04-21-2018, 09:46 PM | #41 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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I don't think that it counts as superscience unless your original fictional source presents it as a radical new technology, rather than just being technologically overoptimistic. And of course you're free to make it so in your campaign, as a way of explaining things that you and your players know don't really work. But that's a change from the source material. And it may not be the best approach; sometimes it's better not to think about the scientific implications, or license your players to invent other technologies that exploit those implications, but just to accept that in your story you're not going to worry about the acceleration of being shot from a huge cannon, or the energy storage of a primary battery, or the effect of the square-cube law on human beings thirty feet tall.
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04-21-2018, 10:14 PM | #42 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
I can say a lot of things. But they don't. Instead they say "super science" or "ethnic cool".
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But let me go back to my original stance. It doesn't much matter whether it's super science or not. The only time it would matter is when your some kind of purist who wants to stick to only what is possible. And such a purist would not put the Nautilus in the 19th century. |
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04-21-2018, 10:26 PM | #43 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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Verne does present the batteries as a high-end electrical technology, one more powerful than the batteries then in common use; but he identifies them as batteries of a specific design, using specific metals as electrodes. He's too optimistic about how much energy they can provide, by a long way. But he doesn't claim that they're a fundamentally new technology; he claims that they're an advanced version of a technology that already exists.
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04-21-2018, 11:58 PM | #44 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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It's where a busy GM points their players to and says "choose anything from TL6 without a ^ marker". Whether technology of mundane providence but marvelous performance, such as Nautilus' superbatteries, should be classed as superscience is a more meta question. There have been many similar arguments here where people have wanted to apply the superscience label, when for example the performance of mundane spaceship rockets has been optimistically enhanced for narrative reasons, or looking at X-ray lasers* which just combine two existing mundane technologies in an optimistic manner. It looks like we need a new label for mundane but cinematic technology, as I'd prefer to save the superscience label for the real comic book or space opera level of impossible technology. * PS- Actually, I misremembered. The discussion was about gamma ray lasers, and probably being handheld.
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04-22-2018, 12:28 AM | #45 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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04-22-2018, 12:33 AM | #46 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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Consider a parallel case: Superman or the Hulk can pick up a tank, or even a battleship, and hold it over their heads. A realistic structural analysis would suggest that that much weight on the surface area of two hands (even two Hulk-sized hands) would put a hole through the hull and result in the battleship dropping (or perhaps some other structural failure). But that doesn't happen. Why not? One option is to say that Superman isn't really using his physical strength; he's telekinetically applying force to the entire lower surface. That's an in-universe explanation that involves giving him an extra and quite different power. I believe that John Byrne used that explanation, back in the day. Another option is to say that Superman is strong enough to lift that weight, so he can do so, and we aren't going to analyze strengths of materials, because this isn't that kind of story. He can lift battleships because he's incredibly strong; most of his abilities are normal human abilities scaled up (originally, in the first Siegel and Shuster stories, all of them). Of course in a campaign, you can choose either option. But if you choose the first, you're giving Superman or the Hulk the special power to lift massive objects without threatening their structural integrity. If you choose the second, you're not; you're just not letting the physics police interfere with your story, in which that's just how superhuman strength works.
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04-22-2018, 12:59 AM | #47 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
To be clear, I'm not saying that settings can't operate on cinematic logic or ignore realism for the sake of narrative flow. However, even if Verne thought the superbatteries (and everything else about its design) were plausible, you need something to point out to a GM who's prospectively using the Nautilus in their game that no, normally 19th century submarines can't go 5 days without surfacing.
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04-22-2018, 06:22 AM | #48 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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Is is accurate to call the Nautilus TL(5+1)^ or should it be TL6^ because it uses a cinematic version of already existing technology? Quote:
Electropathic Belt (TL(5+1) or TL6): In the real world this didn't do anything. In a superscience setting "it increases the wearer's HT to 10, if it was below that level". (Steamtech 31) N-Rays ("discovered" in 1895): they were actually the result of experimenter bias. In a superscience world they could actually exist. Phrenology (lampooned in Bowery Bugs; TL5): the shape of, size of, and bumps on the skull denotes intelligence and certain personality traits. The Tempest Prognosticator (TL5): appeared in the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851. It was supposed to predict the weather. In the real world it, at best, amounted to little more then a very crude barometer but in a superscience setting it can give a +2 to Meteorology. If the GM wants to whole hog with the superscience it can predict earthquakes as well. (Steamtech pg 51) Lord Kelvin's Water-Drop Electrostatic Generator (TL5): In the real world it has been relegated to the demonstrate the principles of electrostatics in physics education. In a superscience world it could be more useful then Volta's Pile. (Steamtech pg 52) Cheirometer TL(5+1): Better known as the Bertillon System of Criminal Identification system it served the same function as fingerprints by "the meticulous measurement and recording of different parts and components of the human body." It was largely replaced by fingerprinting though it still survives in the form of mug shots. (Steamtech pg 58) Last edited by maximara; 04-22-2018 at 06:28 AM. |
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04-22-2018, 06:50 AM | #49 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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The choice only really matters in two cases: 1) if the GM allows characters to use the same skills for super science tech and normal tech of the same TL directly or with less penalties. In such case a characters normal skill can be TL5+1 for a steampunk world or TL 6 for our world. 2)Cross dimensional travel. Again because a character may have a skill as 5+1^ or 6^ and gets different penalties. Quote:
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04-22-2018, 09:23 AM | #50 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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