Talk:Techno-Babble!

--Jason 13:18, 6 November 2012 (MST)Some explanation on the solution versus success is in order. Technobabble is not a magic bullet. The purpose of technobabble is for a player to take control of a situation that seems untenable and simulate how the episodes seem to flow. In general, the Enterprise shows up at a location and surveys a seemingly impossible situation and then someone on the crew has some genius idea that is innovative or highly technical. To implement this in an RPG, often the GM has to feed it to the player, which is often less than fun.

If it were possible to deliver clues and allow the player to follow a breadcrumb path (or a spine per Trail of Cthulhu), then technobabble is not necessary. In many cases, however, this just does not work. By having Technobabble available, anytime a player wishes they can spend a courage and use their improvisational skills to develop a solution to any problem.

There is always risk, however. If a 'Character' is not very good at the appropriate skill, the solution will end up too fraught with potential complications. In the end, the technobabble allows the 'Player' to ramble on some pseudo-scientific details and declare they solve the problem, while at the same time the 'Character' uses his skills to determine how difficult this solution is to implement. Once they draw the appropriate cards and explain the circumstance to the other players the actual in game steps will be clear to everyone and they can then discuss whether the solution is viable and should be attempted.

--Dieter the Bold 01:23, 30 November 2012 (MST) Your friendly reminder to work on this further in the next week.

--Jason 18:23, 16 December 2012 (MST)Stuff I cut out but might be valuable later: Matrix to separate skill levels and worth

How do we reward skill levels?

Risk of important NPCs/PCs as substitutes for cards?

Break down ship systems into a physical/logical map: Starship Systems
- COMPUTER is adjacent to all systems

Table of particles, adjectives, hardware components
Vocabulary: Ionization, particles, fluctuations, disruptions, interference, unstable

Individual decks for each skill type: Engineering/Science, Combat/Command, Social/Medicine