Aberrant RPG - Mega-Mental & Mega-Social Feats

[metaphysician]

Mega Manipulation:

"Polygraphs always show you as telling the truth, whenever you want."

"Polygraphs show exactly what you want them to show, entirely at your will and independent of your overt answers and their truthfulness."

[metaphysician]

Mega Manipulation 10: "The nova's player may choose, at any time, to have an unlikely, but theoretically possible, event or sequence of events to happen, based on prior machinations coming to fruition exactly when desired. This costs one point of willpower, and requires a Manipulation roll, with a difficulty based on the unlikelihood of the events."

[metaphysician]

Mega Intelligence:

"You are able to reinvent an entire scientific field from first principals in a month/week/day or less."

[Sprocket]

Re: Mega-Perception feat-

What I had in mind for this was Chromatic-caliber color perception. AFAICT, these critters would look at something baselines would consider "black" (a plastic container, for example) and perceive it as a mix of really dark browns, purples & greens.

Guess the feat could be rewritten as "perceive colors as well as a Chromatic", but not all Aberrant players are familiar with Trinity as they should be. ::laugh

Re: metaphysician's suggestions-

::blink That's quite a bit, much thanks. I'll look them over, but I'd say that most of these have a really good shot at making it onto the mini-charts. That "invisible Tetris" feat was funny, but not really applicable.

[Anon]

- Seduce anyone regardless of their gender and sexual orientation

The Players Guide seems to possibly hint that some Novas can possibly influence a person into choosing something that could be considered out-of-character for the victim (QNA section, pg. 180). I'm not sure if that would be a M-Charisma or M-Manipulation feat though, as I can see arguments for both ways.

M-Cha - Enhanced force of personality and charisma to get people to want you

M-Man - Enhanced Manipulation skills to get them to desire you even if you are the wrong type

::confused

Thoughts on the matter and if it might make a good feat?

[metaphysician]

My guess is, that'd be in the 3-5 range, give or take, for Charisma or Appearance. It'd also require specific effort, probably, at the lower levels, and maybe at all. After all, the naturally occuring response to someone of incredible beauty or charisma whose not your favored gender is jealousy in some form ( minor or not, malignant or not ).

Manipulation, probably best to treat it as an entirely different type of feat, either 'high power persuasion' for short term, 'brainwashing' for long term.

[Sprocket]

Re: "Seduce anyone you want"-

AFAICT, there are too many individual modifiers for this to be summed up as a straightforwards Mega-Social feat. When one considers all the various factors* that would make a target either less or more resistant to being seduced, this situation really begins to resemble the "Swifts using Mega-Dex to strip other people before they can notice" matter.

*These factors include but aren't limited to: the strength of the target's sexual orientation, sexual inhibitions & lack of same, the quality and/or "openness" of any romantic/sexual commitments the target may have, the quality of the target's sex/love life, social restrictions/permissions of the target's culture, the target's state of health (STDs, impotence, failing sex drive, conditions that preclude any normal sexual function), the possibility of the target's death in the near future, etc. etc. & etc.

I see this becoming a "grey sidebar" subject, either here in the mini-charts (if someone cares to write it up), or in Blue Thunder's hypothetical "Aberrant: Sex" ebook project.

[Sprocket]

Re: metaphysician's latest batch-

I'm still in the process of figuring plausible dot ratings for a few of these, but others have been pegged. The color perception feat has also been revised.

Mega-Perception

• 2 dots: Perceive colors as well as the most visually acute Chromatics.

• 5 dots: See a television image as a beam scanning over the screen if the watcher concentrates.

Mega-Manipulation

• 1 dot: Polygraphs show exactly what you want them to show, entirely at your will and independent of your overt answers and their truthfulness.

• 10 dots: The nova's player may choose at any time to have an unlikely but theoretically possible, event or sequence of events to happen, based on the nova's prior machinations coming to fruition exactly when desired. This costs one point of temporary Willpower and requires a Manipulation roll, with a difficulty based on the unlikelihood of the events.

AFA the others, it's "You are able to reinvent an entire scientific field from first principles in a month/week/day or less" that's really been giving me a headache. Attempting to use Alex's "Work Hour" rule requires a fair assessment of the time period required to accomplish something. Exactly how long it's taken humanity to develop the science of physics (for example) depends on who you read. Some say it began circa 465 B.C., others in the second millennium B.C. I'm halfway tempted to arbitrarily peg it as a Mega-Intelligence 9 feat & taking a month. This sort of thing seems beyond Divis Mal's intellectual plateau circa 2008, and I'm likewise tempted to state that a Mega-Intelligence 10 nova's scientific knowledge qualifies him or her as a one-entity alien technology when compared to Terran technological development circa 2015.

OTOH, I'm fairly confident that the Mega-Charisma feats will be less of a headache once I look over my hardcopy of Forceful Personalities.

EDIT: I've given in to temptation. No need for ::brick this time around! ::laugh

Mega-Intelligence

• 9 dots: Reinvent an entire scientific field from first principles in a month.

[Anon]

Re: "Seduce anyone you want"-

AFAICT, there are too many individual modifiers for this to be summed up as a straightforwards Mega-Social feat. When one considers all the various factors* that would make a target either less or more resistant to being seduced, this situation really begins to resemble the "Swifts using Mega-Dex to strip other people before they can notice" matter.

*These factors include but aren't limited to: the strength of the target's sexual orientation, sexual inhibitions & lack of same, the quality and/or "openness" of any romantic/sexual commitments the target may have, the quality of the target's sex/love life, social restrictions/permissions of the target's culture, the target's state of health (STDs, impotence, failing sex drive, conditions that preclude any normal sexual function), the possibility of the target's death in the near future, etc. etc. & etc.

I see this becoming a "grey sidebar" subject, either here in the mini-charts (if someone cares to write it up), or in Blue Thunder's hypothetical "Aberrant: Sex" ebook project.

When I said feat, I was referring to the mini-charts and not saying it should be an enhancement. Sorry about the confusion. IIRC, there already is an enhancement like that in Forceful Personalities. The reason that I wrote it up for a mini-chart was that mega-attribute enhancements are things you pay quantum for and it generally happens with minimum role-playing (AKA with seductive, the Nova gains three auto-successes and if combined with seductive looks that makes a total of six auto-successes, which is enough to get pretty much any baseline and get a number of Novas with out any additional roles or much role-playing necessary) where as straight up mega-attributes require some amount of role-play before you roll.

Here's my shot at a mini-chart for it...

Mega-Charisma

• 4 Dots - Seduce anyone regardless of their prior commitment, social/cultural/religious mores or their gender and sexual orientation

I recall that someone mentioned that Blue Thunder asked for contributers to his e-book project, should he return point him in my direction if I don't see his return, as I have a small (very small) number of thing some gaming buddies and I came up with that might make a good addition to his e-book.

[metaphysician]

Honestly, I'm not a fan of that one. It smells too much of "I use my social dots to win the game."

"Seduce someone irrespective of their sexual preference", that's fine, but elements like devotion and situation should *always* be relevant, even if in a "your 10 dots of mega attribute completely blow away all conceivable penalties" sense.

( random idea: social skills shouldn't be opposed by Willpower, but by Wits + Integrity [ a new skill ], with net sux *then* being compared to Willpower to determine results, and temp WP being spent to resist. . . )

[Sprocket]

Re: "Seduce anyone you want"-

I was not saying that this should be an enhancement. I'm saying that it's much too complex to be handled as a one-line feat like you're suggesting - it simply doesn't do the matter justice. AFA I'm concerned, this is not going to make it onto these mini-charts as a feat.

And yes, I remember the "Look of Love" Mega-Charisma enhancement - I was the guy who wrote the flipping thing. The emotional state it induces is normal romantic love/attraction, which is a far cry from what "seduce anyone you want" would require. Also note that it does not work at all on targets of the incorrect sexual orientation.

[metaphysician]

Oh, I'm mostly tangenting. You can expect pretty much any time mega socials come up, I'm going to show up and plug some kind of defensive rules ( or more accurately, some kind of actual *effect* rules, so that you can actually figure out what effect any given dice sux results in ).

[Sprocket]

Re: "Seduce anyone you want"-

Fair enough, although my reply was mainly to Anon. AFAICT, this topic is starting to look like it would fit in much better in Blue Thunder's ebook. Now if he would only drop us a post on the forums sometime...

Re: The Mega-Charisma feats-

...are currently as follows.

Mega-Charisma

• 4 dots: Baseline humans intent on killing you will stop to let you talk with them first.

• 6 dots: You can shake people out of manias and depressions by force of personality alone.

• 7 dots: Render a baseline human willing to sacrifice his/her life for you after a single conversation.

The "your inspiring speeches can grant temporary WP points" idea couldn't be used as a feat. AFAICT, that's well within the boundaries of a Mega-Charisma enhancement.

[Anon]

O.K., I'll drop it here and bring it up with Blue Thunder should he show up again. Just a quick explanation before I put this on the back burner...

And yes, I remember the "Look of Love" Mega-Charisma enhancement - I was the guy who wrote the flipping thing. The emotional state it induces is normal romantic love/attraction, which is a far cry from what "seduce anyone you want" would require. Also note that it does not work at all on targets of the incorrect sexual orientation.

The reason that I wrote it up to effect anyone is that in the Teragen sourcebook it's hinted at that Narcosis attraction worked on even Divis Mal, who's gay and has a partner (if not actually in love with) in the form of Scripture, and since he's got Psychic Shield it would probably best be explained that she either has Empathic Manipulation or a very high Mega-Charisma if not both, rather than Domination or Hypnosis. So I wrote that up to kind of reflect that. At least that's how it makes sense in my mind.

Oh, I'm mostly tangenting. You can expect pretty much any time mega socials come up, I'm going to show up and plug some kind of defensive rules ( or more accurately, some kind of actual *effect* rules, so that you can actually figure out what effect any given dice sux results in ).

That's a good point, since things like Empathic Manipulation, and the Look of Love enhancement Sprocket wrote up (at least I think thats the right one, can't look it up as my copy of Forceful Personalities is burned on a disk and not on my hard drive at the moment) have such a variable effect. I'll work on it to include such a variable effect and try to have a workable Enhancement for the possible future supplement of Blue Thunder's.

How 'bout this for a one or two dot Mega-Charisma mini-feat...

- be able to usurp a influential politicians or business executives or a pop-culture icons reservations at an exclusive restaurant just by showing up and having a few choice words and a smile.

... or would that be better as Mega-Manipulation?

[Sprocket]

The reason that I wrote it up to effect anyone is that in the Teragen sourcebook it's hinted at that Narcosis attraction worked on even Divis Mal, who's gay and has a partner (if not actually in love with) in the form of Scripture, and since he's got Psychic Shield it would probably best be explained that she either has Empathic Manipulation or a very high Mega-Charisma if not both, rather than Domination or Hypnosis. So I wrote that up to kind of reflect that. At least that's how it makes sense in my mind.

::huh I remember reading that bit, & it always struck me that it was Mal who had Narcosis wrapped around his little finger, not the other way around. AFAICT, he noticed how useful Narcosis would be in establishing & supporting the nascent Teragen, and so used whatever of her strings he could pull to garner her support.

Re: Usurping restaurant reservations-

It sounds like a Mega-Charisma feat (I'll be checking the suggested mechanics for such), but I wouldn't necessarily peg it at 1 dot. Pitting Mega-Attributes against Backgrounds (Influence in this case, if I'm not mistaken) can be a bit tricky.

[metaphysician]

Maybe an opposed roll, with the target getting to use his Background dots as if they were mega dice?

[Sprocket]

Maybe an opposed roll, with the target getting to use his Background dots as if they were mega dice?

AFAICT from reading p. 139 of the core book, the dice provided by Backgrounds are treated as normal dice when they must be rolled. The question seems to be whether the 1-5 normal dice provided by Influence can be overcome by a charmer with 2 or 3 Mega-dice plus whatever her base Charisma grants her. This may be a case of comparing apples & oranges.

[Alistaire]

In RL I had a girlfriend who could do this. She claimed she had "full color vision" or something like that and it was rare. She pointed out two identical shades of blue and said they were different to her.

It's called Tetrachromacy (even though it may sound like something from M:TA ::tongue ), and it is rare, although we don't know how rare exactly, and occurs mostly, if not exclusively, in females (for humans at least).

Since this does occur but rarely, I'd expect it as a possible IC feature of someone with a high Perception; five, maybe four dots. Thus I'd speculate that a Mega-Per nova might automatically have this at 1 dot. Further, (if we wanted to get crazy), we could surmise additional color channels for higher dots; perhaps +1 per dot (so 4 at 1, 5 at 2, etc.), or higher even (like double?) Of course, what effect this has in-game is up to even more speculation, and perhaps best left to 'flavor'.

[Sprocket]

It's called Tetrachromacy (even though it may sound like something from M:TA ::tongue ), and it is rare, although we don't know how rare exactly, and occurs mostly, if not exclusively, in females (for humans at least).

Since this does occur but rarely, I'd expect it as a possible IC feature of someone with a high Perception; five, maybe four dots. Thus I'd speculate that a Mega-Per nova might automatically have this at 1 dot. Further, (if we wanted to get crazy), we could surmise additional color channels for higher dots; perhaps +1 per dot (so 4 at 1, 5 at 2, etc.), or higher even (like double?) Of course, what effect this has in-game is up to even more speculation, and perhaps best left to 'flavor'.

IIRC Tetrachromacy was statted up (if not named as such) as a 1-pt. Merit in the oWoD Vampire Toreador clanbook (2nd Ed.). Apparently the only use it had outside of graphic arts endeavors was in perceiving the colors of auras seen via the Auspex Discipline.

,,

So yeah, it's pretty weak by Aberrant standards. At the moment I'd peg it as Perception 6, with the color perception provided by Mega-Perception 1 blowing that right out of the water. That's also why the original feat was replaced by "Perceive colors as well as the most visually acute Chromatics".

[Sprocket]

Re: Another Mega-Int feat-

After reviewing several reference materials (including the defunct Trinity 2997), I think I've managed something plausible for the Mega-Int 8 feat slot.

Mega-Intelligence

• 8 dots: Develop non-Inspired technologies that baselines will not be able to duplicate for centuries.

I'm using "centuries" as a guesstimation; the most accurate way to simulate this technological advantage would be importing something similar to GURPS' "technology levels", most likely as a 1-10 dot rating Background for brainiacs (& their allies/underlings). That's a little beyond the scope of the Mega-Physical ebook, though, so I'm not planning on addressing it right now.

[Alex Green]

So yeah, it's pretty weak by Aberrant standards. At the moment I'd peg it as Perception 6, with the color perception provided by Mega-Perception 1 blowing that right out of the water. That's also why the original feat was replaced by "Perceive colors as well as the most visually acute Chromatics".

Agreed.

[Sprocket]

Re: The last Mega-Int feat-

Finally settled on this idea, which I think is suitably epic.

Mega-Intelligence

• 10 dots: Starting from scratch, match the collective technological development of humankind from the beginnings to the early 21st century in 94 days, given sufficient resources.

And here's a quick Mega-Perception feat to go with it.

Mega-Perception

• 3 dots: Smell what baselines consider "scentless" substances with ease.

[Alex Green]

Out smell a dog?

[Sprocket]

Out smell a dog?

The only trouble with that is deciding where the basic "super-smelling" provided by Mega-Perception would match that of an actual bloodhound. Would Mega-Perception 3 be plausible, or are we talking 6?

[Rorx]

Isn't that starting to duplicate an Enhancement again?

[Alex Green]

Isn't that starting to duplicate an Enhancement again?

Yes, but that's not our fault.... and if you want to be technical Bloodhound is the ability to "follow" someone by their scent.

As for how many dots... how much better do dogs smell than us?

[Sprocket]

Re: Olfactory contest, human vs. dog vs. bloodhound-

Google can be a wonderful thing at times.

Humans have some 5-10 million scent-detecting olfactory cells positioned in the olfactory epithelium at the top of the nasal cavity. Now that sounds like a lot but these cells are only a small contingency of the entire nasal mucous membrane which is primarily respiratory epithelium. Let's put this in perspective. A rabbit has an estimated 100 million olfactory cells which are constantly turning over as new cells every few days. A rabbit needs to smell food and danger or not survive. A small dog has some 125 million olfactory cells yet a bloodhound has over 600 million olfactory cells making its sense of smell 3 million times more sensitive or acute than mans'.

Of course, since humans are nearly nose-blind when compared with other mammals "3 million times more sensitive" probably doesn't amount to much in Aberrant terms.

Re: Another Mega-Per feat-

Taking inspiration from the core book, here's an idea for the Mega-Per 6 feat.

• 6 dots: Locate a given type of restaurant by the scent of its cuisine from across a medium-sized city.

[Alex Green]

Sounds like 6 it is.

[Sprocket]

Re: Mega-Perception-

Sounds like 6 it is.

OK, I'm assuming that the Mega-Perception mini-chart now looks like this:

Mega-Perception

• 1 dot: Listen to 10 different musical compositions simultaneously while being able to distinguish each clearly.

• 2 dots: Perceive colors as well as the most visually acute Chromatics.

• 3 dots: Smell what baselines consider "scentless" substances with ease.

• 4 dots: Move about while fully blindfolded with no difficulty by feeling variations in the light reflected off surrounding objects on your skin.

• 5 dots: See a television image as a beam scanning over the screen if the watcher concentrates.

• 6 dots: Locate a given type of restaurant by the scent of its cuisine from across a medium-sized city.

• 7 dots: x.

• 8 dots: x.

• 9 dots: x.

• 10 dots: x.

Re: Latest Mega-Int feats-

Were there any objections to them, or is the Mega-Int mini-chart finished?

[metaphysician]

Mega Perception 10: "You are automatically aware of anything of interest to you within the operating range of your senses, that is qualitatively detectable by your available senses. Excess sensory input is no obstacle, even on the scale of sensing everything in the entire world at once."

[Sprocket]

Re: Mega-Per 10 feat idea-

That looks like it would work. Opinions on it from the rest of you lot?

Re: The finalized Mega-Int mini-chart-

...will be as follows, provided it passes peer review.

Mega-Intelligence

Brainiacs can understand and influence complex systems (like organizations, nations & cultures), in ways that baselines barely understand. They can use this influence and control their surroundings, manipulating people and events with superhuman capability. They have reduced or totally waived training time for learning new Abilities. Brainiacs can roll Intelligence or a relevant Ability to recall some useful piece of data they have seen or heard. They can also place a hidden message within a message/document that only novas with Mega-Intelligence of their own dot rating or higher can decipher.

• 1 dot: Defeat a grandmaster of chess consistently while only vaguely paying attention.

• 2 dots: Deduce non-obvious applications for existing technological devices.

• 3 dots: Predict the actions of baseline humans without much thinking. Doing this for aliens requires an amount of thought in inverse proportion to how well the nova knows the alien species in question. The better the nova knows the aliens, less thought will be required.

• 4 dots: Distinguish between random static and non-random scrambling immediately on observation.

• 5 dots: Deduce non-obvious/non-official historical events from historical records and circumstantial evidence - GIGO & mistakes are still factors.

• 6 dots: Design working devices/technologies just from a general outline of principles - no technical details are required, as they can be extrapolated. This includes scientific knowledge that typically isn't considered to have any practical technological use. A solid base of scientific/technological knowledge is still required.

• 7 dots: Acquire a Ph.D level of knowledge in a field, from scratch, in 30 hours.

• 8 dots: Develop non-Inspired technologies that baselines will not be able to duplicate for centuries.

• 9 dots: Reinvent an entire scientific field from first principles in a month.

• 10 dots: Starting from scratch, match the collective technological development of humankind from the beginnings to the early 21st century in 94 days, given sufficient resources.

[Alex Green]

Mega Perception 10: "You are automatically aware of anything of interest to you within the operating range of your senses, that is qualitatively detectable by your available senses. Excess sensory input is no obstacle, even on the scale of sensing everything in the entire world at once."

I like it.

And I really like the Mega-Int stuff to Sprocket!

[metaphysician]

Note that Mega Per 10 + Mega Int 10 + Mega Wits 10 basically equals functional omniscience.

[Rorx]

Note that Mega Per 10 + Mega Int 10 + Mega Wits 10 basically equals functional omniscience.

And why shouldn't it? ::biggrin

Especially when you consider the range of Enhancements that would probably be picked up along the way to such dizzy heights.

Nice job Sprocket et al.

[Sprocket]

Aside from some of the Mega-Int feats they're mostly your suggestions, folks. I'm just slotting the good ones into the mini-charts while working on other parts of the Mega-Physical ebook. Not that I won't toss one in for consideration now & then... ::sly

Re: Mega-Wits 1 feat-

Cannot believe I missed this one after watching Morpheus do this who knows how many times in the first Matrix movie. Anyhow, it's finally pegged.

Mega-Wits

• 1 dot: Without having to pay attention, walk through a crowd of oncoming pedestrians without ever being jostled or touched.

[Alex Green]

I like that one to. ::sly

[Sprocket]

Thanks! But do you folks have any ideas for the rest of the empty feat slots? There are an awful lot of them left to fill.

Also, I still haven't figured out if Mega-Charisma (or Mega-Manipulation) 1 or 2 is sufficient to finagle away a dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant from a baseline with the Influence Background.

[Alex Green]

1 for just bouncing a generic someone.

2 for influence.

[Sprocket]

OK, considering that the baseline w/ Influence is the more challenging target, I'm pegging it at Mega-Cha 2.

Re: The current Mega-Cha feat mini-chart-

...is as follows.

Mega-Charisma

• 1 dot: x.

• 2 dots: Usurp a dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant from a baseline with the Influence Background.

• 3 dots: x.

• 4 dots: Baseline humans intent on killing you will stop to let you talk with them first.

• 5 dots: x.

• 6 dots: You can shake people out of manias and depressions by force of personality alone.

• 7 dots: Render a baseline human willing to sacrifice his or her life for you after a single conversation.

• 8 dots: x.

• 9 dots: x.

• 10 dots: x.

[Alex Green]

To meet you is to Worship you.