I think this is a great improvement, the poll suggests people aren’t picking a lot of the existing professions and I am excited to see incentives to take something other than hobo and shower victim.
Specific suggestions:
- Tailor - tailor skill down to 3, that’s enough to fit clothing and sewing kit is superdesirable for starting gear.
- Lab Technician - needs some kind of bag (pouch if it’s big enough, messenger bag otherwise) to accommodate the 18 volume chemistry set. Also, why not amp it up? Make it a full blown scientist, up the cost to 3, increase cooking to be sufficient to brew mutagens (or a book to get up there), remove the other skills, and add in a Science ID. Now people impatient to mutate can pay a bit extra and get started early.
- Lumberjack/Backpacker - These should cost 1 point (and probably give survival 2). Backpack or axe+jacket is great starter gear and if you price it at 0 there’s no reason to take Unemployed.
- Hacker - give a laptop and a messenger bag, it’d be thematic and useful. I might lower Computer to go with that, but then again, Computer’s not that useful.
- Crackhead - maybe rename back to Prostitute or Streetwalker and restore old text. Some kind of theme is nice to go with those high heels (perhaps streetwalker makes it more clear that you’re drug-addled). Superhappy to see a cost of -2 for this and Hobo, which I think is more accurate of a price.
- Tweaker - I wouldn’t add this at all. Honestly, the choice and intensity of addiction is kinda irrelevant since whatever happens, you can sleep it off and wear a filter mask to avoid sickness. Adding a new profession at cost -3 is just going to shift those who currently play hobos to being tweakers.
- Home Mechanic - Rename Mechanic. Also, would a hacksaw and duct tape give you enough gear to get a car together at the getgo by moving an Inline-4 engine into a vehicle with wheels? If so, that’d be pretty sweet.
- Bow Hunter - shorten to Hunter, give a quiver instead of upgrading pants to cargo pants.
- Law Enforcement Officer - shorten to Law Enforcement. Downgrade to cargo pants.
I don’t know what the decision on removing content ended up being, but you do probably want to add in the 3 professions that had multiple votes but aren’t in yet: Punk Rock Girl (as before, but cost at 1), otaku (differently dressed tailor?), baseball player (as before, cost 1).
I really wish for Unemployed to be more described in more generic terms, named something like “Blank Slate”, “Nobody Famous”, or “Survivor”, with a description that’s just an optimistic tone about forging anew and not being defined by what you were before the cataclysm. We can’t possibly enumerate every character concept in the world, so I see a lot of value in a default profession that gives players explicit permission to roleplay whatever past they want, especially if we continue on the current path of trying to list all the options. Every time we add a flavor profession in the style of Senior Citizen and Clown, we are implying more and more that you can’t be a Garbage Man or a Lawyer because nobody wrote that up.
