Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Feng Shui Bag Full of Guns 2 -- Ballistic Boogaloo

So it turns out that the player who has the Bag Full of Guns schtick is less than thrilled with how it works. No, not with my changes; those are fine. Instead, this player is annoyed at how long it takes to get to the good stuff inside the bag, which I suppose is a fair point when you consider that he could do a hell of a lot more damage with the schticks Signature Weapon, Firm Grip and Lightning Reload.

So I thought about it for a bit and considered the player. This is a guy who, upon getting the character, said "Can I change the guns in the list if I don't change the stats? Because I hate the Deagle and the Chiappa." This told me that the player wouldn't mind a little extra complication if it gave him the guns he liked, and so I tinkered.
What I did was ask him to give me a list of 5 rifles, 5 shotguns, 5 SMGs, 5 revolvers, and 10 pistols (in a mix of light, medium and heavy) that he wouldn't mind his character using.

Then I added 6 "GM Specials" to the list, created a 6x6 matrix, and randomized it as best I could. This was the result:

This gives us a few nifty things:
  1. A player who is satisfied with both the added complexity and the ability to play with different guns in the game. 
  2. Potential for amusement when the PC pulls out an entirely inappropriate weapon for the situation at hand ("We're fighting in a crowded apartment and I just pulled out a rocket launcher. What could possibly go wrong?)
  3. A codified ability for other PCs to rearm from a BFoG by having them spend 2-3 shots pulling something out (and rolling). 
Two things I haven't yet decided on:
  1. If Fortune points should affect the roll, and if so, how. I'm thinking that perhaps spending a point would allow the player to shift his choice in any one direction (up, down, left, right, and yes the chart "wraps" in both dimensions)
  2. If there's any benefit to having more than 3 levels in this schtick now. Using the rewrite, levels 1-3 reduce the cost of switching a gun from 3 to 2, 1, and zero shots respectively. A fourth level ought to do something like increase the accuracy of picking which gun is grabbed (perhaps akin to the Fortune point, above) rather than anything potentially unbalancing like increasing damage. 
I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out within the game. It might be awful and broken, but I don't think it will be. I do however acknowledge that many FS2 GMs will not want to engage in this level of complexity, and that's fine. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Fine Print


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial- No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Creative Commons License


Erin Palette is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.