(Mongoose) B5 - Experimental Worker Rules

[Mongoose_Matt]

Hi guys,

Some experimental rules for the Worker class are now up on our web site, ready for you to download and play with. Let us know what you think, what needs to be changed and if there is a profession you are just dying to add, we would love to see it!

You can find the download at;

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/babylon5/downloads.php

 

[Darrin Drader]

This is certainly a step in the right direction. I think they're a little more playable now.

I guess the main thing that I don't understand is why you didn't go with the example out of D&D and make certain NPC classes. It seems to me that the worker shouldn't really be played at all. They're much more likely to be looking out the windows watching a space battle while mopping floors and trading philisophical banter.

Game mechanics aside, one major problem with the worker class is that they're rooted. Who would take a job working the docks in the B5 universe unless they were barely able to afford their residence on the station and had a family to feed? Compared to an officer or a diplomat, they have little reason to go outside the station or get involved in matters of interplanetary importance.

Going back to the D&D NPC classes, technically a player can choose to play a warrior, an aristocrat, or a commoner, but why would they choose to?

Don't take this as harping on the system. I love the new game and I'm enthusiastic about upcoming products. I just find this concept a little off.

 

[Mongoose_Matt]

To be fair, we never intended the worker to be a core class for B5 - it really is an NPC class. However, we also knew there would be players happy taking a weaker character for the chance to play something like a Dock Worker. But we never expected workers to be as popular as they have become!

Our intention is not to redress any balance with the worker (it really _is_ an NPC class at its heart!) but to at least make them a little more interesting.