Re: [BNW] white House Snuffer Fields

["William Davis" <williamjdavis@hotmail.com>]

>simple.  Why does everything have to be uniform and neat?  I've been
>reading
>comic books since I was 8 years old and never really wondered "where do
>powers come from?", I just enjoyed the stories and that's what I intend to
>do
>with my BNW game,.....enjoy the story.  I'm making a lot of house rules
>(such
>as Vampires not being deltas and hence not affected by null fields or
>snuffers, introducing Betas, which get two power packages, and not having
>near death experiences being the only way to get powers...)

Right, this is exactly the sort of thing that has been coming up.
I would never have worried about "where" the powers come from in any other 
supers game. They could obviously have come from many different sources. The 
X-factor, Alien races, radiation exposure, thor's hammer, la-da-la-da Land, 
etc. However, none of those universe specifically stated there was an 
underlying source to all powers. And then didn't tell me. I would disagree 
with your ruling on Vampires. Pretty clear that ALL powers have the same 
source. But it's your game. This is an example of something that can axe 
future support. I can't say it will. I am just saying not knowing increases 
the probability immensely. And house rules could possibly make future 
supplements unusable by making the Characters in them unplayable (say a plot 
point of the meta-plot hinges on a vampire being stopped be a null-field). 
Or make the amount of work I have to do in tweaking them prohibitive. ( so I 
re-work the plot so that the vampire is stopped by something else, but wait 
the 'mystery' revealed had to do with the snuffer, so I let THIS vampire be 
stopped by and kludge some explanation why, but then, the NEXT supplement, 
reveals another 'mystery' that contradicts my kludge...) Yes, my examples 
are hypothetical. Yes, I have a campaign running. I am trying to ANTICIPATE 
what my players may do. So, I don't look like a deer in the headlights. Some 
rulings have already been 'officially' made by me.
As an example: If I didn't know Huxters powers were derived from a contest 
with Manitous (ie they didn't tell me the SOURCE, just the mechanic), I 
could have made rulings that would have destroyed all future support when 
this 'mystery' was revealed. As it was, I could make INFORMED house rulings 
by taking into account the underlying principle of the power. So, Yes I have 
made a house rule that Gadgeteers can upkeep more than one device per day. 
Not because anyone is playing one, but because: A) the team is looking at 
contacting one as a supplier, and B) Delta Prime's support structure hinges 
on them. I can't make one rule for DP and one for NPC and one for PC.... 
(well I COULD but, I won't.)
My pet peeve is railroading characters. I WILL NOT prevent them from doing 
something because I don't want to make a decision yet. No, 'artificial' 
roadblocks against things I don't want them to do. Because this is all about 
the story we ALL want to tell. Sure my world has a plot. I have ideas of 
what is going to happen. This will probably depart from the Meta-plot. No 
big deal. But if I make house rules about something, and then can't use the 
'Delta Prime' book say, because their gadgeteers are SO different from mine, 
and they triple, or third, the amount of coverage I had decided on, well 
that annoys me.
Why does everything have to be uniform and neat? Well, actually, because 
THEY SAID IT IS. The powers have a uniform and neat source. I can easily 
make a decision that would sever one of my packages from this. Then future 
supplements containing that package would need to be tweaked. Gods, wasn't 
there some annoying "Paradox" plotline in both Marvel and DC universes to 
fix all the inconsitances. See, the designer said there is a uniform source. 
Yes, they are vague about it, leaving me room to weasel.
Sorry, but this is just a marketing tool. And a blatant, transparent, 
bludgeoning one at that. It offends me. But I like the game enough to where 
I am valiantly trying to ignore this. Which should say something about the 
'necessity' of this type marketing tool.
See Garth-Michael Sarka's Underworld for the way it should be done.
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