the battlebabe

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.

Somewhere I heard that Firefly is one of the inspirations and I think Jayne is a pretty obvious battlebabe. He isn't really super great at dealing with being in a fight, he just gets in them a lot 'cause he's kinda dumb and belligerent, and gets out when he's lucky or has help.

Jeez, you all have some wussy battlebabes, I guess. All of ours have kicked 10 kinds of ass, in fights and out.

"Running through the hail of bullets until they have to reload then flipping over the guy and cutting his head off from behind," is acting under fire + going aggro. No one is better at that than the battlebabe.

"Assaulting the bunker," is gunlugger work. Battlebabe's only suck when you try to make them gunluggers.     

I'll second John by saying that the one time I played a BB, s/he was all murderous on purpose. Not just going aggro but you know killing dude with knives and shotguns.

Just cause you don't have +2 or +3 hard doesn't mean you have to be a pussy.

Zoe from Firefly.

She's not as good as Jayne, but still kicks ass in a stealth way and is good at managing combat.

Zoe from Firefly.

She's not as good as Jayne, but still kicks ass in a stealth way and is good at managing combat.

And is, you know, smokin' hot. Don't forget that one.

@ Jeff : Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines.  And I'm also not sure if this is something intentionally placed in the game, something that's there but not intentionally placed, or just something I'm projecting. 

I do have the feeling the game is going to get really good when players start letting the fiction influence the mechanics rather than the other way around.  It's still a cycle, but you're taking a different point to be the beginning/end.

As to the example characters from fiction, anyone have anything NOT from Firefly? Yeah, it's listed in the Mediography (alongside Princess Mononoke, et al) and I like Whedon's cartoon space western as much as the next person, but I'm not convinced that the inspirational connection between the playbooks and the characters on that show goes the way everyone seems to think it does.  Yeah, I can see how you could emulate the characters on the show using various playbooks, but I'm not sure those characters are conversely the sole or primary inspiration for the playbooks.

As an example, Jax on Sons Of Anarchy (which also makes the mediography) seems to be pretty much using the Battlebabe playbook, at least from what I've seen of the first season; Fairly badass, but uses Go Aggro or Seduce/Manipulate far more than Seize By Force.  But I don't really get the feeling that character inspired the playbook.

Thing is, I know the character type the Battlebabe represents pretty well, (and have played it a number of times in RPGs), but I'll be damned if I can point my finger at where it comes from, particularly within an apocalyptic frame of reference.

I can't help but think of Milla Jovovich. If she faced more human opponents than viral zombies I think her Hot would come into play more often. Anyway, she's my front runner for prototypical Battlebabe.

Weird, I always thought River was Firefly's battlebabe, pretty straightforwardly. But maybe I just never thought it through.

As for the sex move, it seems to me that a character based on +cool, in a game that Vincent has specifically said is about loyalty, would form a pretty obvious counterpoint/ratcheting-up of the basic issues of the game. Here is a character who is built to be immune to attachment -- to ignore the threat of violence -- to be unphased by basically everything -- if the player wants to go that way. Think about how many things in the game (mind control, combat medicine, social compulsion) are modelled by 'you can do X, but it counts as acting under fire' and then consider that the battlebabe is the closest thing to a cahracter who just gets to shrug that off.

The battlebabe is a blank slate when it comes to who and what you will decide to fight for (compare to the Operator, tied to gigs; the Hardholder; the Brainer, requiring puppets; etc.) -- that's the source of the character's power and also thematically important in a game that is about relationships and interdependancy.

Weird, I always thought River was Firefly's battlebabe, pretty straightforwardly. But maybe I just never thought it through.

Brainer.


I think that most of the character playbooks started at a Firefly level and now have changed considerably. People say that because it's just too coincidental that 9 of the playbooks match up very, very closely with ALL 9 of the people from that show.

I think River's pretty straightforwardly a threat.

Maybe. All of this is kinda off topic but:

Firefly's cast:

A doctor
A sneaky hot person
A psychic
A vehicle operator
A preacher
A heavy gun guy
A crew leader
A techperson
A sexy person who sells companionship

AW's classes:

A doctor
A sneaky hot person
A psychic
A vehicle operator
A preacher
A a heavy gun person
A crew leader
A techperson
A sexy person who sells companionship

---

A bike ganger
A leader

Am I really the only one who sees overlap here?

That's not to say that they're straight copies. The savvyhead, for instance, is way different than the mechanic from Firefly, much more weird. All of them are greatly changed in taking them to a vastly different setting. I definitely don't think that Firefly is the current best example for an AW analog.

But there are clear parallels and I don't think it's off base to suggest that Firefly was a clear starting point.

But back on topic:

I'm not sure yet what the added dimension of the battlebabe class is yet, but I do that the class hold up it's own in combat. 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.

The character types do match up, yeah. But, like you say, they're pretty different when implemented in the world of the apocalypse.

For me, the main things that make Firefly a touchstone for AW are the inherent dangerous sexiness of the characters, and their place in a totally hostile world. It's the mix of external pressures and uncertain relationships.

Take Jayne. As a fellow PC, he's clearly the last person you should trust. You have to keep an eye on him at all times. But he's not, like, a threat -- not the way that everyone else outside the ship is. The whole wide world is your enemy, so maybe you do need to count on Jayne, this one time, after all.

That's AW to me.

That's a good point. I think that's a awesome mix.

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.

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.

Like math class...  :)

So if you really want to min/max the battlebabe, there are, like most classes, several ways to go. You're gonna want one of the stat blocks with Sharp.

(As an aside, sharp is bad ass, since the bonus to reading a sitch is on going as long as you're using the MC's answers. Vincent even made where the Angel gets +3 Sharp a class improvement, rather than a move another class could take like the Brainer's Preternatural at-will brain attunement or the Gunlugger's Insano like Drano.)

So now you've got +1 Sharp and Perfect Instincts, right? That gives you a +2 when acting on the MC's answers to a situation you read. This means that when you're Acting Under Fire while using the MC's answers, you're rolling+3 Cool +2 = 5.

You've also got Ice Cold. This means that you use Cool to Go Aggro, at least on NPCs. When you read a situation that gives you a +2 to Going Aggro, so that's rolling+3 Cool +2 = +5.

Same with Seize By Force. You get that +2, which if you take the +1 Hard improvement, that's +3. If you take the Gunlugger's Insano Like Draino, that's +4.

Now you can't go up to a Gunlugger in the middle of the street and win a knife fight, but when the Battlebabe sneaks around, comes up with plans and executes on her plans, she's a beast. You're gonna want to take that +1 to sharp when you can, of course.

Say, for instance, you take a long machete blade with a hole punched out of the bottom with a long chain tied to it. That's a machete chain (3-harm hand area). With Merciless (+1 Harm), you could be rolling+5 Go Aggro to force a room full of guards down. If they force your hand, you'd be doing 4-harm to everyone in the room, ignoring the gang bonus because your weapon has area.

Now the Gunlugger can be similarly combat-maxed, but the Battlebabe is not too bad at social stuff as well. It's my favorite character and as soon as I get a chance to play rather than MC, I'm gonna jump all over it.