Fear Alexei's Kung Fu.

Perhaps once we get a little more income we can do that, with a mere 100 Nuyen I suspect I'll probably need the majority to buy more ammo and other such things.

@Karaden - When can we spend the Karma awarded for background? Is it applied before or after the scene we're in?

(Basically I'm wondering if it's part of character creation and thus needs using up or if it's the total we have as play begins, in which case we can't spend it without taking a little time to learn stuff).

Basically the background Karma was your first Karma award and is treated just like any other. You'll have to wait till you get a bit of a chance to learn before you can benefit from it.

Righto! That's what I assumed, but I wanted to double check to be certian.

*hums as he waits for one of the three people who can post on the IC board right now to post*

That's the main problem for a GM with a PBP game. You can't throw things at the players to make them get on with things!

Says one of the three who can post. Thought you where going to add your amazing dodge/block.

I did. Edited it into the post with the dice roll ages ago.

It's only a short line at the end, because Alexei isn't the kind to show off and I didn't want to throw in too much happening just incase anyone else had already begun typing out a post.

Ah, never saw an update notice, my bad.

No worries! It wasn't exactly an obvious change and I have an annoying tendancy to edit existing posts rather than make a new one when I'm the last person to have put a post up.

Nah, completely understandable, no reason to make the thread that much longer if you don't need to.

Added the house rules on the first post.

Can't remember if you said you were or not, but are we using the Recoil Compensation for high strength values rule from Arsenal?

The rule in question is P163 of Arsenal.

Never said but we will use it. I'll add it in.

If ever there was a time to throw edge into an attack roll that was probably it. As I doubt we'll even tickle Carson otherwise.

Lets hope that attack actually does some damage to him or we're going to be seeing the schools medical facilities first hand.

nice roll

FYI EVERYONE: 5d6.hitsopen(5,6) will count hits and reroll 6s on InvisibleCastle. It'll make everyone have a little easier time rolling...

Wish I'd known that earlier!
But it is /very/ handy to note down for future reference. Having to do all those extra inputs was a lot of hassle.

What medical facilities?

You know the one I mean!
Think it's called 'sleeping in the gutter'....

Oh yeah, they definitely have that.

Pudding? (Edit - Is a kindergartners fav snack?)

And a silly question, but should we colour damage in yellow text too? Or is that for GM badstuff like glitches and other nasty stuff?

Paste actually, and no, yellow is just for me. I figured the first unveiling of Carson's damage deserved it, and certain other painful things. Don't expect to see it much, pray you don't see it ever.

I probably shouldn't be blowing all my edge on the first combat encounter should I?

But then again, we really /do/ need to win against Carson or else our reputation is pretty much dead before we began.

Edit - Originally I'd been planning on taking the hit, but looking at the damage Carson is calling and the rest of the parties hand to hand skills I figured Alexei getting knocked down to one or two boxes of damage would leave us in a seriously bad position for the rest of the fight. One more hit (considerably more likely with reduced DP's) and he'd be taking phys damage and a long nap.

Eh, it's what edge is there for, and your likely quite right about if alexie goes down, everyone is going to have trouble. Your also right about taking down Carson giving your gang some major points within the school.

Also, I'd like to make an announcement. I'll be posting one of the questions from the Character Quiz after each Karma award. If you get a response to it in before the next time I award Karma, you'll get a bonus Karma for doing so. The response I like best (Based on a number of factors) will get a bonus Karma. This is a combination incentive to continue to flesh out your characters some more, and an excuse to give you guys some Karma (As I do want to see your characters grow).

Feel free to post your response on the board here, or PM it to me. I won't reveal your answers if you don't want. Expect to see more things of this nature in the future (And feel free to offer suggestions of small bonuses like this) I hope this doesn't feel like homework or anything, and you should generally have plenty of time to do these. I'll likely be willing to take them late if you get too busy and whatnot.

Anyway, the first question is...

People have control over their own living arrangements. From the child young enough to use crayons and tape all the way up to the elderly shut-in who plasters her walls with family photos and cat pictures, everyone makes their living spaces more personally pleasing. What is your character’s living space

Dryden's living space is obviously a workspace. Most of his home is relatively clean, obviously more because of his mother's influence than Dryden's. His room, on the other hand, is quite messy. It's dominated by 3 things: a paper covered desk, a bed, and the large pile of stuff that hides the actual floor. Dryden's bed is rarely, if ever made, and the comforter on it is a simple navy blue.

Pushed next to the bed is his desk. Most of the time, Dryden can be found at the desk with Tristen sitting on the bed, bent over some project or hand drawn map of the neighborhood. Notebooks full of half-completed ideas are strewn around the room, often sitting on piles of dirty clothes or empty snack bags.

His walls are covered in an eclectic collection of newspaper clippings, tacked up lists of personality traits of important people in the area, more hand drawn maps, swimsuit model posters, motivational posters, and a well worn dartboard with a Joker card stuck in the bulls eye.

Tink is between liveing spaces now but when he lived with his parents his room was always clean and orderly. he had a bed a desk and a work bench.

There was always somethin dismanteled on the bench with hand drawn or printed schematics tacked up over the work space

Most days if you looked in his room you might think the only space used was the work bench.

all the other walls floors and ceiling are bare and spotless to the naked eye. But in ar its lit up like christmass.
Tink has embedded hundreds of RF tags in almost every available space. He used to "hang" pictures and vid clips of what ever interested him this week on them.

One unusual feature was a space under his desk perfectly conceled in the floor that he crafted himself. He used it to hide his contraband and a few personal objects. Truth be told tink misses this "safe" place to put his things more than anything else.

Alexei lives in what was once a fairly upmarket house, but these days is the home of a friendly Russian squatter community.

His living space is in what used to be the garage and despite the walls and floor mostly being old concrete he at least doesn't have to share with anyone except for the regular uninvited guests his sister brings around.

The room itself has a few stolen metal lockers bolted to the wall, a large punching bag hanging in one corner and a few old mattresses vacuum packed in plastic. The walls are covered with pictures printed off from online gun magazines, with AK versions featuring heavily.

In the way of entertainment and food there really isn't a lot on offer, a couple of bottles of cheap vodka are tucked away under a pile of laundry and a few used inhalors and BTL chips litter the floor along with the occasional packaging of instant meals from the local stuffer shack.

In the basement of his Uncle's magic shop, behind shelves surplus inventory (or empty depending on how the business is) is the door to Gres's room. Its also the door to the shop's water heater, Furnace/AC unit and much of the electrical wiring.

Crammed in with all the mechanical stuff is a small bed an tiny desk. There is no chair to go with the desk, so the bed is clearly used in the place of one. Taking up most of the desk is a video display unit, which is usually turned on to the current Urban Brawl or Combat biker event. On top of the unit is a old, faded and frayed hardcopy of the bible. Really the only thing he still had from when he lived with his parents.

The walls of the room are mostly just backside of the supply room walls with the studs, insulation, and wiring visible. There were minor signs that sheet rock once covered them. But minor emergencies at the stored that required access to the spaces in the walls, had happened often enough that they simply stopped rebuilding the walls afterwards. So that left the back of the door as the only really safe spot for his 'Babes of the Brawl' poster.

Pretty much the rest of his stuff was kept in various boxes under the bed and crammed into out of the way places.

As a future goal, we really need to ensure everyone has something like shock gloves to hand, so in any future close combats we can take down opponents a bit easier.

i think ill drop my first karma points into useing a taser asap.

*note to self: insulate armor*

*Note to self buy the SMG hidden inside a briefcase and bring it to school with me for next times troll hunt.*

*note to self: kill carson's brain and take over his thinking for him, then laugh as the enemies tremble before my new bodyguard*

If only one of the mages had some sort of mind control spell... Oh, wait!

whos the face again? I think they need to jump up on a table or something and let everyone know we take care of our own . Try to plant in their heads that being one us Us is a seriously good idea.

Also someone take carsons armor . He will either have to buy a new set or will be easyer to take next time.

not just the armor. his money, too. Any weapons he may have on him. Probably best if Alexie does the lifting. Repayment for his lunch, and all that.

I'm the face, and I've got a nice post already written up. I'll be posting it as soon as I'm done with this.

To be honest, I'd have figured our Face could have probably pulled an angry crowd of Carson haters in during the combat. But I couldn't really mention that before now.

I know Alexei intends on giving Carson a good kicking while he's down. Leave him in a world of pain when he wakes up to delay the payback I'm sure he'll be planning. And if people don't want him doing this they'll have to be pretty quick in telling him not to keep kicking.

Stealing his things would be a plan and taking some video/trideo of the event could be handy for later.

Also our TM should subscribe his cyberware up to as much adware and spam as possible, see how he enjoys having his Wired Reflexes filled with virus's and bugs for a bit. Providing it's not totally dead that is.

Oh and last thought is someone needs to go speak to the guy with the taser and see what the deal is there.

dont forget to add a back door to his com and cyber ware

well, if that doesn't churn out large numbers of recruits, I don't know what will... ^__^

8 hits nice!

tink is already thinking we need to do a pre emptive strike on his smart buddy just to keep him from getting any ideas we dont care for.

btw if tink could figure out away to rip the cyberware out of his liveing body her would...hes that vindictive.

Well, if you drug him somewhere with some tools and didn't really care how much damage you did to Carson in the process, it is possible. Granted how worthwhile the cyberware would be at that point is questionable.

I would rather we make him our minion... that kind of muscle? worth manipulating into being our bitch...

That's what a Street Doc contact is for.

oh i wasnt expecting to use or sell it i was expecting to tie it in a bow around his neck.

If it wasnt so easy to fix Tink would be the type to knee cap someone so they would have a life long reminder that it wasnt a good idea to mess with Tink.

Which is why instead you kneecap both legs, then throw them in the sea.
Then it's definately going to be a lifelong reminder!

Hi guys.

Any moor room in there?

Cheers,

Maarten

Hey there Maarten,

Afraid we're currently full up for players, and have one person waiting in the wings already. If you'd like I could PM you if we get an opening for any reason.

I'm also about to run an idea past everyone (separate post as it could be long) which could generate a need for an... assistant GM of sorts, so depending on how the idea goes and if you don't mind running a large number of nameless NPCs and/or helping me in other ways, then stick around. If your looking to play a full blown PC though, afraid you'll just have to go on the waiting list.

You guys already have a decent number of recruits, and with luck the numbers will continue to grow. Now, this brings up a potential problem. It is entirely feesable that you guys will get into gang fights (No, really?) which will require me to find some kind of mass combat rules, fudge it, or make millions of die rolls.

Out of curiosity which would you guys prefer? This will be especially important if we have a large number of gang members combined with you guys or high grade lieutenants. So, the three options are basically:

1. I could invent some kind of mass combat rules where I roll X dice and Y people die based on the results (With resistances for Z people to manage to survive), factoring in weapons/armor/magic/drugs/drones/'ware/something-else-I'm-sure-you'll-think-of. This works really great when it is mass troops vs. mass troops, but could run into potential trouble when you guys are in the action. Perhaps when you guys are being targeted, I could break it down into the normal rules. This actually sounds like it would work out very well.

2. I could simply fabricate results based on how I envision the battle going in my head. This means I could get combat results out in seconds, but would be even more subject to my whims then method 1. It would also break down about the same as method 1 when you guys become targets. Overall this is very similar to method 1, with the difference that luck has little/no factor (Except maybe what mood I'm in )

3. Lord help us, millions of dice method. This would provide the 'best' results with me going through and rolling everything, but could require me to make hundreds of rolls in a combat turn depending on how big your gang gets. Now, the castle makes this much easier, as I can simply set up a roll and tell it to do it up to 99 times. Also, since I am a programmer, I can write something to largely automate this process (which would actually be a fun exercise, so don't look at that part as extra work for me) without a great deal of difficulty.

4. (Yes I know I said there were only 3) Just thought of this. A combo of 3 and 1. I would divide the group up into a more reasonable number of subsections (say 10) and then assume everyone in that subsection managed to get the same roll. So that could easily cut 100 rolls down to 10, which would be far more doable.

To clear up confusion, this would be different then method 1 because method 1 would be one huge roll of some kind based on # of people and all the other things mentioned for the attack, and one (or two) huge rolls for defensive. Perhaps I'd even just cut it all into one roll with defense lowering the number of dice I throw.

So, feel free to discus which method you guys would prefer, as I'm quite open to any of them really.

Well, in the offline game I play in the GM uses something much like system 1. Where he does some rolls, factors in the players actions and plans, then describing the results.

It tends to work pretty well, compared with just making stuff up, because it factors in random chance. Say we're in a pitched gun battle which is evenly matched and one side glitches well maybe they ran low on ammo or something. It's a little less scripted than GM imagination (and of course somewhat fairer in the above scenario).

As for dice rolling for /everyone/ this is a bit awkward. Say we have 100 gangers in a fight, that's 100 initiative positions to post up. Which means knowing where and when we are in a turn becomes a nightmare. People won't have a clue when to post without looking through a whole heap of initiative results to find where they clock in.

A combo method might be viable, I know some systems handle big fights by making each unit a single giant creature. But this makes player attacks a bit useless, because we're only single people fighting against 10 people at the same time. (You'd have to keep seperate tracks for unit damage and player damage, because they're on different grades of scale.)

Well, I wouldn't be posting their init. And with 100 people it would be safe to say that every single init slot would be taken. Anyway, I planned on using group init just like the rules say you should for NPCs in general.

As for using method 4, the player attacks wouldn't be any more useless then they usually would. If they killed someone, someone would die, and there would be one less overall guy on the field. If I did the grouping thing, I would of course be factoring in how many people are left in the group (ie if you kill all but 1 guy in a group, he isn't still going to hit has hard as the group of 10).

Allow me to explain method 4 a bit more. Basically all the guys would run around as normal, but whenever I made a roll, that number of hits would apply to all the people in that group (As if I'd rolled individually for all of them and they all got the same results). Granted this turns out a little odd when 10 people all critically glitch, but I suppose it all evens out in the end.

I like option 4...

only thing is, like you said, critical glitches would hurt. alot. Perhaps there could be some way to reduce the number of people involved in the crit glitch? IE: if there are 10 people in the group, roll a d10 and the resulting number is how many people crit glitch, and the others don't do anything that round?