Spare points!?

Hand 'em over!

Anyone have a definitive read on how Gymnastics Dodge works... to me it seems like it should take a Complex Action (Full Defense) and be pooled like this:

(REA + Gymnastics + Dodge)

So it's something you would want to do if you had a higher Gymnastics than you had Dodge, but not something that makes Gymnasts crazy good at Full Defense (REA + D + D + Gym). The reason I interpret it this way is because the rules say Full Defense can be taken as Full Dodge, Full Parry OR Gymnastics Dodge. And the reason I ask is because I'm working out a generic mechanics page for folks (ala Silo/JJ, thanks, pal).

EDIT: Or is it just (REA + Gymnastics) ... that sorta blows.

Here's my take on the group contacts front.

I'm not willing to merge or give up "Dox" as a personal contact. Basically I don't think it's a wise idea to make all the group contacts the architypes that everyone wants to have and merge them because there are "too many" No one says they have to be inside our turf, and besides, if there isn't something for "backstory" and or "side plots" outside of just who the gang knows....Meh.

Besides, if we throw all of our contacts into "shared" contacts, what happens if something bad happens to them. What happens if because of their affiliation to the gang, Nurse's parents get wiped out and then there goes our street doc. Probably unlikely, but know knows just how sadistic TG will be with us

Besides, there's personal ties with that contact to Halo, not to mention she's a key part of keeping her alive. Not that another "street doc" contact wouldn't do that, But I like the fleshing out of Halo I've been able to do on paper and in my head because of that relationship.

Ok, I'm babbling... but I'm also wicked sick Sorry if it's not totally coherent up there. hopefully I made *some* sense.

@ GM

Alright, well on Aziz's turn, he's going to attack the lead orc

Speaking of generic mechanics, etc.

Is anyone thinking that the spreadsheet that TG provided needs more than one area to input rolls?

I tried copying it, but that didn't work and I am not a macro guru. What I was thinking is that if it had, say 10 sections like the one that it has, I could put in my common rolls and when it comes time, just hit "roll."

I think that would be especially helpful for mages since it takes 3 or 4 rolls to do anything.

Say - I missed that spreadsheet... where was it?

That makes Gymnastics WAY more powerful than my initial take on this. Not that I mind.

@ Halo
I hope You´ll come to better health, soon (very awkward expression, how do I say this in normal english?)

@ merging / group-inizing contacts
As I posted before, I don´t want all contacts to be merged and/or group-inized. These were just some sugestions, what could be done, as I myself had a very limited idea of what contacts are out there, what needs to be added and what would be plausble to share. Some redundance is good, also storry & bg-hooks should outwaight considerations for group contacts. This were just all oportunities I saw (without taking bg into account), never meant to have them all realized.

@ group contacts
I think it´s good, to limit them to L4. I´d even say 3 makes more sense, how many people are big buddys with an entire gang and not in that gang? I also think its plausible, that these contacts would use L/2 for some situations, basically those that are not the contacts profession (i.e. for a Doc full L for haggling over a price, L/2 favours or information).

@ shared personal contacts
How about making characters with a shared contact only pay once for the C Rating but every character has to pay on his own for Loyalty. I.e. Tao buys Talismonger 3/6 for 9 bp, Raven pays 5 bp to get him at 3/5. This way, thay are not as cheap as group contacts, but also would not have the mechanical disadvantages (Vegas points still aply, if the contact dies of orbital cow bombardment, both pc loose). Sounds cool?

I think whith these rules, there could allyo be shared personal/group contacts, without being unbalancing, but I have not thought this through.

@Frank about Magic

Yea, I know this, but the initial idea was that he can´t cast/summon high force. It was only that with the rules as I missunderstood them, a powerfocus seamed as to good a deal to pass by, especially since I´d probably never get one in-game.
If you think a Magic 1 wizkid is only slowing the gang down in any situation, so be it, but considder his fantaftic dicepools for pool and massaging .

EDIT:
Besids, scraping together 20 bp would probably crush the character concept or back ground.

Um maybe I'm clueless here, but Gymnastics is usable only in full defence whereas dodge is usable in any situation. So if you only have gym and no dodge. Usualy you just pair up whichever one is highest of the lot. Between Melee skill dodge gym.

No Melee Skill

Full Defence (Gym)
-- Melee = Reaction + Gymnastics + Gymnastics
Full Defence (Dodge)
-- Melee = Reaction + Dodge + Dodge
Full Defence (Melee Skill) (Assuming higher than dodge)
--Melee = Rection + Skill + Skill

Normal Melee (Gym)
-- Melee = Reaction
Normal Melee (Dodge)
-- Melee = Reaction+Dodge
Normal Melee (Melee)
-- Melee = Reaction+Skill

If you have melee skill then you just use whichever is higher between dodge/melee skill. I don't see how Gym is better?

Alternate proposal for "group" contacts. How about this:

There are no group contacts.
All contacts belong to one character at game start (other folks can forge relationships later on)
There is a "group contact point pool" which everyone can donate to and anyone (with group consent) can draw points from to purchase a contact.

Thus Nurse's parents might be partially paid for with someone else's bp, but they would be her contact.

As far as the die roller goes, it's a not a bastion of good coding practices. It's not easily expandable, and the code doesn't even approach optimized. It would be possible, though tedious, to expand it to include several areas for rolls. If you're really interested, I'll tell you how, but it is quite involved.

But you could take a Ranged combat specialisation in Dodge, which serves to make at least some sense to take dodge and mele instead of gym and mele, if you are not that hot to jump.

EDIT:

@ TinkerGnome
I don´t get it, are the group pool points spend later in the game, or is it basically, that one player gives another one bp to boost his contacts, so when they later get to know that contact, it will be stronger, instead of both puting thair points into minor contacts, which would be available from the start for both, but not as powerfull?

Ah okay, now if dodge applied to normal ranged defence which it should logicaly but for some reason does not then dodge would actualy be usefull.

Which leads to that I should drop Dodge and get Gym but I just can' t see 2BY4 doing flick flacks. Though a troll doing a tumbling run and landing on someone at the end could be rather painfull

Yes you can take ranged spec but that only helps when doing full defence against ranged, and does not apply in normal combat.

Thats what you´d have Mele for.

You know, Thanee, I just realized, that you seam to have a post icon smily, whith every post, which is ok, the creapy part is, that it anoys me

EDIT: Now, that´s crapy

My suggestion:

Remove all personal contacts from the 'Group Contacts' page altogether. After all, they are a personal contact, and have little or nothing to do with the gang.

Second, all group contacts should be remade, we'll pool our points and discuss who should be used as a group contact and what they're loyalty rating to the 'group' should be.

My example in the case of Treeno. For me, he's a loyalty 4 as I tinker around with his machines. To the group I suggested he was only a 2 or 3 as we hang out at the Zo e and he's gotten to know us all a bit. He's more than just a drug dealer to some of us.
So, tonight I'll nuke the whole page, and we can put down concepts of what we want for 'group' contacts. From there, if anyone wants to volunteer their contact to group, then we can do so, and then as a group sort out what they're connection rating is to the gang.

This is how I originally understood group contacts as to be.

Changed Auran due to change in group contacts. added a personal contact and a positive quality.

Nuke it all and start over!

Duplicate contacts are a good idea. Some will die or no longer want to associate with the gang.

I'll allow assensing by default for someone who can percieve.

TG, I have a question about the conflict in the stuffer shack. It seems like the store robbers are all equippped with firearms. However, on the wiki it says:

Vegas: Who needs cold meds when you have muay thai? A few shots to the head and I'm as dizzy as if I drink a whole bottle of Nyquil!


And, yeah, I second that question about the floating IRC chat. Can we all log into that, or what?

I can't see why you wouldn't be able to login to the gang channel, but you have to know that someone's there. CD did a public broadcast, which is just bound to get Wyrms attention.

Maybe we should make one extra IC thread just for the Matrix-Gangtalk.

Bye
Thanee

why would we have to know someone is there?

if you got nothing better to do, i could totally see just having the chat 'window' open in the background.

in fact, i've done that before if i am just playing around on my comp, and there's a chat that i know someone might join and i'd rather chat than do whatever else i'm doing...

plus the chat program really ought to let you know how many people are logged in before you sign in anyways...

Overall, that does sound like a good idea, IC thread-wise could complicate matters, unless we start to time-stamping all IRC lines.. even then, it would require some significant cross-linking to keep it relevant with the events.

Time-stamps are a must, anyways.

Bye
Thanee

Yea, I´d think its more convenient, to post the IRC in the regular IC thread, but I´d sugest giving IRC posts a seperate location header. I did so with TF´s communication and it was not much effort, I also think, it was quiet easy to reat, amI wrong in this? So, when Your character communicates over the Comlink, I´d sugest everybody posts it with a Timestamp, "Location" (Gang chanal or specific gangers personal comlink) and posting character.

yeah, i think we're definitely entitled to deliver a beating to any gangers that comm into our turf and start robbing places and such.

and to take away their toys and make them cry, of course

If some ganger thought he would get away by dropping his gun, there are more non-fatal means of taking him down. After all, how can you beat up and put fear of the gang into someone if they are dead... besides you'll want whatever gear he's carrying, plus whatever loot he snagged so that you could return it to the store.
(after all, they pay protection - we'll need to set a price on that too - to keep them 'safe)

Eh, since the group contacts page was deleted, and I'd rather keep the contacts I made up, I'm just removing my group contacts points from the pool and changing my contacts to personal contacts instead. I don't really want to shuffle around gear and attributes again if people decide they'd rather not have any back up street docs, or something like that.

I never said that we shouldn't have more than one contact of one type, its just that we need to better sort out what contacts the gang as a group can rely on..

I´ve got the feeling, my intention was compleetly misunderstood

I didn´t want anyone to drop a contact already linked to his bg.

I didn´t want to say there should be no redundant contacts.

I didn´t want to say, all contacts should be made group contacts.

I simply wanted to point out some posibilities to solve the problem, that some group contacts had not enough points dedicated.
This was the first problem I perceived.

The second was the problem of chaired personal contacts.
Redundant contacts are great, but some mutual friends among specific gangers would allso be cool. Now making them as cheap as group contacts were, makes them overpowered, thus i sugested paying for C-Rating pooled and for L-Rating seperate.

But, there were a lot of contacts, and deciding on the fate of each one will probably take a really long time. At this point I feel like I'd rather focus on playing the game instead of not knowing if my given contact really exists or not. We already thought of a bunch of contacts once, but now it looks like we're fixing to have to make them up all over again, only this time by group committee.