TC:Adventure! — prototype edition

[Dataweaver]

This thread is intended to put together a workable model of what TC: Adventure! could be like (but probably won't), so that owners of the original Adventure! and of Trinity Continuum can run games in the original setting (or a close approximation of it) while waiting for the official TC:A! to come out.

I'll be focusing mainly on the rules, as the setting is mostly fine as is; and the main tweaks are things like Sara Kaur's inclusion in the Hammersmith Event, things which have already been addressed in TC:Æ's The Secret History of Humanity section. Seven in terms of the rules, most of what's needed is already in the TC core book. All that needs to be covered, really, are the rules for Mesmerists and Stalwarts.

For the purpose of this hack, I'm going to treat Mesmerists and Stalwarts as variations on Talents (or Daredevils, as they're known in this era). I won't be doing things precisely the same way that Adventure! did them; but I'll be staying close enough that changes will mostly take the form of “errata” rather than rewrites: you will need both Trinity Continuum and Adventure! to use this material.

With that in mind, here we go:
Skills
The Abilities in Adventure! don't match the Skills in Trinity Continuum; use the closest match.

To do: Match Adventure!'s Abilities to TC's Skills

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Mesmerists
Mesmerists differ from Talents in a few ways. First, their form of Inspiration has a different set of three Facets: Life, Force, and Mind.

[I'm open to other names for these. They're based on BK/VK, EK/PK/Tport, and Clair/TP, respectively]

Dots in Life help the Mesmerist get in tune with the living things around her; dots in Force help him deal with actions involving mechanics, kinetics, or energy; and dots in Mind help him deal with actions involving communication and perception. In all cases, you can spend a point of Inspiration to gain an Enhancement to your dice pool if it falls in the appropriate purview. These replace the Destructive Action, Intuitive Action, and Reflective Action uses of Inspiration on TC p.15.

Mesmerists also replace Dramatic Editing with Attunement, which works much like its namesake in TC:Æon (p.204): take an ordinary action and roll your highest Facet to pick up on Psychic or Dynamic Gifts or Powered Super-science being used nearby. You can forgo the roll by spending a point of Inspiration.

Psychic Gifts work like the Psychic Knacks in Adventure! (pp.162–170), save for a change in the Facets. Change any references in a Psychic Knack's description to the following Mesmerist Facet:

• Life: Brainstorm, Cloak of Dread, Evil Eye, Hypnotic Presence, Inspirational Aura, Psychic Control, Touch of Life
• Force: Psychic Hand, Thermal Manipulation, Flame/Frost Conjuration, Teledigitation, Mindhammer, Sleight of Will
• Mind: Brain Skimming, Command Voice, Marked Man, Perfect Translation, Scientific Prodigy, Telluric Resonance, Brainstorm, Hypnotic Presence, Cloud the Mind, Psychic Control, Psychic Synergy

If a given Knack is listed under two Facets, take your choice.

[I pulled the associations from d20 Adventure!, which listed Psi Aptitudes for each Psychic Knack. Biokinesis and Vitakinesis went to Life; EK, PK, and Teleport went to Force; Clairvoyance and Telepathy went to Mind.]

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Stalwarts
The Facets of a Stalwart's Inspiration correspond to the three Arenas: Physical, Mental, and Social. As with Mesmerists, Stalwarts replace the Destructive Action, Intuitive Action, and Reflective Action uses of Inspiration with ones aligning with their own Facets.

Stalwarts replace Dramatic Editing with an expanded version of Extraordinary Effort: for any action, spend a point of Inspiration to boost one type of Scale appropriate to it by an amount determined by the most suitable Facet: one dot in the Facet gives +1 Scale, three dots give +2 Scale, and five dots give +3 Scale.

Dynamic Gifts work just like their Dynamic Knack namesakes. As with Psychic Gifts, replace references to Destructive, Intuitive, and Reflective Facets with the most appropriate Stalwart Facet:

• Physical: A Single Bound, Cool Hand, Man for All Seasons, Powerlifter, Superhuman Reflexes, Blazing Speed, Optimized Metabolism, Piledriver, Body of Bronze, Reptilian Regeneration
• Mental: Heightened Senses, Mad Scientist, Aetheric Vision, Blindfighter, Sun Tzu's Blessing, Indisputable Analysis, Sensory Filtering, Threat Awareness
• Social: Sex Symbol, Touch of the Muses, Man of Many Faces

[This list has a shortage of Knacks in the Social Arena. Suggestions are welcome.]

As an alternative, replace the Dynamic Knacks with a subset of the Superior Powers from Æon Æxpansion. Most of them work fine as is, as long as you're okay with none being written to make use of Facets and none of them costing Inspiration to use.

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I've debated repurposing the Daredevil, Stalwart, and Mesmerist names. Instead of being general-purpose terms referring to the three types of Inspired, I'm thinking of using them as informal nicknames for characters who are exceptionally strong in one Facet. For example:

• Talents: Daredevils are the Intuitive ones; Masters are the Reflective ones; and Paragons are the Destructive ones.
• Psychics: Healers instead of Life; Kinetics instead of Force; Mesmerists instead of Mind
• ___: Stalwart instead of Physical; Genius instead of Mental; Charmer instead of Social

Also, feel free to post ideas for additional Psychic or Dynamic Gifts. I could use more Psychic Gifts oriented to Life, as most of the ones provided are shared with Mind; and I could use more Dynamic Gifts for Social, as that's woefully shy on options.

[Mateus Luz]

Great ideas! Really, just awesome. The name ideas are a great idea for itself too.

For those that don’t have Adventure 1e, or are just lazy and don’t what to convert the knacks:

Paragons use Superior Powers from Aexpansion (just easy like that). Maybe the idea for relating it to the facets you can’t buy a higher dot cost than the related facet. For inspiration cost, maybe 1 point to activate a power for 1 scene.

Psychics use the powers from the modes related to their facets with a few twists:
- The base powers becomes the 1st dot in the related modes.
- You can pick any of the 2 base powers when you want to pick your first mode of that aptitude.
- You pick the second base power when you want to pick your second mode of that aptitude.
- The third mode have no base power, but you still need to spend one dot on that.
- Ther first dot in the modes become the second dot in the knack, the second dot become the third dot in the knack and the third becomes the forth (and last) dot.

For example: you want to learn Telekinesis, first dot you pick is any of the PK base powers (in this case Nudge seams a interesting option), second dot grants you Tow, third dot grants you Remote Hands and the 4th grants Velocity. If you wha to learn Perikinesis later, the first dot grants you Distant Touch, the second Kinetic Shield and so on. If you want to learn Thermo, there is no 1 dot power, but you get the second dot grants Equilibrium, and so on.

Your Psi + Mode rolls become Facet + Knack. For base powers you pick your highest related knack to roll, even if not the one you used to learn.

Notice that it allow some good use of powers, but as you have only Inspiration points, and not the pool Psi grants, the number of uses you have is lower (from 10 to 4) and the recovering is 1 point per scene, not a bunch after 5 minutes.

[Penelope]

I’m confused. I thought Mesmerists were psiads, Stalwarts were low-powered novas and Daredevils were Talents.

[Astromancer]

I’m confused. I thought Mesmerists were psiads, Stalwarts were low-powered novas and Daredevils were Talents.

It's a yes and no kind of thing. You're not wrong, but they're also not fully those either. It was meant to be a little ambiguous. I don't know if it will still be that way in the new Adventure!. But in the old, the three types of "Inspired" are closer to each other than the types they resemble.