Oh, I remember.


@all: I'm a little torn here regarding Karma expenditure choice. Can't spend all of it, since I need to save up for another initiation. What do you guys think: a new contact for stealth helicopter services, a long-term binding with Guard and Aid Spellcasting (Manipulation), learning Control Thoughts, or learning Increase Willpower/Body/Charisma?

Edit: @pbangarth: Here's a list of currently pending or unaddressed items for your reference:

1. Zo's information request to contact Roper to investigate the rest of us, if Warlord still wants that to be a thing.
2. Jovan's behind-the-scenes activity from Monday night/early Tuesday morning, involving the setup of a F4 Masking ward around the warehouse with the very sleepy Professor while everyone else was asleep - see OOC post 460.
3. Zo's knowledge skill checks: one on DeClerry's and one on Cargo Bill (plus potentially another earlier check from post 391 for where to find dealers in black market magical goods - although Warlord, pbangarth may have answered this in post 416).
4. Glyph's 5-hit knowledge skill check for the black market
5. Our ideas discussion about how to use surgical applications of Alter Memory to turn the rifleman into a HUMINT source - I, too, still need to do more thinking about how to do this.
6. SHOPPING. Personally, I'm going to try to fit in a trip over to Nybbles and Bytes between doing the interrogation and scouting the Crying Wall underground tunnels for a ghost - hopefully they will have some lore books on Calling and negotiating with ghosts. Others may want to get in their own small trips soon.
7. Those tutelage and student/teacher character interplay sessions between Jovan and Professor that we talked about offhandedly a while back. We still haven't been able to find time to fit those in. Perhaps we could use flashbacks to fit them into hours that we glazed over OOC?

I'm still here. Been a long week, and I've decided to rebuild my character from scratch.. too many things I was unhappy with. Not going with SURGE this time.

Mr GM, a few questions about firearm modifications
1> Can I modify an internal magazine shotgun to have the "increased clip size" or "ammo drum"? Can I modify it to have the "additional clip" mod?

Who's waiting for whom right now?

Posted a snippet just in case it's me. Void tends to be a bit more passive in the planning stages, though.

I 'm waiying on pbangarth to answer a couple of Qs, posted above : )

Okay, okay! Tomorrow is Saturday. I'll get on to a lot of this.

Aside from a few tweaks, Im mostly working on background. Its actually very straight forward.. almost boring... she grew up in a fairly normal family, no one was murdered or taken hostage or anything.. she just had a fascination with the Shadow World, and eventually wormed her way into it Also, the Crash of 64 helped

Should be done by the end of the weekend, if I dont get overly busy tomorrow. Oh, and the equipment questions of course

Seph, that's all I remember at the moment.

Thanks for the list, Sephiroth, it's really helpful. Especially the post references. Give Jovan another karma point for the work you have put into making my job easier.

OK, I'll split my answers into a few posts, so that answers can actually start to appear.

Jovan's karma expenditure ideas: Control Thoughts seems to be in the general vein of his spells. Does it give enough different capability from what he has already? I like the contact idea. It would have to be played out IC to become active, though.

Point 2 (Masking idea): This needs some more work. Jovan and Zayne fed at 11:45 pm on Sunday. Conversion of Drained Essence into Magic has to happen within an hour of the Drain and lasts for no more than 12 hours, and half the converted Essence then disappears. (SR4A p. 294) So the extra essence Jovan has currently can't be converted. Extra Essence up to his maximum of 18 (damn Nosferatu!) could be drained and converted, but that would only allow another 7 points, converted to 3 Magic points, which wouldn't be enough for the plan as it stands.

*bows*

I can respond to this now, though feel free to get out the rest of your answers before coming back to this. All of what you quoted is true, of course, but I have always interpreted that text to mean that any general amount of Essence can be converted into Magic or other attribute points temporarily, so long as at least one point of Essence has been drained within the last hour. This is because the text doesn't make a clear distinction (in my mind) between Drained and non-Drained Essence; moreover, from a long-term standpoint, all of a vampire's or nosferatu's Essence is going to come from Draining other metahumans anyway.

This interpretation does factor in Patrick's previous comments elsewhere about how a vampire etc. can't drain more Essence or burn any existing points if they are already topped off - I remember him writing that this is one of the reasons why the smarter and more self-aware vampires and nosferatus of the 6th World almost never fully sate their thirst (though I don't have the exact thread or post on hand right now). Granted, if we carry this through to its logical conclusion, we do get one effect that could potentially make you as GM slightly worried (I can theoretically burn 18 points of Essence at once and get a Magic of 13 for 12 hours), but it also avoids another problem effect from your interpretation above: that one can only ever burn Essence that you've Drained within an hour. That would leave Jovan stuck with an Essence above 11 (or whatever the current number is) for at least a couple of years IC, which would allow anyone assensing him to instantly infer that he is Infected - regardless of whether they pierced his Masking. This would be problematic from a roleplaying and survival standpoint. I like the analogy of a nuclear weapons inspection here; if you inspect arbitrary building X and see no evidence whatsoever that they have any equipment or people or interest in producing a nuke, but you measure gamma radiation coming from inside and some traces of fissile plutonium or whatever in their smokestacks, you can quickly figure out that something's up and it isn't good.

The first effect doesn't strike me as very unbalanced, though - recall that Jovan is really physically frail, can do Agility-related tasks (like shoot a gun) with a grand total of 1 die, technically isn't strong enough to lift another adult human on his own, lacks basic face skills due to shortage of BP's (after racial cost), and uses a Drain pool that kind of leaves something to be desired. Pair him against a really well-built fighter like Void, and he would be utterly dismembered 10/10 times under normal circumstances. So to me, being able to occasionally boost an attribute by 6 points or more for a while is an overall balanced counterweight to those things. Plus, Jovan can still only boost one attribute at a time - so the Drain on F10+ spells would still be something fierce with only 9 dice to resist it. What are your thoughts on this?

I'll go over the wording carefully and get back to you.

*nudges lightly* You never got back to me on my Qs..

Nudges Professor. you're not retiring at 62 are you?

Professor's mention of Cargo Bill gets both Void and Zo some clues through their networks. Zo has heard of him as someone who works through the Ork Underground, CB being an Ork himself this is not unusual.

Void has the same recollection, but his sources go further. Cargo Bill used to work in Washington, working some smuggling from Europe. He moved to Seattle a couple of years ago and has made a good, well, strong reputation here. Gets the job done, competitive prices, thoroughly professional. And totally cold-hearted. Cross him, and pay with your life. And a few smaller competitors have 'disappeared'. He runs a team called the Cargo Cult. Same characteristics as their boss.

As well, according to Zo's info, Pertwilling is known to have done business there.

I have a reply from Roper, but Zo's commlink is blocked by the electronic defenses in the hideout. Once Zo steps outside the protection zone, or links to the matrix through the hard link upstairs, he will get the following:

<<Roper@Zo: Sorry for delay. Had some trouble with hostiles. Hope this is still useful. Uncle Zola recently moved into Seattle and looked to hook up with a local fixer. Checked me out, but looks like he thought I was too small. Guy carries some serious cred in New Orleans. Heavy hitter, solid rep, scary as hell. Never did like those possession types. If you have a choice, stay on his good side.>>

Sephiroth:

1) Still ruminating on the ward thing.

2) Shopping trips are fine. go for it. Maybe we can have some side fun!

3) Professor/Jovan talks sound good. The potential Pertwilling caper wouldn't become operational till... Thursday I think. The arms deal, if you guys decide to farm the interception out, would need some contacting in the near future, but then would leave a day or so for the two of them to 'chat'. If you want to initiate a 'flashback' dialogue, that's fine too. Let's highlight flahbacks so they are clear to all as being such. How about this:

Date and time stamp

Probably should have some location info, too.

Professor and Jovan talking and theorizing about weird shit the other boys would rather not know about. "Actual dialogue could be in quote marks."

4) Hmmm... surgery to help alter memories. Could be dicey and expensive. Think some more, me too.

Well it has been over 6 months real time. Forgot about that. But I also asked roper about the crew Zo is dealing with (Professor, Jovie and Void).

Uhhh... right ... uhhh ... well .... he doesn't know much except they work(ed) for that new guy, the Spaniard. Before that they were not on any important radar.

(That should piss off a couple of players, eh?)

Depends, sometimes no reputation is better than the wrong kind of reputation. Good to know though.

I need to work in amateur hour from Ronin at some point.

I'm not dead - just been really busy with a bunch of different online courses for freelancing as well as looking everywhere for gigs and employment before I run out of money within the next week. I'll set a goal of responding to these IC within the next two days.

That should be everything from the list I posted, though. I think the only remaining item pending is AlyW's previous questions about his/her character.

Sorry, guys. I've been really sick, and then got involved in our election. And I'm getting a little worried about being unemployed for quite a while now. scrambling for something to pay bills.

I could have dropped a line to let you guys know, though. I'll get back up to speed.

We are still here!

Yes we are!

Yep.

Hello? Just checking to see if you are alive PB. Don't know how dangerous those Canadian elections are. I mean, I've heard they can be pretty brutal......

I'm super busy for the next week as my current contract comes to a close, so I can't easily do this now. But if pbangarth does not check in on Dumpshock by next Thursday, I will try to contact him on LinkedIn (as I happened to find him on there IRL a month or two ago).

Sent. I will keep y'all updated.

I have received no response so far. I also located and messaged him on Facebook (which I think he'd be ok with), but he hasn't been online there anytime recently either. Disappearing like this is unusual for him, because I know that he really wanted to keep this game going for Professor's sake. I will continue trying to reach him, and will post updates on my progress for you guys. I hope that sickness he mentioned didn't cripple him or anything...

Yeah, he's also involved in another PBP game here and I don't think he's been involved in that one as well.

Hey guys, a whole lot of trouble landed on me and my family a while ago, and we've been keeping our heads above water. Just. Sephiroth is right, I dearly want to keep this thread going. I believe I will be on an even keel by January, so if you guys can hold on a little longer, I will refresh my plans for the game and get going again in the new year.

That's the best I can do. Sorry for keeping you in the dark and just falling off the map.

OK, I'll try to make up for lost time.

I'll speed things up to get us into some action. Don't expect the new equipment to arrive before Saturday. The two captives are beyond interrogation for at least as long.

My understanding is that the crew is tending towards getting a third party to interfere with the arms shipment, and personally taking on the potential gig with Pertwilling? Is this correct? If so, Professor will take on the arrangements for the arms attack and you guys can focus on the Pertwilling contract.

I believe that is correct. Our intentions were to either hire out a third party ourselves, or to rat the arms dealer out to his Mafia superiors and pull them in to intercept the shipment. We had been leaning more towards the latter. Good to see you back!

God... it's good to be back.

Still with us, pbangarth?

Sort of???

I'm moving the team ahead a few hours to something interesting to get our hearts pumping again. (Sorry to Jovan for the metaphor.) I never did actually place our new hideout before, so I'm doing it now I'm trying Google Maps as a tool for location links.

Our base is at 1405 E 25th St. Tacoma, just east of Nu-Tread Tires:

Top Secret Base of Operations

G.Maps shows a ruined building in a field. This is where our warehouse exists in 2071. I'll get a schematic to you soon. References may be made in the future to nearby establishments, so keep this link handy.

The space cadet is first to rise!

Is it raining outside?

Also was Jovan able to fit in that shopping trip to Nibbles and Bytes in the last 4 hours? Being, you know, wide awake and all. Flashback time, maybe?

Nope, clear weather.

Uh, OK. Nybbles and Bytes turned out to be pretty low level, generic materials that rookies, amateurs, posers and the like would buy. What's in the Running Wild book should be available to you from the store, but as it says on page 174, you will have to do at least an extended test of days in duration to get detailed information through more esoteric sources, in the Matrix or elsewhere.

Is there something from me you guys are waiting for?

We're waiting on Jovan, now that the two orks have picked different magical options from the two he offered. Void offered an opinion when it was solicited from him, but doesn't really care that much. I was going to do an IC post of him shrugging or something, but I didn't feel I had enough material for even a short snippet of a post. I'll put a little something up, though.

Sorry. Super swamped with other things right now. I'll get a post up ASAP.

OMG!!

Jovan giving decision making power to the ... lesser mortals?

Let's investigate THIS PROJECT to see if it is useful for mapping/orienting our game.

I am assuming their base has some tarp or something lying around to cover the gun - Void wouldn't take off on a bike with an obvious rifle strapped to his back.

yeah, assume anything obvious like that, but please continue to state the obvious, just to make the story flow.

heh heh heh heh ...

Uh, Glyph, just so I don't have to go back through the thread, which weapon does Void have, the one the prone guy (the first one Void sliced) had, or the one the seated guy had? I'll just assume Void took the appropriate ammo.

He took the SHIAWASE ARMS TACTICAL MODEL 69 Sniper Rifle.