RE: [HoE] Junkers Gear and a minor rant[Shane]

["Erik Kjerland (S&T Onsite)" <a-erikkj@microsoft.com>]

Agreed.  I figure the "necessary" books for playing Deadlands are:
The main rulebook
Quick and the Dead
Ghost Dancers (if you want a strong Indian presence)

One glaring absence from HoE was a map.  At least Deadlands had a map to let
you get the big picture.

Also, everyone knows something about the Old West, so we could game with
that inherent knowledge.

No one, outside PEG, as yet knows anything about the Wasted West.  How big
were the cities before the Big Bang?  Were there arcologies?  Tube trains?
Hydroponics domes?  How many bombs hit each city, on average?  Did the bombs
cause any geologic upheaval like the Maze (is Florida now another maze?)


Is it just me, or does anybody think that it would have helped to better
explain the Junkers rules, if the sample Gears, had point costs associated
with them?

Also, I'm normally a rabid fanboy, but HoE seems a little "incomplete" to
me.  Maybe I'm jaded because of the vast amount of Deadlands product that is
out there, but [possibly with the exception of the Harrowed and Shaman]
Deadalnds could be played "right out of the box" with just the main
rulebook.  All of the source books that have been released were icing on top
of the cake, improvements and {slight} modifications to the basic character
types, but not really necessary!  

So far, I don't get the same feel from HoE.  Granted, I haven't completely
finished the book yet, but so far it seems that it will be really tough to
play Junkers until their source book comes out.

Otherwise, I'm pleased.  This is a genre that I never really liked, and
Shane has made it cool for me!  I'm not buying the HoE card game, though!  I
need to set my limits somewhere!

I'll nit-pick some of the technical aspects in a post after I read the rest
of the book.

Pat