Re: [HOE]Cyborgs and AB's

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Sunday, December 15, 2002, at 02:55  PM, David R Goecke wrote:

>
> All you marshals out there, I've got a question. I think you can guess 
> by
> the subject.
> Have you had to deal with players wanting to be cyborgs with AB's? I
> can't recall anything from the book saying yay or nay to that.
> Do you allow it?
> Do you not allow it? How do you explain to your characters why they
> can't?

Offhand, no. The 'subjects' for the nation's various cyborg projects 
were pretty well screened, and I think every nation had enough of a 
Frankenstein phobia to make selecting someone with an AB out of the 
question.

Now, if a cyborg wants to pick up Templar, I might allow this, but I'd 
want the character to start with, at most, Squire, and likely a big 
honkin' Yearnin' to become a Templar.

> I personally put a stop to it right away in my posse. I have a tendancy
> to let my players get too powerful too fast. My posse has a tendacy to
> take advantage of that. One imparticular is always coming up with crazy
> characters that are too unbalanced (such as a blessed that doesn't
> beleive in sinnin', but I didn't allow that one, the deputy marshal
> did)... in his defense I don't stop him often enough.

A blessed that doesn't believe in sinnin' wouldn't be a blessed, 
actually. Just a weirdo, I guess. I allow the faiths from Fire and 
Brimstone, and the best I can think of of is the Jewish faith, which 
has a very practical GM-moderated allowance for Sinnin' slightly when 
necessary.

> Anyway, I tell my posse:
> 1: Once harrowed you can't learn a new arcane background, but you can
> still grow in ones you had before death.
> 2: The Spirit fetter prevents any personal contact with the Hunting
> Grounds, rendering any AB's useless.
> 3: I AM DA LAW!

Number 3's the most important. I have successfully encouraged my 
players to spread out their skills by being a bastard about learning 
new skills... So taking one level in a skill at character creation is 
valuable, as it's easy to raise later.

I've been thinking of a list of questions for new characters... Things 
like 'What did you do before the war?' to help players narrow things 
down. I don't demand massive backgrounds, and I sometimes like the 
freedom of filling in facts during player (for example, one character 
in my posse has an enemy, and we've only decided that it's a rival 
templar who has a grudge, but we haven't determined details.