Quote:
Originally Posted by tbrock1031
Nor I. You could even go so far as to say that anyone considered the "father" or "mother" of a field should have either Anachronistic Skill or Cutting Edge: Ada Lovelace with Computer Programming; Einstein, Galileo, and Newton w/ Physics, etc.
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Would the Anachronistic Skill Perk fit Einstein? I don't remember what the Cutting Edge Perk does, but I don't think AS fits.
In Sagatafl, my homebrew RPG, revolutionary discoveries are handled as binary skills, e.g. Newtonian Mechanics, Relativity Physics, Quantum Physics, and the next potential physics revolution, Quantum Gravity (or Higgs Physics, maybe).
(For that matter, Darwinian Evolution is another example, helping make sense out of biology.)
Characters can discover these via an Invention process, and once discovered they can teach them to others, but for the sake of simulation, there ought to be some sort of "mental resistance" mechanic, since such discoveries are often profoundly counter-intuitive. I just don't yet have a very good idea of how such a mechanic should work (it'd also be useful for hibernaut characters, who have skipped one or more Tech Levels, and subsequently need to adapt to a newer and more modern world. Ideally I'd like to be able to simulate the gradual process of a renaissance character adapting to early 21th century society and technology, both someone with much capacity for adaptation such as Leonardo da Vinci, and someone with very little, such as a common Italian town labourer).
Eventually, of course, such "revolutionary" discoveries effectively cease to be counter-intuitive. Small schoolchildren still balk when told that without air resistance, a heavier object won't fall any faster than a lighter object, but only for a few seconds, whereas if you had told that to Aristotle, e.g., he'd have balked much harder, and for much longer.