Re: [BNW] Combat tips?

["Thomas E. Reed" <tomreed@sundial.net>]

A lot of this talk about the intensity of combat is personal taste, of 
course. My take is that the system, as is, works well.

I see BNW as a much more reality-based superhero game than any of the 
others. In real life, people take damage, don't do so well in combat 
after being hit, and start making mistakes. Making combat dangerous, even 
deadly, is in keeping with that theme.

In fact, although there are big delta battles in BNW, it should be the 
goal of sensible Defiant deltas to avoid them, and to avoid causing them. 
The deadliness is part of that, but there's another factor too.

My first RPG was the James Bond 007 game from a subsidiary of Avalon 
Hill. In that game, with every kill (intentional or not) that an agent 
gained, that agent's Fame statistic went up. Every time Fame went up, 
there was more and more liklihood that the agent would be randomly 
recognized by an enemy, thus making his life as a "secret" agent 
pointless. At a certain point, an agent would have to retire, or undergo 
some really difficult process like faking his own death or getting severe 
plastic surgery - essentially making him begin a whole new character.

The reason this mechanic was introduced was specifically to keep a role 
playing game from turning into a KASOP game. (Which stands for "Kill A 
S***load Of People.") By making killing people something as dangerous as 
it was occasionally necessary, it forced players to think. Forcing 
players to think, instead of letting them NOT think, is always very good.

Having run the original and most recent Marvel Super Heroes game for 
years, the most irritating thing about it was how everything degenerated 
into fights. There was none of the stuff that brought most people to read 
comics - call it "sense of wonder" if you want. I don't want to see BNW 
degenerate into a combat-heavy game for that reason.



Tom Reed will be at The Games at MegaCon presented
by SunQuest, March 1-4, 2001 in Orlando, FL. Get
the details at http://www.megaconventon.com