Yeah, BoL and EW exist for the 'Big Damn Hero Game', and quite right too. Personally I prefer having a PC that is awesome from the get go, and I prefer pulpy stories. But sometimes you want something more grounded, and if you strip out Hero Points and are careful/restrictive with Boon selection, then any Bol engine game can do that surprisingly well and surprisingly very easily.

Alison prefers BoL/EW to any other games, and didn't want to run her police procedural with anything else. A full on EW hero would not have fitted 'Cold Case' at all.

So glad it worked - as she's upstairs working on another cold case game as I type.

The GIT! wrote:

You say there were no pulpy boons. Does that mean that there were some boons in play? I'm interested in the idea of gritty playing using BoL/EW but, with the 2d6 and careers system, it begins to limit how one character will differ from another.

With that in mind, you might want to consider something along the lines of my house rules for specialisation. I posted a thread a while back with some options I use. Here's the link for those that haven't read it before...https://championsoflemuria.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=2067#p2067

There were Boons in play, both from the standard EW list - Detect Deception and Athletic (my PC has a health regime including gym work, running, and swimming - mainly to tire himself out so he sleeps at night, rather than staring at the ceiling wondering where his life went). 

It's a game where there is unlikely to be any combat - at most a punch or two - and the PC is unlikely to be going undercover or involved in a gunfight. It's mainly going over old box files of paper records and talking to anyone involved (witnesses, cops, criminals) who is still alive. Therefore some of the more mundane Boons and Flaws in the core EW book provide what we need. It's a very 'real world' setting - and also a 1 GM - 1 Player game. Also, it's set in the UK, where most criminals don't have access to that many guns and don't know how to use them, and the cops are trained and have access to modern pistols and even SMGs if required.

However, in a game with more accent on current crimes, especially anything to do with gangs and with a 'slam-bang' tv cop show style, then I'd think a look at the EW version of Dogs of War might be useful. Also, obviously, a game set in the US for example - where gun crime is more of an issue - would require a different approach. All US cops receive firearms training (I think), while in the Met it's 1 in 3, and most of those don't carry a weapon every day. Other UK police forces have a lower ratio of firearms trained officers. In a setting where gunplay and violence has a greater emphasis, I can see your ideas on specialisations would be a useful addition.

Also, you could adapt your specialisations to differentiate between different aspects of investigation - interrogation techniques, read body language, IT skills (retrieval of deleted data, etc.), empathy....
 

Last edited by Gruntfuttock (2/18/2021 10:41 am)