Andy K had some fantastic questions for me about the playtest document, and he agreed to let me share some of them and my answers.

Does every PC have to be involved in the big mess-up? In Burn Notice, only the main character was… For “bang” potential, I was thinking at least two need to be part of it, and the others have to have a serious past with those characters who were involved in the burn event, but does it only work when everyone was involved? (followup to that would be, “If so, what about civilians”)

All the Professionals were on a team. If a player wants to come up with a reason their character wasn’t there, that’s cool, and their absence might be enough to get them banished too. The major thematic difference between Blowback and Burn Notice is that all of the Professionals have been exiled– not just one. It works pretty well, and sort of cements the team aspect from the very beginning. Civilians are definitely not involved with the big mess-up (hence them being Civilians).

I’m having trouble understanding the Diversion skill: On the thread of Burn Notice, who would be good at only diversions? This seems to be almost a skill that can be replicated by the other three skills (particularly provocateur and commando). Thoughts on this? What are some things that happened in your other playtests that fell under the Diversion skill but not others?

Diversion is basically the stealth version of Commando, right. Where commandos go in guns blazing, intimidating people, head-butting goons when they run out of ammo– Diversions are indirect. They plant caches of weapons, they use explosives. I think that Fiona is more Diversion than Commando. Blowing up a building? Sure, that might be commando. Knowing how to make a complex explosive? I guess that could be Pavement. Making a complex explosive device rigged not to blow, but that looks like it’s fine, and also follows the signature demolition style of another wanted demolitionist? THAT’s Diversion. I hope that makes sense.

It seems that if you Go For Broke, there’s a high chance that you’ll get really screwed, put in a rut that you can’t dig out of: Say for example someone who has a 4 or 5 in a skill that rolls all failures… seems to bury them in a hole (with a future -4 or -5 modifier to the NEXT roll, which likely no one in the group could ever roll enough dice to get out of) they can never escape. Or am I missing something?

On page 10, in the sidebar there’s a heading called Becoming a Liability. You can overcome being a liability by getting rescued– a team member with a bigger pool can rescue you, but they’re operating with your penalty. This means it’s best to get rescued as part of Mission– so that you can steal additional prep dice and stuff. Civilians are more likely to become liabilities due to their smaller die pools, so the penalties there are also more likely to be small. It’s harder to rescue a Professional, which I think is thematically appropriate.

Of course, I have done a crap ton of playtesting at this point, and no one has ever become a liability. So it’s all theoretical.

Filed under: Blowback by Elizabeth