Re: [HoE] assorted [HOPLER]

[Darrin Bright <darrin@neobright.net>]

At 01:35 PM 7/24/99 -0400, you wrote:
>My posse started character creation last night for "From the Ashes", and it
>gave me time to isolate and analyze some big concerns I have with the DL:
>HoE game world.
>
>	First and foremost are issues of game balance.  I can say with some degree
>of certainty that I am far to the left when it comes to schools of
>role-playing. 
> [...] In all honesty, I do not expect to be able to say the same of HoE in
>a few months.

I can see what you're saying, but a lucky trog can brain even the most
badass Syker/Templar/Doomie/etc. Other than junkers, backlash issues are
few and far between, but from a game balance standpoint I think a pump
shotgun still is king of the battlefield.


>	Exacerbating the problem of overly powerful ABs are some of the Edges and
>Hindrances (?) available.  For the best example, one need look no further
>than Children o' the Atom.  The hindrance 'Lifetap' is either
>ill-conceived, ill-categorized, or ill-managed.  
[...discussion of Lifetap, converting strain into wind...]

Well, when we were playing DL, we often forgot about wind altogether and
just played without it. Most of the time we didn't have a gung-ho group
that usually knew when to quit or bow out of heavy fighting. But if you do
pay attention to wind... well, I don't think Lifetap will be much of a big
issue. A Doomie using it liberally will get knocked unconscious from little
scratch wounds. Most characters have lousy wind to begin with, and once
they get down to under 6, light wound will take them out of combat. This
can be staved off by spending chips, but then they won't be around to
cancel wounds or spend on rolls.

>By subbing Wind for Strain (which, I might
>add, requires a *minute* to recover, as opposed to an *hour*), the problem
>of strain management is essentially removed.  Barring property and posse
>damage, the Doomie may now cast nuke with abandon.

Try using baddies that like to use wind-based attacks (whips are good
low-tech wind-based weapons) or stun/electrical stuff. 

>	Ah ha! But I could make individual encounters more difficult, yes? 
>Perhaps.  But what about the gunfighter?  The old soldier?  What about all
>the other characters that can't dole out destruction on a massive scale? To
>use a D&D frame of reference for a moment, it's like plopping a 20th level
>character into a party of 1st level characters.  

You've obviously never played Rifts. That's definately a good thing, though. 

>One of two things is going
>to happen: tailor to the low-levels, and have the high level clean house. 
>Bored low-levels.  Our other option is to challenge the high level, and to
>hell with everyone else.

Good point. Most of the really nasty stuff in DL/HOE can't be dropped by
just unloading damage onto it. Fearmongers and Servitors have weaknesses
that are usually based on symbolic importance. Dropping a Nuke on a
servitor generally just annoys the hell out of him. This allows less
experienced or not-so-badass characters to take down big chunks of ugliness
if they figure out the weakness.

The problem above...whether to taylor the difficulty to the lower levels or
challenge the higher levels... well, the way I see it you just have to be a
little more creative as a GM. Nuke is pretty costly. Let the Doomie nuke a
pack of Black Hats so he wastes all his strain, THEN hit them with the real
encounter.

This problem popped up early in in Deadlands, actually, when you put a
Harrowed in the party. I think you'll notice that these overly powerful
characters tend to become bullet magnets. I think you'll find the same
thing with the Doomies that like Nuke... once they let loose, they
immediately become Hot Target #1. Two things will happen now... the
Nuke-Happy Doomie will become Trog-food, or he'll soak up enough damage
that the rest of the party can make themselves useful trying to keep his
hide in one piece. Ok, sure, its still not a very good balance issue, but I
don't consider it the complete ruination of the game that you are leaning
towards.

>	Finally, I come to the last (and possibly most important) complaint:
>Killer Tomatoes.  The complaint is more general than that, but I find
>killer tomatoes are the symptom most emblematic of the underlying disease. 
>Stuff like this simply does *not* belong in Hell on Earth.

Sheesh. You're not much of a fan for late night TV. Ok, so maybe its a
little high on the "wouldn't it be cute" scale, but I didn't have a problem
with the Killer Tomatoes. I think they belong in HoE just fine. Heck, if
PEG hadn't put them in, it would only be a matter of time before I did
something similar. Let's try not to take the game system TOO seriously,
folks. HoE was built on movies like Killer Tomatoes and Plan 9 from Outer
Space. I don't see anything wrong with paying a little homage.


>	Right about now, I can hear many of you cracking your knuckles, ready to
>lay into me for making a blanket statement like this.  I'm sure I'll
>receive plenty of messages along these lines: "Who do you think you are,
>coming in here and telling us what does and doesn't belong in the HoE
>universe?!  We'll play the game however we want!" 

*shrug* I've given up on the idea that you can change anyone's mind over
the Internet. Well, ok, I have my weak moments of optimistic idiocy, but
whatever... you've got some legitimate complaints. 

>	I realize that any and all of these complaints can be fixed by Marshal
>caveat, and in my campaign, most will be.  But every game needs a baseline.
> Every game needs a style, a genre, and a substance that is indelibly
>linked with said game.  Looking at Hell on Earth as a whole, the universe
>seems to be slowly sliding into a mish-mash of ideas- a patchwork quilt of
>style and substance.

Post Apocalypse is hard to do well. PEG's done a damned fine job as far as
I'm concerned. Its probably best to keep in mind that PEG's going to throw
a lot of ideas out to us in various sourcebooks, but its up to us to tailor
our individual campaigns to what we like to see. I'd rather have a wide
variety of less-than-brilliant ideas to work on than a more narrow offering
of stuff watered down so it won't piss anyone off. 

Toodles.