Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in Da Vinci's Florence

by Mark Galeotti, Teresa Ramos (Illustrator), Randy Musseau (Illustrator)

Overview

2023 ENNIE NOMINATED FOR BEST WRITING

A roleplaying game of fantastical inventions and Machiavellian politics in Renaissance Italy.

It is the Year of Our Lord 1510, and one has to wonder how differently history could have played out if Niccolò Machiavelli, the military commissioner of the Republic of Florence, had not understood the true scale of Leonardo da Vinci's genius. In such a world, the visionary might simply have wasted his time painting portraits of women and doodling in a sketchbook. Instead, he unleashed a technological revolution where primitive computers, decorated with delicately painted cupids, run on water clocks; spring-powered tanks whir across the battlefield, cannons thundering from their flanks; and gliders flit across perfectly blue Tuscan skies.

Gran Meccanismo is a roleplaying game of swashbuckling adventure in a Renaissance Italy where Florence's winding alleys play host to spies, scholars, and sell-swords alike. Players are nobles, mercenaries, inventors, and artisans who may find themselves crossing wits with Machiavelli, avoiding the dangerous charms of Lucretia Borgia, or hearing Christopher Columbus telling tales of the new world he has discovered...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472849663
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/18/2022
Series:	Osprey Roleplaying
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Professor Mark Galeotti runs the Mayak Intelligence consultancy and is also an Honorary Professor at UCL, a Senior Associate Fellow with RUSI and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague. Formerly Head of History at Keele University in the UK and Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, he is a former Foreign Office adviser on Russian security affairs, and for 15 years (1991–2006) wrote a monthly column on this for Jane's Intelligence Review.

Mark Galeotti is a scholar of Russian security affairs with a career spanning academia, government service and business, a prolific author and frequent media commentator. He heads the Mayak Intelligence consultancy and is an Honorary Professor at University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies as well as holding fellowships with RUSI, the Council on Geostrategy and the Institute of International Relations Prague. He has been Head of History at Keele University, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a Visiting Professor at Rutgers-Newark, Charles University (Prague) and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He is the author of over 25 books including A Short History of Russia (Penguin, 2021) and The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War (Yale University Press, 2022).

Table of Contents

Introduction 4

The World of Gran Meccanismo 9

The Renaissance 10

Italy 12

Europe 30

Further Afield 34

Florence 37

Everyday Life 46

Business 48

War 50

Travel 54

Medicine 58

Scholarship 60

Law and Crime 61

The Church and Faith 65

The 'Other' 66

The Game 69

A Roleplaying Game Session 69

The Basics 72

The Characters 75

Traits 75

Creating Your Character 81

Archetypes 92

Origins 116

The Rules 121

Challenges 121

Different Kinds of Challenges 130

Outcomes 134

Nudges 142

Flaws 143

Scale 144

Goals 146

Wealth and Equipment 148

Magic and the New Science 152

Advancement 158

Turning the World 161

The Art of the Guide 165

What Kind of Game? 165

Guide Characters 169

On Challenges 174

Thrilling Combat 177

This Means War! 180

Sound and Vision 181

Running the Game 183

Appendix 188

Character Sheet 190