On thinking about it for a while, I’m a bit concerned that a particular kind of awesome that was readily available in the 1st edition may no long exist. An example, in 1st edition style:
GM – "A huge Independent warship wormholes directly into orbit. Over the infosphere blares a message: 'Surrender now and no one will be harmed.'"
Player – "I burn a twist through Plot Immunity (Just that Badass). My Mechanican aims his inversion beams at the ground, detonating most of the city block he’s standing in, and rides the resultant pillar of fire into orbit towards the attacking ship. I need two complications, so the first one is the collateral damage, and the second is that he misses the Independent ship and floats off into space."
GM – "The Independent warship open fires on you. Also, you’re in space without engines, so you really can’t dodge. Instant death cutscene."
Player – "I burn a twist through Plot Immunity (Just that Badass). My Mechanican blows his own legs (and lower body) off as propellent, crashing into the Independent ship. Er, now I need three complications. First, I’ve lost half my body and most of my Stringtech reserve with it; second, I’m knocked unconscious by the impact on the ship, and third… um… the planet sends its surrender message to the Independents anyway?"
GM – "Sounds good, except that losing half your body really isn’t a powerful enough complication for you. Pick another one."*
Player – "Ah, the Independents knew that my Mechanican was on the planet and would do something like this. They intentionally goaded him into orbit, and now he’s falling directly into their plans. More than just getting the planet to surrender, that is. Maybe they were intending to capture him?"
* Here, the GM is technically breaking the rules, since “severe injury” is specifically called out as a catastrophic complication. That said, this is ruling is exactly what happened to me when I tried this stunt**, and I certainly couldn’t claim that it was unfair.
** Yes, I really did this. Or, well, something similar.
As I see it, there are a couple of problems with this in 2nd edition:
- Plot Immunity doesn’t exist, and none of the existing Themes quite cover Action Movie Stunts. (Note: I think getting rid of PI was an excellent idea. I just want my Action Movie Stunts too).
- The complications don’t come across as quite as bad in the 2nd edition. Things like “knocked unconscious” and “the planet surrenders anyway” don’t fall into the “must be a challenge your current skills/themes can’t overcome” as they’re both lose conditions, not challenges. Losing half your body is awkward as a challenge, too. On the one hand, the character doesn’t have the tools to quickly replicate it back (so he lacks the skills/themes to overcome it); on the other hand it’s not much of a hinderance and can safely be ignored (plot-wise anyway).
- In 2nd edition, the “floats off into space” wouldn’t be legal at all, since a second twist could get him out of that situation (In 1st ed., it still could, at the cost of making things even worse).
So, there’s a few perfectly valid responses to each of the parts that I can see:
- Show me how I am misunderstanding 2nd Ed's rules.
- Show me how I could do this, or something similar in 2nd Ed.
- Modify 2nd Ed so it can be done.
- Demonstrate how this really isn’t a desirable property of the game, so losing it is a good thing.
- Demonstrate how 2nd Ed produces new, different awesomeness, so losing the old awesomeness is an acceptable trade-off.
