Futuristic and Alien Artifacts

Adventurers sometimes encounter
advanced or alien devices. These
rarely come with instruction manuals,
and often rely on scientific principles
unknown at the heroes’ tech level.
Gadgeteers may use the Gadgeteering
During Adventures rules (p. 477) to
deduce the function of mysterious
artifacts. Everybody else must use the
rules below.
First, the experimenter chooses an
operation skill. This choice is often a
guess – although the GM might pro-
vide clues that make it an educated
guess. Those with the Intuition advan-
tage can use it to narrow down their
choice of skills.
Next, the GM decides whether the
chosen skill is appropriate. An “appro-
priate” skill is one used to operate a
device known to the experimenter that
serves a purpose similar to that of the
artifact. It need not be the artifact’s
actual operation skill. For instance,
Guns is appropriate for a ray gun fired
using Beam Weapons skill, while First
Aid is wholly inappropriate.
Then
the
experimenter
rolls
against the chosen skill. If this is an
appropriate skill, the GM rolls 3d,
adds the investigator’s margin of suc-
cess or subtracts his margin of failure,
and consults the Enigmatic Device
Table, below. If the skill is inappropri-
ate, treat the roll as a failure by 10; in
other words, roll 3d-10 on the table.
Exception: If the experimenter rolls
a critical success on an inappropriate
skill, he realizes that the chosen skill