[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Gizmos

[johndallman]

Gizmos [5/level] is a mental advantage, somewhat cinematic, and capable of being pushed into being completely unrealistic. You have the ability to produce small items of mundane equipment that you didn’t bring with you and weren’t present until you came up with them. This advantage first appeared in GURPS Supers for 3e.

You can produce one gizmo per game session per level of this advantage. For non-Gadgeteers, each gizmo must be something you could have been carrying, small enough to fit in a pocket, and at least one of:

• Something you own, but did not say you were bringing with you. You could use this to come up with a weapon, even if you didn’t have it earlier in the session.
• Something you plausibly own, but is too unimportant to list in detail. Anyone at TL6+ might come up with a screwdriver; an electrician could use this to produce a replacement fuse. The GM should be indulgent for items that fit your background.
• Something cheap and widely available at your TL. A newspaper would be an example at TL5-8.

Many settings, including DF, Gun-Fu, Monster Hunters and Steampunk, have different restrictions on Gizmos, allowing larger, heavier or more valuable ones and defining what’s possible more precisely.

A gizmo does not exist in the setting until you produce it, so this allows you to get some equipment past searches, have it after shipwrecks, and so on. Once they appear, they are real and lasting, and count as encumbrance.

Gadgeteers can produce their own inventions as gizmos, if they are small enough. Gadgeteers can also use a Gizmo “slot” to build a device on the spot, although they still need relevant skills, parts and materials, and need to make a skill roll at ‑2. Failures use up the slot for the session, and critical failures are spectacular.

Gizmos are common options on character templates for cinematic settings. There’s often a limit of three Gizmos per session, but being a Gadgeteer can uncap that. DF has skill penalties (and ways to buy them off) for Gadgeteering a Gizmo, based on its value. Gizmos are also excellent for exploiting the strange vulnerabilities of demons and other supernatural monsters; Fantasy: Portal Realms suggests “Gizmos from back on Earth.” Gun-Fu and Martial Arts can limit Gizmos to items for a combat style, and Magic and Thaumatology have alchemical Gizmos. Power-Ups 2 has a perk-level version, and Power-Ups 5 lets you “refresh” your Gizmos as an Impulse Buy. Social Engineering offers Gizmos as part of an Influence power (borrowed from passers-by), and Supers points out that they don’t take gadget limitations. Template Toolkit 2 has Gizmos for Toons, and Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic provides charms retro-created as Gizmos; it’s not obvious which is harder on the GM’s sanity.

I’ve never used Gizmos as player or GM, but I’ve seen fellow-players use them to good effect. They require careful GM judgement if the player is ambitious, but given that, they’re good fun. How have Gizmos played in your games?

[Phil Masters]

My Monster Hunter techie has a bunch of gizmos because of course he does, and they see a fair amount of use, if only because he drives around in a Chevvy Impala with a boot full of assorted stuff, and it's easier to say "He'd surely have a spare burner phone in there somewhere, I'll treat that as one of my gizmo slots for the session" than get into arguments with the GM over the idea of a Chevvy Impala of Holding.

[CarrionPeacock]

I don't trust myself to be creative enough to make the 5/level points I spent on it worth. Maybe I could get Common Sense advantage so the GM can point times I could make good use of it but I prefer to spend the 15+ points on something more reliable.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Gizmos [5/level] is a mental advantage, quite cinematic, and no way realistic.

Well.

In its most basic incarnation, it feels similar to Common Sense. Where that advantage says "GM, please tell me if I'm planning something stupid", basic Gizmos says "I don't wanna keep track of all the pocket trivia that my PC walks around with". So sure, probably you did put that whatnot in your pocket when you went out this morning, why not? I will admit that my standard mode of GMing pretty much includes this anyway; I don't want to force my players to list everything in their PCs' pockets, simply because it's not fun.

When it gets used to say "I got searched and flung in a cell but somehow I still have my multitool with me", fair enough, special cinematic power. Similarly with "cheap and widely available at your TL" when the character would have no particular reason to have it, e.g. a lighter for a PC who doesn't smoke.

[Imbicatus]

They see A LOT of use on DF ‘Alchemists’ that are build on the Artificer template to represent pathfinder alchemists. With wealth to pay for the gold costs being able to throw out just the right potion or pastilles For the situation makes them very versatile.

[ericthered]

I don't think I've ever noticed Gizmos in play. I know my monster hunter techies have had them, but I don't remember them being that big a deal. But then I don't enforce strict gear lists.

I've occasionally fiddled around with letting PC's make planning rolls retroactively, which gives them a gizmo in exchange for making a skill roll.

Pyramid 53 has the Foresight advantage, which is an awesome variation of Gizmo that applies the principle to things other than objects. I've always wanted to use it, but other cool mechanics have always taken more of a focus.

[Fred Brackin]

In a short duration IOU game a player needed a pre-gen and lnowing his fondness for playing Dwarves I gave him a human((maybe) with Dwarfism and Hunchback. This made him _really_ short and his dorm room was a closet under the stairs Harry Potter-style. He was quite comfortable there.

His name was Gizmo Igorsky, so of Framistat Igorsky son of Watchamacallit Igorsky. The Igorskys have been in the Mad Science biz for a long time though they never got the credit they deserved.

He had 3 levels of Gizmos, Fast Gadgeteer and Weird Science. He probably fit into IOU better than any of the other characters. His school backpack had a gieger counter in it. Of course when something that looked like fresh fruit in the cafeteria line set that off he took 2 pieces of it.

I also told him he had a high tech squirt gun in his backpack but I told him that he could list the loads for that he wanted to carry if he wanted to or he could just use Gizmos whan he needed one.

I've also been waiting for some character with ESP to show up. He could take gizmos with an ESP Power Mod and just have his subconscious grab a few extra things when he got dressed every morning.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

In its most basic incarnation, it feels similar to Common Sense. . .

I was over-emphasising the unrealism, and have edited the OP.

[Otaku]

I never used Gizmo in a campaign, but it is why I realized I'd been tackling "Batman" style characters wrong for many, many years. It is the kind of metatrait you take to explain how someone made the perfect plans and rolls for a situation to work out favorably.

[Prince Charon]

One way that I like to handle Gizmos is to make it part of a power: Gizmos (ESP, -10%) means you precogged that you'd need to pack that, Gizmos (Probability Alteration, -10%) is similar, but you were lucky enough to guess that you'd need it later, Gizmos (Teleportation, -10%) allows you to exoteleport anything you own (likely within a weight limit) to your hand a few times a day, and sticking something like (Magic, -10%) or (Super, -10%) to it could mean just about anything, though whatever it is should still be consistent with the character.