{"id":1712,"date":"2013-06-05T05:46:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T12:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2013-06-05T08:10:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T15:10:54","slug":"better-angels-gadget-31-omniscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/2013\/06\/better-angels-gadget-31-omniscience\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Better Angels’ Gadget: 31% Omniscience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze, \u00a9 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n

While a few gadgets are described in the Better Angels <\/a>rulebook, more are always welcome, right? Here\u2019s an example of how the Devilish Creativity rules work. Use it as a player character invention or as an armament for hellbound antagonists.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the Internet has taught anybody anything, it\u2019s taught everybody that they need to be able to argue any time, anywhere, against any ridiculously named racist twerp.\u00a0 The device known as \u201c31% Omniscience\u201d gives a decided edge, whether you\u2019re arguing about which Die Hard<\/i> movie rocked the least (www.rottentomatoes.com says it\u2019s A Good Day To\u2026<\/i>) or why Benjamin Franklin\u2019s pious arguments can be discounted (there is titillating evidence of libertinage).\u00a0 It is, of course, a smartphone app.\u00a0 Being diabolical in nature, however, it cannot be pirated, jailbroken, resold or installed on other devices.<\/p>\n

In rules terms, when you\u2019re persuading someone with reason and facts, this provides Advantage from surprise<\/b>. When building this device, that counts as a Minor Environmental Change (since, if you had a garage-sized bank of supercomputers you could cherry pick facts and presentation pretty aggressively), so that costs 1 Generosity.<\/i> How much Advantage accrues is entirely up to the GM.\u00a0 If she thinks the facts are violently in favor of your cause, it\u2019s a +3 bonus.\u00a0 If she thinks the facts are actually against your course of argument, it\u2019s still +1 (because there\u2019s no point of view so dumb you can\u2019t find an authority willing to endorse it).\u00a0 If it\u2019s up in the air, +2 Advantage.<\/b><\/p>\n

The drawback to this sort of specific research is that it only works once per argument.\u00a0 If you use this to come up with facts in favor of evolution, those facts won\u2019t pack the same wallop next time, because the listener has had time to find alternative explanations, or has just gotten bored and tuned the arguments out.\u00a0 That\u2019s why 31% Omniscience comes with a diabolical backup.<\/p>\n

Even if the arguments 31% Omniscience offers are 100% pure, unadulterated, chiropto-guano crazy, it presents them in the way most calculated to persuade.\u00a0 Thus, if facts from this app are used bolster a Devious<\/b> Corruption <\/i>roll specifically, they also give a +1 weapon Advantage no matter how good (or poor) the facts are.\u00a0 After all, if it\u2019s corrupting, it\u2019s not really all about logic and proof, is it?<\/p>\n

Keep in mind, though, that bonus can only be used when leveraging arguments where facts off the Internet would swing some kind of stick.\u00a0 \u201cPot isn\u2019t harmful<\/i>, the stress relief is good for you!\u201d is probably kosher.\u00a0 \u201cYou should totally give my partner here a hot baby-oil rubdown\u201d on the other hand, is not the sort of assertion that evidence influences.<\/p>\n

This aspect of the device costs 1 Knowledge<\/i> to install.<\/p>\n

Total cost: 1 Generosity<\/em>, 1 Knowledge.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because this costs less than three points of Tactics, it has no flaws.<\/p>\n

\"Better<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze, \u00a9 2013. While a few gadgets are described in the Better Angels rulebook, more are always welcome, right?<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[244,11],"class_list":["post-1712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-better-angels","tag-gadget","tag-greg-stolze"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/BA-logo-V4-e1400274327643.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1wrNI-rC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1714,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions\/1714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}