I would offer
these thoughts:
- Have
the MS player work up inventions on their own time. Meet separately to work out
details, make rolls, etc.
- Use
downtime between adventures for lab time. Adventurers need time off too. Don’t necessarily make them
adventure every single day of the WW calendar. (BTW, I’ve made up a spreadsheet that contains the
correct calendar for 1876-1877 (as far as Bill Gates is concerned) and
both years fit nice on a single sheet of paper)
- Have fun
with the MS. Make ‘em pay for
the gizmos. Looking for
exotic items makes for good small adventures between campaigns, or on
nights that all your players can’t make it. Maybe they don’t quite have enough GR to finish a
project, or a rare metal to a housing, etc. I’ve used this tactic for Magic Users in D&D when
they wanted to make a magic item.
- Also,
the MS player could make a different character for use during extended lab
times.
--Joel
-----Original
Message-----
From: Wecarmich@aol.com
[mailto:Wecarmich@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001
3:58 PM
To: Deadlands@gamerz.net
Subject: [DL] Mad Scientists
I need
some perspective and I am hoping that you folks on the list can help
me. I have long been opposed to having a Mad Scientist in games which I
Marshal. I have been concerned with two specific problems.
1. Designs often take a great deal of game time ( at least from the kinds
of
devices I am used to seeing). I want PC's to be in the game not being in a
lab all the time, travelling or not.
2. I get the feeling that MS's go nutty pretty quickly unles PC's spend
Bounty to pay of the insanities. I realize that the marshal can keep that
in
check to some extent by the types of dementia that are handed out but at some
point these players are likely to become unplayable.
A guy with a lot of money and umpteen gizmos, crazy or not does not a MS
make. Therefore here are my questions.
How do you balance invention time with adventure time?
What are some ways to keep the MS character playable but yet still not quite
normal?
I want to play an MS and give it a real chance after having a discussion
about my concerns with a fellow Marshal. I would appreciate your
suggestions. I am trying to keep an open mind. Please enlighten me
asbout
these problems.
Thanx
Walt