[TML] [Merchant Shipping] Some ideas I came up with to make merchant shipping more interesing

[Richard Aiken]

On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Brad Murray
<bjmurray.halfjack at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  MunchkinPC: "I take out the sniper with my fusion gun."
> >  GM: "Uhhh...are you SURE you want to do that???"
> >  MunchkinPC: "Yep, I fire twice just to make sure!"
>
> Doesn't sound like overkill to me -- but then I was trained to call in
> artillery when a sniper's location was identified. Or even just sort
> of vaguely guessed at.

Ah.  But a precision arty strike would have probably left the nearby
comm tower standing . . .

Of course, we also have to allow for the player not having the same
situational awareness the character.  There's an important difference
between the GM saying, "You notice a rather valuable comm tower in the
projected beam path.  Are you sure you want to use the fusion gun?"
and "Too bad you didn't notice that comm tower beyond the sniper's
position . . ."

But then again, any concern for what's behind the target of blaster
(plasma/fusion) weapons isn't ever much of a much IMTU.  I treat them
like the powerguns from the Hammer's Slammers books (where the "skin"
of the energy packet collapses totally at the first contact with a
solid object).  My blaster bolts deliver severe concussive force and
horrendous contact burn damage (flesh basically explodes as the water
in it turns to steam), but they positively *suck* at penetration.
Whatever is behind anything hit by one of my blasters has no worries .
. . until said thing gets blown away by successive bolts, of course.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein