Hmm - I guess it would be unsporting to hassle you with something you thought of but I didn't, so no - just plates and tags, no conventional logo.

EVERYONE - starting tomorrow I will be almost entirely offline for two weeks or more.

Of course I will post whenever I can find my way onto the Internet, but you really should not count on me until mid-July.

Feel free to role-play amongst yourselves...seriously, now's the time you can do some of that without worrying you are slowing the game down.
In that regard, my timing really is perfect, since you guys are just starting a team pow-wow scene anyway - can't imagine a moment where you would need the GM less.
So no excuses - if you've got ants in your pants to play, the door is open.

JD - I don't think there are numbers for this task anywhere, so I will just say that to really go over that whole truck will take an hour.
Angel will take about as long to identify and kill all the stealth RFIDs, cuz their signals are a pain to pick out of all the ambient matrix noise, and they only transmit intermittently.
Rocky can talk while he works.
That's harder for Angel, but, sadly, that doesn't appear to matter for our purposes.

As I said, the plates and stealth tag only take her a minute or so - she is doing the truck. Second vehicle? Van? Bike? Keep the stuff in the box?

UNWIRED

Okay, enough people have PMed me about this that I supposed I'd best just make an announcement -

I don't do PDFs, so it seems very unlikely that I will have Unwired before GenCon (assuming they have hardcopies there). So another month for me to try to crawl through it - those rules will probably no actively exist in our game until mid-September.

If there are individual things you need/want from it right away, talk to me.

Mostly, I just want fair warning before our network security becomes laughable, and our illegal programs start to deteriorate. Also, I remember a while ago, having a discussion about copy protection, which they go into in greater detail in unwired. Turns out copy protection only comes into play with legal registered software - which most Shadowrunners wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. So, the trade off for being able to hand your Japanese linguasoft to the whole team, is that it goes down in rating every month, and has to be replaced sooner or later.

It looks like, when those rules come into play, we'll all need to declare if our software is legal registered software (tied to a SIN, makes tracing a hacker easier, but doesn't deteriorate over time) or illegal (or sub-standard opensource or freeware) software, in which case, it loses a rating per month (which, at the pace we've been going, isn't so bad). Or that it was legal, immediately purge it, and replace it with new priated software at a fraction of the price (per month).

I'm hoping that, when the time comes, since Adam got his pimped out commlink from his hacker contact, we can say he got the illegal (safe) versions of those programs, even if that means they start going down points, so he can help will in as hacker when/if Angel goes permanently AFK. I'll also have to make a note to get some contacts in that arena ASAP, because according to the rules in Wired, the world's greatest hacker could work full-time doing nothing but updating his programs, and only maintain 4-8 of them at their highest rating. Given that Shadowrunners have to occationally, you know, Shadowrun - that doesn't really seem like an option. The only way to maintain a real program loadout seems to be through pirate-networks or open-source programming groups... both of which hackers can contact and deal with, but which have a social aspect to them that I think Adam/Smith would like.

Bike, which Smith will attempt, himself (causing it to take a little longer, since he might fail once or twice - at which maybe Angel will lend a hand) unless the team announces that they have a need for a legal-looking van in the next couple of days. I'll throw the rolls together for the install today, since even if they say they want it on the van, we can still have Smith work on it while Angel is doing the other one - and the rolls are the same.

I'd rather see the plates on the love machine than Smith's bike because it's been used to commit crimes. No one is actively looking for Smith's bike right now, so putting the Love Machine through a cleaning process seems more valuable

Okay. That's fine by me, too.

I figured, after this weekend, the love machine and the bike will end up with them on them, one way or the other. The question was really if anyone planned to be tooling around town in the love machine this weekend, or not - as Smith probably would be using his bike... but could just as easily get a ride from the team in the love machine.

Rolls!

First one is for the truck (from Adam's comment, I suspect Angel will be better served working on finding and hacking the security tags)

Logic (3) + Hardware (2) = 5 dice (Threshold 2)
#D=5 : 26452 n1=0 n6=1 nHit=2

Second one is for the Love Machine
#D=5 : 63453 n1=0 n6=1 nHit=2

Sweet. No muss, no fuss.

IC'd the details, to move this meet along - but let me know if I messed anything up (like time to install, or I forgot some modifiers and failed or something)

There should be plenty there. I think we almost got some at Origins, but couldn't get them there before Sunday, so kind of pointless. But we are that close to having paper versions.

Not sure if we are up for an edit. But Sledge would suggest washing the truck(s), which would cover the running of the tag erasers. Since for both you'd be going over the vehicles.

I dunno if we need an edit, grab a squeegee, a rag, and a bucket of water and get to work!

Hey guys. I will be joining your game in a bit, and I wanted your input on my character. I'm making a technomancer, and, as always when I make a technomancer, I run out of BP. Right now I am sitting at around 460, so I need to cut 60BP from somewhere

Right now he is a spoofing specialist, with good threading, compliling/registering sprites, data manipulation, and cracking. But he will suck at electronics warefare and cybercombat. Also, he will be be at least a decent face, potentially an great face if adamu agrees that Empathy Software can be taken as a Complex Form.

I wrote this little bit about him earlier, it is out of date though. I wrote it before I ran any numbers, and realized the build I originally imagined was over 500BPs... But it gives you a rough sense. The list of things at the begining... you can more or less ignore that now. Not enough BP to get skills to pretend to be all those things


Description: Gonzo journalist, supermodel, cracker messiah, spymaster, political vigilant, billionaire playboy... John Doe is none of these things, but he sure as hell likes to pretend he is. John Doe's name isn't really John Doe, it is just a label used for convenience in this description. He has no fixed name, but rather moves through a floating roster. No identity is natural to him any longer, so he moves through imagined lives freely. Even in his own mind, he doesn't view himself as being attached to any particular name any long. His IDs, his realities, he forges simply and easily on the Matrix- he is a master at spoofing. In fact, one of his hobbies is stealing node's IC. He has quite a collection by now. The only one who has any fixed idea of who exactly John Doe is, is TlxI, a free Sleuth Sprite who took an interest in following John Doe's exquisitely concealed and falsified datatrails. Following the datatrails, spying on John Doe, TlxI became fascinated by his behavior, and human behavior. Now they share a resonance pact, and TlxI remains John Doe's only friend and companion.

So I would appreciate a few words about what you need in the team, and what you have covered already, etc.

Thanks!
DV

Welcome.

You might want to look at the wiki and read through some of the story already written to see where you think you can fit in. Otherwise we pretty much work with whatever.

Can you link me to the wiki please? Or is it the same one for hitting bottom?

EDIT: Found it. Can someone tell me if all the characters listed there are still in the game?
Thanks!
DV

Sledge, Rocky, Fortunato, Johnson/Sugar Lips are active PCs.

Welcome to the party, I'm playing Rocky, he hits stuff and recently has added Grand Theft Auto to his list of talents.

JD

Back after a LONG weekend with no internet. Welcome to the game!

My input: Face, we've pretty much god covered, so even if adamu approves empathy software as a CF (which, after reading unwired, I would agree is reasonable as long as you took the simrig CF too) you might not want to build too solidly around that role. Of course, if you like the idea, by all means go get it. Our current "face" (Sugar Lips/Smith) doesn't have an emotoy (yet), so you'd still be able to add a ton of dice to his rolls by assisting. You could probably skimp on the social skills yourself, then, which would save you some much needed points.

In terms of what we have covered. I would say, social stuff, melee combat, technical stuff (to a lesser degree, but across a wide spectrum) and magic (as well as one mage can). What we need is a straight-up hacker. Someone who can get into systems that we can't, loop cameras, erase our datatrail, edit security logs, etc. Cybercombat isn't a necessity, except that at some point, a full-on hacker is going to run into IC or a spider, or someone, and need to be able to defend itself. Electronic warfare is no big deal either, I think Sledge and Smith have a dabbling in that, anyway. Threading/Compiling is great. Our previous TM made great use of sprites, and seeing her do so changed my mind OOC about how useful they were.

If you plan to switch IDs a lot, I would suggest picking up forgery to a great degree, and I think it is "edit" CF. Unwired goes into a lot of detail about what it takes to make new IDs, or clean up old ones, and its not spoof.

We have a contact that deals in IDs, if that changes your opinion of the idea of doing it yourself, at all - otherwise, we'd be glad not to have to go to him with rush jobs all of the time. I would also be a big fan of using forgery for other things. Money, licenses, etc.

In short, what we really need isn't so much an ID man (although that would be great to have) what is critical to our operation right now, is having someone who can break into a secure system, get something done there, and get out without setting off the alarms. It doesn't sound like that was something you were going to particularly focus on, but you might be able to cover that with high rating Sprites.

Another thing worth adding, that you may not be aware of, is that our current TM has been MAI for a while, and NPCd by adamu, which has been pretty great for us, because we could all pay less attention to the matrix stuff, and sort of assume she would handle what needed to be handled (if things were more difficult for her than we realized, it was never so bad that she failed). What I'm getting at is that I think we've sort of learned to rely on our TM to handle every computery-matrixy problem that has come along, and not have to worry about the logistics of it too much.

So, you have big shoes to fill. If it helps at all, Sledge has shown to be computer-compitant (although I don't know off hand if she knows much about hacking) and Smith has a pretty decent commlink, decent programs, and dabbling skill. I've been planning on having him shore up that aspect, since he's close to maxing out his skill as a face (without getting augmented) - so, if there IS any part of being the team hacker that you're not interested in, or just don't have the points to cover... just let us know. I would be happy to have Smith start sharing some of the matrix burden where it makes sense.

Between sprites and what I know of TMs OOC, I have a feeling that you'll hack circles around Smith, even if its something you're threading.

Hey everyone - back "home" in London, but exhausted and don't know when I will have Internet access in my new digs - or even if the new place is permanent.

For now, I hope to get here to the Internet cafe most days, but things are still mighty hectic.

Near as I can tell, though, the ball is still fully in y'all's courts. Your all at the truck stop or whatever and I guess planning and stuff. I think maybe Fort was gonna update folks on his astral recon.
You have the ruling on how long the vehicle work takes.
And the thread still contains all the recon info on the two targeted "pre-run" sites, the tougher of which still has Angel's sprite watching it.

So once you are done doing whatever RP chatting you need, it's time for another plan for one of these mini-runs, which, slow as we are going, will still run faster than playing it out conventionally.

AAAAAND - yes - announced before I got round to it, Divine Virus will be filling Konsaki's slot (sent a final effort PM with the last karma award, but no response - hopefully we can chat at GenCon if he is still going).

Divine Virus will be integrated into our game hopefully before the end of July - basically just as soon as I can put down some roots and get my head together.
Sorry to trash the earlier "choose the new player yourselves in-character" plan, but DV was available and I hold him in very high regard in the four cardinal virtues - roll-playing, role-playing, generally nice guy, and active/reliable poster.

Keep the choose-the-player thing in the back of your mind for down the road, if you like it. I still think its a cool idea.
In one sense, by discussing the character here (or at least by providing feedback) we're doing a little of that OOC.
I certainly wouldn't mind a (quick and to the point) IC event where Smith DOES go shopping for new hacker talent and (surprising no one) he ends up being totally impressed by DV's character and signs him onto the team. If you have other plans in the works, use those, of course, but that would certainly allow for some quick IC introductions all around, an opportunity for us to bring Angel's replacement up to speed, and (assuming Smith has any money to offer) it would mean a new job in the pipeline.

Also, I've been wanting Smith to be working on a B-squad in his spare time (which he hasn't had enough of to make a lot of progress in this department). I like the idea of him, in general, finding an opportunity to hold auditions for shadowrunning talent for less important (and off-stage) jobs he hears about (in some future where he's too busy to handle every opportunity himself), but maybe picking a diamond out of the rough for his A-squad.

EDIT: Oh, and welcome back.

I had another idea for bringing DV in, but I am not married to it. (Heck, I haven't even seen his final sheet/background yet.) My idea was basically just tacked onto the excuse I am definitely going to use for Angel's departure, which I can still do anyway.
So if the two of you come up with a proposal, I will definitely consider it.

In case it matters to anyone (given that you're all free-willed PCs):

Charisma 6 + Leadership 5 = 11 dice
#D=11 : 24146524536 n1=1 n6=2 nHit=4
4 hits

Certainly not married to the plan I threw out there, feel free to discus, clarify, and refine it until we're ready to go.

Is it a real leadership play, or are you just trying to bump the thread along?

A little of both. Smith is definitely trying to take charge and seem like he has *a* plan, but he knows he doesn't know anything at all about what is about to go down - so he is very interested in getting input. (Edit: ... and he'd rather the rest of the team not realize he has no idea what he's talking about)

IOW, its a real leadership play in terms of "okay, lets get this thing going" but not in terms of "this is how this is going to go down".

Edit: I basically rolled because I saw Adam had leadership experience that would probably come into play - don't take it as an attempt to make everyone go with this particular plan.

One thing I wanted to check on...

We have two things we need to pick up, the GPR and the Concrete Saw. I was in a hurry reading the IC, so I could be wrong but it seemed like you only mentioned one of the items in the post.

Rocky will go with which ever plan you come up with, he figures he's used his luck up for the night with getitng the truck. (I'll even try to IC that at some point in the near future.)


Also after getting distracted by other projects I should be back to the maps of the building soon and have a full set sooner than later. (Couple weeks at most)

JD

Doh! I knew I'd have messed something up. Okay, will edit the IC, assuming Smith has a better grasp of his evening that I do.

Edit: Anyone remember which one was the "tough" one that the sprite is watching, and which one we need the truck to move? (both?)

I have my notes on it sitting on my desk at work.

I will try to get the info I have up as soon as I can when I get to the office tomorrow if you haven't got it taken care of by then.

JD

Edited anyway. It isn't really important right now which site was which (although I'd be glad to know if anyone has notes on it).

Decided against the idea of splitting up to grab both at once. Assuming the security teams aren't connected, hitting one shouldn't really put the other one on guard, and we'll just be increasing the chances that one team runs into trouble they can't handle.

Copied up again, thanks to Dire for the earlier compilation:

For both items, assume Sledge knows places that rent that gear and that are relatively ork/blue collar friendly (as opposed to human contractor/big corp manager friendly).

She also knows several current sites where the cutters are in use, and one (somewhat more secure site) where their job probably requires a ground penetrating radar of the sensitivity she thinks she'll need.


QUOTE (adamu @ Mar 29 2008, 02:41 AM) *
***

Sledge knows of a big real estate redevelopment project taking place on the site of an old cemetery. She heard there was a lot of hassle about making sure to exhume not only various bodies in the first strata, but also an earlier strata of 19th century graves the current cemetery was built over (hey, it was a scenic site where grandma could overlook the ocean - why waste it on one generation?).
Sledge ASSUMES they are using ground penetrating radar of the sort of sensitivity that they can locate human remains.
She KNOWS that this particular outfit, B&B Contracting, has a standard operating procedure of putting up a big temporary quonset hut at major sites and loading as much equipment as possible into it every night (she also knows this job is not going 24-7). Of course the radar is very expensive, and should be there.
She knows they use live security on the site perimeter, which is fenced, and probably in or around the hut. She guesses there is also some sort of telepresent security, but not what sort or how much of the time.

***

Sledge knows of several active sites that use heavy-duty cement cutters. She knows that at most sites, really heavy equipment is not very well guarded - just enough to avoid liability if someone hurts themselves doing something dumb. This is because most people don't even know how to operate or even move this stuff; those that do tend to be gainfully employed; it is virtually impossible to fence, with tags built and woven into the guts of the gear eight ways to Sunday. The stuff has no luxury market - only major businesses would have any use for it, and they would risk too much accepting hot merchandise.
So at any of a number of sites, she ASSUMES that there are some of these things out in the open and likely minimally guarded, though heavily tagged.

***



QUOTE (adamu @ Apr 1 2008, 09:32 AM) *
The GPR is big and clunky, not really single-man-portable (maybe single troll), but will easily go into the Love Machine.

The cement cutter you need for 30 cm of concrete is so heavy it has to be self-propelling (at about 1 km/hr). You will need a flat-bed or something. Some come with trailer attachments.

@DV

Welcome aboard, I think electronic warfare is a particularly useful skill to have in our primary hacker, but I agree with BH in the sense that your character's ability to infiltrate systems and fiddle with things (ideally undetected) is probably the thing needed most for the team.

Smith does have the face aspect of our group pretty well covered, but he might just be trying to talk you out of it because he doesn't like competition. Faces are tricky that way, you've always got to be keeping an eye on them.

Shit! They're on to me! o.ô

Actually, I realized after posting that that Smith has the face thing "moderately" covered, but he's usually chucking around 10-12 dice for his social thing, which an augmented or magical character would scoff at. Assuming the technomancer was looking at emosoft 6, he could easily have 15+ on every roll and, by all rights, would make a better leader than Smith, and save us all a bit more money on every purchase. Smith can get 20 dice a few times per mission (and the nice thing about being face is that there are only a few critical rolls like that on most missions), but in all fairness the group could probably find a better face out there than a 20-something kid from college who hasn't spent the 20-grand or so that it would cost to double his dice-pool in social situations.

If DV is looking for places to shave some of those 500 points, though, that is where I would suggest looking, first, since we're pretty happy with Smith's entirely reasonable but not super-human social skills. If it came down to a choice between a second-face and a hacker who can hack, I think we'd all prefer the hacker. Angel has been pretty critical to our success, both as an NPC and as a PC, so her replacement will need to be able to pull off the same sort of feats, even if not as well because the new character is spread into other areas (forgery, social backup, etc).

My 500 BP build had him with a 17 dice pool base, or 21 dice with average threading hits, for all social skils, but I had to scrap all that.

I will get Adam a rough draft of the character sheet and background tonight, and hopefully get a final copy by the end of the week. I am taking a few things from Unwired, so I need to get them confirmed before I do a final copy.

His specialty will be spoofing, and he will be a competent at threading and sprite skills. The base spoofing dice pool should be 16 dice, so average 20 with threading. That will be enough for me to be more or less untraceable, and take control of any agent or sprite I encounter.

And I have overhauled the character's personality entirely.

Need to run now, Thanks for the kind words Adam!
DV

I'll be interested to see what you came up with.

Okay - not much for me to do at the moment, but love all the forward momentum.

As always for social dice rolls vs. PCs, I simply ask that you all factor Smith's four successes at "motivating" into your IC reactions.
In any case, I reckon we are all interested in moving forward, so no worries.

If people have the invited suggestions for modifying Smith's plan, please speak up soon. If not, I would encourage you to start making posts that actually act on the one plan that has been suggested.
All it does anyway is coordinate getting to the sites, and the order you hit them in.
For the actual hits, will need a bullet point outline as before.

Finally, for the record since it's now been mentioned in several OOC posts, I had to nix DV's request to have an Empathy Software Complex Form.
I feel pretty good about my decision.
If anyone really wants to know exactly why I said no, say so and DV will probably paste in a copy of that part of my e-mail to him.

I'd be interested to hear it, but I don't really blame you for the decision.
I noticed Unwired explicitly called out sensorware as something TMs could learn, and the first thought that popped into my head was Empathy software (which I think is too powerful, as it is, and even worse than that are those emotoys!).

Edit: Mostly, I'd just be interested in more insight into my GMs mind.

Did it say it could be learned? I missed that- I thought I was just being clever
I told Adam it wasn't RAW, he might reconsider once he finds out it is.

It doesn't explicitly say "Empathy" can be learned, but on page 136 in the black box about adopting software, it says "In theory, a technomancer can adapt any piece of software by mimicking the program with a complex form"... then later, it goes on to say "Since a number of programs such as Sensor Software (p. 60 Arsenal) or tactsofts require connections to sensors, databases, and/or auxiliary data, a technomancer can only use complex forms based on that software if he has a connection to such sensors, databases, or auxiliary components." (Which was why I said as long as you took the "SimRig" CF, I would agree that Unwired supports it. Of course, as usual, their next sentence says "Individual gamemasters may choose whether to allow this in their games."

So, I would say there is RAW support for it, but by RAW, it is Adamu's call.

Also, the other thing that made me think of Empathy software for a TM was on page 133 in the fluff text where it is talking about "Volunteer 1" (a technomancer). "When observed online, he appears to exchange information with computer systems in a very unconventional way. Unlick an ordinary user, he does not actively "use" programs, but rather "asks" or "persuades" computer systems or sprites. This behavior pattern seems to be innate to his personality and his personal view of his abilities and their origin." It is describing his stream, but the flavor-text made me think of how cool it would be to make a technomancer who was gifted socially outside of the maxtrix as well as in (which is a contrast from the stereotype). In this sense, Empathy software seems to make sense, as his connection to computer systems allows him to synthesize his sensory data more effectively, and helps him to ask or persuade people as well as computer systems.

Just my two-cents.

Edit: Also, initially, I thought about that idea and thought "+6 to all social skills for 6 BP? That's broken!" because I was comparing it to the 10 Bp per +1 you get by raising charisma, or your influence group, but if you consider that a rating 6 emotoy costs like 2,600 (no idea why), any character (TM or non TM) can get those same 6 dice for effectively 5 BP (6 if you include the remainder). A non-mobile emotoy is even cheaper (600), which is 1-2 BP.

I think Adamu has already stated a distaste for emotoys. I don't want to dig back through the OOC posts to confirm, but I think he even called them out as something from Arsenal that he didn't want to bring into the game. So, for this game, my math above might not carry a lot of weight, but in general, I can kind of see why 6 BP for +6 to social might not be totally broken, if you have other characters spending 1-2 BP for the same bonus.

Well, if it's my call according to RAW, I must continue to nix it at least until I read the book after GenCon.

The devs have been on a crusade for years now to make "face" a viable character "class" in SR along with mage, sammie, hacker, etc. They succeeded long ago, but they still feel the need to make huge social dice pools dirt cheap relative to other things.

They are also trending toward bleeding the virtual world into the real world so way too far for my taste. But then I am gamer who hates computers - pretty much a walking anachronism.

Here is the reasoning for my veto I gave DV, so people can see where I am coming from. It now seems, however, that in Unwired the devs strongly disagree with me on the innate limitations of CFs.

Actually, I think the only specific thing I named was that silly wheel you can drive around in. And not because of game balance, but just because it (and other things in Arsenal) is just freaking DORKY. If want dorky, I can look in the mirror - I don't need it in the Shadowrun game where I struggle to keep a modicum of grit.

But yeah, emototoys sound game-breaky AND dorky.

But if they are in the RAW, I won't say you can't use them.

In fact, they are things that could act as cheap equalizers against the super-face PCs! (Although the empathy software and some cybereyes is much less dorky!)

Are these emotoys in Arsenal? They're not springing immediately to mind.

Yeah, page 57.

Since its been almost a week, and nobody has spoken up about the plan being innately flawed, let's assume we move forward with that - and see how flawed it is, first-hand.

Notes:
* Driving around with the radar in the love machine will be less conspicuous than driving around with the cutter attached to the truck - so that is another reason to hit that site first. Since each vehicle can be used independently, splitting up is an option, but not one that is worth the risk, at this time.
* Sledge will be critical at both sites, since she has intimate knowledge of how these places operate. Another reason not to split up.
* Angel has basically already done what she can at these sites, but would be most useful at the radar site, dealing with telepresent security.
* Rocky and Fortunato could both be useful at either site, depending on how physical security is dealt with.

Bullet points for plan (unless someone else comes up with a better one):
* Team arrives at the radar site
* Truck keeps distance, Love machine gets close enough for step 3
* Angel hacks their telepresent security system, and feeds the data to the team, while (hopefully subtly) setting up blind spots (or sprites prepared to do some on-the-fly editing) for the team to move the Love Machine as close as possible to the radar (since its too big to transport in anything smaller than the van, I assume it won't be easy to carry out by hand).
* Angel catches a security team on camera, feeding hte images to Fortunato
* Fortunato makes disguises for Sledge and Rocky, so they appear to be security
* Rocky and Sledge move onto the site, and make their way towards the radar
* Angel creates distraction on camera, at far side of site, drawing physical security that way. Ideally, if telesecurity does not appear compromised, that will be how they keep an eye on everything else, so there should be minimal physical security near the radar
* Angel pulls the Love Machine up to the radar, while Sledge and Rocky take care of (via tasers and karate chops) any physical security in the area
* Rocky loads the van (with help, if needed)
* Everyone takes the van to get out of there, and meets up at the truck
* Everyone moves on to the next site
* Site two, security is low, and Sledge knows the location of the hut where everything should be kept
* Truck drives nearby, but not on site
* Angel hacks the cutter, which should be self-propelled and hopefully drone-outfitted (sensors and everything).
* Angel uses the sensors to look around, and see if the cutter can leave the site on its own (cutting through the fence if necessary?)
* Angel drives the cutter off-site and meets up with the truck, where it attaches to the trialer hitch (or Rocky loads it on)
* Team drives away.

* If the drone-cutter is restrained, or offline, Fortunato creates more disguises, and either Sledge or Rocky moves on site to turn on or unrestrain the cutter.
* Another option would be to send a spirit, who could go there invisibly, then physically manifest to either flip the switch, or break the chain or whatever. Only problem here is that the spirit will have a hard time understanding the technology, and knowing what it needs to do.


Any ideas, suggestions? Someone can feel free to offer up these ideas IC, if they want, or just IC them as suggestions from Smith (Although I don't know if he would know enough about sprites or spirits or construction machinery to offer up all of the details, necessarily).

Do we think there is a way to get the physical security at the GPR site out of the way or confused enough that they may not become aware the GPR is gone after we take it? If we have a step where we have to disable them, at that point it's immediately obvious something has happened. It would be nicer if the discovery of the theft is delayed as long as possible. We can't do this with the concrete saw, it'll be obvious that is gone when we take it, but the GPR we might be able to do something.

BH - Plan looks good to me.

Dire - the only thing I could think of would be having Angel remove it from the inventory list, and us moving things around some to make the fact its missing from its storage room less noticeable.

JD

Cool beans!

I will wait 24 for any final modifications to the plan, and if things look final by then, I will adjudicate the bullet point stuff (as in, say everything works until any point at which it doesn't, or I require further clarification/die rolls).

I will tell you right now - since it's a very subjective GM thing - that at this point your plan is very very Angel-heavy. You've got her juggling more tasks than I allowed on the truck heist. Since she is being NPCed right now, I am obviously just eyeballing things I reckon she can definitely succeed at, but in this sort of situation I can't let you make the NPC do EVERYTHING....

Since it now seems virtually decided that team will head for GPR site, wouldn't hurt for someone to jump on with a group IC to that effect, and anyone else can chime in with personal details if they want.

Yeah, I noticed the Angel-heaviness too. Of course, that's why she's an NPC, because we would be pretty boned without our hacker. I'd be happy to have Smith attempt either of the hacking tasks (preferring the taking over of the drone because it sounds easier and less dangerous) if something comes up that makes us want to try both at once.

Edit: With the Unwired rules on the horizon, there is a good chance that his commlink will get flushed down the drain before he ever really uses it. Still, he's not very good, and I wouldn't want the plan to fail just because Smith wanted to handle something matrixy personally rather than delegate to the (NPC) hacker.

I also meant to include bulet points for Smith's part of the plan - which at this point involves calling contacts to see if he can score a discrete warehouse hookup at the last minute, within his budget (which is blown at this point). He would probably try his new mechanic friend first (who might be used to storing stolen vehicles). He might also just make some calls himself, and see if he can find a place that is just used to dealing in anonymous cred, and doesn't ask a lot of questions. Considering calling Franco, but since his last order was to stay away from him till things calm down, he would be an absolute last resort.

I could have my character ready to play within 24 hours. It would be tight, but very doable.

Alternatively, and less preferred, I would volunteer to BRIEFLY play Angel, so she doesn't have to be NPCed.

Constructive suggestions all around.

BlackHat - if you wanna start those other things, just decide and say exactly what you do.

BlackHat - naturally if you chose to do some parts of the hacking it would be easier for me to say Angel succeeds in other parts.
Of course, we'd have to play out part or all of your own endeavor, cuz you are not exactly in the realm of success-is-assured-and-playing-it-out-would-just-be-boring.

DV's character would be another story, depending on how he handled things.

Question to the team - do you want to delay this scene until we get him up and running? If he submits in 24 and I go over it in the following 24, that's 48 from now.
That assumes we have an entry scenario - I mean, I HAVE one, but details will depend on my reading of his background. And you guys were talking about coming up with one of your own???

Alternatively, you can make some quick adjustments and we can get into resolution tomorrow or the next day, and take it a little slower on DV's entry - say, target prior to the ACTUAL run?

People chime in.

In order to reduce Angel dependence, it is well within Fort's ability to create a distraction. Also, we could try to catch a security team with our eyes rather than with cameras, which further removes Angel's involvement.

I guess that I'd rather not rush DV's entry and I would like to expedite the GPR and Concrete Saw business.