the battlebabe

Quote from: Chris on July 10, 2010, 04:57:42 PM

With the Perfect Instincts and Ice Cold moves, they're taking +5 to two of the basic moves and a +2/3 to Seize by force.

Could you possibly show your work here?  I'm not seeing how any of this adds up.

+3 cool for acting under fire or going aggro, and +2 from acting on the answers you get from reading a situation. (So, it's +5, if you can make a sharp roll.)

See, those maxed stats do even matter.

If you're going to be a badass you do with what's at hand. A knife, a -1weird, and less three tick on your harm meter.

I'll stand by what Daniel said: the BB doesn't need no body and no thing. That's the idea. Min/max, sure. Vx's game are build so that's okay but not very interesting. The interesting is in the fail. In failing better.

Yeah, to some extent that's true. It's not the whole story though or else the best game would have you rolling 2d6 towards a target of 13.

I think that the 7-9 is where it's interesting. You get want you want, kinda, but it sucks. Han Solo 7-9'd the whole damn Star Wars trilogy and it was awesome.

But I don't mind min/maxing in a game like this. There's that great little min part.

If you REALLY wanted to min/max, you'd take a Brainlugger who could use unnatural lust transfixion. :)

Quote from: fnord3125 on July 10, 2010, 06:11:03 PM

Quote from: Chris on July 10, 2010, 04:57:42 PM

With the Perfect Instincts and Ice Cold moves, they're taking +5 to two of the basic moves and a +2/3 to Seize by force.

Could you possibly show your work here?  I'm not seeing how any of this adds up.

+3 cool for acting under fire or going aggro, and +2 from acting on the answers you get from reading a situation. (So, it's +5, if you can make a sharp roll.)

Ooohkay, I kind of get where you're coming from.  But you're assuming 1) That the battlebabe will always read a sitch, always SUCCEED at reading a sitch, and always act on the MCs answers.  But these aren't really givens.  2) Her BEST starting Hard is 0, so even if she successfully reads a sitch and acts on the answer, she's only getting +2 to seizing by force, not +3.  But maybe you're not assuming starting stats? 3) You're assuming she chooses those particular moves, and while they're sweet moves, they really all are.  I'd be disappointed with the character if two of the moves were so obviously "better" than it was considered a given that they need to be chosen immediately.

But I'm being really nit-picky.  If your point is that sometimes the battlebabe can be super crazy awesome, you'll hear no argument from me.

As far as options go, you can build a BB that can do 6-harm in one go  (Merciless+Custom Weaon: Big, High-powered Shotgun) from the start of the game.  You still have to 'play for positioning' to get the most out of it, and it's still probably more effective when used with Go Aggro (if you took Ice Cold) than a straight up Seize By Force, but that's a mighty big (boom)stick to back up your speaking softly, as you've got a decent chance of getting 7 or more, and "Suck it Up' is going to go down badly. 

Here's what I'm seeing: It's not that the Battlebabe is bad at combat - it's just that, as opposed to, say, the Gunlugger, her moves are not simple and direct.  Threaten violence and back it up if need be rather than go straight for the throat, for example.  Or play off yr Hot as well and offer em a choice: "Really good night? Or really bad night? Either way, it's gonna be memorable..." 

Yeah, it's gonna blow up in your face sometimes, but that's true of each and every move in each and every playbook.

It does raise the question of what did inspire the Battlebabe.  I don't really see any characters from the works in the Immediate Media Influences that map all that closely.

Maybe I'm showing my age, but I would assume Taarna the Tarakian from Heavy Metal is the quintessential battlebabe.

Regarding the 'Babe's sex move, Daniel Levine had this to say over at Storygames:

[It] means that s/he never has sex unless s/he wants to, for its own sake.

This is kinda what I was getting at, but more clearly stated.

Nope. Speaking from experience, being a Battlebabe is great for being just competant enough to get into trouble in style. You can get out of trouble too, just not by doing violence. A battlebabe might take on an entire army with a sword, but he'd get out by sweet-talking the army into doing him a favor, not by decimating them.

I just got started in an online game and the Battlebabe jumped out at me as uniquely interesting because of just that thing you point out, Elizabeth, which was that idea that she's actually not a fighter per se.

For the OP, what has worked for me so far in terms of story and the general fun of the game is to essentially treat violence as just another conversational gambit, to not take it any more or less personally than the character would any other social conflict. My PC started his first day getting shot at by a couple of contract killers; 15 minutes later, he's helped get one to the Hospital and is paying the other to go look for a giant octopus because the octopus is just more interesting than why they've been hired to kill him. More than the other characters, I think the ironclad certainty you're invincible, or just too damn hot to die, is rich territory for getting yourself into really, really interesting situations.

-Jim C.

too damn hot to die

Cool.  Too cool to die.  Battlebabes may or may not be hot, but good goddamn are they ever fuckin' cool.

Quote from: Jim Crocker on September 09, 2010, 02:34:59 AM

too damn hot to die

Cool.  Too cool to die.  Battlebabes may or may not be hot, but good goddamn are they ever fuckin' cool.

Heh. Fair enough, though the one I'm playing is cool because he's so hot.

-JC

Our Battlebabe, Mar (the stripper cowboy), kicks all kinds of ass. He's got Ice Cold, Merciless, and a rifle with a scope and the hi-powered tag (so, all told, he does 6-harm when shooting from afar). He also took NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH. Now whether he's in a big ol' fight or sniping from a distance, things die when he wants 'em to.

He's burned down buildings, blown up vehicles, destroyed homes, murdered dozens, and is generally just a badass. Now that I've read the Jayne reference, I see Mar as being very Jayne like. Not too bright in most arenas, but when it comes to mayhem he is a genius beyond reproach.

His one fear is the maelstrom. He has weird-2 and hadn't rolled that stat ever, until our seventh session when I sprung some psychic badness on him. He rolled, failed, and went slightly crazy trying to shoot things that weren't really there. He hated the maelstrom before, but now he genuinely fears it! Cool.