scrape_r_rational/data/cache/7ffpgz.md

[D] Saturday Munchkinry Thread

Post:

Welcome to the Saturday Munchkinry and Problem Solving Thread! This thread is designed to be a place for us to abuse fictional powers and to solve fictional puzzles. Feel free to bounce ideas off each other and to let out your inner evil mastermind!

Guidelines:

• Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
• The power to be munchkined can not be something "broken" like omniscience or absolute control over every living human.
• Reverse Munchkin scenarios: we find ways to beat someone or something powerful.
• We solve problems posed by other users. Use all your intelligence and creativity, and expect other users to do the same.

Note: All top level comments must be problems to solve and/or powers to munchkin/reverse munchkin.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Comments:

• u/Tar_alcaran:

  I run a larp where, against my better judgement, we gave the players a nano assembler. Pour material in top, product comes out the bottom, as long as it has plenty of the proper molecules in the "in" hopper. 
  
  It also needs to completely take apart (and destroy) any item to scan it into a blueprint. 
  
  How badly will this ruin the game, and how can we stop it? 
  
  Note: weapons are DNA coded, so if you copy those, only 1 person can use them.
  

  • u/SvalbardCaretaker:

    Can it assemble other nanites or equally complex/small structures?
    
    If not you are mostly looking at severly reduced item costs.If it can,  your campaign is going to go wildly of the rails.
    

    • u/Tar_alcaran:

      They don't exist yet, and they'd have to break one down first. So no grey goo. 
      
      We're prepared for cheaper items, that's not much of an issue thankfully. 
      
      The munchkinry is scary though
      

      • u/ben_oni:

        I would also consider assembly time part of the cost. If that gets too low, you'll have problems, but if you can introduce a bottleneck with throughput, it will be much easier to contain the munchkinry.
        

  • u/NotACauldronAgent:

    Probably one of the most powerful use would be something like expensive electronic equipment, especially any macguffin. Capture the remote canceller to Dr. Evil’s bomb? Worried that it’ll break or his minions will steal it back? A bit of gold, silicon, and iron layer, you have 50. That kind of thing.
    

    • u/Tar_alcaran:

      That's an annoyingly good point. I guess deadman switches could help there. As in: if this thingy stops working, bad stuff happens.
      

  • u/zarraha:

    This is probably extremely powerful, since they can mass produce anything provided they can get one copy and enough supply of raw materials, but it depends on how your world is set up.
    
    One solution is to design your world such that all of the powerful equipment contains some quantity of rare material, with more powerful equipment requiring larger quantities (or rare materials).  Effectively, you could use it mechanically as an NPC shopkeeper with infinite stock, using the rare material as currency.  If, for example, your rare material is gold, then maybe this cool weapon requires 5 oz of gold, and this cool armor requires 20 oz of gold, and this cool helmet requires 20 oz of gold, and they have to ration their supply and choose what to "buy".
    
    This doesn't prevent them from mass producing common items like food by feed a tree into their machine, but if you're in a world where nano assemblers exist and aren't extraordinarily rare then the economy should reflect that and prevent most extreme market exploitation.  But you'll need to make sure all of your market prices reflect that.
    
    If nano assemblers are extraordinarily rare and their use isn't capped by rare materials, such that they actually are overpowered, then that means everyone would want one.  This means that super powerful and influential people are going to want to come and steal it from them.  You could either use this to throw more powerful enemies at them to compensate for their increase in strength from having this, or you could use it to force them to lose it by having an overpowered enemy defeat them and steal it from them.  I don't suggest going as extreme as that, but perhaps it would be appropriate to throw some extra tough enemies at them and have them face a higher threat of losing than they usually face.  If they win they can keep it, but might have similar battles in the future, if they lose they lose their nano assembler, but also lose the interest of this organization and thus face normal battles in the future (or go on a quest to get it back if they want)
    

  • u/None:

    Is it big enough to put people into? You see where I'm going with this.
    

    • u/Tar_alcaran:

      >Is it big enough to put people into? 
      
      Uhhh not anymore! Thanks for that!
      

      • u/Gurkenglas:

        If there's other people with other nanoassemblers, behold the infinite midget child soldier terrorists and the detached head cyborg lich.
        

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