I am working on a post apocalyptic game where society fell in the 23rd century (lasers, hover cars, etc) and about 700 years have passed. Most knowledge has been lost or buried. Some technology is still there to be found. I am having problems working out how to implement Knowledge (Ancient Lore) checks to have PC try to figure out these ancient, seemingly alien devices. The idea is to account for the possibility of sticking your hand in the blender, accidentally shooting yourself or your buddy with a laser pistol, or accidently causing the item to explode. Weapons and armor will be expanded on from Huzz's Scifi Weapons list. Some Star Wars vehicles will be reskinned.

Initially I thought of assigning a tech level to the various devices by general category and then a difficulty based on that. Example: A laser pistol might be [ch][di][di] and Laser Auto Rifle might be [ch][ch][di], powered armor might be [ch][ch][ch]. To my mind this seemed to scale up to fast when dealing with vehicles or silhouette 1+ robots.

THe next idea I had was to base the difficulty on silhouette with the idea the smaller items are less complicated than larger items with an extra [th] added for particularly difficult items. This seems to be me to be too generalized.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how "tech levels" might become difficulty levels and implemented.

Thanks

A little off of what you are asking for, but perhaps incorporating the “hand in the blender” effect into the actual operation of the item is what you want.

I’m shooting at enemies with my special gun (rolls despair) what does this button do...

this power generator should restore the ship (rolls despair) oh it’s actually a bomb...

just assume that they don’t know even if they succeed on the relevant checks; succes means knowledge of how to use it for what you want to use it for it or what it is, but not how it works or all the features.

as for the actual difficulties of repairing he items. If I were doing something like his i’d probably just go on an item by item basis, then adding challenge dice when I see fit (or by spending a story point). Then you can spend threat and such to cause difficulties later because they don’t fully understand he tech (actually you could even make it so that they only understand the tech on a triumph just to make it more finicky).

not sure if this is what you want, but you might find some interesting ideas here.

I'm not sure I agree with the silhouette option there - an iphone is considerably more complicated than a Model T, for example. But I think that the silhouette mentality is an appropriate approach insofar as maybe it shouldn't be a hard and fast tech level, but a delta from what the PC already knows and where this device resides - then you could just calculate difficulty based on that difference. As far as Bad Things Happening™ that's what Threat and Despair results are for, and with 2-3 Challenge dice per check, you're sure to see this come up frequently. However, I'm not sure how well this route plays with fast rulings as a GM, and without understanding the differing tech levels of your setting I don't know if it's overly complicated to boot.

Maybe using the Upgrade mechanic is going to account for the difficulty without scaling up too fast or being too "mathy" for on-the-fly rulings?

As said above I would just handle it on an item-by-item basis. This means that Car A and Car B can be of varying difficulty levels, rather than "all cars are difficulty X." It also means you can scale both power and danger much easier.

I would just look at an item and create 2 scales; Tech Level and Danger Level. Tech Level just determines how many difficulty dice. Then Danger Level determines how many upgrades.

Now you can have very advanced items that weren't really that dangerous (Smart Phone, Tiny Robot Assistant, etc.) and items that are less complicated, but more dangerous (Laser Rifle, Security Drone, etc.)

5 hours ago, Noahjam325 said:

As said above I would just handle it on an item-by-item basis. This means that Car A and Car B can be of varying difficulty levels, rather than "all cars are difficulty X." It also means you can scale both power and danger much easier.

I would just look at an item and create 2 scales; Tech Level and Danger Level. Tech Level just determines how many difficulty dice. Then Danger Level determines how many upgrades.

Now you can have very advanced items that weren't really that dangerous (Smart Phone, Tiny Robot Assistant, etc.) and items that are less complicated, but more dangerous (Laser Rifle, Security Drone, etc.)

Excellent Idea,

Thank you