Author Topic: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?  (Read 2298 times)

Offline Belial666

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Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« on: May 10, 2011, 03:23:15 PM »
OK, this doesn't usually come up in most games but on the course of a long campaign, especially a war-oriented one, it might;

Suppose your players (or you, as a GM) want to model making home-made explosives like molotov bombs to use against vampires, nail bombs to use against faeries and the like. Then your players get creative and try for bigger stuff. Vampires having taken over that old mine? Drive that truck loaded with half a ton of ANFO into it and watch the fireworks. Want some protections around your home base that will work if someone dispels all the magic? Add some actual landmines and heavy steel doors. Want an intruder-detection system that will actually work against veiled wizards? Bury a couple hundred microtransmitters around the premises and track them by the burnout of technology - you'd get at least an early warning.
And that's just for starters - custom technology can get you custom weapons (like Kincaid's spear and paintball gun), improved vehicles, custom communications (like fiber-optics or wireless networks between shielded systems or fully optical surveillance equipment that can't be hexed) and weird inventions or new uses of old inventions along with magic.
So suppose your players want to make that stuff. How do you judge the effort (resources, contacts, craftmanship, scholarship and others) required for reproducing high-end technological effects? After all, there are people that can make custom tech, custom guns, custom vehicles and the like. And every new invention is essentially a custom job; when Teller, Uram and their team built the first fusion bomb, they basically worked from the ground up. Ditto for Tesla, Edison, Graham Bell and all those guys. Would rules for ritual complexity be applicable to creating new technological devices?



Because I totally have that dream of an adapted A4W mini nuclear reactor operating behind an active major circle beaming the 104 MW it produces through microwave energy transmission systems into a half-dozen adapted Nautilus laser systems that also operate behind separate active major circles to defend a serious base against supernatural attacks. Seeing as radiation does not interrupt magic circles, neither the lasers nor the energy transmission nor the wireless (or automated) control is going to break them so they can fire from inside heavily warded defenses. Yeah, I still remember playing Tiberian Sun.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2011, 03:35:14 PM by Belial666 »

Offline Tedronai

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2011, 03:44:41 PM »
Because I totally have that dream of an adapted A4W mini nuclear reactor operating behind an active major circle beaming the 104 MW it produces through microwave energy transmission systems into a half-dozen adapted Nautilus laser systems that also operate behind separate active major circles to defend a serious base against supernatural attacks. Seeing as radiation does not interrupt magic circles, neither the lasers nor the energy transmission nor the wireless (or automated) control is going to break them so they can fire from inside heavily warded defenses. Yeah, I still remember playing Tiberian Sun.

Of course, the amount of magical muscle needed to power a major circle might soon 'burn out' the tech it's protecting...



But yeah, when tech issues stray beyond the scope of mere contacts+resources+crafting+scholarship, the ritual complexity rules might be a decent fallback.  But really, at that point, the Ordo Lebes could probably hex down your new toy without breaking a sweat.
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Offline Belial666

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2011, 03:52:59 PM »
Major circle vs magic, link to local leyline for power, ward up, permeable to the living. Then get a practitioner to use up all the magic on the inside of the circle. And after that, you power up your magic-protected toys. Bonus points if you can find a cute sorceress to do it since the protection is permeable to living but not unliving matter.  ;D

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2011, 07:32:21 PM »
Just like to point out that the mechanics of such things are deliberately ambigous. We really have no idea whether a laser would break a circle.

Offline admiralducksauce

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2011, 08:13:36 PM »
Going back to the actual question of "How do you judge the effort (resources, contacts, craftmanship, scholarship and others) required for reproducing high-end technological effects?", I would say the ritual rules would work just fine for such things.  There are tons of opportunities to use skills other than Craftmanship to make maneuvers.  Hell, you can even use consequences from other people.  Sweat shop, anyone?

Offline devonapple

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2011, 08:56:00 PM »
Hell, you can even use consequences from other people.  Sweat shop, anyone?

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Offline Belial666

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2011, 09:38:05 PM »
Except that consequences don't boost the effects of technology - in fact, they are the results of failed attempts. But the skill rolls would still totally work to amass complexity for a new device/invention.


I wonder how much complexity a nuclear bomb is since it takes hundreds of workers/scientists a lot of time (months) to build one and the industry/resources of a nation to fund them. If you are speaking about fusions bombs that is - a fission bomb or a dirty bomb can totally be done in weeks by a couple dozen people.

Offline devonapple

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2011, 09:44:16 PM »
Except that consequences don't boost the effects of technology - in fact, they are the results of failed attempts.

Well, no, Consequences don't improve technology per se, but I feel that *taking* Consequences can be an acceptable narrative/rhetorical shorthand for pushing oneself to the limit, working harder, tiring oneself out or accidentally hurting oneself in the process.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2011, 09:47:30 PM by devonapple »
"Like a voice, like a crack, like a whispering shriek
That echoes on like it’s carpet-bombing feverish white jungles of thought
That I’m positive are not even mine"

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Offline Tedronai

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2011, 10:48:28 PM »
I wonder how much complexity a nuclear bomb is since it takes hundreds of workers/scientists a lot of time (months) to build one and the industry/resources of a nation to fund them. If you are speaking about fusions bombs that is - a fission bomb or a dirty bomb can totally be done in weeks by a couple dozen people.

Easily several hundred (for 40 or 50 shifts of damage across at least a few dozen zones)
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Offline admiralducksauce

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Re: Doing technology/invention through the "ritual" rules?
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2011, 12:24:17 AM »
Well, no, Consequences don't improve technology per se, but I feel that *taking* Consequences can be an acceptable narrative/rhetorical shorthand for pushing oneself to the limit, working harder, tiring oneself out or accidentally hurting oneself in the process.


And they don't have to be physical consequences, either.  Consider the all-nighters and crunch time of most game development companies, they can be equated to mental or social consequences very easily.  "No Time For My Family", "Sleepless and Exhausted", and so on.