[HoE] HoE: First Impressions.

[David Pearson <regault@u.washington.edu>]

Well, I paged through HoE at Nybbles & Bytes today. (They don't mind,
I'm going to buy everything else there.) All told, I thought it was
pretty cool. Here's my impressions.

A. When reading the Prospector's description of Junkers, I got this
wierd image in my mind of an ex-Mad Scientist putting a chunk of ghost
rock on the table, grabbing a hammer, and going: "Zo, you refuse to give
us ze plans for ze automaton? Very vell, ve have vays ov making you
talk." BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!!!

B. My brother cheered when he heard about the Dr. Pepper.

C. I sure hope they have a character sheet included with the Radiation
Screen, because the hardcover will make the one in the book almost
impossible to photocopy or scan.

D. The creatures were cool for the most part, but the wormling didn't
look like I imagined from the foreshadowing in CoG. In fact, it looked
like the Mudokons from Oddworld:Abe's Oddysee.

E. I'm definitely going to use the Bloodwolf in normal Deadlands.

F. The fact that fightin' and throwin' are more important in HoE than in
Deadlands is bound to make my bro Cary want to play.

G. I originally heard that the Sykers worked like Knacks, which I
thought was lame, but they work like Martial Artists, which is okay. The
background for them is also probably the coolest. It reminds me of the
speech Tom Hanks makes in Saving Private Ryan, when he says that
sometimes he's afraid he'll return home and he'll have changed so much
that his wife doesn't recognize them. Now, imagine getting sent off to
some alien planet, on which you're forced to fight a grotesquely brutal
war, only to return home and find your world destroyed. Now that makes
for excellent roleplaying.

I also picked up the new poster. Its pretty cool, and the planned
supplements sound great.

Lane "I must now color coordinate my purple robe with my red and white
tabard" Pearson