Trinity Continuum: What we know

[IanW]

Time for the spoilers to start dripping out. Keep in mind this will be a slow process, given the first books aren't due until next year.

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We just confirmed on the Monday Meeting blog that we'll have a single Trinity Continuum rulebook, akin to the World of Darkness bluebook.

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Discuss amongst yourselves.

[Sailor OOC]

Okay questions a-plenty...

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1: How much of the original fluff is there?

2: Is this going to be treated as if the three settings are separate universes or one continuity?

3: How are the rules changing?

[IanW]

Most questions I can't answer. Seriously, we're only just in the outline-writing stage, I can't answer stuff like "how are the rules changing" or whatever.

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It's a single setting, as implied by the "continuum" part of the title.

[Sailor OOC]

Okay,next question is with the "Bluebook" core book, will Adventure, Aberrant, and Aeon be their own books in the way Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, and Changeling are to the core WoD book?

[IanW]

I (currently) have four secondary settings planned. Four and a half.

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All of them start with A.

[jameson (ST)]

Hmm, lezsee ....

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Æon, Adventure!, Aberrant, and .... Alcoholics? Anachronisms?

[Hyoseph]

Ants! Colony Building in the 22nd Century!

[Gabe OOC]

Aeon, Aberrant, Adventure!....

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Ancient Anchovies

Aeon-Con

[Sunstar]

Amalgam?

[Dave ST]

So, you found out on Monday that there will be a Trinity Continuum Rule book, but you don't have anything for its contents, yet, and can't answer questions but would like us to discuss it.

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That pretty much sums up discussion.

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Now, if you were looking for feedback, criticism, gripes about the previous systems, or way to improve the model that'd be one thing. Asking us to discuss a topic that we, nor you, have any information to offer makes it a bit difficult.

[IanW]

So, you found out on Monday that there will be a Trinity Continuum Rule book, but you don't have anything for its contents, yet, and can't answer questions but would like us to discuss it.

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That pretty much sums up discussion.

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Now, if you were looking for feedback, criticism, gripes about the previous systems, or way to improve the model that'd be one thing. Asking us to discuss a topic that we, nor you, have any information to offer makes it a bit difficult.

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I found out "Monday" (back on June 10) that the core Trinity Continuum book was public, because we hadn't previously announced it. I don't have contents yet because it's not due out for another year. While I have an outline, nothing's been written.

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I don't see anything wrong with people discussing it despite the paucity of factual information available. Announcement/speculation of new editions has been happening since the first time a new edition of D&D was announced. There's nothing to stop people from doing that now, and in fact people have been doing so on the OPP forums, on the White Wolf forums, and on RPGnet.

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I thought I'd do people a favour and consolidate the "official" information here on a website ostensibly about Trinity fandom, but if you'd rather I leave and take my ball with me, I can certainly do that.

[Matt]

Ian,

We appreciate you stopping by and giving us any info that you can.

[Dave ST]

Chosen is right, we do appreciate it.

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I can't speak for everyone but I'm not sort of guy to sit around for a year or two or three discussing 'oh, I hope they do this!' or 'oh, maybe they'll change that!'. I'm more of the sort of person that likes to have something to go on before I can discuss it. I've heard this talk already for over a year now, as a consumer, when I see something that resembles an actual product and not conceptual ideas, then I'll discuss it.

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Don't pull the whole 'take my ball' thing and punish the people of this site just because you don't like something I said. Like you, I have my opinions, and like you, I'm entitled to them. As a big fan of Trinity, I'm glad you guys have gotten the ball rolling (finally). Best of luck with it and I hope to see what OP can make of the system.

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If you could, consider some decent artists... the art in the original Trinity book was terrible.

[jameson (ST)]

I for one am looking forward at what will be done with the setting, even if I have no real interest in the game's mechanics anymore.

[Matt]

I'm a month late posting this, but here is what Ian said was scheduled for August 2014.

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The Trinity Continuum – A new edition of the fan-favorite Trinity Universe, the Trinity Continuum depicts a world of heroes willing to jump into action, to right wrongs, stand up to tyranny, and make the world a better place. This rulebook contains the core rules for playing games set in the Continuum, which will be the basis for further rulebooks such as The Trinity Continuum: Æon. In addition, it contains a modern-day action-adventure setting where teams of daring men and women confront corruption, solve problems, and defeat the bizarre. Also contains rules for playing Talents, those people who display extraordinary skill or luck.

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The Trinity Continuum: Æon – A new edition of the classic Trinity science-fiction game. The year is 2120, a time of Unity, and the world has changed. Fascist dictatorships rule over cyberpunk dystopias, vying for control with bio-engineered utopias. Insane, mutated Aberrants have recently returned from deep space to reclaim the Earth, while psions arise from all corners of the globe to stop them. Ranging from telepaths to teleporters, psychokinetics to psychometrists, the psi orders are a force to reckon with. The Æon Trinity watches over them all.

[Kultra]

Well, the fact that Trinity (imho) was kinda left out to dry back when was sad for me, but sadder was that fitting in Adventure!, Aberrant and Trinity in the same timeline left gaping plotholes you could drive a bunch of semi's through.

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From what I talked with Ian some time ago they are gonna work it backwards (again becasue lulz management decision) from Tinity towards Adventure! using a base book to make a human, and then sticking up a "Inspired" template on the charcater depending on which 'verse it is part of.

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Sounds fun, sounds modular which is always a plus, and I hope its not addled with meta plot and NPC's who act irrationally 99% of the time.

[Sprocket]

It's always good to hear that the Trinity Continuum is still a going concern. If all goes well with the Aeon book, Trinity Continuum: Aberrant would appear to be next, & that's the most tempting prospect for me out of the whole thing.

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That said, I certainly hope that Trinity Continuum: Adventure! will include a template for playing sapient gorillas like Enkidu. That defect from the old Adventure! book really needs to be corrected.

[IanW]

Well, the fact that Trinity (imho) was kinda left out to dry back when was sad for me

Trinity received an incredible amount of support. For its first year, it got new products every month. It got a miniatures game spinoff.

Sales were good, but not great. Basically, any RPG company in the industry would have been delighted to get Trinity's sales numbers... except White Wolf, because those numbers didn't compare to the sorts of things they were pulling in with the World of Darkness.

They tried to keep support up as long as possible. They transferred Trinity to ArtHaus. They launched WW's very first PDF product. Unfortunately by then it was too little, too late.

Now, we're taking that banner and making it our own. Now that we don't have the overhead of old White Wolf and we're not in the traditional print industry anymore, the Continuum can stand on its own merits rather than having to be compared to the World of Darkness.

Sounds fun, sounds modular which is always a plus, and I hope its not addled with meta plot and NPC's who act irrationally 99% of the time.

No metaplot. Can't speak for NPCs because we're not that far yet, but we're certainly not planning on making them stupid.

[IanW]

It's always good to hear that the Trinity Continuum is still a going concern. If all goes well with the Aeon book, Trinity Continuum: Aberrant would appear to be next, & that's the most tempting prospect for me out of the whole thing.

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That said, I certainly hope that Trinity Continuum: Adventure! will include a template for playing sapient gorillas like Enkidu. That defect from the old Adventure! book really needs to be corrected.

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Perhaps not in the A! core, but I don't see why it couldn't be in a supplement. I love Enkidu.

[jameson (ST)]

I'm just hoping that the games are compatible so that you could use Abby to build aberrants for your trinity game have have them be something akin to balanced. Likewise it would be nice if A!s mesmerists and stalwarts were actually capable of being developed into psions and novas in a longer form game.

[Sprocket]

I'm just hoping that the games are compatible so that you could use Abby to build aberrants for your trinity game have have them be something akin to balanced. Likewise it would be nice if A!s mesmerists and stalwarts were actually capable of being developed into psions and novas in a longer form game.

Very much agreed on the latter, I happen to love the idea of characters other than the "Big 3" (Mercer, Whitley Styles & Divis Mal/Donighal) living long enough to appear in later settings.

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AFA the former, though? I think they will reintroduce the whole "sub-aberrant" fix ("street level nova" power, Taint out the wazoo) to the initial idea clash on nova power levels between the Trinity & Aberrant developers. Anything else - such as making novas in Aberrant "equal" in base power level to Trinity's psions - would be unacceptable to the Aberrant fans. But that's just IMHO, YMMV.

[Sprocket]

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Perhaps not in the A! core, but I don't see why it couldn't be in a supplement. I love Enkidu.

Excellent! Although, it might be best to have it as a general Trinity Continuum supplement. AFAICT, there's no reason why Enkidu & his people couldn't be encountered in all three settings.

[IanW]

Excellent! Although, it might be best to have it as a general Trinity Continuum supplement. AFAICT, there's no reason why Enkidu & his people couldn't be encountered in all three settings.

Technically no, but "a tribe of super-intelligent gorillas" is thematically far more appropriate to a pulp setting. I'm typically not going to do generic "blue book" supplements unless their content genuinely applies across Continuum lines. I don't want to dilute the core elements of each given line.

Mechanically there won't be anything stopping people from putting Enkidu in Æon, though.

[Sprocket]

More than fair enough, then.

[CHILL]

I don't want to dilute the core elements of each given line.

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Groovy

[Dave ST]

I hope that all three systems will intermingle a bit better. Statistically, with Soaks in the 20-30+ range (which is what they boasted most abberants had by the time of the war), there should have been no way the aberrants lost. On top of the that, there is no way a Psion is any match for 30NP starting Nova. Period.

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Quantum bolt alone is enough to vaprorize your average Psion in a single hit, just on damage adds alone, considering Psions can't soak lethal damage, unless they are wearing armor.

[Matt]

There are a lot of times that I think I played different games than everyone else here. I don't recall any point in the previous games where a 2008 Nova encountered a 2120 psion. Period. A single aberrant in Trinity was on par to multiple psions working together. In the example in the Trinity book they say that during the first attack they were only able to kill one Aberrant. And that was because they hit it with an anti-tank cannon.

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At no point did I ever think about how I could no longer run a Trinity game because the rules of another game didn't jive with what I wanted to do in my 2120s game. This isn't the WoD where everything is running around at the same time and there is an effort to make them balanced against each other. They are 3 games in 3 very different timelines with 3 very different power levels. The characters in each game have unique events that cause their powers to manifest. I'd like to see consistent rules, but I in on way want to sacrifice the quality of one game in hopes that it will unify the power levels across all 3 game.

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I in no was envy Ian's position in creating these games again, but I do appreciate the hell out of him doing it though.

[Matt]

From the latest blog.

Trinity Continuum: We now have a whopping big Aeon outline and a Trinity Continuum Core Book outline and writers are writing.

[Sprocket]

At no point did I ever think about how I could no longer run a Trinity game because the rules of another game didn't jive with what I wanted to do in my 2120s game. This isn't the WoD where everything is running around at the same time and there is an effort to make them balanced against each other. They are 3 games in 3 very different timelines with 3 very different power levels. The characters in each game have unique events that cause their powers to manifest. I'd like to see consistent rules, but I in on way want to sacrifice the quality of one game in hopes that it will unify the power levels across all 3 games.

↑ THIS. AFAICT, there are only two times where the "problem" of unequal power levels crops up. The first is when time travel of some sort is used in a chronicle, AKA "why most Pulp Heroes don't take on Tyrannosaurs bare-handed". The second is when psions faced actual (nova-caliber) aberrants in Trinity, & they usually had ships/mecha with heavy weapons to even the odds.

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It sounds like some people like the idea of "equalized power levels" (sounds like an idea from Romanticism, now that I think about it), but it doesn't make sense from a science fiction standpoint. Put a BOLO against modern first world military & see how far they get before they're pounded flat.

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AFA work starting on the product lines, that's some very cool beans. Can't wait to see the finished products!

[Heritage]

Very cool to see this still in motion, including a post from old EON Online guru CHILL! Hey, dude! For the record, I have been running an Adventure! series at GenCon for about ten years now, and Enkidu is one of the pregen PCs I wrote up. He has a special electronic collar that allows his gorilla vocalizations to be translated into English or Latin, depending on how the knob is turned, and he recently gained his own Followers, the Junior Jungle Scouts, a hyper-competent, ragtag band of Cockney urchins wearing pith helmets. He is very popular with the players.

[Heritage]

P.S. I have always informed the players that he is NOT my original creation; I show them the short message in the book that inspired (Inspired?) his creation.

[Sprocket]

Re: Another feedback opportunity-

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I'm sure this isn't breaking news, but RPG.Net has another Aeon v2.0 feedback thread going, with various hints at what changes are being made. Link is here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?720957-Aeon-Trinity-2-0-Hopes-amp-Fears

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My main fear for the (still highly fluid) Aberrant v2.0 game is that they will tone down the really high-powered quantum powers & such seen in the old Aberrant Players Guide. A Storyteller (or GM, or whatever the new title will be) will NEED rules with which to produce Galactus-caliber opposition for high-powered nova PCs. With a group/species like the Coalition schlepping around the Milky Way, there are only so many alien civilizations out there to act as possible antagonists. Likewise, interstellar natural disasters aren't all that common to be of anything more than occasional use. Nerfing/gimping the novas - or restricting the scope of what's possible with nova powers, for that matter - is an really strong unselling point for me.

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Secondary fear: That they will alter the list of Attributes to something like what the new World of Darkness uses - that change turned me off from that entire set of gamelines for good!

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Good signs are as follows:

1- They're ramping up psionic Aptitudes to feasible power levels. The old "Trinity psions vs. nova-caliber aberrants" conflict always felt more like M:tA Sorcerer- caliber psychics vs the oWod Garou instead of the legitimate combatants the setting color painted them as.

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2- Adding in recent scientific & cultural advancement to the setting.

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3- No "silo" separation between game development teams as there was last time.

[Matt]

For those that don't want to read through the thread over there here are some of the highlights.

John Snead

My specific instructions on Psychokinetics are that a maxed out PK should be equal in power and capabilities to a hybrid fighter (a jet fighter with orbital capability). Also, a fair number of the low end powers will cost 0 Psi Points (for example telepathic communication is really nothing more than a psychic cellphone, and so should be usable at will). The TU core rules are still be finalized (although they are almost done), so the Psi Rules are not remotely finalized yet, but I know what I want, which is easy (ie nothing like the Freefrom Psi System), flexible (far more so than the Psi System in the Trinity core book), and somewhat more powerful than the previous version.

Most of all, my goal is to make every Aptitude Awesome (but in its own unique way). For example, Vitakinetics will be more than just healers - think Captain America, but able to heal rapidly and to heal and amp up his comrades (my image for them is generalized first response emergency personnel rather than just doctors).

Ian Watson

Powers aren't strictly regimented, but they're not wildly freeform like Mage's Spheres. There's a lot of room for manoeuvring between those extremes.

We haven't said anything beyond "we're doing more eras," and "I have five extra eras planned."

The three primary settings are distinct for reasons which will become clear, and the arc you enjoyed before can continue to be enjoyed with the new edition. The setting is called the Trinity Continuum for a reason.

There are no new Inspired character types.

Think of it like the Force Unleashed games. They're set in the Star Wars universe and maybe fill in a few gaps, but they largely feature new characters and locations unrelated to the main trilogy. They are not required to enjoy the trilogy, and the trilogy continues to work just fine without them. They're an extra. You can avoid them entirely if they don't interest you.

John Snead

I'm not certain how much detail about biotech will be able to fit into the main Aeon book, but I'll definitely be exploring biotech in one of the early books.

In the core book the focus will be on psions, but it won't be too long before we get to psychomorphs.

John Snead

There are a few noticeable differences in the setting, with the two big ones being that the game opens 6 months after the Teleporters have returned, wireless internet is ubiquitous rather than highly restricted, but the same basic setting remains much the same and has changed a whole lot less than the rules, and I can say that with certainty, because a good bit of the setting material is completed.

The Esperanza still hit France (which is a huge and terrible mess), North America still has Wycoff's Blight and is still run by nasty fascists, the UAN, Sudamerica, and Australia are still nice places to live (if also quite different from one another), and Otha Herzog still runs a Clairsentient cult on Luna (which is also a major religion, since I wrote up ISRA, and it occurred to me that if you actually had a spiritual leader who had verifiable visions of the future and could work similar wonders, disciples would flock to them).

In the core book, you'll have material to support ground war (KLG), massive scale, highly dangerous disaster relief (France), cyberpunk-esque rebillion and "shadowrunning" (the FSA), corporate & government espionage (anywhere), interstellar colonization & exploration, recontacting lost colonies, meeting aliens & fighting aliens, and Lunar Underworld crime dramas, just like in the original, but with the Aeon Trinity being a generally good and honest organization (which doesn't mean that it can't have villains working for it, just that they aren't in charge).

Our mission statement was pretty much tweak the setting, rewrite the rules.

John Snead

The Coalition, Qin, & Chromatics are all still part of the setting and all three have short write-ups in the core Aeon book.

John Snead

I'm making certain to give the entire inhabited world more info that was in the Trinity corebook, and I'm focusing as much attention on Sudamerica, China, and the UAN as on the FSA and Western Europe. For the time, I think that Trinity did an excellent job of being a worldwide setting, but it's 2014 and not 1997, and so I'm determined to do even better, but I also won't be neglecting the FSA, Western Europe, India, Australia, or Luna.

John Snead

The rules aren't written yet, but there will be a short section on creating Aberrant NPCs in the Aeon core book, it will not be designed for or particularly useful for creating PCs and will be solely for creating the sorts of low-end aberrants & sub-aberrant mutations that PCs will mostly fight.

However, we have discussed the difference in power level between Novas in Aberrant and aberrants in Aeon, and so there won't be the same lack of connection between them. If you want to play Novas in Aeon, you'll need to wait until Aberrant comes out.

Bates

Certainly, I'd see aberrants as being an important factor in the Aeon Era. However, making them the key threat would undercut the richness of the setting, in my opinion. It's a future of promise and danger, with opportunities and threats from multiple sources besides aberrants -- aliens, orders, nations, corporations, and the Aeon organization itself.

Ian Watson

A sample of the rules will be available soonish.

Ian Watson

Originally, Bates had this list of what Aberrants were capable of, how their powers generally worked, and so forth. Then the Aberrant developer threw all that away and did his own game.

What we're doing now is doing all the game lines under a single lead developer (me) so that it's coherent and makes sense.

John Snead

Aeon will have tanks with each psion having a single Aptitude (with 3 Modes). However, powers and Psi Order have little to do with one another, half of the members of most Psi Orders have powers different from the one associated with that Order's tank. For example, there are plenty of Clairsentients, Electrokinetics, and Vitakinetics in the Legions, and Telepaths and Teleporters in ISRA.

Also, the rules for Secondary Aptitudes will be a bit more liberal than before, and rules psychomorphs will appear in one of the early supplements.

John Snead

I'm changing Project Rewrite a bit. In addition to doubting that you could erase the history of the Nova Age quite so well, I also don't think Project Rewrite would be needed to demonize Novas. Superman in anything like a remotely realistic setting is inherently scary. What would make him not scary is if you were absolutely certain that he was on the side of helping people and saving kittens. Lose that, and you have a terrible and angry monster that all remotely sane people would find utterly terrifying. Some people's response to that terror would be worship, others would flee or fight, but almost no one wouldn't be afraid.

All you'd really need to do is emphasize the horror stories a bit more and you can leave all the cool stuff they did in the past. All it takes is a few mass murders and similar horrors to wipe out any number of previous good works - public opinion can turn fast, and nothing makes it turn faster than murdering lots of civilians. So, my vision of Project Rewrite is some tweaking + whole sale erasure and containment of all Nova-created tech and science that is too advanced for humans to fully understand, as well as the stuff that's too dangerous to have around. Also, Project Rewrite have gotten rid of all recordings made of or by inhumanly persuasive/charismatic Novas, because those would also be too dangerous to have around.

Bates

From the Aeon Trinity's perspective, the strategy was to position normal humans as heroic and capable in the face of these postmodern gods. The world was trying to rebuild itself, so giving people some hope and a "we can do it!" attitude couldn't hurt. Whether it was actually humans v nova or nova v nova wasn't relevant. (Personally, I always viewed it as a combination of things -- novas and humans on both sides, sometimes just nova v nova, sometimes human v human, generally a mix of the two, and overall a big mess.)

And, yeah, not necessarily considered when written, but having gaps in history and info creates some nice story hook opportunities should people want to dig into 'em.

(Now, some that actual Project: Rewrite written material had its clunky bits and logic gaps, but that's the developer's fault...)

Bates

I based the aberrant power approach in Trinity on the early bible for Aberrant. When the actual game was done, there was a clear shift, which is why we plugged in the "sub-aberrant mutant" thing. One of the problems of having multiple developers and silo'd game design.

Based on what little I know of Ian's approach to the Trinity Continuum, this shouldn't be an issue. He and his team have a plan, and it should be pretty damn cool.

Bates

To be fair, Rob Hatch had a pitch for Aberrant before Trinity was ever a glimmer of an idea. I based the aberrants in Trinity on that material.

Rob did subsequently take things in a different direction that I didn't agree with*, but that was his and the management team's call. Just wish we could've coordinated connections better between the two settings.

*Watershed moment in my career, too. I was supposed to take over development for the Aberrant line after the core book was done, but passed due to that differing perspective on the material. Though I don't regret the choice, I've wondered a time or two where I'd've ended up if I'd taken the gig. *cue Incredible Hulk theme*

Bates

On the Coalition, there was a bit of background, but I thought we'd put that in the Alien Encounters books? I recall the gist was that they're an ancient race of galactic wanderers who subsume other races genetically to sustain themselves. They met up with a nova and developed nefarious plans for Earth. We'd discussed that their arrival in our solar system would happen right about when The Colony and their minions made another play for Earth, as well as the Doyen realizing their Proxies were gone off the chain of their control. So you'd have a free-for-all of these various forces, with humanity and its allies in the middle. Quite ambitious, and probably unworkable.

John Snead

Absolutely nothing is certain with Aberrant, but we're definitely talking about them being powerful supers. I have no idea if this means that the top end is army-fighting powerful like Magneto or Storm, or planet juggling powerful like Superman or Green Lantern, but somewhere in that range.

Ian Watson

Some nova abilities will be expanded, others will be diminished, but otherwise their power level shouldn't be changing all that much.

There will, for example, finally be rules for making an Iron Man-type character.

Ian Watson

This is my first development gig and I know next to nothing about how timing works out, but others seem confident with the current status for first two November releases.

Ian Watson

We've got close to two dozen supplements currently planned, all told. You don't develop a line without some idea of where you want to go with it.

Ian Watson

An individual Talent is not as powerful as an individual psion.

An individual psion is not as powerful as an individual nova.

And we're okay with that. Not everything has to balance 1:1 against everything else.

Ian Watson

Trinity (or rather, Aeon) will be changing to better account for Aberrant. Aberrant will also be changing to better account for Aeon. There are changes across the board.

I suspect not every change will be to taste, but that's always going to be the case. Overall it's my job to have as cohesive a vision for the Trinity Continuum as possible, and work with the individual line developers to see that through. My guiding thought has mostly been what will make this line better?, whether "better" is "more cohesive," "more true to its themes," "a better toolbox for people to play a lot of games within this genre," or whatever.

Making up two examples (and by made up I mean they don't necessarily reflect any actual changes), if I say "bioapps no longer need to be formatted," there'll be people who love the idea and people who hate it. If I say "you can only get eufiber at a Node rating of at least 3," there'll be people who love the idea and people who hate it. I can't cater to everyone simultaneously, so I cater to the lines themselves first and foremost.

Once I know the devs and I are on the same page in terms of the direction, then I start throwing out crazy ideas to see what sticks to see what sort of extra value we can add. I'm really excited about what we're doing, and I hope you will be too.

John Snead

Here I'm speaking as a fan, since I don't know what will eventually be decided about Aberrant, but one thing to keep in mind is that there's an obvious reason for Aberrants in the Aeon era to be weaker than the top-tier Aberrants in the Aberrant era. The Aberrants left because of the Chinese Ultimatum. My presumption is that that vast majority left because of the Ultimatum, but that the most powerful of them could have stopped any nukes. However, the Ultimatum served to make these godlings think a bit about what they were doing and they decided to go off into the universe and play Dr. Manhattan because they found humanity to be too distracting/pathetic/annoying/or whatever.

I can't see any reason that after 50 years of getting more powerful and even stranger that Aberrants capable of creating universes or even planets would return to invade Earth - if they wanted they could make their own solar systems or universes to play with. Instead, psions in Aeon are only fighting those Aberrants who want to return and retake Earth. This implies to me that even the most powerful of these can't just create their own duplicate Earth's and so they aren't equal in power to Galactus, the Celestials, Dr. Manhattan, or any of the other absolute top ranks cosmic supers.

Bates

Being able to obliterate armored vehicles with a wave of the hand is already pretty heady stuff. Digging into what happens next, and how Tank Shredr grows in his power and how that changes him, gets even more compelling.

My concern was the trend of expecting that all novas started at the point where they can shred entire mountain ranges. Nothing wrong with setting a game around such seasoned and/or higher-powered novas, but I think you're limiting yourself, and the setting, if that's the default for everyone.* The exploration -- the evolution, if you will -- of that progress from tanks to mountain ranges, and the impact it has on the character, his friends & family, and the world at large is key, in my opinion.

Bates

Nova-enhanced space exploration earlier in the timeline allows for more story options for both games -- establishing intra- and extrasolar colonies in the Aberrant Era that are subsequently cut off (at least the extrasolar ones) after the Ultimatum. Colonies that have now been cut off from earth for half a century by the time of the Aeon Era. What've the colonies been up to all this time? Certainly some are the home of novas, but what about the rest? How do they react to reconnecting with the homeworld after all this time?

This basically moves some of the Aeon Era material earlier, but you can still have much of that remain as-is; this adds an additional layer.

Heck, it could even allow for uncoupling aberrants further from the Aeon Era storyline.* A few key aberrant incursions (Sydney, Esperanza) could still be the catalyst for the psion reveal, but otherwise they pretty much stick to the fringes of settled space. Psions have plenty to deal with as it is, from global political tensions to alien encounters to friction between orders. Having aberrants as simply one of a number of story options helps Trinity to stand more solidly on its own, without requiring call-backs to the previous era.

(In fact, I'd be tempted to accelerate the backstory so that the Doyen are revealed prior to the Trinity game start. So, the orders are engaged in a shadow war with the Doyen and their minions -- loyal psions, aliens, etc. Psions are fighting not only for their own independence, but also for the future of humanity. Yet this occurs hidden from the world at large -- secret skirmishes to not only stop the Doyen but also avoid a repeat of the Aberrant War.)

Much of this exists in the previous version of Trinity in some form or other, of course, so it'd be mainly adjusting emphasis, timing, and other clean-up.

*I'd long thought that one of the mistakes we made with Trinity was that it relied so heavily on Aberrant for its premise. The earlier two games don't have that issue. Aberrant doesn't require knowing the connective tissue between it and Adventure! -- the pulp setting simply serves as a catalyst without shackling the supers setting to it. Trinity's premise, in contrast, pretty much keeps shoving it in your face -- how'd novas go bad? why did they leave, really? why are they back? and so on.

John Snead

4 words you shall have for now - Nova Era extrasolar colonies.

[Sakurako Hino]

Sprocket. What I am seeing here is that the dev team on this really doesn't like Aberrant and is heavily beating it down in order to allow the meta that leads to Aeon to happen. It just feels ham-handed to me. Is there any incentive to playing a Nova in the Nova era if you can't be a mover and shaker within that era and you're just a spectator to the downward slide? Or worse a victim?

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Extrasolar colonies and being Iron Man? I'm sorry, that doesn't gloss over the pile of bad that might be coming to the Aberrant fans.

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I'll wait for more, but my expectations are pretty low at the moment.

[Matt]

Where does it say that you can't be a mover and a shaker? Regardless of the scale, PCs will start off at the low end of the scale. But in your game you'll have the opportunity to rise as high as your ST wants. If that caps at Magneto or Superman, you are still a mover and a shaker in the world compared to humans.

[Sakurako Hino]

I'm just hoping the ST has the power to allow that within the rules and rise beyond the meta. That's all I want an assurance to.

[Matt]

What does everyone want and expect out of the new game line(s)?

[Sakurako Hino]

Well I do like the fact Gadgeteers might be getting the love they deserve and were greatly starved for in the classic line.
I'd love for the devs to make the system in a way and even state in their material in it's opening "You don't have to do things like we're doing, it won't damage the system if you do."

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To be honest I want the ability to punch Divis Mal in the face because he's a pretentious jerk... wait did I say that?

[Sprocket]

Sprocket. What I am seeing here is that the dev team on this really doesn't like Aberrant and is heavily beating it down in order to allow the meta that leads to Aeon to happen. It just feels ham-handed to me. Is there any incentive to playing a Nova in the Nova era if you can't be a mover and shaker within that era and you're just a spectator to the downward slide? Or worse a victim?

,,

Extrasolar colonies and being Iron Man? I'm sorry, that doesn't gloss over the pile of bad that might be coming to the Aberrant fans.

,,

I'll wait for more, but my expectations are pretty low at the moment.

I wish I could disagree wholeheartedly, but I can't. Whatever happened to Ian's "Universes 1 & 2" idea from his Trinity Storyteller Guide project? Part of the whole freakin' point of a good Aberrant chronicle is that the PCs SHOULD have the capability to derail/decouple their chronicle from all the bad "future history" that would lead up to the First Aberrant War and the Noetic Era. I burned out on angst-fest roleplaying back in the early 90s, & have no desire to see it imposed on Aberrant v2.0.

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(Granted, I've written up material to help the angst-junkies play such angst-fest Aberrant chronicles, but it's always optional. Aberrant v2.0 is sounding just as "fun" as having your ST shanghai your PCs into a Vampire game when you were expecting to play Mage or Changeling. Meaning, not fun at all.)

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As it is, it sounds like playing Aberrant v2.0 would be like doing so in a Sorcerer's Crusade chronicle from the old Mage: The Ascension game. That was fun to read through & mine for ideas, but playing it?!? No thanks!

[Sprocket]

What does everyone want and expect out of the new game line(s)?

For Aeon: Pretty much what all I outlined as positive signs from my earlier post. More detail on the daily lives of Joe & Jane Hologram would also be appreciated - for instance, what's 22nd Century food production like?

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For Adventure!: Clear rules for playing sapient gorillas. Enkidu really needed more screen time, blast it all!

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For Aberrant: For the rules to allow playing nova PCs at any power level ever seen in the comics. If a ST should want to run Aberrant chronicles that are on the level of The Last Galactus Story*, she should have the means to do so.

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*Most of which can be found in various issues of Epic Magazine, now in PDF format. Google it if you're unfamiliar with it. It's pure cosmic-level gold, & what started my interest in supers in the first place!