Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - [Basic] Skills of the week: Bioengineering and Biology

johndallman · 08-15-2014, 02:55 PM

Bioengineering is the ability to design living organisms with specific characteristics, or other biotechnological products. It requires specialisation: some specialisations are listed in Basic, and more in other books mentioned below It defaults to Biology-5, but doesn't actually have a prerequisite of Biology.

Biology is the scientific skill behind Bioengineering, just as Physics lies behind most specialisations of Engineering. it's a broad Very Hard skill, commonly learned with an optional specialisation, defaulting to IQ-6 or Naturalist-6.

There isn't a Mechanic (Biotechnology) skill, as one might expect as a parallel to Mechanic for ordinary Engineering specialisations. In practice, the skill to execute biotechnological designs could plausibly be Animal Handling or Farming, for selective breeding, Electronics Operation (Medical) for tissue culture machines and other SF medical technologies, Physician for vaccinations, or Surgery for installing replacement parts.

It's interesting to try to figure out when bioengineering started in history. One could claim that selective breeding (TL1) or vaccination (TL5) were starting points, but the development of modern biology at TL6 was probably the point at which you could start to call it engineering, and the start of true genetic engineering is TL8.

Bio-Tech is the core book for these skills, with rules, magic, character templates, and lots of thing to build. High-Tech has some practical material about controlling diseases and epidemics, including the Bioengineering (Vaccines) specialisation and Fantasy-Tech has its own TL1^ version. Horror and Zombies also cover these skills, for the obvious reasons. Bioengineering can also be important in Powers and Psi games, and in Spaceships/Space campaigns. While the "Civilization as Biology" box in Infinite Worlds is interesting, it isn't biology. The Transhuman Space line has loads of bio-tech too.

I haven't used these skills very much in games, as player or GM. I've seen a player who knows a lot more biology than me get really carried away investigating the first extrasolar planet found to have life in a space exploration game, and Bioengineering has obvious possibilities in mad science, but mostly these have been support skills.

What have you done with them? How do we centre a campaign on them?

08-15-2014, 02:55 PM	#1
johndallman Night Watchman Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Cambridge, UK	[Basic] Skills of the week: Bioengineering and Biology Bioengineering is the ability to design living organisms with specific characteristics, or other biotechnological products. It requires specialisation: some specialisations are listed in Basic, and more in other books mentioned below It defaults to Biology-5, but doesn't actually have a prerequisite of Biology. Biology is the scientific skill behind Bioengineering, just as Physics lies behind most specialisations of Engineering. it's a broad Very Hard skill, commonly learned with an optional specialisation, defaulting to IQ-6 or Naturalist-6. There isn't a Mechanic (Biotechnology) skill, as one might expect as a parallel to Mechanic for ordinary Engineering specialisations. In practice, the skill to execute biotechnological designs could plausibly be Animal Handling or Farming, for selective breeding, Electronics Operation (Medical) for tissue culture machines and other SF medical technologies, Physician for vaccinations, or Surgery for installing replacement parts. It's interesting to try to figure out when bioengineering started in history. One could claim that selective breeding (TL1) or vaccination (TL5) were starting points, but the development of modern biology at TL6 was probably the point at which you could start to call it engineering, and the start of true genetic engineering is TL8. *Bio-Tech* is the core book for these skills, with rules, magic, character templates, and lots of thing to build. *High-Tech* has some practical material about controlling diseases and epidemics, including the Bioengineering (Vaccines) specialisation and *Fantasy-Tech* has its own TL1^ version. *Horror* and *Zombies* also cover these skills, for the obvious reasons. Bioengineering can also be important in *Powers* and Psi games, and in *Spaceships/Space* campaigns. While the "Civilization as Biology" box in *Infinite Worlds* is interesting, it isn't biology. The *Transhuman Space* line has loads of bio-tech too. I haven't used these skills very much in games, as player or GM. I've seen a player who knows a lot more biology than me get really carried away investigating the first extrasolar planet found to have life in a space exploration game, and Bioengineering has obvious possibilities in mad science, but mostly these have been support skills. What have you done with them? How do we centre a campaign on them?