Question Roulette

I can't find the actual discussion on Roulette if it exists (I searched all pages of the character dicussions my broswers 'find on page function' and used the forum specific search tool and came up with nothing). If it exists please direct me to it, then I'll post what I've said below there and ask for this thread to be deleted if possible.

Is anyone else really happy that Roulette ended up in Hawthorne?

I know it isn't perfect because she should be in Poe and I strongly believe that Tia (Lapin) should be moved back to Poe ASAP. But with the medical conditions she has Amy really needs to be in Hawthorne.

She goes into burn out at the drop of a hat, she needs their medical availability.

At first I figured it was a typical case of Hartford being a bitch, but I think in this situation she DOES need Hawthorne at the moment. It sucks, but Ribbon simply lacks the knowledge base and experience (even accounting for the fact it is Ribbon) to be of any help to Amy when she goes into burn out. Which must drive Ribbon to distraction.

Yes, I think she belongs in Hawthorne, at least until they can figure out either a pattern, or cause of her going into burnout. If or when they can solve that, she can move back to Poe. Besides, I am sure that the other TGs are going to welcome her if she stops to talk, or cry, or ask for help.

I like that Roulette is in Hawthorne simply for the Thornie perspective. The fact that she's also a bit of a housemom herself helps all the kids stuck there feel a bit more normal, less isolated, the same way that Phase helped with the intercoms. I personally think it would be interesting if they stabilize her to the point she could move back with the Poesies, but voluntarily elects to stay on to help Mrs. Cantrel. The Poe girls would be devastated by the lack of a second cookie baker, but Poe's loss is Hawthorne's gain!

Smoked gouda and prosciutto grilled cheese sandwiches. It's a Good Thing.

Good suggestion Kat. I like the idea.

It'd be interesting if Roulette ran across Tsiphone, and learned about what happened to HER BIT. Would the fear of continuous burnouts, not knowing if the next is the last override the fear of having one bigger burnout, and possibly being done with it? Would she risk whatever physical change the destruction of her BIT could cause, if she could be more assured that she won't burn out all the time? I'm sure not everone would assume a demonic-looking appearance, but surely there would be other strange consequences.
How do you even approach Phase? "Please destroy my BIT, so that I won't have to worry about dying all the time"?

Rose Bunny wrote: It'd be interesting if Roulette ran across Tsiphone, and learned about what happened to HER BIT
...
How do you even approach Phase? "Please destroy my BIT, so that I won't have to worry about dying all the time"?

Tisi and Phase might really, really hate each other until the completion of Date Night and Graduation 2007 where they somewhat make peace with each other, but Phase was really horrified about what happened. Traumatized horrified. In general, he doesn't feel bad about a lot of things, but that was one of them.

I highly doubt you could convince him to ever do that again to someone. Even if it was for their own good. You have to be pretty desperate to go to Jobe from TK's perspective for any further BIT research.

Especially considering that there's no guarantee that getting her BIT shredded wouldn't kill her. IIRC, Tissy ended up in Doyle with burnout when her change happened.

Arcanist Lupus wrote: Especially considering that there's no guarantee that getting her BIT shredded wouldn't kill her. IIRC, Tissy ended up in Doyle with burnout when her change happened.

"Damned if I do, damned if I don't" either way she'd fear a potentially fatal burnout at some point.

Prediction: Roulette will end up producing magical devises using a blend of her magic and devisor talent. A devise that lets her store here own energizer power and use it to power spells perhaps.

Keep in mind that in the Whateley Universe you don't actually need a Wiz rating to use spells. So technically she ought to be able to cast spells at any time, just like she has been shown doing prep work for building devises even when she is not a devisor.

In a couple of years, this girl is going to be an extremely versatile hero, doubly so if she gains conscious control of her power shifts at some point, or ends up with them all on all the time.

Probably closer to having a cerebral aneurysm.

JG wrote: Everyone on campus fears burnout to a greater or lesser extent.

At any moment, any one of them could simply drop dead, or be mindwiped, or worse due to burnout.

Roulette's worry is because for her, it's a nearly daily occurrence, best described as living with late-staged metastasized cancer more than anything. It could kill her at any moment, with worse odds than everyone else.

Assuming that she lives that long.

But yeah, I agree with your assessment. Two of Roulette's powersets (the Wiz and Dev ones) are better used for preparation than for actual combat. That means that once she figures out how to hold onto essence between shifts she'll be able to leverage 3 different powersets at a time during fights (only two if she's currently a Wiz or Dev, but still useful), and one of those will be unknown to her opponent until she reveals which mode she's in. If she gets total control over shifting then she'll be very scary indeed.

She should put a freeze-ray or something into her floating ball, tie it into her bio-scanners, could get it protected as a medical devise, so people get in trouble for breaking it, make sure it has black box functionality. so that if it experiences a sudden gravity spike just before destruction and Gravass is in close proximity....

A personal cooling device isn't a bad idea at all, though it would probably work better at mitigating burnouts as something worn than as a separate devise that follows her around, even if that means sacrificing the trap functionality. Of course, she could just do both, so that she has redundancy in case one or the other malfunctions at an inopportune moment.

Kettlekorn wrote: A personal cooling device isn't a bad idea at all, though it would probably work better at mitigating burnouts as something worn than as a separate devise that follows her around, even if that means sacrificing the trap functionality. Of course, she could just do both, so that she has redundancy in case one or the other malfunctions at an inopportune moment.

A suit with bio sensors that activates when her readings reach burnout. It could activate and pump coolant throughout the suit.

Kettlekorn wrote: A personal cooling device isn't a bad idea at all, though it would probably work better at mitigating burnouts as something worn than as a separate devise that follows her around, even if that means sacrificing the trap functionality. Of course, she could just do both, so that she has redundancy in case one or the other malfunctions at an inopportune moment.

One of Bunny's Ice Eggs rigged to a medical monitor.

Now that is a very good idea!

Anne wrote: Now that is a very good Cool idea!

I had to. It's in my contract.

Amy's a part-time magician: maybe she could learn to bind a spirit for a number of contingency cool-downs? She might need help to get that done initially, but having a sentience (limited or not) behind it lowers the risk of frostbite.

null0trooper wrote: Amy's a part-time magician: maybe she could learn to bind a spirit for a number of contingency cool-downs? She might need help to get that done initially, but having a sentience (limited or not) behind it lowers the risk of frostbite.

Possibly. But even if she wasn't losing essence every time she switches she would have a long way to go before she was ready to do that sort of thing. And she has a devisor upbringing - given the choice between solving a problem with magic or devisor tech she's going to pick devisor tech every time, because that's what she is familiar with.

Arcanist Lupus wrote:

null0trooper wrote: Amy's a part-time magician: maybe she could learn to bind a spirit for a number of contingency cool-downs? She might need help to get that done initially, but having a sentience (limited or not) behind it lowers the risk of frostbite.

Possibly. But even if she wasn't losing essence every time she switches she would have a long way to go before she was ready to do that sort of thing. And she has a devisor upbringing - given the choice between solving a problem with magic or devisor tech she's going to pick devisor tech every time, because that's what she is familiar with.

Of course if/when she meets Fixx if he is/will be cannon, she could pull a page from his book, and magically enhance everything...

Hey, other than in her origin, via freeze gun, has Amy ever been cooled down while burning out?

I'm not sure.

However, it did occur to me (and I came here to post about the idea, only to see this here now) that she may end up needing her burnout inducer for some other reason, possibly on someone other than herself.

Say, to treat a Voodoo Were bite.

If Jericho ends up mentioning Burnout In A Can to Amy, it might be Foreshadowing.

There is a reason he calls it a can of oh fuck I'm gonna die at one point if I remember correctly.

OK, good point. However, I was saying that she may need to use her own burnout inducer on someone in a way similar to BOIAC, for similarly desperate reasons.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: OK, good point. However, I was saying that she may need to use her own burnout inducer on someone in a way similar to BOIAC, for similarly desperate reasons.

but it's not really a burnout inducer, that's just an occasional side effect, its a devise based entirely on her own powers shifting so it might not do much more than tickle others. I wonder if she will make her own variantion on a cattle prod/ baton, something that acts a bit like the ricochet grenade in producing extra force.

It occurs to me that while well rounded Roulette's wheel of holdouts is missing a CQC aid (pistols do have a minimum effective range) and anything defensive, that last is extra important as she is about as squishy as a baseline most of the time, and in some ways more vulnerable, now I recognize that a PFG is unlikely, but what about a floating mobile barrier?

Why would a PFG be unlikely? Any devisor worth their salt has a PFG, and Roulette is (sometimes) a devisor. And her mom is a devisor too, who might supply one to her.

Sir Lee wrote: Why would a PFG be unlikely? Any devisor worth their salt has a PFG, and Roulette is (sometimes) a devisor. And her mom is a devisor too, who might supply one to her.

I was thinking that she could trade for or buy one, but there is the possibility of it interacting with her energizer trait. I don't recall seeing many wizards using PFGs.

If She were worried about magic and energizer interaction with a personal force field ( I once read a funny story where someone built a suit of iron man-like armor with a force bubble, but forgot to make it one-way, so when they fired their weapons, it ricocheted off the interior of the bubble and killed them), then they could make her little hover-sphere into a mobile deflection drone, by adding a force field to it.

Like the training droid from "Star Wars BWIWG"?

Considering who her mother is, I expect nothing less than some sort of reactive, directional explosives.

null0trooper wrote: Like the training droid from "Star Wars BWIWG"?

combined with Mr. Terrific's T-Spheres, yeah.

Sir Lee wrote: Why would a PFG be unlikely? Any devisor worth their salt has a PFG, and Roulette is (sometimes) a devisor. And her mom is a devisor too, who might supply one to her.

because its a pretty significant divergence from what she has produced up to this point.


add to that anything supplied by another devisor needs to be maintained by them, and a PFG isn't likely to be able to be enhanced via magic as most of her holdouts are.

mhalpern wrote: add to that anything supplied by another devisor needs to be maintained by them

No. That's true for Boomjob and 'Shine, but they aren't all the devisors known. What is true for all devises shown to date is that they cannot be reproduced in working order by baselines and gadgeteers. For example, Phase isn't constantly going back to Mobius for upkeep on her belt, and his psi grenade's only time limit was "until used".

Even if, by some chance, she procured a PFG devise that needed periodic upkeep (like any other gear she'd be using), she lives on the same campus as the all the other devisors on campus.

Nor is it true that Roulette is inherently locked into only creating devises like the ones she's made in the first 11 weeks of a four-year curriculum.

mhalpern wrote: and a PFG isn't likely to be able to be enhanced via magic as most of her holdouts are.

There is no requirement that all of Roulette's holdout's must be enhanced by magic as her needle gun is.

null0trooper wrote:

mhalpern wrote: add to that anything supplied by another devisor needs to be maintained by them

No. That's true for Boomjob and 'Shine, but they aren't all the devisors known. What is true for all devises shown to date is that they cannot be reproduced in working order by baselines and gadgeteers. For example, Phase isn't constantly going back to Mobius for upkeep on her belt, and his psi grenade's only time limit was "until used".

Even if, by some chance, she procured a PFG devise that needed periodic upkeep (like any other gear she'd be using), she lives on the same campus as the all the other devisors on campus.

Nor is it true that Roulette is inherently locked into only creating devises like the ones she's made in the first 11 weeks of a four-year curriculum.

mhalpern wrote: and a PFG isn't likely to be able to be enhanced via magic as most of her holdouts are.

There is no requirement that all of Roulette's holdout's must be enhanced by magic as her needle gun is.

1 true, but higher reliability comes at a cost,
2 not a requirement, but it is what separates her stuff from being just devisor equivalents of normal tech, verses being something more

You do with what you can get, until you can get/make something better. Roulette could make a basic PFG that does not lend itself to magical enhancement... or use one Boomjob gave her... or trade for one made by one of the campus devisors who are good at it (I think it's Wunderkind's specialty)... and make do with it until she can make her spiffy Roulette-exclusive magically-enhanced PFG. It sure beats NOT having a PFG.

Sir Lee wrote: You do with what you can get, until you can get/make something better. Roulette could make a basic PFG that does not lend itself to magical enhancement... or use one Boomjob gave her... or trade for one made by one of the campus devisors who are good at it (I think it's Wunderkind's specialty)... and make do with it until she can make her spiffy Roulette-exclusive magically-enhanced PFG. It sure beats NOT having a PFG.

Fair but mobile cover can also be spiffy if she uses the floating tech to make sure it doesn't weigh her down, if it follows wrist movements for instance it could double as a weapon

From my perspective, her specialty is not needing to really rely on anyone else for what she wants to do, she just has to wait. That's why she scribbles down ideas in the notebook. Get an idea or see a need? Wait for devisor mode to execute it or find more details that are needed. Powersource? Wait for energizer or wiz to charge up the batteries

Others need to collaborate or make deals to get those multidisciplinary builds. But many others can and do.

Amy doesn't need to.

If she can't get something she needs, she'll cook. She gets much better bargains from trading an entree or a dessert plate in lieu of having to sign non-compete clauses, mage contracts, or trading essence, or using her valuable devisor time to build something for someone else.

Katssun wrote: From my perspective, her specialty is not needing to really rely on anyone else for what she wants to do, she just has to wait. That's why she scribbles down ideas in the notebook. Get an idea or see a need? Wait for devisor mode to execute it or find more details that are needed. Powersource? Wait for energizer or wiz to charge up the batteries

Others need to collaborate or make deals to get those multidisciplinary builds. But many others can and do.

Amy doesn't need to.

If she can't get something she needs, she'll cook. She gets much better bargains from trading an entree or a dessert plate in lieu of having to sign non-compete clauses, mage contracts, or trading essence, or using her valuable devisor time to build something for someone else.

Well there's also the wall to charge up the batteries, it is worth noting, that her gear all together isn't exactly light weight, you have a sniper rifle (rail gun) a pistol (flechette gun), and a boop gun shaped like a pump action shot gun, and ammo, including thrown grenades. even allowing for her versions to be lighter, assuming that normally she's only a little stronger than average, provided a bag of holding type deal, there's no way she can carry all of it, without cheating...

Katssun wrote: From my perspective, her specialty is not needing to really rely on anyone else for what she wants to do, she just has to wait.

The downside is it could take several days to get the right power, and trying to force it is... not safe to say the least. While it's not bad for making holdouts, it doesn't help much in the short term. Divisor and Wizard are pretty much the only ones of her abilities that can really help with crafting the holdouts. The others tend to just make certain aspects easier.

That said, I do love the intersection of technology and magic. Enhancing technology with magic. Controlling magic with technology. Roulette, Whisper, Nephandus, and Knick-Knack are really the only characters in canon that I know of who can perform such feats.

Angeldude wrote:

Katssun wrote: From my perspective, her specialty is not needing to really rely on anyone else for what she wants to do, she just has to wait.

The downside is it could take several days to get the right power, and trying to force it is... not safe to say the least. While it's not bad for making holdouts, it doesn't help much in the short term. Divisor and Wizard are pretty much the only ones of her abilities that can really help with crafting the holdouts. The others tend to just make certain aspects easier.

That said, I do love the intersection of technology and magic. Enhancing technology with magic. Controlling magic with technology. Roulette, Whisper, Nephandus, and Knick-Knack are really the only characters in canon that I know of who can perform such feats.

You are forgetting one, Nimbus