Intermitent brainshowers.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I actually have no idea what that would look like, unfortunately.  My experience in that area is severely lacking.

I don't think I need to necessarily define an exact part of the 20th century.  A mish-mash might still be a useful style.

[Steerpike]

Cool, mishmash is fun.  So steamboats are out, are you picturing motorboats and the like attacking large modern vessels (as in real modern piracy), or is this more a kind of age of sail thing where tall ships coexist with televisions, skyscrapers, and automobiles?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Tricky issues: I can't deny the appeal of ships with rigging, but my guess is you can't have large metal ships being moved by sails.  The actual "sailing" doesn't interest me, motors are fine, I just don't think swashbuckling is complete without ropes and such.

Guns and explosives are the other big issue: They make fighting too easy.  Explosives blow up things that previously required thinking around.  Guns change combat from up-close moving brawls to hiding and staying in one spot.  (I realize I'm generalizing and that some pre-gun ranged weapons were pretty good, but you still got more emphasis on up-close action.  And I know that you still had sword-fights while guns were available, but I'm interested in guns that carry more than one shot.)  Still these two aren't too too bad: lots of heroes get into fist-fights and martial arts battles even in this day and age.  And people don't carry explosives at all times.

Beyond that most technology doesn't matter.  Ideally I'd like to see gun-less fights between metal, motored ships, while the cities have a mix of skyscrapers and paved streets with old stone buildings, and radio communication and television exist but computers are work tools rather than entertainment and don't have an Internet yet.

[Steerpike]

Have you seen Spirit of the Century?  It's a bit different from what you're describing, but might be really well suited for a rules-system.  The PDF is $15.  If Talespin were converted into an RPG, this'd be the system.  Sky Captain and the World of Tommorow also would qualify.  I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too diffiuclt to teak it for a more sailing-oriented campaign, or you could always consider sky-pirates.  But it's got that wonderful slightly retro-futuristic pulp look, very twentieth century but middle rather than late, well before the internet.  And it's very, very pulp.

Again, this isn't a "oh, this product has already done what you're trying to do," it's more of a "this system sounds perfect for what you're trying to create."

Luminous Crayon is a big fan, I believe.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

1) I'm not looking into systems yet because my current experience as a GM shows me I'm at least not ready to be in charge.

2) My preferred method of play is PbP, which is slowed by the extra back-and-forth of compelling aspects.
___________________________________

EDIT: Just random extra thoughts:
Magic types: 1) Holders of single internal spells.
2) Carriers of magic from environments in forms of items and/or beast companions.
3) Alchemists that mix substances based on knowledge of environmental interactions.

Weird races: 1) Sentient energy that possess objects for a body, most famously masks.
2) Shapeshifting tricksters who generally do not understand the power struggles and greed of solid races.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I think I've got a way to justify sails: There's a technology that can keep track of ships quite reliably and at good range, but needs their motors to be on (I'm not sure quite yet why).  So if you want to be stealthy you turn off your motor and let the wind move you.

I'm not actually saying yet that I'm going to use it, given how many ways there exist to defeat the stealth that would of course be used, but it's an interesting idea for another day.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

So what do I end up with when I put this all together?  A civilization as technologically advanced as the United States around the 1980s-early 90s trading with some place that has really desirable goods but that exists across a mostly unexplored ocean full of islands which are used as hideouts by pirates.  I can have advanced cities at either end for home bases (satisfying my desire for home adventures to take place in a near-information age) and the unexplored in the middle (satisfying my desire for exploration of the unknown).

So that leaves: Races, Magic, Factions.

I've got enough of the idea to say in vague terms what magic is, and I think I'll mostly leave it that way.  A more in-depth look is probably going to bore me, and, let's face it, regular people don't know or need to know the fine details of quantum physics for it to come up and be a known thing.

Races is trickier: I don't really care for dealing with alien mindsets, a purpose to it just doesn't strike me.  But if I don't bother assigning races personalities should I even have different races or should they all somehow be the same race?

[Ghostman]

Weird races: 1) Sentient energy that possess objects for a body, most famously masks.

That seems like an awesome idea to me. Imagine one character who is a possessed mask and another character who is wearing that mask. That could lead to some very interesting situations. Especially if the mask can be made into a convincing replicate of someone's face...

2) Shapeshifting tricksters who generally do not understand the power struggles and greed of solid races.

If they are not "solid" themselves, are they supposed to be like the T-1000 Terminator? Such a being would probably have difficulty understanding why solid races are so obsessed with their appearances (clothes, trying to lose weight, etc). After all, if you were able to modify your appearance at will to your liking, you probably wouldn't value such superficial traits very highly. The shapeshifter might disregard looks entirely and judge people solely on their personalities.

[Steerpike]

[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]1) Sentient energy that possess objects for a body, most famously masks.[/blockquote]Awesome!

I think you could avoid the alien mindset issue by just having the different races possess different cultures.  They all think more or less the same, but their cultures are still distinct, so their values and personalities would still come off as exotic.  You could just say that tehse cultural differences spring from an environment or a particular history rather than a unique pscyhology; in other words, if humans were placed in the same environment, then they'd have developed a similar culture, but as it is the cat-people/bird-people/whatever have been the ones to develop in this manner.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I think you could avoid the alien mindset issue by just having the different races possess different cultures.  They all think more or less the same, but their cultures are still distinct, so their values and personalities would still come off as exotic.  You could just say that tehse cultural differences spring from an environment or a particular history rather than a unique pscyhology; in other words, if humans were placed in the same environment, then they'd have developed a similar culture, but as it is the cat-people/bird-people/whatever have been the ones to develop in this manner.

That would seem more like I should present the culture and then present the most common race(s) of that culture.  That would hopefully allow me to avoid people misinterpreting race and culture as intrinsicly linked.  Still it might help if they were all truly the same species, just having varied allot more in appearance than humans did.  Plus if I removed humans from the equation.

It's really the "humans are so super-special" mindset that fantasy and sci-fi stories present that gets me.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

As long as I've got two ends to this trade route I might as well make them different.  (All names are tentative, especially because I have terrible trouble coming up with good ones.)

Seagate: An island city whose purpose is to support the fleets that ply the trade route and protect the rift (spacetime blending of stretches of planet) back home.  Tech level is at pre-information age computing, except for vehicle fuel which has advanced to hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion.  (Magic) is well-known but rarely used as technology is seen as much more convenient and varied in capability.  The majority culture place a dual emphasis on free expression of self and importance of assisting one's community, the contrast having grown out of mingling cultural influences back home.  The most common species is the racially-polymorphous sonata.

Ah'rem: Roughly translated the name means "the puzzle".  The "continent" is actually a cluster of Australia-sized islands separated by narrow seaways inhabited by the descendants of cross-world migrants who passed through the "Great Eastern Door" thousands of years ago.  At the time of discovery Ah'rem was actually quite advanced in many areas, simply substituting wireless power transfer via (magic); since trade was established there has actually been little change in Ah'rem due to the fact that its native technology requires less expense on infrastructure.  Obviously (magic) is both well-known and widespread.  There is both no dominant culture or species on the Puzzle Continent.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

At the moment I'm feeling fantasy-ish, so I'm going to work on Ah'rem:

Ground rules: 1) No humans.  2) Magic is limited to one versatile spell per person.  3) Anachronistic elements are allowed because this isn't an isolated, Medieval-level world.

REMEBER: All names are tentative.

Races:
Kitsune: Panian foxes with multiple long tails.
Sphinx (male): Robust lion panians with a hominid face and a large, striped mane.
Sphinx (female): A gracile version of their male counterpart lacking the mane and possessing wings.
Alicorn: Unicorn panian but possessing a hominid face with a short, wide-base cone horn.

I really can't think of any more (these don't even seem like really great offerings either).  An elf-ish race, maybe.  Winged fey a possibly.  Intelligent wolves.  I seem to have come down with a case of "minimal race need", not something I've really felt like before.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Okay I can see now that the previous races just aren't going to cut it.  As I've said on another thread any non-human races should have characteristics different enough that they just can't be overlooked in describing how the race goes about actions.

Mask: Energy beings that must possess objects to function in the solid world.  For interaction with other races they prefer the pseudo-faces of masks.
Sonata: Shapeshifters with no natural form but who can't turn into anything larger than 2 ft tall.
Ashina: Animals made intelligent by symbiotic colonies of microorganisms.
Heyaafoura: Organic machine insectoids who can swap out body parts.

Still need to think of some more.

I guess I'm going to have to use humans to have the correct type of creature.

[Steerpike]

Wow, these are more like it!  At least so far as my tastes go.  Hayaafoura are so cool!

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Wow, these are more like it!  At least so far as my tastes go.

The sonata are still giving me trouble: it's difficult to have a shapeshifting race that has any unique features while still not being too weird.

And the thing is that this doesn't mean I can't have humanoid/panian races, I'd just lump them under one race name (maybe even one race, since they all seem to breed so easily).  I mean, that's unique, right?

Hayaafoura are so cool!

What exactly do you like?