Re: [HOE] guts check and gun

["Bob Fletcher" <bobfletch@erols.com>]

>     Which leads to one question.  Since just about every character in HoE
has
> lived through the entire period (it's only been 13 years), does the idea
of
> 'veteran of the Wasted West' have much meaning?  It's not like someone
could
> have come from out of town, they all have had 13 years of mutants,
> abominations, and unspeakable horrors coming after them.

    I think the purpose of VotWW is to represent someone who has seen and
done a lot more than your average waster.  There are plenty of people in HoE
who spend their entire lives scratching out an existence in the dirt without
ever seeing anything much worse than a walkin' dead.  Now, I suppose that's
still pretty bad, but compared to the things your average posse is likely to
see over the course of a single adventure... You get the idea.  And it's
relative as well.  A townie might see a single zombie and be scared to
death, but he's not cut from the same cloth as a posse member, who might not
start to get really worried until it's five walkin' dead.
    I imagine your average waster having the kind of resolve as in Night of
the Living Dead (I think that's the right one); going out in groups to hunt
down zombies if the need arises.  As long as they outnumber the walkin'
dead, they're reasonably confident.  But when that horde of twenty comes
over the hill, they're going to turn tail and run.  The average posse with a
Doomsayer or Syker with whiz-bang powers might try to stand their ground.
    Mind you, this is just my impression of the Wasted West.  I try to keep
the abominations to a minimum, so they have more impact when they do show
up.  Some Marshals probably run a world just teeming with zombies, wormlings
and scavs and in that case I suppose VotWW would mean less.