Working on my reply. Just to be clear, in Adam's research, was "Terukazu" or "Kazama" his surname? My guess would be Terukazu, since the japanese say their surname first - but the data might have been entered the other way aroudn to conform with the othr employees. *shrug* Writing my post assuming tis Terukazu, but feel free to let me know otherwise and I'll update it.

BlackHat

Terukazu is given name. Kazama is family name. You were reading files in English, and translations usually conform to the reader's language, so you got his name Western style.
But since your Japanese skill is 1, it would be an easy mistake for Smith to make. Or at worst he thinks you're just addressing him by his family name, which he'd probably be more comfortable with in many ways, anyway. Or you can just edit it. Whatever.

Sledge CS Online

The kidnap victim is not blindfolded or anything?

DireRadiant

Yes, he IS blindfolded, and headjammed, just like Cal said.

Nice picture - did you build the character around the pix, or just get lucky and find the right image?

Mining babe glamour shots? Who'd'a thunk it.

And thanks for the char sheet link. I'm a real lo-tech hard-copy guy, but never hurts.

I posted - went with the assumption that Adam got it wrong, but oh well - this guy isn't in a possition to complain....

My Japanese is about as bad as Adam's. So I suspect there are a few mistakes in there... I dunno - but we can chalk it up to good roleplaying... and if not, Adam can use the internet too!

Oh! Jsut noticed... as of my last update to yo uabout Karma, Adam raised his Japaense to 2.. . I guess he's better than me.

That, and he's been meeting with the Yak's a bit?

Now both Sledge and I need translations!

BlackHat

Dude, pretty impressed when you shot back with Japanese in the IC. Was about to OOC you and ask if you had dumbed it down to simulate Smith's 1 in Japanese. Anyway, came off just right.

In game terms, I am confused about an update raising Japanese. I just rechecked your sheet that I have and it shows Japanese 1 after that big karma spend you did a week or so ago. I remember you making a point of upping your Italian, and I definitely updated your sheet....I also show no spendable karma for you at the moment after you raised your cracking skill. Did I miss an adjustment, or did I miss raising your Japanese along with all those other knowldege skills? I don't think so, I remember exactly the buys you made and they are all there on my sheet, but I do make mistakes, so am open to anything you can do to clarify things for me. For now, though, I have your Japanese at 1.

Woo...

Int 2 + Japanese 3 = 5
1 hit = 2 4 2 2 5

Maybe he wants to pee or something, that's threshold 1 conversation.

And is now the time to remind that charisma linked skills are capped by language skill rating when using another language?

It was one of the PMs titled "Dad" or something. Reforwarded it, at the bottom there is a paragraph about raising some knowledge skills based on the time Adam worked for Franco... Lemme know if it makes sense after the PM, or if I made a mistake.

As for my roll to understand this next bit (I think a roll is appropriate, as it is rapid-fire - and it would take me a while to figure it out IRL):
Int (4) + Japanese (1, maybe 2) = 5 (maybe 6) dice
4,3,6,3,2,3 = 1 hit (either way).

Ooooo, good catch Dire. I hadn't remembered that social skills are capped by language skills (until now). Guess it means I won't be burning through any edge during THIS encoutner. (That is, unless I can convince him to talk to me in my native laguage... the bastard).

As for Sledge's reaction to the situation... is her glaring and hefting of her hammer intentionally threatening? Like, should Smith be worried that she's gonna start taking out college students? Or is it meant to be more subtle (like nervousness)?

I'm resisting the urge to hand the guy in the chair a large stein of beer and letting him know the Terra First cell that captured him has just found out what they do to cows in Kobe. Then telling him to drink up, and show him the hammer....

Okay, on my lunch-break I am looking over the guy's responce. I think I almost understand it in a broken sort of way - with the aid of various internets I think I might be ableto approximate Smith's comprehension-level, but if I got things totally wrong (IRL), it could be unjustly bad for my character, so I'd rather wait for adamu's response to my translation roll.

Spoiler'd for those who don't want my bad Japanese to corrupt their interpretation of the scene.

Okay, I have my response typed up - but its really going to depend on whether or not ADAM thinks the guy said "I do not understand English" or "I hate speaking in English, and barely understand it."... So, waiting for our GM and translator.

We can always resort to the almost universal Language of Pain.

Sledge

Okay, just a reminder that IC Sledge was not told about this kidnapping part. She was told about the "mouth", Mr Smith now, that would handle the guard at the facility.

Of note, on the way here did anyone change their commcodes at all? And are the black van and the kidnapping team broadcasting at all?

@DireRadiant and BlackHat
Just remember, no matter how bad you guys might work together, you havent resorted to shooting at each other with a LMG yet.

@JD
Since Caittie just got out of VR as you were slingin her over your shoulder, you can feel her move some on her own and she groans a bit because she isnt used to being handled like that.

Description of Caittie

She is a around 62" tall and light build. Her long red hair is usually pulled back into a ponytail that goes down to the small of her back, but currently it is loose and wild. She has dyed the two long bangs that frame her face a pinkish color, as they draw your attention to her face, then piercing green eyes. She usually wears a pair of silver wirerim AR glasses that she doesn't need. Her eyesight is fine without them.
As for clothing, she is wearing a pair of grey cargo pants, a black shirt, and tan work boots. (Get your mind out of the gutter, of course she is wearing underwear you letch ) She also has a pink T-shirt and light blue long sleeve shirt that are in her backpack.

Here is a pretty good representation of her.

@Abbandon and JD

AH! The thought just occurred to me, since you guys opened the hatch around 2 turns before I planned, I dont have my bag or glasses! Damnit...

Konsaki i wouldnt worry, I dont think we plan on taking off really fast. And if we do i have some plans i cant talk about just yet...

Also, adamu, when you get back, if we try continueing this conversation in Japanese, how do you want to handle it? I can sort of understand some japanese - but there is no way I could piece together a coherent conversation relating to security protocol or ecoterrorism. Mr. Smith potentially could (although, I would probably expect a penalty to the roll if for no other reason than the topic is a little obscure).

In any case, I was thinking, I could post (OOC or PM) what Mr. Smith wanted to say, and you could do your japanese magic and post the conversation IC... but I don't think that would work as well if this were some other language (like, if we were talking to a Russian)... and is obviously a buncha work for you.. I guess the question is how you wanted to handle multi-lingual conversations IC, in the general case.

Another idea might be to shift to just posting the intention of the conversation, or type it up in english, but color it differently or something. I dunno.

Its cool to use the actual language where we can, but I can't imagine its going to be maintainable. I'm already having trouble trying to cross-check the responses I am considering for Mr. Smith's next post - and he'll probably end up speaking gibberish anyway. I'd be completely lost if I were ever in this situation with just about any other language that Mr. Smith has dabbled in.

Lol, Turns out I was blind. Mr. Smith totally has japanese 1 not 2... doesn't change his last roll - and makes my last IC post a lot more on-target. Go me.

@Adamu
Are we out of turned based play now that there is going to be conversations going on?

Konsaki & Friends

Yeah, with Abbandon's last IC post I think we are off initiative. If Cerberus goes for the woman's gun or something we'll have to resolve that, but no way it'll last more than a turn.

That said, I will be keeping careful track of how much time I think is going by...

Abbandon

Sweet social skill roll. Based on the skill descriptions, I have to say what you are doing is more a Leadership test than Negotiation, but you have the same dice either way, so no problem there.
But as some others have recently pointed out, social dice are limited by language skill, which I guess you can see by now means that leaves you with just your Charisma. And after such hefty modifiers as "just shot subject", you just don't have any dice to roll at all. In roleplaying terms, my last post was intended to portray the sum total of all this.

Good luck, I mean that - but let's hold off on further IC until JD and Konsaki get a few words in.

And by the way - SWEET descriptive post.

BH & DR

Okay, you both got one hit on your language test. For that you get what BlackHat came up with on his own, with a sharp awareness that you are guessing and probably at least half of what you think you heard is totally wrong.

I had no idea using a little real Japanese would generate so much interest. BlackHat, you are totally right - it is NOT sustainable for the whole game. I just happen to speak some Japanese and thought it would add a sense of realism/color.

Whenever foreign languages come up, I'll try to throw in as many real words as I can, but it's all just for fun (look at BlueRondo's thread recently - that is what it will look like when I don't know the language!) I will more often than not just say - he says in Russian that blah blah blah (as much as anyone understands, anyway). Even in this scene, we will probably get to a point where I puss out and just write English.

So as a baseline, don't stress it - use the dice + English. Other colors would be cool for 'translated' words, sure.

But if you are into the whole thing, naturally feel free to do whatever research you can. In fact, I don't mind you using whatever you can dig up on your own (aside from asking a Japanese friend - gotta say no to that until your skill is a 5 or so!). To that end, I will guarantee the accuracy of what I post - I have my wife check it! - but at the same time, it might not all be Japanese you'll find in any dictionary. I don't think you'll get real far with the Internet, anyway, especially since I am sending in Roman transliteration - English/French or English/German, sure, but East-to-West translation - hell, I think the idea of language softs is more far-fetched than cyberarms or VR. Not saying that I'm disallowing them - you'll get your full benefit per the rules - but I think everyone in SR that uses them knows their limitations - been mentioned quite a bit in older canon - as in, Sledge has a rating 3 program and still has only the barest idea what this guy said.

IC in Japanese if you want - like you said, your REAL skill is the same as your character's, so it'll be cool. But fun as that is, this is the exception, and the dice must reign supreme...get a great roll and I'll help you out. Glitch and I'll help you out, too.....

Oh, hey, does this come through on y'all's end?
漢字テストです。読めますか。

Too bad. Cuz it came through on my computer even in your quote box. Whatever - I am hopeless with computers - all that stuff you just said, that might as well have been another language to me.
Well, I wasn't going to start posting Teru's speech that way anyhow, but it might be good for documents or signs or something someday. But I was afraid it wouldn't go through for everyone.

Konsaki

By the way, thanks for the picture. They just help so much with the visualization. The closer we all are to a shared vision of things, the better the RPG experience.

And it's simply a sweet picture.

@Blackhat

Sledge is offering access to her rating 3 japanese linguasoft. Which may prove useful. For example raising the charisma linked skill cap to 3 for Mr Smith.

Cerberus

ok im on pause hehe. Just tell me when its safe to go ahead.

Oh! I misunderstood. I didn't see that you were offering up the whole comm.... I thought you were just forwarding me a connection to access your program from my commlink (in which case, I would be limited by my commlink's craptacularness).

Also, there would be the issue of the interface (right now, I am just using gloves, contacts, and earbuds) In order to get a braint-to-comm interface going, I would need your trodes... how is Sledge connected now? Trodes or datajack? or something else?

After mroe thought, using a linguasoft would limit me from using my edge to understand tha language - but hopefully with a rating 3 skill I wouldn't need to as much. I don't think it would limit me from using hte charisma-linked skills that are normally capped by my language... so it would be a pretty good solution...

Edit: Mr. Smith acutally has trodes - but I didn't list them in the stuff I brought (as I didnt' realyl expect them to be useful). So, if you'd rather not offer over your main connection to your own comm, I understand, and I'll just have SMith decline since he doesn't have DNI to his own comm anyways.

Implanted commlink.

As for security, who said your getting the admin account, just getting a user account that has the rights to the linguasoft.