Found or Bought Weapons

[JuddG]

I am kitting up my Sci-Fi pregens for Future Perfect and I keep writing down the following line:

Weapon 1 - (Blaster: Ranged)

except for one guy who has:

Weapon 2 - (Blaster Rifle: Ranged, Armor Piercing)
Human Arsenal - 2

But it occurs to me that the characters (like the reporter, etc) who don't normally own a gun might pick one up or buy one, so I have been giving them the weapon ability as well.

Does anyone use weapons as a merely an item with a damage value and some stats? If so, how do you make people's "signature weapons" even better?

My suggestion might be to let anyone who comes accross a weapon get the weapon with a rank of 1 for the time they have it, but anyone who buys weapon as an ability for their chartacter starts at 2 for DT and perks, etc.

Ideas, comments, and other insights very much welcome.

[TheBouncyPherret]

...

Does anyone use weapons as a merely an item with a damage value and some stats? If so, how do you make people's "signature weapons" even better?

Weapon is exactly that, an item with a damage value and some stats. If you want to have stats for a "signature weapon" you would use Power Move. If they can only use their Power Move with the Weapon, than take the Focus Weakness to link the Power Move to the Weapon. No gun, no big overloading-spreading-shot-of-doom. ^_^

If the character can use some Power Moves without the Weapon, but some of them require the Weapon--IE a psychic, mage, etc--than each signature attack linked to the Weapon would have the Requirement (-5; must have Weapon to use) Flaw.

My suggestion might be to let anyone who comes accross a weapon get the weapon with a rank of 1 for the time they have it, but anyone who buys weapon as an ability for their chartacter starts at 2 for DT and perks, etc.

Ideas, comments, and other insights very much welcome.

I guess I answered this question with my above reply, so I won't repeat myself.

I would like to say, however, that it's not that bad an idea to make up an "equipment" list for your setting. This way, both you and your players will know what to expect when you say "you see a cop with a blazer rifle and cryo-armor heading your way...and he looks pissed."

If there is no real benchmark for what a blazer rifle is, or how cryo-armor works, than that description means absolutely nothing to anyone but yourself.

Granted, there was a previous post about picking up weapons without them being an actual Weapon for you, but I can't find it right now...it was kinda buried within another topic ^_^;;

TBP

[TheBouncyPherret]

As an afterthought, if a character finds, loots, purchases, etc. a weapon and frequently uses it, it's a good idea to reduce their XP gain to sufficiently "buy-off" the acquisition of the Weapon ability. It might not happen in one fell swoop, per se...even if you hold back just 2XP per session, you could buy-off Weapon +3 in as many as 3 sessions.

Perhaps the characters XP award for "mission complete" is the acquisition of said Weapon, while everyone else gets 6XP. Heck, since the new Ability is their only reward, maybe give 'em a price break on it--if the party gets only 5XP, let the one character still get the Weapon +3. Even though the other characters are technically getting short-changed by 1XP, they have the choice of where that XP goes, where as the acquiring character does not.

Just a few afterthoughts I figured might be helpful ^_^

TBP

[JuddG]

Weapon is exactly that, an item with a damage value and some stats. If you want to have stats for a "signature weapon" you would use Power Move.

Now that I am not as comfortable with, mainly because I think of Power Moves as inherent abilities and special techniques (yes, using focus can tie it to a weapon). Also, I do not like the idea that your cryo-sword or whatnot costs you energy to use normally.

Obviously, the solution is to blend the two, using both weapon and a focused power move to have a cryo-sword which can do special "frost blossom" attacks and whatnot.

What I mean by "signature weapon", and the more I think about this, the more sense it makes, is that the weapon is an intrinsic part of the character's story. Thus, it has a great deal of plot immunity. The sword won't get destroyed or taken (at least, not without some major payoff in story). That way, simple level 1 weapons can be the "equipment list" of a normals-balanced game but weapons bought with the ability are special, advanced, better, mystical, and most-importantly protected from casual loss or damage.

Make sense?

Also, I will be looking up your previous post to see what additional insights you offered. I think you and I both see the great potential in this zen-like game. Thanks for weighing in on this.

[Clay]

I think I breached this topic earlier in the forum's mildly diverse history. The main problem is that in the interest of keeping OVA as simple and understandable as possible, the ability Weapon itself is sometimes not as usable as it could be. It half implies the Focus weakness, without explicitly doing so. It also implies the weapon has to be an intrinsic, inseparable part of the character, which in some campaigns, it is not.

The real solution here is to remove Weapon, Vehicle, and other such contrivances from the list of character-selectable Abilities altogether. Instead, create a new list called "Equipment" or some such, and list items there. That way, they will never affect or be affected by the characters own total of Abilities and Weaknesses and can change as often as is necessary.

If you feel a character either A) has so many items that you feel he or she should pay for them in some way, or B) has such a unique item that it likewise, should be paid for in some way, create a new Ability called Special Equipment. Higher the rank the greater in number/more unique equipment the character has.

Hope that helps!