Yikes. That is pretty forbidding terrain, alright. I had something else in my mind, so thanks for the visual. From this picture, it would appear that there is no real tree line. Also, I would expect that the night will be quite cold, especially if there is any sort of breeze. Wow. What has happened to us?

I adjusted my post very slightly to account for the terrain example.

Aria: was Addie able to get a date and time from her internal commlink? (that she checked was probably over hidden in the verbiage of her dazedly trying to figure out what is going on. I'll get on to more focused action soon, but I figured not everyone would be able to adjust quickly)

@Raider: Aria is perhaps the youngest looking person here...no more than 10... feel free to adjust your IC or leave it as it is (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Fixed up Addie's character sheet -- I'd missed putting her martial arts in there previously, and hadn't been consistent about showing karma expenditures. Should all make more sense now. Oh, also ticked the 'PC tag' box, so should also be easier to find (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

@Aria - history now up, along with some tiny stat tweaks for fix a mistake i found.

With that all finally sorted, will try to get an initial post up soon.

Okay. I have both Scrap and DR64-0035111's sheets posted now on OP. I am likely going to lead in with Scrap. DR is going to be an odd duck to write for, as he is essentially down to base programming. He'll either be a puppydog, or a terror, depending on how things go early.

Quick note to our transhumans out there - Wanted is not an acceptable negative quality to take along with PT...can you confirm which negatives you've taken please?

Lots of Cha 1 going on in your stats... will find ways to make you all pay for those (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ork.gif)

Hope to get some more IC up soon!

I was trying for something a bit different with my CHA 1, but am thinking I should change that a bit. Is it still possible or are we locked in at this point? Unless the answer is no, I have modified the character by reducing the Edge back to 3, adding two points to CHA, removing the Agile Defender quality, and reducing Unarmed Combat to 4 to make the karma come out right. Maya's face is still horribly scarred, but she uses her knowledge to help her get others to listen.

You know, I think a lot of teenagers do have low charisma. Some are charmers, but enough are anxious, under-confident, not sure of who they are, too self-absorbed, too focused on their ‘thing’ to have much time for people, etc. (I’m a parent, my son is just finishing high school, so I’ve seen a lot of teenagers over the last while … and btw why I decided to play a very social female character for this one, just to give me more mental space from my own nerdy kid)

I admit that I deliberately had ‘face-ish’* Addie go off on her own for a bit, to allow the low-charisma, loners, and misfits time to do their thing, and self-filter out from the other groups a bit.

Planning on having her coming back shortly, seeing how the groupings are forming, then doing a sweep to gather up as many of those not in in groups as she can (PC and NPC). I felt that having her trying to organize right off the bat would:
a) Make too complicated a political situation while we are all just getting started, and
b) Would have kind of thrown other player characters a choice to join her or not, before they’d had a chance to establish their characters.

But I do hope that in due course she can team up with various experts and toughs, in a fairly classic SR team role division (she talks while you lend credibility with your presence and competence, you all handle other things while she rolls leadership as a teamwork test). And eventually maybe that falls apart as things begin to get really dire and it degenerates to every kid for themselves?

Giving everyone some space to get established makes for a chance at some nice ‘can we come together as an effective group?’ type stuff too, rather than the usual SR ‘OK, your fixer has pulled together a team, now work together.’

Not to discourage anyone else from being good at the social stuff, or saying that everyone must join with her or make her leader or anything like that – rather that no character can be good at everything, so hopefully we can cover each other’s weaknesses, while giving all of the characters plenty of scope to do their own ‘thing(s)’.

* (btw, when I say face-ish, I’m going for kid who is good with people, but doesn’t really realize it yet. Media inspirations include Rory from Gilmore Girls, Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and characters from many 80s teenage/coming of age movies (Breakfast Club, Adventures in Babysitting, Risky Business, etc.))

Since I started writing this, Mercy has modified Maya to bring her charisma up, and I do feel that Maddie feels like she has more self-confidence and leadership potential than that charisma of 1 implied, so I do like that change. Sometimes it is hard to know your characters until you start playing them!

No problem with any of that!

Ack, anyone remember the mechanics of the phobia negative quality? (I can look it up at home tonight, but if anyone can help me out on that I'll try to respond earlier.) I think a mild phobia is something like -3 on all actions in the presence of the cause of fear, but I can't remember if there is a composure test in there as well, or if I have the numbers off a bit?

(and now I know Aria does read the character sheets!)

Mild Phobia is -1 to all actions while in the presence of the source. Moderate is -3 plus a Composure test or want to flee.

Thanks! And fortunately I just went with mild .... figured snakes were a reasonable phobia for this game, but didn't want it to be crippling.

Aria: I'm making some assumptions here:
- that it is actually a snake, and not another kid playing a joke on her
- that Addie's roll of 16 ( initiative: 8+2d6 16 ), will beat the snake's initiative (4+2d6 according to Howling Shadows, assuming it is a normal snake) -- meaning she's rolling to attack rather than to defend.
- that no other modifiers apply other than the -1 from her phobia. (and that her Jujitsu only applies to fighting 'snakes', not actual snakes)

If any of those are wrong, feel free to ask me to roll things back.

With the combination of phobia and boosted reflexes I just felt there was no way she was dealing with this calmly and rationally. Given which, the most interesting thing was clearly that she accidentally jumps right at the snake -- so hopefully the dice are kind (or the med kit has snake bite anti-venom!) If not, well I did have other character concepts.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Unarmed combat 5 + agility 4 - 1 (phobia) = 8d6 Addie grabs the snake: 8d6t5 2
use edge to re-roll the failing dice: Addie grabs the snake -edge re-roll: 6d6t5 2
For a total of 4 successes

She is trying to grapple (I think? It that a move? Maybe it is a subduing attack?) the snake. I've not used the unarmed rules much, I did read up on clinch and throw as her martial arts moves, but will have to look at the rules tonight to sort out the rest of things -- her first priority is keeping it from attacking her (make it roll to escape on its action), if there is an option to add a bit of damage in as well then grand, but that is not her priority right now.

================

Unrelated: writing a youngish teenager, I find myself using a lot of underlining, bolding, and italics, not to mention 'occasional' hyperbole and melodrama. If it gets annoying to anyone, please let me know and I'll stop it.

I will amend this when I get home, but DR064-0035111 (I love typing that, even though he will likely never tell anyone his real 'name') has Insomnia as his Transhuman flaw. Something about being experimented on for the first eleven years of his accelerated life messed with his sleep cycles. Also, I did a bit of adjustment to his knowledge skills before posting last night. They reflect both his time absorbing knowledge from his creator, and some of the sensibilities of his Russian Intel/Vory trainers/handlers.

Edit: You'll rarely see me ever design a character with a 1 in any stat. Not unless it suits a very specific aesthetic. I prefer rounded and flavorful, personally, to dump stats.

Also... I will be posting in a few hours, when I am off work. Fun fact for everyone: DR was not programmed to be a nice person, but there is already someone among the kids his code will see him protect.

@Aria , could you give us some details on what was in the tool crate and how much of it Blank took? Or just, was it sort of like did he just end up helping himself to first pick, or did he pillage it to the point where it will endanger others. This will determine if Raf can let the matter drop or will have to pursue it. Thanks!

Did a rules review last night, and it looks like the move Addie is going for is subduing combat. (Some spots in Run & Gun it talks about 'grapple' but that does not seem to be a fifth edition move).

Also, looking back you had indicated that you didn't want to get too dice-y early on, but I felt odd just narrating success (I did consider just narrating mixed results, with the snake biting her, her taking around five points of damage, but ultimately killing the snake. Made for a pretty good story in my head, but I was also a little hesitant about just narrating myself into that much damage). If you'd rather I just write something up, I will do so.

It's evening and sun is going down so snake is pretty dopey! You have it by the head so it can't bite you...now what is up to you!

Reading his IC I wasn't sure myself how much he intends to nab, assume he took the knives and the claw hammer, apart from the ones Maya found subsequently, it's not a big tool crate, there are nails and some bits and pieces...escalating at this point might not be wise!

Nope, no grid to connect to and it was powered down and details erased...

It's hotter than it should be for the real world equivalent locale!

Given it was largely a tool crate, and Blank has zero experience with such things as building, he will leave most of it behind. Knives and the claw hammer make sense, as he would not want to leave someone armed in his wake. It's not that he is greedy, he just doesn't like being stabbed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

1) Mechanics from my IC post:

Given that she has a grip on the snake so gets superior position advantage as I understand it, I figured there was not much chance of her missing with a touch attack, so went ahead and assumed she'd succeed there. Electrical Discharge bio-weapon holds 24 'charges' and can release up to 8 of them at once, with a DV = # of charges used, AP -4 (re-charges at a rate of 1 charge per 15 minutes, so she's probably at 17 when she makes it back to camp). And from there I figured she should be good to finish it off with subdual combat. All the rolling around was just colour. (For that matter, so is the entire middle section, really.)

At the end, leadership 5+charisma 6 = 11 dice. And I'm hoping I can claim a bonus die for coming in with a dead rattlesnake, even if it isn't all that big? To, umm, be all leader-y and stuff (don't have the CRB with me, not sure what the official list of leadership actions are, but it sounds like it should cover this sort of thing. I know one option gets people to listen for a combat turn or so, but maybe in a non-combat situation like that she can influence them for a little bit longer?).

. Leaderiness: 12d6t5 6

. (Yes, dice building up before they let her down later, good dramatic flow, RNG!)

2) Table-talk:
Mercy: not to take away from your group -- clearly Maya has the best survival skills and organization, and I want to bring Addie to work with her if I can, but at this point Addie doesn't even realize what Maya has going, and she is just looking around at the kids who haven't gotten themselves organized in some fashion yet.

Everyone: if your characters would either see Addie's fight with the snake, or her breakdown/clean-up afterwards, we can always splice it in. And if any of them want the medicine (because they have skills, or because they just want it), do please go for it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Likewise comments about Addie's suggested sleeping arrangements are welcome. Yes she'll be bossy at times, doesn't mean you have to take it!

3) Can I seed the crowd?
On a different note: can we have a troll girl in the group somewhere? One of the other characters I was thinking about was Dorothy (aka Dot), a 'spindly' young troll (adolescent growth spurts are nasty when you need to grow to troll height). 'Only' 5-6 body and strength. Bit of a daydreamer ('teacher, what do you do when a troll in your class isn't paying attention?' 'Nothing at all, she's bigger and stronger than any of us teachers, and she's a troll, it isn't like an education is really going to matter for her.'). If she could be seeded in there, in the background, that would be awesome, in case Addie's efforts to be all heroic get her killed off. I can narrate her in -- but my current post is a wall of text already, so next post, unless someone else references her first.

Even if never used -- ever notice that orcs and trolls (and to a lesser degree dwarves) are almost always guys in SR? They are usually used, story-wise, to be tough and threatening, so that kind of makes sense, but I have to figure there are awesome orc and troll women with an interesting take on life in the 6th world)

Command: The target resists with a Leadership + Willpower [Mental] test (with Social Modifiers, p. 140). For every net hit you get, the target accepts you as their leader for 1 Combat Turn. This doesn’t work if you’ve failed on this target before.

Other options are to boost Teamwork Tests or Init.