Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Infinite Worlds Alt-History Supernature and Superscience

patchwork · 03-27-2021, 03:46 PM

About 90% of my worldlines have no supernatural or superscience elements, while 10% do.

And I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'challenge'. Yes, the PCs have vast resources, typically more than their adversaries. But if that was going to be relevant, we'd be playing on one fixed world, not IW. If we're talking about Echo stabilisation, the PCs have to get things very precisely right; not clean up the scene and eliminate witnesses after the fact, they need a solution with zero witnesses and collateral damage in the first place (or very close to it). Anybody at all dead 'ahead of schedule' is mission failure, at least potentially. Let the PCs have great power, they're going to need it because their win condition is very, very, very narrow.

They have more leeway on worlds that are not Echoes, but still less than a lot of players think at first. Locals aren't stupid. Keeping the Secret is hard. Not Keeping the Secret leads to demotion, heavy artillery, and possibly indefinite detainment in Coventry. All of that creates opportunities for Swagmen in your wake to turn your small screw-up into a gigantic one. Bringing enough gear to easily beat the locals jeopardises the Secret. Fixing a 'misunderstanding' is going to take amazing social skills, backed by good forgeries and the ability to engage with locals on their own intellectual terms.

Nearly all IW adventures are puzzle adventures. Real tactical challenges are quite infrequent. That's the nature of the metasetting; valid solutions are subtle and social, tactical mayhem is for campaigns that don't have worldhopping.

03-27-2021, 03:46 PM	#6
patchwork Join Date: Oct 2011	Re: Infinite Worlds Alt-History Supernature and Superscience About 90% of my worldlines have no supernatural or superscience elements, while 10% do. And I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'challenge'. Yes, the PCs have vast resources, typically more than their adversaries. But if that was going to be relevant, we'd be playing on one fixed world, not IW. If we're talking about Echo stabilisation, the PCs have to get things very precisely right; not clean up the scene and eliminate witnesses after the fact, they need a solution with zero witnesses and collateral damage in the first place (or very close to it). Anybody at all dead 'ahead of schedule' is mission failure, at least potentially. Let the PCs have great power, they're going to need it because their win condition is very, very, very narrow. They have more leeway on worlds that are not Echoes, but still less than a lot of players think at first. Locals aren't stupid. Keeping the Secret is hard. Not Keeping the Secret leads to demotion, heavy artillery, and possibly indefinite detainment in Coventry. All of that creates opportunities for Swagmen in your wake to turn your small screw-up into a gigantic one. Bringing enough gear to easily beat the locals jeopardises the Secret. Fixing a 'misunderstanding' is going to take amazing social skills, backed by good forgeries and the ability to engage with locals on their own intellectual terms. Nearly all IW adventures are puzzle adventures. Real tactical challenges are quite infrequent. That's the nature of the metasetting; valid solutions are subtle and social, tactical mayhem is for campaigns that don't have worldhopping.