Monster concept: technovore

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by mhd

The OP mentioned unraveling rope, so I'm sure we're operating on a conceptual level, not on a realistic one. It's most likely not about increasing entropy or generating an EMP pulse…

So if I load a bunch of unfinished gravel into a metallic bucket which my laboratory coilgun accelerates to lethal velocity while pointed at the technovore, what happens?

Does the creature react differently to being buried by a landslide generated by explosives rather than one created by natural weathering?

Such "conceptual levels" are great for TV episodes or novels... but seem to me fraught with problems for a collaborative role-playing game.

[Flyndaran]

I've often though of that from a different direction.
Magic able to create items that are stable to exist, but impossible to make.

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Proteus

So if I load a bunch of unfinished gravel into a metallic bucket which my laboratory coilgun accelerates to lethal velocity while pointed at the technovore, what happens?

Whatever the power's supposed to be doing. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying the there shouldn't be rules and limits to the power, it just looked to me like it wouldn't be physics. And never mind what kind of background concept would be chosen, the GURPS rules for it should be clear cut enough.

So range and speed definitely could be an issue. As could be the projectile-weapon distinction. Whatever you pay the points for…

[Nymdok]

Well, first you kind of need to define what you mean by tech, and it would probably help if you defined the TLs you were looking to affect.

It might be convenient to matrix it by TL and Engineering Specialty as Defined in Charachters. More generally, you might just want to do Chem Eng, Mech Eng, Elec Eng.

Just for a few Ideas.....

For electronic tech say TL7 something wearing a wool sweater giving off static shocks might raise plenty of havoc.

For Optical tech, just something blinky might do.

For mechanical, take the rust monster idea and adapt it to suit your needs. No reason it couldnt be an acetone spitting monster for plastics for example.

For all the brass in a steampunk game, a rustmonster is a good choice, but something that might instead feed on steam to bloat itself with water and heat might be good too. I also love the idea of methmites that would hover neear and feed on Natural Gas, then explode when you swat em. :)

Granted, they're all just gremlins spun wide, but I definately think its an idea worth exploring.

Nymdok

[cptbutton]

Nitpicking, I wouldn't call this a "technovore", because that word would be better for stuff that eats and assimilates technological items.

The Terminal Core in FLCL

Warlock in The New Mutants (If I am remembering him right.)

etc.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

Nitpicking, I wouldn't call this a "technovore", because that word would be better for stuff that eats and assimilates technological items.

The Terminal Core in FLCL

Warlock in The New Mutants (If I am remembering him right.)

etc.

Warlock is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking when I saw that title.

[SolemnGolem]

OP here.

Yes, "technovore" isn't the greatest name I could have come up with. Anybody who knows of a better term for "destroyer of tech" is welcome to submit it!

Also, I'm well aware of the vague description of tech - it's come up often enough in player discussions. (E.g. is a simple bullet "high tech"?) As has been posted above, this is something that's supposed to go with the spirit of "tech is useless against it" rather than a scientific parsing of physics terms. Some willing suspension of disbelief is here; I'll admit that upfront and apologize in advance to anybody whose sense of precision is offended by this. This all started off as a DnD gag, so necessarily it'll do some regrettable violence to realworld physics. :/


Right now I'm thinking something like making it an innate attack that does a certain amount of sonic-based damage as per an explosion, but only to technological items (hence it's strongest right next to the creature, but attenuates further away - living creatures without any tech enhancements are unaffected). The amount of damage it does to the device is positively correlated to the TL of the device, although I'm not sure if I want to do this linearly, geometrically, or exponentially.

Likewise, devices that are sufficiently damaged by the creature have a chance of self-destructing in a standard comedy explosion of its own, only this time it affects anything nearby. This would also be proportional to its TL, so somebody holding an SMG that blows up would suffer greater blackening of the face than somebody whose bow fell apart. I'm thinking this little explosion might do a die of damage equal to half the TL of the device rounded down.

[Walrus]

Powers have actual Dampen example at p.139.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by SolemnGolem

Yes, "technovore" isn't the greatest name I could have come up with. Anybody who knows of a better term for "destroyer of tech" is welcome to submit it!

You might consider "technoclast" (parallel to "iconoclast") or, to introduce much more obscurity and spelling difficulty, "technophthore."

I'm well aware of the vague description of tech.... [T]his is something that's supposed to go with the spirit of "tech is useless against it" rather than a scientific parsing of physics terms.... This all started off as a DnD gag, so necessarily it'll do some regrettable violence to realworld physics.

A gag is all well and good -- and if that's all your players are looking for, then you're fine, and you hardly need any actual mechanics, just a wave of the plot device. But, again, you're being so vague that it seems a better gimmick for a short story or a TV episode, where the author is in complete control and can brush any inconveniences under the carpet, than for a collaborative role-playing adventure.

You've yet to supply an explanation that's fundamental to your concept for the creature: what, actually, is "tech"?

Is "tech" related to complexity, such that integrated circuits and clockwork suffer mightily? If that's the case, then do genetically modified organisms dissolve in the creature's presence? And shouldn't simple bulk chemical compounds, like gunpowder or even C4, be just fine?

On the other hand, is "tech" related to origin? Then a bullet in flight, because it has been worked by human effort and ingenuity, is not the same as any other lump of lead, even though both are just simple pieces of metal with no moving parts. Like a perverse inversion of David Brin's "Practice Effect," anything human beings touch and use becomes worse at attacking or damaging the creature. Of course, the creature's power should then also cause the dental fillings to spall out of the mouths of anyone confronting it.

And then we get into second-order effects. I already asked whether there was a difference between a rockfall caused by explosives or one that was "natural," or what happens when an attacker uses a high-tech gun to fire gravel as ammunition. One could go do extremes with this question, too: will the creature be incinerated by a falling meteor, unless the rock was nudged into re-entry by a robot or astronaut? If a geneered Alien-style monster spits acid (which it produces "naturally") at the creature, does the chemical attack work or not?

If you've already decided that there's only one solution to the problem -- "Hit it with a rock until it's dead" -- then I guess you don't really need to do any more work on the problem... but there's also not much point in having living, human players around rather than playing with a set of marionettes. On the other hand, if you work out the advantages and limits of the ability in such a way that you can coherently explain them to others, and live with the consequences, then your players have the option for a creative role, too.

[Kuroshima]

Techbane (warning, TVTroupes link) is a very good name for it, paralleling Livebane.

Again, what I used was a nature of the realm, so I didn't price it. I would not price it for a monster either, unless it was an Ally. I might use Static for it though, if I modeled it with advantages.