The ideas and equipment provided is intended to spark adventures or open up story possibilities. The tech level, superscience indicator, technology progression, and technology path rules are there to provide guidance, but it is up to the GM to decide what is and is not available in a campaign. All technologies are, in the end, completely optional. The GM should use whichever items seem fun or appropriate, ignore those that don’t, and change statistics as needed to fit his own campaign or play style.
Players will want to choose equipment for their characters. The GM is responsible for deciding what limits, if any, to place on their choices.
This is the most basic parameter. The GM sets the default campaign TL, as detailed under Tech Levels (p. B511) and in the Technology Path guidelines discussed in this chapter.
In some campaigns, the GM may wish to restrict starting equipment by Legality Class, with any exceptions requiring an Unusual Background. For example, if the PCs are cyberpunk detectives at the local precinct, the GM might restrict them to LC2 and up, since police won’t normally have access to heavy weapons or cutting-edge spy gear.
GMs should always feel free to ban individual technologies or gadgets, alter their TLs, or change their statistics, especially when trying to simulate a particular cinematic or literary background.
There are many reasons a technology or device may be unavailable – see Preventive Measures, p. 12. GMs may wish to create a list of what technologies are (or are not) available – or what was changed – so that players can refer to it.
Another way to restrict available technology is to start the campaign with a particular scenario. For example, in a “disaster leads to a space lifeboat crash-landing on an alien planet” adventure, the interstellar castaways may have nothing more than the survival gear in the lifeboat.
In other situations it may be helpful to restrict PCs to “no more than” a particular encumbrance level worth of gear – perhaps Heavy for soldiers on a mission, but None for tourists.
The GM may wish to restrict starting wealth to conform to these concepts (most castaways are effectively Dead Broke, for instance). Alternatively, if they are likely to have full access to their wealth soon after the adventure begins, starting equipment may simply represent what the characters have on them . . . they are free to shop when they reach civilization.
If a technology or gadget seems like it may cause problems in a particular campaign, there are various ways to handle it.
The device was never invented, period – and maybe it can’t be invented. Instead of banning it outright, it’s also possible to increase its TL to well beyond the campaign’s standard TL. This lets the device appear as an alien artifact, or in the hands of a more advanced culture.
The gadget exists, but it isn’t being manufactured locally, because most people prefer something else. For example, there are dozens of different weapon technologies described, from gauss guns to plasma flamers – but many organizations or cultures will stick with one or two preferred weapon classes. Even if field-jacketed gravitic-focus particle beams can be manufactured, the local gun shop may not stock them if plasma guns are what most people carry.
Sometimes a simple change can have far-reaching effects. Are disintegrators fun, but too powerful compared to other weapons? Declare that the disintegration effect is harder to sustain over distance, and divide their range by 10. This tweaking is particularly easy to justify for superscience technologies.
The GM may decide a technology is new, and that the equipment using it is difficult to maintain or unreliable. The Gadget Bugs Table(p. B476) offers suggestions for flaws that might plague new hardware.
If one gadget is too powerful, invent another that nullifies or counters it, and make sure it is available to the PCs and their opposition. If a countermeasure already exists but is at too high a TL, it can also appear earlier. Be careful: this sort of arms race can result in competing gadgetry overshadowing the other abilities of the adventurers.
Increasing cost or decreasing legality are simple ways to make a device rare. Don’t be afraid to radically increase the price, especially for items that don’t exist today – after all, who knows how hard they are to build? Multiplying the list price of contragravity devices or sapient computer software by 10 can easily be explained by taxes, liability costs, and other measures.
However, price and legality control works best for defining what starting PCs and NPCs will use; cunning players find ways to have their characters acquire almost anything, no matter how illegal or costly.
Items also can be made more available. If the GM wants a world where every street punk has cybernetics and a neural interface, reduce their cost by up to 90%. This can be justified as the result of war surpluses, overproduction, or a corporation “dumping” the product to increase demand or drive a competitor out of business!
What if an already-introduced gadget is unbalancing the campaign? A device can be banned by fiat, but there are subtler ways to remove unwanted technology.
The GM can have current events take place that change Legality Class. For instance, if monowire swords seem too powerful, the PCs might see a news item that a psychopath used a monowire sword to kill 23 toddlers. Before long, pressure from outraged citizens and religious groups leads the government to make monowire blades utterly illegal – LC0 or LC1 – and to assign the death penalty for any crimes committed using them. After this, adventurers probably will be more circumspect about using monowire!
The same sort of thing could affect PCs even if they belong to an organization allowed to use powerful or exotic equipment. An international agreement (like the Hague Convention) may outlaw the use of certain weapons. On the local level, police or agents might be forbidden from using a particular weapon, such as X-ray lasers. Perhaps an NPC police officer in another jurisdiction accidentally shot a civilian and an investigatory commission blamed the “excessive” X-ray laser, not the officer’s bad aim.
There are other changes in legality can be caused by social pressure, such as the rise of a religious or moral faction that believes drugs, brain implants, cybernetics, or sentient computers are immoral. Even if no law is passed, displaying or using such “questionable” gear may result in reaction penalties!
The GM can start circulating news reports that a particular technology is dangerous in some way. Previously, the manufacturer covered it up, but now it’s been revealed that …
News Flash! Rainbow lasers suffer catastrophic coolant leaks resulting in explosions! “Sooner or later, the laser will malfunction,” said one source, “and when it does, boom, like a grenade!” After an explosion that killed six Marines in training last June, the Interstellar Marine Corps is removing all man-portable rainbow lasers from active service. Goliath Weaponry GmbH, maker of all military laser coolant systems, has issued a galaxy-wide recall. The fix may require a reduction in laser power levels.
Shocking new research shows uploading only effective in one out of three cases! The mind emulation deteriorates after a few years, leading to massive psychosis and instability. A Special Justice Group probe reveals that a conspiracy of uploading-industry corporation executives has kept this fact secret for decades! Major indictments are expected shortly, and individuals who have been uploaded are advised to contact a lawyer and neurologist as soon as possible.
Special Justice Group Consumer Safety Alert! Plastics presently used to manufacture all neural-interface sockets give off toxic chemicals that studies have linked to brain cancer.
This method lets the players decide whether or not to risk having their characters use the technology. If they abandon it, they can at least have the satisfaction of joining a class-action lawsuit against the manufacturers. If the adventurers keep using the devices they have, the GM now has a perfect excuse to have it malfunction or misbehave – they’ve been warned – or have them shunned by others for carrying “hazardous” equipment.
If the GM feels kind, a “downgraded but safe” version of the technology could appear a few months (or years) later – or even be developed by a PC with Engineer skill using the New Invention rules.
Like all methods of removing technology from play, product recalls can lead to players feeling that their GM is stripping their characters of just rewards. The GM should be especially sensitive when “recalling” items that are central to a particular PC’s identity, such as a soldier’s powered armor or a space knight’s force sword.