Re: [BNW] Bombers and moans from my players (Long)

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

>I got some good news Friday.  The players in my campaign have decided to 
>put the game on hold until there are a few more books out.  They are 
>unhappy with the following things:
>
>Bombers
>Unclear ruling on how many powers a Gadgeteer can put into an item
>Improving their characters.
>
>Right onto the first one.
>
>Bombers.
>
>I have said this before.  Bombers are obscenely hard.  Yeah, they get two 
>arms and then think about running.  My bomber just blows himself up and is 
>now complaining that DP are sending really tough people after him.

[assorted snippage on Bombers}

>I don't know if anyone else has used bombers yet, but they are a tad OTT 
>IMHO.
>
>What I am suggesting is that they get double damage for an arm / leg and 
>possibly size plus one for full body boom.  Sure, blowing totally is a huge 
>amount of damage, but he reforms an hour later...trapped under tonnes of 
>rubble and no one knows he is there!!  Muhahahahaha.
>

Seems like you have a workable system.  Otherwise don't allow this 
particular character "class."

>That leads me onto the player complaining that he can't see where he can 
>take his character.  "All I can do is blow up."
>

Well, blow up, learn to be good with a gun or in HTH, learn some computer 
hacking skills, fill in any of those other potential "voids" skill-wise that 
no other PC in the group has.

>that really ragged on me.  I told them all that they can come up with new 
>tricks.  I suggested that as the bomber (chief complainer) reforms a limb 
>after an hour that he could do a trick where he could regenerate somehow.  
>He would need 2 successes on a healing roll to heal an extra wound level.
>

Sounds reasonable.

>He instead got shaped charge, touched a location on a target and smiled and 
>told me that it is applied to all locations.  I was not amused.  I've now 
>ruled that shaped charge is to a single location when touching.  He wanted 
>me to see what you guys thought of it.  Hopefully I can get some back up 
>from Matt on this.
>

He would seem to be correct, although I don't have Defiance right here in 
front of me.  Does it matter?  Doing 42 damage to, say, your opponent's 
chest is going to kill them just as dead as if he deos 42 massive damage to 
every location...

>They all want to be able to gain additional packages and somehow improve 
>their characters.  I just told them to thing about tricks they could do 
>with what they got.  Then there is the moan that the tricks are a little 
>restrictive.  Bombers and blasters are damage freaks.  Why can't they do 
>other things?  I was fighting a losing battle with them, plus they wanted 
>more info on what was going on, so we shelved the game until crescent city 
>comes out.
>

Bombers do seem to be somewhat limited, agreed.  Tricks are designed to 
_expand_ the use of powers, so describing them as "a little restrictive" 
seems odd.  What are they thinking of, campaign to "real world" comic book 
wise.  Most blasters in the comic books are "damage freaks" (look at, say, 
Cyclops or Polaris).  Within the reduced-power limits of BNW (and X-Men 
tends to reflect that more than, say, JLA), what do they want?

Note that even some blaster-types don't have to be limited to blasting.  
Gambit of the X-Men is kind of a mixed blaster/bomber, for instance.  
However, he also has acrobatics and fighting (club) and is damned good at 
both (unless that is part of his mutant power as well??).  Cyclops is a 
highly-trained pilot and tactics/leadership type.

As has been discussed in the past, BNW is definitely an "unfolding" setting 
(it's hardly unique - ask me about Hell on Earth/Deadlands and the recent 
release of Spirit Warriors sometime...  :( ).  If you have a group that 
wants the "whole thing" for their campaign, then it isn't going to work.

>I'll get onto the Gadgeteer now.  He has 3 items with 5 powers in them.  
>Only one is offensive - a powered down energy blast, but the rest are 
>saying that he is able to build more gadgets in the future and he has no 
>restrictions on how much he can put in them.  See the gadgeteers 
>description in the main rules - they can do that.
>

Ummm, that's not what I read.  Nowhere in the basic rulebook does it say 
that a Gadgeteer is unrestricted in what he can put into a Gadget.  Rather, 
it says that the final restriction level is determined by the Gamemaster, 
and that he can choose to enforce that restriction by having an item 
breakdown if the Gadgeteer "pushes" it too far.

(This strikes me as somewhat hostile, and if I allowed Gadgeteers at this 
time, would go for discussion with the player rather than simply say, "Ha!  
That doesn't work!"  Nothing in BNW prevents you from taking that approach, 
of course.)

>None of what he asked for was OTT, but he has 15 different things he can do 
>- levitate, go invisible, track, blaster, a medical kit to give a +5 
>healing bonus to name but a few.
>

It's up to the individual GM, but it sure sounds like he is pushing the 
envelope vis a vis what is stated in the Gadgeteer section of the basic 
rulebook.

>Sure he spends a lot of time maintaining things, but he is a jack of all 
>trades.  If I say one gets damaged in a fight or stops working, I feel like 
>I am taking away his creativity.
>

Again, as a low-end "superhero" RPG, BNW _does_ take away some of the 
players' creativity, vis a vis "superpowers."  BNW was never intended, as 
far as I can tell, to let Gadgeteers emulate, say, Iron Man.  Although the 
latter is undoubtedly a much more "creative" character.

>I still think that gadgeteers need their own sourcebook, possibly with some 
>refined rules, incorporating the rules from Delta Prime (which are great) 
>and giving additional gadgets, some of which may be available to DP and 
>some to the defiance.  Some help here on putting some restrictions would be 
>good, even if it is just to preserve my sanity.
>

My understanding is that such a book is coming out at some point.  I haven't 
seen the Delta Prime book yet.

The main thing that Matt can help you on is probably determining the 
maintenance requirements for Gadgets.  I think we had determined here that 
those in the basic rulebook didn't make much sense.  Unless they were 
clarified in DP, you can probably ask him this question, either directly or 
post it here with [MATT] in the subject line.

>Anyway, we are having a discussion Tuesday night on what they feel is a 
>problem (they had a meeting and decided to tell me after they had a 
>decision to put it on hold for a while) and then I will be putting it all 
>out here for discussion and assistance.
>
>Overall, they really loved playing, but there were similarities with 
>Deadlands when it first came out - great system, too many holes that needed 
>filling in.  We will be back playing the game, have no doubts there, but 
>players will be players!
>

Similarities with Hell on Earth, too.  ;)  This style of releasing an 
"unfolding" game is not for all players, but it doesn't look like it's going 
to be fading away anytime soon, either.

IMO, it's possible BNW may _not_ be the game for your players.  I don't 
think it's necessarily a bad word, but your group seems to be 
"power-gamers."  Nothing wrong with that - I've never thought it precludes 
the fact such an entity can't be a good/great role-player either, and some 
of the most determined power-gamers I know are great role-players as well.

But BNW is not a game that encourages power-gaming.  The powers are pretty 
much set in stone, and only the relatively small mechanism of Tricks allows 
any variance or alteration.  Personally, outside of the relative level of 
powers, I think this pretty accurately reflects some comic book approaches.  
How much has, say, Cyclops' or Wolverine's or Gambit's powers "evolved" over 
the years?  Not much - these characters progress and grow by learning new 
skills and honing their existing ones, and adding on the occasional 
self-developed Power Trick.

Your players may be happier with Crossworlds once it comes out, which looks 
to be a much more superhero/superpower-oriented game.  It's hard to say and 
really impossible to predict going from second- or third-hand knowledge of 
your campaign.

The other alternative is to disallow the "problem" Power Packages for the 
time being, of which, IMO, there are 3:  the two cited above, and Bargainer. 
  Unless you want to fine-tune the Bomber, there's not much you can do there 
but simply disallow it as a PC or a NPC type, but the other two can remain 
background NPC types until such time as better ruels are released (as I 
understand they will be).

The unfolding text nature of BNW is something either your players are going 
to have to understand and put up with, or decide it's not what they want.  
At the end of the day, that's really what it comes down to.  My own group is 
happy with my statement that, "What I tell you today, based on my best guest 
within the framework of what is published, may not be exactly the same six 
months down the road."  Your mileage may vary, but BNW to me is a lot less 
specific than Deadlands/Hell on Earth, which has gone out on a limb a couple 
of times recently and then chopped it off behind them.

Alternately, if Matt releases something that doesn't jibe with what you've 
already told the players about Crescent City, or "your" campaign 
world...ignore it.  ;)

*shrug* These are options.  They may not be options you or your players are 
comfortable with, but they're there.  Or again...it may just be that BNW is 
not the game for you.  It seems like you like it, and to me, at least 
(again, going from second- and third-hand impressions), the problems appear 
to be relatively minor ones.

>Thanks for taking time in reading, suggestions and help would be good.
>

Hope that all helps.

>Mark
>
>


---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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