Why no love for Trinity?

[Dr. Roboto]

So looking around on a couple of gaming websites, I found a few references to White Wolf's Trinity line. It apparently encompassed a pulp adventure, (Adventure! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure!)) a supers game, (Aberrant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberrant_(role-playing_game))) and a sci-fi/post-apoc game (Trinity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(role-playing_game))).

However, I never see recommendations for any of the Trinity games. Why is that? The games seem interesting, and I'm thinking of trying to find a copy of Adventure!. Are there glaring flaws in their design, or did they just fall out of vogue?

[Friv]

In order:

Trinity is an interesting little piece, but suffered heavily from metaplot issues. Each book advanced the timeline of the setting by tossing major world-altering consequences into things. The result was that you came away with the impression that there was only one story that they wanted you to play, and you had no control over where it went.

Aberrant had some interesting conceits, but ultimately there are so many incredibly strong superhero settings out there that its' early attempts to merge White Wolf mechanics with high-tier powerscales didn't really match up.

Adventure! is, frankly, a ton of fun. However, you will never find it, because White Wolf only made a single print run of the core book and then ended the line forever. With no errata, no supplementary material, and no support, it was pretty much a guarantee that Adventure! wasn't going to make it. I'm still a big fan, but these days I'm more likely to pull out Savage Worlds when I want to run a 20s pulp game.


Oh, there is one other thing. In a vague attempt to revive interest, White Wolf released a series of d20 versions of all three games. These were incredibly bad. Avoid them at all costs.

[Teln]

Dr. Roboto, if you're interested in Trinity, I suggest checking around on RPGnet. I've seen some pretty sizable threads there about that universe in the past.

[Selrahc]

Aberrant had some interesting conceits, but ultimately there are so many incredibly strong superhero settings out there that its' early attempts to merge White Wolf mechanics with high-tier powerscales didn't really match up.


Sadly true. There are some big issues with Aberrant. I still really dig the game, but White Wolf pulled off high power better in Scion and Exalted(although even there, mechanical issues are still hanging around).

Thematically, there were also some issues. In the standard setting the PCs are pitched as being practically gods, but in actuality will be small fish in a pond filled with sharks. If I was playing a game of it, I'd drastically cut back the number of Novas to around 500 total, and rejigger the power scales so that the PCs wouldn't be massively overshadowed by the majority of NPC novas. The PCs would be amongst the first gen Novas, right in the midst of events like the creation of Opnet, the flowering of the Sierra and the growth of Team Tomorrow and Terragen, rather than coming to the party after the sides are firmly entrenched. It's the kind of setting where I'd love it if the PCs just messed crap up in a well meaning way.

[Dr. Roboto]

Ok, thanks. Just one more question: all three games had the same universe, right? How did that work out? Was there ever interaction between games via time-travel shenanigans or otherwise?

[Selrahc]

Ok, thanks. Just one more question: all three games had the same universe, right? How did that work out? Was there ever interaction between games via time-travel shenanigans or otherwise?

Off the top of my head:
Novas from Aberrant exist in trinity as horrible mutated space monsters. One of the main Team Tomorrow members, Caestus Pax exists as a horrific aberrant king on a far off planet. The Aberrant War shapes Trinity immensely.

The Aeon Foundation was established in the time of Adventure, and has grown to be the largest conglomerate in history by the time of Trinity and a fairly major player during Aberrant. The setting is named for it.

Divis Mal is a major character in both Adventure and Aberrant, and his actions between Aberrant and Trinity are heavily responsible for shaping the setting.

Max Mercer is a time traveller, most active in the Adventure setting as the founder of the Aeon Society, but travelling to both the other time periods.

I think that's most of the major through threads that link the setting...

[Friv]

All of the blatant ones, but there are a lot of smaller links here and there. IIRC, there were hints that the Ubiquitous Dragon from Adventure! was The Colony from Abberant and Trinity, and one of Aeon's premier daredevils, Dancer Ace, survives for a hundred years and becomes Jake Danger, Abberant Hunter; in the Trinity era, Jake Danger: Abberant Hunter is a tv show.

[erikun]

Hmm; I did not know that Aberrant had a d10 version. I've only seen (and avoided) the d20 books. I hadn't heard about Adventure! either, although it sounds like that was probably for a reason. I will need to make it a point to look through all the books at the used bookstore the next time I'm there.

[stainboy]

Hmm; I did not know that Aberrant had a d10 version. I've only seen (and avoided) the d20 books. I hadn't heard about Adventure! either, although it sounds like that was probably for a reason. I will need to make it a point to look through all the books at the used bookstore the next time I'm there.

Adventure! is kinda cool. 1920's pulp-serial setting where players spend metagame points to change the story, flavored as dramatic plot twists. It was written before the "indie movement" so it's less pretentious than a lot of the games that have tried to do that since. Seriously, a White Wolf game is less pretentious than something. That alone is worth a second look.

I can't figure out how you're supposed to play Aberrant. Novas (the PCs and other supers) are the glassiest of glass cannons. In D&D terms, imagine a bunch of 20th level wizards with 5th-level wizard hit points. Then have them all use spell research to make custom high level spells that bypass each others' defenses in unpredictable ways. Both times we tried to play it we did one fight with the GM softballing while we got a feel for the system, and still had half the party die.

Trinity is... what Friv said. It's a 90's metaplot world. Cool setting, but with no idea what the PCs are supposed to do in it. It deserves credit for improving on White Wolf's system though. It was the game that introduced static difficulties and fixed Attribute+Ability associations and a workable multiple action rule. (When Trinity was written oWoD still had you divide one die pool between actions.)

[Selrahc]

I can't figure out how you're supposed to play Aberrant. Novas (the PCs and other supers) are the glassiest of glass cannons. In D&D terms, imagine a bunch of 20th level wizards with 5th-level wizard hit points. Then have them all use spell research to make custom high level spells that bypass each others' defenses in unpredictable ways. Both times we tried to play it we did one fight with the GM softballing while we got a feel for the system, and still had half the party die.


It's not *that* bad.... Just remember to put aside at least a third of your Nova points to building some sort of credible defence and you should be survivable. If you throw all your Nova points into a defence orientated build(perhaps trusting to a gadget weapon to handle offence) then you'll be basically untouchable.

[stainboy]

It's not *that* bad.... Just remember to put aside at least a third of your Nova points to building some sort of credible defence and you should be survivable. If you throw all your Nova points into a defence orientated build(perhaps trusting to a gadget weapon to handle offence) then you'll be basically untouchable.

That kind of gentleman's agreement sort of works, but it needs to be an actual part of the char gen rules. And it still doesn't account for damage types that arbitrarily bypass your soak (every soak power can by bypassed by either physical attacks or some type of quantum bolt IIRC). Or tell you whether you'll need to defend against mega-social characters or mind control powers, or which powers, or what mega-attribute total.

That's just what you'd need to not die. PCs also have to be able to do things to other novas. You also need to tell players what maximum defenses they should expect from NPCs, and the system doesn't do that.

IMO the game needs whole new char gen rules. I don't want to have to write them myself.

[Friv]

It's not *that* bad.... Just remember to put aside at least a third of your Nova points to building some sort of credible defence and you should be survivable. If you throw all your Nova points into a defence orientated build(perhaps trusting to a gadget weapon to handle offence) then you'll be basically untouchable.

A character with Mega-Strength 3 deals 3 dice + 15 levels of automatic damage. A character with Mega-Stamina 3 reduces damage by 3 and boosts your health from 7 to 8. (Alternately, armor 3 reduces damage by 9, ensuring that you only take 3 dice + 6 automatic levels, enough to instantly take you out.) Similarly, at Quantum 3 (a common starting point) and Quantum Bolt 3, you deal 6 levels + 12 dice of lethal damage, which Armor 3 reduces to 9 dice of damage per hit, killing the defender in two hits on average.

Yes, by stacking various soak sources you can be untouchable, but that's part of the problem. Damage-dealing powers are extremely inexpensive, but have no way of stacking past 5 dots, while defense-boosting powers cost all of your points, but then you're invincible.

Also, the entire psychic suite of powers is a bit of a disaster, because they all use an Attribute + Power roll which is opposed by Willpower. Only novas with the Psychic Shield power at an equal level to the attacker's Mega-Attribute have a reasonable chance of not being instantly controlled by psychic enemies, which means you have to drop even more points into that defense.

Other attacks roll Attribute + Power against the target's Attribute alone, giving you free extra dice, and if the target doesn't have a good Mega-Attribute in that particular category, they die. Age Alteration can turn a character into a baby instantly, for example.

There are also a host of attacks that just don't have defenses against them, such as Strobe and Probability Corruption.

Finally, there is the issue of Mega-Social Attributes, which are placed into a system with no resolution mechanics for them, and not even some rough guidelines for what those mechanics might be. Mega-Charisma 5 either means that no one will ever willingly fight you, or nothing at all, depending on your ST, and the rules give no hint for how to adjudicate that.

[Selrahc]

A character with Mega-Strength 3 deals 3 dice + 15 levels of automatic damage. A character with Mega-Stamina 3 reduces damage by 3 and boosts your health from 7 to 8

You're comparing the most efficient damage dealing power in the game with probably the least efficient source of soak in the game? :smalltongue:



Alternately, armor 3 reduces damage by 9, ensuring that you only take 3 dice + 6 automatic levels, enough to instantly take you out.

That's more like it. Throw in a dot of forcefield too and you've got your baseline defence. Take a 5 dot Eufiber armour for another five soak at a relatively inexpensive cost for character creation.

13 Nova points for around 19 lethal soak (21 bashing) plus 2 for every forcefield success(and you'll probably get around 1-2 successes on average)*. Sufficient that even Mega Strength 5 guy** or Quantum 4/Q-Bolt 4 guy*** is probably not going to splatter you in a single hit. It takes somebody silly like Claws+Mega Strength guy, or Disintegrate Man to down you easily with damage. In which case the DM probably wants you to die...

Alternatively, spend 12-15 points and become intangible with density control.


*12 Nova Points for the powers, one nova point to get the 5 dot eufiber, 14 bonus points to get Quantum upgraded to 3 for forcefield which a lot of characters do, 4 points of Stamina.
**25 auto success plus strength+brawl, bashing. 15 Nova Points.
***8 auto successes plus 16 dice, lethal damage. 17 Nova Points. Plus 14 bonus points on quantum.



Also, the entire psychic suite of powers is a bit of a disaster, because they all use an Attribute + Power roll which is opposed by Willpower. Only novas with the Psychic Shield power at an equal level to the attacker's Mega-Attribute have a reasonable chance of not being instantly controlled by psychic enemies, which means you have to drop even more points into that defense.

Other attacks roll Attribute + Power against the target's Attribute alone, giving you free extra dice, and if the target doesn't have a good Mega-Attribute in that particular category, they die. Age Alteration can turn a character into a baby instantly, for example.

There are also a host of attacks that just don't have defenses against them, such as Strobe and Probability Corruption.

Finally, there is the issue of Mega-Social Attributes, which are placed into a system with no resolution mechanics for them, and not even some rough guidelines for what those mechanics might be. Mega-Charisma 5 either means that no one will ever willingly fight you, or nothing at all, depending on your ST, and the rules give no hint for how to adjudicate that.

All this stuff however? Yeah. Basically true. The system has some real flaws. You can avoid getting squished with a little work, but there are a lot of screw over powers that don't have an easy answer. If you were of a mind you could buy 5 points of sensory shield and 5 points of psychic shield to negate strobe/psychic attacks for 5 tainted Nova points. But asking every character to do that is a little crazy.

[stainboy]

I'm trying to figure out how to build an effective turtle in Aberrant. As far as I can tell minmaxing soak takes all of your nova points and still loses to SoLs, and there are enough SoLs keyed to weird defenses that you need some kind of blanket defense against everything. (Disclaimer: I've played all of two sessions of Aberrant and I haven't looked at this book in years, so I'll probably get rules wrong.)

Notes in the spoiler, like in Selrahc's post.


Defenses: Density Control (Decrease) 5 + Psychic Shield 5. Density Control 5 makes me immune to everything but psychic attacks, Psychic Shield 5 gives me 10 successes to resist mental attacks. All bases covered, more or less,* as long as Density Control is up.

If I lose initiative with Density Control down I die. I could just run it forever with an infinite quantum point loop (Clone/Quantum Construct and Quantum Leech) but that's pretty cheesy. I could take Taint 8 and try to talk the GM into giving me Permanent Power but I don't see him going for it.

Intuition 1. It looks like someone could start with initiative +70-80 and still have a couple dots in some power that's hard to defend against.** Jesus. I can't always win initiative so I need Intuition to know about fights before they happen. But I might fail the Perception + Intuition roll, or the GM might forget to let me roll, or there might be some power I don't know about that gets around it. I should probably try to win initiative just to be safe.

Minmax Initiative with All Remaining Points. Two dots of tainted Quantum brings me up to the minimum for Density Control. Now I'm free to sink all fifteen bonus points into initiative. Sweet. I now have an initiative in the 20's but that was easy and other people probably do too. So buy Dex and Wits up to 5 (and Perception while I'm at it for that Intuition roll) and then Mega-Wits for Enhanced Initiative. Final initiative bonus +31.

What next.... oh right I'm out of points. That Mega-Wits had to be tainted, by the way.

Final stats: ***
Density Control 5
Psychic Shield 5
Intuition 1
Mega-Wits 1
Per/Dex/Wits all at 5
Initiative +31
Quantum 3
Taint 3

I think this guy can mostly survive without the GM fudging or tailoring enemies to him specifically. This is a pretty crazy level of turtling, and it relies on the "all forces except psychic attacks" line from Density Decrease 5 to defeat niche abilities like Disrupt. This guy can still die to anyone willing to wait out his quantum pool. But he's unlikely to die instantly which means he can play the game.


*Well, unless the GM decides that something is a "psychic attack" but not a "mental attack." Or decides that some mega-social enhancement like Soothe isn't an attack. Ugh. I could take Invulnerability (Psychic Attacks) or something but that only works on attacks that happen to do damage or be resisted with Willpower.

**Mega-Wits 1 with Enhanced Initiative + Enhanced Initiative 8 more times + Dex and Wits 5 + all 15 bonus points = Initiative +71 and three nova points left. You could get more by tainting (3 taint = another Enhanced Initiative).

*** Nova Points Spent:
15 pts - Density Control 5
5 pts - Psychic Shield 5
6 pts - Quantum +2 (both tainted)
1 pt - Intuition 1
1 pt - 3 attribute dots
2 pts - Mega-Wits 1 (tainted) + Enhanced Initiative

[Selrahc]

This guy can still die to anyone willing to wait out his quantum pool. But he's unlikely to die instantly which means he can play the game.

Does your DM really start combats by instantly killing you with no warning? That's kind of a mean move, and will basically work in any system at all.

[stainboy]

Nah, the guy who ran my Aberrant games wasn't the type to pull stuff like that. This was a low-op group who didn't know the system very well, including the GM. Unfortunately that meant he didn't know what kind of attacks we could stand up to, and since we all had wildly different soak pools he killed a few people by accident.

I have no intention of trying to beat a GM on a power trip. The point of playing a guy like this would be that challenges don't have to be tailored to his specific defenses. He could hang out with any member of a Justice League party. He won't die instantly just for standing next to Superman, and he won't overshadow Aquaman. It actually makes the GM's job easier.