Aberrant RPG - effects levels in gadgetering ?

[amzer]

hi guy's well i need help i just don't understand what the effect levels do in gadgetering in the players guid please help.

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by amzer:
hi guy's well i need help i just don't understand what the effect levels do in gadgetering in the players guid please help.

The way I understand it is an effect level is equivilant to the results of rolling one success on your role. Whatever the power does when you role one single success is what you get. So, the effect rules kind of suck for some powers that get a resisted role (like Domination, Mind Blast or Poison) but rule for others that a single success is all that is needed for cool results (like Quantum Blast, Disintgrate or Teleport for Short Distances)

[amzer]

OK but the thing is u have to divide the effects levels u buy between quantum and power rating that is what i don't get.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Originally posted by James 'Prodigy' Meehan:

The way I understand it is an effect level is equivilant to the results of rolling one success on your role. Whatever the power does when you role one single success is what you get. So, the effect rules kind of suck for some powers that get a resisted role (like Domination, Mind Blast or Poison) but rule for others that a single success is all that is needed for cool results (like Quantum Blast, Disintgrate or Teleport for Short Distances)

Disin & Teleport I buy. But Q-Blast would probably not work all that well. Say you have 8 succ levels. Wouldn't that would mean that the max damage you could do would be 8?

[Jordan]

Having some experience with building gadgets with this system, I feel I can contribute something here.

First off, let me say that the system has some big gaping flaws and is poorly worded. Therefore keep in mind some of the things I say here are personal opinion.

Here is the basics of how the various die pools work.

Dice Pool represents both the chance of the device working and (if it affects others) whether it "hits" or not. Example; a Quantum Bolt device's Dice Pool will let you know if you hit your target when it's fired.

Effect Level represents how powerful an effect the device creates. It is a static number and cannot be Maxed. Each effect level represents 1 Dot of success for the power. The device must also have a number of effect levels equal to the Quantum Minimum of the power in question.

This can mean a couple of things, depending on how you interpret the rules.

1. The device must at have (Power's Quantum Minimum) successes as a minimum but can have more at the builder's whim. These act as Quantum aspect of any effect. This was how I first thought it should work but it really screws over those powers that don't use Quantum to determine the effect.

2. The device must at have (Power's Quantum Minimum) successes as a minimum but can have more at the builder's whim. In all respects they act as successes. If the power uses Quantum in the effect then the effect levels must be divided between Quantum and Power Level. The Quantum aspect of the effect must have a number of successes equal to (Power's Quantum Min).

Let show you how this works. In Method 1 a device with Quatum Bolt could have a Minimum Effect Level of 1 and do (0D10{4} B or 0D10{2}L) levels of damage because that 1 effect level must be assigned to Quantum. In contrast, a device with Matter Creation would need a minimum of 6 effect levels just to achieve an actual effect of 1 success. This is because Matter Creation doesn't factor in Quantum to the power's effect but the device must still meet the Power's Minimum Quantum requirement. Confused yet?

In method two that Matter Creation device would need at least 5 effect levels but at least they could all be used as effect successes regardless.

Power Level is separate from from effect level in that it is what is used to determine all factors of the power except for the Dice Pool and Effect Level.

So in effect, you could have a "Quantum Gun" with a QB Power Level of 1, and Effect Level of 4, and a Dice Pool of 10 if you really wanted.

I hope I haven't confused you any further and have been a help. These are just the basics. If you want examples of devices I have created I would be more than willing to post some of my creations. I am also in the process of trying to clean up the Gadgeteering rules and make them more useable, I would be more than willing to share them when I get them finished if you like.

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jordan Rossi:
Having some experience with building gadgets with this system, I feel I can contribute something here.

Well, you contributed to me bigtime. I would like to see some examples however.

For the TT game I am looking at starting I am thinking of tossing the Aberrant Gadget rules altogether. I don't think they are fair as a nova can get powers only by spending time but no experience. So, what I am thinking of doing is adopting a variation on the Adventure gadget rules so that MegaInt's don't get screwed and allow MegaInts to purchase 'gadgets' for experience points.

[Liam VanGilder]

Having run a TT game with a fairly large amount of high tech getting involved, as well as others without it, I find that a bit more of a realistic approach can work quite well. It doesn't reward instant kewl gadgets but it does work well for Mega-Int types in the long run.

Basically, any gadget or improvement will take a certain amount of time and research to develop and then the resources to produce. Unless the character is trying to develop something genuinely innovative, like an anti-gravity belt or a death ray pistol, they'll probably just need enough time based on their dice pool to get the work done. For instance, a mega-int science and/or engineering prodigy can probably work out a handheld biometric scanner in a few weeks with a lab and components. For a stealthed hover vehicle with integral lasers and a remote control they're probably looking at a few months work at the very least unless they already have some serious military blueprints to build from.

It does mean that gadgets take a long time in the game world to become useful. However, once the work has been done to create it building another one will take much less time. With the right resources or powers the character can even begin to churn them out assembly line style. Most Mega-Int novas still remain within the bounds of the relatively feasible with only a few heavy duty, Mega-Int prodigies putting out new tech advances every week.

The second part of this is making gemuinely new advances in science and technology. For this I use the prodigy requirements and permanent taint rules from the original hypertech rules. This takes months to years to develop and is liekly to be hot property. It has the advantage that a new technology like artifiical gravity, nanotech or broadcast power has a plethora of applications and it the advancement that requires the taint modifier, not each individual device the character goes on to develop.

This does tend to mean that the general tech level of the world goes up over time. Even with that implementation and acceptance of the new advance slows things down a bit. Not exactly a simple or precise way of doing things but it does seem to be more rewarding in the long run than a botched together system that doesn't really have any sensible basis

[ 08-30-2002: Message edited by: Liam VanGilder ]

[Kirby1024]

One thing I've been attempting to do is Adapt Adventure!'s Gadgeteering system to Aberrant (considering the Innovation system is effectively the same skeleton).

Some of the things I intended to place in:

• Ensure there's a difference between A Gadget simulating a L1 power, with a Gadget simulating a L3, in terms of building. That really annoyed me: It meant that effectively, all Quantum Powers are equal, mechanically speaking. It kinda felt like cheating.
• Each Level of Mega-Intelligence above one halved the research time required. Engineering/Medical/Science Prodigy reduced the R&D Time for each Effect. This I'm still nebulous about, BTW.
• Have better rules for encompassing Mega-Attributes and Enhancements. The APG rules had no rules for Enhancements, and was rather vague rules for Mega-Attributes.
• Finally, have a mechanic for adding Extras.

At the moment, I'm still just in thinking stage, since I have quite a bit of other stuff on my other plate. If you want to have a look at a few gadgets, I've posted them on my website at:

http://kirby1024.tripod.com/rpgaming/gadgets/index.html

[Jordan]

Well, its been a while since I rang in on this topic and for that, I'm sorry.

I've been doing some thinking about not only the contents of the rules but also the in-game impact of the rules and I think i've figured out what the designers were trying to accomplish with the system.

First off, there is difference between a Gadget as defined by the APG, and a scientific Innovation as defined by Year One. The rules in Year One represent a Nova's ability to advance or alter the course of science and even generate entirely new fields of study. These advances are useable by any scientist, Baseline or Nova, who can understand the theory and they require no quantum to apply the theory to new technologies. Examples of this include the Hyperfusion Engine and Flying Cars (also detailed in Year One). The Gadgeteering rules in the APG represent a Nova's ability to temporarily suspend the laws of physics and engineering. These devices are more of an external expression of a given Nova's Quantum than any long term advancement in technological theory. This may also explain why almost no Quantum Gadgets survive into the Trinity timeline. This theory could also explain why there are no "Gadget Shops" in the Aberrant timeframe. These devices are just too personal and too much a part of their creators to be tossed around so casually.

Yes, devices that are totally independent of their creators can be made, but probably not as often as we might think. This goes along way to explaining why you must spend successes to make a device useable by others and why adding a quantum storage pool can get prohibitively expensive.

I still believe the rules need to be thoroughly worked over but understanding the intent of the rules goes along way to figuring out what needs to be fixed and how to do it. I too have been working out an amalgamation of the Adventure and Aberrant gadget rules and hope to be finished them soon.

James,

For your game I suggest trying some of the following things.

1.) Allow characters to start with gadgets by taking the gadget background from Adventure modified as you see fit. However, remind the players that gadgets taken this way are supposed to be fundamental to the character concept and the character will lose something intrinsict to it's concept if the gadget is lost (Iron Man wouldn't be Iron Man without his armor).

2.) Remember that designing, building and testing gadgets takes time. I think using the Adventure standard of 14 hour a day in "research" is more than appropriate. Also, the character only gets 1 engineering roll per day. The maximum number of sucesses that can possibly be achieved is 24 (barring stats over 5), and it is unlikely that a player will achieve his full sucesses every roll.

3.) Gadgets are static. They always have the exact same effect, they never get more powerful without redesigning it, they can never be maxed, and in most cases, they can be lost, stolen, or destroyed. Never be afraid to have that happen.

4.) In my opinion, the "Uses/Scene" catagory should be removed entirely. "Quantum Storage" and "Useability" should both go up in cost. The first two represent the concepts of a Quantum Battery and that can have catastrophic effects on the game world. By increasing the cost of the last, you can simulate the personal nature of gadgets.

5.) Fully enforce the rules for advancements in Year One, including Taint gains, if the players want to advance the world's technological levels.

6.) while it seems unfair that a Nova can get new "powers" without expending experience, consider the actual limitations of gadgets by their very nature and this can even things out. After all, how many players want to spend a but load of exp. on external gear, only to have it wiped out or stolen from them?

Just a note about "gaining powers over time." This might not be a problem, depending. In the games I usually play, time passes very slowly, only one or two days pass per session, so creating gadgets can take quite a long time. Just alter how much time passes per session in your game and you can effectively control how many player created gadgets make it into the game.

I hope this was a help and/or interesting. In my next post, I'll give you guys a gadget used by Jordan and how I designed it.