Moving items between worlds with different natural laws

[Flyndaran]

I'd imagined a magical device like that. It tested the area to give more detailed information than just presence and aspect of mana.
Good to know that fire spells would go off at five times energy put in, while death magic would instantly kill the caster, or that all casting comes with Corruption Points or thematic personality changes.

[Crystalline_Entity]

In fact you could concoct a combination of that with the drone mentioned in Infinite Worlds (p.17), so not only does it test atmospheric composition, radiation levels, and environmental metrics but it also tests local physics, e.g. presence of absence of mana (including if it's aspected), which superscience works, what won't work, and what is actually dangerous if you try and use it, etc.

It'd be handy to find out in advance whether to pack magical Potions of Healing, your TL12^ Pocket Regenerator, or just a good old TL8 first aid kit!

[Flyndaran]

Don't forget to include a "black box" that will survive disasters, so you'll know which experiment had the destructive consequence.

[DAT]

I assume Infinity and Centrum both have standard protocols for testing physics in a new world line.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

... Magical items explicitly obey option 1 (Magic p.6 - "enchantments...are suspended within a no-mana zone, but resume when taken to an area with mana"), though I’m not convinced that superscience items and magical items should merit equal treatment here. ...

Consider also the canon ability to increase the mana level in an area around a person. Is there an analogous ability to increase the superscience level in an area around a person? (Don't ask me what a "superscience level" is; I can't even explain what a "mana level" is in real-world terms, and that's in the RAW.) If there is such an ability in your game, you'll need a fifth option on your list:

5. It works... rejecting your reality and substituting its own.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Consider also the canon ability to increase the mana level in an area around a person. Is there an analogous ability to increase the superscience level in an area around a person? (Don't ask me what a "superscience level" is; I can't even explain what a "mana level" is in real-world terms, and that's in the RAW.) If there is such an ability in your game, you'll need a fifth option on your list:

5. It works... rejecting your reality and substituting its own.

I do like the idea that some items follow principles 1-4, while others may indeed follow rule 5. After all, many character types would be 'superscience' by our world's laws, but IIRC they don't spontaneously die if transported to our timeline . . . Except those which do! E.g. Microworlders have Dependency (Carey Formula, monthly) [-30] in timelines other than their own, but it seems to me that many other biological entities are cross-world-transportable.

[Daigoro]

Not likely, but for completeness' sake:

6) It operates, but generates a completely different superscience effect in the new timeline

[Kelly Pedersen]

One thing for which result 3 (doesn't work, and explodes) is probably commonly appropriate for is energy storage devices - batteries, power cells, etc. In a lot of cases, what's superscience about that sort of thing is the energy density of the storage, not the type of energy being stored. A cosmic power cell (Ultra-Tech pp. 19-20) is often still containing electricity, just a whole bunch more of it than a standard power cell. If the physics that allows that energy to be safely contained is changed, all that energy is still there, just not... contained. And suddenly released energy is an explosion.

I would suspect, if the physics involving energy storage is known to change from world to world fairly frequently, that travellers heading to new worlds will be very cautious with their battery tech. Jump with only minimal energy stored in batteries, use storage devices that are less efficient but also more likely to work everywhere, that sort of thing. This can be a good excuse to limit high-tech gadgetry - if you can bring an x-ray laser, but until you fully test the world's physics, you can only pack enough energy to use it two or three times, that's a pretty big resource limitation. The players will think hard before using those limited shots!

[Crystalline_Entity]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Consider also the canon ability to increase the mana level in an area around a person. Is there an analogous ability to increase the superscience level in an area around a person?

Maybe you could have Superscience Enhancer [50/level] by analogy with Mana Enhancer? You can have Superscience Levels in a similar manner, with "No Superscience", "Works at 10% efficiency", "Works normally", etc. You could even subdivide in a similar way to aspected mana, so rather than having areas strong in Movement magic but weak in Fire, you could have an area in which contragravity works as expected but disintegrators require ten times as much power, though that might be too much detail for some campaigns. Or you could generalise and call it "Protected Reality [100]" in that the local laws of physics don't apply (equal in cost to bringing no-mana up to normal mana).

For abilitities you could do the Superscience equivalent of using "Magical, +0%" as a Power Modifier instead of "Magical/Mana Sensitive, -10%", which may be cheaper in points but only applies to a single ability.

[Crystalline_Entity]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

One thing for which result 3 (doesn't work, and explodes) is probably commonly appropriate for is energy storage devices - batteries, power cells, etc. In a lot of cases, what's superscience about that sort of thing is the energy density of the storage, not the type of energy being stored. A cosmic power cell (Ultra-Tech pp. 19-20) is often still containing electricity, just a whole bunch more of it than a standard power cell. If the physics that allows that energy to be safely contained is changed, all that energy is still there, just not... contained. And suddenly released energy is an explosion.

Power storage technology was the thing which occurred to me too - my physics is very rusty but I'm sure I remember reading on the forums that the power density of GURPS power cells became unphysical at a certain TL. I like your idea of using it to limit high-tech gadgetry, as you say it'll make players more cautious about using limited shots with less risky batteries, or travel with the power cells uncharged and then have to try and charge them as much as they think they can get away with!