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Aberrant: 200X - Rule Proposal: "On the Shoulders of Giants"


Doryoku

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay, I'm going to admit this: This was crap. A gold plated waste of silicon and plastic. Luckily I changed gears and rebuilt the ENTIRE thing... so call this a complete re-do.

PROLOGUE

Okay... my first attempt at this fell flat, just like any prototype on the drawing room floor. While a Mad Scientist would rant and rave about their failures and take revenge, a proper scientist would take a far different path. They brush the soot off, put out the fires, and analyse where they went wrong and build on the scavenged parts that still work. Hopefully this time things work. Unlike the first concept which was in my feeling a half assed attempt at making a ignorant copy of the gadgeteering rules in "Aberrant" The way I'm doing things now takes a few things from "Adventure!" While keeping the original Gadgeteering rules from "Aberrant".

First thing added from "Adventure!" is the background Gadget, modified for "Aberrant" use. Refer to the Gadgeteering rules in the "Aberrant Player's Guide" for details on building gadgets for your nova normally.

GADGET

The Nova has concieved of an invention that pushes the boundaries of Nova-Era technology. What is different is the character's invention (or inventions) do not degrade like standard Nova Inventions, they are as integral to the creator/user as their own powers. Also unlike standard Nova gadgets, the character or the inventor that gave the gadget can provide upkeep for the device, ensuring that the device doesn't break down as per the normal Gadgeteering rules in the "Aberrant Players Guide". The gadget instead has a set maintenance schedule that must be adhered to in order to keep the gadget useable.

X: None, the gear the character owns is standard for the Aberrant Era.

•: The gadget can have 1 dot of an effect, and must be upkept every 5 months.

••: The gadget can have 2 dots of an effect, and must be upkept every 4 months.

•••: The gadget can have 3 dots of an effect, and must be upkept every 3 months.

••••: The gadget can have 4 dots of an effect, and must be upkept every 2 months.

•••••: The gadget can have 5 dots of an effect, and must be upkept every month.

For every gadget the chracter owns, they must take this background, and the gadget "attached" to this background can only have one effect. Also the gadget cannot be used by other Novas or Humans. If someone else uses the gadget, after the first use the gadget immediately breaks, discharging any quantum it has left in it's battery, dealing bashing damage based on how much quantum was remaining in an area equal to the quantum battery discharge in meters. Your particular gadget is "Attuned" to you, and only properly functions under your control. Anyone else would immediately destroy the device as if they had the worst case of butterfingers. Although anyone can use your gadget once, and return it to you, although you must upkeep your device as if the time period for upkeep has come up or the device blows up if you use it again.

Upkeep refers to the fact that unlike other gadgets, you can repair, retune, refurbish, and generally keep functioning a device long past what would be possible with the quantum you use through the device. You must make a Int+Engineering check with a number of successes equal to the rating of your Gadget's background. Mega Intelligence can (and should, this is a Nova gadget after all) be used. This check is made on a daily basis during the upkeep process as a extended check. You can only spend a number of days upkeeping your gadget equal to the number of dots you have in the background for the gadget in question. After which, the difficulty rises by 1 for each day past the upkeep window.

If the gadget is not upkept as normal, the gadget breaks down into a sad pile of used, unsalvagable components as if someone pulled all the screws, nuts, and bolts out of it. The component material is unuseable. Even if the material is recycled, anything made from the material (mundane or nova powered) is flawed, and prone to breakdown and malfunction. A Nova can "defuse" the gadget by breaking it down and absorbing temporary taint equal to the Gadget's rating, making the material safe for recycling and reuse.

A player may make a gadget permanent (no need for upkeep) by making the gadget "Tainted". The gadget itself causes temporary taint every time it is used. Simply put the gadget shouldn't exist in reality and every time the nova (or the unfortunate human who asks for such a device) uses it, they are warped by the experience on a slow, insidious pace. You gain temporary taint on every use equal to the rating of the background. If a human takes this background, once they have 1 permanent taint, their body warps so badly they are killed as taint energies rip through their body.

Finally, if a Nova or Human takes this background but is not the inventor of the device, the character must return the device to the builder for upkeep. Failure to do so will result in immediate breakdown. While the device is "attuned" to your quantum template, it still needs the touch of it's builder to keep it working properly.

The Gadgeteering rules from the "Aberrant Player's Guide" are what are used for building devices, but the "Duration" part is ignored for Gadgets built for the background (Since the duration is replaced by the upkeep requirement). Gadgets purchased in character creation are built by the storyteller (if the device is given to the player), or by the player (if they invented it), and the player character building the device must have the appropriate skills and make the appropriate checks to construct the device as purchased. This may produced flawed gadgets with limited quantum battery life or imperfect devices, but that's the tradeoff.

MUNDANE INVENTING

Mundane inventions, as in non-powered gadgets built off-the-shelf, are a integral part of a high-tech society like the one in the 2011 Aberrant universe. You can only combine as many pieces of technology into an item as the base item's effect rating in dots. (For example, a kevlar vest of 2 bashing and 3 lethal protection would have a average effect rating of 2 (rounded down) which means that means you have 2 "slots" to add extra items or improvements to it.)

IMPROVEMENTS

A mundane improvement requires an Int+Appropriate ability check with a number of requred net successes equal to the base effect rating of the item being improved. If an item has multiple effects, you choose which item effect you wish to improve. The base difficulty modifier is +0 for improving an effect by 1 but for every +1 of effect afterward, the difficulty is raised by +1.

ENHANCEMENTS/ADDITIONS

To add to a device, you need a net number of successes equal to all the item effect ratings involved in the conglomerate device.

TIMING FOR MUNDANE INVENTING, IMPROVING, ENHANCEMNT, & ADDITION CHECKS

When doing mundane inventing, you make 1 check a day. This assumes your character has 8 hours free each day to invent/kitbash in their grage/etc. For every hour less you spend on the project, you must remove 2 dice fom the pool. The player has the option though of which dice to remove. Also if the character has any appropriate Mega Attribute dots (Generally Mega Intelligence), they can reduce the project window per day without dice penalty. (For instance, if a character has Mega Intelligence 3, that shortens the work day from 8 to 5.) Taking longer than 8 hours can make easier the difficulty of a project. As long as there is a higher than normal difficulty, for every 2 extra hours you spend on a project, you reduce the difficulty by 1, to the minimum difficulty of +0.

MUNDANE FLAWS & BREAKAGE

Whenever the inventor rolls a 1, that is recorded in the overall results. If the net number of 1s rolled goes over the number of net successes, a flaw is added to the device. This flaw must be a glaring, but workable problem the conglomerate device has in terms of how the improvement or the integral devices operate with themselves.

If a botch is rolled in the invention process, the item being worked on is broken, and the character must start from scratch. If a botch occurs when putting together a conglomerate device, the player breaks one of the items being added and must find a replacement.

EXAMPLE MUNDANE FLAWS

* Bulky

The item has become bulkier than the original form, increasing it's weight by 50%

* Buggy

The item has a advanced operating system that has a programming bug somewhere in it's system. Whenever a 1 is rolled with the device, the device crashes and must be rebooted.

Other flaws can be created with Storyteller and Player collaboration (or in this case, from the community).

That's it. Those are my additions.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Quote:
Also the gadget cannot be used by other Novas or Humans. If someone else uses the gadget, after the first use the gadget immediately breaks, discharging any quantum it has left in it's battery, dealing bashing damage based on how much quantum was remaining in an area equal to the quantum battery discharge in meters. Your particular gadget is "Attuned" to you, and only properly functions under your control. Anyone else would immediately destroy the device as if they had the worst case of butterfingers. Although anyone can use your gadget once, and return it to you, although you must upkeep your device as if the time period for upkeep has come up or the device blows up if you use it again.

This seems unnecessary. I understand the statements I just get the 'why' of it besides to say 'it's mine and you can't play with it'.

Quote:
Upkeep refers to the fact that unlike other gadgets, you can repair, retune, refurbish, and generally keep functioning a device long past what would be possible with the quantum you use through the device. You must make a Int+Engineering check with a number of successes equal to the rating of your Gadget's background.

I think you mean a difficulty equal to the background. As is, the higher the background, the easier it is to fix because you're getting bonus successes with each dot.

Quote:
If the gadget is not upkept as normal, the gadget breaks down into a sad pile of used, unsalvagable components as if someone pulled all the screws, nuts, and bolts out of it. The component material is unuseable. Even if the material is recycled, anything made from the material (mundane or nova powered) is flawed, and prone to breakdown and malfunction. A Nova can "defuse" the gadget by breaking it down and absorbing temporary taint equal to the Gadget's rating, making the material safe for recycling and reuse.

Again, I don't understand why.

Quote:
A player may make a gadget permanent (no need for upkeep) by making the gadget "Tainted". The gadget itself causes temporary taint every time it is used. Simply put the gadget shouldn't exist in reality and every time the nova (or the unfortunate human who asks for such a device) uses it, they are warped by the experience on a slow, insidious pace. You gain temporary taint on every use equal to the rating of the background. If a human takes this background, once they have 1 permanent taint, their body warps so badly they are killed as taint energies rip through their body.

This seems a bit excessive.

Quote:
Finally, if a Nova or Human takes this background but is not the inventor of the device, the character must return the device to the builder for upkeep. Failure to do so will result in immediate breakdown. While the device is "attuned" to your quantum template, it still needs the touch of it's builder to keep it working properly.

This contradicts your previous statement. Apparently even as a background, after it's first use it would need to be maintained.

This also makes nova based technology absolutely useless since it could not be shared, used, powered, or anything unless the guy that made was always touching or spending all his time maintaining it.

All in all, even if I had a Mega-Int Tinkerer... I wouldn't touch this background. I'd stick with the APG, as it's more versatile and nova/baseline friendly.
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I think I'm just going to withdraw this. This just isn't turning out like I thought. Either I'm missing something with the concept or I'm not getting out the concept the way I want it. I'm going to have to redo this from scratch again when I have the time.

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Saku - you versions tend to be needlessly complicated, with rules that make gadgets almost universally only for Novas, though I think even baselines (with enough team members and the budget) should be able to come up with something.

For a Device/Gadget background and some rough rules surrounding them, take a look at the Gadget Background in Adventure and the rules on Super-Science (p. 146 and p.180) and these kludged together rules from Adventure in Rev's Mutant high game.

Not saying they won't need some work, but it's a good place to start.

PS, all references of Focus mean Quantum Rating, and Energy refers to Quantum Pool.

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You just illustrated my problems. I overcompensate for percieved imbalance by weighing against the player and well... crap gets clunky.

Time to start from square one... again.

I don't know if the wright brothers had the same issues but damn this inventing stuff is hard work.

Addendum: Read that entry that Rev made for his game. I like it, there would need a little tweaking for a pure Aberrant universe. But I like where he went. We might wanna do a brainstorm to see if he wants to make any changes and perhaps I can add a few ideas of my own (or at least make some examples and see how they'd function.)

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Actually, I was thinking a full-on collaboration. You know what you're doing way more than I. If this was M&M or something similar I'd be fine as frog's hair. But in Aberrant... I'm a lost lamb.

But yes, I plan on using your material a bit, and derive my own stuff as well from it.

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