[RPGO] Blood & Circuits: So how is it?

[buzz]

When will this all see print (the paper kind)?

 

[PosterBoy]

When will this all see print (the paper kind)?

Yep, Feb 2005.

 

[Psion]

In a nutshell, computers are giving Intelligence scores which provide modifiers to programs they can run. Some programs grant access to Skills. "Skill Programs" can then be crafted/invented to allow the computer to run attempts at useful things like Pilot, Comp Use, Research, etc. It's a perfect superhero computer concept. But it also translates very well to "hacker/cracker" characters. There are purchase DC for all the catagories and mechanics for creating programs. However, the system is still very simple.

I like this very much. A continual problem I see in SF games is that if you presume too much capability in AI/computers, it takes humans out of the equations. This is a method of assigning capabilities that "expert system" type computers would have, but you still have plenty of room for humans to excel.

 

[Vigilance]

Anyway, I'll say that BnC wasn't quite what I expected, and didn't have quite what I had decided I'd like from the supers rules. The Unique Item power ... not sure if I'm reading it wrong, but it seems totally useless. If you get 10 Invention Points for each PP you put in it ... and a Desert Eagle clone is 190 IP, then you'd have to be 16th level before you could power the equivalence of a pretty normal handgun. Maybe I'm reading that wrong ... just seemed very weak in comparison with things like "Blast" which is a ranged weapon without any problems associated with being a device.

A handgun was just the first thing I thought of comparing it with.

Hm... yeah I do think that's a little FUBAR now that I look at it. Let me cogitate and I will have a fix for that tomorrow. I think perhaps 1 PP/30 might work.

My wife is looking the book over now, and I think she likes what she sees. This is a really great way to do what was so hard for us to do with her character earlier.

Between Smart levels and Super Intelligence and Feats, her character has some rather SICK bonuses to Craft skills. She comes up with a half-dozen crazy inventions she'd like to make every game and I'm usually left flipping through the book, trying to find the closest existing item and modify the DC to craft it ... and even with insane DCs, she regularly rolls well above 30 and meets them. This might be a better system.

That is the idea... I wanted to allow for characters like Mr Fantastic, Iron Man, and of course MACGUYVER!!!!!!

The night before, though, I'd gone through and statted up a "Gadgets" power for BnV based loosely off of the Gadgets power in M&M. This seemed like an elegant way of doing her "I can make anything!" power, by letting her spend an action-point and creating some super-science thingie that mimicked another (relatively weak) power at a fraction of her total power ranks. -I- liked it, but she wants to invent things and roll up invention points.

--fje

Thanks for the feedback

Chuck

 

[Vigilance]

I like this very much. A continual problem I see in SF games is that if you presume too much capability in AI/computers, it takes humans out of the equations. This is a method of assigning capabilities that "expert system" type computers would have, but you still have plenty of room for humans to excel.

One of the main design goals for this book was to make computers more useful. They are important and useful and the core rules really leave what an individual computer can do up to the GM unless the player is cracking a system.

Chuck

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I wanted to allow for characters like Mr Fantastic, Iron Man, and of course MACGUYVER!!!!!!

Now I'm humming the MacGuyver theme, Chuck. See what you've done?

"Now, I knew the toothpaste, when I mixed it with the saline solution and these croutons, would create SO4 ... what we call sulfuric acid. That sulfuric acid would eat through the bars in a little under 60 seconds, leaving me more than enough time to scrape the magnesium off this bicycle frame ..."

--fje

 

[Vigilance]

That was my main non-superheroic inspiration for the gadgeteer

Chuck