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Old 07-07-2020, 04:54 PM   #1
MakDemonik
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Default Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

I have been playing GURPS in the Infinite Worlds setting for a while now and while I'm enjoying it quite a bit, I did find some things under explained. I know many things could probably be answered with. "How do you want it to work in your version of homeline" but I'm still interested in peoples opinions.
Of course if anyone wants to join the questions, please do so!

1) First up is the matter of cross timeline communications. From what I gather it is implied that there exists no conventional way to contact one timeline from another. There is the experimental Para-chronic Field generator that lets you see things and communicate one way. There is also the mention of Intraworld conveyors having a 'emergency compartment' that sends out a message. Which for me heavily implies that it is quite a bother to send a message. But there is no clear ruling on that.
How accessible do you make such messages in your campaign. Is sending a small pod something common, or a pricey ordeal (looking at how costly the conveyors are)

2) Staying on the topic of conveyor price. How much do you think a single jump costs? The book mentions that the conveyors themselves are ULTRA expensive. Multi million dollar machines but even then it's hinted that this is a purposefully high cost for non-Infinity people. But how much would a single jump cost. hundreds of thousands? Tens of thousands? Or is it mostly the cost of the energy itself which is not that much frankly.

3) Eraser - Ho boi. When my players saw the Eraser drug entry they went wild with it. Standard Loadout assumes 30 ampules of this drug. No side effects in even extreme overdoses. Exists in many forms. And an unforgiving HT-3 roll or immediate incapacitation.
The problematic part is. It doesn't mention any delay, what type of penetrative agent it is (contact, blood, respiratory, etc), how long the target stays out. Just that he looses over 45 minutes of memories.
This quickly became not only the go to 'save state' mechanic. Where they get do overs if they mess something up. It also became a literal room clearer. Players pointed out that Basic Set mentions under HT-Drug creation that gasses take effect almost immediately (and most example gas poisons also heavily emphasize No Delay) and also that 10 doses are usually enough to clear a room. With 4-5 players they start missions with 120-150
Basically. For a few games everything became just 'spraying every single person with Eraser, to immediately take him out' - nothing besides a gas mask helps). Or just take out 12 to 15 entire rooms out immediately.
When I tried to control this making them roll for Liquid Projector (Aerosol) with a -5 to the face. They considered buying Targeted attacks (Eraser to the face) just to overcome it.

... In the end I just declared that It has a full minute delay and that the gas form is highly regulated for special cases only (and 10 times cost, as per Bio-Tech) and they have to put up with the standard skin-contact injectors. All that to end what was quickly escalating into a true Squirt-Gun War. (I wonder who will get the reference)

Maybe It's just my players being munchkins, but please tell me whether Eraser abuse was a problem in your group too or how you home-rule the stats.

4) the ISP or Infinity Service Pistol. Another contender for Single-Best-Strategy. I get that the ISP is a prototype 'futuristic TL9 super weapon' but really.
It deals more damage than a Desert Eagle at 4d+1 Pi+ shooting smaller ammunition at a Rate of Fire that rivals a machine pistol, while having a 15! bullet magazine. Built in smart-gun electronics and aiming aids on-top of an amazing accuracy of 3 (better than any HT pistol). And all the while being as compact as a Glock. And while being twice as heavy than most handguns still requiring only ST 8... but the recoil is higher I guess?

I get this is a TL9 weapon ahead of its time but... even Ultra-Tech weapons give 10mm Heavy Handguns only 3d pi+, and that at minST10 and a lower Accuracy too!

It's just a mess... and the moment the players saw this weapon in the Standard Loadout the entirety of High Tech might me literally wiped out to non existence as no other gun will ever even come close to being considered in any way again. Which is unfortunate.

This is I think my worst problem so far. As this is basically The Iconic Weapon of infinity so I feel like I cant just disallow it anymore. It's too good to make any sense and destroys the whole gear selection process while also being too iconic to be removed. (I just know that if I touch it at least one player will scream bloody murder and choke to compliance)

I don't know whether these stats are a mistake, and should be 3d Pi+ at best or it's me who just can't handle his players but I don't know what else to do besides... lowering the damage to 3d Pi+ claiming that "it probably was a mistake and should always have been 3d as the Ultra-tech book says."
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Old 07-07-2020, 05:11 PM   #2
Prince Charon
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

Personally, the only Infinity Unlimited-centred game that I've considered doing (that I can recall at the moment) would be set very early on, circa 1997, when they didn't have Eraser or the ISP, just 'mundane TL8 tech plus conveyors & projectors' (which also limits cross-world communications to 'just going there'). They might not even have Two-Quantum Conveyors or Projectors, yet, and they have only just started encountering magic, psi abilities, the Cabal, et cetra. The PCs might even be the first to run into it, or the first to encounter evidence of the Centrum.

Mind you, there are Real Life drugs that can erase a portion of one's memory, but they aren't as reliable or lacking in side effects as Eraser. I'd still expect them to be issued to teams going out to places where The Secret is still a secret, which would be most of them.
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Old 07-07-2020, 07:38 PM   #3
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

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Originally Posted by MakDemonik View Post
I get this is a TL9 weapon ahead of its time but... even Ultra-Tech weapons give 10mm Heavy Handguns only 3d pi+, and that at minST10 and a lower Accuracy too!
[/I]
It's not a mistake. It's an Electro-Thermal weapon as described on p.139 of UT. It's not quite expensive enough for the ET and Fine (Accurate) modifiers but that probably is a holdover from 3e when ET gave you +1 ACC automatically.

IW was a very early 4e book, but even in UT this is a mid-to-late TL9 weapon.

In terms of Real World weapons see this thread....

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2280521

The weapon in the link will give you virtually the same stats (including the ACC) without the ET gimmick but it will cost a lot more.

In some regards Gurps books may have underestimated the dangerousness of advanced weapons.
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Old 07-07-2020, 07:57 PM   #4
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

For Eraser, a potential option (although it would cause a disconnect if changed in the middle of a campaign) would be to get rid of the associated knockout effect and instead simply have it temporarily cause anterograde amnesia, preventing those exposed to it from forming new long-term memories for some amount of time. They'll be able to function well enough to keep fighting, run away, or whatever, but will forget events from several minutes prior (essentially, they'll have a several-minute cache of short-term memory, and will be continuously overwriting the oldest bits instead of shunting them over to long-term memory). Clever ones will realize their memory is failing them and make written/typed backups to help keep things straight, but by the time they realize to do that, they'll likely have already forgotten whatever important thing you needed them to forget. This lets Eraser largely function the way it's meant to (removing problematic memories) without turning it into an "I win" knockout drug. And, yes, much of the above is stolen from a plotline from the webcomic Freefall.

For a bit of dark humor, you could also have it be that because your characters use the stuff so excessively, it has now been discovered Eraser can have serious side-effects, and they can't use it with impunity anymore.
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Old 07-08-2020, 08:22 AM   #5
DangerousThing
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

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For a bit of dark humor, you could also have it be that because your characters use the stuff so excessively, it has now been discovered Eraser can have serious side-effects, and they can't use it with impunity anymore.
You're evil! I like it.

Seriously, I'm kicking myself for not seeing that. Have them hear about some of the people they sprayed having mental problems, then one after another they have stokes, or their heads explode, or something.

If the characters don't get the connection, then some researchers sees the data and examines the characters and tells them that they are near the toxic exposure.

Don't tell the characters, but I would have it that this has little to do with Eraser, but rather somebody is tracking down the characters and killing anybody who has had their memories erased to make sure that they *never* remember.
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Old 07-08-2020, 08:51 AM   #6
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

An alternative option would be to decide the way they've been using Eraser is not what the brass intended, and in fact there are other problems cropping up from their overuse, such as other timelines starting to try to reverse-engineer it (from samples taken from rooms the PC's cleared with the stuff) or bogeyman stories formed from the fragmented memories of those affected (strengthened by the fact that, yes, an entire base/gang/whatever found themselves waking up with big holes in their memories). Perhaps their supervisor brings them in and gives them a stern talking-to of the proper use of Eraser (erasing memories of those who uncover problematic facts, but whom it would be inappropriate to just execute to silence). In both cases, more subtle agents have probably been sent in to fix the damage the PC's caused and protect the Secret, which is going to make the higher-ups question if the PC's are even worth employing. Eraser won't be taken away - it's too important to have access to it to protect the Secret - but the PC's may officially be put on notice to stop abusing it or they risk losing their jobs (or being reassigned).
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Old 07-08-2020, 09:55 AM   #7
MakDemonik
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
For Eraser, a potential option (although it would cause a disconnect if changed in the middle of a campaign) would be to get rid of the associated knockout effect and instead simply have it temporarily cause anterograde amnesia, preventing those exposed to it from forming new long-term memories for some amount of time. They'll be able to function well enough to keep fighting, run away, or whatever, but will forget events from several minutes prior (essentially, they'll have a several-minute cache of short-term memory, and will be continuously overwriting the oldest bits instead of shunting them over to long-term memory).
That seems actually quite reasonable. Maybe make the "Unconsciousness effect" more like a Daze like in Men in Black, where they are hazy for a moment but would still probably snap back to reality quickly if someone attacked them.
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Old 07-08-2020, 10:01 AM   #8
MakDemonik
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

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Originally Posted by DangerousThing View Post
You're evil! I like it.

Seriously, I'm kicking myself for not seeing that. Have them hear about some of the people they sprayed having mental problems, then one after another they have stokes, or their heads explode, or something.
"After believing it has no side effects for years the Paralabs scientists now discovered that 67% of people treated with Eraser many years back developed Alzheimer's Syndrome."

Let's just hope no player decided to use Eraser on his sister because she saw something she shouldn't have.
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Old 07-08-2020, 10:05 AM   #9
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

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Originally Posted by MakDemonik View Post
"After believing it has no side effects for years the Paralabs scientists now discovered that 67% of people treated with Eraser many years back developed Alzheimer's Syndrome."
It'd be funny instead of tragic if they developed World Jumper(Involuntary) instead of Alzheimer's.
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Old 07-08-2020, 01:55 PM   #10
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Default Re: Infinity Unlimited Questions - Gear and Whatnot

Turns out chronic trace exposure to Eraser can trigger periods of lost memory. Drop the PCs in some dire situation with no idea how they got there and then have to work their way out while figuring out what happened.
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