Karma awards for my players:

Morgannah: 4 pts (Dec 13th - Jan 09th)
BClements: 9 pts (Dec 13th - Jan 09th) [GM Bonus]
WinterRat1: 9 pts (Dec 13th - Jan 09th) [GM Bonus]
BanditF50: 4 pts (Dec 13th - Jan 09th)
TiredRonin: 4 pts (Dec 13th - Jan 09th)
Shadowrunner13: 4 pts (Dec 13th - Jan 09th)
DireRadiant: 5 pts (Dec 13th - Jan 09th)

Cthulhu/grendel: Been out of town the past few days. Will have a post tomorrow for each of you

ZOMG

Congratulations WinterRat1!

Going low access from now until 0800 Monday 29 Jan 07. Posting will be sporadic at best. Karma awards in a week.

Back online, full speed.

Just a heads up...

Basically I am gonna be out of pocket and mostly away from computers starting possibly as early as Wed. 1/31 and until Tues. 2/6 of next week. I have a local con this weekend and I have a show that I'm doing on Monday that is a really big deal for my personal business so.... yeah. GM's feel free to heard my characters along if necessary. I'll try to pop on when I can, but I make no promises, hence me stating I'll be out for a week. biggrin.gif

Sorry for those that see this multiple times.

Nice reminder, Cthulhu

Heh, hope I wasn't rude, I figured I'd just talk to myself for a while to stay occupied.

And now that I read your IC post:

Woot, Nastasya is already cool and a smooth operator. And the snow thing was nice.

Oh couple quick questions:
What was Pasha's supposed to be, heh
What does I'llich mean, I would guess "friend" but I'm pretty ignorant and too lazy for a google search I'm sure would turn it up.
Should I bold the names of characters like Carmen that I just make up on the spot and likely won't have too great an impact on the game? I noticed you did.

Heh, you pretty much nailed what I was looking for with Pasha's. I don't have much to add to your description.

The I'llich thing is a patronymic; in at least some of the Russian writing I've read, the men are referred to as (for example) Pytor, the given name, and Alexsanrovich (son of Alexander). I think its more used for casual conversation, from what I understand of Russian. I try to do it for people that will know who you are, and some of your background (and Nastasya would). That isn't much by the way: Spanish is more my second language and I barely can pick out Russian phrases. If you've got anything to add to that, don't hesitate to point it out.

(also, I just grabbed I'llich out of the air. You've got a better idea of Leo's dad's name is. I'll edit if you wish)

As for Carmen, if you bring up a name, it's better to bold it than not. He/She may be important down the line, and we do try to keep some record of these things

Hey Everyone -

Just an FYI that I'm not dead or anything. I have been battling bronchitis for the last 2 months straight and work has been horrendous, so I haven't had time to do anything other than work and be sick. Just letting you all know I'm still here and will try to get back in the game as soon as I can. Hope to be back soon.

Just take good care of yourself mate.

Roll me an Electronic Warfare + Scan test for Litany please.

Do Agents get to use Pilot for EW... nope! Does Litany have EW,.. nope! Who knew it would be an important skill in this dawning wireless age?

in any case, Scan 4 = 2 hits , 3 2 5 6

Roger.

Also, Gen Con is a mere 104 days away. Start your planning now as airfare is reasonably cheap but hotel rooms are going fast. I plan on hosting the second annual Living in the Shadows Presidium at the convention center again since it worked out so well last year. Come in costume as your LitS character and you'll get extra karma.

I did that offer once, and two years in a row a player showed up on the halloween week SR session dressed in character... in the long run it was a not so subtle cry for help... well, not so much a cry for help as a sign of things to come.

Gencon, a chance for my aunt's favorite nephew to show up and crash in one of their empty six guest bedrooms.

Wait, how is GenCon (I assume we're talking about Indy) only 104 days away?

It's not until Aug 16-19, if I recall correctly.

March: 31 days
April: 30 days
May: 31 days
June: 30 days
July: 31 days

That right there is over 150 days, not counting the remainder of February or the first half of August. Am I missing something Grendel?

Let me say that I HIGHLY recommend going to GenCon Indy if at all possible. Bandit, Ronin, DireRadiant, Grendel and myself were all there last year and we had a blast. It sounds like DireRadiant is planning on going again, Grendel will of course be there, and I can confirm that Bandit, Ronin, and myself will definitely be there as well. Come and find out the origin of 'El Orco's Angels' and be a part of making new hilarious memories in the process!

It was a great time meeting everyone and having a chance to game in the flesh with fellow LITSers, and just the atmosphere of the con itself is fantastic. To everyone who couldn't make it last year, I definitely think it would be worth your while to do your best to attend this year. We'll hope to see you all there!

I'm actually going to try and see if I can come this year. I mean... I am coming from a little further away than most of you

Excellent! I missed last year, but I'm there this year.

Hey, I guess I'll post the list here cause it didn't fit fluidly into my post. Let's see what she says about my rude requests.

Ingram Smart
2 Clips across the board (Regular, Gel, EX)
Some small pistol with a clip for appearances. The Colt America L36 is cheap as hell, so that.
Black Urban Explorer

If the favor doesn't work out I was just hoping she'd have them ready for when I'm a super wealthy shadowrunner to cut down wait times eventually.

Karma awards for my players:

Morgannah: 5 pts (Jan 10th - Feb 13th)
BClements: 10 pts (Jan 10th - Feb 13th) [GM Bonus]
WinterRat1: 10 pts (Jan 10th - Feb 13th) [GM Bonus]
BanditF50: 5 pts (Jan 10th - Feb 13th)
TiredRonin: 5 pts (Jan 10th - Feb 13th)
Shadowrunner13: 5 pts (Jan 10th - Feb 13th)
DireRadiant: 5 pts (Jan 10th - Feb 13th)

Yo. My character is a new addition to the LitS universe. I'd like to introduce myself for those of you that might not know me.
The name's Konsaki and I'm in a few of the other active games on this forum. I like to RP out alot of the surroundings of my characters and usually type alot more text than needed, but I think it adds to the feel of the game. I try to make it more like you are reading a good book, but I'm a little biased on whether it's good or not. Heh.

The character I'm playing is Leon Mordred, an ex-ganger who is living out his fractured life the best he can. Please excuse the mess while I try to work out his personality.

I have the first post up right now and if you read it, you are probably scratching your head right now. I'll just say that more of his story will be out in the open soon.

I hope we have a good time together in the LitS universe.

Welcome Konsaki!

Welcome aboard the crazy train!

Ach, your name will confuse and bewilder our readers it is so close to mine!

Welcome to the game.

Hmm... Hopefully it isnt too much trouble.

The cat's out of the bag, so to speak.

Yeah... I should be killed for that one...

Sorry for the delay; I've been doped up on muscle relaxers over the weekend. Should be caught up, post and karma wise, this evening.

I think Ludi is starting to feel very lonely....

Well I stopped getting emails from *Scrap*about Ivan and we were just about to meet. Any chance anyone wants to pick him up? I very much wanted to play him. I pretty much quit the boards, except LitS, then slip went awol on me

OH MY GOD! IT LIVES!
Hey Shadow

Hey Juan, hows it going. Yeah I live. Pretty much been dedicating my time to family and my Screen play, so not a lot of time for the boards. I had a conversation with Grendel the other day and I very much want to play Ivan again.

*Confused*

Um was I supposed to do anything with Ivan?

I think he meant Scrap.

Thanks Mr. Juan. That makes more sense.

I think a lot of us have kind of fallen out of checking in on the game.

WR1 is a little busy with Tax Season and his upcoming wedding and all, so we are kind of in a holding pattern.

I hope to never see a fight as big as the one Scrap and Max are in again though. Game just kind of bogs down when we have that many PC's and NPC's involved.

My apologies to all, I have been battling an unknown biological agent for the past week and have been too afflicted to post coherently. Karma and storyline posts will be up by the end of the week.

Apologies to my players, and grendel. I'm unmedicated and back to full speed.

Welcome back Shadow

Karma

Chulhu449 (12/29 to 2/25; ): 8 points

Konsaki (2/16 to 2/25): 2 points.

I have just sent the LITS GM Staff an email regarding the general slowdown in LITS for the past several months. Expect a post from me in the next couple days with steps we intend to take to get LITS as a whole back on track and back up to full speed. We apologize for the general slowness on LITS related threads lately, and we thank all of you for your patience .

Got it mate. I'll have a nicely written and ann tidy up reply for you tomorrow

Hey Everyone,

First, let me apologize for my continued absence. For the sake of disclosure, the following things have been on my plate lately:

1. Sick since November
2. Job Situation is currently highly in flux (translation: strong possibility I will be switching jobs at some point in March)
3. My upcoming marriage in September
4. All the other real life stuff we all get to deal with.

Is any of this a good reason for me to be away so long? No. I'm sorry to my players and fellow GMs I haven't been able to do much posting for the last several months. As you will see below though, I haven't been idle regarding LITS.

During this time, I was able to do a lot of thinking and watching from the sidelines, and I've come to the conclusion it's time for some serious revamping of the LITS roster.

Almost all the slowdown can be attributed to player and/or GM attrition, and it's gotten out of hand. Without ascribing blame to anyone, here are a few examples:

1. ASVW has changed GMs multiple times and a player roster of 5 has dwindled to 1 regular player.

2. The Warehouse Fight was originally designed and written for 6 players (Cao Jaan, Blaze, Alleycat, Scrapheap, Max, Knight) which ended up dropping to about 0.5 of a player (a scaled back Scrapheap due to RL issues) before Slipshade returned.

3. Mister Juan has been idle for over half a year, and Shadow has been inactive for an undetermined period of time.

4. Grendel's vast GM talents are going virtually unused as 4 of his players are stuck in ASVW, one is in the down part of their usual up/down cycle (Morgannah) one has had RL stuff going on (bclements). Only DireRadiant can really be termed active.

The list goes on and on, but in the end, the number of players and GMs who have been forced to juggle, change hands, and move around has gotten out of hand.

I will be honest. From a player standpoint, it was disheartening to have ASVW slow down to a virtual standstill because the GMs changed hands so many times and players simply stopped posting.

From a GM standpoint, a scene as large as the Warehouse Fight sucks beans to run as is. When you're down to half a player, it's difficult to see the point because there isn't anyone around to even enjoy it.

So I understand the perspectives from both sides of the line and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the constant attrition of absent and changing GMs and players takes its toll on continuity, fun, and enthusiasm.

Here's what we're going to do. We still don't have a long term solution for the inevitable need of players and GMs to vary their level of involvement in LITS (which let me add, I completely understand), but right now, we'll settle for a short term fix to get LITS back on its feet before moving on to the long term issues.

As of now, the official active LITS GM staff consists of 4 people:

- WinterRat1
- Grendel
- Bclements
- Mister Juan (in his usual special project capacity)

Sedna and Scrapheap have been away for extended periods of time and have their own RL situations to deal with. At present, we have no idea when or even if they will be able to return in their full capacity. We will burn that bridge when we get there. For now, consider them to be on inactive status until they have a chance to get their real life business calmed down and are able to better decide their level of involvement.

With that decided, we are going to allocate the players among the three GMs with as little shuffling/changing as possible. Our intention is not to disrupt continuity, it's to make sure all of us have a reasonable workload so we don't have BC trying to juggle a run and new players I keep handing him while Grendel is twiddling his thumbs on the sideline. Special emphasis will be given on getting 'orphaned' players (players whose GM is no longer on the active roster) back in the game and on track.

Regarding players, we are asking everyone on the LITS roster to honestly evaluate how much they are willing and able to be a regular poster in LITS. We understand that stuff comes up, and sometimes you have to step away from the game for a while but will be both willing and able to make a full return. Several current players and GMs have done this, some of them more than once. Certainly we are willing to accommodate you to the fullest extent possible.

However, when things get to the point that the majority of LITS grinds to a halt for an extended period of time, that tells us that it's time to reevaluate where everyone is as an individual. It's not fair to the people who really want to play to be forced to stop playing because they need to wait on others who have chosen to drastically reduce their involvement in LITS.

Getting down to specifics, here's the plan. Our goal is to have LITS and all related games/threads/functions fully up and running again at a normal speed by beginning to mid-April. To that end, each GM will have to make a decision how to handle their current list of players. Specifically, whether to retain each player as a full active member or downgrade them to inactive and place their characters on NPC status.

I am not privy to all discussions or interactions between GMs and their players, so I will leave that call to each GM. Where multiple GMs have been involved (e.g. Grendel is GMing for WinterRat1, Bandit, TiredRonin, and Shadowrunner13, but all those players have been in ASVW with bclements for a substantial period of time) I would like all involved GMs to come to a consensus on what to do about the player.

Again, this will be entirely at the discretion of each GM. So for example, if Grendel has been talking to Morgannah, has a general idea of what she's up to, and is fine with her on-again/off-again style of play, and he decides to keep her as a fully active PC on his roster, that's his call. On the other hand, if he hasn't heard from her in months, has a problem with her disrupting the flow of his storylines, etc., and decides to remove her from the active roster, placing her character on NPC status, that's his call too.

The idea is that both player and GM should come to a reasonable understanding of where their players are at, their willingness and ability to be involved, and come to a mutual agreement on how to proceed going forward in a way that will not cause other players and GMs to have to slow down as a result of that player's playing speed. I will not involve myself except in cases where the player and GM cannot agree on what to do going for. For example, if Grendel wants Morgannah off the active roster and she disagrees with that decision, either party may appeal to me for a final ruling.

To help the GMs facilitate their management of their active rosters, I would like everyone on the LITS roster to let their GMs know their intentions regarding future LITS involvement. Since we're going to try to get up to speed by the beginning of April, and that includes giving the GMs time to get reorganized and back on track, I'm giving everyone until the 19th of March (two weeks from this post) to let their GM know where they stand. Non-response will leave the decision entirely up to the GM, and any appeals to me on that decision will be heavily weighed against that non-response.

If you don't think you can post regularly, please let us know. As I said, we understand that things change, and maybe sometimes it's for the best to reevaluate where everyone is at. If things change again in the future and you want to come back and put your character back on the active roster as a PC again, as long as you can live with what the GM decides your character has been up to while an NPC in your absence, we're more than willing to discuss that with you when the time comes.

I don't want to be hard on anyone, and if you can't start up at full speed right away at the beginning of April, that's fine. Maybe you're in the middle of a move, but you know you still want to play and can commit to playing regularly, but not until June. That's cool. Again, communication with your GM and fellow players is the key. If I know Player A is going to be out for a month, I can go to Player B and ask if they mind waiting for a month, or running something solo not related to Player A. But if Player A just drops out of sight, doesn't respond, post, reply, or otherwise do anything, I figure they'll be back eventually and will wait…and wait…and wait…and…you get the idea.

That's been happening too much in the past several months (on the side of various players and GMs) and I want LITS as a whole to get back on track. Please note that examples above are NOT intended to single anyone out or imply that so-and-so is responsible for such-and-such problem. My point is simply that LITS has gotten slow to the point of being at a virtual standstill in some places, and it's not fair to the players and GMs who want to play to have to sit around and wait for those who don't.

As in all things, sometimes you have to step back and reevaluate where you're at, and this is LITS's time to do. Please take the time to consider where you are currently at, where you would like to be with respects to LITS going forward, and let us know. All we ask is that you be honest regarding your future participation and communicate that to us so we can move forward. Thank you for your cooperation and patience, we hope to get reorganized and back on track as soon as possible, revitalizing LITS and returning it to the game that you all know and love.

All the best,

WinterRat1 and the LITS GM Staff

WinterRat,

Question, my GM was Bandit, but I see he's no longer even on your GM list, does that mean I default to BC whose been running ASVW since Shadow bailed out?

Who do I contact to discuss my posting style and amounts etc?

Scrap was my GM, and we had a pretty extensive email game going till about 3 months ago when RL got out of hand for both of us. I would really like to play Ivan and be involved with LitS. I could resonably post 2-3 times a week.

WR1

I too can reasonably post 2-3 times a week. Usually one day to read post and one day to write. Weekends I am pretty much out.

I will post more frequently during combat though to speed things along (they are shorter posts typically).

I'd post more often, but then Grendel will kill my character off faster.