RE: [DL] Mad Science Mimicry

["Jeffery Yates" <jyates@qlinktech.com>]

I liked the yarn too.  And you've got some valid issues.  Here's what I
might do, if I were ever to have an MS in the posse:

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

Git if ya ain't marshals!





>
> 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.

I'd go with the very high TN/required hand.  And don't give the PC any
blueprints.  Building a device from another's blueprints is easier than
reverse engineering a device to make your own prints to build from.  Then
make the resulting device incredibly un-reliable, with very dire
catastrophes.  Sure, a PC can build an "overwhelming machine of death and
destruction", but it tends to self-destruct taking everyone standing near it
out as well.

Like you said, MS isn't completely science, it is large part Manitou induced
magic.  Reverse engineering an existing device involves not only the actual
scientific parts, but the spiritually/magically activated parts as well.
That's the sticky bit that lets a Marshal keep PCs in line.

Not studying an existing device means that the Manitou is free to put fresh
understandings into the MS's brain, which might actually be easier than
reverse engineering.  But if the Manitou doesn't itself know how to create a
specific effect, it won't be able to help the MS build the device that
creates the effect.

On the other hand, if you _wanted_ the PC to be able to recreate another
MS's work, then maybe the original Manitou that helped the first time is
still around, and helps the PC create a duplicate device.

>
> 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!"
>

This one requires modifying the story.  Don't have just a shard of Ghost
Rock impaled in the zombies' foreheads, but some sort of device that uses
Ghost Rock for power (not by burning, but by absorbing energy from the
Manitou powering the Walkin' Dead), or as components like transisters, etc,
that actually would make up a transmitter or receiver.

Doing this takes the Ghost-Rock-as-transmitter problem away, but makes it
very obvious the villain is a Mad Scientist.  Maybe the receiver end of the
device can be fully implanted inside the skull, with only a fine copper wire
antenna feeding out of the brain pan and wrapped around the head a few
times.  Nothing totally obvious unless you search for it, and then without
some dissecting, it just looks like a funny piece of jewelery.

Hope this helps.  It is stuff I'll probably use should I need to...

Jeff Y.
Marshal for the Dynamite Gang