James Bond and MacGyver are both spies. James Bond uses high-tech tools and weapons. MacGyver fashions his own tools and weapons on the scene. Who do you think is more effective as a spy? I would definitely go with MacGyver on that one. Just thought some of you out there in Gameland might want to comment.
I really did not mean to ignore this post; I just didnt' really see the point.
Magyver and Bond are characters, two distinct characters. We can learn from each of them.
Bond is well supplied by his support network, relies on gadgets made by experts in the field of gadgetry plus his own charm and considerable skills in sometimes surprising areas. Although he is the hero, he is also very much the point man for a strong organization that gets him where he needs to be and provides for him until he steps out of their reach.
Magyver is far more independent. Although there is a support network, he provides his own gadgets, improvising along the way. He relies more on wits than charm, figuring out how to outmaneuver his adversaries in most situations. He's the American rugged individualist modernized.
There is much I like about Bond, and probably emulate in my characters. I would rather have the gadget that will do the job adequately than have to create the gadget on the spot, in part because unlike Magyver I don't know that I could always create the perfect gadget from whatever happens to be at hand. At the same time, it is impossible to have the perfect gadget every time. Bond, as a fictional character, benefits greatly from the principle Chekov's Shotgun--that Ian Flemming has given him the gadgets at the beginning of the story that he will need before the end, and not given him things he won't use. Magyver, as a fictional character, benefits from the author's control of setting: we know that the things will be there that he needs.
From the perspective of a game referee, it is easier for me to run the Magyver character than the Bond character. I can know the theme of the story, the nature of the villain, the details of location--but I cannot really predict what the player character will do, whether he will wind up in a specific situation, or even whether if I give him the gadget to get out of that situation he will recognize and use it at that moment. For the Magyver type player, I have a built-in mechanic: the GE roll. "You rush into the garage and take cover." "I want to find everything I need to build a hang glider, so I can race off the edge of the cliff and escape." "Roll the dice." At that point, a really good roll and, what do you know, there's an ultralight hanging from the rafters in here, fueled and ready to go; a really bad roll, and the garage is completely empty. Between the two, I've got a wealth of opportunities for just how much is he going to have to work to make this happen, or is he really going to have to think of something different here.
However, that doesn't mean I can't offer my player characters gadgets which might be useful. Just because Adam Killian doesn't use the rocket pen to kill the vixen who has him cornered but is vain enough to give him the opportunity to write a testimonial of her fabulous sensuality doesn't mean that the rocket pen won't be used in a great way at some point in one of these stories. Besides, in my own books I'm never so obvious. I knew when I gave Lauren Hastings the bag containing the coin, acorn, paperclip, die, and marble, that she was going to use the coin in that book. The other objects fit the description I can do something with that. I made reference to the acorn again in the book, but she used nothing else from that bag. She ultimately uses one of those objects in the next book, and another proves to be a wonderful answer to a major storyline which culminates near the end of the third, but as of the beginning of the fifth book she still has not done anything with the remaining two. That works for me. If Bond is handed five gadgets, you can bet they each will matter before the end of the movie. If one of my characters is handed five gadgets, it might be because I don't want you to see anything so obvious as that I gave her this so she could use it there, even if that's exactly what I did with one of them.
--M. J. Young
I was watching MacGyver on DVD, and it got me started thinking about who was a more effective spy. I thought perhaps gamers might like to comment on it, because the characters can get into those types of situations.
Define "more effective".
I'm not sure it's as much of a relative value situation as much as a "compare and contrast".
I've played in many games where certain magic items that were provided in earlier encounters have been the keys to later events. I've also been in tight spots where "oh wait, I have XXXX in my pack" has saved the day.
As an extreme example of the latter, I have an intermittent game going where the players are members of a US Army squad in France in 1944 (though there has also been some dimensional crossover). On the latest mission, during an early encounter, one players asks if there is a flare gun he can pick up -- made sense that there would be one, so I said yes. A couple of hours later (both in and out of game), and they have located the railroad gun they were sent out to find. Instead of reporting back (as per orders), they decide to attack it while it is firing. I described the operating procedure, including the handling of the powder bags (these guns, like battleship guns, did not use self-contained shells). Ken pipes up that he has the flare pistol, and, well, the rest was...explosive...
I was just thinking about it, in the book Verse Three Chapter One, Robert Slade uses swords against laser guns, and uses a 20th century pipe wrench in lieu of the probably superior wrenches that were on the ship. To me, that's kind of MacGyverish. I was thinking that my character is a skilled, amateur blacksmith. I could see a situation in a future world where I would need to use blacksmithing to fix something in a high-tech society. Perhaps a pipe on the Mary Piper spaceship breaks, and I blacksmith a new pipe? To me, that's MacGyverish. I just thought that MacGyver would be more effective, for that reason.