Planet Jumping Setting Premise Help

[Arith Winterfell]

I’m looking for help figuring out how to write up an advantage for my groups characters as part of a setting premise. I’m also looking for ideas on how these abilities existed would impact the setting.

The general idea of the campaign is that the heroes of our story are psychically gifted to be among the relatively rare people who can jump between worlds (same universe, different planets). The power is always “safe” in the respect that it won’t take you to an airless rock, or a planet whose atmosphere is deadly to humans. But that doesn’t prevent you from arriving in a dangerous situation (say arriving in the middle of a forest fire). There is limited ability to control where you arrive on a planet. Say the general area, but no real exact positioning (again not into a volcano or what not).

The jumps are often blind, but based on a vague sense of where you will end up (generally a vague vision what kind of world to expect, e.g. a cityscape, an alien forest, etc.) They can bring one other person with them (even if that person can’t jump) or a small amount of equipment outside of themselves.

These jumps have long periods where they can’t be used, say potentially weeks or longer, forcing the characters to sort out and deal with issues on that new world for a while before being able to leave again.

Finally, I’m optionally toying with the idea of these jumpers drawing the attention of extra-dimensional incorporeal beings that hunt them. Jumping confuses these beings though, allowing someone who jumps freedom from them for a time. Basically, heroes must deal with them showing up (finally catching up) maybe close to when the heroes can jump again, creating a push that keeps the campaign moving from world to world. But I might not use this option.

Lastly, I was wanting to explore how people with these abilities would shape my sci-fi setting. I was pondering the idea that humanity sent out self-replicating machines to terraform worlds across the galaxy to make them habitable for human life. While jumpers make a living ferrying people or equipment to distant worlds (possibly distant worlds far beyond this galaxy if the power only reaches “safe” worlds but has no actual distance limitation). These people also have other psychic powers as well. Some worlds that have fallen into techno-barbarism or that were simply isolationist purists in the first place often view these people as “witches.” While others simply wander the universe exploring the various forms humanity has taken over the centuries. There are many divergent bio-engineered humans, but few to no true intelligent alien races (though many worlds with alien life). Being psychically gifted does seem to pass down generations biologically, and robots can’t use such powers, but nobody has been able to figure out what genes (if any?) grant these setting premise powers as they don’t always appear each generation (some skip generations and so forth).

So how to I write up these setting premise powers? How do I keep the party together in the process? What other sorts of repercussions of this setting premise have I not yet considered in this sci-fi setting?

[Varyon]

First off, let me note that, for your campaign, you don't need to actually write up the abilities, you can just fiat that the characters have them (as all the PC's do). That said, if you want to do this as a thought experiment (or think you might later have this stuff apply to individual characters in a different campaign)...

The starting point here should be Jumper. Yes, by default that's supposed to go between dimensions, but the difference between "planet in a different dimension" and "planet in a different solar system" is largely academic, the actual function is largely the same. I believe that has rules for characters with the same power being able to either hitch a ride or follow the target's "jump signature" to reliably go to the same place, so those should work for keeping the party together. Adjust as needed for the way you want it to work. There's not really a mechanic for an ability that can only be used every few sessions (I assume the idea is that the characters will jump to a new planet, stay there for a few sessions, then jump to another), however, so you may have to improvise an appropriate Limitation value there, probably based on Limited Use (1/day is -40%; following the rough pattern from that, where it's +10% per ~doubling of the uses and thus -10% per ~halving, -50% for once every 2 days, -60% for once every 3-4 days, -70% for once every 5-10 days, and -80% for once every 11-20 days).

For the extradimensional entities, I feel those would be fine to handle as an Enemy with a Frequency of Appearance that matches up with when the power will be recharged. Note you do not have to roll for appearance, so long as you have them show up proportionally as often as they should if you were rolling (an Enemy with a Frequency of Appearance of 6 should show up roughly 10% of the time, while one with FoA 9 should show up roughly a third of the time). An additional option would be for there to be escalating strangeness that surrounds the PC's as the Others try to track them down, which would justify them having Weirdness Magnet.

One thing to consider for a campaign like this is the possibility of wildly different cultures on the various planets. Stargate SG-1 handled this by having a genius with Cultural Adaptability, an encyclopedic knowledge of the various ancient Earth cultures, and an exceptional talent for linguistics, in addition to most of the team having high Appearance and Charisma and being genuinely likable people (Teal'c was a partial exception on account of his stoicism, but he was genuinely compassionate and most of the cultures were perfectly comfortable with a no-nonsense stoic; he did run into issues due to being jaffa, however). Stargate Atlantis largely lacked a Daniel-equivalent and their Sam-equivalent wasn't quite as charismatic (and while I'm not good at gauging the appearance of men, I suspect Amanda Tapping had a higher Appearance than David Hewlett), but they made up for it with roughly half the team being Andromeda natives who were already familiar with the bulk of the cultures. The fact that, in both cases, the cultures they interacted with tended to hold warriors in high esteem while they themselves had combat skills in line with Spec Ops certainly didn't hurt them (well, it got them off on a bad footing with the pacifistic cultures, but that's where their social skills had a chance to shine).

So, you're probably going to want most of the characters to be adept at handling a wide range of cultures, probably with one or two capable of working as Face characters (pretty much everyone in the Stargate shows worked as a Face character at some point, but that was largely so the show could focus on a particular character for that episode, switch things up a bit, etc). If Jumpers are integrated as a big part of society, that's likely already part of the training and experiences they go through when working as transporters.

If you do go with the extradimensional beings route, you'll also need to decide if this is something specific to these characters - maybe they harmed such a being's offspring ("No Man has blinded me!") and are now being hunted, or even just cursed to be unable to settle in one place for long - or if it's something that all Jumpers have to deal with. The latter will mean societal effects - the planets will have ways to mitigate the disruptions caused by the extradimensional beings, probably including "encouraging" the Jumpers to go elsewhere as soon as they can.. and they may also face discrimination of some sort, as bringers (or at least harbingers) of woe. The former won't, although it's certainly possible the characters will acquire a Reputation regarding the beings chasing them.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Varyon

First off, let me note that, for your campaign, you don't need to actually write up the abilities, you can just fiat that the characters have them (as all the PC's do).

Agreed, but there's a caveat. If everyone who has these abilities has identical ones, then fiat'ing them as campaign advantages is easy.

However, if some people have better or worse versions, and PCs can improve their abilities with character points, then it's best to have costs for them.

I agree that the basic ability is Jumper, but it looks as if Warp might be involved too.

There is limited ability to control where you arrive on a planet. Say the general area, but no real exact positioning (again not into a volcano or what not).

OK, so I jump from my home base on Earth, to Planet FMC-032, and wait for my recharge period. Now I want to jump back to Earth. How precisely can I pick my arrival point on Earth? Do I actually have the ability to arrive in any general area on Earth? If so, I have a limited form of Warp.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell

I’m looking for help figuring out how to write up an advantage for my groups characters as part of a setting premise. I’m also looking for ideas on how these abilities existed would impact the setting.

The general idea of the campaign is that the heroes of our story are psychically gifted to be among the relatively rare people who can jump between worlds (same universe, different planets). The power is always “safe” in the respect that it won’t take you to an airless rock, or a planet whose atmosphere is deadly to humans. But that doesn’t prevent you from arriving in a dangerous situation (say arriving in the middle of a forest fire). There is limited ability to control where you arrive on a planet. Say the general area, but no real exact positioning (again not into a volcano or what not).

You need to define the minimum level of the range, and why. In other words, if John can Jump from Earth to Generica IV, why can't he Jump from NYC to Denver?

Also, you probably need to be make the power a little more specific on 'dangerous situations'. There are a lot of places that' are widely 'midrange' on risk. That is, they'll kill you in a hurry if you're not ready but are quite survivable if you're prepared.

For ex, say Janet Jumps from Generica IV to Earth...and arrives in the middle of Antarctica in light summer clothes or less. Technically habitable, you can certainly breathe the air and so forth, but (un)equipped as she is, it's going to kill her fairly quickly anyway, even in summer. In winter, it'll kill her fast.

Or she could arrive in the middle of the Sahara Desert, miles from the nearest help or water. Again, quite survivable if prepared but deadly fairly quickly otherwise.

Your Jumpers probably need to be able to 'tune' it a little more than you're description implied.

The jumps are often blind, but based on a vague sense of where you will end up (generally a vague vision what kind of world to expect, e.g. a cityscape, an alien forest, etc.) They can bring one other person with them (even if that person can’t jump) or a small amount of equipment outside of themselves.

These jumps have long periods where they can’t be used, say potentially weeks or longer, forcing the characters to sort out and deal with issues on that new world for a while before being able to leave again.

Here's a suggestion: the Jump power usually needs to cool off before it's used again, days or weeks as you said. But maybe a Jumper can risk using it again quickly, at a huge Fatigue cost and with a lot of other resource costs, and maybe knock it out for months or years if s/he does. That might give them a 'get out of Antarctica in an emergency' card to play if they really need it, but be expensive enough not to be used casually.