What the tin says, I'm developing a game, one of the classes is The Gadgeteer, so far so good I've managed to make it not a wizard in disguise. BUT

And that's a big BUT, I'm hitting a wall of suck developing the gadgets.

Gadgets have to comply with the rule of cool while not violating the following:

Gadgets have to fall into one of : Existent, Plausible, Possible, Fantastic

The GM can of course rule out whatever.

Existent are the cheaper/fastest to develop/build while Fantastic are the other extreme.

Reliability goes the same way, Existent being the more reliable of all and Fantastic the least reliable.

Level 0/1 Gadgets examples:

Caltrops, Smoke Grenade, Flash Bang, Stroboscopic light... All Existent (withing the setting presuppositions)

Level 1/2 Gadget Examples: Glue Grenade, Parachute/Glide Cape/Trenchcoat...

And so on.

Since I'm aiming for a Pulpish feel, Gadgets need not be deadly, the Character will have proficiency and access to guns.

Oh my God I want to play this character class so badly.

What time/technology level are you targeting? From pulpish I'm guessing maybe up through mid-20th-century? Or later?

Spitballing:

Night vision goggles, tuning the plausibility/fantastic as desired

X-ray goggles, see through walls

Mechanical spy bug -- a tiny physical bug, with a mic and a transmitter, remote controlled

Short distance/low altitude jetpack (think Rocketeer)

Batman's utility belt - grappling hook, boomerang/throwing stars, sleep gas canisters

Super-defib - bring a recently deceased party member back to life, maybe

Short-range teleporter - high chance of failure? or fritzing out? prone to overheating?

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1128838Oh my God I want to play this character class so badly.

What time/technology level are you targeting? From pulpish I'm guessing maybe up through mid-20th-century? Or later?

Spitballing:

Night vision goggles, tuning the plausibility/fantastic as desired

X-ray goggles, see through walls

Mechanical spy bug -- a tiny physical bug, with a mic and a transmitter, remote controlled

Short distance/low altitude jetpack (think Rocketeer)

Batman's utility belt - grappling hook, boomerang/throwing stars, sleep gas canisters

Super-defib - bring a recently deceased party member back to life, maybe

Short-range teleporter - high chance of failure? or fritzing out? prone to overheating?

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Pulpish because I'm setting the action on the 1980's and keeping the tech mostly within Existent thru Possible nothing too fantastic,

But I'm planing a supplement/Appendix for playing in the 1920's-1950's and maybe more close to current year tm

Night vision/ X-Ray Googles, Jetpack/Rocketpack, Utility belt (Of course!)
Super-defib... Could be, but not like the bringing back from the dead in traditional D&D, maybe it has a time limit between the character dying and being able to bring it back?
Teleporter... Maybe at the higher levels?

So far the classes are : Soldier, Detective, Urban Legend, Gadgeteer, Mystic/Illusionist (the latter being a stage magician) and maybe Martial Artist.

Think playing The Shadow, The Spider, Black Bat, Green Lama, The Spirit, Dick Tracy, but in the 80's

No alignment, instead Ethos/Motivation : Revenge, Protect, Uphold the law.

I might include stuff to be able to play not The Phantom (The Ghost who Walks), Not Tarzan, and other classes at a latter date.

Will hit you up to playtest it

Instead of pulp I think you may be actually meaning Street level crime fighters.

The Question has his featureless mask that also changes his hair colour.
Night Thrasher had body armor, and a weaponized skate board. (and a few other gadgets)
The Ted Kord version of Blue Beetle had a vtol craft and a flash gun to dazzle foes or emit a airblast to push close combatants.
Technically Captain America as he is just a very fit human armed with an indestructible trick shield and a suit of ballistic scale mail.
Moon Knight had a helicopter/vtol, crescent shaped throwing blades and sometimes fighting sticks originally. And a series of disguise personas.
Besides his super powers Spiderman also his web shooters and tracking bugs tuned to his spider sense, and a few special purpose suits and web fluids to combat villains with strange powers.

Iron Man might be another example. Especially from the 60s to 80s where his suit was very advanced, but not yet bordering on magic.
Or The Shield from Impact, he had a high tech suit and shield. Though that one and Iron Man might be stretching it a bit too much.

Quote from: Omega;1129029Instead of pulp I think you may be actually meaning Street level crime fighters.

The Question has his featureless mask that also changes his hair colour.
Night Thrasher had body armor, and a weaponized skate board. (and a few other gadgets)
The Ted Kord version of Blue Beetle had a vtol craft and a flash gun to dazzle foes or emit a airblast to push close combatants.
Technically Captain America as he is just a very fit human armed with an indestructible trick shield and a suit of ballistic scale mail.
Moon Knight had a helicopter/vtol, crescent shaped throwing blades and sometimes fighting sticks originally. And a series of disguise personas.
Besides his super powers Spiderman also his web shooters and tracking bugs tuned to his spider sense, and a few special purpose suits and web fluids to combat villains with strange powers.

Iron Man might be another example. Especially from the 60s to 80s where his suit was very advanced, but not yet bordering on magic.
Or The Shield from Impact, he had a high tech suit and shield. Though that one and Iron Man might be stretching it a bit too much.

Yes, street level vigilantes, but with a pulpish feel to it. So no Iron Man, you might get one major Gadget as a vehicle or a jet/rocket pack but nothing like that.

Thanks for reminding me of The Question (I shouldn't have the need owning all his comics), Rocket powered SkateBoard (YES!) Kord's Gun, Thanks!, Cap's Shield, yes it fits. Throwing Blades and Fighting Sticks already there. Web Shooters = Grappling Gun + Glue Grenade So, already there. Spidey's tracking bugs... Yes, but how do they work without spider sense? a receiver? So normal tracking bugs?
Iron Man nope, The Shield on the other hand yes.

I'm not gonna make an extensive Gadgets list, but a few (a dozen maybe) examples of each level and have players/GM come up with their own.

Thank you very much my friend.

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Some more.
The Rocketeer: A jet pack and sometimes a pistol. Has a friend with an autogyro.
Daredevil: ignoring the powers theres his billy club which also acted as a grappeling hook and could be disguised as his walking cane.
Black Widow: Originally had wrist shooters with an electrostunner or grappelling line. Also belt had detatchable mini grenades.
Torpedo: Flight suit and turbine assisted punches. Also visor enhanced to detect aliens disguised as humans.
Hawkeye and Green Arrow: Dozens of trick arrows. Gas, explosive, tazer, grappelling line, riccochet, flame retardant foam/spray, glue, etc. Quite a few were relatively doable too without stretching the tech too hard.

And another fringe one.
Yellowjacket and Wasp: Shrinking gas, ant control helmet, and mechanical flight wings, or in Wasps case bio-tech wings, when small and a bio-electric zap.

Doc Savage. More the earlier stories than the later.

I'm not really a comic book guy, but Bond movies might have some good ideas for gadgets (mostly "plausible " or "possible") from the 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond.

And if you want to introduce some silliness and humour, there's always the "spoof spy movie" genre.....Some amazingly stupid gadgets there

Btw as I said, not a comic book guy and maybe this should not be right up my alley at all but it sounds like a surprisingly fun idea, so best of luck with this.

Quick question, is the gadgeteer someone who has one or two trademark gadgets, or is it the boffin/crafting type who can devise and build almost anything as needed for a mission?

Spy shows certainly fit sometimes. Though originally 007s stuff was more mundane other than the various trick cars. Wrist mounted dart gun from Moonraker for example comes to mind as a relatively do-able gadget from later when they had at least one gadget per movie. Then it went back to more mundane again during the Brosnan era mostly and all the superscience was in the villains hands.

For the pseudo-spoof type there is Matt Helm. Delayed blast button grenades. A belt that turned into a sword when wet, a gun that shots backwards when set just so, and a few others.

Not a genre that I'm all that conversant in, but aren't some of the "possible" or "fantastic" grade items merely more plausible items that are concealable (or at least highly portable) and/or a little better than normal engineering would suggest?  So you might have, for example, a climbing line that spools out of a relatively small container and will support the hero, when in reality such a line would be too thin to use safely or not strong enough.

Or is that mainly the difference between "possible" and "fantastic", where "possible" is something that would appear to work if you don't let the engineers critique it?

Quote from: Omega;1129140Spy shows certainly fit sometimes. Though originally 007s stuff was more mundane other than the various trick cars. Wrist mounted dart gun from Moonraker for example comes to mind as a relatively do-able gadget from later when they had at least one gadget per movie. Then it went back to more mundane again during the Brosnan era mostly and all the superscience was in the villains hands.

For the pseudo-spoof type there is Matt Helm. Delayed blast button grenades. A belt that turned into a sword when wet, a gun that shots backwards when set just so, and a few others.

Yes! Matt Helm! Super cheesy but so much fun. Dean Martin playing almost a parody of himself. Loved those.

Just thought of another one.

Dick Tracy. Two way wrist radio (later a wrist videophone).

Quote from: Zirunel;1129138Btw as I said, not a comic book guy and maybe this should not be right up my alley at all but it sounds like a surprisingly fun idea, so best of luck with this.

Quick question, is the gadgeteer someone who has one or two trademark gadgets, or is it the boffin/crafting type who can devise and build almost anything as needed for a mission?

That's a good question, and one I haven't yet answered, for the pulpish feel it could be both under the right circumstances : The Scientist but with a twist is your Wizard in DnD, just a couple of trademark gadgets plus some "scientific" tricks is the more pulp, unless you're going for Doc Savage and he's a Paragon.

I'm leaning towards a couple of trademark gadgets plus maybe some smaller more mundane gadgets (caltrops, smoke grenades, etc)

What do you guys think?

@ Omega, Zirunel, RandyB Those are all great sugestions, thank you very much, keep it coming if you can/want