How do you do the Mad Scientist archetype justice?

How do you do the Mad Scientist archetype justice?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane
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complicated question, depends on the setting and also on the science they practice

For Trad. Fantasy: Nothing too complicated is needed, just flesh out a wizened, unethical, unhinged but brilliant magus or alchemist. Give him endearing quirks and moments of something being clearly off. Introduce him perhaps as a silly NPC or even questgiver before showing how bugfuck he is.

Capeshit: Tinkers from Worm can cover thus well. Give them one specialty they're really, really good at and a personality that demands showmanship. The Mad Scientist aesthetic should either be a conscious decision for presentation on the genius's part or tragically, horrifically played straight.

Modern Fantasy: Genius: The Transgression

Sci-Fi: Lots of creepy augmentations, brains floating in jars, etc. Etc.


There's loads you can do.

Isn't it that most of the time The Mad Scientist isn't much of a scientist but more of an engineer?

Engineers are scientists.

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Play astrophysicist with anger issues or something.

they wish

What does that even mean, "do an archetype justice"?

High INT low WIS.
Problem with mad scientists in fantasy is that their archetype kinda overlaps with the standard "no sense of right and wrong" mage.

>Engineers are scientists

What is a scientist then?

Make the death machine interesting. Or start the adventure in the world where the death machine has already popped off.

Normies stay out.

scientists are the one that does research and try to advance mankind's understanding of the universe.

engineers are the ones that try to apply scientific understanding to advance technology

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane
This guy was more of a mad scientist, he'd do all kinds of extremely dangerous experiments on himself, his father, his wife, random visitors and pretty much everyone.

>Haldane, inspired by his father, would expose himself to danger to obtain data. To test the effects of acidification of the blood he drank dilute hydrochloric acid, enclosed himself in an airtight room containing 7% carbon dioxide, and found that it 'gives one a rather violent headache'. One experiment to study elevated levels of oxygen saturation triggered a fit which resulted in him suffering crushed vertebrae.[20] In his decompression chamber experiments, he and his volunteers suffered perforated eardrums. But, as Haldane stated in What is Life,[21] "the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment."

>"the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment."

Glass half full, buddy. Glass half full.

They're both. They have advanced theoretical knowledge unavailable to most other people and the technical skills and finesse to translate that knowledge into workable technology. Though you could say the more original and unconventional their tech is compared to the state of the art of their verse the more they veer into the scientist category (and vice versa).

Seens that's it's a semantic problem

Not really, it's a big distinction.

Engineers build based upon tested scientific principles. Scientists discover and test those principles.

The biggest distinction is whether or not you need a control group to do your job.

Use actual scientific knowledge to make ideas that would be technically feasible.

>Scientists discover and test those principles.
Wouldn't engineers be able to do this too?

I'm pretty sure engineers are allowed to do research too.

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>I'm pretty sure engineers are allowed to do research too.
Most certainly. When they perform said research, they are scientists.
But engineering is a full time gig, so it's easier to just pay a lab to perform the research you need while you work on building cool shit.

When I was in high school, my chemisty teacher told us a cool little anecdote to help with the distinction
>a scientist studying light discovers a better way to refract light
>an engineer uses that data to build a better telescope
>another scientist uses the telescope to find a wormhole
>an engineer builds a stargate

Larger version.

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>scientists are the one that does research and try to advance mankind's understanding of the universe.
So what about all the engineers who test the properties of materials and develop new materials based on those tests? Or are those scientists?

>the engineers who test the properties of materials

those are scientist

>develop new materials based on those tests

and these are engineers.

It's not that hard

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Haldane was screaming brilliant and incredibly witty. He was also the kind of person who actually enjoyed fighting in World War One.

The difference is pretty easy to discern in practice. Engineers ultimately aim to create things; any research they do is done with this goal in mind. Scientists ultimately aim to figure things out, and anything they build is intended to help them do so. There’s some overlap (drug development, materials science), but it’s small relative to the size of each domain.

Desty Nova, from Battle Angel Alita, occasionally approximated an actual mad scientist, in the sense that he did things to see what would happen if he did them. He was never particularly rigorous, though.