Phineas Mason—commonly referred to as The Tinkerer—is an infamous black market inventor, and well, Tinkerer. Between occasional stabs at villainy, Tinkerer runs Phineas Fix-It, a chop shop for Absolute Overpower’s tech heroes and villains. In addition, he runs the Fix-It Network, which connects inventors, arms dealers, and mad scientists with paying customers.
The Fix-It Network
The Fix-It Network is a downtime shop that players can use to purchase black-market weapons, tools, and consumables in addition to repairs and upgrades to their tech.
Accessing The Fix-It Network
Since Phineas and his Fix-It Network are not exactly above board with the larger superhero community, and considered black market, it should be treated as such.
Characters looking to buy from the Fix-It Network will require having one of the following Tags: Black Market Access, Streetwise and Villainous, or, the Trait Infamous.
Inversely, characters with the Tag Heroic, or the Traits Famous or Honest cannot gain access. This would put their morality or reputation at risk.
Note: While it makes sense for only characters unafraid to get their hands dirty to have access to The Fix-It Network, nothing prevents teammates from making connections, or arranging pick-ups for their more virtuous teammates.
How to Use The Fix-It Network
Players with the appropriate access to the Fix-It Network can shop its offerings or arrange upgrades and repairs at any time during downtime. The Network is always visible to all Absolute Overpower players in the Overpower Discord. It is up to individual Narrators to determine if there’s a narrative reason why players should have restricted access.
The currency used for the Fix-it Network is a player’s Karma. The price for items is determined by the campaign Narrator for the player purchasing from the network and should be fair to the relative worth of the item or service being purchased.
Updates on the Network
Once a campaign begins, it is common for that campaign Narrator to add (or remove) options from Fix-It Network that will appeal to their players. Narrators should use the network as a way to provide options their players have requested for their characters if it makes sense narratively. This should be done bi-weekly.
Irregular updates to the network should be added if there’s a compelling narrative hook in a campaign.
Phineas Mason
As with any NPC, Narrators should keep track of how much their players interact with Phineas Mason, either on the network or at his shop. Continued favorable interactions should unlock quests, deals on items and upgrades, or maybe even the ability to deploy Phineas as a deployable NPC during combat!