Mule and the fiction of being conspicuous.

19 thoughts on “Mule and the fiction of being conspicuous.”

1. As I read it, the load determines your conspicuousness before you ever select which items you are carrying. So Normal load (whether it’s 5 or 7 with Mule) is looking like a scoundrel, ready for trouble. Fictionally, as soon as you decide that you have a heavy weapon, that’s conspicuous, whether you chose light load and only have one other item or are heavy.

2. Donogh McCarthy, I would agree save the line, “This ability is great if you want to wear heavy armor and pack a heavy weapon without attracting lots of attention”. That’s a minimum of 7 Load, which is conspicuous. Even though you don’t choose items beforehand, the fiction that you had your plate and halberd all along definitely imply an attention-grabbing load out.

   I’m sure there’s interesting fiction in how you managed to not only carry so much gear but also in how you made it more subtle. I’m just drawing a blank at the moment.

3. Ben Liepis I mean sure – though I’d disagree that ‘normal’ equals subtle. You could have been going in ‘light’ and turned out to be carrying a halberd – so I don’t think this is an issue with the Mule ability

4. “the fiction that you had your plate and halberd all along definitely imply an attention-grabbing load out. “

   I think my assumption was that Duskvol is open carry (The only thing that mentions needing documentation was rifles if I’m remembering correctly). So seeing people with scabbards filled with sharp metal or gun holsters isn’t actually conspicuous by it self.

   Are we assuming that bulky plate armor is the defacto heavy armor here? Like nobles and scoundrels wouldn’t have commissioned smiths to figure out how to make armor that went under “normal” clothing or just outright make armor disguised as clothing?

   Anyway, if the PCs go into an area that confiscates or doesn’t allow weapons/armor at all (which if we assume open carry, is actually a minority of locations) then obviously declaring big bulky weapons/armor that can’t easily be concealed were on their actual person all along (even though they submitted to a search) is a violation of the Don’t Be a Weasel Player Best Practice.

   Now, if they want to flashback to having gear stashed nearby that’s another story…

5. Donogh McCarthy, I’m not disagreeing that a lighter load automatically means it’s inconspicuous. A halberd is a halberd. That’s more a question of weight. My confusion is that the Mule ability promotes the idea that because you can somehow make wearing/carrying heavy armor and a heavy weapon attract less attention. If you’re very conspicuous at 6 Load what fictional aspect of Mule makes you draw less attention at 7+ Load?

   I’m not arguing its existence; I think it’s cool and gives nice options. I’m simply struggling to come up with the fiction of carrying even more than normal but stymieing attention.

6. This always seemed to pretty clearly imply size, bulk, or the ability to otherwise store more volume on your person. For example, I’m 5’10” and my friend is 5’5″. I’m also much more long- legged. We’re both in good shape, but if I stick my Mossberg 500 under a coat, it’s going to be a lot less conspicuous than if she stuck the same gun under the same coat (in her size).

   So, in your example, if you get searched and then choose gear then yes, the narrative would have to fit that you hid it somewhere sneaky like up your bum, or stashed it.

7. Rebecca W, that’s where I was leading: not the why but the how. What cool, interesting fiction does your Mule-having character use to be more subtle in a plated longcoat while carrying a blunderbuss, for example? My question(s) are pure idea-mining, not criticism.

   I can see Mule as not only pure “Jesse Ventura-with-a-mini-gun” levels of carrying but also knowing how to distribute load and moving with it properly, so your trenchcoat shotty example is good. Add in some cool rigging and you can ninja some pretty epic gear.

   Also, a “butt halberd” sounds painful and wrong.

8. My impression was that most special abilities allowed the character to stray further from the realism of the fiction. The “Mule” ability is no exception, and you could have asked the same question about the special crew abilities that were cited in the recent thread about load : they have no real grounding in the fiction. Also as you have noted, even at “light load” you can carry an halberd if you choose so, so non-conspicuousness is indeed a problem. Sometimes you just have to admit that the whole setting is not perfectly realistic…

9. There was a great old (90’s) throwaway game by Black Dog called Violence, where you play street thugs, and it introduced a mechanic called heat that worked very much like the intended use of Load in Blades. Weapons (and a few other items, iirc) had a heat score, and various clothing had positive or negative mods, like long coats, garish clothing, offensive graphics or text. Further mods included what neighborhood you were in, time, and being a minority (!). Ultimately what it was getting at was a blend of visual cues but also attention: if you were white, male, and wore a business suit, you could carry an SMG and still be at neutral H eat.

10. I’d view it more like this:

    Player: He shoots me in the chest with his deringer at the party? Then I use armour, resist and pull out my heavy weapon to murderize him!

    GM: Ok cool, but I don’t think you could have gotten in here with your signature plate armour and halberd, so what did you get in here with?

    Player: Hmmm, maybe a heavy chain that I had wrapped around my chest because I’m a badass instead, and fictionally it doubles as armour as the bullet hits the chain before I pull it off with a flourish to MURDER HIM! (for example)

    IMO it’s the best way of letting the player use their hard earned ability while keeping the world consistent. If they couldn’t use the obvious for the situation, what did they use?

11. Sam Gassmann Doesn’t work, even with ‘Mule’ your light load is % and you cannot get into a party rulesy-speaking with a ‘heavy armor’ and a weapon without being conspicuoulsy scoundrel-y (which is to say, not entering). It would be ‘being a weasel’ to say that the same item could count both as heavy armor AND weapon.

12. A B I mean, your light load is 5

13. A B Technically it does work though because heavy weapon (2) and armour (2) is 4, heavy armour doesn’t I agree but I meant the example to be basic armour, apologies for not making that clear.

    IMO as long as you spend the load it doesn’t matter if the bullet hits armor or the sword slung over your back or whatever, you mark off the load as armour and explain how something you wore took the bullet for you, even if in the narrative it wasn’t armour per-se

    I just don’t like the idea of telling a player “I know rules as written you should be able to wear armour and use a heavy weapon, but it just doesn’t make sense here so I’m overriding the rules” I agree that it shouldn’t be something as stupid as video game logic where it just suddenly appears in the character’s hand, but if the player can come up with a believable way that they got a heavy weapon into the party then that’s cool with me.

    But it’s an RPG so you and your group can rule it as you wish, I just prefer rule of cool 😉

14. The “Don’t Be a Weasel”is probably the best rule there is. At the Baron’s dinner party in a slinky dress that’s barely clothing? Don’t say your 3 load has a heavy crossbow in it. 🙂

15. I’d be okay with you doing so, just by way of saying it’s a crossbow that breaks down into discreet pieces for later assembly.

16. Benjamin Davis, I could get behind that.

17. Benjamin Davis Loooong term crafting project to get such a crossbow… As a GM I wouldn’t allow the PC to have it just like that !

18. Why not? It amounts to the same thing as just taking it as regular load. Whatever.

19. Why not both? It’s cool to build your own stuff and find clever ways to enhance the fiction.

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