The GURPS Meta-Tech Hype Thread

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

There is a section on pricing that includes ubiquity. Basically a final price modifier that is based on rarity from very common to unique. Even one of a kind items (such as major works of art) tend to get a price. And of course the entire point of the supplement is to assign a cash value to items.
If you truly want no price value, you could just build it as a gadget using Basic rules (though some stuff here still would be helpful) or just go with GM fiat.
But I think price modified by rarity was a good addition.

One of a kind items tend to get a new price every time they go up for sale. There aren't ongoing sales that could define a unique market price for them. All we can say is that if X is willing to take at least $m, and Y is willing to pay up to $n, then as long as n > m, the item will sell for somewhere between $m and $n. But when Y sells it, they won't necessarily take $n as the minimum price: They might insist on more than they originally paid, or they might be ready to get rid of the item and take much less. And we have no basis for predicting what Z will be ready to offer. Each sale is a new calculation.

And narratively, a lot of items don't seem to ever be involved in market transactions. This book has a build for Excalibur, with a price in the millions of GURPS$. But Arthur neither bought Excalibur for money nor sold it for money (nor did his estate do so after he died). Nor did Thor pay money for Mjollnir: He got it from Loki as compensation for Loki wronging him, and we aren't told that Loki paid the dwarves for it, either (I seem to recall that he used a trick to cheat them). Nor did Hal Jordan pay cash for his power ring and power battery, nor Virgil Samms for his Lens (there was an explicit discussion of this in First Lensman, in fact).

I don't object to anyone using money prices in their game if they want to. But I don't think it's that eccentric to prefer not to use them. So I'm wondering what aspects of this book remain useful to someone who doesn't share that particular assumption.

[Farmer]

The entirety of the book is still useful even if you don't care about the price.

Use it to build items and to have a relative scale of "cost" (being GURPS $ but that doesn't matter). You're not building to a price, the price is reflective of the *value* comparatively.

So build it, use all the rules to do so, and then ignore the price if it doesn't need one for your usage. There are numerous origins, traits, processes, and more that help you build the items in a cohesive way.

[whswhs]

Just as a small note, I want to say that I don't think the Lens of the Galactic Patrol is properly classed as "superscience." It's something that no ordinary sapient being can duplicate or create; the Palainians have a basic understanding of it, but making one is beyond them. Its makers, the Arisians, aren't gods in the mythological sense, but they have lifespans or millions or perhaps billions of years, they cannot be destroyed by any application of mere physical force, they have effectively every psionic ability that exists in their universe, and their Visualization of the Cosmic All enables them to predict such things as the exact place of every severed hair in a barber shop some years in the future on another planet—their IQ seems to be indescribable in human terms. And the Lens itself has useful traits, including recognizing its intended wearer, killing any other person who handles it, and quietly sublimating away when the intended wearer dies. I think all this adds up to its being Cosmic, in that it was created by Cosmic entities.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It seems as if at least one major goal of your book is to derive a cost in GURPS$ for various devices. But my general approach to the kinds of objects you seem to be talking about is to say that they're at least unusual, if not unique, one-of-a-kind: There are no markets where they are bought and sold, and thus no market prices for them. You don't get them for cold cash, but for character points and a plausible origin story.

What elements of your system are likely to be useful in that approach?

Then you don't use Meta-Tech. The whole goal of this book is to get a cash cost along with other gear parameters. Not cost points. Just do it as a gadget or what not.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Just as a small note, I want to say that I don't think the Lens of the Galactic Patrol is properly classed as "superscience." It's something that no ordinary sapient being can duplicate or create; the Palainians have a basic understanding of it, but making one is beyond them. Its makers, the Arisians, aren't gods in the mythological sense, but they have lifespans or millions or perhaps billions of years, they cannot be destroyed by any application of mere physical force, they have effectively every psionic ability that exists in their universe, and their Visualization of the Cosmic All enables them to predict such things as the exact place of every severed hair in a barber shop some years in the future on another planet—their IQ seems to be indescribable in human terms. And the Lens itself has useful traits, including recognizing its intended wearer, killing any other person who handles it, and quietly sublimating away when the intended wearer dies. I think all this adds up to its being Cosmic, in that it was created by Cosmic entities.

Oh, okay. Change it for your game then. ^_^

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

One of a kind items tend to get a new price every time they go up for sale.

The book notes that truly one-of-a-kind items can have any price multiplier the GM wants - and of course there's nothing preventing nominal prices to be ignored in situations where that makes sense. Status 0 travel rations have a book price of $30 for a week's supply, but during a famine they may well be priceless (as in, nobody will sell them to you, so you'll have to steal them, meet their demands for alternative forms of payment, etc).

As noted, the point of Meta Tech is to give a framework by which these items can be available on the open market, like the +1 swords of That Other Game, crazy Gnome inventions in a DF setting, blasters in Star Wars (if you don't like using UT's particle accelerator "blasters"), doses of Cruezzir Derivative Compound-A in The Deathworlders, airships in The Nested Worlds, etc. If you prefer such items always be sufficiently-rare that they aren't available for purchase and must instead be built as gadgets, Meta-Tech would mostly be useful for getting some inspiration and new modifiers. Of course, you can also mix and match - most of the various fabrials (like Spanreeds, pens that are linked so that, while active, moving one automatically moves the other the same way - it's used for distant communication) in The Stormlight Archive would be available for purchase, but more unique ones like Soulcasters (which allow one to transmute one material into another) or Shardblades/Shardplate (neither of which are actually fabrials, but most people think they are) are functionally priceless - it's noted that the latter have been sold in the past in exchange for entire kingdoms, and thus wouldn't generally be available for sale (and it would be appropriate to charge for them as Advantages rather than gear).

[whswhs]

I don't see anything game mechanical about Aja's healing paste that would make it not work as a TL0 invention. But I do have to note that the African cultures from which most slaves were taken were not TL0. In fact my understanding is that they went directly to ironworking, which would argue for TL2. And they had states, kings, and armies, which are socially at least TL1.

Or if you want to focus on "African diaspora," then Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American South were all TL4 when the Atlantic slave trade started, and TL5 when it ended; the black people living in those societies were at the same TL—they weren't somehow preserving enclaves of their original TL on the plantations where they lived and worked.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't see anything game mechanical about Aja's healing paste that would make it not work as a TL0 invention. But I do have to note that the African cultures from which most slaves were taken were not TL0. In fact my understanding is that they went directly to ironworking, which would argue for TL2. And they had states, kings, and armies, which are socially at least TL1.

Or if you want to focus on "African diaspora," then Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American South were all TL4 when the Atlantic slave trade started, and TL5 when it ended; the black people living in those societies were at the same TL—they weren't somehow preserving enclaves of their original TL on the plantations where they lived and worked.

The means to make it are TL0. Just like all gear, Bill, there is a minimum level at which a given thing is invented and thus that level is usually required to make it again. This one is TL 0 and thus can be created at any TL from 0 all the way up to 12+. It is in no way a reference to anything else. I could have just called it "Healing Paste" I suppose, but I like to add more diversity and representation when I do things.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

As noted, the point of Meta Tech is to give a framework by which these items can be available on the open market, like the +1 swords of That Other Game, crazy Gnome inventions in a DF setting, blasters in Star Wars (if you don't like using UT's particle accelerator "blasters"), doses of Cruezzir Derivative Compound-A in The Deathworlders, airships in The Nested Worlds, etc. If you prefer such items always be sufficiently-rare that they aren't available for purchase and must instead be built as gadgets, Meta-Tech would mostly be useful for getting some inspiration and new modifiers. Of course, you can also mix and match - most of the various fabrials (like Spanreeds, pens that are linked so that, while active, moving one automatically moves the other the same way - it's used for distant communication) in The Stormlight Archive would be available for purchase, but more unique ones like Soulcasters (which allow one to transmute one material into another) or Shardblades/Shardplate (neither of which are actually fabrials, but most people think they are) are functionally priceless - it's noted that the latter have been sold in the past in exchange for entire kingdoms, and thus wouldn't generally be available for sale (and it would be appropriate to charge for them as Advantages rather than gear).

And yet the cost calculation is really trivial. You multiply the point value by a factor determined by the SM, in a table that takes up half a page; optionally, you adjust for ubiquity, a rule that takes up about a third of a page; and then you apply cost modifiers, which take up about a page. That's only two pages out of the 32 of the main text. It seems as if you and Christopher are saying that the other 30 pages are useless, or at least are useless without that final step. And yet the whole process leads up to a penultimate step where you figure a point cost.

So suppose I've derived a point cost. How would that figure into a campaign I was running, if I didn't assume that meta-tech had cash prices? Or wouldn't it?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by whswhs

And yet the cost calculation is really trivial. You multiply the point value by a factor determined by the SM, in a table that takes up half a page; optionally, you adjust for ubiquity, a rule that takes up about a third of a page; and then you apply cost modifiers, which take up about a page. That's only two pages out of the 32 of the main text. It seems as if you and Christopher are saying that the other 30 pages are useless, or at least are useless without that final step. And yet the whole process leads up to a penultimate step where you figure a point cost.

So suppose I've derived a point cost. How would that figure into a campaign I was running, if I didn't assume that meta-tech had cash prices? Or wouldn't it?

Yeah, I don't think you're going to get much out of this book, Bill. Sorry. Can't write everything for everyone.

I'll also note you could have been in the playtest and then raised these questions then. I figured you would have at least applied given your love of the supers genre. Never saw you there or even mention it though. Ah well, can't spend our time everywhere, can we?