[IW] Why is McFly's Syndrome on Unique +0%?

[JCurwen3]

It seems like a big limitation (on the disadvantage, hence meaning it should give less points). With standard Unique, you just get wiped out if a time paradox happens that negates your existence.

For the same value, you can take McFly's Syndrome (Infinite Worlds, p. 181) and have time to fix things so you don't disappear at all.

In some ways it sounds like you have more temporal inertia (talking about the phenomenon in some time travel fiction, not the advantage Temporal Inertia) with McFly's Syndrome than someone with standard Unique.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

It seems like a big limitation (on the disadvantage, hence meaning it should give less points). With standard Unique, you just get wiped out if a time paradox happens that negates your existence.

For the same value, you can take McFly's Syndrome (Infinite Worlds, p. 181) and have time to fix things so you don't disappear at all.

In some ways it sounds like you have more temporal inertia (talking about the phenomenon in some time travel fiction, not the advantage Temporal Inertia) with McFly's Syndrome than someone with standard Unique.

Nobody is going to take Unique for their character. It's not for PCs because let's face it the only time a GM will just drop a rock on a PC is when the player is done with it or the GM is done with that player. Unique is something the GM gives to Allies. "Oh No! Decoy's birth has been prevented! I have to go back in time and bring him back from oblivion"

Taking McFly Syndrome for your character on the other hand guarantees that the GM will in fact have someone whack its grandpa at some point if the campaign lasts for a while. That's what it's for.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Nobody is going to take Unique for their character. It's not for PCs because let's face it the only time a GM will just drop a rock on a PC is when the player is done with it or the GM is done with that player. Unique is something the GM gives to Allies. "Oh No! Decoy's birth has been prevented! I have to go back in time and bring him back from oblivion"

Taking McFly Syndrome for your character on the other hand guarantees that the GM will in fact have someone whack its grandpa at some point if the campaign lasts for a while. That's what it's for.

I'm not sure this follows. In a time travel campaign, time paradoxes that wipe out a PC may not mean the end for that PC. As long as someone has Temporal Inertia (it may not even be one of the PCs, but an allied or other NPC), the party might try to fix the paradox or otherwise change time to restore the non-existent PC (much like the PC could help to do themselves within time limits with McFly's Syndrome).

The difference between Unique and Unique (McFly's Syndrome) really is whether you get to participate in the effort to make sure you continue to exist. With the former, you're gone, and must depend on someone to remember you and try to fix things to restore your existence... and if no one has Temporal Inertia and there's no record at all of your existence, you really are gone, short of some accidental fixing of the time paradox that wiped you out. With the latter, you actually have several hours to assist in that effort and have people continue to remember you.

So it still seems to me that them being priced the same is out of whack.

[Refplace]

I agree it seems out of whack.
I think its more an issue of the initial disad being underpriced.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I agree it seems out of whack.
I think its more an issue of the initial disad being underpriced.

It's price necessarily depends on how the game is going to handle timeline changes. Without some kind of technobabble acausality, inertia, sustained loops or the like, a character with Unique can't exist at all in a timeline in which anybody will ever invent a time machine that will travel to a point before his birth, since history will already have changed from the moment the machine arrived, erasing him.

All time travel campaigns must have something that inhibits that, or *time machines* are automatically self-erasing and will never exist. How dangerous Unique is will depend on exactly how the GM handwaves this problem. If history is unchangable, it's worth 0.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

BUt they do mean the player is out out of the game as long he doesn't exist. That's why players never get it.

Nothing says that the player can't play a different character.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

I'm not sure this follows. In a time travel campaign, time paradoxes that wipe out a PC may not mean the end for that PC. As long as someone has Temporal Inertia (it may not even be one of the PCs, but an allied or other NPC), the party might try to fix the paradox or otherwise change time to restore the non-existent PC

But the player still doesn't get to play. So they don't take it. Vanilla Unique is one of those disads like Cursed. Nobody actually gets them for their own characters so the price for Cursed should be based on how hard it should be to Afflict people with it, and the value of Unique should be based on how much it reduces an Allies utility.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

But the player still doesn't get to play. So they don't take it.

I took Unique *and* Temporal Inertia. No dopplegangers for me!

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

I took Unique *and* Temporal Inertia. No dopplegangers for me!

Those traits have mutually exclusive features.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Those traits have mutually exclusive features.

If I get less than the full benefit from either one, that's okay.