Monday, June 29, 2015

Memetic Shticks

Here’s another place where we are seriously diverging from Classic Traveller. The psi-powers as writ just didn’t fit the world we were using (I really didn’t like the ‘magic’ feel to them when everything else, saving the Jump drive, was fairly hard SF). Memetics and Biomods fill that gap, as both are newer twists on super-human powers in SF stories.

Our Memetics are a combination of hypnosis, meme theory carried to an extreme and a galactic human linguistics code touched on in Frank Herbert's Dune, John M. Ford’s Princes of the Air and turned up to 11 in Neil Stevenson’s Snow Crash (and other places). People with the proper training are able to influence or even control humans, implant suggestions, erase memories and similar feats of mental prowess.

Like Bio-Mods, Memetic shticks require Meme point spends for more powerful uses. There is no Memetics action skill so trying to use it in combat has the standard bridge skill in combat rules unless a Meme Spend option says otherwise.

I'm at a crossroads here and would love some feedback. The setting as we've written it has something like these, and the literature is rife with instances of it, but I don't know where to settle on these mechanically. The one shtick I have below is too damn versatile, while making it a different shtick for each command feels too nitpicky. 

Any suggestions, please kick them my way. I have time as no players have these or any way to get them, save for Kris' Naval officer with his Command Presence shtick with his has Guns and half Memetics and is easily understood. But eventually I'll need to have something. 

Voice:

You were trained in the centuries old art of subvocal manipulation and in the high speech of the nobility. Make a Memetics skill vs. the target’s Mind to make commands that have to be followed in the short term. Mooks must follow your specific instructions for the scene while named characters have to be re-attacked every few minutes.

Meme-Spend: 1 point to use this in a combat situation. 

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