[DL] Mad Science Mimicry

[Jesse Burneko <jburneko@yahoo.com>]

Okay, so I have two questions but I thought I'd start
two separate threads for clarity.

**What follows are some Last Stop Mild Spoilers**

I just read the Last Stop and I LOVE it.  It gave me
the willies just reading it.  Anyway it made me think
of something that I'm not sure I know how to get
around.

How do you prevent mad scientist in your party from
attempting to duplicate the work of say a villianous
mad scientist?

It seems to me that this could seriously overbalance
the game.  I mean you want your mad scientists to have
over whelming machines of death and destruction so
that your heroes to have something to fight for but
you also don't want the mad scientist in the party to
go, okay, I'm going to try to build one those and use
it for good.

This problem extends beyond 1 for 1 mimicry.  In last
stop Radcliffe uses ghost rock as a transmitter and
reciever for his undead control machine.  My mad
scientist is going to take a look at that and go "HEY
ghost rock has transmision and reception properties. 
I'm going to build walkie-talkies or cell phones now!"

There are two solutions I've come up with.

1) Set the TN nice and high so that even if the mad
scientist succeeds he's probably gone somewhat insane
and there by balancing the power out.  The problem
with this is that my players are going to complain
that because they have a device with similar function
to study this should LOWER the TN.

2)Remember that Mad Science is not really Science at
all and that it is in fact the work of Manitous
subtlely manipulating the Scientists thoughts and
perhaps the materials with which he works.  So
Radcliffe's Ghost Rock has Transmition and Reception
properties but Ghost Rock in general does not.

Any thoughts?

Jesse

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