Re: [HoE] Junkman Cometh

["Tim Vegas" <tim_vegas@hotmail.com>]

>
>Patrick Phalen wrote:
>
> > Why couldn't you just find some glass and a metal tube and do the
> > machining/grinding/whatever to make a conventional rifle scope?
>
>...because if I go to any self-respecting marshall and say, "Hey, I've got 
>a
>plasma pistol with a range increment of 20 yards" then things are going to 
>get
>ugly, especially if there's no math to back it up and I tell him "Oh, he 
>just
>found some prescription glasses and ground them down with a nail file. 
>Didn't
>cost me a thing."
>
>The "why don't you just use normal stuff?" argument is pretty weak. For one
>thing, there's no "rifle scope" on the equipment lists, no price for it, 
>and no
>way to assign a cost or value. How can any Marshall keep his players under
>control when the players can just say, "Oh, well, my Law Dog found a 
>portable
>anti-tank laser in the ruins of some army base. It does 5d20 damage and it
>doesn't use junker tech."
>
>And one other reason... PEG put a lot of time and effort into 90+ pages, 
>and I
>want to use 'em. Why spend money on a book there's no point in using? Sure, 
>I
>could talk the Marshall into letting me scrounge up a normal scope... but 
>if
>I've got the darned book, why not put it to use?

OK, Patrick... no.
The junker is a great concept, taken from several movies and the original 
game. The junker makes wondrous inventions, and knows how to tinker with 
normal things very well. Only, one of the big drawbacks about the wondrous 
inventions are... the junker isn't the one who makes them. The manitous do, 
basically. The manitous have incredibly complex and alien thought patterns, 
( they're the GM's creation, after all.) and they determine what the junker 
makes. He, of course, has to coerce them and so has some power over what he 
is making, but not all. But the junker's powers are a GAME PROCESS. Let's 
say it again, i know you can, this is a GAME. What are games for? Having 
fun, of course. Is complicated math fun? Maybe for some people, but it drags 
down the game. This is not fun. So what do we do? We consult our all 
powerful god, the GM. The GM (if he's halfway intelligent) says "I do not 
like these rules. They are not fun. Simply ask me, when you need to design 
an invention or tinker with something." And it is so. See, junkers shouldn't 
have to do a bunch of math to see if they can make something, they should 
have to smack some spirits around and have them tell them how. That's why 
junkers can make plasma pistols, hoverbikes, while regular old inventors are 
stuck with normal little inventions they thought up themselves and spent 
years working on. Nobody wants to play a regular inventor, they want to play 
a junker. The GM-asking part is what keeps game-balance. I bought the 
Junkman Cometh. I didn't like the rules too much. So i didn't use them.  
It's twenty bucks, come on people. Is it really worth it?


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