Old World Charm, Out-a-charactah. Y'all get it. Options

[quentra]

This is the OOC thread for Old World Charm, a game taking place in Europort.

Feel free to lurk if you want, but please don't post if you're not a player.

Posting Rules

I'm gonna be stealing Redjack's posting structure, so here you go.

All your posts should begin with a time/date stamp in orange, detailing location, time, and date. Underneath, in italics, add your PAN mode, hidden, active, or passive, in dark grey.

- - "Speech color=cyan, optionally enclosed in quotes"
- - <Coms (subvocal) color=violet>
- - <Coms (Text) color=black>
- - Thoughts color=darkkhaki and in italics
- - Memories, flashbacks, dreams color=lightgrey and in italics

Spoiler all private actions, but if its something really private, or you're setting up a backstab, feel free to PM me.

Feel free to pose unimportant NPCs, waitresses, store clerks, et cetera. For plot-important NPCs (Contacts, Prime Runners, and so on), don't assume their reactions or post them. Pretend they're PCs interaction-wise.

Rolls will be handled in the following manner.

Post the action you wanna take ex: Aaron: I wanna thread Stealth to 4 bajillon.
GM: Okay, mods are <blank> (could have mods, could be clear, ie, no mods)
Roll the dice and post them in this format:
DP= (Skill)+(Attribute)+(Mods)
Roll 1: X, X, X, X, X: X hits
etc, etc.

We will be using the cinematic optional rule from the BBB. Fours counts as hits.

First post, intro your character, provide your description, current actions, etc. You're in the Lijnbaan Shopping District in Europort, in relative proximity to each other, purely by chance. What're your actually doing at the Lijnbaan is, of course, your decision.

[quentra]

- Reserved for chara sheets -

[Tabula Rasa]

Can you tell us what the date is so we know what the weather is like and etc...

[quentra]

I'm assuming you're inside, but outside, its rainy and cold, the beginning of fall. Oh christ, I forgot to date my intro post.

[Aaron]

Ignore this post.

[quentra]

What post?

[Aaron]

I'm going to be posting two PAN modes. The first will be the living persona, the second will be the commlink in parentheses.

[quentra]

Works.

[Abschalten]

I'll be doing something similar. I have two commlinks on me: my implanted one and my "public" one. My implanted one will be first, my public one will be second in parenthesis. I'll copy Aaron's format as to not cause any confusion.

[Tabula Rasa]

Description: Holda is an unusual beauty; her twinkling gray eyes; her smooth gently tanned skin; her shiny dark brown hair; and her perfect nose. Her body isn’t your typical woman’s though. She ended up a hair under six feet tall, her body is muscular and lean – like a gymnast’s with a sprinter’s legs. Her lower jaw has a barely noticeable overbite, and her titanium capped lower canines – as is the fashion in a recently emerging subculture – protrude slightly from her pretty lips.

She typically dresses in the latest fashions and pays a lot of attention to her hair and makeup and knows just the way to accentuate her good features.

The spoiler tag contains the character’s background which the other character’s obviously are not aware of. I’m putting it up since someone had mentioned they wanted to see it.

Icon Description: Her icon - which she creatively also named Holda - is that of a beautiful woman clothed in a flowing summer dress woven of leaves and vines and constantly bathed in a glowing ray of sunlight. Her voluminous golden hair flows behind her as if in a gentle breeze with little flowers in a constant cycle of blooming followed by flowing off petal by petal into the wind.

[ Spoiler ]

Ida Devenpeck had a pretty normal childhood, other than expressing as an orc and everything that comes with. Even through that she didn’t suffer as badly as many others do.

Despite her change, she is an unusual beauty; her twinkling gray eyes; her perfectly smooth seemingly pore-less and gently tanned skin; her shiny dark brown hair; and her statuesque nose. Her body isn’t your typical woman’s though. She ended up a hair under six feet tall, her body is muscular and lean – like a gymnast’s with a sprinter’s legs. Her lower jaw has a barely noticeable overbite, and her titanium capped lower canines – as is the fashion in a recently emerging subculture – protrude slightly from her pretty lips. She remained positive with her lot in life and tries to ignore the racism.

She never did terribly well in high school – being much more interested in pop culture and fashion – and she was suckered by the flashy Saeder-Krupp commercials – glorifying service in their armed forces – and signed up. She quickly found her aptitude in basic training and qualified for Special Forces where she was trained for Counter-Infiltration Operations. She thrived in this environment and rose through the ranks – qualifying for a variety of implants and raking in enough cash to buy good clothes, fantastic food and have access to the entertainment she loved. She was living the good life.

Ida couldn’t tell you when, but at some point things started to change. She was transferred to the Enforcement Operations and started being assigned to different operations. Instead of working security, counter-espionage, and HTR, she was given black ops assignments and charge with enforcing SK’s will. She handled the new work well and found espionage, sabotage and extractions to be exhilarating. Her superiors noticed her success and considering her trustworthy they assigned her to a wetwork operation.

She treated it like it was nothing different at first, but then started having trouble coping with what she had done. She would wake up from a nightmare, her sheets soaked in sweat. She had killed before but it was always people who had it coming. They were always professional criminals or security agents – armed and presumably understanding the risks of their profession. Killing the innocent – or at least people who had night signed up for life or death occupations – was a whole different matter. The jobs kept coming though and she did them despite her misgivings. She kept her angst hidden at first, only talking with her assigned psychologist, Anne Winstrom. She recommended anti-depressants which Ida took happily. She even upped the prescription and unknown to Ida, she began lacing it with a highly addictive euphoric drug – X17 – in small doses at first and increasing amounts with each prescription renewal.

She finally reached her breaking point was when she was assigned to a operation to erase a family before their extraction as an object lesson to those watching. She balked and begged her psychologist to get her out of it – she was afraid she would end up killing herself and claimed she had been having suicidal ideation – and said she’d do anything to not have to do this. Anne – who moonlighted as a very successful fixer – made her an offer: she would arrange her escape from SK, set her up with a false identity and erase her SIN if she promised that she would work as her agent until she had paid off her debt. Needless to say, Ida jumped on the offer.

Shortly after her escape from SK, Ida – now calling herself Holda after a goddess of the Wild Hunt – realized the trap she had fallen in shortly after she started suffering from the shakes, tremors, chills and hot flashes, and intense abdominal pain. Her heart broke in the middle of a conversation with Anne who explained to her the reason for the wracking pain she was feeling: it was withdrawal symptoms from the drug she had laced her anti-depressants with. Now she was still under someone’s thumb, it was simply the name of her master that had changed.

Ida struggled at first but eventually resigned to accepting her fate, throwing herself into pop culture, trid shows and celebrity matrix nodes to escape from the reality of her harsh life. That and ample doses of X17 are what keep her going with only the faintest hope for freedom surviving in hidden corners of her dreams.

She lives in an apartment in a middle class neighborhood and crashes at Melody’s place – her old high school friend who works as an event planner – when she can’t stand to be by herself.

[quentra]

Oh yeah, post your descs up here. Matrix charas, I wanna see Icon descs as well, and Aaron, give me a rough overview of what your spirits look like. For our projecting charas, give me a description of what your astral reflections are.

[Tabula Rasa]

Edited my post in this thread to include my icon description. Please let me know when everything checks out and it's okay for me to post.

[quentra]

Everyone, you guys can start posting intro's after you post the requisite descs on here. We won't be heading into a situation where charasheets are gonna be necessary right off the bat, so go ahead and start RPing.

Also, no, your characters are not aware of each other, total strangers, but just happen to be in close proximity to each other.

[Abschalten]

Description: Void immediately comes across as an androgyne. That is, upon first meeting, it's almost entirely impossible to determine whether or not she is a male or a female. At just under six feet, she is a bit on the tall side. She has a slender, boyish figure with slight shoulders that lacks any curves that would identify her as a woman. Her skin is fair, rather blemish-free, and unweathered. She comes across as young, probably somewhere in her mid-20's. Her eyes are a twinkling bright green, and her nose has a slight aquiline aspect to it. Her jawline is bold, her cheekbones prominent, and the total combined nature of her appearance allows her to be passable as either a masculine woman or a effeminate man. She has short auburn hair, with a combed part in the middle. It has something of an intentionally tossed look to it. Her manner of dress doesn't do anything to elucidate her physical gender. Clothing choices tend to be on the nicer side, and they are aggressively androgynous in their presentation, being something acceptable for males and females alike. Though she rides a fine line in appearing as both a man and a woman, it cannot be said that she is unattractive. In fact, the look works for her, and it's something she is possibly aware of and uses to her advantage.

Public Comm Persona Description: This is some sort of stock Matrix icon that you would get with a cheap commlink. It probably appears like a little assemble-by-pieces paperdoll closely resembling her (current) physical appearance, probably akin to a Nintendo Mii. It's decidedly low-rez, innocuous-looking, and cheap.

Implanted Comm Persona Description: This icon is what she uses when she's doing secretive, blackhat hacker stuff. It's a black, aphotic silhouette resembling a large, androgynous humanoid being with large, batlike wings. The eyes contrast with the dark shadow of the icon's form, being as they are a glowing bright red, as are the long, claw-like nails extending from the creature's hands. Rapid movements leave a sort of hazy trail behind it, and it constantly exhudes a faint black mist, as if giving off smoke or ash.

[Aaron]

Resterend has darkish brown hair and brown eyes. He is average in height and weight for a dwarf, and unremarkable in appearance, having a distinct lack of distinguishing physical characteristics or even mannerisms. He tends to confine himself to the space he occupies; when he gestures, his hands tend to stay very close to his chest. He often has a look on his face that could be interpreted as saying "the world is out to get me, any moment now."

His icon is the latest London Software House Basil Business Casual off-the-rack icon with the Brown Trenchcoat and Flat Cap options set. To most, it looks like the standard store-bought icon, but close inspection shows that the resolution and animation are a bit better than should be.

His sprites tend to come with non-threatening icons, usually cute, playful, and child-like. Most often, they are three-dimensional regular polygons with just enough additional features to make them anthropomorphic.

[Aaron]

When I'm compiling sprites, do you want me to just roll my half of the transaction, or make all three rolls?

[quentra]

Just roll your half for the compiling.

Also, I put up the rolling format, as well as the optional rule this game is gonna be using. After a bit of deliberation, I've also decided that hacking for a mundane will be a Logic+Program, hits limited by skill. Thus, Johnny the Hacker wants to hack his fridge. He has a logic of 4, and a hacking skill of five. He tries to bust through his fridges firewall, which is oddly enough at 4. His exploit program is at 4 as well, thus Johnny's DP would be 8, but limited to five hits.

For techno's, I've decided to go with Intuition+CF, hits limited by skill. Same example, just use Intuition instead of logic.

Limiting retries on extended tests to DP size, as well. If you guys have problems with the houserules, just tell me, and I'll see what I can do.

[Aaron]

After a bit of deliberation, I've also decided that hacking for a mundane will be a Logic+Program, hits limited by skill. Thus, Johnny the Hacker wants to hack his fridge. He has a logic of 4, and a hacking skill of five. He tries to bust through his fridges firewall, which is oddly enough at 4. His exploit program is at 4 as well, thus Johnny's DP would be 8, but limited to five hits.

For techno's, I've decided to go with Intuition+CF, hits limited by skill. Same example, just use Intuition instead of logic.

Er ... I built my character on the assumption that we were using the rules as written as far as Matrix tests are concerned. That system seriously nerfs my build. Could we just go with what's in the hymnal, or should I rework my character?

[quentra]

Nah, thats fine. If it nerfs your build, going by RAW is fine. I feel I need to houserule the Matrix somehow though. Any suggestions?

[Cthulhudreams]

I'd suggest banning agents as a fine place to start. However it is a bit hard as the game has started as it where.


Dagda:

Description:
Dagda is big, tall (2.1m) and powerfully muscular. He is recognizably an ork meta variant, but lacks the signature tusks. Dagda has ambitions of being bigger too, and is prone to wear boots (cowboy or combat) whenever possible, and the cut of his clothes reflects his desire to be even taller, while close cuts show off his well defined physique. His skin an unusual grey colour reminiscent of marble with a faint patina and sheen. Unlike other Skriatok Dagda keeps his lichen confined to his chest, legs, back and arms, opting not to wear a shirt and going for shorts when he is at home relaxing.

Dagda dresses smartly in good quality clothes, again reflecting his desire for status, although he never really follows fashion trends. On the street he goes for casual jeans and a shirt, always with thick soled heavy duty combat boots and usually with his armoured jacket, but will 'dress up' the occasion with his auctioneer suit if required.

On runs he typically uses his augmented chameleon suit, with a hood and his bulky mage sight goggles obscuring his face.

Public Comm Persona Description: It looks much like him, but he's gone for a black suit, red tie, white shirt and no features what so ever. His body is collection of featureless grey ovoids, with a barcode on the back of his head that reads "Escape from the Machine" rendered in hexadecimal.

However, he never uses VR, ever, under any circumstances what so ever. Or Simsense. He very occasionally uses AR with trodes but usually sticks to visual displays with subvocal mics.

His agent is is e-face, and looks exactly like his public persona.

Astral Projection:

His Astral Projection is the same as his physical appearance, usually wearing whatever he is wearing in the flesh, or with a suit but somehow more... grounded. Earthy. Possibly even rockier. The impression may be generated by the subtle rocky ridges that appear over his exposed skin, or an increased bulk and height, or maybe its just the spiritual connection his people have with the earth shining through. When he walks on the ground the earth appears to lap at his feet.

[kookyjeld]

So sorry about the delay, everyone. I scratched my cornea about two days ago so I've been wallowing around blind and lightly drugged. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I'll try to post something today.

[quentra]

Eep, I know how eye damage works. Go ahead and rest.

[Cthulhudreams]

M<y brother got hit in the eye with a copy of Macbeth that scratched his cornea some time ago. The jokes about yorrick were endless.

[quentra]

Okay you guys, I'm gonna move the story forward. Professeur, and Kookyjeld, I'll most likely intro your charas at a later time, but I'll give you until Thursday morning, EST, to get your posts in. If they aren't in by then, I'm gonna start the game rolling regardless. I'm not kicking you guys off, but I do want the campaign to get started.

[kookyjeld]

Eye pain sucks, but I'm glad to know that the boyfriend isn't put off my by gigantic red pulsating eyeball. I have a winner. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thanks for being patient with me! Here's my character's description and my post will follow:


Description: Petra is a short, lithe Norwegian woman with shoulder-length ringlets of pale blonde hair. Her eyes are blue and she is of fair complexion overall; from a distance, she could easily be confused for an albino. Her outfits tend to be fitting yet modest - her wardrobe mainly consists of muted browns, greens, and deep reds suited more for the purpose or warmth than class or style. She wears a small sable pendent around her neck and the white fur from a lucky rabbit’s foot can usually be seen peeking from one of her pockets.

Her overall appearance and demeanor exudes a sense of acuteness, though her quiet and methodical nature can be mistaken for awkwardness. Petra is the sort that will stare blankly into space before replying to a question and disciplined social etiquette is somewhat of a foreign concept.

Public Comm Persona Description: Petra’s persona is a mirror of herself, just a tad unrealistic and highly-simplified. She is clad in only a thigh-length reddish brown peacoat. Her eyes and lips are heavily exaggerated, and her nose is a mere horizontal line. She is reminiscent of a child’s drawing.

Astral Projection: When projecting, Petra is a semi-translucent, nude rendition of herself with patches of white fur covering her more modest areas. Her hair is richer and thicker, extending to the bottom of her buttocks and caught in permanent but subtle motion. If not for her hollow eye sockets, she could almost be considered an ethereal beauty.