Jaya makes it into the doorway. If he stops and listens, he can hear the gang outside shouting as they move closer to the bodies on the other side of the street.
Looking around, he notices a back door that leads east, a broken wall that leads north east into the same alleyway and a set of half broken stairs that lead up.

I just tried, and thats practically impossible to say fast, out loud, more than three times in a row.

Post general intentions in the table so I have a basic idea of what you're up to.

Then copy and paste the 'Combat Template' and then fill it out as written (1 template for each IP you have), replacing the 'Combat Template' title with your character name.

Separate your PC's template(s) out from the general information and other PC's templates by using a line above and below it to make it easier to read.

Sparky or Vegas - I'm thinking we'll need a separate page for each fight to make it easier to read and reference.

Maybe something like this:

Action Phase
- Fight 1
- Fight 2
- Etc

Resolution Phase
- Fight 1
- Fight 2
- Etc

That's just a suggestion, alternatively, maybe we could do the links within each page, like we did for Locales or NPCs? Do it how you think best, but I'd start thinking about how you want to begin organizing it. Thanks!

mmmm be stupid and use an sr3 dice roller?

@Fool

You look around (No metagaming to look just north) but the darkness combined with the light fog or smoke that's hanging in the air causes your mind to play tricks on you. Shadows dance around in the non-light caused by the reflections of the city brightness off the low hanging clouds. Things seem to move in wierd directions and in akward gaits as they move from object to object in the distance, but as they get closer, nothing is there.

@The guy searching his dead buddies

Good to see you're still alive.

You can retcon your last post to 0025hrs if you wish. The search and burn doesnt have to take 45 minutes and this will get you back in the game quicker.

@Child

Other than gunfire in the distance and a few of the normal things that go bump in the night in Kingsgate, you hear nothing out of the ordinary... course this isnt an ordinary night in Kingsgate...
And by gunfire in the distance, I mean random firing from in all directions. None of them really stand out.

Kay, retcon to 003205. I asked for thirty minutes, I'm taking thirty minutes. No offense. I'm still in the future, but now people can catch up.

And for big fights, like the one you are entering, that's how it's going to be played.

And I thought I was a rabble-rouser! Utimatums?! Ouch!

In any case, dude, I personally think your concerns are a bit off the mark. I mean, the moment you sit down across the table (or the keyboard) from a GM, ALL considerations of fairness are rendered subjective.

In a perfect world, the player and GM agree on what's fair. In a lot of good games (and I include this one), they come pretty close, but it'll only rarely be spot on.

The GM can assign mods, he can give the opposition milspec weaponry, he can fudge rolls, he can play the bad guys at whatever level of omniscience he desires.

Each GM is going to handle the admin their own way. Good ones know they are not there to win but to challenge. How they do their behind-the-screen paperwork may be an arena open to advice and consent, but I'd hesitate to be tossing insinuations of unfairness around at all, much less over one procedural.

The long and the short of it is, if you don't trust the GM to be fair overall, why play?

If it's for fluff purposes, I'm fine with that.

If you want to swing the axe with one hand while firing a gun in the other, I'm not fine with that.

Per SR 4 pg. 305, 'This two-handed tungsten alloy axe...'

Technically you could argue that a troll is larger and therefore should be able to carry it easier (i.e. in one hand) but the other side to that argument is you also should be using troll sized gear (SR 4 pg. 300), which means that once the combat axe is adjusted for troll-sized proportions, you'd still be using two hands.

At the start of combat, the Black Plaguers are 30 meters away per my IC post.

I wanted to address this in a little more detail for everyone. For space purposes, I did not copy and paste all comments related to this one.

As a player, I absolutely understand the desire for a level playing field and fairness in the PC-NPC dynamic.

As a GM, I am striving for a game that is efficient and effective in its execution as well as fun for everyone to play. On top of those already difficult goals, I need a game that actually works in a play-by-post format.

As a gamer, I strive for realism in my portrayal of the game, to ensure that the ‘physics of the game world’ are applied universally, without bias, and without exception.

To achieve those ends (and more besides), Konsaki and I came up with the current combat procedures. Are there holes in it? Sure! Some of the problems I’ve already found that will be changed for combat turn 2:

1. There is no place for you all to put your Initiative Score (Initiative Attribute + # of Hits on Initiative Roll)

2. It is a good idea to have pre-rolled Reaction + Block/Parry/Dodge for Melee combat, particularly for this game.

3. I didn’t state that you guys should specifically pick your targets so I have some idea of who you’re attacking.

I’m sure when I actually go through the rolls I’ll find more stuff, and that’s ok. As I stated, I’m always open to thoughts that can make our system better.

On the flip side, I’d like to point out that since I’m planning on having at least the OOC list of actions (PC and NPC) and their results up by some time on Friday, after the Resolution Phase (which I will aim to have done by Monday, to allow for generally slower play during weekends) we will have finished an entire Combat Turn in about one week. If we ran this fight canonically in a play-by-post forum, we’d be lucky to finish this Combat Turn in one month.

Is it more chaotic and unpredictable? Absolutely. Given the nature of the fights you’ll be in, the parties involved, the setting and style of the game, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Unlike LITS, there will undoubtedly be a high volume of fights occurring, and speed must trump precise adherence to the rules, or else the game will never go anywhere because each fight will take months to fully resolve.

I don’t think anyone has any real problem with the procedure itself; I think all veteran PBP gamers recognize the reality that we can’t run combat strictly by the book in a game with almost 20 PCs.

Therefore, moving on to the issue of fairness in the execution of said procedure, I want to focus on two things: how NPCs are being played and how they are created.

How NPCs are being played: Prior to ever writing the post starting this fight or announcing the Action Phase deadline, I had already determined what each NPC would do and made their rolls as necessary, with zero knowledge of what you all would do, exactly the same as you all are doing now.

After this combat turn I will do the same thing, determining their actions only in light of what has transpired so far, before ever looking at what you guys decide to do for Combat Turn 2. Note that this is the exact same situation you are in. I am making my decisions for all NPCs prior to knowing anything you guys are doing and entirely in a vacuum (i.e. through the NPCs imperfect knowledge only). Simply put, I am creating my own ‘fog of war’ for my decision making process.

In essence, I’m following the same combat procedure you guys are, I’m just not showing you my ‘templates’, because it’s a waste of time for me to do so and I do not want to give away their stats to you.

Of course no system is perfect. For example, as a GM, I will always know your stats while you won’t know the NPCs. When you ask me questions regarding certain elements of your plans I may get an idea (or even full disclosure) of what you’re up to. Or despite my best efforts not to have my NPCs act as a ‘hive mind’ while you’re all forced to fight as individuals, they'll probably act with somewhat more cohesion. All of these things are unavoidable parts of gaming.

As stated earlier though, to some degree trust has to come into play that I am playing fairly and impartially. My intention is to minimize the amount of trust needed by narrowing the disparity of the playing conditions PCs and NPCs operate under. Anyone who has ever GMed knows that gap will always be there to some extent, but I hope that by full disclosure and explanation, you will all see we are doing our best to present a fair, balanced, level, and ultimately, equal playing field for PC and NPC alike.

Regarding NPC stats, Adamu and Meriss can vouch for this since they’ve been making NPCs. I instructed them to create NPCs along the exact same lines as you all are subject to. Same availability, magic, essence, etc. guidelines and restrictions apply. In some cases, specifically amongst ‘named’ NPCs, there have been some exceptions, but I feel it’s fair to say when it has been asked of me, where warranted, I’ve been willing to be flexible with your characters as well.

As a general rule, all NPCs run between about 250 to 350 BP. Some go as low as 200, a very rare few may go as high as 400. Obviously those are the outliers, and if you’ve read all the information available so far, you probably even already know who some of the outliers are. You all created your characters with 300 BP, but those of you with rewards ended up with more, some as high as around 350 yourselves. Consequently, the PCs are between 300-350 BP. When I allow for the fact you all had to spend BP on ‘PC’ related things like contacts, drugs, chips, various vices, etc., I told Adamu and Meriss to scale down their BP spending accordingly to ensure a fair comparison.

Obviously I tinkered with Adamu’s and Meriss’s stats on an as-needed basis to fit my needs more specifically, and so they don’t know exactly what they’re up against, but I believe it’s fair to say that power wise, they’re perfectly fair relative to the PCs. I’d be surprised if they weren’t, because I didn’t even make any of the NPCs. All of them so far have been made by Adamu or Meriss, and I rather doubt they were highly motivated to stack the deck in my favor. So in this case, the real question is not do you trust the GMs, it’s do you trust Adamu and Meriss?

In any event, this is a brief reply to some of the concerns raised above, if there are any more I did not address, please state them and I will discuss them on an 'as needed' basis. Thanks again for everyone’s input, and I hope we’re all having fun so far!