Have I mentioned how much I dig our patent concept? I always liked how Bobby@CC had his own '-ium' metal for people to make armour out of. It's a neat way to add unique twists to the setting. Also.. Grordbort! Awesome. XD
Thanks! I admit to some mercenary motives when it came to Patenting, as I want a lot of gadgets available for players, but I don't want to design them all myself. I know! Let's let players make them! Brilliant!
I only just now got around to reading the Invention rules in detail, and I think they make for a reasonably good system of controlling the process of mad science, given its reproducible (sometimes) nature.
The time thing may be hard to actually govern effectively, as an Inventor working 10 or 20 hours a day for five days or more on a single invention should technically be unable to engage in much in the way of social scenes, and especially not very long adventures off into far distant places. On a Mu*, however, time is such a flexible thing that this aspect of their work is either incredibly penalizing or really not that much to worry about.
Given that this process of invention is almost certainly going to involve a couple of +jobs, we can just use the date on the job for a mark on how long the invention will take, and waiting times are a bit of a hassle at least, ensuring that Professor Grordbort won't be able to make his new Automated Flame Projector by the start of that big scene three days from now, at least not without spending some conviction and halving times. How well the Conviction system laid out serves to limit Conviction as a resource matters a lot for this as well, and I will try to write something up to track how much is being handed out after it's turned on. (Hint: Soon.)
Another point I would need some help with personally would be Fantastic Science versus Real Science. To me, the Freeze Cannon seems pretty fantastic, now or ever, and I am not familiar enough with the Victorian version of Thermodynamics to know if they thought cold was a type of energy in the same way as heat or what.
Individual inventions are going to have to be stored as notes I guess. There's actually a function in the sandbox globals called +cnote that does not hand out hundred dollar bills, unfortunately, but works like +note, though it lacks an approval function at present.
Lastly, the wiki entry is written somewhat generally as one would apply it to a tabletop setting. I would suggest adding some specific instructions for handling such things on the Mu*, since we have a command syntax and player and Narrator(s) may not be online at identical times in handling things.
I try to respond to several items. Firstly, thank you very much for looking over the material and responding.
a) I think the idea of tracking the time required to make the invention from the date the job was initiated sounds great. If you think it is too much trouble, we can just rule a hard 10 hours a day with no exceptions. This would make it easy to determine if the item was "done" or not.
b) In the Professor's case, there really was a World Ice Theory, which is why his freeze gun is not Fantastic Science. But another main thing to consider, on the part of Narrators judging items, is, "Will this item radically change the setting if mass produced?" A freeze gun is just another kind of hand weapon and not really all that different than a big net or other kind of entrapment device. So it's not Fantastic. Time Machines, on the other hand, are Fantastic. Because we don't want people buying Time Machines.
c) Inventions could also be noted on the character's wiki page.
d) I don't know the MU* syntax for inventing things -- I have never used +job -- so of course did not include it. If you know it, by all means, please add such talk to the page! I would like to learn.
Given how long the example took just for making a simple one-function Snare for a person with a pretty good check (five days), I think just using the +job date is good. There's a function to add comments to jobs within the system, and we can make a note of when thing will be ready from there. I'll try to make a briefer-than-+jhelp guide for the wiki to go with +jobs, which is a really complicated and overlarge piece of code for our needs, but was all that I could find.
Fantastic Science being That Which Could Break The Setting seems fair enough, though I would point out that something which can generate solid ice around an elephant in 6 seconds can also chill your meats so they stay good longer. Fridges were first patented in 1876 are were probably about as expensive as freeze guns, so that's not really a setting-breaking issue. I'm just noting that technology has lots of applications--do we require a separate invention for each? A fridge has much less game effect, granted, and would take less time.
Listing things a player has invented on their wiki page, and perhaps a central catalog page is a capital idea.
When I say "things which break the setting" I specifically mean "things which break Stories." Refridgeration is way cool, but it's not going to catch a ghost or defeat Fu Manchu. Well, it could ... and that would be a neat story ... but you know what I mean.
Conceptionally, our setting is positioned at a cusp of technological change. Science fiction innovations are going to be invented by players, and will probably do gross violence to our setting ... in a couple of years when mass production catches up. That is Not Our Problem. Instead, we're just gaming that snapshot in time when a PC can build a radium-powered submarine, but the British Navy hasn't yet awarded a contract and built a fleet of them. Grordbort may very well invent the refridgerator, and he can put one in his house, and one or two might show up here or there, but by the time the refridgerator is in every kitchen our game will be over (even if it lasts for years).
7 comments:
Have I mentioned how much I dig our patent concept? I always liked how Bobby@CC had his own '-ium' metal for people to make armour out of. It's a neat way to add unique twists to the setting.
Also.. Grordbort! Awesome. XD
Thanks! I admit to some mercenary motives when it came to Patenting, as I want a lot of gadgets available for players, but I don't want to design them all myself. I know! Let's let players make them! Brilliant!
I blame you for Grordbort.
*shifty eyes*
Jag erkanner ingenting! :D
I only just now got around to reading the Invention rules in detail, and I think they make for a reasonably good system of controlling the process of mad science, given its reproducible (sometimes) nature.
The time thing may be hard to actually govern effectively, as an Inventor working 10 or 20 hours a day for five days or more on a single invention should technically be unable to engage in much in the way of social scenes, and especially not very long adventures off into far distant places. On a Mu*, however, time is such a flexible thing that this aspect of their work is either incredibly penalizing or really not that much to worry about.
Given that this process of invention is almost certainly going to involve a couple of +jobs, we can just use the date on the job for a mark on how long the invention will take, and waiting times are a bit of a hassle at least, ensuring that Professor Grordbort won't be able to make his new Automated Flame Projector by the start of that big scene three days from now, at least not without spending some conviction and halving times. How well the Conviction system laid out serves to limit Conviction as a resource matters a lot for this as well, and I will try to write something up to track how much is being handed out after it's turned on. (Hint: Soon.)
Another point I would need some help with personally would be Fantastic Science versus Real Science. To me, the Freeze Cannon seems pretty fantastic, now or ever, and I am not familiar enough with the Victorian version of Thermodynamics to know if they thought cold was a type of energy in the same way as heat or what.
Individual inventions are going to have to be stored as notes I guess. There's actually a function in the sandbox globals called +cnote that does not hand out hundred dollar bills, unfortunately, but works like +note, though it lacks an approval function at present.
Lastly, the wiki entry is written somewhat generally as one would apply it to a tabletop setting. I would suggest adding some specific instructions for handling such things on the Mu*, since we have a command syntax and player and Narrator(s) may not be online at identical times in handling things.
I try to respond to several items. Firstly, thank you very much for looking over the material and responding.
a) I think the idea of tracking the time required to make the invention from the date the job was initiated sounds great. If you think it is too much trouble, we can just rule a hard 10 hours a day with no exceptions. This would make it easy to determine if the item was "done" or not.
b) In the Professor's case, there really was a World Ice Theory, which is why his freeze gun is not Fantastic Science. But another main thing to consider, on the part of Narrators judging items, is, "Will this item radically change the setting if mass produced?" A freeze gun is just another kind of hand weapon and not really all that different than a big net or other kind of entrapment device. So it's not Fantastic. Time Machines, on the other hand, are Fantastic. Because we don't want people buying Time Machines.
c) Inventions could also be noted on the character's wiki page.
d) I don't know the MU* syntax for inventing things -- I have never used +job -- so of course did not include it. If you know it, by all means, please add such talk to the page! I would like to learn.
Given how long the example took just for making a simple one-function Snare for a person with a pretty good check (five days), I think just using the +job date is good. There's a function to add comments to jobs within the system, and we can make a note of when thing will be ready from there. I'll try to make a briefer-than-+jhelp guide for the wiki to go with +jobs, which is a really complicated and overlarge piece of code for our needs, but was all that I could find.
Fantastic Science being That Which Could Break The Setting seems fair enough, though I would point out that something which can generate solid ice around an elephant in 6 seconds can also chill your meats so they stay good longer. Fridges were first patented in 1876 are were probably about as expensive as freeze guns, so that's not really a setting-breaking issue. I'm just noting that technology has lots of applications--do we require a separate invention for each? A fridge has much less game effect, granted, and would take less time.
Listing things a player has invented on their wiki page, and perhaps a central catalog page is a capital idea.
When I say "things which break the setting" I specifically mean "things which break Stories." Refridgeration is way cool, but it's not going to catch a ghost or defeat Fu Manchu. Well, it could ... and that would be a neat story ... but you know what I mean.
Conceptionally, our setting is positioned at a cusp of technological change. Science fiction innovations are going to be invented by players, and will probably do gross violence to our setting ... in a couple of years when mass production catches up. That is Not Our Problem. Instead, we're just gaming that snapshot in time when a PC can build a radium-powered submarine, but the British Navy hasn't yet awarded a contract and built a fleet of them. Grordbort may very well invent the refridgerator, and he can put one in his house, and one or two might show up here or there, but by the time the refridgerator is in every kitchen our game will be over (even if it lasts for years).
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