LT Gadgeteer Ideas for a TL2 Monster Hunting Game

[Culture20]

If you need to fight big monsters, polybolos might come in handy.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by phayman53

This is, however, the sort of think I have no idea how to handle with the gadget and invention rules. It is not something for which there is a list cost to use for the invention rules, so do I just estimate what I think it should be?

Pretty much, yeah. However, the new Mars Attacks book has some discussion of gadgeteering, and some advice for estimating complexity levels that I think is relevant: Simple inventions make day-to-day life a little easier. Average inventions solve problems or make important tasks less difficult. Complex inventions change lives in some specific way, and Amazing inventions change the game world profoundly.

In addition to those guidelines, here's some other stuff I've observed, having been in or run games with gadgeteers a couple of times:

The Quick Gadgeteer rules really seem to assume a lot of small inventions. This can get implausible (that is, suspension-of-disbelief-breaking implausible, not regular Quick Gadgeteer implausible) when dealing with larger devices. A zeppelin is probably not more than a Complex invention, or possibly even an Average one, but building it in 1d-2 or 1d hours is just a bit much. I'd suggest adding +1d hours to the time required to build an invention for every SM over 0 it's going to be.

Another trick to keeps some breaks on inventions in the hands of gadgeteers is to call for multiple inventions to build one thing. Consider, for example, Leonardo da Vinci's idea for a "tank". If an inventor wants to build that at TL 2, there's really several elements that need to be made - gearing for the propulsion mechanism, metallurgy advances to make the armor, and of course the cannons themselves. If the gadgeeter has to make three invention rolls, it slows them down a bit. Of course, don't do this all the time - the gadgeteer has paid for their ability to invent cool stuff, and it sucks to have it nerfed into uselessness, not to mention everyone else sitting there and watching the inventor make endless invention rolls isn't very fun either. Strike a happy medium.

One house rule I like is to allow gadgeteers, particularly Quick ones, to declare that they're "jerry-rigging" an invention. This sacrifices reliability and repeatability for speed. Lower the complexity of any such invention by one level (still minimum Simple), and it should almost never require rare components they can't just scrounge. However, at the end of any scene (combat or significant encounter) that the device sees serious use, it will need a minor repair to keep working. If it's ever brought to 0 HP or lower, it's done, unrepairable. And the inventor must invent it again if they want to build a new one - new concept roll, new prototype roll, and no bonus for an existing invention.

The bug and random side effects tables are helpful, but definitely treat them as suggestions, not set in stone. In particular, a lot of the side effects are appropriate for a "weird science" approach to gadgeteering, but not so much for an iron age tinkerer. You might want to make your own custom side effect table.

[Donny Brook]

RW inspiration:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria

[ericthered]

The Techie in standard TL8 monster hunters doesn't confine himself to TL8 inventions. And in most games, he doesn't focus on TL9 inventions either: he's the character with free reign on psychotronics. Its a mistake to think of him as an unpowered template.

In the same way, I'd play a roman era "Techie" as a combination of alchemist/fantasy chemist and witch hunter. Its the sort of guy who hear's you're going up against werewolves and makes a suit woven from wolvesbane, which not only prevents infection during battle, but also either requires a will check for them to attack the wearer or provides a penalty to hit.

Playing a techie works best with a player who aggressively suggests possible inventions that are in accordance with the fluff. This is true even when psychotronics are on the table.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by phayman53

I am unsure about what other kinds of fun toys he would be able to cook-up.

Possibly he will be forging weapons and armor!
http://www.ravensnpennies.com/2016/0...l#.WH-7h1UrKUl

[D10]

Great post by Kelly Pedersen

[phayman53]

Thank you for all of the advice, there is some really great stuff here!

I have a follow up question: should I give the player Gadgeteer or Quick Gadgeteer?

I ask because I have lowered the power level somewhat (300 points) and am intentionally making this game less cinematic than default Monster Hunters--though still cinematic. I have not yet written the template for the gadgeteer player, but like many of my templates for this game, I will probably base it heavily off of the MH template, but adjusted for the power level and tech level.

Since I have never played with a Gadgeteer of any kind, I am asking you who have more experience with them if you think it would be reasonable to have a monster hunting character who is an inventor/tinkerer but only has Gadgeteer instead of Quick Gadgeteer? It seems to me that, since the time and resources investment is higher with Gadgeteer, he would have to focus on generally useful inventions, and items--or preemptively work on items tailored to specific threats--rather than fashioning complex, unique things tailored to each threat. I also noticed that the Prototype Facilities costs are really high for a Gadgeteer, where for a Quick Gadgeteer they are quite low. It looks like a Gadgeteer would need Multimillionaire I to be able to afford facilities able to produce +1 TL Average Inventions, so it looks like he would need a patron.

P.S. the player does not want to play a character that is ONLY an inventor, he also wants to be the sneaky, lock-picking type as well.

Thoughts?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by phayman53

Thank you for all of the advice, there is some really great stuff here!

I have a follow up question: should I give the player Gadgeteer or Quick Gadgeteer?

If you give the character only Gadgeteer, not Quick, then you should be prepared to give them plenty of downtime to invent things. Even a Simple invention takes 1d-2 days (minimum 1), and the more complex ones can quite easily take months. And that's the time for one roll, so unless they've got cinematically-high skill levels, they'll probably require more than one roll for more-complex stuff, with the concurrent time required. A Gadgeteer with cinematic skill levels can maybe take enough penalties for haste to reduce a Simple invention to only a couple hours, but that's about it.

Personally, I feel that "build a device on the fly to deal with the immediate problem" is a big part of the cinematic feel of the techie role, so even if you're dialing down the cinematic levels a bit, I'd want to keep that to some degree. I'd suggest two things for this.

First, just use the RAW for Gizmos, and allow the techie to take them. When combined with Gadgeteer (Quick is not a requirement for this), a Gizmo allows a user to pull out a one-shot invention, built quickly out of available parts. You do have to have parts around that are at least vaguely appropriate, but that can be a pretty broad category, and a Scrounging roll can often turn something up.

The second thing would be to allow the techie to buy Quick Gadgeteer, but only with the limitation "Jury-rigged only, -20%". That's based on the jury-rigging house rule I suggested above, and it means the Gadgeteer can only build stuff that way. You can also allow the player to take the limitation on only the points for Quick Gadgeteer, and have regular Gadgeteer unmodified, meaning they can either invent things the slow and steady way, and have them be relatively reliable, or let them build stuff quickly, but have it be prone to breakdowns and not easily reproducible. This build costs 25 points for Gadgeteer, plus 20 points for Quick Gadgeteer limited as above.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There were Roman experiments with storing energy for catapults as compressed air. Maybe a gadgeteer could get a good enough seal to make them work.

You could also go for early invention of Greek fire.

Combine the two and make a hand held fire-siphon.

Originally Posted by pestigor

I'd take inspiration from people like Archimedes. Maybe some primitive steam stuff wouldn't be out of line.

Or a steam catapult, combined with the compressed air idea above.

[Jasonft]

If your Gadgeteer can use Alchemy...

Drastic reduction in potion and elixir creation times for a start. Some interesting rules for when those work together, or at least they used to be. Might have been changed but go check.

Borderline TL3^ things start to happen. Smoke bombs that repel weres, White phosphorous flares that burn vampires with their light. Possibilities are endless.