The Found Arcana - Chapter 7 [OOC], The continuing story of our misfit detectives Options

[Beta]

As usual a place for our discussions.

Here’s what you currently know about your neighborhood: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...is/touristville

Here’s our shared lifestyle: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...gative-services

Game calendar so far:
==================
Chapter 1: Sunday, September 18, 2078
Chapter 2: Monday, September 26, 2078
First Interlude: Saturday, October 1, 2078
Chapter 3: Monday, October 10, 2078
Second Interlude: Sunday, October 16, 2078
Chapter 4: Sunday, November 6, 2078
Third Interlude: Wednesday, November 23, 2078
Chapter 5: Thursday, November 24, 2078
Fourth Interlude: Sunday, November 27, 2078
Chapter 6: Thursday, December 22, 2078
Fifth Interlude: Sunday, January 1, 2079
Chapter 7: Friday, January 17, 2079

Characters
=========
(beta: https://brexbasicbackups.obsidianportal.com...aracters/jawsey )

gilga: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...rs/rebeca-jones

Jack_spade: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/107f...dit?usp=sharing

Tecumseh: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...characters/mato

This discussion was modified 0 days ago by Beta

[Beta]

I'm really enjoying the clothing situation! I hope the location doesn't derail this too much.

[Tecumseh]

@gilga
What does this mean? I didn't quite follow what sin AM is referring to.

Of course, he cannot bottom his shirt one sin leads to another

@Beta
As an aside, I know this location extremely well. I've been there dozens if not hundreds of times. One of my favorite sandwich shops, Gilbert's, is on the south side of the block, maybe 50 meters away. When I was in college, the apartments/condos just a few steps to the west were where I wanted to live after graduation. The park across the street is indeed lovely. This is an AAA neighborhood today - all Microsoft and Amazon money - so it's not hard to imagine it as such in the future.

Separately, the ice cream sold there today (Molly Moon) is excellent. I don't go to this one because I live four blocks from a different Molly Moon, but it's top-notch. Their strawberry is my son's favorite ice cream. Their vegan coconut chunk is in my Top 2 or Top 3. (I'm not even vegan, nor lactose intolerant. It's just that good.)

The 'fish out of water' aspect can be great for RP, both for lolz and also some tense moments.

[Gilga]

@Tecumesh I did a lot of editing and that comes out of context, writing comes with a lot of effort (which I like doing).

Unlike Ichante that uses magic for everything including cooking and fashion, and never feels regret about it. AM studied a very traditionalist form of shamanism that frowns upon excessive and overly liberal use of magic. So using it to solve clothing issues, is very new to her and is part of the gradual drift she has from the fundamentalist approach.

[Tecumseh]

@Jack
Let's transfer this over to Bobby:

Zoé: Executive Suite (armor 12)
– Custom Fit
– Newest Model

Seems like we can leave Custom Fit, given AM's magical tailoring. Newest Model may or may not still apply. Probably not, but maybe it doesn't matter since it only is relevant for buying Lightly Worn (i.e. Used) versions of the same.

[Tecumseh]

Intuition 6 + Fashion 2 + Men's High Fashion specialization 2: 10d6t5 3 hits

[Jack_Spade]

@Jack
Let's transfer this over to Bobby:

Zoé: Executive Suite (armor 12)
– Custom Fit
– Newest Model

Seems like we can leave Custom Fit, given AM's magical tailoring. Newest Model may or may not still apply. Probably not, but maybe it doesn't matter since it only is relevant for buying Lightly Worn (i.e. Used) versions of the same.

Will do, thanks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Beta]

@Tecumseh the adventure gave the name of the shop, but not the location in Bellevue -- so I just googled ice cream shops in Bellevue and chose one that sounded like more of an indepenedent, figuring that the location that would be good now would be good then.

[Gilga]

By the way, we did not really get a sports car at that mission we traded it for their old car + money (as in AM's post I am not sure it's a dodge but did not have time to check).

[Tecumseh]

Well what do you know. We did go for the extra cash and the Dodge Xenon. I had it wrong all these years. (Relevant posts are from August 31st in the Chapter 1 IC thread.)

I have a fish-out-of-water post but I'm not sure if I'll get it up tonight. If not, tomorrow for sure.

[Tecumseh]

One of these days this software will pay for itself but it's not today.

Charisma 4 + Intuition 6 + Social Software 3: 13d6t5 2 hits

Mato is averaging 20.5% on Judge Intentions tests so far (16 hits on 78 dice). Guess I should just leave it up to Assensing!

[Beta]

@Tecumseh operating the bug scanner is logic + electronic warfare. Is he trying to actually scan? Or just waving it around?

(I'm working on an IC post, may break it up as it is getting long)

[Tecumseh]

It was mostly for show, the theater aspect of playing for the audience.

I'll run the scanner with wireless on so that I can use the scanner rating in place of my non-existent Electronic Warfare skill.

Logic 3 + Bug Scanner 6: 9d6t5 2 hits

Seems appropriately bad.

[Tecumseh]

I'm weakest on Matrix rules and, conveniently, so is Mato. My posts will be full of half-remembered concepts from skimming Unwired and Data Trails, which I've never read cover-to-cover. I have no idea what's actually feasible per the rules.

[Gilga]

@Tecumesh I will move this question to Beta because the rules are not exactly very clearly written. So as I play the matrix girl and knows about as much as you on matrix rules:
- which trace options do we have? can we mark the Sprite or Bert and then trace them or the satalight link to the matrix they have or anything else in there?

Please roll your teamwork to conclude the roll to speed things up.

Negotiation: 13d6t5 4
Negotiation help dice: 5d6t5 1

She'll reroll failures because she really wants to prove herself when Jawsey is not with us.
reroll failures: 9d6t5 4
reroll failures help dice: 4d6t5 1

So somewhere between 8 and 10 hits in negotiation depending on help.

[Tecumseh]

hahaha look at AM putting the screws in the kiddos.

I'll roll Negotiation for Mato to help represent the seeds that he planted about the difficulty of the job:

Charisma 4 + Etiquette 2: 6d6t5 1 hit, glitch!

Ahh dang. Not sure how to represent the glitch. I'd probably negate the hit, and maybe negate help from Bobby as well (not that Bobby can help much, given that he would be defaulting).

AM's base Social Limit is 7, which I think is now 8 because of Increase Charisma. So I'm not sure that she could keep more than 8 hits anyway. I guess she could get another +1 if she's wearing the Berwick Dress and letting it run wirelessly.

[Jack_Spade]

Actually, the boy could trace himself, or - if his tenuous connection to the matrix prohibits this - could give his sprites some marks on himself and let him do the tracing.
Because the boy isn't actually disconnected from the matrix, the noise levels are just too high for him to do anything useful.
I suspect he'll also be behind some magical cover, so Trouble will have trouble finding him too.
Our best chance is to hack the home surveillance system of his house, and use each camera along his way to school to find out where he got abducted.

[Gilga]

@Tecumesh not sure how to represent the glitch.

Limits are not a problem once or ever: The improved charisma brings her limit to 9.
(16( 8 cha) +5 (5 will) +6 (6 essence))/3

Her designer dress brings the limit to 10 (and cooperation even higher).

[Jack_Spade]

Etiquette: 6d6t5 1

1 Hit, no glitch from Bobby.

[Gilga]

Edit: The dress also adds +1 to social tests if it is wireless (and why wouldn't it?) I forgot about it.
So the additional dice
The first roll is:
Results 5d6t5: 1 [5d6t5=5, 2, 1, 3, 2] so 1 hit still.
The second is just 1 dice:
4d6t5: 1 [4d6t5=1, 5, 2, 4]
so no hit...

In total we get 9 hits and 2/3 edge remaining. Very nice.

[Beta]

The tracing will depend on how this "anonymizer" works (not a common matrix thing, since the Corps don't like people to be anonymous, anything like that will be boutique or hacked together)** if AM can trace the sprite that far she might figure out more.

** this was a fourth edition adventure originally, I don't know if they were a thing in the rules then, or if they should be strictly speaking possible in 5th, but I'm going with "yes, it is possible "

iC response tomorrow, sorry. It was the sort of day where I dropped everything else and went for a long bike ride tonight. (Besides I need time to think of how to deal with AM's negotiating position -- this should be a short chapter so I don't want to inflate the reward that much.)

[Tecumseh]

I don't blame you! I was in a very good gym routine last summer but I haven't had a good rhythm for at least the last month or so. I'm hoping to get back into a better cycle very soon.

As Beta says, anonymizers were a thing in 4E but not in 5E. They work(ed) - more or less - like I described in the IC post. I think they're clever and a reasonably good plot hook. They make a decent explanation for "one-way only" traffic.

I was thinking about the cash reward. One interesting idea would be to have an up-front payment (due in January 2080) and a balloon payment due when Brent reaches the age of maturity (May 2080). That could be a fun way to add a chunk of change a few chapters down the road without dumping a bunch of cash on us all at once. Plus it opens up some interesting possibilities, like a chapter in May that doesn't explicitly involve nuyen rewards.

[Gilga]

Well, I did not intend to make a fuss and cause metagame problems.

I actually gave it some thought and tried to respond to the story as I understood it.

The kidnapped kid (which is likely the one hiring us), is believed to be worth 2 million (!!!) and the kids in the hacker club say that the problem is that he does not have access to all the family funds to pay so much (but he will soon once he inherits his parents). So 100k seemed like the kind of money that Bernt could pay us without excessive troubles.
Perhaps not all at once, but eventually, it is not that much money for him - and we are saving his life, he does not have many options.

If it was a middle-class manager looking for his kid (like in Lorebane's story) we'll do the same job for much less (look at the reward in Lorebane's story a used car and some money). I'd say we did it for 30k or so, perhaps less because a second car is not something we would buy (or can sell at sticker price). So my point is that I was trying to respond to the story, and balance IC/OOC considerations with that number (and I also rolled the negotiation roll before I named a price).


I really like the option of some of the money coming in the future. On one side it feels consistent with the story, and on the other few months delay are like years of delay in OOC so it is mainly fluff money without mechanical effect on the game balance but with storytelling flavor. We can balance it at that time by doing a personal job (e.g., finding Mato's biological parents), and then we do not need to worry about cash rewards. If any, once we clear out debts and have some spare cash we can start thinking about personal goals. Perhaps it can help you get a better grip of Jawsey if we come up with a story of a good friend in trouble that he asks SIS to help pro-bono? Would expose some of his history and life?

[Tecumseh]

Lorebane's chapter was ¥32,000 plus the Dodge Xenon. I looked it up a few days back because I would have sworn on my life we took the Hyundai instead. I've had that wrong for years.

Mato doesn't mind the big price tag. Let the kids poop themselves. That said, OOCly I was only expecting ¥40K, give or take.

I've actually been thinking about Mato's parents in recent days. We know who his mother is but she died in an auto accident. His genetic father is the question mark and I recently had some good ideas about who it is and the circumstances of his involvement with Mato's mother. Whether these come up or not within a chapter is somewhat secondary; I'm pleased to have thought of them for my own understanding.

[Jack_Spade]

100k might seem much, but as a payment plan it's not that much, considering US healtcare prices right now. And they are hiring matrix and magic specialists. I doubt those resources could be gotten legitimately for much less than that somewhere else.