[BNW] What is wrong with BNW?

[Kirk Monsen <munchwolf@yahoo.com>]

Ok, first I'd like to say what I don't think is wrong.

I don't have a problem with the rule system, powers,
tricks, setting idea, meta-plot games, or present
source material on groups/places.  Sure, there are
some problems existing by lack of information, but
that's something any GM could fill in.  Do we really
need a detailed map of cresent city labeling every
single pit stop a Delta patrol might make?  It's not
essential in my opinion.  Do we need more power
packages?  There are plenty already, enough to give
Refs and players ideas on making more.  Do we need
more tricks?  Well yes, but again Refs and players can
make them.  All of the above can be shared on this
list with other Refs and players so we're not helpless
in that aspect.

What do we need?  Well I have stated this more than
once, yet the concept doesn't seem to sink in with
some individuals, so I'll reiterate it:

> >What we do need is a suppliment explaining what the
> >heck is going on.  I'm sorry, the whole idea that
the
> >powers "just are" and there's no reason for their
> >existance doesn't settle with me.

Note, this has nothing to do with the plot involving
Jack, or the power packages, or Delta Prime, or
Defiants.  It has everything to do with a fundemental
premise behind the game.

Let's put it another way.  The nature and source of
Delta powers is missing.  This is not something a
Guide can decide on, and still maintain a BNW
campaign.  Why? Because ultimately when the secret is
reveiled he will be found wrong.  So then it returns
to the question, of why does it matter?  After all
other games have done this, right?

> Steve Crow writes:
> *shrug* For what it's worth, that is the BNW (and to
> some degree the Pinnacle) "style" of campaign 
> setting.  White Wolf (kinda) did it, Shane 
> Hensley kinda brought it over from his Torg days
>(where Torg had a similar concept), and currently it
> exists in the Deadlands trilogy.

Let's see what happens if we modify just the basic
first book of some of these systems with the same flaw
that BNW has.

In White Wolf's V:tM if the nature and source of
vampirism was decided to be kept a big secret the game
would look more like this:  
  No generations would be listed. Instead you would be
told there were more powerful vampires around and
couldn't play them.  If the players ask how vampires
got more powerful, all you could do is shrug.
  How someone became a vampire would be secret.  You
would just have to accept you woke up one day and were
allergic to sunlight.  Maybe WW would have been kind
enough to hint (but not directly admit) that being
bitten by a vampire is part of the process.  Players
would then try this, biting people, bringing them near
death, feeding them blood, etc, and again you'd have
to shrug.  
  We would at least know about the Camerilla and the
Sabbat, and I guess the game would still be playable,
but for a Storyteller this crimps the extent of what
he can and can't do.  Maybe a story teller decides
they're really space aliens, or people stuck with
demons, just dead people who get back up because they
have nothing better to do.  Only the ref who chooses
to follow something similar to an Anne Rice universe
would be close enough to 'the Truth' when it comes out
to be able to modify his campaign.  It's scrap and
restart for everyone else.

What about werewolf?  I doubt anyone would even hit
close to the mark if they didn't let us know about the
nature and source of lupinism.  Everyone would be
playing hairy vamps the infected anyone they bit. 
Likewise the whole backstory of gaia, the web, and the
weavers would have to be hidden, so no one could
really play a character with a noble purpose.  They're
just a bunch of monsters out to eat people.

Deadlands?  Sure it had it's 'Secret'.  Ooooh, the
real nature of the Reckoners.  Didn't affect anything,
and personally I don't use it.  Why?  Because it's a
fundimental flaw.  What would be the flaw?  Well if no
one knew the nature or source of the powers behind
hucksters, mad scientists, shamans, blessed, harrowed,
those walking dead things, etc, etc.  What you'd end
up with would be magic users who play with cards. Why?
*Shrug*. Blessed who do magic effects one way, and
Shamans who do it another.  Why? *Shrug*. Mad
scientists who could make great inventions no one else
could make. Why? *Shrug*.  And I guess no one could
play harrowed because that little wiggly worm inside
them is unknown.  Again, is it aliens? supernatural? a
really bad mushroom trip? *Shrug*.  What kind of
adventures could a Marshal make with this limitation? 
Well any western theme, bank robberies, stage coach
robberies, train robberies, murder/mystery.  But a big
element is the supernatural (of course that would be a
secret as well), so I guess you could have zombies
rising for no reason (blaim it on a comet), dark
sorcerers raising dead things (since you know there's
magic because of hucksters), and um, maybe a big worm
can pop out of the ground.  Most villians/adventures
are based around fear, but unfortunately Fear levels
would be completely thrown out (it'll be in a later
suppliment).  The game would degrade more into the
silly than into horror.

There's a distinct confidence factor missing when a
basic premise is purposely kept from the ref.  I would
like to be able to wing any situation, knowing there's
a logical reason for it (even though the players don't
know the reason), and that I'd get official support in
my decision so that another ref would make the same
call given the same circumstance.  I want to know why
you can kill a deadland zombie by shooting, and not by
hanging, or decapitation.  I want to know why a V:tM
vampire could be 'younger' than the player's
character, yet be considered more powerful.  I want to
know why a White Wolf werewolf cannot transmit
lycanthrope by biting someone else.  I want to know
why a Delta is a Delta.

Being told we have to wait until a DIFFERENT gaming
system comes out a year from now doesn't really
instill my desire to play THIS gaming system now.

-Munch Wolf

ps: No I did not mention TORG, I am unfamiliar with
that system.  There are other systems I could have
mentioned, but felt this letter was too long already. 
Just think about the basic nature behind the
characters, and you'll see that most games answer that
question, or don't need to since they use normal
people.  BNW does not.

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