Re: [HOE] advice needed for dealing with insane draws

["Michael Maguire" <mikejmaguire@hotmail.com>]

I had a player in my DL game that was prone to draws like this:  in one 
draw, we saw both Jokers, and the rest was mostly face cards and aces (lots 
of spades too).  I saw the draw, and it was totally legit...  but sheesh!

Speaking from my own perspective, my advice would be...  don't worry about 
it too much.  Sure, there's some phenomenal stats, but I've never noticed 
that high stats cause all that much difficulty.  For one thing, there are so 
many critters and assorted nasties that outmatch even the most ungodly 
character.  Also, it still comes down more to Aptitudes than Traits in my 
mind.

As for some things you could do, I'll toss a couple ideas at you that I have 
applied to this sort of situation:

1) Phenomenal characters attract attention - not only from the Reckoners and 
abominations, but from other characters who juse have to prove that they are 
the real big dog.  Have an equally tanked up black hat type come looking for 
the posse member at some point, looking to prove something.

2) Rather than playing out the Harrowed aspect, since it's HOE why not 
customize a mysterious past off one of the Jokers in which one of the 
characters in question has some genetic tampering in their background.  
Perhaps the reason the posse member is so exceptional is because someone 
engineered them that way - and maybe that same someone added a few extra 
things.  Imagine the mayhem it will cause when someone activates the posse 
member's sleeper programming, turning them into an unknowing pawn of <insert 
name of dastardly scientist/faction here>.

3) Since you have more than one character with the "uber-stats", you can 
always bring in the possibility that there are more than one of the genetic 
modified characters from the previous suggestion.  This idea sort of ties in 
both of the other two, potentially:  the posse can slowly uncover the 
connection not only between their own members, but with who knows how many 
other characters.

Michael






----Original Message Follows----
From: "Nick Zachariasen" <zacharin@pluto.dsu.edu>
Reply-To: hoe@gamerz.net
To: "Deadlands HoE" <hoe@gamerz.net>
Subject: [HOE] advice needed for dealing with insane draws
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 03:14:33 -0600

First, the stats in question:

Carrie's Stats:
3d8, 3d10, 3d10, 4d10, 1d12, 2d12, 3d12, 4d12, 4d*, 4d* (both Jokers)

John's Stats:
3d8, 4d8, 4d8, 3d10, 3d10, 4d10, 4d10, 4d12, 4d12, 4d12 (also both Jokers)

I don't know how Carrie managed to do it, but she pulled ALL FOUR Aces, both
Jokers with spades for the suit, and a Queen of Hearts, along with a couple
Kings. Now, I want to let her have this draw, as three other players
witnessed it and say it was a fair draw (indeed, that deck seemed unable to
draw low last night except in the hands of our current Junker- I've since
prohibited its use). However, on the other hand, I don't want to let her use
this draw if the character's going to end up being too powerful and
overshadowing everyone/unbalancing everything. If she uses both Jokers as
d12s that's 5 stats at a d12. We're actually discussing lowering them so
that character is in the remote vicinity of sane, but I'm still not sure
that would even do it. Her idea for the character is a cougar-woman, which
we've figured will use the Phenotypes from City o' Sin and just give her
some kitty traits. My problem, though, isn't how to turn her into a
less-frightening version of a furry. It's how to use her draw to my
advantage without screwing her over unfairly just because she got a good
draw. There's always the Harrowed angle, but I've played that one already.

John also had a very good draw. He's planning on making a former Texas
Ranger Syker. His Mysterious Past draw was Destiny, which we have yet to
hash out. However, his stats are also damn good, so I have to worry about
how to deal with him as well. I'd really appreciate any advice anyone has on
dealing with situations like this and still being fair to all involved.

Nick Zachariasen
Editor Emeritus
Trojan Times



To unsubscribe, send a message to esquire@gamerz.net with
	unsubscribe hoe@gamerz.net
as the BODY of the message.  The SUBJECT is ignored.


_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail