New Eras for Mastercraft

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

But the fact that we can't build the Great Pyramids proves that anti-gravity is possible because that is the only explanation for how the ancient egyptians could have accomplished this amazing feat of stacking blocks on top of one another!

Also they had the help of slaves and aliens!



 

[Catodon]

Sorry that I started this and staying well out of it

[Krensky]

Or, to your profession Catodon.

Making a bioluminescent mouse by cross breeding mice and fish... fireflies... don't renember, was impossible until genetic engineering.

Plus, germ theory.

[Sletchman]

Ok, so we're all agreed that the Pyramids are going into the Super-Science items chart, with an era of Ancient then?

Also, am I the only one who read about those bioluminescent mice and thought they'd make a great childs nightlight / pet hybrid?  Teaching responsibility and removing fear of the dark at the same time.

[Catodon]

Or, to your profession Catodon.

Making a bioluminescent mouse by cross breeding mice and fish... fireflies... don't renember, was impossible until genetic engineering.

Plus, germ theory.

Depends on what definition of impossible your using. There is so many different uses of impossibility that this is not a trivial point (See John D. Barrow Impossibility).

The glowing mouse it was possible we knew it was possible* but we just didn't know how. Artificial gravity is a whole other type of problem.

*Does not break the Laws of Physics, no not just Newton or Einstien, I mean the whole standard model.

Also chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

Ok this is fun but aren't we are getting of topic. With a campaign quality toogle system its easy for individual referees to tweak tech to thier vision. 

[Agent 333]

Personally I'm in favor of making categories for sci-fi based on technology type rather than Era. That way you can have a ridiculously advanced society based on Earth that has little to no space travel or a space opera setting where things like cybernetics and bio-engineering are nigh unheard of. So therefore my "eras" would be:

Casual Spaceflight
Cybertechnology
Bio-engineering
Nanotechnology
Computerized Reality

Plus whatever new categories become required as more types of gear are thought of.

[tfwfh]

Personally I'm in favor of making categories for sci-fi based on technology type rather than Era. That way you can have a ridiculously advanced society based on Earth that has little to no space travel or a space opera setting where things like cybernetics and bio-engineering are nigh unheard of. So therefore my "eras" would be:

I think it would probably be simpler to instead have each of those kinds of thing be it's own category of gear with notes on the availability by era, basically the way FC already does.  That way the GM can just select a different era for each type of gear in order to suit his preferences.  Thus for the hyper-advanced Earth bound society, you could have most gear at a Transgenic or Interstellar era, but travel and communication gear is limited to Industrial or Atomic era levels.  You could even formalize it with a campaign quality similar to "Uneven Calibers" from The Big Score.  Something along the lines of: "The technology of the setting hasn't progressed evenly across all disciplines, and some types of gear are more advanced than others.  Instead of having a single universal era for the campaign that determines what gear is available, you can instead select a different era for each category of gear to suit the needs of the setting or story."

EDIT:
In this case I think a good starting point for these categories of gear would be something like:

• Weapons and Armor
• Transportation
• Communications
• Biotechnology
• Tools

Transportation would probably need to have some sort of relationship with vehicles.  Or maybe just be replaced by vehicles.  Communications would cover things like radios, computers and computer networks, telephones, encryption.  Communications would also cover potential future technologies like virtual reality and faster-than-light communication methods.  For biotech, I'm not really married to the term, but it was the best I could come up with.  It would cover things like diseases and poisons,  medicines and medical services, body manipulation (including cybernetics), and things like spare or replacement bodies.  Tools is also a term I'm not in love with, and it might need to be broken up or gotten rid of.  Still, the way I imagine the tools category is covering things like scanners/sensors, kits, possibly nano-machines, star trek-style replicators, and otherwise being a sort of catchall for things that don't obviously fit into another category.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I realize I can't really add to the dissection of science ages, but I'm a little confused on something:

What's the point of discussing new Eras if we don't have equipment entries to refer to?  Isn't that mostly what Eras are: lists of allowed equipment?

Actually seeing as how the discussion kind of seems to be revolving around what tech goes where maybe there should be a switch-over to designing it as equipment and the Eras will just naturally write themselves from there.

[Krensky]

The problem is that largely speaking, things start moving incredibly fast in the sort of tech adventurers care about once you're past the late 1700s. I think that's part of why SC2.0 used actual years.

GURPS had a rather involved scheme with split TLs for different types of tech and large swaths of text about using them and exceptions to them. On top of that, most of the TLs man already went through were grouped in the 19th and 20th century. If memory serves most of those were in the 20th century for that matter.

For future tech, a grouping like Near, Mid-term, Far, and Sufficiently Advanced makes more sense then trying to break everything down.

[tfwfh]

For future tech, a grouping like Near, Mid-term, Far, and Sufficiently Advanced makes more sense then trying to break everything down.

That's what we're doing, we're just using more meaningful words to describe it.  You could just as easily call the current FC eras recent past, middle past, distant past, ancient past, and prehistory.  Industrial, Reason, Feudal, Ancient, and Primitive are more meaningful though.

As far as the speed of technological advancement, I think it's better not to worry about it so much.  The d20 system isn't simulationist enough for it to really matter.  The mechanical difference between a flintlock musket and a modern assault rifle is just range and rate of fire.  Similarly the difference between a modern assault rifle and a future laser rifle will probably just be ammo capacity and damage type.

[Sletchman]

GURPS had a rather involved scheme with split TLs for different types of tech and large swaths of text about using them and exceptions to them. On top of that, most of the TLs man already went through were grouped in the 19th and 20th century. If memory serves most of those were in the 20th century for that matter.

GURPS also has a specific thing for adding super science to a given TL - my Fallout game was TL7+3^ (which means base TL7, with TL10 for Science! and added super science to the TL10 stuff - plasma weapons, micro-fusion etc).

I think it also serves as an excellent demonstration of what you're saying - tech goes so fast in certain periods that any categorisation system that isn't years will be either too vague (industrial era = when/what, precisely?) or too complex ("This games tech level is 7+3^ ... yeah...").

I really like the suggestion tfwfh made - advancement by category is a good thing IMO (and I liked Uneven Calibers in the big score - even if I don't like the Spycraft gear system in general).  A setting might have a largescale war backdrop which could translate into rapid advancement of weapons and armour technology (both infantry and vechile), which could leave behind other fields.  Just thinking out loud though.

[Krensky]

For future tech, a grouping like Near, Mid-term, Far, and Sufficiently Advanced makes more sense then trying to break everything down.

That's what we're doing, we're just using more meaningful words to describe it.  You could just as easily call the current FC eras recent past, middle past, distant past, ancient past, and prehistory.  Industrial, Reason, Feudal, Ancient, and Primitive are more meaningful though.

As far as the speed of technological advancement, I think it's better not to worry about it so much.  The d20 system isn't simulationist enough for it to really matter.  The mechanical difference between a flintlock musket and a modern assault rifle is just range and rate of fire.  Similarly the difference between a modern assault rifle and a future laser rifle will probably just be ammo capacity and damage type.

Considering that there are significant mechanical differences between two different assault rifles from the same year in hSpycraft 2.0 that argument falls a little flat.

[Catodon]

Personally I'm in favor of making categories for sci-fi based on technology type rather than Era. That way you can have a ridiculously advanced society based on Earth that has little to no space travel or a space opera setting where things like cybernetics and bio-engineering are nigh unheard of. So therefore my "eras" would be:

Casual Spaceflight
Cybertechnology
Bio-engineering
Nanotechnology
Computerized Reality

Plus whatever new categories become required as more types of gear are thought of.

I think your onto something add:
Gravitic
Lifeforce and you can create most SF settings.
Star wars: Casual spaceflight cybertechnology gravitic lifeforce
Cyberpunk: Cybertech computerised reality
Foreseeable/Hard: cyber, biotech, nano(maybe), computerised
Shadowrun: Cyber, biotech, comptersised reality, Sorcery

[Morgenstern]

Another handy break-point is a singularity event in technology.

It gives you "nigh-singularity" and "post-singularity" eras. Problem is that later is almost unplayable by definition, while the former tends to be just plain weird.

Farthest Star had a whole sub-category of hooks and tech based around "pyre worlds" planets that had either destroyed themselves or mutated right out of recognizability due to singularity advances. Picking through the remants of Pyre worlds is a deadly, but sometimes lucritive pastime for the adventurous. Just crossing a cordon around one alive is exciting enough. What you find once you get down there pretty much always defies description .

While era is a handy tool for broad strokes, the future of hypotheitical settings is just like building a setting inthe past - the era probably reflects the general level of advancement, but the designer will often tweek individual aspects (just weapons, just vehicles, just medicine) to create a more personal, nuanced creation. I'd say to really make use of the era concept for futuristic setings you'd need to name a band/bracket as horizontal layers, and then pick about 5-8 tech categories for vertical comparison and define about what you can expect from each as part of that band. so "near future" would have exmples of information technology, materials science, energy production/manipulation, travel, medicine/bio sciences, political sciences, etc. and then you'd need to show who each of those things advances as you move up and down bands. They pay off being a good matrix will then spawn usable gear table entries pretty durn fast.

[Desertpuma]

Farthest Star had a whole sub-category of hooks and tech based around "pyre worlds" planets that had either destroyed themselves or mutated right out of recognizability due to singularity advances. Picking through the remants of Pyre worlds is a deadly, but sometimes lucritive pastime for the adventurous. Just crossing a cordon around one alive is exciting enough. What you find once you get down there pretty much always defies description .

Are you teasing us with Farthest Star again, Scotty?