuman conflict - life's just too damn precious to throw away over anything.

The actual event that transported the town back in time is referred to as the tear as it looked like the sky was torn just before the event happened.

Yeah I was thinking that as well. Where the town before held about 40,000 people but only a few thousand survived the first few months

One of the locations outside of the town would be called Ypres. It was the manor home of a wealthy businessman that named it after a battle he fought in WW1. After he died he had the grounds turned into a botanical and Zoological park and research center. I plan on having a few important NPC's be there.

Also, this will heavily inform weapon choices for your players as well. Producing modern munitions will probably be damn near impossible, so a heavier reliance on more traditional weapons- bows, spears, etc would make sense depending on where the town was originally and how long it's been since the tear.

I was thinkong of having it be a few months after the tear. And has I mentioned earlier the town is a river town. I was thinking of adding some giant amphibians and crocodilians to the area

Crossbows and caltrops/punjis too. It's not like animals have meds, so if they get poisoned or infected they often die.

I plan on having a decent part of the city having been taken over by the wildlife

That kind of fits in with one of creatures I'm putting in to the campaign. It was a real life creature that was believed to have been poisonous

>House to house melee fighting with sentient dinosaurs
This gets better with every post

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Another area would be the davidson homestead. It is inhabited by a half crazed doomsday preper that lived there with his wife. Players could do quests for him to get some rarer supplies

There are two intelligent species. One is dinosaurian and are huge assholes that believe they are destined to take over the world and the other is a mammal like reptile species that is willing to trade and make deals because they are on the defensive from there dinosaurians

The town center where most people live now a few blocks big and surrounded by barricades. The biggest buildings a church, a county courthouse and the old train station. The train station used to accommodate cross country trains like Amtrak and a intra city tram system. (Pic related is the what I'm basing the courthouse off of)

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The city council is the governing body of the town now and all decisions are made there. The leader of the town is Judge Harrison. He was the lead judge at the courthouse and the only government type that is known to have survived. Other council members include Pastor Leon DuBois, Soccer mom and community organizer Lindsey Mercer, Big Bob who owned the biggest gun store in the county, Dr. Stan Pulaski, who was the head surgeon at the local hospital and Cecil Argil, who owned an Agricultural business and was a main investor in a lot of the science labs that were built in the area.

>Big Bob
I like him already.

Some of the Science labs built a few years prior to the Tear were dedicated to Green power sources like Solar power, Wind power and bio fuels. The Geological lab that was in the area was expanded. A chemistry lab was also built in the old industrial area of the town. Classified research on radiation and other nuclear power stuff was rumored to have been going on near on at the nuclear plant. And there was an Army Corps of Engineers headquarters in the city

The army corps of Engineers don't have a member on the council as they are interested in maintaining the locks outside the city to control the river levels. The also run the town's water purification plant

When the game begins the main thing that is going on in the town is improving the town's greenhouses and air supply.

There is also a known nest of Raptors in the old opera house. About two blocks away from the town center.

Towns people have started capturing Lystrosaurus for food. As livestock from before the tear is highly guarded. They are commonly referred to as Lystros

Other important NPC's are the town's acting police chief, Dr Jillian Moore a botanist, Lysander Burnes, the highschool's principal and amateur paleontologist, And Jim who was put in charge of running the greenhouses

Shouldn't be a major problem. Atmosphere oxygen was around 15% back then, as opposed to today's around 20%.

While that sounds like a big deal, that makes it about the same as living at around 8000 ft. Which would be Aspen Colorado. Pretty sure people survive there pretty well.

Upon arrival you will find it harder to walk up stairs, things like that. But you will adapt pretty quickly. Should in effect be like an immediate cardio hit. I'd expect some old people or those that were already having medical problems to perhaps die, but I wouldn't expect it to be a major killer.

Lack of electricity and food production will do far more.

Wouldn't the approximately quintupled CO2 concentration have some negative effects?

I really don't think that you will need greenhouses for oxygen. However, you will likely need them for food. Certainly for food variety for some plants.

You are talking about a major shift in climate as well as soil composition. Some of the plants they bring with them (assume it is a farming community here) may grow, but many may not. Shucks, none may grow well or even at all.

I could see a major focus being on collecting seeds for any food plants that might be in town. How might that work out? Is everyone OK with giving up their resources? How about immediate need for food? Going to redistribute that food? Is everyone OK with that? Is everyone a productive person? How will all of that work together? Is being collective even the best strategy (it is my assumption of assumed strategy)?

I think if you look at all the human challenges here that setting this upon arrival could be very interesting.

Or, depending on the type of campaign OP's players want, you could look at the antics of a bunch of fucking lunatics who run around and beat the shit out of dinosaurs for shits and giggles.

Shouldn't, CO2 isn't a problem for us and is basically inert - UNLESS it fully displaces the oxygen. In which case the fact that we cannot sense it makes it super dangerous.

So let's work this. CO2 is a heavy gas, at least it is heavier than oxygen. If CO2 is far more present you might very well find that low areas are possible death zones. Or at least dangerous. Just conjecture on that, I'd have to look around a bit. But it might make for an interesting 'trap' that comes up now and then.

Look up some signs of low oxygen behavior and have that on hand for some mapped areas.

Plants should do great though from that perspective. The 'trap' areas might very well be great growing locations.

Rather than negate it, turn into a plot/gameplay point.
Put the town under a bubble where the atmosphere is viable for human, and they can only harvest materials and rations by leaving the bubble with equipment. Also occaisonally make breaches in the bubble, with invasions of beast of sort.

Actually I just looked that up, and that is probably all bullshit. Four times CO2 is still going to be less than 2% of atmosphere. Hardly a problem at all. Maybe some deep mine or something. It would have to be a really low valley if it was even possible at all.

Huh, fair enough.

Like I said, I really don't think that atmosphere composition is a problem for humans. Neither the lower oxygen or the higher CO2. Although that is fine if you want to make it one of course.

Weather could be a bigger problem. It could be much hotter than what your town is designed for. Say it was a town from Maine or something. You might see temperatures significantly hotter than what the buildings were designed for.

Now that depends on where you are, closer to the equator on the super continent and it is probably going to be in the higher range of human suitability. So those that are less fit may not survive.

That alone could make for an interesting plot point if you presented the players with a long trip north for better climate conditions. Do they leave the town and the assets they can't transport or stay with the infrastructure they already have? Does everyone make the same choice?

Totally fair. Riding dinosaurs in dinotopia could be cool to.

>The mayor's face when they're just trying to keep shit together and keep people alive but these four fucking assholes keep running around picking fights with the resident superpredators because they think it'll be fun

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I think the interesting idea is a race of intelligent sentient creatures. No real reason for it not to exist.

Heck, could have existed. That long ago, any evidence would have long since been wiped away.

But I think a race that happened to develop real human level intelligence for whatever reason, yet didn't have the ability to make large scale civilization (perhaps lacked the ability for fine tool manipulation) is something that could be fun. Raptors as smart as dolphins perhaps, with chirping full language ability.

Raptors? In the Triassic?

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In this part of Pangea?
Localized exclusively within your Opera house?

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What's the long term goal though? Can they escape back to modern day? Will there be an antagonist?

>Raptors as smart as dolphins perhaps, with chirping full language ability.
Always liked the way they were protrayed during WoW Classic. They never say anything but there are some eerie shit about them. In their nesting grounds you can see tribal totems made of remnants of their preys and wood hanging from the trees. And there was that quest when they attacked a caravan and stole a shipment of silver, just to put it in a nest.

Though it could be funnier to make some research and only use beasts that were around your place at the time.

The main goal is to try to get back to modern times

Yes.... But how??
Was it aliens? Do you have to kill them and destroy their time-fucking machine? Was it the scientists, with their "green energy"? Do you have to bring them rare materials or scattered machine parts for them to reverse the process? Or was it just sheer bad luck, and you'll have to find another tear only to end up lost in the future this time?

Its basic system, without additional books and supplements, is designed for semi-realistic action games. Take almost any action movie, excluding most outrageous, and you could probably play something like this. Depending on how cinematic/hardcore you want it to feel you could add additional books - want a lot of guns add High Tech, Martial Arts for beating people into a pulp and so on.

Want things to be really brutal? Add bleeding rules.