Modifying Gadgeteer [Basic/RPM]

[AlexanderHowl]

One of the major problems that I have with Gadgeteer is that it allows characters to break the TL curve in most games, so I have decided to change it to a form of technological Ritual Path Magic.

Gadgeteer [5 for level 0 plus 10 for every subsequent level]

1. Gadgeteers are capable of learning Disciplines up to a level equal to (12 plus Weird Science)
i. Gadgeteers must possess Weird Science in order to learn Disciplines, which may not exceed the lower of their Weird Science or the associated Scientific Skill.
ii. Every Scientific Skill possesses its own Discipline (Biology, Geography, Paleontology, and Physics have Disciplines for every specialty).
iii. Disciplines default to Weird Science - 6 (up to a maximum default of '12') or the associated Scientific Skill - 4 (no maximum default).
iv. Non-gadgeteers are capable of developing and using Weird Science and Disciplines, though they suffer a -5 to skill on all associated rolls.

2. Gadgeteers gain an Assembly Pool equal to (Gadgeteer * 3) that they may use to augment their rolls when creating Procedures.

3. Gadgeteers are capable of delaying up to (Gadgeteer plus Weird Science) Procedures at a time.

4. Gadgeteers may learn Procedure Adept [40], which allows them to create Procedures without laboratories or materials and with reduced time.
i. Procedure Adept (Laboratory) [10] allows gadgeteers to ignore the -5 to skill for not having a proper laboratory of their TL.
ii. Procedure Adept (Materials) [10] allows gadgeteers to ignore the -5 to skill for not having the required materials of their TL.
iii. Procedure Adept 1 (Time) [10] allows gadgeteers to tap into assembly sources in just one second without the -5 to skill and reduces the initial assembly roll (only) to just five seconds (each subsequent roll takes five minutes or suffers a -5 to skill)
iv. Procedure Adept 2 (Time) [20] allows gadgeteers to tap into assembly sources in just one second without a roll and reduces the assembly rolls to five seconds each.

5. Gadgeteers may specialize in a specific Procedure through taking Procedure Mastery [1], which grants a +2 to all rolls related to a specific Procedure, and they may only take Procedure Mastery once for every Procedure.

The rules would otherwise be for RPM, though Weird Science replaces Thaumatology, Disciplines replace Paths, and Procedures replace Rituals. Assembly rolls would replace gathering rolls, but would be functionally equivalent. Weird Medicine would replace Alchemy, but it would otherwise be identical. Trappings would be scientific rather than magical, but they would otherwise function similarly. Grimories would be replaced by Manuals, but they would otherwise function identically. Gadgets would replace the Magical modifier with the Superscience modifier, but they would otherwise function identically.

What do you think? Would you use the above version of Gadgeteer to replace the default version of Gadgeteer? If not, what changes would you make?

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

One of the major problems that I have with Gadgeteer is that it allows characters to break the TL curve in most games

I know little of how RPM works, but I do have some things about this;
A) As far as I can tell, that's literally what you're paying 25pts for is to break the TL.
B) If that isn't what you want, then it seems simplest to just not have Gadgeteer. If you want people who do 'gadget stuff' then you'd build that however you want.

As for RPM itself, are spells permanent? If not, would gadgets be? If so, that sounds like a pretty massive change.

[AlexanderHowl]

The rituals are temporary, but the gadgets are permanent because you invest CP in them. As for breaking TL, if that is what gadgeteers actually did, modern day Earth would be TL12^ in both the DC and Marvel Universe. Instead, this represents the Reed Richard type of gadgeteer, where his gadgets are really cool but never really seem to change the world.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The rituals are temporary, but the gadgets are permanent because you invest CP in them. As for breaking TL, if that is what gadgeteers actually did, modern day Earth would be TL12^ in both the DC and Marvel Universe. Instead, this represents the Reed Richard type of gadgeteer, where his gadgets are really cool but never really seem to change the world.

CP makes sense. I thought you had an issue with characters having too high of a TL. I'm not sure how much Gadgeteer alone would actually affect things from time to cost to how hard it is to replicate your things by non-gadgeteers to how commonly gadgeteers refuse to work with groups who are likely to corrupt their products. As for some supers-type gadgeteers, I'm not certain they'd all take the actual Gadgeteer advantage. High IQ (+ talents) with a plethora of skills usually means that New Inventions would likely be enough to simulate them.

There's also the actual point cost of other related advantages that would naturally result in mass affecting the TL; Wealth (and Status), Patron, other skills to actually get things out, etc. If you require points to be spent to have those as a simplistic way to simulate if certain items catch on, then it self-balances. If they already have all that and Gadgeteer, then it makes sense they would be the ones changing the TL. The invention of the computer not only sped up TL but how fast TL changes happen.

Aside from that, just requiring players to buy gadget powers for their gadgets keeps them from getting out of hand (except literally of course), but the idea of 'use a magic system and require CP to make things permanent' seems like it would work without anymore issue than the given magic system would. And a quick glance over enchanted items in RPM seems to be both.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The rituals are temporary, but the gadgets are permanent because you invest CP in them. As for breaking TL, if that is what gadgeteers actually did, modern day Earth would be TL12^ in both the DC and Marvel Universe. Instead, this represents the Reed Richard type of gadgeteer, where his gadgets are really cool but never really seem to change the world.

Isn't it simpler to just say "Gadgeteer can't do that"? Gadgeteer can't change the tech level of the society. No need for fancy substitute mechanics.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Isn't it simpler to just say "Gadgeteer can't do that"? Gadgeteer can't change the tech level of the society. No need for fancy substitute mechanics.

You might not even have to go that far. The campaign the GM is running can easily get in the way of a gadgeteer having time to modify the setting or might not always be able to get home to a good set up to do so.

[Refplace]

I'd just go with the Wierd Science rules for Realm Magic, I think by Kromm.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The rituals are temporary, but the gadgets are permanent because you invest CP in them. As for breaking TL, if that is what gadgeteers actually did, modern day Earth would be TL12^ in both the DC and Marvel Universe. Instead, this represents the Reed Richard type of gadgeteer, where his gadgets are really cool but never really seem to change the world.

There is even a trope on this: Reed Richards Is Useless

Though comics have problems with gadgeteers in general. Like no one ever thought to reverse engineer one of the Silver-Bronze Age Lex Luthor's inventions? Or Kel-El never offering/reverse engineering any Kryptonian devices to make the world better.

At least with Iron Man his gadgets did have an effect on the world - resulting in the Armor Wars saga where he tried to shove the Iron Man armor genie back into the bottle. And it worked about as well at one expected.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Why would we allow a TL 8 civilization to mass produce a TL 9 product? The Tech Level mechanic exist specifically to block such a thing from happening. And the price break on building advanced technology from Gadgeteer only applies to items personally built by someone with Gadgeteering. It would also seem kind of buggy considering that everyone has a skill penalty when using it. Also I'd never define a computer as a Simple invention even if it was a small "cheap" computer. I consider price to define the minimum complexity of an invention but some things are going to be relatively complex for their price.

This is IMHO one of the places where the GURPS TL scale breaks down.

Take Personal computers which is part of TL8. But the Apple II personal computer came out in 1977 which is TL7. The assembly lines that made that personal computer weren't TL8 but TL7. This is a real world example of a TLx civilization mass producing a TLx+1 product. Then you have the converse. If a modern iMac is TL8 then it is the same TL as Apple II and yet there are so different that you would almost say they were in different TLs.

Another example is the Atomic Bomb (TL7) which was being made by a TL6 civilization until somewhere in the 1950 when Borderline technology became the norm.

Conversely compare a 1920s car (Late TL6) with a 1960s car (mid TL7) - there just isn't that much a difference.

Real world civilization are more Borderline and Split technologies then a monolithic TL. We have TL8 computer powered by a largely TL7 powergrid with power coming from a mishmash of TL6 (Coal, oil, hydroelective) and TL7 (Nuclear).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

T

This is IMHO one of the places where the GURPS TL scale breaks down.

Take Personal computers which is part of TL8. But the Apple II personal computer came out in 1977 which is TL7. The assembly lines that made that personal computer weren't TL8 but TL7.

Came out in 1977 which is TL 7. No. It isn't. It's just a marginally (3 years) early example of TL 8 covered by totally conventional inventing rules. And if any gadgeteer chooses to waste his superpower on inventing stuff that everyone's going to have in five years anyway, he is definitely not going to be revolutionizing society any more than the inventors who don't have superpowers.

Another example is the Atomic Bomb (TL7) which was being made by a TL6 civilization until somewhere in the 1950 when Borderline technology became the norm.

No it wasn't. The benchmark for TL 7 is 1940. Of course like all TL benchmarks the caveat should be an implicit "give or take".

Conversely compare a 1920s car (Late TL6) with a 1960s car (mid TL7) - there just isn't that much a difference.

It operates on the same principles and does the same thing. But it wouldn't be possible for 1920s engineers to mass produce copies of it. The 1960s car is machined to finer tolerances than were possible using 1920s mass manufacturing methods.

Real world civilization are more Borderline and Split technologies then a monolithic TL. We have TL8 computer powered by a largely TL7 powergrid with power coming from a mishmash of TL6 (Coal, oil, hydroelective) and TL7 (Nuclear).

Why yes, we do still use pencils and knives. But that's not actually a split technology. It's just a reflection of the fact that each technology level includes technologies of the past because no significantly better technology has come along to replace them. A TL 8 kitchen knife won't be any better than a TL 6 kitchen knife. and we still use 1911 revolvers. So it's only a split technology when a culture is importing technology that it can't produce locally and can't afford to buy enough to totally replace what it is producing locally.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

A TL 8 kitchen knife won't be any better than a TL 6 kitchen knife. and we still use 1911 revolvers. So it's only a split technology when a culture is importing technology that it can't produce locally and can't afford to buy enough to totally replace what it is producing locally.

"Split Tech Level" is defined on page B511 as when a society has a specific technological field at a different TL than the baseline for that society. It gives an example: "TL8 (Communications TL7, Medical TL9)."

"Borrowed Technology" is defined on page B513 as when a society is familiar with the products of another TL but can't produce them locally. It gives an example of a TL2 society that is familiar with the TL3 weapons of visitors but which can't produce them locally. It expresses this example as "TL2/3." This is what you're describing above.

The fact that TL8 knives are essentially the same as TL6 knives — the advances aren't meaningful in game terms* — has no specific term in the rules.

*Except a good-quality TL8 melee weapon costs 40% less than the same weapon at TL6. But that's a consequence of the melee weapon quality rules changing after TL6, not with the general principle.