Re: [HoE] Time Travel: HoE vs. Deadlands

[Steve Crow <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

> > This one has us kinda puzzled.
> >
> > The original tech-type chart in the Deadlands book for Mads listed Time
> > Travel as a possibility, albeit one that required a really high starting
> > hand.
>
>Time machine is listed as an example of the technology that
>required a Royal Flush.  That's pretty hard to get - from
>Allen Seyberths Poker Hand sumamry (on my web-page (plug,
>plug)) the odds of a Royal Flush on 9 cards (roll of 25+)
>without pulling a Joker (remember, that means Dementia and
>worse for an MS) are 0.01%.  Even allowing Jokers, the
>probability is a mere 0.29%, and the MS gets spanked by the
>manitou for the priviledge.
>

It may be hard, but "statting" it allows for the possibility of a player 
achieving it.  As Pinnacle notes, and I wouldn't dispute, statting something 
allows for it to happen, and throws up a red flag for the players to try and 
achieve.

> > (We don't know if this was maintained/followed through in
>Smith & Roebards,
> > as we don't have that.)
> >
> > But...we've since been told that all the tech that pre-2060 (or 
>whenever)
> > Mads were given was simply knowledge up to 2060 (approx.)
>by Manitous.
>
> >
> > So...how did the Manitous give Mad Scientists knowledge of time travel, 
>when
> > no such scientific knowledge existed in 2060 or beyond to as far as 
>2094?
>
>The Reckoners certainly know how to travel through time -
>they sent Stone, remember?  Some manitou probably know how
>how to manipulate the Hunting Grounds so some poor sucker
>in there ends up years away from where they entered (the
>Prospector was in the hunting grounds for a couple of
>centuries) - aided by enough raw power from ghost rock,
>manitou can probably work the other way. Spend a week in
>the Hunting Grounds and it's 1776 when you emerge.  Nobody
>said time travel would be pleasant...
>

But...that wasn't our understanding of the whole Mad 
Scientist/Manitou/Junker relationship.  The Mads weren't getting Reckoner 
knowledge:  they were simply getting man-made tech knowledge from the 
"future" of 2060 (or whenever it was).

Given how the rulebook describes the Reckoner's time travel/Stone thing as a 
last-ditch "all the power they got" one-shot kinda thing, it seems unlikely 
any other manitou could do it anyway.

However, wasn't there something afoot near Devil's Tower (in the Wasted West 
Companion, I think it's mentioned) to send someone back in time and stop the 
events of the Tower o' Fear adventure?  So were the Junker scientists using 
time travel there?  But if they got their time travel knowledge from 
manitous, and there was no time-travel tech in 2060 for the manitous to 
"loan" to Mads, where'd it come from...?

>--
>Do you think you can keep on running
>Like the papers that blow down your empty street
>Outside in the dark when you can't sleep
>The ghost of your father, always watching
>--
>Steve Wallace
>http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~ceesrw
>ceesrw@cee.hw.ac.uk
>
>
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---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/


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