Re: [BNW] Weak Powers

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

>There has been some discussion over "weak" power packages (especially the
>Translator).  Maybe I'm a strange Guide, but I have not found any powers to
>be weaker than the others.
>

i don't believe I said it was "weak", but rather that it didn't seem to have 
many useful overall applications in a campaign.

>First, the Translator.  I currently have a modern setting going on 
>Tuesdays,
>and a WW2 game on Thursdays.  The new guy in my group plays a translator in
>both campaigns.  If you only role-play for combat (which is very boring),
>then sure, he's weak.  Get creative, that's what makes it fun.  In both
>settings, I allow him to speak with a regional dialect as a trick.  
>Combined
>with a high persuasion:bluff skill and a german uniform, he has already
>started several conversations from fellow soldiers from "his home town."
>This distracts them long enough to have the others sneak in or knock out 
>the
>guard, or whatever.  In Crescent City modern day, he has acted like a reg
>and distracted primers whose accent he hears (a Texan and a New Yorker, so
>far).  The trick also grants him the use of slang from those areas.
>

But why are they sending people into an area for infiltration if the group 
in question can't speak and/or read the language?  "What's this big red sign 
say, Fred?"  "Don't know, Charlie.  What is the German word for 
elec...*bzzzttt!*"

So assuming that everyone in the group can speak the language, the benefit 
the Translator is getting here is basically a bonus to his persuasion: bluff 
attempts.

I think the "Share Translation" trick I posted helped, but the main problem 
with the Translator package is that it draws attention to use of language in 
a RPG.  Kinda like how the Star Trek episodes that revolve around some flaw 
or problem with the Universal Translator just point out all the 
inconsistencies when the darn things are working right, or how movies will 
have someone speak in a foreign language (with subtitles) for the first few 
lines and then "take over" and just have the characters speak English (for 
English-viewing audiences, at least)...

>but the fight is broken up by some primer blasters.  BNW powers are gained
>randomly, and that makes it interesting.  Just my two cents.
>

They're gained by the PC randomly, but they are chosen by the PC 
deliberately.  Therein lies the difference, if that helps...

>Colan Kennelly


---

Steve Crow

"Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority."

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

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