We're getting to the end of this scene. We can transition to whatever is next.

Beta, what did you want to RP? Party prep? The party itself? Tamarind's arrival? Maybe Cutty, playing the matchmaker, invites her to the party...

I can take over and we start with the preparations for the party

But before that: Since this was a relatively short interlude, what are we looking at for skill improvements?

Well I was thinking of the interlude being the lawyer and Jawsey's departure and Tamarind's arrival. But if those make sense in the new chapter then we can do it that way.

I wasn't sure how much time Beta wanted to spend on it, or if gilga wants us to keep slow-playing things for a bit.

Fair point, let's put the party in the interlude then and keep it going until gilga can join us again more reliably.

Makes sense to me.

Has been an busy week for family stuff, but I'll put up a party prep post tomorrow. Anyone please feel free to suggest people to invite.

Urubia.

Piza kids

Well there are the guys that helped us rebuild our front, Cutty and the squatter, whose name escapes me at the moment.

I am back at home (rather than in a hospital). I'll give an update in a few days and hopefully recover enough to get going.

Good to see, you are back - take your time.

Glad that you are home at least. Take care of yourself and best wishes on your recovery

Alright, I am back home and feeling well enough to carry on. I am sorry for the delay - but honestly, the things I have endured this last week were way too much for anyone. Just glad to be somewhat back to normal.

Seems like you burned some Edge there - no permanent damage I hope?

Sounds awful, Gilga. Like Jack said, I hope no permanent damage.

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

A quick question, looking for suggestions on how to handle availability for anything Tamarind buys with "during play" nuyen. During character creation it is straight forward enough, 12 or less. When we are actively looking to get things there are the rules for looking by yourself or through contacts. I can follow the latter rules, but I admit I'm kind of hoping to avoid the extra die rolls. Would anyone object if I didn't worry about that part for availability 4 or less items?

Burned edge! That's a good one.

A few years ago my father was in the hospital for two weeks with a bad blood infection. The thing is that nobody had any clue how he got it or even a plausible theory where it might have come from. Life (and death) can be like that sometimes, where it sideswipes you with no notice.

But I'm delighted to hear that gilga is back at home. A great relief.

@Beta
Excellent question and I've been struggling with similar questions recently.

For starters, let's just give Tamarind access to Availability 12 throughout her process, including "post" chargen.

Second, I've been debating how to handle Mato's quest for upgrades. How many dice to use, what happens if he fails, etc. The book has a built in "well try again after ____ days (or weeks)" mechanic that would probably work on a Missions timescale but breaks down a bit for our game since our forward skips in time are more constrained.

For example, up to this point we haven't been rolling any Arcana dice for initiations to see how long they take. To be clear, I absolutely agree that this is the right way to do it so that it syncs up with our OOC calendar of GM duties and which PC is away at the time.

But now I'm wondering how we could apply a similar concept to Availability and gear acquisition. Do we have one system for the player who GMing (like a certain Availability automatically succeeds for the GM PC) and another system for those who were PCs both before and after? Or do we have this be a function of what our Contacts can find for us? That would then incentivize people to invest knowledge karma in relevant Contacts. That wouldn't be much of a cost, since Contacts are inexpensive and knowledge karma is plentiful, but it's a thought.

Very much open to other ideas here. Anyone else thought about this?

GMing should include the ability to get things done for the GM PC - as you say, we are handwaving the necessary time for initiation. I'd be perfectly happy to do the same for gear.
Basically, the character spends a week or two exclusively making the necessary connections to get what they want. If you are looking for exotic stuff like Deltaware... I'd say that would be worth an interlude.
Mato for example could just contact Cunningham and ask for a referal. In the world of the super rich, it's always possible to do a little quid pro quo.

If you want to do it within the rules, you could also just buy the Friends In High Places quality. Cha x4 points and a minimum of 8 Connection Rating should be good enough to just get stuff.

burned edge is likely accurate. Too early for understanding all the damages but for the meanwhile, I am alive and feeling well regardless. I had a talk about it with a good friend and I told her that I wish her my luck with investments but not my luck with health. Anyhow - I am completely okay with high availability gear in the gaps between chapters.

Did we actually get Cunningham as a Contact? If so, I didn't write him down. I wrote down Brad Burns and Chan Wu. I suppose Chan might be able to give a referral, although she might not know as much about cyber and street docs since she was an adept.

In between chapters and interludes, or when time is not an issue, I would say let's not roll for anything Availability 12 and under as long as we have a relevant contact. If it's during a chapter and time is of the essence, like when you need to drug a sloth that's not actually a sloth, then the GM may still require a roll at their discretion. If it's between chapters and it's over Availability 12, then either run it by the GM and/or roll. I would suggest that we all use the same dice pool, representing SIS's collective efforts. Perhaps 14 dice, representing a fully boosted AM, or maybe 14 + teamwork dice from the rest of us.

For the GM PC, I'm thinking about something in the 20 to 24 range, although I agree with the restriction on things that are narratively restricted (not just mechanically restricted) like Deltaware.

For Mato, I'm getting cold feet on the grey mana stuff because it's all Forbidden, not that I really understand why. It's also goofy to me that cyber melee weapons are all Forbidden, but cyberguns are only Restricted if it's anything less than a grenade launcher. Why are the blade more illegal than the ballistics? Not sure I follow the logic there. I know we haven't really been too worked up about Restricted vs. Forbidden, as SIS operates in a grey area legally, but I still like the idea of Mato at least being able to pass in high society without his aura screaming FORBIDDEN.

I'm on board with that. Our pool should be highest Charisma+4(augmentation)+2xNegotiation (Teamwork dice max out at skill level), so for AM that would be currently 19 dice. So basically anything below 19 should be available within a month. Higher level gear might need a bit of extra money thrown at it for some bonus dice.


And yes, you should have Cunningham's number


The cyber knife vs cyber gun discussion had me scratch my head also a few times. My personal conclusion was, that a cybergun still needs bullets that can relatively easy detected with a chemsniffer - likewise, you can disarm a gun by removing the ammunition. A cyberspur on the other hand is very hard to detect and harder still to disable.

The grey-tattoos are likely forbidden, because it makes you harder to subdue through authorities (magic being expensive and therefore a tool of the elites) - can't have the plebs withstand magic, can we?

Sorry for the slow updates. Been a weird several days in the city, as an intense storm Saturday afternoon took out power to close to half the city, taking down an impressive number of electrical lines, poles supporting lines, and even several of the huge steel towers that carry the high capacity lines into the city. We didn't lose power at my house, but most of our friends and family did, and there are still substantial outages (including my mother's place, and my workplace). Anyway, I was absorbed enough with helping people and staying in touch with people to see if they needed help that I forgot to make time for posting for a bit, sorry. It wasn't a complete lack of time, just a lack of focus.

And a lesson learned: modern hearing aids use internal rechargeable batteries, but don't have very long duration, so need to be charged regularly. So black-outs are particularly scary for anyone who relies on hearing aids to be able to communicate. Needless to say we'll be picking up a power bank for mother to make sure she has a good supply of charging if something like this happens again.

Another player in a different game apologized for not posting due to the power outages in Eastern Ontario. I figured the same thing was affecting you, Beta.

ICly it's Wednesday and the party is Friday so we have some downtime to burn. Mato will be arranging for his new cyber and maybe making friends with Green Toes before Jawsey leaves.

Wow, that is intense, stay safe.

Mato has the Recipes knowledge skill for this exact occasion!

Intuition 6 + Recipes 2: 8d6t5 3 hits

I'll pretend like he's not full of wound modifiers for the moment.

@beta

Best of wishes to you. Weather is getting crazier every year (we recently had a tornado in the middle of bavaria)

My Mother finally got her electricity back today, about an hour after a full eight days had passed. Who'd have thought in this day that power would ever go out for over a week?

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

Trying to get my head back into 2079. Something, something, choose recipes? I'm going to go re-read the last few IC now, and should have a new IC up tomorrow.

As for Tamarind I had her mostly done through initial character creation (as I recall it I needed to do contacts and figure out what to do with the last ~12knY), but then I need to go through all our advancement karma and rewards.

One Tamarind question, because this is very clear in my brain but I just failed to find an actual reference for it. Autosofts running on a drone are limited to the level of the drone's pilot, right? Or am I imagining it?

I'm not aware of anything that limits an autosoft rating, other than the natural cap of 6. The true limitation is how many autosofts can drones run at once:


This is a challenge because for most drones that means about two autosofts. The RCC helps you get around this limitation.

*****

It's a holiday weekend in the US so I'm away from my computer most of the time and thus moving slowly.

OOCly, the next thing I have to do is finalize Mato's spending. I penciled it out ages ago but now I need to make it a reality.

ICly, we can fast-forward as much time as people want. There's nothing on the calendar ICly between now (Wednesday) and the party (Friday).

Rigger 5 introduced the rule that running autosoft on a drone is limited in rating according to the pilot rating - i.e. an R3 pilot can run at best an R3 autosoft. Also you are limited to pilot rating/2 number of concurrent running autosofts (rounded up). So pilot 3 and 4 can run two programs at the same time.

Using an RCC has no limit on autosoft rating. Also you can run DR number of autosofts concurrently.

Enjoy the last of your long weekend, Tecumseh!

Jack: thanks for the catch that the program <=pilot rule is in R5. I'd assumed such a basic rule would be in the CRB, so it hadn't occurred to me to look in R5. I'll go find it this evening and make sure I read that whole section again, maybe it will all stick this time? (probably not)

For some thing Tamarind will certainly be running things from her RCC. Probably most things? But not all things!
- Sometimes a drone is out of touch (such as underwater, or too far away)
- Sometimes a drone needs to be wireless off for some time, usually when it needs to be stealthy and manoeuvre competently
- There may be times where she has different drones or drone groups doing different things at the same time (like watching The Jack O'Lantern and cooking dinner and trying to follow a suspect's truck), and given that the R5 RCC has to split that rating between noise reduction and programs running, sometimes the more remote drones may be operating on their own.


Could I check some confirmations/interpretations/house rules with you all?

1- You could run a higher rating Autosoft on a drone than its pilot rating, but it only benefits from up to its pilot rating So an R3 pilot 'Condor' (observation balloon drone) could load stealth(Condor) 6 and Clearsight 6, but it would operate as if they were R3 programs (if not she'll need to buy some key programs twice, once to run on her RCC, once to run on independent drones. Not the end of the world, just some more planning to do).

2- A drone can either be running its own autosofts or be benefiting from the autosofts running on the RCC. However the drone can still have autosofts loaded and ready to take over, should it be cut off from the RCC suddenly. So if the Rigger re-boots, drones would fire up whatever autosofts that they were loaded with and continue to try and execute any commands that they have.

3- A given person can only have one active RCC at a time, because an RCC needs to have a persona, and you can only have one persona at a time

4- Things that run matrix programs -- such as a deck or a 'Datajack+' (KillCode) -- can't run autosofts

5- With the Swarm program running on an RCC, to be counted as part of the swarm a drone must be able to reasonably perform the action on its own. I.E for an attack it must be able to attack the target (have a weapon with ammo, have an appropriate autosoft for that weapon running on the RCC, be in attack range). Swarm doesn't talk about dice pool modifiers, but I'd suggest that they be the largest of what any drone in the swarm faces (i.e. 3 drones are at close range (-1d) and one is at medium range (-3), the penalty is -3. If one of the ones at close range also has taken three boxes of damage (-1 for range, -1 for damage) the penalty is still -3 (the -3 for medium range is larger than the sum of -1 for each of close range and 3 boxes of damage).

6- Weapons in drones that are concealed at all (either under the cheap one-use cover or in a pop-out turret) can only accept internal weapon modifications (i.e. internal smart link OK, external smart link or laser sight no). If a weapon is brazenly in the open it could have external modifications.

7- Drones have no strength rating, so for recoil absorption they only get the basic 1 + anything built into the weapon

8- Weapons in drones are assumed to have an adapted form factor, so that we don't have to worry about just how a Ruger Super-Warhawk could fit into a drone that approximate size and shape of a baseball (in the case of Jack's trick of taking a point of acceleration off a Flying Eye so that it can hold a heavy pistol)

9- Drones can only have one 0 slot weapon (single dart or bullet -- mod rules from R5), and that further a drone that has been modified with a weapon and has no mp available can't also add a 0mp weapon (no loading a single taser dart onto a drone that is full of light pistol)

10- Those 0mp 1 dart/bullet drone mods from R5 don't talk about weapon specs . I suggest that: taser darts use specs from the appropriate type of taser in the CRB (either wired dart or non-wired dart),and bullets use specs from the 2-shot Palm-Pistol in the CRB (obviously the firing mode and ammo specs don't apply, but accuracy, range, DV, AP)

11- Drones come with sensor arrays, and sensor arrays have 8 sensors. They never define what the off-the-shelf senses are, that I've seen. I'm going to suggest a default suite of: visible light, low light, radar, lidar (ranges), GPS-equivalent, human-audible sound, ultrasound, and for the 8th altitude (flying) or surface temperature (ground) or water temperature (aquatic). But I'd love other suggestions. Also thoughts on what it would take to change sensor load-out?

I find riggers particularly fiddly to play/GM, so I'm generally in favor of things which streamline the process and/or simplify bookkeeping.

#1 - I'm good with this in the name of simplifying things and not having to double-purchase things.
#2 - I'm good with this. I might recommend a Complex action while the drone switches between the two.
#3 - Yes, that's my understanding/interpretation too.
#4 - That's my understanding. Only RCCs (and drones) run autosofts.
#5 - I haven't spent any significant time with the swarm rules. Generally I would agree with this approach but let's me mindful of the threshold at which a swarm might be better off without some of its more heavily-penalized swarm members. In other words, if a 4-drone swarm would have worse stats than a 3-drone swarm (due to one of the drones being out-of-position or otherwise penalized) then let's treat it as a 3-drone swarm until the situation changes.
#6 - I'm fine with this rule, but I'm not sure the distinction is terribly important. I know that internal modifiers can be more expensive but at this point it seems like the differences should not be game-changing.
#7 - I think this is commonly house-ruled. I'd be okay substituting a drone's Body for Strength so that larger drones have an easier time dealing with recoil than smaller drones.
#8 - Personally I'm more sensitive to this one. I'd like a nod toward realism here. A minidrone the size of an insect or a ping pong ball should not have a pistol.
#9 - I'm not familiar with the 0-slot weapons and haven't considered the possible implications of this.
#10 - I haven't considered this much but this sounds reasonable.
#11 - Here's is what 4E's Arsenal had to say about off-the-shelf sensors:


I think changing sensors out would be relatively easy. I don't know if a Kit could do it but a Shop could for sure. Personally, I would accept either Automotive Mechanic or a Hardware test.

on 8 (weapon form factor) the nod to realism is why my sheet currently has all her little drones equipped with tasers -- they seem like the easiest to adapt into a small form factor. Technically the chrome pigeon that will often be riding on her shoulder could have a pop-out heavy pistol if I gave it the immobile quality (letting it only ride on her shoulder, not actually fly), but I thought about the size of a pigeon and the size of a Super-Warhawk and I just couldn't do it.

Also I just finally noticed the sensor rating limit by what it is in Table (CRB pg 446). I cannot upgrade teh sensors in a mini-drone to rating 6 for 6knY like I'd thought (making lead drones for swarms), and need to add more drones to the swarms instead. So, ummm, re-calculating, re-calculating ....

1) Yes, downgrade is possible
2) yes, you can have Software ready to take over
3) No, actually there is no such limitation in the rules. An RCC doesn't need your persona to function. You can set up a workshop with an RCC and a swarm and let it work unsupervised - though that makes it a July target for hackers
4) Yes
5) No, a swarm can benefit from spotters and added processing power. One large drone with weapons and a bunch of spotters work just fine.
6) Not a rule - covered weapons are a thing on vehicles. Drones are usually too small to have any concealment for weapons at all
7) No, body counts as strength rating
Yeah, or rather - you take out all unnecessary bits like grip and sights and install the drone around the weapon
9) Yes, only one 0 point mod no additional one if there already is a weapon mount
10) reasonable - but I would recommend to stay clear of 0 MP mounts in general - they are more headache then they are worth
11) seeing (normal, low light, thermo), hearing (normal, ultrasound), radar, weather, rangefinder

Big deadline for me tomorrow so I'm moving a little slowly until it passes.

Nice move Bobby!

Jack, go ahead and roll Sneaking. See if you can beat...

Attribtute + Skill - Not Nearby: 8d6t5 5 hits

Oh dang, I thought the spirit was going to be lazier than that. Oh well. Feel free to Edge if you need to.

@gilga
How's recovery going? What sort of pace do you need right now?

falcon transformation F3: 16d6t5 4
Falcon is all about speed, so I'm putting those 3 points into Agi (base template is Eagle)

Sneak: 14d6t5 4

NI spend some edge to make itSneak Edge: 10d6t5 5

I am actually back in hospital unexpectedly. So far feeling well but I am not sure I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So sorry to hear that Gilga, you are really having a rough go here. I hope that things sunlight starts reaching you down the tunnel soon.


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

It is likely not needed at all, but I might as well have Jawsey do his thing one more time. Well, a combination of his things in this case: using Con to make it appear he is astrally attacking the investigating spirit, and trying to distract it long enough for Jawsey's spirit to erase Bobby's signature.

@gilga
Well, whatever you do, don't go into the light...
Again, all the best and speedy recovery.

Jack thanks, I am maibly looking to return to normal. It has been a while.

@gilga
Yeah, I was going to say "light of the end of the tunnel" has two very different meanings in this context.

@Beta
Hahaha, this is hilarious.

Go ahead and do whatever is most fun. This is an Interlude and not really meant to be challenging. The other spirit (F5) put up an unexpectedly good roll but certainly isn't your caliber. If you want to send it running home to its conjurer, you may. If you want to slice it and dice it, you may. Jawsey would easily dispose of it with his focus.

Someone can make a Survival test to process the deer.

Mato is okay at these but I'll say that he has too many wound modifiers to be good at it.

Alternatively, I'll accept any plausible knowledge skill. Or, for that matter, a teamwork test.

Just slow-playing things a bit to give Gilga a breather.

Well, I still think in Hebrew and most of my English is professional so lights and tunnels and health are rarely part of my chats.
Funny how associations change from one culture to the other. My association was from the Talmud. If there is no water in a hole then it goes without saying that there are snakes and scorpions in the hole. If there is no light, then I am in the darkness of uncertainty. I find such differences in associations to be perhaps the most challenging to bridge.

Interestingly, I have been on the brink in the past and I did not see any light or that kind of thing but the experience did fundamentally change me and gave me some clarity about life that made being in the moment a lot easier and overall has made me a better person that enjoys life a lot more. So perhaps I also agree with the Christian(?) metaphor for the brink of death.

To be fair "Light at the end of the tunnel" has originally a completely positive connotation - it's just a bit of cynically humor to associate it with "going into the light" or "the onrushing train"

Just my attempt at levity

Aha;) I was thinking this whole going into the light is deeply rooted with the heaven/hell belief.

"Light at the end of the tunnel" was meant pretty literally, after being in a long dark tunnel when you could finally see light, even at a distance, you knew you were getting close to being out.

Cartoons and jokes often played on this, with the light turning out to be an oncoming train.

I don't know where the 'go into the light' for near death experiences concept originated, but somewhere along the line that became the new joke around the "light at the end of the tunnel" phrase.

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

All of that aside, sorry for your recent trials and pulling for your recovery always.

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

Wow a lot of IC posts popped up since I last looked. I'll go read and see what/where Jawsey interacts.

Yeah, I felt guilty reading all that, like I was eavesdropping on a private conversation!


I laughed out loud at this.

Going to do a teamwork test for Mato's cooking.

Recipe first: Intuition 6 + Recipes 2: 8d6t5 5 hits

Oh no, I hope I haven't spent all my hits too soon.

Now cooking: Intuition 6 + Artisan 1 + Teamwork 5: 12d6t5 4 hits

Pretty good. We'll go with that. The Teamwork test doubled the hits.

The IC post is based on some Internet research plus some conversations I had with deer hunters back in college.

IC post was amazing I never actually butchered anything would not know where to start in RL.

Since I am at home but not yet working, I should have plenty of time for any distractions I take it very slow in returning to normal.

For the record, I've never hunted nor cleaned a kill myself. I'm good in the kitchen, butchering a chicken or breaking down raw meat, but that's about the extent of my expertise.

Two of my buddies in college were a mismatched pair: one was a tall, white, son of a rich lawyer from a rural area, the other was a short, poor, Cambodian refugee from the city. They were roommates and turned out to be best friends.

One day the guy from the rural area takes the kid from the city hunting. They get a deer but are tentative about field dressing it. Another hunter comes along and offers to help. When it comes time to gut the deer (step six), the other hunter interlaced his fingers and scooped everything out - heart, lungs, liver, stomach, intestines - in one huge yank, to my friends' astonishment. Then he claimed the deer's liver as his payment, saying it was the best part.

My friends told me that story over 20 years ago and I still remember it clearly, so vivid was their description of the other hunter scooping everything out with his bare hands with a single big pull.