Savage Worlds encumbrance rules will be strictly enforced
NO LIST
Actual superheroes (Wolverine wouldn't work)
Overpowered superheroes (Superman / Dr. Manhattan / Hulk)
Reincarnation - This shouldn't come up all that much, but when you're dead you're dead
Real-life racism, but social class prejudice is okay (e.g. “You grew up on the wrong side of the tracks”)
Anachronistic technology with out being handled by Weird Science Rules
(What about bad guys? Can their death-rays just be made of Hand-wavium?)
What if good guys take the bad guys' death-rays? Now the PCs have the powerful Unobtanium weapons! Can we stipulate that these devices are either too advanced that only the main henchmen or masterminds can use them or they only have a limited number of charges? Isn't there weird-science rules about giving away gadgets we can use?
Counting cash or wealth - it will be abstracted away
No benefit or equipment may be used to reroll a natural “1” on an action dice. There may be benefits to reroll the wild card dice for certain equipment and benefits.
MAYBE LIST
Only Weird Science can do the powers that cause physical damage to targets.
I like this! Maybe we create custom Magic/Psionics not unlike what you did for Knights of Orion? It would be flavorful to make hypnosis and precognitive powers more available and downplay the flashy psionic bolts which wasn't big in the era
Money–do we deal with it at all? If it comes up, do we just say roll d100 for how much cash you have in your wallet? Or do the players have their private funds, separate from what Cheavers gives them, so if they're cut off they have to buy bullets or gas or whatever?
We've got to abstract money away from the game, because it just makes no sense IMHO. Also, what would heroes buy? I say that we build the equipment list so that the PCs can only carry so much on their person at a time. Maybe take a page from Blades in the Dark and offer “equipment packages” that players could pick from before going on a mission? Maybe some extra equipment can be kept on a vehicle or something? Let's continue to think about this. Even if someone HAD wealth, what would they spend it on if they aren't super-scientists?
Savage World's Encumbrance is pretty unforgiving. You really need to keep the total weight of your equipment down to avoid serious penalties. I think we can use that system as written to keep equipment bloat under control. We need to have a paper called the “Arsenal” that has all the equipment provided by Cheavers and when players want something, they must cross it off the list—or wait—CARDS, of course the answer is always a deck. It would be some work up front, but we get to draw pictures.
When in doubt, more cards!
How about we adapt the Fistful of Lead ammunition rule. When I stat up the weapons, I'll include the weight of 50 bullets (100 for SMGs) in the encumbrance, then we won't track bullet use. You are assumed to be reloading as you go. If you roll a 1 on the shooting die (no matter what the wild die) you have screwed up and run out of bullets or jammed the gun and must spend a turn fixing the problem
Awesome idea! As as an aside, let's make a rule to never allow that shooting die to reroll a 1 (I know that was a problem with the Kings of Orion benefits)