Some of the Foe Schticks in Feng Shui are really vague as to what they are supposed to represent in-universe. The one I'm stumbling over today is Quantum Bastard: "While foe is up, all heroes take 5 Wound Points each time they roll boxcars." I'm curious what this is supposed to be / look like.
Is it quantum in the sense of probability, that this is some sort of weird bad luck power, and I should narrate the damage as minor calamities, accidents, and impact damage?
Or is it quantum in the sense of particles, and this is some sort of weird energy halo? It might have been intended that it pulses out erratically and the boxcars are just a way to hand-wave the timing.
Is this a power from the 1st Edition, and there's an explanation of what it means if I go hunting through old sourcebooks?
Or is it, like the Flying Guillotine, a crazy bit of nonsense that suddenly makes sense only if you have seen specific Martial Arts movies?
My PCs may be going up against Dead Head Fred today, and I haven't made up my mind yet about how I'm going to interpret that. I'm not honestly all that concerned with making sure my interpretation is "correct", but I am curious what the authors were envisioning.
I realise this may not be the most helpful answer but "yes"?
By which I mean you should probably feel free to interpret it whichever way makes sense for your adventure. Although I agree, it's not as instantly accessible as, say "both guns blazing" which anyone who has seen a 90s heroic bloodshed film will recognise.
In reality it's probably the last of your options but I think it's okay for the game to have a bit of fan service for people who have seen the really obscure stuff. The rest of us don't have to use it, or we can use it blind if it is useful.
As it turns out, no one rolled boxcars before the he Cheesed It, so I was able to punt the decision down the road. He was using energy blasts in the fight, so I've decided that I'm going to go with some sort of energy halo, should it matter.
I don't have an objection to schticks being left a little vague in general, especially in the case where they are PC options whose flavor and visuals may have to be tuned to a particular character concept. It does sorta rub the wrong way a little though to have that kind of flavorless vagueness on a power that's wielded by a canonical GMC from the core book. What does it mean that this character has this power? That's unclear. From just looking at his page, you'd probably assume it's a mutant power, since he has "force blasts" on the line above it, and is a headless mutant... but 90 pages earlier where the power appears on the Schtick list, it says "Appropriate for: Scroungetech". Mainly I was asking around in case of situation #3 (above), that there might have been a description in some old 1st Ed book that clarifies that it's an arcanowave device or something that would totally color the situation.
I'm just grousing at this point, though, it's not like it ruined my game or anything.