Canon and non-WW sourcebooks

[Timeslip]

Timeslip climbs into her Endeavor-created flame retardant suit, checks the seals, makes certain she has several hours of air in the tanks, and holds onto the portable blast-shield with a white-knuckled grip...

OK, so we all know that the Trinity Universe line is developmentally dead. The folks at White Wolf aren't going to spend another dime on it, and we're never going to see another product released. We have Brainwaves, albeit barely yanked out of the fire by its author and lovingly preserved for us, but are never to see Cult of Personality, Brute Force, the Aberrant Storytellers Guide, or any of the other projects that were in the "Someday" list for Aberrant.

That said, do we really need to freeze what we consider, for the purpose of this board, to be canon? At risk of involking ire, I'd like to point out that there's some pretty decent material (and some pretty awful material as well) on the 'net, produced as a labor of love in an effort to keep the Trinity Universe alive and dynamic.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that a lot of what is out there is unbalanced, cheezy or both. Despite my limited involvement with the production of Forceful Personalities, for example, I wouldn't want to see the Kolstov Academy and "Grandfather Monkey" accepted as canon for the purposes of N!Prime. Nor would I be thrilled with some of the more outlandish Quantum Powers that were published on this very site during its early days.

But on the same note, I hate seeing babes tossed out with bathwater. Some of what is out there is pretty decent. Using Forceful Personalities as an example again, the material on brainwashing is pretty solid, as are most of the Enhancements and Aberrations listed.

And it isn't like we don't already use some non-WW material. While Brainwaves is handy as all heck, it was just a first draft; it never got an official stamp of approval from the Aberrant developers.

So - again, at risk of howls of anger and flames to the ceiling - I would like to humbly suggest that we at least consider the idea of looking at some of the better non-WW Aberrant material with an eye toward finding what may be suitable for N!Prime canon.

Timeslip hunkers down behind the blast-shield, and waits.

[Jager]

I join TimeSlip in the trenches, because he wants to know what's the deal as well.

[Sakurako Hino]

I honestly would like to see us add to the Canon, and add to the available material. While Aberrant isn't growing as an official product, with careful review WE CAN make it grow ourselves.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

I wouldn't mind seeing a cult or two. It gives the players something to fight for/against other than the Teragen. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the enhancements.

And yes, granted, letting the whole thing in might pose some problems.

Disclaimer: I helped write FP.

[z-Carver]

Quote:

Originally posted by David 'Dr. Troll' Smith:
I wouldn't mind seeing a cult or two. It gives the players something to fight for/against other than the Teragen. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the enhancements.

And yes, granted, letting the whole thing in might pose some problems.

Disclaimer: I helped write FP.

And I agree totally with Dr. Troll. Except for the fact that I didn't help write Forceful Personalities.

[Ghostwriter]

I agree with TS, though I think Grandfather Monkey's kinda cool as an NPC (stuff the Academy though).

[Alex Craft]

Uncertain of the point. The only relevant change I can see is the possibility of formally introducing fan-created NPCs, and the current rules are flexible enough that I think you could do that.

I may simply be missing a facet of the argument, though, so ... relevant matters, as I see them:

• introducing new powers

Maybe ... but we can already ask the directors to allow a non-cannon power.

The difference here would just be that the directors (or someone) go through the lists of fan-created powers and formally check off on which one's they would allow if approached by someone about that power, ahead of time.

Same with Enhancements. Aberrations, I don't know ... I think we pretty much make up our aberrations without much director oversight anyway.

This would make things a little easier for us sometimes, and I wouldn't mind seeing it done, but it also seems like a ton of drudge work for the directors.

It also seems quite possible that the end list would need repeated revisions, since it's harder to see how a power could be radically unbalanced when you're not looking at it in any particular context (as the directors would be when a specific player asks for it).

• introducing new mechanics

Irrelevant. We don't have a rules set here, except technically. Rules only come into play when the players want them to come into play, so if two players say, "Hey, let's use the 'social combat' rules from Brainwaves to handle our conflict, here," that's their business. If they wanted, they could settle it with a game of rock-paper-scissors just as easily.

Really, the way the site currently handles game mechanics, you could consider your character to be built using some god-forsaken variant on 2nd ed. AD&D, and get away with it (so long as you have permission for non-cannon abilities and do not exceed what a Q6 character can do).

• introducing new ideas

Cults of personality being an example. Again, the rules for such things are kind of irrelevant here, and I don't see the ideas as being anything that needs to be formally introduced. You don't really need to sit down and authorize the Cult of Personality ebook in order to have a cult on N!Prime.

[Timeslip]

Alex,

I suppose that the most pertinent bits would be Enhancements. There's not much in the way of new Quantum Powers in the various fan-produced sourcebooks, and as you said NPC individuals and organizations are largely handled under our own judgement in the Fiction section, but there's quite a few new Enhancements out there in the fan-produced material - many of which are quite good. It may be drudgery to sort through them, but (and this is strictly from my own opinion) it may be better to get them approved or disapproved from the get-go, rather than in an endless trickle of individual requests as characters are developed.

For my part, both Timeslip and Thoughtwave have one Enhancement each from the fan-produced stuff (both Mega-Social Enhancements - Unattainable and Beastial Rapport, respectively - from Forceful Personalities); until very recently, I didn't even realize that it might be a problem or require special permission. Indeed, part of the reason that I'm posing the question now is to find out whether I should seek individual permission to use these Enhancements, or see if the community is willing to look at the material en masse, or perhaps simply find myself considering one or both characters to be non-canon (Timeslip's non-canon enhancement has never come into play, but Thoughtwave's certainly has).

[TeleRhyde]

Let's vote.

[Timeslip]

All things considered, TeleRhyde, I think it's a little premature to think about voting. Indeed, I'm not entirely sure that this is the sort of thing we can vote on; it may be something that is entirely under the purview of Chosen and the Directors.

[Timeslip]

Just thought I'd mention this, as it's more or less on topic: Ian Watson apparently has much of the Trinity Storytellers Handbook pretty much done; he's posted some late drafts over at Continuing the Continuum until he can get the final files compiled in a few weeks. Amongst the bits and pieces in what he's made available so far are guidelines for building Trinity-era Aberrants using the Aberrant rules.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Alex Craft:
• introducing new mechanics

Irrelevant. We don't have a rules set here, except technically....

• introducing new ideas

Cults of personality being an example. Again, the rules for such things are kind of irrelevant here...

Not sure. In cannon, it's possible for novas to be Mega-Ugly. However, that statement right there pretty much sums up everything we know cannon-wise. FP did a lot of fleshing out on that.

[Edward]

Much of what I saw in Forceful Personalities seemed pretty power-gamery.

[z-Carver]

Quote:

Originally posted by Edward:
Much of what I saw in Forceful Personalities seemed pretty power-gamery.

But not all, right? And wouldn't it be worth our time to pull out what is up to our level and embrace it?

[TeleRhyde]

Precisely. We should have individual parts put up for group approval, or disapproval. Whole cloth, some of the things put forward in all of the post-production products aren't great, but some of it adds to the flavor of the game. Various posters should get the chance to make their cases for what works in that regard.

[Sandcaster]

Heck, for that matter, some of the things put forward in the official products aren't great...

[Tommy Tomorrow]

I'm up for new material being available for playing with.

Seriously, do we just shove this off on the directors saying we want something? Or should we ask what we need to do for them to make it happen?

[Wakinyan]

I am almost fully behind this myself. This is our sandbox and I other than some key history that I would like to keep involved in the overall story I say we do what we like.

My only hesitance is the more we diverge the more we may alienate players who simply do not know where we are and what is going on. I say if we do this the site needs to change to support the changes 100%. IE each year we might need a synposis of big events that happen in it start with 2016 the first nongame documented year we are now in. As well as any approved fan additions to the game like Brain Waves and Cult.

As long as we are prepared to handle that one thing I am fully behind us making Aberrant our own because WW certainly doesn't care about it like we do.

[Sakurako Hino]

I second that motion.

[Hugin]

I've been around the occasional talk about how we need a timeline. Big job eh? How about we make it a group job? Everyone who's characters have done something that might need to be noted (Release of Hinopolymer, Arrest of Wakinyan, Death of Red Alert or whatever their names were) put together a personal timeline, then it can be collated into one timeline. Then we add the specific dates for like when Mal beat the shit out of Baldy and such. Then its not such a big deal for one person.

[Tommy Tomorrow]

Nice idea. I'll work on mine over the next couple of days but where should I put it? And does anyone have an idea for a format to use?

[Matt]

I'm not going to commit to anything specific right now, but I do want to let everyone know that I am following this thread. I am working on ways to make improvements to the site, and am reading to every comment. Please keep the discussion going.

[Matt]

Quote:

Originally posted by Hugin:
I've been around the occasional talk about how we need a timeline. Big job eh? How about we make it a group job?

I know that in the past Wakinyan has expressed interested in organizing this. I'm not sure if he still wants to or not though.

[Wakinyan]

Well I wouldn't oppose doing it. However everyone chronicling and submitting might be easier than one person trying to do so. We would just need to have a general review at the end of each year prior to it being posted. This will also go a long way to support the Story seed and World events that has been discussed when the new software is implemented.

[Matt]

Well, I thought that if we have people submit their topics you could be the one that had the account to make the final posts. We'll have a thread for people to submit things they think are important and then after we discuss it, you post the 'official' timeline. As we progress, each user will be responsible for submitting new dates/events and then you can add the material to the timeline whenever you have time to do so.

[Wakinyan]

Sounds like a good idea to have one centralized point in which to chronicle the year from. I would be willing to do this.