GURPS Meta-Tech

[Kromm]

⚠️ Important Warning! ⚠️
⛧ Contains Bound Demonic Force ⛧
⚠️ Do Not Remove Case! ⚠️

— Engraving on silver plate on . . . whatever this thing is

Want to build a cool character ability? GURPS has you covered! Break out GURPS Powers and its many add-ons, crunch the numbers, and you'll be good to go. If your power is channeled through a gadget, crunching a few extra numbers lets you add such risks as breakage and theft – although the results will still cost character points and still work like an innate gift.

Want to pay money for the thing and have it work like technology? That calls for GURPS Meta-Tech, a system for converting abilities bought with points into gear bought with cash. It addresses size, TL, weight, power consumption, operation skills, damage, repairs, and everything else that genuine equipment requires. However, it doesn't stick to the mundane . . . you can choose from more than 20 origins ranging from plausible bio-tech or nanotech, through hopeful steam-tech or superscience, to outright madness like ontological remnants or even Cthulhutech. These origins, and a collection of modifiers to adjust the artifact's appearance and operation as an artifact, can be as important as the item's intended functions – they are not just "flavor."

And as befits a book on DIY gadgets, there are plenty of knobs and switches to adapt all of this to your campaign. You can keep it simple and pick the TLs and origins that exist there, or you can plunge into building complex abilities (some with new traits useful for characters as well), creating new origins, tweaking item rarity, and even letting PCs design their own meta-tech. Lest it all sound overwhelming, have no fear: There's also an entire appendix with over a dozen worked examples to show you how it's done!

—

Store Link: https://warehouse23.com/products/gurps-meta-tech

[Christopher R. Rice]

First post is mine. Mwhahahaha.

[Kromm]

And yes, I know it was out two days ago. However, this is our traditional release day. :)

[Refplace]

As its a gear book, I also ordered the physical copy. I do most of my work with the PDF these days, but physical is good for browsing away from a computer and just a relaxing way to read. I find physical also good for just randomly opening to a page for inspiration on what to build next.

[whswhs]

Well, okay, I'll repeat myself: I can see that the BCMs in Meta-Tech correspond fairly closely to the power modifiers in Powers, and I can see that commonly they can be parsed in terms of the power modifier components spelled out there. For example, an enchanted item's -0.1 equates neatly to the -5% for a magical ability being subject to countermagic and dispel and -5% for its being sensitive to local mana levels. But I can't reverse engineer all of the novel modifiers here. And I'd like to be able to do so, because I might want to borrow some of them for my current project.

In particular, I'm interested in Chthulhutech, Materials, and Necromantic as options, either to port over or to provide components I can use. So if anyone feels able to analyze what those components are I would be interested and appreciative.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by whswhs

In particular, I'm interested in Chthulhutech, Materials, and Necromantic as options, either to port over or to provide components I can use. So if anyone feels able to analyze what those components are I would be interested and appreciative.

Part of the issue is that they do not work exactly like normal power modifiers. The original draft used PM's but it sometimes got kinda wonky. Power modifiers apply to the use of an ability and these origin modifiers apply to both use and to manufacture. I personally was very unhappy when the manufacturing modifiers got applied as a PM and was glad for the change to what I feel worked out as simpler and more fair cost wise.
Depending on what your project is its probably best to break them up into normal PMs and then apply some penalty, cost, etc to manufacturing. Such as a rarity for materials cost as a simple CF instead of a power modifier.

[Scriptorian]

Just finished reading through the whole thing. Good stuff.

Regarding the Power Corrupts option for Cthulhutech and Enchanted items: I'm presuming it functions like the Corrupting modifier (defaulting to 20% the point cost of the underlying ability in Corruption). This does raise the question of why it can substitute for the -0.4 BCM of the default Fright Check rules, where all other indications are that it should be worth -0.2 BCM.

But my real wonder concerns how often to apply the Corruption (the Corrupting modifier itself doesn't actually say). Intuitively, it seems like the Corruption should replace batteries and hence function at the same intervals, like the Enchanted Item options. But the implication of being able to add the -0.2 BCM Corrupting to Enchanted items on top of the normal battery-replacement options is that it does not itself interact with the battery requirement.

Making this even harder for me to parse is that the normal Enchanted Item options replacing batteries and adding -0.1 BCM seem like an incredibly efficient trade-off compared to the normal +4 CF to waive battery requirements. It strikes me as weird they provide a discount when, if anything, they seem less restrictive than normal battery requirements. Any insight as to the reasoning here would be appreciated; maybe I've missed something.

At the very least, a strict reading suggests 1d-3 Corruption per "use" (at -0.1 BCM) would be legal variant to replaces batteries but that this would independent of the -0.2 (-0.4?) BCM Corrupting modifier (which, presumably, would also apply at the same "use" intervals).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Part of the issue is that they do not work exactly like normal power modifiers. The original draft used PM's but it sometimes got kinda wonky. Power modifiers apply to the use of an ability and these origin modifiers apply to both use and to manufacture. I personally was very unhappy when the manufacturing modifiers got applied as a PM and was glad for the change to what I feel worked out as simpler and more fair cost wise.

Did the original version of Materials include manufacturing modifiers? If so, what did they come to?

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Well, okay, I'll repeat myself: I can see that the BCMs in Meta-Tech correspond fairly closely to the power modifiers in Powers, and I can see that commonly they can be parsed in terms of the power modifier components spelled out there. For example, an enchanted item's -0.1 equates neatly to the -5% for a magical ability being subject to countermagic and dispel and -5% for its being sensitive to local mana levels. But I can't reverse engineer all of the novel modifiers here. And I'd like to be able to do so, because I might want to borrow some of them for my current project.

In particular, I'm interested in Chthulhutech, Materials, and Necromantic as options, either to port over or to provide components I can use. So if anyone feels able to analyze what those components are I would be interested and appreciative.

Page 21, making your own origins, gives a breakdown on how to write up your own. I read over it while looking at the origins in the book and they match. You may have glanced over it, but it answers your concerns about coming up with the BCM costs.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

Page 21, making your own origins, gives a breakdown on how to write up your own. I read over it while looking at the origins in the book and they match. You may have glanced over it, but it answers your concerns about coming up with the BCM costs.

I looked at it, but I don't see which of those I would use to get +0.7 for Materials. Nor am I sure how to translate all of the options listed there into power modifier percentages.

Can you write up Materials using the list on page 21 and show how to get the BCM?