Re: [HOE] Stripping a pickup for parts

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

>The Marshal says:
>"OK, you search the truck and are able to salvage four structural, five
>mechanical, and three chemical components."
>
>I say:
>"Do WHAT?"
>
>Long argument ensues about how many components are in a pickup truck. 
>Marshal
>argues that the pickup is old and rusty and there's not much good metal in 
>it. I
>point out that what junkers DO is make useful items out of rusty, worthless
>crap, and also that building an identical mid-sized pickup from scratch 
>using
>the Locomotion power would require the expenditure of 22 chemical, 22
>electronic, 64 mechanical, and 100 structural components, rather than four
>struct, five mech, and three chem. After I make it clear to him that I am 
>not
>merely grabbing a few obvious pieces but disassembling and storing the 
>entire
>vehicle bolt by bolt, he says he'll think about giving me a few more 
>components,
>but I'll have to make a bunch of guts checks since the syker killed two of 
>the
>gangers with Boneripper and chunks of them are all over the truck. (Never 
>mind
>that he's been boneripping people since the beginning of the campaign and 
>we've
>never had to make any guts checks after the first time.)
>
>Bottom line: how much right do I have to complain?
>

Plenty.  About the same amount that your Marshal has the right to disregard 
said complaints. ;)

With that in mind...it's hard to judge this in context. Is your Marshal 
running a resource-strict campaign in general?  His decision, although it 
may not make sense in "real-life" terms, seems consistent with the viewpoint 
presented in stuff like Chidlren of the Atom and elsewhere "officially" 
where it is suggested the Marshal shouldn't feel too bad about making sure 
that players get as little salvage as possible (every NPC shooting at you 
used their last bullet, blow up the PCs' vehicles regularly, stuff like 
that...).  That all doesn't make sense "realitically" either.

The guts check thing (and the fact you're having to make multiple checks) 
_does_ seem a bit onerous, but again, is this how he handles Guts checks in 
general?  Or does he regularly ignore the "once you see it, don't worry 
about Guts checks against it later" bit in the HoE rulebook?

The real question seems to be how much does he support your Junker doing 
what he does for a living?  I'd note that yes, it does seem kinda strict.  
But...is this case an exception to how he usually handles the accumulation 
of junker components?

If it's the rule rather then the exception, you might want to consider a 
different character/profession.  Or chat with your Marshal about how you're 
frustrated with your character's inability to...well, be a Junker and do 
their primary function (i.e., build stuff).

Keep in mind that the Junker SB does note that a Marshal may need to be 
careful with Junk devices because, once they're built, they don't cost 
Strain or anything and they're more or less "permanent" (as long as you can 
find the ghost rock for the g-rays/spook juice, or whatever, if such is 
required).  Your Marshal may be taking that approach.

The final question (which I don't recall if the Junker SB answers) is how 
much do all those components _weigh_?  Are you carrying them by their 
lonesome, in the back of your group's vehicle (if any), or what?

*shrug* It sounds more like a long-term issue that may have to work out with 
the Marshal overall, rather than in this one specific instance. If he's got 
one vision for how Junkers work and how much they build and how much he 
should allow them to do so, and you've got another, you may be in a for a 
great deal of frustration.

>--Robert Holland


---

Steve Crow

"Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority."

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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