You keep seeming to forget that Peter's spirits aren't generally visible to mundanes unless they make an effort to be so. I figured that Peter's spirit would have possessed Mr. sniper and had him walk over to us (likely carrying the rifle), since that is the order he gave it.

Just figured I'd point that out. Fire spirit will likely destroy anything the guy is wearing though thanks to the flame aura.

Peter, you really need to get a spirit that won't destroy all the guy's equipment in the future to do the body retrievals.

OK, from SincereAgape's last post in the IC thread, we can be in the tower now!

That sort of precludes the need for the spirit entirely. But, from the instructions Hodder gave the spirit, it would get there a lot faster than any of us and look for a way to fulfill its instruction. Possession would probably be the easiest, assuming nothing or noone else is in the tower. But it requires an Opposed Test, which SA and I are talking over by PM, trying to figure out how to possess an unconscious person. The RAW skips over that possibility. Unless someone can somehow figure out to get to the tower in about 5 seconds and determine the possession is unnecessary and communicate that to Hodder so he can call off the spirit, the possession attempt will happen.

As far as the Energy Aura, surely it doesn't burn the clothes off the guy. There must be some inner limit, otherwise it would harm the vessel as well, or for that matter a materialized spirit would hurt itself, too.

I thought you specifically asked Agape that and he said it would burn things you were carrying/wearing. I do seem to remember him not answering your large list of questions point by point.



The guy is alive. Unconscious, but alive, so I don't see why he wouldn't use these rules.

Energy Aura is always on. It's like touching someone who is on fire, the items and cloths will be burned and destroyed. The vessel of the person being inhabited will survive.

@Belloq. Let's go with your first suggestion of making the test a threshold based test. Since the character in question is augmented I am going to give you a threshold of three for the possession using the roll you provided me.

I'll keep that in mind for next time. Posession spirits is uncharted territory, so it's been a learning experience Gming for the Belloq character. Glad Pete is roleplaying and playing him with justice.



Willpower and intuition are mental traits, and it makes sense for the individual to be alert, active, and awake in order for them to use these fortitudes. The idea of a threshold based test seems the most fair to me. And it fits with story purposes.

I figured that since willpower and intuition translate directly into astral physical stats, that having a high willpower and intuition make your aura more resistant to possession regardless of your own will. After all, a person that wants to be possessed by a spirit doesn't get to ignore their willpower and intuition, even though they aren't trying to fight the spirit. So it stands to reason that at worse an unconscious person counts as a willing target, which is treated no differently than an unwilling one.

Just my two nuyen.

OK, I'll do the possession attempt here, and role play the results in the IC thread.

F3 Fire Spirit gets 6 dice, needing a threshold of 3 ==> 2 hits possession attempt fails. Since the spirit can't try to possess the guy again this day, it looks around. There is a chair, one of those metal leg office chairs with wheels. It tries that:


6 dice, needing a threshold of 2 ==> 3 hits successful possession.

One barbecued bad guy, coming up.

Admittedly the image of an office chair galloping towards us with an unconscious guy on it is great.

Who all is in the tower now? Just wondering. I need to say something to SOMEBODY. *grin*

Not I. I'll be attempting matrix cover on my action

Matrix is going to stick near the plane and continue scanning the area until cops show up, at which point she'll move her scanning to the plane door so that she is less likely to get spotted sporting a sniper rifle by the cops.

Matrix??

Yes, didn't you know that is Hawkeye's code name?

I blame lack of sleep which I am going to attempt to rectify in about five minutes.

*sighs*

OK, where's Jane?

This is a cogent argument. However, let's look at some analogies (admittedly not perfect).

A person goes in for an operation, knowing that it must be done. Despite his desire to have the procedure, he is put under sedation rather than local anaesthetic in order to make sure the procedure can be done safely.

Or, a person submits to a physical violation in order to save her family from murder, yet she suffers unimaginable emotional trauma during and after. Despite choosing the act, inside she rebels with all her spirit.

Now, possession surely is a foreign and unnatural act for any living thing. No matter how logical or emotive the reason for the act of possession, the actual insertion of the new entity and submersion of the old personality will be resisted automatically, let's even say autonomically. This is why even a willing subject, if there is time, will be magically prepared in order to 'lubricate' the process.

And there is precedent in the RAW for unconsciousness turning off resistance. For spells that require a willing subject, unconsciousness qualifies as willingness. In those cases, total resistance is converted to no resistance at all through unconsciousness of the subject. The two options I suggested, of which SincereAgape chose one, offered a compromise position in which the spirit still has to work at taking over.

Hi guys,

I am not supposed to say anything, but I will be firmly inserting my foot in my mouth in this post.

SincereAgape and I have been chatting for a while now, and he is really stressed out about the game. He gets about 3, 3 page long pms every day from his players. Then there is also the OOC thread which has about as many posts, including inanity. He works long hours and would like to relax, not feel like he is starting his second job.


Second, this is SincereAgape's game and his rulings. If you want to get a favourable ruling, formulate a question, ask in the shadowrun section and write the question in the OOC thread with the possible rulings. Give sincereAgape options, not just 1001 questions involving what-if scenarios.


I would really recommend that SincereAgape ignores PMs and emails if he keeps getting so many, let's keep the OOC chatter in the OOC thread.

I would recommend this for combat:

SincereAgape rolls all initiative. You have a 3 second round, use it well, clearly declare your actions and follow the combat phase sequence:

CHARACTERS TAKE ACTIONS IN THEIR COMBAT PHASE

1. Declare Actions
2. Resolve Actions
3. Declare and Resolve Actions of Remaining Characters

BEGIN A NEW COMBAT TURN


To be honest, I have been bored. There seems to be an over-emphasis on rulings and demands. DO has just appeared in the game from *somewhere*, with no description who, what or where did he come from.

This it to prevent the person moving by mistake. Not necessarily in reaction to the surgery itself, but due to the fact that even a small movement (Attempting to stretch, yawn, get more comfortable, etc) can cause a severe injury.

This seems like a bad example, because the person in question doesn't -want- to be physically violated, she wants to -not- have the other possibility happen. A better analogy would be a masochist who opts to have someone whip them. In that case there isn't any sort of mental scaring, because they actually want and seek out that pain. The two are exceedingly different as far as mental terms, and thus why one is scaring and one is pleasurable, even though they may be the exact same physical act.

And if the possession is rejected on such a base level that it cannot be consciously controlled (Thus subconsciously controlled), then it would happen regardless of consciousness. Just as you breathe and your heart beats and your eyes dilate and your leg kicks when your knee is hit when you are unconscious. They are either controlled by your subconscious at all times, or are a physically required reaction.

Yes, there is precedent for an unconscious target being willing, but as we have both already stated, being willing has no affect whatsoever on difficulty of possession.

So far you've given examples of why being willing to be possessed doesn't negate the test, and an example of how an unconscious target is a willing target, but you haven't explained why an unconscious target should be treated differently from a willing target.

(Sorry if that sounds harsh, lots of logic and debate classes)

Not exactly true. You were told you were picking up another member in Cairo, and I was the Ork on the tarmac.

It wasn't clear to me.

Yeah, I'm still not sure where DO popped up from

At the moment, Hawkeye is providing cover for whoever is going to check out the tower, as well as making sure there aren't any other aggressors.

And for my above posting, I don't mind Agape going with the threshold thing for unconscious people, I'm just trying to figure out why, and debating with Peter while I wait for the scene to progress to a point where Hawkeye would do something. I suppose I can do an IC post for her scanning the tarmac for other threats. I'll do that later when I get a chance for a proper post again.

I was under the impression that the only people on the tarmac were the flight crew too. Hopefully Jane introduces us, because if he was just some random ork standing on the tarmac... well he could be working with that sniper for all we know. (unless he has 'hacker' tattooed on his head or something )

Hmm, no worries about Hawkeye shooting him, she'll just think that he is part of the ground crew.

Maybe this is my introduction......by fire

Most of the PMs I have sent SincereAgape have been just checking on him, and I'm pretty sure all the game-related ones have been pretty short. Maybe I have just been able to pack a lot of stress into a short amount of text. If I've stressed you SincereAgape, I sincerely apologise; That was not my intent. You're suggesting that we should put all our questions and so forth in here, am I undersanding your correctly Chrysalis? I can live with that. I was just trying to spare everybody having to look over everything I was thinking, but whatever. If that's easier on the GM, I'm fine with that.

With regards to getting a favorable ruling, why should we have to run things past the gauntlet of nonsense that often permeates here on DumpShock? I am completely capable of formulating a slate of options and presenting them to the GM. Or did I miss something?

Um, one other thing. Part of what makes a lot of in-person games enjoyable and memorable is the cross-table "chatter". Is that the "inanity" you're referring to here? Has that "chatter" been stressing out the GM as well, or is it just annoyng YOU? Just wondering.


While I personally might have liked a bit more introduction to DigitalOyabun's character, the way things worked out, we didn't get a chance for as much as "hello!" unless you mean posting things for us in the OOC thread here. But from a realistic RP perspective, we SHOULDN'T have the least clue before we meet the person, and we stepped off the iarcraft then had to start to drop trou for Vera. I wasn't even positive if the casualty was a PC or NPC at first. So once we're back on the jet and en route to Accra, that will be a great time to get to know them.

As to being bored, I'm not sure quite what to say... and remain entirely polite. I've been having a great time, but maybe that means it's been at the cost of somebody else's fun? This is my first PbP game, and so I have nothing to truly measure things against. SincereAgape and I have had a couple items where we went round-and-round, mainly because HOW he was going about things was different enough from what I have seen/played in the past, meaning I wanted to be clear how things like physics work here. If that's producing an over-prevalence of a request for rulings, I apologise to SincereAgape. I will just go with it from here on out and deal with whatever comes up, even if I feel I should have seen it coming.

I'm not sure what to tell you about being bored, Chrysalis. What would YOU like here? What precisely do YOU feel that's missing?

Hey gang!

SincereAgape, I can fully understand the desire not to turn GMing into a job. This is, or should be, as much a game and a pleasure for the GM as for the players. The reality is that the GM has the lion's share of work to keep the game going smoothly. I don't see any way around that. Built into that extra workload is the fun of telling a story, fun that is exclusive to the GM and gives enjoyment and mystery to the players.

I do see ways we can all make this PbP game go a little more smoothly. The reality is it doesn't matter how the rules work, or how a particular decision goes down. It's just a game with little connection or effect on real life. What is important is that we all have the same understanding of the rules and procedures. Otherwise we get retrospective changes and negations, which can be stressful for both players and GM. Most of the questions about rules, Chrysalis, have been queries about how something works. We need to know that. We are, in fact, entering some territory that few of us have explored, such as spirit possession, and we are all feeling our way through it. Such questions will peter out (Hey, I am allowed to use that term!) as the game progresses. PbP is new to some of us, and the etiquette needs to be worked out as well.

I firmly agree with you, Chrysalis, that this is SincereAgape's game, and it will run the way he wants it to. I am fine with that, and I am sure the other players are, too, though it may not seem so from the way some issues have been explored. As you suggest, doing a little thinking on our own and then presenting the question to SincereAgape with options is a good way to take some of the load off of him. As an example, see my request about how to deal with possessing unconscious persons. No attempt to force the GM, simply asking what the deal is. There are further issues about spirits that I will think about, and then present options here in the OOC for SincereAgape to decide. Let's all do it that way, and in the long run we will get answers to our questions faster, because the legwork has already been done. A quick question, a quick answer, and we get on with it. If an issue doesn't matter to a particular player, he or she can skip that post. I believe the nuts and bolts posts will become fewer and farther between as we go along. Then we can focus on being our characters, rather than learning how to walk. All of us will enjoy the game more, then.

The introduction of a new PC into the party in the middle of a firefight seemed like a cool idea to me. The feeling of confusion, having to make decisions with incomplete information, making errors on the fly... welcome to the 'fog of war' that overtakes every plan seconds after it is implemented. And we had a chance to see our new guy in action right away. Not necessarily action that highlighted his skills, but how did he deal with drek raining down on us? Intelligently. Good.

Why don't we give ourselves a bit of slack and wait for the duller stuff to fade, and the brighter stuff to predominate? It is bound to happen, particularly now that we have a clearer idea of how to present issues in a way that minimizes the load on the GM, who can therefore be free to scare the shit out of us.

I'm really getting to care about Hodder, and am finding nuances I will love to develop as time goes by.

And SincereAgape, take nothing personally. You have assembled a team of very strong personalities who will challenge any GM to do his best, just as you will challenge us. Isn't it exciting? You are doing a great job dealing with a bunch of prima donnas. You have yet to actually swear at any of us! Better than I would have done.

I had an idea...

How about we preface any "clarification" or "ruling" post like this?

[RULES:CLARIFICATION:"Posession of unconcious persons"]

or

[RULES:RULING NEEDED:"Long range and Direct Combar spells"]

or

[SCENE:CLARIFICATION:"Location of characters"]

Then we can go into details, but this way everybody can decide in the first line if they can afford to skip the post, and we can easily track the replies by when SincereAgape quotes us.

How's that sound?

Works for me.

I love it.

@Chrysalis
Thank you

Sounds good to me Kerenshara.


I figure there is likely a very nice sized hole somewhere in the tower from Hawkeye's shot.

I like the plane idea. We could always threaten him with an early unloading time ala batman

Did we ever establish if anyone besides Hodder went to the tower? I know Hawkeye didn't. Hodder and Hawkeye seem to be the only two with definite positions at the moment unless I'm forgetting something.

Alright, let's give it a shot.

[RULES:CLARIFICATION: selection of elemental effects for spirits]

[CROSS-TABLE CHATTER: To build group cohesiveness]

Hey, DigitalOYABUN, here's a quote from the latest episode of Flashpoint:

"He's not a geek. He's a geek with combat skills. That's why the ladies love him."

[SCENE:CLARIFICATION:"Location of characters"]

OK, so let me get this straight if I can. The only person currently who has gone up to the control tower is Hodder? If Jane/Ms. Johnson has gone up, Dartha would go as well. If Jane went back onto the plane for safety, Dartha would probably have accompanied Hodder.

Do I have that more-or-less straight?

[Scene:Clarification:"Location of Characters"]

That sounds correct, but so far we have no idea where Mr. Pope, the new hacker, or Vera are going.

[Scene:Clarification:"Location of Characters"]
If the called actions of the last combat turn have all taken place, then Dexter is atop the stairs leading the plane's cabine, using the door as cover.

Texas is hiding behind one of the vans attempting to get his VR on.

I think she means where are you going to go now that combat seems to have ended. Hodder for example has gone to the tower (Which took a few minutes I think). I don't think everyone is going to stay in cover positions forever

That's exactly what I meant. Jane is my primary concern, and SincereAgape mentioned he'd be back tonight some time. But knowing what everybody else is doing is important.

Texas will go to the 'Trix to handle and security alerts if he can, but most importantly to scout for enemy transmissions...he doesnt believe its over.

Good man-er, ork!

[SCENE CLARIFICATION: Location of characters]

SincereAgape closed off the scene for us and had at least some of us in the tower. That makes sense, at least for Hodder.

After the rifle Levitated out the window, it was clear to Hodder the guy holding it had lost control. The spirit had failed to possess the body, and was doing God knows what to follow Hodder's instructions, , so he definitely went to the tower. Along the way, the Levitated sniper rifle would have drifted to Hodder and Hodder would have dropped the Levitation spell.

It is about 400 metres to the tower, so it would take a very strong but short-legged Hodder a good minute to get there at a dead run. He considered using the possessing Task Spirit's Movement power to get there really fast, but given his understanding that the call to the authorities had been cancelled, and no new threat appeared, he saved the service.

Hodder is in fact searching the unconscious body of the sniper for clues. (Not likely to find any, but what the hell.) Hodder has very Nimble Fingers and should conclude this search quickly. Hodder is in the tower and in possession of a powerful sniper rifle. I can't say what anyone else has done, and it appears most everyone is basing their actions on what Jane does. If a vehicle were to come up to the tower, we could get the assailant back to the plane quickly, if we want.

I am thinking of having Dartha float some handcuffs up to Hodder with Levitate. That way she doesn't need to leave Jane's side (her job) but she can make sure knucklehead is secured. I just don't want to have to bother with the dice rolls and posting and all that jazz for something so trivial...

She would have spare handcuffs

Hodder carries plastic restraints, so he can bind the guy when he wants to. Ask IC before risking Drain.

Yes, Dartha doesn't leave home without them, as a general rule. So many uses... like many kitchen utensils, actually.

I won't make the actual intimidation roll, but I suppose you could count that as an assist for someone else, since I left it open weather or not Hawkeye's threat is allowed to go through. Oh, and for anyone that is trying to see if she is being truthful (Sense motive or whatever), she is.

The threat goes through. You can make a assistance roll if you like. [Feel free to add your rolls at the end of your IC posts.]

What is the roll? Cha + intimidate + 5 outnumberd + 2 wielding weapon + 2 Really freaking scary weapon? Looks like Dartha is going for the direct route.

Yeah, straight to the nerve endings.

And enjoying herself.