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[Core] Talent Player's Guide

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[Core] Talent Player's Guide #1

Yesterday, 07:06 AM

Just a heads up on the new title which just appeared in the Monday Meeting
Notes.
IanWatson
Community
Manager

Join Date: Oct 2013

Posts: 1415

Ian A. A. Watson
Onyx Path Community Manager
Trinity Continuum Content Lead

Tags: None

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Yesterday, 07:43 AM #2

I saw that this morning and got pretty excited.

Any general idea on what is it going to focus around or still too early to ask?
Mateus Luz
Member I hope for some "Talents over the ages" and more about supertech. Also
some about the weird stuff we see in Adventure and In Media Res but taken
Join Date: Jan 2019 to the other settings, like weird places, esoteric stuff, dimention hopping and

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Posts: 2498 maybe just maybe time travel...

House Rules - The Basics - House Rules for Trinity Continuum

Fists of Flux - Inspired and Powered Martial Arts for Talents
Tomes of Inspiration - Rituals and Dark Magic in Fists of Flux

Yesterday, 08:17 AM #3

Originally posted by Mateus Luz

Any general idea on what is it going to focus around or still too
IanWatson early to ask?
Community
Manager
Still too early to ask. We've only just announced it, after all. More information
Join Date: Oct 2013 will be coming soon, but until then, feel free to speculate.
Posts: 1415

Ian A. A. Watson
Onyx Path Community Manager
Trinity Continuum Content Lead

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Yesterday, 09:03 AM #4

Defo looking forward to it

Amethyst
Member

Join Date: Aug 2021

Posts: 161

Yesterday, 10:35 AM #5

I hope it's an expansion of the masteries seen in Assassin's to other areas.

A sourcebook about how to create specialized talents, if you will. Then
expanded super science with clearer rules and more examples. Finally, an
Firanai explanation of flux and how Talents can manipulate it more directly.
Member

Join Date: May 2014

Posts: 568

Yesterday, 12:49 PM #6

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I somehow doubt that it will focus on Masteries — ironically, this is because

there's too much to do in that regard. Assassins, by itself, demonstrates
that you can fill an entire book with just one specialized Talent. However, I
certainly wouldn't mind some attention being given to that in the TPG; a sort
of “introduction to other Masteries”, if you will: something that lays the
Dataweaver groundwork for further development of the idea, but which doesn't even
Member attempt to be comprehensive. But personally, I'd rather more word count be
devoted to Gifts than to Masteries.
Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 6950 I do agree about revisiting and expanding on Super Science and the cross-
time nature of Flux. On the Super Science side of things, I'd like to see
Aberrant's “reverse engineering” concept adapted to the basic Super
Science rules; and perhaps bring in something about how different Facets
interact with Super Science: e.g., the Destructive Facet serving to amp up
the effectiveness of Super Science while also resulting in more spectacular
failures; the Intuitive Facet shortens the periodicity of the invention cycle;
and the Reflective Facet reduces the chances of things going wrong (though
when they do go wrong, I refer you to the suggestion regarding the
Destructive Facet).

More generally, I'd like to see the Facets reexamined to see if they need
clarification and/or expansion on what they can do.

And I'd also like to see Dramatic Editing get some review and expansion: at
a minimum, bring in some of the DE innovations from Assassins as
something available to all Talents — and possibly others, too: I'm thinking in
particular of the “exchange rate” of two Momentum for one Inspiration in DE
that Assassins introduced, which could also be expanded further to
“anyone with access to Momentum can engage in Dramatic Editing at these
higher Momentum costs, even if they don't have Inspiration”. I'm looking at
novas, superiors, psions, and psiads in particular; but one the off-chance
that someone wants to play a heroic baseline and is averse to calling them a
Talent, this would apply here, too: basically, of it's a player character, the
“Dramatic Editing for double Momentum” rule would apply.

And Facets might also factor into Dramatic Editing in some way, perhaps
with Intuitive types getting some sort of edge with Dramatic Editing that
involves serendipity, while Reflective types finding it easier to engage in
Dramatic Editing that represents retroactive foresight, and Destructive
types… well, I'd have to think about that one a bit more.

Finally, it might be interesting to see some options for having Paths factor
into Dramatic Editing: say, an optional rule where reach rank in a Path gives
a Talent a specialized currency that can only be used to pay for Dramatic
Editing in place of Inspiration points, and only if the player can explain how
the Edit is justified by the Path.

I also like Mateus Luz's suggestion of “Talents through the ages”: there's a
“22nd Century Talents” supplement on the Nexus that addresses the issues
with making Talents that use Æon-era Paths (specifically, what Attributes
and Skills are associated with each Origin, Role, and Society Path); and at a
minimum, I'd want TPG to cover that, as well as their Aberrant-era
counterparts that's aren't already covered in the TC core book. (Adventure!
and Anima already prominently feature Talents, and ought to have already
addressed these issues; but if they haven't, I'd address them here, too.) But
I'd also like to see one or two era-tailored Gifts (either variants of existing
Gifts that operate differently Ina given era, or new Gifts that are based on
features unique to a given era), and maybe a box dedicated to summarizing
TC:A!'s daredevil-style Dramatic Editing along with what conditions would

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need to be met in other eras to bring that back into play.

(Personally, I'm inclined to bring daredevil-style DE into play in TC:Ab

games, on the Doylean basis that Talents in a world dominated by
superhumans need every edge they can get to stay relevant; and I'd justify it
in Watsonian terms as a short-term byproduct of Divas Mal's Quantum
Event: for the first couple of decades after the Galatea Explosion, daredevil-
style Dramatic Editing is a thing again. But it needn't be limited to those two
events: I could see, for example, a freak meteorite storm striking Kansas
around the 1950s, resulting in a brief and local resurgence of the Adventure
era. Think Smallville, but in the middle of the 20th century.)

So in summary: clarifications and expansions on the Paths, Facets,

Dramatic Editing, Super Science, and Gifts from the core book; plus an
introduction to non-Assassins Masteries, a closer look at Flux and how it
relates to the Continuum, and guidelines for designing and playing Talents in
other eras, specifically including Aberrant and Æon.

(But whatever you do, be very careful about mixing the expanded material
on the Continuum with the “Talents in other eras” stuff; the last thing we
need is another Æon Flux incident.) :P

My hacks: Trinity Continuum, Scion, Exalted, World of Darkness,

Chronicles of Darkness

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Yesterday, 02:43 PM #7

When I see this title I immediately think of 1e Aberrant Player's Guide (I

really liked that book!). So one thing that I would expect from this book
would be exploring the boundaries of talents. The very pinnacle of what they
econclark can potentially do. The alternate continuum where they are the dominant
Member type. What do talents look like just before they ascend, how may they
ascend? And some tips/meat on how to get there of course. The end game
Join Date: Dec 2018 wasn't the whole book.
Posts: 86

Yesterday, 03:23 PM #8

For what it's worth, “pinnacles of power” was appropriate for the aberrant
players guide because a major theme of apparent was and is the
ascendance to power. That's not really a theme for Talents. That said,
Dataweaver masteries are explicitly a step up from gifts, in that gifts are limited to stuff
Member that is plausible while masteries are not. An example of a mastery from
assassins involves being able to shoot around obstacles — that is, the
Join Date: Nov 2013 trajectory of the bullet Benz around an obstacle. And I would argue that one
Posts: 6950 reason why assassins has the shadow in it is because another theme of
talents is that they don't seem to be superhuman.

So when a talent has an ability that blatantly violates the laws of physics,
like the aforementioned bullet bending, it only takes place behind a sort of

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masquerade, out of sight of the public. This would be one of the things that
an introduction to non assassin masteries would address, in my view: what
replaces the shadow? That said, one possible answer is “nothing”.
Ozymandias from Watchmen could be considered an Assassin, in the sense
that he has masteries; but the logic of the setting is such that those
masteries may well be publicly known: with the exception of Dr Manhattan,
The Watchmen universe could be said to be dominated by Talents; and
ozymandias stands above even the other Talents in that his expertise allows
him to do the impossible. In some flavors of the superhero genre, I could
see running an aberrant game with talents being free to take and use
masteries without having to hide in the Shadow. The earliest version of
wonder woman, for example, where all of her incredible abilities came from
Amazonian training, could be viewed as a talent with unconcealed
masteries.

But again, I don't think that should be the focus of the book. I can see it
being something that the book deals with, to an extent; but that's not the
same thing.

I could also see the book explicitly dealing with cross time travel; but again,
that wouldn't be the focus. And my inclination would be that it would be done
via super science, as opposed to masteries.

My hacks: Trinity Continuum, Scion, Exalted, World of Darkness,

Chronicles of Darkness

Yesterday, 04:16 PM #9

I think moving in the direction of "Super Training" to get to Wonder Woman

style is a very solid approach for a non assassin mastery, it can be used to
get to Mentats mental capacities.
Mateus Luz
Member I honestly think the focus of the Talents must be Skills to super human
levels, in opposition to Attributes to super human levels, basically you are
Join Date: Jan 2019 capable of amazing things not because your natural capacities but because
Posts: 2498 you trained beyond natural levels.

I would say, like Stalwarts have attribute gifts and power gifts, talents may
have Lucky Gifts (general luck), Skill Gifts (capacities beyond usual limitis)
and Masteries (that are almost supernatural).

Last edited by Mateus Luz; Yesterday, 04:44 PM.

House Rules - The Basics - House Rules for Trinity Continuum

Fists of Flux - Inspired and Powered Martial Arts for Talents
Tomes of Inspiration - Rituals and Dark Magic in Fists of Flux

1 like

Yesterday, 05:45 PM #10

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I'm surprised no one has hoped for Tier 3 Talent rules.

Florin
Member

Join Date: Oct 2015

Posts: 896

Yesterday, 08:50 PM #11

Originally posted by Florin

I'm surprised no one has hoped for Tier 3 Talent rules.
Mateus Luz
Member
Everyone did, we just don’t talk about…
Join Date: Jan 2019
Posts: 2498

House Rules - The Basics - House Rules for Trinity Continuum

Fists of Flux - Inspired and Powered Martial Arts for Talents
Tomes of Inspiration - Rituals and Dark Magic in Fists of Flux

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