cottonferret
Festive
Hope Lover
Mjolnir
RPM
Vampiretwilight
Krasnaya
Not a SayanNote to self: Need to think about angles of shadows, as stepping into a shadow on the wall and then dropping from the ceiling or vice versa could be possible. Also dropping a target through a shadow on the floor beneath them would be a little too easy.
Suddenly fall from the ceiling. lol Could they use their own shadow? Cuz, it'd shrink as they went, although, I suppose the same, making it bigger would work for that too, possibly.
The game we'll be playing is a tabletop turn-based system, with dice rolls to determine the success of actions and attacks, which allows for Tempus rerolling failed actions as he steps back and tries the same action in a slightly different way.
The problem with flipping actions is that if you replace something which happened in the previous round then the whole chain of events collapses, with every action past the point of change needing to be repeated.
While I admit I had not put too much thought to the idea that everyone would then need to redo their actions, I was working under the assumption that Tempus is working for the rest of his party, and would try, at the least, not to screw anything up too much for the other party members. Unless, I suppose, they're going for a double-cross... But in the example you gave, switching the order of who shoots when doesn't actually change where each shoots. I suppose if they're each waiting for the other to pick a target... but realistically, unless they're all shouting out who they're going after, they'd just wind up shooting at the same easy target. I suppose that doesn't generally happen in turn-based rp(of any sort, heh).
Would it be possible to reuse the old rolls for the previous actions and simply have the other players quickly put them to another action? I haven't played a lot of dice/tabletop stuff, so now I'm kind of just being curious.
The definition I usually use for a 'casual action' is something which has no effect on any character other than the one performing it.
I actually did mean causal, not casual. I can understand your definition of casual action, but it's kind of the opposite of causal, as causal actions are actions that cause something... :P So, one person putting their sunglasses down while another person takes a drink are two separate actions that have little bearing on each other, and so, would be casual, not causal. And which happens first doesn't really matter. Throwing a glass, however, caused that glass to break. So the glass can't be broken before someone throws it. (well, it could, but that's a whole different sequence of events and the person would probably then never throw it)
One of the rules I'm imposing for Tempus is that he's physically travelling through time, and so any injury or effect he's suffered would persist. In the case of whether to drink a potentially poisoned drink or not, even if he travelled back after drinking the wrong cup he'd still be poisoned as he drank it and then traveled back and so as part of his own personal timeline the event did actually happen to him.
I don't think the flipping actions around would necessarily allow Tempus to avoid being injured or poisoned or whatever the case may be. If he can't figure out which action caused the effect, flipping another wouldn't change the outcome. Drinking a cup of poisoned wine before suspicious Sally touches it would not stop it from being poisoned if it wasn't suspicious Sally who poisoned it, or if that particular handling of it wasn't when she poisoned it.
Similarly the precognitive ability I think you're describing reminds me of the Nicholas Cage film Next, where the character knew the outcome of every decision he could possibly make within the next five minutes, which let him walk through the middle of a battle between an army of terrorists and federal law enforcement officers without being injured, search an entire ship of mines without setting any off and finding the exact location of a hostage in seconds. All of these abilities would be far too powerful as part of the narrative and would involve the players having to either replay the same five minutes over and over until the perfect result was achieved, or simply jumping to the perfect result without playing through any of the failed attempts, which then makes any dice roll pointless as it could be simply wished away.
No precog ability, just guesswork, hindsight might be 20/20 when you've got all the clues, but being able to look back and think I shouldn't have done that, is different from being able to know what will come of doing that same thing in a different sequence.
Either way, I can see why this could have the same problem with the whole having to redo the turns for the sequence things all over again that being able to go farther back in time would have. Though a limit like, you can only do this once every twenty minutes in game, might work to make that happen less?
The logic behind Slice's arm is that rather than having a different device for every use instead she has the components which lock together slightly differently to generate different effects.
As far as power supply and weight goes, the plasma core uses up fuel as it operates but can also replenish itself over time. In terms of gameplay this works the same way as the Stress for Tempus's powers but in reverse where the power would drain as tasks are performed but then recover over time as the character rested. The weight issue is actually the reason for the interlocking components explanation of the arms operation, since it wouldn't need extra equipment to operate differently as long as the existing components could reconfigure to achieve the goal.
Oh, there's a plasma core. I have no idea what that means other than really hot fourth state of matter, so I'll just think alternative power source and be happy with that. :P I wasn't thinking too much have every component be singularly capable of one thing, just that along with the list of every component, the player might offer you a second list of basic arm functions and ideas they have so that they aren't always stuck having to quickly think up something, have some practise at thinking up combinations, and know what you're willing to let sneak past if it's not exactly scientific. Then you both have some idea of what the other thinks is acceptable and willing to compromise about.
I still say that a cyborg arm is going to be heavier than a regular flesh and blood arm, that, or it would be more easily damaged, particularly if it has the same amount of working parts. If something heavy hit it, instead of bruising, it might jam one of those components and until it can be fixed or rejostled into place, that particular component would be capable of reconfiguring with the rest. And whether or not those components work together or singularly, the rule of the more there are, the heavier it'll be still applies. :)