Merry Christmas!

Summary:

Alpha version of the first supplement for SA2.

Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 24 Dec 2013 17:00

I've been working on this for several months now, and I figured this was as good a time as any to let everyone know about it.

The first supplement for SA2 will be Chronotech. (That's a PDF download, ~300k). This is where the Dreamers and Transcendental Worshippers went. Enjoy, give feedback, perhaps even playtest (pretty please?). I'll be expanding this further if there's interest in it, which I sort of expect there will be.

In other news, I've contacted my first choice for illustrator, and we'll see if I hear back from her and how that goes. I'm hoping to get a bunch written over the next few days, since I don't go back to work until the 3rd. I've already started reorganizing and expanding the Setting chapter, which is the one I think needs the most help. The Transcendentals will stay in the core rulebook, but will move into the "other setting elements" part that's at the end of the Civs chapter, with the aliens and failed civilizations and Unbound and such.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Tantavalist 25 Dec 2013 19:58

The Chronotech supplement is a very good idea, but after looking it over I can see several problems with implementing the Chronotech score as a Capability. Using Chronotech to replace the existing Capabilities in a Conflict doesn't work when you think it through.

The extreme example is this- imagine one combatant has Stringtech 5 Chronotech 1, and the other has Stringtech 1 Chronotech 5. Going by the rules, this means the low-Stringtech combatant can either face the high-Stringtech one on equal footing, or overwhelms him utterly. Logically, this makes no sense- that Chronotech score of 5 should just allow him to watch his inevitable defeat coming down the timeline toward him. Knowing every move your opponent will make in advance only wins the game if things aren't unbalanced enough to mean there is no winning move for you.

There's also the fact that the existing Capabilities have well-defined default niches- what does Chronotech do by itself?

As I see it, the best way that Chronotech could work is if it acted to supplement Capabilities, rather than replace them. The problem then becomes how to apply this- adding Chronotech to the Capability (multiplier) is probably too big a bonus, whilst adding it to the Profession+CV total might not be big enough.

How Chronotech might work best is to have it as a pool of points that give a boost to Conflicts, rather than a bonus. This might nicely represent having limited information bandwidth, or having to let something bad happen because you don't get the opportunity you need without it down the timeline.

Sadly, my thoughts on this and other SA matters likely won't include playtest feedback for the forseeable future. My regular RPG group is currently on hiatus for a month or so, following which I've succumbed to the Runequest 6 addiction and got a Sword & Sandals style campaign in a fantasy version of the Hellenistic Age planned.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 25 Dec 2013 20:40

That sounds like a fairly entertaining game. Enjoy!

Chronotech isn't intended to replace a Capability; it's intended as a sixth Capability on equal footing with the others (when it's being used). It applies to all conflicts in general only if you've picked up the Temporal Expertise, and then it basically just boosts your Professions.

By itself, Chronotech is about insight, intuition, and inspiration. In other games it would be like a Spirit or Luck attribute. It does steal a little turf from Cog and Meta, but I'm ok with that, since Bio includes things that would be part of Nano and String if you didn't have a Bio score. If you're playing guessing games or riddle games with someone, if you're trying to figure out where to go in an unfamiliar setting or how to cut someone off at the pass, those becomes Chronotech-based conflicts. (I'm working to come up with more.)

In a straight-up fight, the guy with String 5 Chrono 1 definitely beats the one with Chrono 5 String 1, but that's primarily because fights are Stringtech's bailiwick. If the person with Chrono says "I'm going to set things up ahead of time so that this whole fight becomes a disaster and my opponent needs to withdraw," that's a much better use of the Capability. Does that help?

The point-based idea is not bad, and I'll probably do something like that if the general consensus is that it doesn't work as a Capability.

Re: Merry Christmas!

TauCeti 06 Jan 2014 19:12

Wow, this is a good one. I'm impressed that you managed to get Chronotech relatively balanced with the other Capabilities.

Some ideas for professions:

Oracle
Oracles use their own temporal bandwidth to help others. They're often called upon for board meetings and diplomatic exchanges to give their insight into the possible results of actions. Since oracles are often asked make predictions for fields of study they themselves are not versed in, they are generally good at communicating with people with substantially different professions. Specialized tasks include interpreting long term predictions, and interpreting any predictions for a client that you aren't thoroughly familiar with.

Sythesist
In the universe of Sufficiently Advanced, information is ever present. The job of the synthesist is to separate the valuable data from the chaff. Synthesist look at vast swaths of raw data or facts and use chronotech to pinpoint the elements that will be most important later. They're often found in a supporting role for detective work and economists, although some simply sell the information they notice on the open market, confident that there will be a buyer.

<needs a name>
While not exactly a formal 'profession', it is amazing how far one can go by simply being 'lucky'. By always being in exactly the right place at the right time and saying or doing the right thing, events continually fall into the <name>'s favor. <name>'s have a reputation for destructively selfish behavior, which is not entirely undeserved. Their focus on massive bursts of extremely short duration chronotech leaves little room for keeping track of the long term ramifications of their actions. <name>'s who aren't careful can leave a string of disasters and bad blood in their wake.

Last edited on 17 Feb 2014 18:52 by TauCeti Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 06 Jan 2014 20:00

Yoink.

I have to figure out good specialized tasks for the third one. "Backstabbing" is something everyone can do. :)

Re: Merry Christmas!

TauCeti 06 Jan 2014 20:58

Well, the third profession's good at walking into messy, complex situations without a proper understanding of what is going on, and walking out again unscathed (at least from short-term ramifications). Among other things, they could convincingly fake having any profession or knowledge base and be undetectable for minutes. Which is enough time to beat a hasty retreat.

My take on it is a combination of the Eye of the Storm power in Scion (for Scions of chaos/tricksters; it works the way you'd expect it does), and Paycheck (movie or short story). It's not a good way to make a living, but following this path ensures that you'll never go without, and your actions will never quite catch up with you (so long as you have the bandwidth). This path isn't inherently evil, but it's dancing on the slippery slope.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Kumitachi 06 Jan 2014 22:50

Without being facetious, wouldn't an exploration team take along a member high in Chronotech. Often referred to as 'canaries'

Last edited on 06 Jan 2014 22:56 by Kumitachi Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 07 Jan 2014 02:19

Good ideas for Chronotech-focused professions, TC. About a name for the last one, why not "Serendip" ? This kind of recurrent good luck looked a lot like serendipity to me while reading its writeup.

Last edited on 07 Jan 2014 02:33 by Irioth Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

TauCeti 07 Jan 2014 03:11

Hmm, that could work. Or something like 'kismet', although that word is usually reserved for more long-term and meaningful things (although the 'controls fate' part fits closer). My initial idea for names focused more on the unconstrained and rambling lifestyle that would tend to result, but I couldn't think of a name for it.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 07 Jan 2014 04:40

The 'kismet' name fits the 'control fate' part, but not the 'covering for long-term consequences' one. The 'serendipity' name fits the 'constant good luck' part, but not the 'it happens by chance' one. We need to decide what is most important to picture the Profession.

SA Professions generally have names to represent the guys with the ability rather than the skill itself. In this regard, neither option really fits, although perhaps you can use 'Serendip' like a noun.

Last edited on 07 Jan 2014 04:43 by Irioth Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

TauCeti 07 Jan 2014 01:45

It may be worth it to have a brief bit about the dangers of pulling information out of causal loops, and why you don't just send a message back the moment you receive it in order to free bandwidth.

This is an especially big problem for anyone with Chronotech 4+. When you (say) "guess" an entire map, and then halfway through the mission send it back to clear your bandwidth for more data (perhaps being forced to as a high priority data burst comes down from an event a few minutes in the future), anything you haven't actually verified (by, say, walking through that part of the map) has always been random noise.

Last edited on 07 Jan 2014 01:48 by TauCeti Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

TauCeti 08 Jan 2014 21:44

Chrono + Cog
This gives the ability to use your mind's "down time" to do analysis for anywhen before or afterward (within the range of your accurate Chronotech).

We can actually model this with the existing rules, as follows:
When creating a Project that is almost entirely mental (such as doing psychohistorical analysis), you can pass some of the mental work to other periods of time. If you chose to do so, reduce the time to complete the Project by 1 level to determine how quickly you get the answer. The original time needed to complete the project must still be spent, but it can start before you "started" the Project, and continue after you "finished" it. You can't work on other Projects during this time as you are already busy. Naturally, using Chronotech to shunt part of another project into this period of time is equally impossible.

Last edited on 14 Jan 2014 02:43 by TauCeti Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 13 Jan 2014 15:01

That's a good way to put it. Thanks!

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 28 Dec 2013 14:06

Personally I don't perceive any difficulty with letting Chronotech be the sixth Capability. If I understand Temporal Expertise right, it works much like Omnicompetent, right ? I.e. if you have both, you have all Professions at 3, right ?

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 28 Dec 2013 16:45

That's correct. They work very nicely together.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 29 Dec 2013 05:20

Very much so. I noticed it when I added Chronotech and Temporal Expertise to a previous character of mine with Omnicompetent. The combo really shines even if it makes a serious dent into Import despite my use of Amateur to spare it a bit and avoid picking a Profession with highest rating (if you are a generalist polymath, you are a generalist polymath). Then again, it's not like a Transhumanist enthusiast demigod with high Capabilities and Expertise has much of a need for a decent Import…

A curiosity: the Chronotech supplement draft quotes the maintainance requirements for the various Capabilities. I know they were described in SA1, but I don't seem to remember they were in the last draft of the rulebook. Bad memory of mine, or have they not been written yet ?

I again remark my support for keeping Chronotech as the sixth Capability and Temporal Expertise. They do seem to fill their own niche and synergize nicely with the rest of the system and setting, esp. the Transcendentals. The Desired Future might be closer than we previously thought…

Last edited on 29 Dec 2013 14:21 by Irioth Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 29 Dec 2013 15:44

Yeah, I may have to prevent people who have things like Omnicompetent from taking Amateur. Doesn't really make sense as a combo.

The maintenance requirements will still be there; they were probably just missing from the last draft I posted.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 29 Dec 2013 17:41

Actually, Omnicompetent and/or Temporal Expertise in a combo with Amateur make perfect IC sense. They represent a dedicated generalist polymath dilettante that does not care to develop a prefessional specialization about anything. Perhaps what you mean is that the combination does not seem sufficiently balanced ruleswise since its only drawback is you don't get a Profession one dot higher than anything else. Depending on how much you rate the value of a +1 in a Profession, I might see the point of forbidding the combo for game balance reasons. But as it concerns a character's background, it makes excellent sense.

On a second reading of Chronotech, I noticed it has a side effect with ambiguous value. i.e. you get a warning of what might be your possible inevitable death in the near future. Given the way temporal physics work in the SA setting, everything you can do if you get that kind of warning is to hope it's a temporary and recoverable damage.

Last edited on 29 Dec 2013 17:44 by Irioth Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 29 Dec 2013 17:50

I agree - it makes sense in terms of character background, but yeah, I don't think the benefit is properly balanced at that point.

The "day of no return" can be a very fun GM scare tactic - and I've known some players who would really take that and run with it, who might even decide that their character does die that day.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 29 Dec 2013 22:08

On further reflection, I think it may be best if instead of disallowing the combo, you remove any Import benefit for the characters that have Amateur in combination with Omnicompetent and/or Temporal Expertise. While I was revising my character following your advice, I noticed it's annoying to be forced to pick and choose a profession specialization if the character concept is a generalist jack-of-all-trades.

Last edited on 29 Dec 2013 22:09 by Irioth Show more

Re: Merry Christmas!

Kumitachi 02 Jan 2014 18:59

Hi, only found out about SA a few weeks ago, wow! Thank you for a great RPG.

The String 5 Chrono 1 adversary sounds interesting, he will need to completely come out of the blue and near instantly vaporise his opponent otherwise the warning message could go back years. Depending on the reasons and the build up to the attack, it could be a nightmare to referee :-)

From the looks of it your committed to the new version but any chance of a retconned Chronotech (1-10 levels) for the original put on the forum?

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 03 Jan 2014 00:17

I'm glad you like the game!

I can add a backwards-compatible version for SA1; shouldn't be too difficult.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 04 Jan 2014 04:26

I don't mind Chronotech backwards-compatibility but I don't find it too much useful, either, since I deem SA2 quite superior to SA1. If anything, I'd definitely like a version of SA2 sheet that includes Chronotech and Temporal.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 04 Jan 2014 15:42

Also easily done.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Kumitachi 12 Feb 2014 18:52

Has anyone used Chronotech in a game yet? What having the players arriving on a planet that uses high levels of Chrono and they get minority reported as soon as they land for something they haven't done yet?

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 21 Jul 2014 16:01

Revised, lowered Chronotech abilities based on feedback from the playtest. The short version is that durations got stepped down, but the description of your abilities haven't changed much.

1. You have a single temporal channel that sends only one message at a time. The data carries no timestamp, so the message is from an unknown span in the future, from seconds to hours. The messages are cryptic, relying on your knowledge of yourself to trigger memories and suspicions. The clearer the message, the less time you will have to act on it.
2. Your short-term messages are more reliable. This gives you improved reflexes, and you often react to events just before they happen. In social situations, you avoid serious faux pas that would cause other people to react noticeably. You can reliably win fast games of chance like Three-card Monte. Information from more than a few seconds in the future is still difficult to receive - the low bandwidth means that short messages are a must, perhaps just a sentence at a time.
3. You have several temporal channels, optimized for durations from milliseconds to hours. Many issues with message degradation have been solved, and you can reliably ask your future self about the best course of action for the next few minutes. There is no guarantee that this course remains wise in the long term. You can easily guess passwords, code keys, and the like. Your messages are also timestamped, letting you know when to expect trouble. You have access to the Temporal Expertise (see page xx) that allows you to re-try actions many times and use the most effective method.
4. Your bandwidth expands significantly. You can successfully guess maps and other large data sets, as long as you can check their accuracy within an hour or so. You can ask yourself advice about the next few hours. You still receive cryptic messages from farther in the future. If you have a Mesh you can filter these through your subconscious, giving you prophetic dreams. If not, you will have to puzzle the message out during your waking hours.
5. You can ask yourself advice about the next few days. You receive not only good advice, but alternatives and options. Your less reliable channels send unclear messages from years into the future. Your first impressions are always correct. Your understanding of the future makes you impossible to surprise.
6. (Such stable and reliable channels require careful stabilization and maintenance. They are not available to individuals yet, but civilizations might maintain them.) Reliable channels stretch for weeks, unreliable ones for years. Bandwith improves to the point where one can send entire digital minds into the past.

This puts being a Transcendental at something like Chrono 7.

Re: Merry Christmas!

TauCeti 21 Jul 2014 20:22

Nice. I think that fixes all of the problems I saw. I should try this again sometime to test it out (although, as always, I'd recommend other playtesters, as my view of time is a little wonky).

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 25 Sep 2014 00:32

What are the maintenance needs for Chronotech 3+ ?

Re: Merry Christmas!

Colin_Fredericks 25 Sep 2014 02:00

Ooh, good question. Gotta think about that one. Perhaps time spent realigning the apparatus, though that seems more like something that all levels would benefit from.

Re: Merry Christmas!

Irioth 28 Sep 2014 21:07

Seems a decent option. To make it similar to the other Capabilities, one could assume there is some redundancy built into the system, so periodic realigning and clean-up only becomes critically necessary to avoiding cluttering and signal degradation at 3+. There is some handwaving implied to make 3+ the cutoff, but just the same way as for the other Capabilities.

Last edited on 28 Sep 2014 21:08 by Irioth Show more