i hope maybe someone logged those last few so we can get reposts? I didn't..

or are we going to take this opportunity to let it die in peace since posting has slowed remarkably of late? I personally think it was a great game, but can certainly understand that interest dies and priorities change so I'd be reluctantly willing to let it die a noble death.

I'm still enjoying the game, even though it's slow. Slow shall it ever be, I imagine, just because of the medium.

But, let's take the opportunity to take a roll-call. I know everybody likes the game, but please vote as to whether you'd like to keep playing it.

So far votes are:

krishcane: Aye
Miststlker: Aye

--K

Edit: FYI, the old threads are IC:CageFight and OOC:CageFight.

Glyph: Aye

it slowed down? I thought that was only because our GM had a life (should be a sin)

I'm all for continuing.. I think I'm getting a hang of my character (finally)... and she is showing at least some personality... (and is finally able to contribute)... jeesh

Well, that's enough "aye" votes for it to continue. We're only missing the Scrier. He can chime in whenever he's ready.

I'll start the IC thread later today.

Regarding the GM having a life, here are my photos from Mt. St. Helens. Now you can visualize the place.

--K

Edit: The new IC:CageFight thread is active now! The action is to Rat and Blackout.

And who is stuck as a witch in Bethlehem. Hoo boy, I don't envy you, my friend. My wife's family is from Allentown, and we spend a bit of time up there now and again. Not exactly pagan-rich country. I'm happy to provide a little entertainment for you.

--K

add another aye vote from an avid fan

Also, krishcane - read your mountaintrek and looked at all the pictures; awesome - wish I had been there, I love mountains! Oh, and a good thing you didn't go tumbling down that rockslide - we would have missed you (and this adventure, of course!)

Anyway, I'll let you get back to the story now

Err... Aye.

i hope you don't mind that i threw that one in there.. i know it's still combat time and all, if you have to, break it up into 3-word parts and make those my free actions for the next year

I don't mind. In gaming, reality makes exceptions for flavor. Would that real life worked that way.

--K

oro? I thought that it was...

human life is just an exception to reality added for flavor

I'd like to take this opporotunity to appologize for completely dropping off the face of the forums in mid-play a while back (Jimmy this be)... I just completed my Basic training with the Canadian Forces, which was the source of the drop off... and my net access wasn't too stellar there ($4 an hour, if I had access at all)... I seem to have missed a damn cool game, and crapped out on my own players for one I was starting... so for that I'm sorry... most definitly...

Can we work Jimmy back in later? I liked him.

yeah, he was pretty cool.


K - LOVE the shamanic mask if spell defence is something you think he can do without training, he's giving 1/2 to them and 1/2 to himself. i can't remember if it's something that has to be taught or not. If he can control it it would be more to them then himself.

Mistslkr -- glad you liked the mask! I love writing about that kind of flavor. I used to be a self-taught shaman myself, so I enjoy imagining these guys. Of course, SR lets the magic be a lot more showy and dramatic than it usually was in real life.

Also, good smarts on the illusion thing. You saw right through that. Other players might have too, but you were the only one who could do something about it. Lou is turning into a real team player.

DigitalH -- we understand that real life interferes. You are forgiven. Hope Basic Training went well! It seems that we would enjoy having Jimmy back in the game if you're interested. I don't have any way to work him in right now, seeing as how the team is underground in a volcano in the NAN, but when they get to civilization, he could get back in touch with them. If you don't have time for that, that's okay too.

In reality, Jimmy wouldn't have had a whole lot to do on this run anyway, although his genius intelligence might have helped in many ways. The next run will be considerably more urban.

--K

Isn't this just fascinating, watching these PCs make their way through all this stuff?

I like the social strain between Blackout and Lou. Hopefully it doesn't escalate much... the team needs teamwork to get through this one. They're doing well so far, but they're not out of the woods yet. Much to Kayla's concern.

--K

Blackout will get over it, I'm sure. He's probably just sulking.

can't take someone else being right, huh?



i never meant for Lou to be a non-team player, but it's kinda hard at the times when he's completely useless... or at least thinks he is.. for example: he may very well have been the best person to fight that statue, but odds of him actually having the moxi to go up and hit it are slim to none. he can't win a fight against a person, let alone a stone statue so i just played up his indecision and made him useful when he had something to do

sorry if i seem to be out to "save my [character's] own skin"

You're doing fine. There's no worries.

It looks like all the characters are in their respective locations, staring slack-jawed at some thing or another. When somebody wants to do something, I'm sure you'll let me know. It's no problem if they want to stand there for a while though -- it's in character to be confused.

-K

Ok, what happened to the game?

Is everyone else just sick of it?

nope, just kinda waiting... kinda at a loss as to WTF to do to get across a room "packed" with angry spirits.. and, as K saidm i immagine Lou would be as well.

/me shrugs

Hi guys,

I've been waiting to see if the team decides to "take a break" and let people wear off some stun damage, or if Blackout plans to enter the spirit-soaked room against Lou's warning. I thought about taking the helm of the story and just deciding, but then I thought it would be better for Blackout (as team leader) to make his decision and live (or not) with the consequences.

Also, I was out of town for the last few days with my friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

--K

Ok, fair enough.

If you want to write it up, I'll use Blackout's little impulsive trick, and have him go inside. I'm kinda snowed under with school work, otherwise I'd write something good.

Also, does anyone else sense an irony in the fact that they cancelled Sunday Meditation for a few weeks to make preparations for the Dalai Lama?

It's not really an irony, I think, but it does represent a built-in constant danger that religion has to guard against. The point of religion is to make people better at living life, but it can easily become self-absorbed with the mechanics of delivering the message. When that happens, people stop getting good at living life and start just getting good at delivering the message -- but the message is now hollow and pointless.

That said, I think they did a good job in this case of keeping the center functioning until the last possible moment. His Holiness' visit has an amazing number of complexities due to his status as a visiting "head of state" according to the US State Department. That imposed a lot of procedure, and the presence of the US Diplomatic Protection Corp (part of the State Department, I think).

On top of that, there's just the concert-type logisitics of 5000 visitors at a place that usually has a couple of dozen.

Back to the run.... I'll post Blackout's impulsive action for ya. I'm also leaving town this Friday for a couple more days, for some ninja training up in Ohio. We'll see what we can get in for the run today and tomorrow.... Once I'm back from that on Monday, I should be consistently in town for at least a few weeks.

--K

Yeah, true, didn't think about all the head of state, as well as diplomacy facets to the visit. Probably because the last time he was in Australia, the Prime Minister took a trip to China, who he was trying to buddy up with at the time.

Now that's an ultimate snub. Sad that the world has gotten to the point where you can't honor a man who does nothing with his life but promote peace and happiness, without irritating some trading partner. Even sadder when you choose not to irritate the trading partner.

I'll stop ranting now.

wow, either K's life is entirely too cool, or his eyes are too brown i'll assume the former until given reason otherwise

sounds prety cool, K. have fun.

Heh. I wondered if someone would wonder if it's all BS. Truth is stranger than fiction!

I go out of my way (sometimes way out of my way) to have an interesting life. I feel that it's very important. Visiting the Chamtse Ling temple dedication with His Holiness was a good case-in-point -- there was no logical reason to do it. I'm not a Tibetan Budddhist, I couldn't get a personal audience with His Holiness or anything, and there was no material benefit to going. It was a 12-hour drive each way, tickets were $75, and I had to be there all day to see him for a couple of hours. It wasn't even an initiation ceremony, where you get a cool title or something afterward.

However..... there's something magical about just being there for these things, about having the kind of life where I go and do these kinds of things. So I go do them -- I pay the money, I make the drive, I make it happen. It delivers a deep spiritual connection and contentment. It transforms my sense of self.

It also gives me fun stories and one-liners to tell my friends.

--K

I'm back!

---K

well i certainly hope you are covered head to toe in bruises

=> => => <-you!

welcome back, hope you had a good time, lots of pain and anguish you lucky curr

I am suitably bruised. In fact, I'm barely walking. We did about 13 hours of training over the course of 3 days. That is a lot.

Had a fantastic time, though. Our organization is growing quickly, and the quality of the people involved is just supernatural.

One of the best things about the national events like this is we got like 50+ black belts together (along with a hundred or so colored belts), so you get to see a vast variety of talents projected onto various races, genders, and body types.

My wife and I did a demo also, which was well-received. We got a lot of compliments on it. Mine incorporated a couple of strike defenses, flowing into a throw while the person thinks they're still punching you, and then into a mount on the ground, where they try to punch you again, at which time you choke them with their own arm. Good fun.

---K

oy. I used to practice 4 hours a day, 6 days a week but we were "light contact" practicing for that time. that was a workout. If you were doing full contact, as it sounds like... I can only imagine serves you right

Oh, goodness no, we weren't doing full contact. At least, not if "full contact" means hitting someone the way you would in a fight or a competition. We virtually never do that because people would end up hospitalized or dead.

We hit hard enough to penetrate and move the person's balance, but that's it. It's what I would call "annoying contact" -- attention-getting in the instant it happens, but no lingering pain as soon as the contact stops. Sometimes those are bruised the next day (especially if we went a little past where we meant to), but it's far, far less than "full-contact" would be.

Although, I sort of doubt the places who say they regularly train "full contact" -- that term must have a technical meaning that doesn't mean "hitting someone as hard as you possibly can", because that kind of training wouldn't last long.

--K

i'm sure "full contact" has as many meanings as "training" does our higher competitions [black and red (one under) belts only] were called "full contact" meaning if the person receiving the blow didn't "buckle" the blow was not scored. i never got into any of those tourneys, but basically if i land a solid kick to your gut and you take it, it didn't count as a point. you have to at least bend over from the blow a certain amount for me to get the point. details elude me on how far and all that to be counted as buckling. padding is worn so it wasn't as painful as it may sound, and you can easily be made to "buckle" with aimed strikes without pain, and that is what they were really going for, i think. a well placed shot is better then a full force one to the chest.

[edit] wow!! a full post with no typos that the spellcheck can find!! [other then the rediculous capitolized I, which is pointless and i refuse to do 90% of the time.] PARTY AT MY PLACE!!! [/edit]


[edit2] i used to go to SCA heavy fighter practices now THAT is full contact of course, you are wearing plate maille, but hey [/edit2]

Poke, poke, prod, prod....

Scrier, I think the team is waiting on you. They're sort of in the holding pattern. If Blackout agrees to wait, then we can fast-forward time until either Kayla wakes up or something comes to find you guys.

Or maybe Blackout wants to go on while the team rests, or leave Kayla behind, or whatever.

Since Kayla is unconscious, Lou is hesitant, and Rat is stunned, everyone is waiting on your call.

--K

Edit: On that note, I have to apologize to illogik that his character has been non-functional for real-time weeks now....

LOL... wish i had a chance to reply when he said to see if it was illusion

Grab his precious stick and toss it down the hall

Hrm... I just read that post on OOC.

Probably should have read that yesterday, would've made my call to stay come a lot quicker. Sorry all.

Hope nobody minds that I sort of jumped the plot forward a bit there, skipping over a few opportunities for small decisions... I'm still figuring out where the fine line on micro-decision-making for online gaming is.

--K

No problems, except I think Rat would be a bit more suspicious about the "magic" items being left out like Christmas presents - this Ehran guy isn't Santa. Just note that he won't be too attached to his "magic book" and won't hesitate to upgrade his loot to something else, especially since the one guy who can actually do magic wasn't even interested in it. I mean, Rat may be only average in Intelligence, and out of his area of specialty, but he is survivor-smart, and the combination of the items being left on a table to claim and Lou's total disinterest would make someone with an Intelligence of 2 suspicious. Right now, you can say he is playing dumb or something. But if Lou tries to claim a choice piece of loot later, Rat will quickly turn it around on him. "Nah, Lou, that's somethin' for a street bloke like me to hock. How about I give ya this magic book - prob'ly got some nice spells and drek for ya in it."

Gotcha. Rat knows it's probably worthless, but he's keeping it for potential barter later. If need be, he'll just chuck it -- especially if they actually run into Ehran.

By the way, I might lose power and be offline a couple days here. There's a Class 2 hurricane about to hit here.

--K

Good luck with the 'cane. I'm down in florida and when they started saying it was looking like we were getting it at class 5 we had more then a few people panicing hope the best for you and yours.

Hey thanks! We're over 100 miles west of the center path, so I think we'll just see 50 mph winds, maybe 60 mph tops. It's rainy and windy, and we'll lose power 'cause that happens if I sneeze too hard, but I get to work from home today, so we're all safe.

--K

i was watching msnbc on my lunch break at the deli and they had a reporter out on Virginia Beach and he literally got thrown off screen at one point when a gust hit him.. kinda cool, but at the same time.. not


stay safe.

How'd you guys weather the storm?

Man, it turned out to be almost nothing. We had maybe 40 mph winds for a few hours, lost power for 4 hours. No big deal. On par with a typical thunderstorm here. I guess we just slipped the worst of it.

I'm kind of a disaster-junkie, so I was a little disappointed, but it's good in the long run .

--K

So who wants to make the first move in the IC thread? I'm just waiting to hear from y'all -- I think I already narrated too much -- time to let the PCs take some actions, eh?

--K

damn, same thing happened with us with tropical storm henri, they said when it hit us it would be hurricane winds and thunderstorms for a week straight and all that jazz.. it never even rained the entire time





[edit -- read the IC post before continuing -- i edited it a few times so if you just were reading right after i posted, read it again ]


if he gets zapped, K can fill in the details. if not, he will finish his little run across the section a bit out of breath and rather embarrassed. [[hopes rat didn't botch whatever roll said it was safe ]]

Heh. Gotta love the media's ability for overstatement.

Question: Does Blackout see the what Rat sees?

Yes sir! He does indeed. Beautiful room, beautful woman.... he also notes the snack bar next to the fridge full of beer.

--K