Down in the Gutter: OOC, The Nuts and Bolts of Staying Alive Options

[Fresno Bob]

Thats a good plan, but entertaining Johns in our HQ might be a bad idea...

[WinterRat1]

Everyone is free to post, depending on who posts what in the next RL day or two, I'll decide whether to walk the stories up to the meeting or skip ahead to it by assuming people are resting until 11 or so and then splitting up to perform their various tasks.

[Vegas]

I'm willing to bite the bullet and do another "uber cool" layout for the HQ like I did for the 410 game unless someone else wants to step up and do it.

I guess tossing out ideas for locations (i.e. types of buildings/businesses, not actual addresses) like Abbandon has started is a good plan, and start kicking around ideas of what kinds of things we want/need the HQ to have (or eventually have) would be wise too.

I'm gonna be a little party pooper here like I initially was in the 410 game about the SIZE of the place we end up with. Remember right now we're a gang of what... 12? Attempting to take over something the size of a 2008-sized WalMart might be a bit more than 12 gangers with little to no current resources and or security could chew (IMHO).

Another option would be to effectively take over a number of buildings in a given area or block, perhaps surrounding a place like a Quick Lube. Then we can grab a squat area and have a separate but near-by location for the drug lab etc... still has issues with security/protection 24/7 also has some benefits too - if the lab goes up in another "accident" the rest of the gang's resources don't go up with it. :D

And I have to agree with Voorhees here, bringing the john's to the HQ could bring more trouble than it solves. Again, reason for perhaps yet another building/location... who knows..

I'm just rattling stuff off the top of my head.

[Lindt]

Ill see if I can find a real set of plans for a Jiffy Lube I might have around. I used to do work with them a few years back.

[Abbandon]

Well I have to disagree about bring the customers to us. Our whole gang will be in and around our HQ. All of our resources will be in the vicinity. If someone starts something they will be on our turf, away from their backup, and we will be able to bring our whole gang down on top of them fairly easily.

If rival gangs formed up and stormed our HQ or somethin and nuked us all at once would that be any different than having our gang spread out over 4-5 places and losing one or two of them and becoming crippled.

I think it would be way more tempting for th enemy to attack a little section of us at a time, let us rebuild, attack it again, let us rebuild. Then we are constantly having to regen are forces while they grow and get stronger. Having to wipe us all out at once takes allegiences and a really strong force.

I think security for a big sqaure building would also be waaay easier than several little houses and stuff.

Thats just my thoughts though.

Oh yeah and the Kmart in my town has a mechanic garage built into the side of it.

[Meriss]

Hmmm. Might be nifty.

Ink's going to have to step up his skill if he is ever going to see any action ain't he?

[pragma]

I think that an old gas station or crappy fast food restaurant could be cool.

The Jiffy Lube makes sense because the garage is reusable and its about the right size (or a little small) for 12 people to hold onto.

A McDonald's equivalent could have its kitchen turned into a drug lab. Also, though my creativity has run dry, I feel like something could be done with the drivethrough.

I also think bringing customers to our HQ is an unnecessary security risk. A clever infiltrator or unarmed goon of some kind could cause real trouble.

[Vegas]

[Abbandon]

What I liked about the restaurant idea is that they have big signs. It would be cool to have a big ass gang logo up there.

[adamu]

@Winter - didn't bother rolling for the watchers, since it was all just fluff. If you do want rolls, just say so.

Fluff though it may be, however, you said we could start building up practice hours toward advancement per your training rules before actually getting any karma, so I reckon that should be good for about two hours Conjuring or Magic practice. I'll start a section to track that stuff on my wiki page, if it's okay with you.

[WinterRat1]

Adamu - No need for rolls on the watchers; like you said, it was all just fluff.

It will count for practice hours towards advancement per the training rules though, so yes, go ahead and start a section on your wiki page to track that. Specify on the wiki whether you intend the training time to be for Conjuring or Magic, and two hours seems reasonable to me.

[WinterRat1]

Anyone else going to IC post, or is everyone resting and just waiting for around 11:00:00 in game time when Legion wakes up to start performing their various tasks?

[Fresno Bob]

Aziz is just going to be resting

[Abbandon]

Yeah Fool will get some down time too.

[Vegas]

I've got a post brewing in my head, but it's mainly fluff and following Legion's requests to get provisions, get the girls rested/cleaned up and back out to Slippy's and shooting the shit with Ink.

Nothing majorly pressing that can't be "flashbacked" if you're itching to move forward.

[rob]

Yo, all, I will have a very hard time getting to internet computers that can view dumpshock till early february. I'll try and post intermittently, but no guarantees, as even when I get to them work is fairly intense and living conditions quite miserable right now.

[WinterRat1]

Everyone - Since the majority have indicated they will be resting or otherwise doing nothing material (e.g. Grack keeping watch) for now, I will bump the time forward to about 11:00:00 to keep the story moving. I will do this as soon as I can.

Vegas - You indicated that you were going to post, feel free to do so anyway even if my post goes up before yours. We'll simply assume it happened before my update since I can already tell you nothing significant will happen on your food run, it'll be just fluff/character development.

Also, if Nevada does go out and it appears she's going alone, Shade will offer to go with her. You know his character well enough to know how and why'd he'd ask, as well as have a pretty good idea of how he'd conduct himself along the way if you choose to have Nevada accept his offer and want to integrate him into your post.

Rob - No worries whatsoever man. Take care, keep your head down, and come back to us alive and in one piece, you hear? :)

[Mister Juan]

Felix is probably too tired to really do anything but crash real hard right now. He will tag along with Shade if he lets him tho.

[WinterRat1]

Everyone -

OK, for practical and common sense purposes, I am slightly houseruling the healing rules.

The healing rules for Stun remain the same. They are reasonable to me and even someone who was totally unconscious (Bockscar) was fully healed after several hours of rest, which is an acceptable time frame to me.

For Physical Only, the hits scored on your healing test will divide into the base time of the extended test (1 day = 24 hours) to determine how long it takes you to heal 1 box of Physical. You also do not have to rest for 24 hours straight, you may split up your resting time and will heal accordingly.

You will still heal the same total amount of damage in the same total time frame, but your progress will be staggered instead of an all-or-nothing thing.

For example, if a character rolls 6 hits, they will heal 1 box every 4 hours, assuming they do nothing but rest for those 4 hours.

Alternatively, if the same character rests 2 hours, they can go do something else for a while, then rest 2 more hours, and after they have spent a total of 4 hours resting, they will heal 1 box.

I will not allow rest increments smaller than 30 minutes (0.5 hours) for the simple sake of bookkeeping.

I will have a general idea of how long you've been resting and what time you're applying to resting for the purposes of healing, but it is your job to track your resting time for the purpose of healing!

Example: Bockscar is going to heal 1 Physical every 4 hours. He needs to post a healing report that states:

Total Hits: 6
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 4 hours

Box 1: 00:00:00 through 04:00:00 = 4 hours
Box 2: 04:00:00 through 6:30:00 = 2.5 hours, 09:30:00 through 11:00:00 = 1.5 hours. Total time = 2.5 + 1.5 = 4

And so on and so forth. He would post this at relevant intervals, basically when he stops resting (at 06:30:00 and 11:00:00) so I know where his condition monitor is at.

If you do not provide me a breakdown of your healing time per the format above, you will not get credit for ANY healing!

In essence, I'm giving you guys a beneficial system to help keep injured PCs in the game, but it's up to you to do the bookkeeping and take advantage of it, because I'm not going to give my already overworked self more work. ;)

Note that I will make exceptions for special circumstances, like Rob. But mere laziness gets no breaks from me. Such situations will default to the usual 'PC must rest for 24 straight hours and heals all hits at the end of that time'.

Would someone mind doing us all a favor and coming up with some sort of chart or tracker and putting it on the wiki for each character so we can track this?

Let me know if anyone has any questions about how this works or why, but I think my examples should suffice (full example in next post) and the reasons why should be self-explanatory. Since this benefits all of you (although it will be applied equally to NPCs) I presume there is no opposition to my rules change, but if there is, by all means please speak up.

EDIT: Note that these healing rolls are still per set of wounds; since you roll different healing tests for different sets of wounds, you have to track each set of wounds separately.

[WinterRat1]

Healing Update

To give a thorough example of the above rules change, here is the updated situation as it stands for all injured PCs:

Legion
Total Hits: 6
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 4 hours
Box 1: 05:00:00 - 9:00:00 = 4 hours
Box 2: 09:00:00 - 11:00:00 = 2 hours, IN PROGRESS

Boxes healed as of 11:00:00 = 1

Thumper
Total Hits: 5
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 5 hours
Box 1: 05:00:00 - 10:00:00 = 5 hours
Box 2: 10:00:00 - 11:00:00 = 1 hour, IN PROGRESS

Boxes healed as of 11:00:00 = 1

Doc
Total Hits: 6
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 4 hours
Box 1: 05:00:00 - 9:00:00 = 4 hours, FULLY HEALED

Boxes healed as of 09:00:00 = Fully Healed

Bockscar
Total Hits: 6
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 4 hours
Box 1: 03:00:00 - 7:00:00 = 4 hours
Box 2: 07:00:00 - 11:00:00 = 4 hours

Boxes healed as of 11:00:00 = 2

Nevada
Total Hits: 5
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 5 hours
Box 1: 05:00:00 - 10:00:00 = 5 hours, FULLY HEALED

Boxes healed as of 10:00:00 = Fully Healed

Aziz
Total Hits: 5
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 5 hours
Box 1: 03:00:00 - 08:00:00 = 5 hours
Box 2: 08:00:00 - 11:00:00 = 3 hours, IN PROGRESS

Boxes healed as of 11:00:00 = 1

Does everyone follow this example? Once you stop resting IC, post an update in the OOC thread accordingly. For example, assuming Aziz continues to rest for another 3 hours, at 14:00:00 Voorhees should post the following:

Aziz
Total Hits: 5
Time to Heal 1 Box of Physical: 5 hours
Box 1: 03:00:00 - 08:00:00 = 5 hours
Box 2: 08:00:00 - 13:00:00 = 5 hours
Box 3: 13:00:00 - 14:00:00 = 1 hour, IN PROGRESS

Boxes healed as of 14:00:00 = 2

I have a Master Condition Monitor, and will keep track of your updates as you post them. Let me know if there any questions. I hope this helps get the wounded back on their feet sooner in IC time and keeps you all active and in play. :)

[WinterRat1]

Updated Condition Monitors

Just to be completely clear, here are the updated Condition Monitors as of 11:00:00 due to the above update:

No one has any Stun.

Legion: 2 Physical

Thumper: 1 Physical

Bockscar: 6 Physical

Aziz: 4 Physical

If you aren't listed above, I have you as completely healed as of 11:00:00.

As soon as my IC update goes up you're all free to post.

[Abbandon]

Hmmm I will go try my hand at making a page for that =)

[Abbandon]

I made 3 example templates we could use to track healing as far as the things you mentioned. Everyone should check them out and pick a favorite or edit in their own designs.

http://thegutter.wikispaces.com/Mech+-+Health+Tracker

I like #3 mostly. maybe "healed damage" doesnt need to be spammed down the side.

[Vegas]

Everyone could just add the box of choice off that page (whatever we decide is the way to go) on to their own Mechanics pages respectively to keep track of their healing unless the goal is to have EVERYONE in one spot and WR can delete updates when characters are completely healed and it's been transferred to his Master Condition Monitor GM type thingy.

If the latter is the preferred GM's choice, Abbandon do you want to just go ahead and make a separate tracker for each ganger on that page?

[WinterRat1]

I don’t care how you guys track your healing time. You can do it however you want, I simply recommend having it on the wiki to remind you to post your updates in the OOC thread and have a central location as a ‘backup’ for all your updates.

The only thing I care about is that you post your updates in the OOC thread as they occur (i.e. at the end of each rest period).

I already have my Master Condition Monitor and Healing Chart set up on my own Excel spreadsheet, there’s no point in me tracking this information twice (on my own sheet and on the wiki). As stated above, the value of the wiki is that you each have your own Healing Time tracker, a backup, and reference point so if I miss one of your updates, you can point to somewhere else and show me a (hopefully) complete and correct record of your Healing Time so you can get full credit for any injuries you healed while resting.

So since I don’t care about how you track your Healing Time, Abbandon do you want to create a tracker for each character and put it up somewhere in their character section? That would be very nice.

One note, whichever version you use I would put Stun ahead of Physical because you have to completely heal Stun before you can heal Physical.

Also, remember I want a specific template used when you post updates in the OOC thread, which I illustrated above. When I get the chance, I will put up the above posts in the Guidelines section of the wiki. Although if someone else has the time and inclination, I wouldn’t mind letting someone else take that task off my hands…<hint, hint> ;)