That was the main point of using Bobby to carry over the connection: The spirits can't make out the cable from the astral, Jawsey can mask Bobby's spell aura and Bobby can get access to the inside of the car from below to one of the universal connectors. Minimal exposure for the whole team - especially if Bobby scurries quickly enough

10m are well within Jawseys ability for an area effect. Once Bobby is inside the car, his aura won't be noticeable anyway.

Direct connection to a Pilot 1 or 2 means you can basically do anything to it with impunity (including the bootstrap trick for all kinds of permanent hacks)

The spirits have a fairly commanding view of the parking lot, as they have an elevated position (about 2 stories up) and a top-down view.

The van in question is parked nose-in with the hood of the car pointed toward The Jackal's Lantern. The areas of the side of it are semi-exposed because there are motorcycles there, which don't provide as much cover as full-sized vehicles.

Approaching it from the rear would be the most stealthy. You could potentially pull the Americar up behind the van and then hop out, using the van itself for cover. That could work with a successful Stealth roll.

Jack's plan also works if Jawsey's spell generates enough hits to hide Bobby's aura.

And Jack is right: if you can get a direct connection on the van then it's basically game over in terms of hacking. We wouldn't even bother rolling.

There are dice involved no matter what; it just depends which rolls you prefer to make. Or, conversely, which dice pools you want resisting you:

1) Bobby the Cute Little Mouse hops out behind the van with the data cord (Stealth)
2) Bobby the Cute Little Mouse uses Jawsey's Manascape for cover (Sorcery)
3) AM just wireless hacks the van, screw all this direct connection bulldrek (Hacking)

Oh, the van is online? Well that makes things easier for sure

I posted IC before reading this discussion here. Given Jawsey's roll, on the spell, I'm going to suggest sticking with that plan (roll in the IC, copied over here as well)
manascape, pre-edged: 13d6h5 7
Drain resist: 13d6t5 3
No drain, 7 successes.

I'd specified force four before reading about the 10+ meter gap, so Jawsey will have to move the spell some to continue providing coverage.

≠=====================
Unrelated to the in game situation, I'm sitting in a coffee shop as I write this, the first time in about six weeks that it has been allowed. It wasn't until the fifth one I checked that I found an available seat (fortunately my neighborhood is infested with coffee shops). I guess everyone else wanted to get out of their homes too (plus our downtown has been shut down for nine days now by a trucker/antivaxx/antimask protest, so less places to go).

Which got me thinking, with the dangers of Redmond, how many people suffer badly from cabin fever? How much does that feeling of being trapped with nowhere to go other than the streets drive some of the violence? Maybe this could be a marketing angle for Cutty: the gym, a safe place to go when you just want to go somewhere.

Well I suppose that is a fair point for discussion, so I'll throw it back to the group.

I presume that cars stay online so that they can receive instructions from their owners, like coming to pick them up.

But if that's too much of a security liability, then I'm happy to have them wireless off by default when they're parked and not in active use

How do others play it?

My logic here is that if you are safe enough to use autopilot (that can be hacked), you are safe enough to leave the car online waiting for you when you are outside the car. If your car gets stolen you have insurance to cover for it (and who would steal from a senior criminal anyhow?).


That said, I'd assume criminals do chases, thrill-races, drive-by shootings, and things that can only be done while manually driving, and preferably while being offline. In Carn-evil's case, it depends on what they use the clown car for if it is used for chilling around and doing mostly legal stuff. It can be used as a regular car with strong gang affiliation, and a nasty reputation protecting it from the other criminals of Redmond. Otherwise, I'd assume it would be manually driven and offline.

If you have a good commlink and slave your car to that, it's less of a risk.

That said, I'd equate leaving your car online to leaving the car unlocked.
You do that for short time only when you are just dashing in and out or when you park it at a secure place like your home or a parking garage where you have to pay and verify ownership to check out.

Without grid guide, the regular dog brain R1 isn't really capable of doing more than slowly parallel park.

So finding cars online in the open is more a case of a forgetful or neglectful owners.

Having your car online while you drive is no problem - direct manual control overrides any commands from a hacker that isn't jumped in.

Interesting, and makes sense but do you imply that SR cars do not move without a driver? E.g., to pick up the kids from school or to pick you up when there is no accessible parking next to where you want to be? It seems very restrictive to me to still need a driver in the car even if it autonomously drive.

Oh, no they absolutely do that, but:

- within secure parts of the city and active grid guide
- secure parking spaces
- having your commlink track the progress and status of your car.

Since you can reboot your car and specify a delay when it gets online again, you can park your car, shut off online until you get off from work or if you are delayed tell it to snooze for another half an hour until you are ready.

Of course I'm not saying that everyone follows those rules (there are enough people in RL around who use Password1 as their password), but I'd imagine that this is the recommended behavior from experts.

I'm operating under the assumption that cars would be slaved to personal commlinks and/or hosts when parked.

But for our current understanding - important because it cuts both ways - we'll say that most parked cars are not online (unless due to negligence and/or a specific purpose).

Bobby should probably be Mindlinking with Jawsey (not AM) to coordinate the coverage of Manascape with Bobby's movements. Jawsey can relay comments between the two as necessary. But for the current situational I'm going to assume that Bobby exited the Americar right behind the Eurovan and thus is confident in the coverage.

Bobby will find his way into the Eurovan.

With Bobby in the van, Jawsey doesn't have to worry about covering him, so he can bring the spell back to their car to then cover AM. Spirits (that don't have other sense) only see in the astral, so making AM's aura that of a rat should work again -- although she may not be as experienced at acting like a rat. So if there is a door away from the spirits that Bobby can open, that would work to reduce suspicions. And if the car is offline presumably it can't sent an alert that its door opened. Just look out for any tags keeping an eye on things.

@Beta
Okay, that understanding works.

I'll note that there's no rain today, so the fire spirits won't have the same reservations about materializing that they did last time. But, for now, they're just on the astral and are thus limited to assensing.

The rear van doors are pointing away from the spirits, so that would be the most covert way for AM to enter the van without the spirits noticing her. However, those rear doors would be more exposed to the other folks in the parking lot, namely the homeless warming themselves around the barrel fires. A distraction would be prudent.

Yes, if the car is offline the it won't trigger an alert that its door opened. However, if the car is offline there's no way to make it online without permission of some sort, whether that's a key or a fob or a commlink.

I just tested this on my Toyota, which needs a key fob to turn on so it seems like a reasonable parallel. Without the key fob in the car, the windows won't roll down and the radio won't turn on.

AM should pop the vent cover back in place before she leaves the van.

Anything else you want to do here or should we fast-forward?

What time interval is AM putting on the van to report to the burner commlink? More frequent = more granular, but also increases the odds of being detected. Less frequent = less useful, but decreases the odds of being detected. Not that the odds of being detected are high, but they're above 0%.

In light of our previous conversation around "not in use, not online", this reporting will primarily take place when the van is in use. I'll presume that AM coded a clause for "report on startup and report when shutting down" to give you the starting and endpoints.

I liked your interpretation of concealment.

About the comlink, anytime the car starts and stops would be fine. If we really want to know where it is we can always use the burner to call it.


Thanks for remainding about the vent, she'll close that.

Yeah, we can jump forward to the next day.

I'll skip forward to SIS HQ first.

summon F4+1=5 spirit of man: 11d6t5 3
spirit resist: 5d6t5 0 critical glitch for the spirit
drain resist vs 2: 13d6t5 3
no drain, 3 services, and whatever the spirit's crit glitch might mean

In those cases I usually granted an extra service to the summoner

For a regular glitch, I usually make the spirit especially subservient or willing to do things above and beyond what it would normally tolerate.

For a critical glitch, it will basically do anything for the summoner. It may even voluntarily hang out after its services have ended.

@All
Meeting Big Stank inside or outside? It could affect how things play out.

We have nothing to tell, that would make him happy - I vote for outside.

AM would prefer inside for a more private conversation but the way I view her she'll go with Bobby's intuition on that thing (and Jawsey's?)

Beta, what's Jawsey's vote?

Sorry, going to break into some 'table talk' here, because I feel that we are getting nowhere.

@Tecumseh I feel like all of the NPC are speaking in a consistent voice telling us that we are going about things the wrong way. What I'm not sure of is whether this is simply "nobody likes you or how you do things so of course they are not cooperating" or if this is "GM hint that we are going about this is a bull-headed and difficult manner, and that we are missing a better approach." If I knew you as a GM better, or if we were around a table-top where I could pick up on body-language and voice tone it would be a lot easier to tell. But we aren't, and I'm worried that we are trying to sail straight into the wind without realizing it, and ignoring all of your hints on the matter.

@Gilga, @Jack_Spade I probably just let my frustration colour my approach to Big Stank, sorry. I think I've reached the point of feeling that we'd be better off focusing our energy on moving the business out of Redmond*. However as I'm still planning on retiring Jawsey (possibly even ahead of schedule if Big Stank gets angry enough ) and as I can adapt the new character to whatever happens in this chapter, I'm saying that only as opinion, not a vote. I'll go with whatever you two decide on.

*character and player energy; there would be a substantial OOC effort in defining a new place on top of the IC part.

You're not missing anything.

I said it before but now's as good of a time for a reminder as any: there's "job" this chapter. There's no mission. It's purely sandbox.

A bomb goes off, KOing Mato and damaging the building. What do you do about it? Nothing? All-out war? Targeted vengeance? Sell out to Urubia? Move away? All options are available, but there are consequences to each.

The open-ended nature is a bit of an experiment, especially in a PbP format, but I figured it was worth trying after 3.5 years together. Your characters are established enough that the events are happening to real personalities, not in a vacuum.

You're not missing anything because there's nothing to miss. The chapter's basically over when you decide it's over. Tomorrow, next week, next month, whenever you've taken the action as far as you want it to go. Or, OOCly, when it's not fun anymore.

I'll do a bit of wrap-up on Mato's fate when the time is right, but that will be at the end of the chapter.

I admit that part of AM's reservations about leaving Redmond reflect my own sorrow that we spent the last years populating Redmond with colorful and interesting characters and moving downtown or to some fancy office building would mean that many of the colorful characters we interact with would be lost. For example, Carn-evil and Big Stank, Cutty, and even Urubia are all beautiful characters that I'd like to keep interacting with.

A very valid point - but I'd expect us to come here in the course of our work anyway 😅

But yes, I also love the organically grown environment of our game

@Tecumseh Thanks for the confirmation. There was just such a consistent message from NPCs that I got worried. Happy to know that is all in-game messaging. I'll stop being quite so paranoid now.

====================================

Re: possibly moving, pros and cons.

I do love the environment, and having recurring characters who we have grown. But, (not even focusing on this chapter), it feels to me that SIS has become too successful for Redmond. That is, as detectives we are trying not to get entangled in politics, we are are aiming to be a contracted tool for specific situations rather than being part of some larger group to be assigned as that group sees fit. But being financially independent and getting to the point where we are not purely hand-to-mouth, well in Redmond that is a bit of a big deal, so there are going to be a lot of people looking to cash in on our success, or who are (dangerously) envious of it, or threatened by it. Certainly gangs in general would never want us to ever have much of a leadership role in improving the community (which would otherwise be one way to deal with the success problem), and Urubia in particular wants success to happen under her wings. So it sort of feels like to stay in Redmond we'd have to accept either being regularly hammered back down into our place, or get co-opted by one group or another.

This same dynamic plays out everywhere, of course. But the threshold of problematic success (or even of being noticed) is higher in most other parts of the 'plex. Different challenges of course. But one is being a tree trying to grow in a dry grassland, where even if you can get enough water you will get chewed down regularly. The other is being a tree trying to grow in a forest, where you are struggling for resources with larger trees, but where to a large extent success makes you less vulnerable rather than more.

Of course all of that is typed while wearing Jawsey colored glasses. It is my general feeling about barrens in SR (almost nobody thrives there, the goal is to succeed enough to get out), but in particular Jawsey has no particular attachment to Redmond, and a history that says "don't anger strong opponents, get away from them instead." No doubt the character influences the player sometimes, at least for me.

So as I said in my previous post, this is an opinion, not a vote. If we are staying, I can figure out something in the next character that makes them more attached to Redmond (and/or more tolerant of dragon).

@beta

very interesting analysis - you put in words what I only felt.

Bobby used to be a creature that was perfectly at home in the Barrens. But since I evolved him away from a pure lone wolf towards a pack mate, he is also more aware of dangers to his team. And since he never will be able to really diffuse confrontation without getting in peoples' faces, he'd rather yield ground here than risking his mates.

Shadowrun has 33 years of lore. I've always felt like the setting itself is an additional character. That's why I wanted to do the Interludes, to have those little slice-of-life experiences that are connected to the world but not a job. I also want the world to feel lived-in, organic, real. Missions don't just take place in a vacuum; the world evolves around decisions made. In my experience, a cast of recurring characters can help with that.

The setting is a corporate dystopia, so I try not to ignore that. I really like the tagline "Everything has a price" because I love the idea of consequences, of the risk-reward trade-off. "Can I afford to do this, can I afford not to do this, can I look at myself in the mirror afterwards, etc." As a storyteller, I'm not trying to rake you over the coals, but I am trying to make the characters feel.

Beta's assessment is largely correct. Touristville is a transition area: you're either clawing your way out of the Barrens or your sliding down into them. It's not a nice place. You're either working you way toward something better, or trying to stay out of somewhere worse.

The forest metaphor is largely accurate as well. Are you the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, or are you the nail that sticks up and then gets hammered down.

Or, put another way, would you rather be big fish in a small pond or small fish in a big pond? Who do you want to work with and who do you want to dodge? The gangs? Organized crime? Knight-Errant? The corps? A dragon? There will be Powers That Be no matter where you go, so pick and choose which ones you're willing to deal with and/or work around.

It's also fair to ask what people are finding fun and what types of jobs/missions are enjoyable. Personally I don't care much about investigations, but what I do like is that we're in this grey-area legally. We're technically legitimate, but we often do stuff that's quasi-legal. We're not out-and-out criminals like shadowrunners, but nor are we corp soldiers. That line, that balance is interesting to me.

That grey area is why I think SIS should be located in a place that is a grey area in itself. It fits the kind of illegal stuff we do- but the security issue is a big argument so if there are no political deals that keep us safe in Redmond I think we should move. Learn new skills like not getting arrested by the police for practicing unlicensed magic, or for guns and illegal cyberdecks. AM sees SIS as an office that if the police would ever search we're screwed. So suggesting a legitimate business in town along the cooperations feels a bit awkward to her - a place of exile rather than a place to thrive.

One option would be to keep the office there, but move our living quarters to somewhere nicer (and keep that place secret)

But honestly, the AA areas don't care about our grey work - they just want us to be discreet about it - witch we are getting better and better at

IC - I assume that the SINners who know how to be in normative society would be more at ease, and AM being SINless would be as paranoid as Redmond. Though, given Urubia's rise - it does feel like there is no place in Redmond for SIS or for independent and relatively powerful groups. While we could strike some balance with a single gang, a syndicate is just too big for the kind of crazy stuff I imagine my characters do.

I'd say just move to a nice place and let AM deal with her issues about never actually being in a nice place before. Interestingly, perhaps the deal with the hacker club is the tipping point for SIS because we are no longer desperate to pay the bills we have a contract with future payments that would cover rent + expenses for a while. Interestingly, it also gives us the leeway to find Bonita but Big Stank is just so rude that I find it difficult even for my normally very rational AM to want to work for him.

Perhaps it is her way to realize that things have changed and that they are not as desperate as they once were.

Beta, any input before we move on? ICly or OOCly

Some gardening ideas (sorcery perspective) here is what I have - any other cool ideas we want to try out?


Spells for gardening:
1. Clean[water]
2. Multiply food (perhaps as a ritual) for better harvests. (perhaps fluff it as a spell or faster/more prolific plant growth)

In the future:
3. Light (for cheap indoor gardening) perhaps with quickening to keep the light source at all times.

Homunculus ritual would create cheap and reliable farmhands.

Or a Scarecrow that actually scares crows.

Or corporations trying to stomp out your roof garden

A little collection of very tough homunculi could be useful for SIS in general after what happened just now.

She will study the ritual, but I am not sure dicepool wise about tough ones.

That's the nice thing: The body and armor of the homunculus depends entirely on the material they are made of. If you use concrete or steel, it has that barrier rating too.

There is a weight limit or there really would be very small isn't it so?

It's pretty generous at F*10kg
If you use a granite block you also benefit from the lowest possible object resistance.
But yeah homunculi are small - hence the name 😉

You can make a homunculus tougher with the material you use, but you also potentially increase its Object Resistance, which then impacts its dice pool to resist the ritual, which then impacts how long it lasts, and thus your expenses in reagents. Stone statues are probably the best combination of strength and having the homunculus last for a while.

The weight limit isn't outrageous. If you're making Force 3 homunculi then they can be up to 30 kilograms, which seems plenty for a little statue to run around and tend a garden.

Edit: Ha, Jack and I said the same thing at almost the exact same time.

Clean [Water] is a very good idea.

I was unaware of the Multiply Food spell but that seems very potent in this context. You could feed a lot of people (and thus buy a lot of friends) inexpensively.

Light works well narratively but mechanically it's not that necessary since we're not at the level of granularity/simulation that breaks out our electric bills to the point where we're trying to lower them.

Has anyone heard from beta? It's been a while since they have written.

About Beta It has been a while indeed, I had no contact.


So Stone statue for opening packages and working the garden. Considerably cheaper than a drone and nice to fluff about an enchanted garden.


About the multiple food, I was thinking of using it to gain some influence if we stay. I think it would work best with a garden because I'd imagine industrial food to already make use of such a potent spell.

I have not heard from Beta. It's been a week now. I've been slow-playing it to see if he might jump in. He was online on the official forums a couple days ago so I'll ping him there. I'll take that as a good sign that he's okay.

@Beta, let us know if you have OOC (real life) complications or IC ones. If this isn't fun or you feel that you can't RP Jawsey anymore, let us know and we'll move past this. The player is more important than the character.

Hi everyone, sorry for the unplanned absence. I'm fine, the best I can put it is that I had a mental stack overflow error, enough things going on that my brain seemed to have decided to just forget about some things -- left a novel half read, didn't think about ShadowRun at all (here or the game I run for my son, nor even following the shadowrun reddit), and some other stuff. I'm doing rounds this evening apologizing for just dropping out of touch. As I said it wasn't planned or even really conscious, if I'd known I needed time away I would have said something. Instead the thoughts of it just fell away, which is really weird to be coming out the other side of (Jack, I know you've read the Laundry Files books, I now have more sympathy for Americans in the one where they all forgot the existence of the executive branch of government, and how odd it would be when reminded of it).

Anyway, will catch up on the IC posts tomorrow and will see if I have something to say about wherever things have landed at.

Beta, thanks for checking in. Given the current state of the world, it's always good to hear that someone is okay and an unplanned absence isn't a sign of something worse.

As far as AM is concerned (unless we want to blow up the Lantern) I'd be happy to move on as the next actions are to observe Carn-evil over the course of days, and start gardening which can be summed in a paragraph or two.

I'm okay with fast-forwarding too. I'll see what Bobby and Jawsey want to do, if anything.

I've got nothing. I thought about Jawsey sliding off on his own to try and talk to the mayor, but decided against it.