Seeking help: GURPSifying some odd ideas

[DataPacRat]

It's been a while since I skimmed over my full set of Powers, Power-Ups, and other character-building books, so I'd appreciate some guidance about which mechanics I should use for these various ideas.

The setting is a small-moon-sized space station, and is technically hard-SF with no magic but a lot of bio-engineering; valid ways to accomplish various effects might be having everyone's brains to have been designed to work a certain way, or for custom species to have been built. The general goal is to have a surface appearance of a magical Sugarbowl setting, but for actual, discoverable mechanisms to underlie the seeming magic (bonus points for mechanisms that are disturbing or squicky) which can be exploited in new and interesting ways. I know that I can handwave all of this, but the more hard-numbered GURPS rules I can apply to any of these seemingly light-and-fluffy ideas (and which provide plot-useful limits), the better. (One reason I'd like hard numbers: for when characters from this setting start interacting with characters from outside it, with much mutual bogglement.)


* Consensual Guided Hallucinations. A character who can interact with others in such a way that outsiders would see them playing in an attic or the like, but by the end of it the participants would remember having lived through whatever interactive story was spun, meeting whatever characters were described, and so on. No harm worse than a mild scare possible, no locking people into un-reality. May seem to last as long as any story lasts, but doesn't really last longer than an afternoon. (It would be nice if the mechanisms of the light-and-fluffy version could eventually be adapted to more comprehensive forms of mind control.)

- Related to the above, items with similar effects, such as a kiddie pool in which full-fledged piratical adventures can seem to be had, or a full-sized pool that seems to be filled with whatever the swimmers want it to be, or play-rooms in which play-time seems to last several times longer than it really does, or doodle-chalk that seems to create animated 'chalk creatures', or a school bus leading to ridiculous field trips, or "portals" to chalk-drawing worlds or candy worlds or Lego worlds, and so on.

- Imaginary friend. Probably related to the above, a seemingly-independent character which only one person can see, unless other people squint really hard. Possibly related to present-day "tulpas".


* Spontaneous Musicalism. If one person starts singing, most other characters in earshot will be able to at least move to the beat, and if they want, can instinctively join in as backup singers or as part of a dance number. (Maybe built as Racial Skills, explained via very-carefully genetically-engineered brain structures?)


* Invisible Fairies. Under ordinary circumstances, various objects have interesting and useful effects tied to them, for which no obvious mechanism is visible; but which turn out to be taken care of by small creatures and/or people with colour-changing skin/fur/whatever and high Stealth scores. A hamper, which clothes tossed into get automatically washed and repaired by morning. A small bookshelf regularly restocked with whatever light reading its owner would most likely find enjoyable that day. A backpack that, every morning, is loaded with a dozen peanut butter sandwiches or unlimited string cheese. A toy box filled with unlimited Lego, or a bucket of unlimited water balloons.

- Toys that seem to be "powered by the imagination", but are really being moved around by said fairies.

- "Magic spells" which call on various subspecies of the fairies to perform various specific tasks.


* Once the basic approaches are down pat, then if possible, I'd like to figure out how to use more refined variations. Say, coming up with the closest that can be built to a Green Lantern Ring, without using any super-science or magic. "Hard light" wouldn't work as an explanation - but discreetly keeping a cache of super-Lego and invisible fairies nearby but out of sight, ready to respond to commands spoken into a ring-shaped microphone/radio, just might.


* Anyone have any suggestions for stats for swarms of small snake-like critters, which can replace a plush toy's stuffing, form a little hivemind, and animate it?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

* Spontaneous Musicalism. If one person starts singing, most other characters in earshot will be able to at least move to the beat, and if they want, can instinctively join in as backup singers or as part of a dance number. (Maybe built as Racial Skills, explained via very-carefully genetically-engineered brain structures?)

My article in the Social Engineering issue of Pyramid contained a cinematic technique that had that effect, roughly.

[Refplace]

One idea would be standard brain implants at birth that connect to the station.
People who learn how to hack the system may then be able to do all sorts of wierd things, especially if people dont realize the implants exist.
Maybe the medical systems do it automatically and people forgot or werent told.
That allows most of the mental stuff described, especially if the implants have security features for disruptive individuals.
Microtech modular robots can create furniture, playmates or other things as controlled by the station with user input.
The implant could be sent sensory images to overlay the robots and make them look better.

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My article in the Social Engineering issue of Pyramid contained a cinematic technique that had that effect, roughly.

Would that have been to build a character who could inspire others to follow their lead, or a character who's good at joining in songs?

Originally Posted by Refplace

One idea would be standard brain implants at birth that connect to the station.
People who learn how to hack the system may then be able to do all sorts of wierd things, especially if people dont realize the implants exist.
Maybe the medical systems do it automatically and people forgot or werent told.
That allows most of the mental stuff described, especially if the implants have security features for disruptive individuals.
Microtech modular robots can create furniture, playmates or other things as controlled by the station with user input.
The implant could be sent sensory images to overlay the robots and make them look better.

I'm not opposed to cybernetics per se, but I'm a little hesitant for large numbers of the population have surgery and metal in their heads. However, if we swap out classical cyberpunk implants and swap in carefuly-gengineered symbiotes that do similar jobs instead, I'd be much more enthused. For example, for a human-scale species, imagine a tiny, reasonably sophont dragon, a bit under a foot long, who spends almost its whole life lying in the groove between the two hemispheres of the brain, its heavily-enervated wings stretched over the hemispheres and its tail back to the cerebellum; and come up with a reasonable handwave for some kind of organic radio.

That would let me work on using your approach, while also coming a lot closer to the sort of squicky, organic-tech theme I'd like to aim for here, while also also opening the options for various additional bits of plot if-and-when the PCs find out about the things.

I'm still not sure I'd want to have brain-dragons being widely enough implanted that they could be readily found in everybody engaging in consensual hallucinations. However, maybe one of the sub-techs, the organic radio, could become the basis of something. I'm going to have to think on it, but thought I'd let everyone reading this have an idea the direction my thoughts are going. :)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

Would that have been to build a character who could inspire others to follow their lead, or a character who's good at joining in songs?

The former: that article of Bill's has quite a lot of good ideas in it.

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The former: that article of Bill's has quite a lot of good ideas in it.

Well, it's a Bill Stoddard article, so your latter clause pretty much goes without saying. :) I just have a bit of a budget-crunch this month, so I need to focus my RPGing dollars as much as I can for the most-appropriate world-buildling references.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

* Consensual Guided Hallucinations. A character who can interact with others in such a way that outsiders would see them playing in an attic or the like, but by the end of it the participants would remember having lived through whatever interactive story was spun, meeting whatever characters were described, and so on. No harm worse than a mild scare possible, no locking people into un-reality. May seem to last as long as any story lasts, but doesn't really last longer than an afternoon. (It would be nice if the mechanisms of the light-and-fluffy version could eventually be adapted to more comprehensive forms of mind control.)

This sounds like some flavor of Mental Illusion, probably linked with an Affliction or limited Mind Control to account for the coercive aspect. Check out the Dream Control power from Psionic Powers, esp. the Reshape Dream ability from p74.
As an alternative, you might try doing the whole thing with Conditioning Only MC.

- Imaginary friend. Probably related to the above, a seemingly-independent character which only one person can see, unless other people squint really hard. Possibly related to present-day "tulpas".

This kinda depends on what the 'friend' does for the character. If it interacts in a useful way, then it's a probably an Ally. If not, then maybe it's just a Delusion (but could be one of those 'Delusions that are true').

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

Well, it's a Bill Stoddard article, so your latter clause pretty much goes without saying. :) I just have a bit of a budget-crunch this month, so I need to focus my RPGing dollars as much as I can for the most-appropriate world-buildling references.

Certainly. I mentioned it because it was possible the mechanics I provided for inspiring people to start singing and dancing looked like something you might be able to adapt to what you're trying to do.

[clu2415]

Some of that sounds like standard virtual reality, but handwaved as superscience genetically engineered implants. They could be mostly biological with a small chip for radio transmission and receiving. Your imaginary friend could be an AI running on a Google Glass type of device. In biotech land, it could be a creature that clings to side of your head with a radio chip to communicate or with an interface to a heads-up display.

Engineering tiny camouflaged people sounds ethically dubious. They need to be smart enough to understand your commands, but not be a subservient slave race. Unless you’re going for that, I suppose. If they rebel, it will be awful trying to find these tiny, chameleon-skinned partizans. The challenge there is getting something the size of a mouse to be that smart. A bigger brain does not automatically make a creature smarter, but there does seem to be a minimum size of brain required for complex understanding.