[Rustbelt] Opium, haunted memories, hatred in the dark, and killing your friend

[Marshall Burns]

My point is that there are clearly a hundred different characters this illustration could inspire, and I'd like to preserve that potential rather than generate any sort of single rules-set that the picture might represent.

Oh, yeah, definitely.  I was just curious to hear of a specific interpretation, to get a little data on the effectiveness of the picture as an illustration -- not necessarily as a drawing, but as an image to A) communicate the feel of the game and B) inspire contributions to play.

And that Hunger is probably my favorite so far.

Dirk,
I'm glad to hear it
I've still got copies of the ashcan, so if you're interested in one hit me up on email (marksman45 [at] gmail [dot] com).  Of course, if you'd rather wait for a proper first edition, I understand that.

-Marshall

[Marshall Burns]

Hey Ron,
There's a thing from waaaay back in the initial post that I wanted to discuss.

1. Don't let Hunger and Faith be too similar. In fact, none of the Psyche scores should be synonymous, like a Hunger for enjoyment and a Vice based on opiates. Any two of the Psyche scores should be at least potentially in conflict. We ran into this a little with Hunger (acceptance) and Faith (hard work pays off), so Jari made sure to contrast them during later scenes to keep the character from being a Zeal/Frustration hamster wheel.

Can I get you to elaborate your thoughts on that?

Now, I do think that it's a bad idea for Hunger to be duplicated by any of the other Psyche traits.  I think this is probably because Hunger is sort of Vice, Faith, and Woe all wrapped up into one, alchemically mixed such that the whole is different from the sum.

But as for other cases, I'm wondering if it's a problem.  I was thinking of a character the other day with a Vice for Drinking, and the Woe that I'm A Goddam Drunk.  So, this guy experiences something horrible, suppresses it (i.e. takes Tears hits), then goes home and has a drink to Cope, which triggers his Woe.  So, maybe he Copes with another drink.  I like that, because it strikes me as very real, and it seems that the only mechanical implication is that his Grip increases twice as fast.  Which I also like.

-Marshall

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Marshall,

That seems like a valid playtest question. There's no way to know whether the hamster-wheel effect for that Vice-Woe combination is a neat rules application or a one-note letdown.

I definitely agree with you about the Hunger.

Best, Ron

[David Berg]

What do you think of "The Rust Age" as a title?

Dunno if there's a better place for name-storming than the third page of a playtest thread... but I'll chime in to say that "The _ Age" to me evokes a game where the setting is a huge deal and situation is intended to convey and interact with the setting particulars.  I think, "Okay, my character's doing something emblematic of a particular point in a particular world's history."  And then the first thing I want to know is what that will be.

Maybe that's appropriate for this game, but somehow I suspect not.

Sticking with "rust", I'd probably vote for "Rust", "The Rust", "Rusted", or "The Rusted" over "The Rust Age."  I kinda like "The Rusted" as an allusion to "folks have succumbed to the rust and you could too," but maybe that's a stretch.

[Marshall Burns]

Dunno if there's a better place for name-storming than the third page of a playtest thread...

Hehehe, you're right.  I should make a thread about it in the BtW board or something.

Oddly enough, the "emblematic of a historical epoch" is not too far off, except it's a speculative near-future epoch.  What it's really really about is an environment that's harsh, unforgiving, and that demands that people make horrible compromises, and how the people that live in that environment deal with that.