Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Kyu Kage · Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 8:57 pm Post subject: Arcane Backgrounds In HOE

The HOE main book states that characters can only have one Arcane Background.

I've always played it that you can have at most two, regardless of setting.

How many would you allow a player/character to take?

Please note that my question isn't strictly just at character creation. It also refers to picking up an Arcane Background through the course of a game, or in those instances where someone with an Arcane Background draws for their Mysterious Past and gets an unkown AB also.

Comments are appreciated.

Father Wendigo · Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 9:44 pm Post subject:

One.

The only way I'd allow two is by severly hampering both of the AB's, ala Greenies and Squires. Even then, they're plenty powerful...

Psykoguy · Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 11:22 pm Post subject:

2. And even then one of them HAS to be a greenie syker.

Won't allow anything else, except for maybe a huckster/junker.

The greenie ruling has for the most part been established in the books, and the huckster/junker just makes sense.
_________________
Highlander was a documentry, and it was filmed in real time!

Kain A. Ashburner · Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:05 am Post subject:

Snap_Dragon · Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:

Junkster is one of my all time favorites.

I generaly dissalow greenie with any other AB (especialy templar, if you want that Sgt. York saint play a companion syker).

A even hesitate to allow players to play Toxic Shamans and Doomsayers (doomies are to good at blowing things up and Toxic Shamans can destroy entire settlements)

To be fair a junker could destroy a settlement but I can easliy controll the amount of Ghost Rock and chemical components they can get their mits on so it's generaly not a problem.
_________________
"If this were a perfect world I wouldn't know what a rat tasted like"
-Lazlo Huber

Elijah Pact · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:01 am Post subject:

If some ABs can be aquired in play let them. If allowing a character to pick up another AB would make the game more interesting and fun I don't have a problem. I've seen characters in long term games pick up two or more powers (either 2 ABs, more than a dozen Coups, or Werewolve/Vampire combinations) its not as bad as you'd think. Mostly because the huge strain having more than one speciality is.

That said I wouldn't let someone start with more than one AB with the exception of maybe a Huckster/Junker, Toxic Shaman, or a Greenie.

YMMV

HoraceBlack · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 4:34 pm Post subject:

I let a player play a psyker/martial artist that was a veteran of the wierd west. He was fairly powerful, but not as powerful as he might had been if he had concentrated on only one of those ABs. Still, he wasn't powerful enough when he met Mr. Stone (Mrs. if your nasty).
He really loved that character too, oh well.
_________________
Remember: If you build a fire for a man he will be warm for a night, but if you set that man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Tank · Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:50 am Post subject:

So many choices...le sigh. Well to break it down for you some backgrounds are just downright incompatible. Such as those requiring two different and conflicting faiths. You can't be a Doomie Templar. You can be a Doomie Companion however...Junker/Hucksters are wonderful. Psyker/Enlightened are a norm. Anyone can be a Greenie. Junker/Templars are fine. As are Templar/Psykers. The list of possibilities can go on and on. Oh, and don't forget to put Harrowed in there. It's not a true AB, but the supernatural perks and powers puts it on the list in my book. From my experiences as a munchkin and a marshal, I would limit my players from the start to 1 or 2 depending on what combo they are taking and what background story they have. Gaining others is just a matter of gameplay.
_________________
Boot o' Doom!

Laces · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:35 pm Post subject:

I threw my vote in for 2. I feel that some pairings can happin. Some examples are hucksters/anti-templars since they both work with manitous. i think pretty much a huckster can be joined with anything except templars. I think the grape flavored doomsayers can join up with alot of others like junker, witch( there is nothing scarrier than a mutie in a purple robe with a 3-legged mutie danceing in the flames of the apocalypse carring a book titled how to serve your man). I dont think a doomie can have another AB with something that happened post apocalypse. One thing I wont let happin is something being paired with a syker. It is plainly spelled out in Children of the Atom that "They've set their "meridians", so to speak, and actually forged certain neurological pathways in their brain. Besides the fact that most wouldn't touch radiation magic with a mental 10-foot pole, they just can't physically alter their meridians after all those years creating cerebral circuits." I would; however, allow a greenie to join pretty much anything.
_________________
All unborn dream of birth, all birthed dream of life, all living dream of glory, all glorious dream of death, all dead dream of consuming the living's flesh, all eaten dream of turning, all turned gorge themselves beside their brethren.