Couple of things...

I was thinking I would edit the images of the HQ to reflect where various gang members are squatting (assuming there's a desire for "personal turf" inside the building) and clean up the images to remove all the crap that would have been lifted out of there anyway so we just see the skeletal remains of what once was there... walls, windows, doors etc.

I guess we can decide if we're just going to claim temp spaces for each ganger, or if we're gonna leave it rather communal as in wherever there's an open bed/couch/pillow we crash kinda thing. If people want to claim space let me know and I can edit maps to reflect that, but I'd really only like to edit it once so I'd rather decide OOC/ICly or whatever and the make the changes

WR1:

Right now Baby would claim an area, just the way she is at the moment. No offense guys, but no way she is gonna trust any of you yet.

Vegas -

WR1 - I figured as much but just wanted to be super clear is all. Thanks.

Greetings everyone.
I am most sorry for my long absence, which sadly coincided with the happy resurrection of this fine game.
To be brief, I somehow contracted a rare sub-strain of mono. And mono not good for the middle-aged, no not good at all.
Was virtually incapacitated for about three weeks. Emerged from that hell for about ten days of extraordinary weakness (something about my immune system needing that long to stand down from red alert, and also a natural effect of three weeks of no eating or really sleeping). That done, I now feel totally fine, but I face a full month of neglected chores at work, home and church.

I especially apologize to rob, whom I know I left hanging in the IC. Glad you eventually pressed on, dude. Same to anyone else that made IC overtures.

I have just caught up on the OOC. I seriously plan to prioritize getting caught up (including appropriate and necessary posts) on the IC within 24 from now.

I would, but I have no idea what Felix's response would be to Legion's question.

He doesn't personally want Alexis dead. Actually, he'd prefer it if she didn't have to be hurt... but he thinks she has be taken out of the picture.
1- Because she is what prevents a true rift between Father Ron and Bob
2- Because she's a strong magical asset to the Plaguers
3- Because if they can pin it on someone else, it'll give them an opportunity to see how the Plaguers react.
4- Because it will definitly weaken the Plaguers.

Felix believes that there can never be an alliance with the Plaguers, and that with Bob and Alexis alive, the gang will also never be annexed by anyone else.

If you don't post tonight, I should have time tomorrow.
I'm sorry for being flaky these few days, but I've been getting sicker and sicker for the past weeks.
Being in front of a screen makes me nauseous... so I'll try to hand write something tonight, and transcribe it tomorrow (when I'll hopefully feel better).

Hey Rob, can you make an edit to your post? I was planning on letting Child sleep untill at least dawn (6:55 am for Seattle on that date). But totally wake his ass up.

Holy crap, everybody's sick! Feel better, kids (used in a non-age-specific sense)! Vegas, hope you and your fam get through whatever's coming up.

Lindt - werd. Post edited.

@ALL: I am going to be working on locales for our new turf soonest. Any suggestions? Thoughts? I know I want to do our HQ and the other Gangs HQs. Anything else anyone can think of?

Everyone - Between my exam tomorrow and my weekend long game this weekend, I have not had the time to go over the Addiction Tests yet, that will probably happen next week. Here are some interim items that I've had on the shelf for a bit.

Rob

Re Wireless: You've got Matrix access intermittently. I will have to construct a brief explanation for how the Matrix works in my game, since the infrastructure in the RAW as written is so dysfunctional it was actually one of the main reasons I needed a break from GMing for a while. Namely, it sucked THAT bad and I needed to figure out how to deal with it. For now, you guys have sporadic Matrix access in the immediate area around the Gang HQ. I'll deal with more detailed analysis of this issue in the coming weeks.

Re Dunkie: You detect nothing unusual about Dunkie. He seems to be exactly what he claims to be, a stuffed Dunkelzahn plushie.

Re ISU-90 Estates: I always thought the placement of this location was weird. If you check the wiki and the actual map, it's located on the north side of Emerald Lotus turf. It isn't possible for this to be located where you say it is (on the main road between Hammerpack and Raider turf) because neither of the roads listed as its address exist in that area. For simplicity's sake, I'm ruling that it is located where it currently is on the map and the wiki, on the north side of Lotus turf.

Consistency is a possible issue, but it's simple enough to say it was just a very long walk. It's much harder on Vegas to redo the map pieces and we can't change the address without changing the map and wiki too.

Alternatively, you could just say Box lived somewhere else, and create that 'somewhere else' as a location somewhere in Hammerpack turf. That would clear up most of the issues right there. If you never referred to Box's doss by name (i.e. as ISU-90 estates) then there's no consistency issues at all because you would have referred to it in your posts as simply his home. The fact that his home changed then becomes strictly an OOC issue and not relevant. Regardless, it's a small enough detail that glossing over it is no big deal, especially since Box is moving out anyway.

Meriss - If you want to buy Positive Qualities, discuss it with me on a case-by-case basis. Regarding other gang's HQs, make sure you stick to what's already written and known about them, although feel free to develop and flesh out what is known, or make up something entirely new for what hasn't been written. Ideally, what I'm looking for are 'resources', locations/buildings/points of interest that are worth contesting and holding, because they serve as points of reference in numerous ways. Does that make sense?

Whipstitch - You can find rats in the Barrens without a problem. Regarding the Stockade I like it, but I may move it to Touristville closer to the War Pit, as it seems to make more sense there than Kingsgate. I'll handle it later when I go through the 'Shade Interviews' people put up earlier and post all updates on the wiki en masse. Feel free to IC post and move along

Bearclaw, Mister Juan, Grendel - I don't have time this week to write an IC post NPCing Felix, especially not one with as detailed a response as Mister Juan laid out. Bearclaw, if Mister Juan or Grendel doesn't get a post up and you're ready to write, feel free to simply have Rico barge in on the conversation, assuming of course that you edited your earlier post's timestamp to put him more in-line with everyone else's time. There's nothing wrong with Rico simply interrupting, although of course Legion might not see it that way. Point is, if you don't want to wait you do have that option, but I cannot get the IC post written this week, I have too much other stuff that is time-sensitive and needs to be done first.

There there! IC post up! I will now go back to coughing myself to death!

Thanks, my IC is up. I hope you feel better soon.

So, are we gonna NPC any of the "inactives" or did they just disappear?

I ask cause I'd like to take Twiggs and one of the inactive tough guys (Maybe Maus?) as my Beetle dealing crew.

A few things I want to agree on as general knowledge, and work them out here if there's disagreement:
1. Dealing, BTL's or anything out, needs a crew to be done efficiently. One guy takes the money, and gives it to the "bank". The customer heads on down to the next corner. The bank signals the dealer who hands over the product.

2. Deals like this usually split the profits. I'm figuring 50% of the net to the crew doing the dealing and 50% of the net to the Gang.

3. There probably won't be a lot of profit the first few days as we funnel the profits into buying bigger piles of product.

Winter: Sweet! Stuff to work with.

1. Re: Matrix Access: This is one of box's pet issues, since he's one of the few in the gang who has any hacking capability, however rudimentary. I will post, IC, what he intends to do about it, but basically if there's matrix access issues, one of his first goals will be to start grabbing materials so he can construct a high-gain antenna and start pirating a connection from somewhere and selling the access. In the next IC post there'll be some rolls where he tries to come up with some knowledge on how to make a connection. But, that's pendign your conception or some conversation, since I can't come up with an intelligent post without some common ground on the phenomenon he's trying to exploit.
2. Re: Location of his old doss: I wrote the orginal write-up for that location, and that ain't where I put it. We went through several editions of the map, and on an earlier edition it would've been elsewhere - somewhere in Hammerpack turf on map sheet C4/C5. If it's by emerald lotus turf, that's actually more convenient for his current goals. Else, I can backwards edit for consistency.
3. Re: Tools: Child says he has an industrial mechanic toolkit. I'm assuming we'll still need some application specific parts we can either buy from a hardware store or jerry rig; but aside from some rolls will need guidance on the details.

So, I'll post IC with some non-specific matrix crap and some non-specific industrial mechanic crap. I will assume his house is over by the lotus for these purposes. He has... ideas for other hustles that they can run if they can get Nevada and/or Caitlin to come with; but that's pending some response from Vegas.

The only NPCs who are part of/affiliated with the October Ravens are the ones I listed in the sync up post:

NPCs – Shade, Fool, Twiggs, Dahlia, Nyna, Francesca, Rags, Caitlin, Dunkie

All the rest of the Inactives never even really got started in our game, or are in jail (Doc). Consequently, they have nothing to do with the October Ravens. Vegas is modifying the Gang Roster page to accurately reflect which NPCs are associated with the Ravens and which are simply PCs that never came into play and have no current bearing on the game.



Who are you directing this to, me or the other players? I assume the players but let me know if this is something you want me to respond to.



Since this is mostly Box's pet issue, I'll direct my future discussion towards you. Are you familiar with SR 2's decking rules, specifically regarding Matrix infrastructure? If you are, this discussion will be MUCH smoother.

For now, assume Box has 'a list' of what he needs to do what you describe and we'll hash out the details pending our future conversation. Like my comment below, a trip to an electronics store will provide the necessary parts to work on this, but I don't care about the details, only the 'scenes' involved in the process.



I know you wrote the original, I'm just saying somewhere along the way things got mixed up and that's where it currently is on the map and wiki. Where things got confused I have no idea, I'm simply saying they did get confused and that's how it ended up.

For the reasons stated in my last post, let's leave Box's doss in Emerald Lotus turf where it currently is, and you can backwards edit for consistency. If it ends up being more convenient for your current goals, then bonus for you.



You've got 'a list' of stuff you need to buy. I'm not going to go into the details. The point is you need to make a shopping trip, but I'm not going to bother coming up with the details of what you're shopping for. A trip to Home Depot will provide fun RP material and get you the materials you need to work on fixing the sewage/water system of the building.

@rob - Nevada will gripe and moan a bit about making the trip, but she'll go w/ shotgun in tow. She will NOT bring Caitlin along unless Box specifically makes a DAMN good argument for it, she'll leave her with the whores to be looked after. I want to get a post up, but I honestly don't know when it's going to happen I'm swamped with RL work, RL and wiki stuff as well. Just in case you and Lindt want to press onward.

@WR1 - Wiki is edited, need to add Rags to the NPC's list but the rest are up there. Charley has been added to the Roster as well, expect his intro to the OOC soon

@rob - I'm just curious, is Box taking Nevada and Child to a Home Depot sort of store, at midnight?

WR, I guess you need to respond. I just want to make sure my street etiquette check gives the same results as everyone elses.

That's not really a street etiquette issue, it's an issue of how you want to run your operation. There's no 'right' answer. The 'right' answer is whatever you as players decides works best for the October Ravens.

The way you described is one possible way to run things, and it may or may not be the best way depending on any number of factors. For instance, if you guys decide you don't have enough people to dedicate three of them to the operation, maybe you need to figure out a way to do it with less people.

So in the end, you should really be discussing with your fellow players and coming to a consensus for how you want to run your operation, and whatever is agreed upon, try and see how it works. If it works, great, if not, go back to the drawing board and try something else. Does that help?

@WR1
Did you get my 2nd PM?

Yes, but I won't have time to reply until next week.

EDIT: My initial reaction was 'It's just a phase.' I'll elaborate more next week.

I will be posting sporadically with Baby for a little bit.

Just so everyone knows and so no one waits on Baby for anything, here is her general answer to requests for her to do anything that would put her into possible danger at this point. No!

She has 6 boxes of physical damage and looks like she lost a game of chicken with a mac truck.

She is more than willing to act as look out around the HQ as we are still very vulnerable especially with everyone thinking of leaving the HQ to do other things. She will also scout around the park and get the lay of the land, but unless it is Legion asking her to do something she will flat out refuse if it obviously has the chance to cause her further damage.

Hopefully I will get an IC post up in the next day or two.

Mostly to diagnose the issues that Bock gave him, figure out whats needed, and will take a look (and get back into the right time code) at the in-house stuff that needs fixing.

Industrial Mechanics:
06 06 05 05 05 03 03 01 <- 5 hits.

I haven't said it recently, but I love reading Grack.

Apparently, yes. And possibly even in Touristville! The fun never ends in DITG!

Everyone

Please Read!

After talking with WR1 and getting his ok, we will be working time a little differently.

We are going to be blocking out a set amount of time for everyone to work in. (example Midnight - 4:00am, 4:00am to 8:00am ...etc...etc...)

Each time frame will run for about a week before we sync up again. This should not only help keep the game rolling along, but help people from stacking up and watching the minutes roll by until it is time for their characters to do something. It will also help let people jump into and out of the game as their RL issues dictate. I have been in other games where this has worked effectively and think with the non-linear, freeform nature of DitG it should work well again.

We can adjust the amount of game time or real time to optimize this as we go.

Please continue with your date stamps and locations so we know you are in the current time and where you are at.



Please let me know if you have any questions.

Your current time frame is 00:00:00 - 4:00:00 Monday, November 3rd
Next Time Change will be Friday, March 6th.

ACK!!! WAIT!!!

Slip and I apparently weren't quite on the same page. I still want everyone to continue with their timestamps as normal because it will matter for time-sensitive events!

The only change is that everyone knows in advance the time block they are operating in is from 00:00:00 - 04:00:00, and the sync up post will take everyone to 04:00:00. This lets you all know about how long you have to operate in IC-wise and stops you from waiting on each other moment to moment.

While you don't have to plan everything in 4 hour blocks (e.g. the people going shopping don't have to worry about being back at the HQ in 4 hours), you can plan ahead knowing that in about a RL week or two I will move everyone forward to the same time within the context of their current situation.

I repeat, DO NOT CHANGE THE FORMAT OF YOUR TIMESTAMPS!!!

Slip - Please edit your post to remove the following section:

Though it is not set in stone, I anticiipate that Ink will pull the necessary social footwork to get Thumper and Grack to go to the bodega.

In order to prepare for that eventuality, I'd like to know how the potential hazards of their trip should be handled

Pragma - Are you talking to me or Meriss?

If you're talking to me, call odd or even.

To you. (even).

Also, bear in mind that Thumper would insist their route bear wide East and then South, avoiding what used to be Plague turf. He's aware the battle lines may have shifted.

Umm, re: the 4 hour block issue:

This seeems to create a disincentive to base character actions on character needs - for example, "My character needs to go to sleep but I have a slow week this week so can post to dumpshock a lot."

Don't got that much of problem with it, but, for example, I wouldn't want the IC decision to do the shopping trip in the morning to cost me 2 weeks RL time.

WR1 - Edited Sorry about that.

Rob - Why would the trip cost you 2 weeks in realtime? You can keep posting with Child and Nevada during your trip and I doubt that a trip to the store would take 4 hours to complete.

We can also skip blocks of time if we need to. If the majority of people are sleeping at a certain time we can skip over that block and just say everyone rests, kind of like what WR1 just did with the time sync. In fact blocks of time don't have to follow exactly. We may skip a day if WR1 wants to which will help take care of some of our basic needs and not bog everyone down with roleplaying sleep. We will bog down more if everyone is concerned with RPing every second of the day, which honestly I already see happening.

The reality is that it isn't much different than what we are doing know, just a little more loose so people don't get stacked up like what is happening. The 4 hour blocks should also allow people who can't post much for a week or two an easy way give there character a chance to jump in or out of the time stream with little disturbance to the rest of the group with the periodic sync ups. Training should be a little easier too. If you can't post for a week, write up one IC post detailing the fact that he/she is training and how they are going about doing that and get 4 hours of training in.

Let me know if that helps at all or if I have missed the jist of your issue.

@Winter: In regards to my question about Qualities I was just wondering how much training time I have to sink in to get/remember Martial Artist.

@Pragma: Plague. Lots of them, Moving south it would seem. And the 162's were on the move last night as well. So I pesonally expect plenty of nastiness. Ink may even consider bribing Thumper and Grack to come with. What's your preference of weapon?

@Adamu: Same question. What sort of weapon does Grack like?

@Merriss
By reputation: Thumper is notoriously flexible about his weapon of choice and achieved temporary gate-wide notoriety for taking on an entire (small, distracted, hungry and slightly wounded) corsair hit squad with a well made shoe. He has no history with guns, but he was shooting a pistol this morning. Also, I seem to recall a worrying OOC post about lifestyle costs ... Any rate, there's a decent possibility that you could convince Thumper to come along with the proper IC arguments or enticements.

If we want the IC discussion to have a bit of depth, we should probably write it up via a rapid set of back and forth PMs. I'll shoot you one tomorrow, unless you beat me to it.

@adamu

If Grack wants in on the PMs, let me know. I assume he's doing the goblin rock thing though.

Hey, I was just looking for a place in the Seattle Source book and found that Crusher 495 is in our turf. 124th Ave. and 143rd St. Can we add that to the Wiki?

@All
There's a chance the Bodega crew will be trying to get their hands on the moving van. In order to expedite IC stuff -- who's planning on using it and who's got the keys?

Since it never came up, it seems like Rico would have given the keys to Legion. Half of the point to this was to show the boss that Rico and Twiggs (sounds like a TV show) could get shit done, and secure a position in the pack.

Reminder

Time change coming up tomorrow.

Your current time frame is 04:00:00 - 8:00:00 Monday, November 3rd


Ok lets try to get everyone caught up to the new time by Wednesday. Jump forward if you have to and talk to or PM the other players that you were interacting with to figure out any outstanding outcomes.

@Lindt: Didn't Ink return the welder?

I dont believe so. We split up, and then I vanished off into IRL land for 9 months.

pragma and Meriss - sorry to be out of touch again. Computer troubles are my excuse this time.

Not quite clear why it's an issue, but Grack has become partial to his combat axe. Unless otherwise stated in a very loud and clear manner, assume The Toy is within reach or in his hand at all times.

Looks like you guys decided where we are going and how. All good. Grack will head for the truck. In fact, I'll IC that right now - apparently we need to get a move on cuz we're supposed to get ourselves up to 4:00 am or something....

I assume you're talking about the Martial Arts Positive Qualities from Arsenal, correct?



Can you give me a page reference? I'll look it up and make a call from there.

Pragma - With the route you described above you will have no problems making it to the Bodega and you will have no 'random encounters'. Making it back with no problems will require another dumb luck roll.

Rob - Still waiting on your knowledge of SR 2 decking.

Is anyone waiting on me for anything? While I liked Slipshade's 'time block' approach in theory, in reality I'm not a huge fan if that means bumping everyone 4 hours right now when to my perceptions, no one has actually done anything yet?

This is supposed to be your guys' time to follow your own personal agendas, whatever they are, and I'm not detecting much forward progress on that front.

So can you guys let me know if I'm holding any of you up from IC posting, or is there something else causing the slowdown that I am missing?

I'll have something up today, once I'm out of work.

Winter - Re: SR2 decking: I got into shadowrun back in the SR2 days, so I understand the general decking infrastructure OK, but it's rusty in my brain. In SR2, the systems were basically isolated little bubbles, which you accessed through either a LTG connection or a direct connection into the thing itself. From there, the system architecture made its own sense, dependent on the needs of the organization that created it and the effort spent on system design spent by the GM.

So, I know about the different node types in SR2, the connections, that sort of thing, and the general conceptual architecture of the Matrix. As far as specifics, I'd need more information about where you're coming from to see if we're on the same page.

Slipshade - Looks like Child and I, at minimum, are decided to make our run to the Kings' turf. As such, if we resolve that, we'll have to continue in our current time slot long past the transition to 4 AM, unless there's something I'm conceptually missing (not at all out of the question).

Rob

Don't rp the whole thing out, would be my suggestion. Talk with Child and come up with decent solution and move on to the time jump, or say your planning and travel time took up till 4:00am and you are just getting to the meat of your run starting at the time change.

Does that help at all?

Everyone - The idea of the time changes is to keep the game moving forward. To roleplay every minute of every hour in the day is really well boring. There are probably a couple of significant event that happen in someones life in a four hour span, be they a conversation or an action or an encounter. Those are the things that make your character's life interesting. If you find yourself running out of time in a conversation or event and you are really enjoying yourself continue the roleplaying in PM's (maybe write the results up in the form of a journal for Shade) or if there are a number of people that just are not finished with what they want to do, we have no problem extending that time frame.

This is my perspective on it and WR1's may differ, so I will leave him to comment on what I have said if he wants too.

@Winter: Yes, I took it as one of my rewards when you handed out Karma last time. How much time do I need to sink in to training it? Or was that stuff retconned in?

@Slipshade: It sounds like a good idea. And it might prevent the massive time splinter, that happpened before we went dead. Though for certain things, I'm not sure. Fer example Thumper, Grack and Ink's trip up to the bodega. Would it really take four hours to drive five or six blocks? I'm not sure. Though with the amount of variuos bangers and negotiating through the variuos turfs, it may.

@ALL: My DSL modem took a header onto the floor on Saturday, so until my ISP sends me a new one I'm stuck with Public Access computers. I'll try and check everything tommorrow, hopefully but barring a miracle I won't have reliable Internet access till Wednesday.

@Slipshade, Winter:

I don't want to take one for the team and gloss over my RP fun in the kings trip for the sake of arbitrarily advancing time 4 hours.

I don't want to hold up your, or others', fun - but I don't want the choice to be a trade off between mine and yall's.

So, either we got a 'time splinter', or 'a bunch of players on hold (i.e., yall)', or 'an arbitrary and implausbile edit for continuity's sake (i.e., find some way to make it seem like a 4 AM meeting makes sense)', or 'my scenario gets glossed over for others' sake.'

This is why I expressed objections when the 4 hour block idea came up.

Alternatives above are all I can think of. I won't pretend to be indifferent (time splinter is what I want), but it's not my call and I'll roll with whatever.

Rob

I don't think that you have to lose out on the fun. I would say grab Child and RP the trip in PM's. That way it doesn't slow anyone down and you still get to have your fun. When you guys are finished maybe you can post the interaction on the wiki as I am sure we would all be interested in finding out what happened.

Meriss - You are right it probably would not. Though do you think that everything in that 4 hours would be interesting enough to RP?


Here is another option if people think 4 hours is too long. Should we make the time jumps 2 hours?

I am more than willing to work with everyone on this, but I believe rp'ing every second is part of what killed this game before and I have been a part of games with these time jumps that have really helped carry the game forward and keep everyone engaged.

If Bock had a bike, we could do it an half an hour.

Id rather not bring this to PMs, as it looses some of the... contunity? that a forum game has. If it means I have to get in touch with him, and WR, and set up a time to fire off half a dozen posts, or just one where we discribe what happens (aka we tell WR what we want to do, and he tells us what happens, and we write in the rest).

Reguardless, I updated Child's takes on people. I love doing that.