[HoE] [HOE] junker concept thoughts

[Matthew Steflik <grifflik@stny.rr.com>]

After reading my digest version of list today, it seems we've got (at
least) two separate ideas of what the Junker character "is supposed to
be".  On one hand we've got the mad scientist type "inventions are done
out of game time, take cautious spirit management, specific components
and number crunching" school, while on the other we have the heavy
wahoo-factor MacGuyver-ish techno-mage "grab a bunch of crap lying
around on the fly, some mojo and presto - you got an invention" school
(boy was that an overly long sentence).  Both are fine, but both are
VERY different.  Its pretty obvious to me that what PEG intended for the
Junker is school number one.  It also seems equally obvious that what a
bunch of people actually want is school number two.  Although in the
same ballpark, school number two doesn't describe a junker exactly.
For all of you MacGuyver-fixated fans out there (and I'm not knocking
you 'cause I'm right there with ya), this second school is more in line
with someone who would use spirits to do amazing bits of jury-rigged
gadgetry (under fire if need be) with weird assemblages of parts that
would be incredibly useful but also incredibly temporary.  This is not
creating "new" inventions, but rather making disposable scientifically
impossible devices that provide solutions to immediate problems  (like
taking swim goggles, nail varnish and a file combined with a bit of
spirit spit and elbow grease to make a rifle scope, as someone used as a
previous example - it would last for a combat, or to get you that one
all important shot, but that's it).  To me, this sounds like a Junker
variant or separate archetype idea.  The rules for this "second school
of Junker thought" would, by necessity, have to easy and fast (probably
math-lite) and also be of very limited duration.  You could base the
whole concept upon the jury-rig tool trick idea and expand upon it,
perhaps.  I dunno.  I think it's a character concept worth talking
about, but its definitely not a hard-core Junker.  Any other thoughts?
Oh yeah - just a brief comment on a post from a couple of days back by
dmsutton regarding how there didn't seem to be "enough junk in
Junking".  Man, I love the way you think!  The See and Say idea was
hilarious.  Personally I think toys should get their own spirits, but
I've got a feeling that if it came down to a ruling they'd fall under
appliances.  How about a Junker device whose sensor/commo unit was
scrounged from a Teddy Ruxpin doll?  I can just imagine that little bear
voice..."Targets are 30 meters and closing...Can we be friends? I'd like
to give them a great big hug!"  Thanks for the laugh!

Matt Steflik