Bring back Transdimentional.....Please

[Killer Cyborg]

Seconded.

It is one of the best books Palladium has ever written.
An update for After the Bomb or Rifts would be fantastic.

[BookWyrm]

Thirded.

[lordwind]

I concur. #4

[Tinker Dragoon]

This message has been moved to the After the Bomb Forum, where the topic is more applicable and appropriate. If you have a problem with how this post was handled please direct all inquires to deific.nmi@gmail.com, including the url to the post in question.

[glitterboy2098]

doesn't really fit ATB. it would make a great HU sourcebook though..comics have had plenty of timetravel/dimension crossing adventures, so why not give HU some rules for it...

[Rali]

I agree. If Palladium were to update Transdimensional and republish it, it would most likely sell better as a Heroes Unlimited sourcebook that could be used in any of the SDC settings.

Any AtB sourcebooks should really focus on the building up of the AtB setting and story. Print an AtB:TD sourcebook and you may as well reassign AtB as a Rifts Dimension book.

It's been a while since I've really delved into the book, so I'm curious what in it needs to be revised (other than the dinosaurs)?

[glitterboy2098]

it fit Teenage Mutant Ninja Tutles and Other Strangeness. the rules and scenarios in the book assume a 20th century, pre-crash earth.

do you really beleive that a world that has been wiped clean of human civilization, nuked, and is struggling to regain basic technologies could produce a device capable of travelling through time? devices the rules themselves say need an IQ in the 60+ range to even comprehend, and in the hundreds to even hope to build? a device that needs highly advanced electronics and systems?
and ATB has no definitively established magic, so the time magic isn't much of a help either.
and of course, if ATB characters had the option to travel back into time.....why would they care? stopping the crash just ensures they don't exist, most stuff that occurs in the past won't matter post-crash, and given the way twists and cycles work, you can't jump back without going pre-crash.


on the otherhand, the book fits into a super-hero genre quite well, since thats basically what it was written for in the first place. HU has character classes that could conceivably build a time machine, despite not having the IQ to do so normally. HU has the kind of infrastructure needed to build such an advanced device. HU has magic, so time magic is perfectly viable. HU has the kinds of characters who would not only care about going back into time for some plot point, but would actually see it as important. events in the past of HU have an impact on the current of HU, giving a reason to avoid meddling or to stop others from doing so.



basically, TDTMNT is a modern times superhero genre book. it does not fit well into the post-apocolyptic genre of after the bomb.

[glitterboy2098]

actually, TDTMNT didn't fit into ATB1 so much as ATB1 fitted into TDTMNT. a world similar to ATB1 was one of the future twists (which being the future, was presented as a possibility, not a definite like the twists of the past), as was several extreme extropolations of the way ATB1 could go.


as for your points...it would take GM fiat to get a character smart enough to build the devices. no character that could be made with the normal character creation rules will suffice.

the EoH are presented as being barely able to build the tech they have, and that only because of one guy. i do not have MoA, but i suspect SAECEN is presented in a much greater light. in regards to magic, as you pointed out it is limited in location, ritualistic, and may just be some variant psionic abilities.

basically though, the book was written for superhero's, and trying to make it fit into a post-apoc setting is going ot be a bit of a stretch. it would be like dumping a plot designed for Daredevil onto the shoulders of mad max....it just doesn't mesh well. half of the book would excuses to show how you can shoehorn timetravel and dimensional hopping into a post-apoc game.


on the otherhand, a timetravel book for HU could present ATB as one of several options for a future twist, just like in TDTMNT. along with some of the other superhero genre types of futures. and you can still buy the HU book and use elements of it in your ATB games if you wish, just like people do with TDTMNT. the book can focus on the time travel and the various stories you can do with it, without having to focus so much on explaining why the people can do it despite most of the world being positively medieval in technology.

the important part is to find the right genre and put it there. and the contents of TDTMNT would fit Hu's genre better than ATB's.


now, are there parts of TDTMNT that should go into ATB2? heck yeah. the dinosaurs were already added by todd yoho, and he mentions the other prehistoric animals. so those should be put into ATB. the rules for archaic weapons like blackpowder weapons should be put into ATB2, those are much more likely to be made with the lower tech understanding of the ATB populatons, and it puts the stuff from the ATB book as the quality, high end stuff coming from the major centers of technology.

some of the odd plants and animals from the "mutantworld" future would fit into ATB2 well as pre-crash oddities, or wild mutations caused by the mix of the mutagenic virus and the fallout from the nukes. heck, the robots could even be added as examples of pre-crash technology.

but the time travel and dimension hopping just aren't readily combined with ATB like they were TMNT.

[Todd Yoho]

now, are there parts of TDTMNT that should go into ATB2? heck yeah. the dinosaurs were already added by todd yoho, and he mentions the other prehistoric animals. so those should be put into ATB. the rules for archaic weapons like blackpowder weapons should be put into ATB2, those are much more likely to be made with the lower tech understanding of the ATB populatons, and it puts the stuff from the ATB book as the quality, high end stuff coming from the major centers of technology.

some of the odd plants and animals from the "mutantworld" future would fit into ATB2 well as pre-crash oddities, or wild mutations caused by the mix of the mutagenic virus and the fallout from the nukes. heck, the robots could even be added as examples of pre-crash technology.

but the time travel and dimension hopping just aren't readily combined with ATB like they were TMNT.

You have no idea how pertinent this thread is to something I'm kicking around.

If you think you'd like to see something along these lines in the Rifter, or (given a miracle) a book, tell all of your family and friends to bug the crap out of Wayne and/or Jason Marker. Send them emails and PMs and envelopes with bribes depending on how strongly you feel about it.

[glitterboy2098]

i'll give you benefit of the doubt in regards to the intellegence thing, i don't have the book on me at the moment, so i was working off memory. i might have been mistaken.

but you run into a problem with ATB. someone with the intellegence to make a time travel device, just assuming greater than average even.....why would the powers divert efforts away from important projects like medicine, electronics, computers, sanitation..... all projects a post-apoc society would place at a higher priority than exotic physics research? and even if they do have money to spend on stuff, they are more likely to support developments like energy weapons, new power sources, or other such practical tech applications first.

ATB lacks the kind of developed infrastructure our modern world has. their priorities would be to develop infrastructure first, pure research projects second unless they show some advantage from easily done applications. Timetravel is a major "pie in the sky" field of research even today, with few applications the people of ATB would consider useful.

[glitterboy2098]

in regards to the IQ thing, you were correct. the minimum to get temporal physics as a skill is 21, and while the constructing timemachines skill doesn't have that as a prerequisite, i'd say you'd need ot have at least someone on staff with the skill.
cross dimensional skills are slightly higher, but much the same issue.

which does bring up a point though. in the real world, people with high level knowledge of Physics, both normal and Quantum, are not exactly common. with the general loss of knowledge from the Crash, i'd suspect that they would get even rarer. so a character with sufficent education to get the skill temporal mechanics, be they PC or NPC, is going to be a fairly unique person.

which goes along with my statements above. time travel is less likely to be a priority over things like guns, defenses, and so on.

as for desperation projects? sure, but even those are generally going to be either A) poorly thought out and funded (for example, the nazi's funded attempts to photograph the british fleet remorely based on the false assertions of a group claiming we lived on the inside of a hollow earth...even the nazi's didn't really beleive it and didn't fund much, but couldn't pass up the chance.)

or

B) of immense immediate practical value and thus well funded. (example, the Manhattan Project...)


for a character with high level understanding of physics, a project for energy weapons, force fields, and so on would fall under catagory B, while something like time travel would more often than not fall under catagory A.

it would be kinda like if we get into a third world war, and decide to funnel most of the development resources to SETI in hopes we find some aliens to help us......instead of using those resources to improve our tanks, planes, and missiles.

[glitterboy2098]

I agree. If Palladium were to update Transdimensional and republish it, it would most likely sell better as a Heroes Unlimited sourcebook that could be used in any of the SDC settings.

Any AtB sourcebooks should really focus on the building up of the AtB setting and story. Print an AtB:TD sourcebook and you may as well reassign AtB as a Rifts Dimension book.

It's been a while since I've really delved into the book, so I'm curious what in it needs to be revised (other than the dinosaurs)?

the dinosaurs, the other prehistoric animals, stats for the normal animals from the different time periods (can easily be used given the ATB2 history of private citizen genetic engineering). the random roll table for unknown features of prehistoric animals would be easily converted into a strange mutation chart, not unlike the one in MiO. the rules for archaic weapons (close combat weapons, various types of blackpowder guns, cannon) would easily be fitted into ATB.

the future twists have things that could be adapted, given some rewriting of their fluff. the mutagen planet creatures are fairly interesting and could easily be worked in with a good rewrite of the fluff. the robots from the "life killing machine world" twist could easily be reworked into some pre-crash robot factory somewhere that goes amok. (skynet/Archie-3 style maybe). the spellmagic as pointed out by macksting shows up in MiA, and only really needs revising to bring it inline with more recent magic rules.

the main things that don't mesh easily with ATB2 is timetravel, dimension hopping, and the technological devices related to it, the various "evolved humans" from the later twists, temporal magic, and the timelords and other NPC's.

and those could easily be added to HU.

[tundro]

now, are there parts of TDTMNT that should go into ATB2? heck yeah. the dinosaurs were already added by todd yoho, and he mentions the other prehistoric animals. so those should be put into ATB. the rules for archaic weapons like blackpowder weapons should be put into ATB2, those are much more likely to be made with the lower tech understanding of the ATB populatons, and it puts the stuff from the ATB book as the quality, high end stuff coming from the major centers of technology.

some of the odd plants and animals from the "mutantworld" future would fit into ATB2 well as pre-crash oddities, or wild mutations caused by the mix of the mutagenic virus and the fallout from the nukes. heck, the robots could even be added as examples of pre-crash technology.

but the time travel and dimension hopping just aren't readily combined with ATB like they were TMNT.

You have no idea how pertinent this thread is to something I'm kicking around.

If you think you'd like to see something along these lines in the Rifter, or (given a miracle) a book, tell all of your family and friends to bug the crap out of Wayne and/or Jason Marker. Send them emails and PMs and envelopes with bribes depending on how strongly you feel about it.

Can you elaborate on what you're kicking around, Todd? I know my curiosity is peaked.

[glitterboy2098]

the question is not "will it work with ATB2", but more "can it work as standard part of ATB2". if you stick time travel and dimensional travel in as a standard part of ATB2, the setting collapses. how can you keep up a gritty, post-apocalyptic feel going when the players can just activate their "space time ossifier" and jump back to the 20th century? how do you keep up the madmax feel of the technology when all they have to do is jump back to the pre-crash era and steal whatever high tech you want? how do you even keep it ATB2, when the players can routinely jump between universes? it stops being ATB2 and becomes "Sliders with mutant animals"

[khyron1144]

I'd personally like to simply see more support for AtB of any kind.

One of the good things they could do with a revised version of Transdimensional TMNT, only without the words TMNT in the title or the NPC stats for characters from the comics, is to provide more and better linkages between AtB and HU2. For example, the entire AtB skill system with apprenticeships and whatnot is very tied into the post-apocalyptic AtB setting. This makes creating a modern mutant animal character difficult without resorting to TMNT & Other Strangeness rules, which I also have.

[glitterboy2098]

Well it depends on a lot of things.

Do the PCs have their own time machine or are simply able to use someone else's (Cardania, rogue mad scientist, Empire of Humanity, etc)?

Having their own machine opens up a lot more possibilities. If they don't then time travel remains more firmly in the GM's hands. Of course even if they do have their own machine, it can alwasy break or be stolen.

As far as "simply" jumping back before the crash to get hi-tech items (putting aside all the dangers of time travel in the first place, missed jumps, etc) when the PCs break into a lab to steal some gizmos and find Biospawn goons hot on their tail, well things might not be so simple or safe in the past after all.

Of course a game that centers around time travel or dimensional travel will be very different from a game without them at all. And of course, there is a wide spectrum in between depending on how much the GM wants to bring in. Still, a game with Cardanian agents racing against (and through) time to stop a team of EoH agents from editing the timestream to prevent the rise of mutant animals would be perfectly fine way to run a game of AtB I think.

even if the machine is owned by someone else, thats like dropping Stargate command into the middle of madmax's Outback wasteland.

to use timetravel in the game, you pretty much have to make the game revolve around time travel. at which point it stops being a post-apoalyptic game setting, and becomes a timetravel game setting. because you'll end up spending much more of your game time running around in the past or future than in the world of ATB.

on the otherhand, if you make a timetravel book for HU, where such campaigns are not only within the genra, but are darn well near mandatory for it...you can justify making it a standard part of the game world. and if the GM really wants to do a timetravel game with ATB, there is nothing to stop him from using the HU rules with ATB.

time travel does little to expand ATB. if anything it detracts fro mthe rest of the ATB setting. but it would expand HU immensely.

[Dash]

I think a revamp would be a great addition to the Palladium Lineup of books. I don't know about what game system to attach it to, nor do I give a hoot.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have most of the Palladium books with the only missing core books being Dead Reign and Recon. I would use a revamped Transdimensional book to enhance my Rifts setting, and explain away the strange machine in the depths of Lone Star. Who doesn't want a Interdimensional spaceship they stole from the Trans Galactic Empire?

the bio-E table for the prehistoric creatures should be included, and is as likely to be used in AtB as much as HU, because there are genetic examples in fossil form. and as much a Jurrassic park is a cliche, I think humanity would sure make a real one.....

[The Baron of chaos]

I definetelly agree in that Transdimensional need to be re-introduced in Palaldium univers, perhaps as universal sourcebook of sort(aftr all Througgh the glass darkly is only minimally close to Nightbane and still worked)

[The Dark Elf]

I think it would be nice back in print also.

I think it is suited to any of the games (as already proven for TMNT/ATB) but HU would be my best bet as well. the reason for this that alot of the other games (Rifts/ATB/Dead Reign) all have extremely pinnacle points in time that make them the games they are. Wouldnt want to mess around too much with those.

Having just said that, ofc, an adventure to stop the bomb in the first place would be epic! - So crossover.

It could be introduced in any genre as time travel is invented in the future when people (or not) have the means. then they take it back in time and pass the technology on (aka terminator).

[Rali]

so do i a revamp would be awesome. although i think the dinosaurs/prehistoric animals should be done like they were in not only atb, but also rifts lonestar, that way it could be done for both atb/hu and rifts

Yeah, cause that really helped Mutants in Orbit.