Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post

Anthony · 10-26-2019, 01:47 AM

The advantage of gadgets over gear is consistency in pricing; if character A has an innate magical ability, and character B has a magic ring that grants the same ability, they're going to pay a similar amount, though presumably B pays less for it being not as useful. By comparison, using gear, they may not even be using the same currency, and the price will only be similar by coincidence.

The drawback of gadgets is that the price may be nonsensical for the setting (this tends to be a problem with powers as well). My cell phone represents less than one character point of wealth, and replicating what it can do with gadgets will be a lot more than one point.

There isn't a terribly good solution for this. You can solve the gadgets drawback by adding setting-dependent pricing, but that's a huge hassle too.

10-26-2019, 01:47 AM	#6
Anthony Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Berkeley, CA	Re: Magical Gadgets versus Magical Gear The advantage of gadgets over gear is consistency in pricing; if character A has an innate magical ability, and character B has a magic ring that grants the same ability, they're going to pay a similar amount, though presumably B pays less for it being not as useful. By comparison, using gear, they may not even be using the same currency, and the price will only be similar by coincidence. The drawback of gadgets is that the price may be nonsensical for the setting (this tends to be a problem with powers as well). My cell phone represents less than one character point of wealth, and replicating what it can do with gadgets will be a lot more than one point. There isn't a terribly good solution for this. You can solve the gadgets drawback by adding setting-dependent pricing, but that's a huge hassle too. __________________ My GURPS site and Blog.