Converting Horizon Zero Dawn

[Kesendeja]

I'm about through with the game and I think it could be a great setting for a game. But I need some guidance.

1) Other than the Basic books, Powers, Ultratech and Low tech, what would you suggest?

2) Relitive Tech levels for each age, the Metal World and the present of the game. It's going to be mixed, but in what ways?

3) Templates to add to the different tribes.

4) Builds for the robots. Suggestions would be welcom.

As for the setting I'm going to be trawling the wiki for information.

[Varyon]

The After the End series will be useful. Yes, H:ZD is a great deal later than AtE typically assumes, but it still has a comparable schizotech thing going on, in large parts because the Hephaestus machines are available as sources of materials and technology. Some ruins are still available to scavenge (using the appropriate rules from AtE2), and honestly one of my first thoughts upon reading the Inventions, Upgrades, and Repairs section (immediately after the bit on Scavenging) was "This would work pretty well for H:ZD in GURPS."

The Metal World - and the machines that are still around - was I think around TL 10^. The post-Zero Dawn world is something like TL 0 for the Nora, TL 2 or 3 (maybe even 4) for the Oseram, and somewhere in between for the rest (the Banuk are more like the Nora, while the Carja are more like the Oseram). But then there's the big issue of the machines messing it all up - the Nora are arguably using the equivalent of stone, bone, and leather, but with many of their prey being made of advanced materials, they've got some impressive stuff on hand - and the Oseram are even better off, as they know how to tinker with robot parts to replicate more advanced technology. Personally, I'd probably just keep with AtE's general "TL 4, but more advanced stuff can be had at a premium of x2 cost per +1 TL."

For the machines themselves, note they should have low DR, and what DR they do have should be largely semi-ablative if not outright ablative. Even with weapons made from the same advanced materials as the machines use, a human with a spear isn't going to realistically be able to harm an appropriately-armored machine without this. I assume Hephaestus has some sort of built-in mental block preventing it from making such, with the Daemonic hunter-killers (which, while much more dangerous than other machines, can still be killed by humans with spears, bows, etc) being the best it can manage.

[cptbutton]

One thing I'm not sure how to handle: The various elemental substances. Blaze is straightforward enough, something hypergolic in air. And Chillwater is liquid nitrogen or somesuch. Metalburn is some acid.


But how do you do Purgewater or Glowblast?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

One thing I'm not sure how to handle: The various elemental substances. Blaze is straightforward enough, something hypergolic in air. And Chillwater is liquid nitrogen or somesuch. Metalburn is some acid.


But how do you do Purgewater or Glowblast?

I'm fairly confident Blaze isn't hypergolic with air - IIRC, most ammunition/traps crafted with it include a Sparker (to ignite it) and there are some cases in the game where you come across leaky Blaze containers, sitting in small puddles of the stuff without blowing up. It's made from processed plant matter as some sort of biofuel (I'm fairly confident the machines produce it using the same methods as the Faro Plague used to keep themselves powered, just as the Cauldrons use similar construction technology to the Horus machines). I agree Chillwater is likely LN2 or similar, and Metalburn is a strong acid. Purgewater I feel doesn't make a lot of sense, so I'd probably leave out those weapons (I suspect it's something like antifreeze, considering its description, but its game effect is weird - it makes machines unable to use elemental attacks, and also makes them more vulnerable to other elemental attacks). Glowblast is similarly bizarre, in that it's described as "plasma" but obviously doesn't burn like Blaze does. You could either go off the description and have it make projectiles and the like function like GURPS plasma guns (burning damage with an armor divisor), or go off the mechanics and make it some weird superscience energy source that causes things to blow up if they absorb too much in a short period of time (sorta like Gambit's mutant power).

For the other elements (including virtual elements like Tear), consider the following:

Tear: Probably most appropriately treated as something like Corrosion with No Wounding - it doesn't hurt individuals, but it will wreck (or at least detach) armor, gear, etc.

Shock: GURPS already has some rules for this; it's probably best handled as lethal electrical damage, but someone might work out how to make it function more like a TASER.

Adhesive: Has a Binding effect. Probably works best in conjunction with a simplified version of Technical Grappling, such as Fantastic Dungeon Grappling.

Corruption: This is another one that's really bizarre - in no small part because there's no Corruption effect from the machines Aloy uses Override on, despite her literally using the same methods as the Corruptors (her Override module was made from Corruptor parts). Maybe just have it be that Aloy's methodology (and later Sylens and the Sons of Prometheus, who used her methods) was more precise with a degree of finesse that the brute-force overrides by Corruptors didn't have. Corrupted machines leak caustic fluids, probably weakening the machines (they're more powerful in the game, but I'd just treat this as a game mechanic - or maybe have it be that Corrupted machines always use All Out Attack) in addition to poisoning the land they walk on. Corruption arrows and the like don't make much sense under this paradigm, unless we assume the leaking fluids contain some sort of nanomachine that can infect other machines (basically making Corruption communicable).

Berserk: This would probably make sense as a refinement of Corruption, above - it lacks the caustic, poisoning effect (which should help make Berserk machines more resilient, since they aren't corroding from the inside out), but still sends the machine into a crazed state. Note if you have Berserk apply to both humans and machines, you'll want two different methods involved, as it doesn't make sense for one method to work for both.

[Jareth Valar]

My question is, how do you duplicate the effect of Aloy's tech use?

I don't think she's raising her Tech Level, but she learned how to use her focus since she found it as a child. Is it just a Electronic Operation/TL 10 skill? Is she just putting points into a Technique to buy off the TL penalty, like reverse Anachronism?

What about her integrating with all of the tech later in the game?

I figure Sylens may have raised his TL, given he had special instruction, but not Aloy.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Jareth Valar

My question is, how do you duplicate the effect of Aloy's tech use?

I don't think she's raising her Tech Level, but she learned how to use her focus since she found it as a child. Is it just a Electronic Operation/TL 10 skill? Is she just putting points into a Technique to buy off the TL penalty, like reverse Anachronism?

What about her integrating with all of the tech later in the game?

I figure Sylens may have raised his TL, given he had special instruction, but not Aloy.

I don't know the lore of the game at all.
But if this "focus" is something only very few can do I would price it as an Unusual Background that just allow all of the stuff that are required for it to mimic the game-stuff.

If only some of the PC's in your game is going to have it, you can adjust the actual price of the UB to whatever you need to make it feel balanced to the players.

[Devin Lewis]

The focus is basically a wearable cell phone replacement with full Augmented Reality functions. She finds one as a little girl and teaches herself to use it. Others have found them in game and can use them. They also allow anyone with them to interact with any still functional tech found in the world.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Maz

I don't know the lore of the game at all.
But if this "focus" is something only very few can do I would price it as an Unusual Background that just allow all of the stuff that are required for it to mimic the game-stuff.

If only some of the PC's in your game is going to have it, you can adjust the actual price of the UB to whatever you need to make it feel balanced to the players.

The Focus is a device that sticks to the side of the head and, at the most basic, generates an augmented reality overlay, visible only to the user. This allows Aloy to interact with Metal World technology (many of the interfaces for such are only visible to those with a Focus). It can also analyze and predict actions - one of Aloy's first uses of it (and probably a big part of why her surrogate father, Rost, allows her to keep it) is to map out the movement patterns of machines so she can reach a young boy stuck in the middle of them without alerting them, then guide him to safety. Despite lack of access to the massive Apollo database (which was meant to hold the sum total of human knowledge), the Focus appears to have its own internal storage with some information (as a note, when she's first messing around with it, she looks at the bow in her hands and the interface displays the word "Bow"). It's also able to decipher other languages, interface wirelessly with various storage devices to access their contents, record and replay video, communicate with other Focuses in the area, etc - it's basically a smartphone with a really good AR suite and similar. I'd say that, between it, delving the ruins of the Metal World, tinkering, and so forth, she probably learned a lot of skills roughly at the TL of the Metal World (also a lot of the stuff was designed to be intuitive).

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Maz

I don't know the lore of the game at all.
But if this "focus" is something only very few can do I would price it as an Unusual Background that just allow all of the stuff that are required for it to mimic the game-stuff.

The "focus" is a device worn on the side of the head that projects an augmented reality display that can interface with other devices. Since the display is only visible to the wearer, I'm guessing it's a non-invasive neural interface. I've only played very briefly so far, so I assume there's a lot more that I haven't seen yet.

It's basically this game's version of an HEV Suit interface or Pip Boy. A diagetic excuse to present game information to the player.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Maz

I don't know the lore of the game at all.
But if this "focus" is something only very few can do I would price it as an Unusual Background that just allow all of the stuff that are required for it to mimic the game-stuff.

If only some of the PC's in your game is going to have it, you can adjust the actual price of the UB to whatever you need to make it feel balanced to the players.

Others have described it. As to the availability question, they are very very rare. In the first game only two people ever have one, by the end of the second game there the total known Focuses is in the dozens.