I am the Law (ooc/recruting), And the Law won Options

[Toivoton]

On initiation: Walker is a racist. Not very aggressive one or a strong one and "only" against orks and trolls and would never let it interfere with his job, but still. He thinks orks and trolls are too stupid to belong in an elite team. He will try to get along, but they have to work a bit to gain his trust.

This is important because I think initiating without an ordeal is so totally against flawor that I would use them even without the karmadiscount. And this matters because metaplanar quests are personal. It actually even says that the dweller of the treshold (something you have to pass to get into the metaplanes), makes you face your weaknesses, fears and secrets. And the others can see at least parts of it.

Now Walker can almost smell that he gets to see the event again that made him lose his last job. And he would REALLY prefer not to show it to anyone he doesn't really trust. The trust on the rest of the team is naturally "shallow" since he hasn't known them a long time, but unless they do something on this job, he's willing to risk it.

If he doesn't find a good reason to initiate with the others without Bang, he will let him join, but will not initiate with just him, finding some way to politely decline.

Group initiation: I would be interested in actually playing the initiation. If all the awakened are interested, we could prolly get Haeffner with us (if he doesn't want to take a break) either as a projection or if he's interested even actually (since we have to get an astral gateway for the adepts anyway).

This is something we need to start planning now btw since it needs to be tailored for all of us which sort of makes it a bit hard... This is also something I think the players should be actively planning in addition to the GM. Not because I don't trust lord imp, but because at least I don't want to write pages of backround for Walker to give lord imp a good idea what Walker might encounter. And with planning I mean getting a fitting metaphor for all of us - naturally the actual quest should be GM designed.

As for the metamagics: Walker is one short of the "essentials" - Centering. Then he would like to get invocation and if at all possible and perhaps psychometry for his new job. Tho that depends on what Ellie gets.

Bangs centering: Unless I'm missing something, you should REALLY have adept centering instead of the normal version.

Combat monsters: Yeah Walker is short on real investigative assets too. He has exceedingly many ways of hurting things, but other then that, he's just moderately smart and has lots of skillsofts. However this isn't really something any of our char's have good skills for. Mainly because the things that would be usefull, are knowledge skills (investigation, crime reconstrucition, evidence gathering and so on) and a 100BP contact called "Sniches". Tho granted a big logic and intuition are good and social skills are good in interrogating.

Actually one of us really should have made an investigator to a cop game. Veery smart of us.. :S

It's a good thing that my char is better trained and at least as smart as I am so I can just consentrate on the problem and not worry about saying something that Walker wouldn't say.. :)

Magic: We (Ellie and Walker) should coordinate to get all the "investigative magical things". Such as the psychometry metamagic, mind probe (yeah it can't be used to get evidence, but there are many situations when it would be usefull), some truth detecting spells for interrogations, Extended Detect Guns for escorting missions and so on. I sort of have Divination since I can summon Guideance spirits so thats not really needed. Unless we want to be able to divine well.

On sheets: No need to remove it. Actually I think it would be better for the rest of us to spoiler ours. Not for the rest of us in the game, but for the ones just reading. What do the rest of you people think?

On the metaplanar quest: Walker has so far had a trench warfare thingie during the first world war with the "lesson" of trusting his teammates (to learn channeling) and then a "Saving Private Ryan"esque rescue mission (to get the familiar)

Cross (his mentor spirit) will lobby heavily for a warfare metaphor and unless ALL the others would be better off with a nonviolent metaphor, there will be fighting.

Now I had intended to IC Walker's centering quest with the metaphor of being an altillery spotter and having to calculate firing solutions in progressively worse situations (with a foxhole in a continuous heavy altillery barrage the last one), but it's not like I have any emotional attachments to it.

About the "professional disapproval": Walker tries to use the right terms, but doesn't really care what others use. You have to remember that he is new to all this cop thing, using wrong terms occasionally too. As in using military terms. Now since I'm not a native speaker, I can't replicate it so I have to play that very mildly.

Skillsofts: Walker can't keep all his skills in his head so here is the ones that he keep on for the moment:
Pistols 4
Shadowing 2
Intimidate 2
Con 2
Unarmed 2
Run 2
Climbing 2
Gymnastics 4

(So these don't fit in his head)
First aid 2
Navigation 2
Infiltration 4
Pilot groundcraft 2

I will be very annoyed if someone just posts TLDR... ;)

[imperialus]

next big plot post will be later today. Sorry for the delay. 2 exams this afternoon. :vegm: :dead:

[HeySparky]

I believe Casey has the investigatory-detective-y area somewhat covered - right SyberCat?

And also, apologies for my laggardliness in posting, I still haven't fully finished Haeffner and she (female PC (and player), Toivoton, just so you know) doesn't have all of the bits in place that I really like to have before I start posting. : /

Hopefully this weekend will give me some time to get her in order.

[Meriss]

On Initiation: No big deal, If we can let's do it. As to Walker's racism If Bang knows/suspects his racism this will only drive the troll to do better in general. Bang's fears manifest as an enourmous doctor in full "mad scientest" gear, mask, giant needle, the works, or a group of laughing children, or a large female figure which he can never touch/reach. I like Toivoton's suggestion of a combat related quest, somehow the idea of our fears manifesting on a battlefield sounds cool!

On Centering: I don't have any at all Syber! :D But Adept Centering sounds good if I can get it.

On Sheets: I'll repost my sheet in a spoiler later today.

On Combat Monsters: Well I'm not quite as useless as I thought. (Why does my brain only work late at night?) After checking the background posts near the top of this thread I found out a neat piece of info. Bang is the only one on the team with any shadow experience. The rest of the team are squeaky clean civs. (I'm not counting Walker cause I'm assuming most of his "jobs" were strictly legit battles as opposed to black ops) Call me on this if I'm wrong folks, but it makes for good RP. So one of the things I'll be doing after this case is checking for KE's gang books. (almost all modern police depts. have some kind of collection of gang photos/tats and their meanings) Hopefully with a little hard work and study (and a drek load of logic rolls) Bang will be able to learn Gang ID or at least the police version.

New Issues:
@Lord Imp: Bang is going to echo my flash of inspiration in a few posts or so. Do I need to roll for this or is RP sufficent? If you want a roll what should it be? Also after checking my char sheet yesterday I realized I forgot to include my personal comm in my sheet so I'm adding it in when I update char sheet later today.

@All: Can you understand Bang's "trollspeak" or do I need to modify my posts?

So am I missing anything?

[imperialus]

[Toivoton]

Must have typoed her gender somewhere since I did get it from the (good) introductory post. Sorry for the mixup.

Laggardliness forgiven. Shows that I'm new to all this roleplaying thing - I'm making Walker as I go along. I DO have a backround framework in my head tho so I have done some work.. ;)

I don't think Casey really has the detective-y area well enough covered for a badass elite police team, but thats from just skimming the charsheet. I try not get a TOO good look at other people's chars, but I can't resist looking a bit.. ;)

(I mainly remeber the she seemed to be really weak in combat and had lots and lots of ways to diguise herself)

Now the main thing that a kickass detective would have is a massive load of contacts. With 400BP and 300 karma I might go so far as to put 100 or even 200BP into contacts alone (possible getting a 50BP contact "Seattle lowlifes", a 50BP contact "Seattle gangs", 10BP for each of the syndicates and the rest for stuff like "Shadowrun teamleader", "Lone Star captain" and perhaps some small corp contacts), using the rest to get good social skills, crappy combat skills, using knowledge skills on the investigation thing and then some supporting stuff.

Casey is an undercover operative. He's a better face then the detective would be, but isn't nearly as good at "detecting" thingies as one would be. He would however be excellent in a "Bring down that mafia don" type assigment doing the undercover thingy. Having both would naturally be best - the detective could talk to some people, give Casey much better cover, point her in the right direction and give her backround on the targets.

All in all I think we are perhaps a bit heavy on the "lets kill things" side of what Firewatch does with 2 totally combat specialised people (Walker and Bang) and only one who focuses on the other aspects. Now granted I haven't seen either Haeffners nor Ellies charsheet, but at least the short descriptions on the first page suggest that they are just diffrently combat oriented.

Edit in response to Meriss:

On ops: Walker has actually been doing mainly black ops (as in stuff UCAS never really advertised doing, declaring wars is so passé) for most of career. It's just that he has been following orders so it was the goverment technically breaking the laws and not the soldiers following the orders. However if someone can access his files, he can find that he was suddenly dishonorably dischaged for "Warcrimes" (only that word, no details and no record of any trial nor legal conseqenses) from a career that was going very well until then. If you decide to dig more, ask me if you can hack or have BIG contacts in the military and I'll say what you find.

On trollspeak: Yeh we undestand and it's a very good way to flesh out a char. Was about to suggest karma for you for it until you stopped using it in OOC.. ;)

I think I should clarify the initiation thingy a bit for those without a book (=Merris) - The fears thingy is in the getting to the metaplanes part before the quest. You see there is an entity called the Dweller of the Treshold watching the enterance to the metaplanes. If you want in, you have to get past him. He makes you face your weaknesses. Such as someone with an addiction might be made to admit that before allowing entry or say a cop who has accidentally killed a kid might be forced to vow to try and make amends. This is personal tho the other groupmembers see it too.

Then you get to the quest part where you need the metaphor. This can be for example climbing on top of a mountain to recover your disrupted earth elemental or having to kill Al Capone in the 20'ies to kill a strong (free) spirit of the man.

If the 3 of us are all trying to get some form of centering, it would be naturally easyer then if we all were getting diffrent ones.

By the way the laughing kids would scare Walker too.. ;)

Have you heard about ADPS recently btw?

[Meriss]

Ah well RP is all about stretching your mind, both you and your char. We just hope Lord Imp has some baddies planned down the road for Walker and Bang to stomp. :)

[HeySparky]

Raleigh

[Meriss]

Kewl sheet Sparky.

@Toivoton: I jest want'd ta make sure Bang is da only one wid a Shadow(Street) back'round. I kinda figur'd Walker man had sum black bag work. (What kin I say I's :love: Karma)

Edit'd first post ta include Char sheet.

I ain't heard from ADPS, does da joe even exist? Lord Imp ya 'eard from da joe?

[Toivoton]

Ah ok. Yeah you are right - Bang is the only one with shadowrunning experience. Walker is used to not being on the same side with the powers that be (at least where the action is, satellite recon and stuff is naturally familiar), but hasn't really got any urban experience.

Well at least urban as in Seattle. I suspect that the cities in middle east and africa haven't suddenly "westernised". And even then he doesn't really have THAT much experience with them either.

[Fastball]

Eleanor can invoke guidance spirits (yet to be proven), which will give us acess to a an astral gateway. They may also be useful for divining things when our investigative skills need an edge.

As for her own investigative skills, she is trying to develop her skills as an astral investigator and my first build included the spell Analyze Truth. She is an upstanding citizen, however, and does not believe in the use of spells such as control thoughts or mindprobe, although she may allow a spirit to use its Influence power where necessary.

She is interested in initiation, but is not in a rush to do so. Her current goals include developing her current potential (improving to Magic 8), developing spellcasting, and improving investigative skills.

[Toivoton]

Might be fun to actually to play the initiation. You ok initiating now with the rest of us? Perhaps getting that psychometry?

It's good to know we have astral gateway from the team. Even if we would have propably gotten it from somewhere.

I sort of just assumed you were a normal shaman from the nick. What's your tradition? I think that's one of the things that Walker would have found out during the drinking contest. (I think I've made Walker's tradition clear - voodoo)

[Fastball]

You know, I had never looked at psychometry, and that's a shame, because its right up Eleanor's alley.

Eleanor's tradition is unique. I came up with her views on magic and then searched for a RAW tradition that would fit it. She shares similar views on spirits with the aboriginals (and their spirit traditions), which is why she studied abroad in Australia, but uses more traditional shamanistic rituals. I believe imperialus is going to let me use shaman spell formula, but I purchased my own magic lodge for actually learning magical skills.

[Meriss]

@Lord Imp, Kay further edits to my main post. Lord Imp if you're interested and don't feel like going back to check it. The edits are : 1. I added some programs and changed my personal comm a bit. The programs are just an agent(cause Bang is dumb) and Browse. 2. I added Bob's "tricks" these are specific actions Bob will take on an order/request from Bang. They are Fetch: go and get a specific Item. (Strength Roll) Track: find/look for a specific scent. (Perception Roll) and Attack: well you get the picture (Strength Roll) Bob can have no more "tricks" then Bang's Logic. (Bang's Logic = 3 so Bobs Tricks = 3) (Yes I'm cribbing from The Game Which Shall Not Be Spoken, but I thought it was a good way to manage it) Lemme know if you have any objections.

[imperialus]

[SyberCat]

[Toivoton]

I think I should clarify why I think the contacts mainly make a good detective. Say in this situation a char focussing on the detective thingies, would mostly be working his contacts. You know when the call came, he would go "Hmm.. ok that's Chulos turf. Gotta go visit them. I'll start working on the shadow angle first. *making calls* I think it was a shadowrun - One of my contacts was approached for a datatheft, but he didn't have a team ready so he passed. Also the Star had a report of an armored van speeding away at 2214 a few blocks away - I have the plate tho it's prolly fake. It was heading to the barrens, but the reality hackers haven't seen it so it's either somewhere between here and there or did a feint. It IS past Hellhounds turf tho since they saw it. Bang - you wanna be my bodyguard for a few hours while I go check the gangs that don't take calls?"

Now most likely he wouldn't be a very good undercover operative since he's known and he wouldn't prolly be as good at the actual speaking part as you.

It's diffrent from the face tho they are somewhat interchangeable.

[imperialus]

I'm cutting sybercat a little slack with her contact network. Her character concept ate up a LOT of build points and karma at chargen and it's definatly more for style than power. There are much more efficent ways to create an uber face but she spent a bit more and gave Casey a really unique hook. The catch is, of course that her "Informants" contact's reliability may be very shakey. I'm working out a way to tweak the "friend of a friend" rules to make it more appropriate but I wouldn't rely too much on any evidence her informants turn up.

That doesn't mean they're completely unreliable they may just turn up that obscure peice of evidance that breaks the case, it just means that for every time you hear a something that a busboy in a Yak run restaruant overheard the local Oyuban say you'll get at least one or two rumors started by that guy in Redmond who think's he's Jesus.

@Sybercat. It's up to you if you want to post the rest of Casey's file. I'm sure if you just said it was OOC knowlage people could work with that. I'd just put it in spoilers so that if someone wants to be surprised they can be.

[imperialus]

Oh, one very important thing for the plot that I completely forgot to mention. Technomancers do not exist in my 2070. There are some odd rumors but they're generally filed along side the wolf man and little green men. Everyone knows that magic and technology don't mix so how could someone magically muck about with computers?

This shouldn't be a huge deal since no one is playing a TM but just in case it comes up or we have a new player join at some point I figured I'd remind everyone. Mostly because I still suck at the matrix rules and TM's complicate things. :P

[Meriss]

Boss did you try www.pavao.org cheat sheets.(try looking under shadorun resources) I realize they're for us players but you might get a use out of them.

[Meriss]

[/quote]
About the "professional disapproval": Walker tries to use the right terms, but doesn't really care what others use. You have to remember that he is new to all this cop thing, using wrong terms occasionally too. As in using military terms. Now since I'm not a native speaker, I can't replicate it so I have to play that very mildly. [/quote]

Heh, the thing I was trying to get across was Walker is a perfectionist, but Bang the trollboy isn't. So Walker would listen to the briefing intently, and would not be happy that Bang had to ask if the subject was dead.

@all: If I involve your char in one of Bangs posts, I'll try to be as close as possible to your posts but I can't guarantee your "voice" with total accuracy.

[Toivoton]

Ah right. Misunderstood. Well if it was from that, it's actually true that he might have given him a look.. :)

And I'm fine with you (and others for that matter) using Walker. I just said that in case you misunderstood me.

Abaut Casey - Fine by me. Actually I wouldn't even be against her getting the contacts for free, if it fit her backround. Hell Walker has contacts from his backround too that I didn't use points for. Tho in his case it's more because they would only be usefull if for some reason the team was sent to investigate some army thing and even then it would be likely that they would be unavailable.

And I like the consept too. Just like I liked the bug on Haeffner's shoulder that I bet she got for free too. ;)


And about the matrix - the problem for GM's isn't really that they don't know the rules while playing since they can check those. The main problem is that there are no sample systems anywhere in the books. And there are also no real "corps tend to do these things for matrix security" thingies either. Well at least that was my problem when I ran a couple of games..

[Meriss]

Hey Toivoton, I assumed you were a transplant from the States. Your English is that good. Heck it's beter than mine sometimes and I am a native speaker.

And anybody needing a bodyguard has only to suggest it to Bang. He started running as a meat guard for his decker contact, his Corpsec position was just more of the same only legal.

@lord Imp. Just an idle late night thought. Feel free to ignore. But is there any chance you would consider a rivalry with another SR team, I mean we're cops they're bad guys, a match made in hell. True you and another GM would have to trade notes and stuff but it might make for some interesting play. They commit the crime, we catch them etc.

[Toivoton]

Well thanks. You can easily see that I'm struggling a bit on this end tho. ("Okay I don't know how to say that.. nor that.. that would have been good, but I don't know that word.." and so on)

The rivalry thing isn't actually as good an idea as it sounds. You gotta remember that if they are smart, they leave us veery little clues. Just using gloves, erasing signatures, using something to cover faces and taking a detour through the barrens to ditch the car would leave me without ideas.

Naturally if the run goes bad, there would be more since they wouldn't have the time to clean up well, but then we get to the other bad thing: Would you want to be on the shadow team and after a bad run when you are hurting and trying to heal at the hideout, a swat team, some airsupport and several 400BP, 300 karma characters blow up the door?

It's just exceedingly hard to balance without either us having almost nothing to go on with or the shadowrunner team going splat.

Naturally if you just meant that the other team makes the run and then imp just clones it, it's diffrent since both the runners and us can "win".

And about finns: http://www.necroblogicon.com/?p=82

[Meriss]

Actually the inspiration for the rivalry idea came from here
Some how I think that was Tinman and Alpha, or possibly those lunatics on Bravo. Perhaps I mistyped, They commit the crime, we chase them, they run, we chase them. Basically we can only stomp them if we catch them. Although Most GMs and players wouldn't want to be caught as that would be the end of the game, unless they can escape. As to the blog :eek:, I'm kidding of course.

@all: Just out of curiosty (and an interest in keeping posts in order) what's your time zone? I'm currently on Eastern Daylight Time = -5:00 Greenwich Mean Time. Possibly -6:00 (I hate Daylight Savings Time)