Let the game begin!

Wow...what a...uh, descriptive OOC thread. I now know everything I need to know to start the game.

hahahahha
You're such an ass
I believe we've already discussed pretty much everything over IMs and the phone so....

But if there are a few things you want clarified, here's the place

Which makes me think, since Vegas asked, we're going with the LitS style headers for all the posts.

So, I believe you guys wanted to play out the opening scenes. I'll butt in here and there for now until we really get things rolling.

See... that right there is the reason I'm gonna be thrilled with playing in this game... all the...love

Working on an opening post...I hope I can do the scene in my head justice

I assumed we were going with LITS style headers, since you know, they've kinda become the standard around here and all.

People can change the colors all they want, but at the end of the day, the content is pretty much the same. Go LITS!

I think we might need to put a little copyright sign next to that

Anyways, I'm going to be away from home tonight and tomorrow, so if you send me anything, don't expect a reply before this weekend.

Also, I've got the fixer pegged down. I'll be sending you all his info as soon as I'm back.

A description of the game would help those of us not in it have a reason to cry, for not having a character in the game......or rejoice..

Hear hear! The masses have spoken! Post a description of the game already Mister Juan!

Heck, I'm in the game and I don't know what it's about!

Muahahahahahahahahahaaha!

Oh are you in for the ride of your life WinterRat Tee hee...

Wait... hell, I was in the first incarnation of this one and we didn't get far enough for me to know what it's about....

Citizens demand game descriptions!

Edit: Wait, WR posted late?? Did you stay late at work afterall or did the comcast fairies bless your house tonight?

Yes yes, I know I'm bringing on my character's inevitable death by asking/taunting the GM

Hopefully WR will get his internet fixed soon and will be able to continue the posting. I know he has a bunch of days off from work so....

I might edit/add to my opening post. more fluff and introspection than anything else. Not 100% satisfied with the opening volley Not my best work.

Sorry guys, internet is STILL down, 2.5 weeks and counting...another technician is coming Monday morning...but I'm not holding out hope. It's very possible I won't be able to post until Jan. 1. I'm posting from a friend's comp right now. So yes Vegas, I stayed late at work after all to post. That's dedication for you baby!

But yeah Vegas, if you want to edit it, you'll have time because I won't be able to post until Monday at the earliest.

Oh...my...goodness...that freaking post took me almost five hours to write. I'm wiped out. Please tell me it didn't suck and ruin the opening tone of the game, because if it did, this rat is going to slink back to his burrow and cry for spending so long on a miserable failure.

OK draft of my character sheet is out to you guys already. With your permission Mister Juan I'd like to let the game get rolling a bit so I can keep developing my feel for Julian and select his contacts accordingly after I have a better sense of how he operates and who he'd work with.

I doubt I will change his stats much beyond that (except perhaps his knowledge skills, which were a bit rushed) and tweak the safehouse's stats a bit. Maybe a few other small changes, but honestly I spent over 20-30 hours maximizing him down to the last nuyen and BP, so I doubt there's much room for me to squeeze any more performance out of what I had to work with and still stay within the boundaries of the character concept.

Vegas, go ahead and post us picking up the baggage and maybe get us a car (since you're the one with driving skills) and on the road. Once we're on the road, I'll take over and introduce us to the safehouse. From there, we can alternate posting and get ourselves rolling on the job front. By then I should have Julian's contacts starting to shape up more solidly, and we'll hopefully have more information on the Fixer Mister Juan is providing.

At that point, we can probably start looking for a job and turn things back over to Mister Juan. Sound like a plan everyone?

I'm excited to finally get this show on the road!

It does sound like a plan.

Hey Guys, just wanted to be clear I wasn't fishing for compliments with my last OOC post.

I really struggled writing my IC post because there was so freaking much to cover and so many ways to cover it. I wanted to start off by highlighting the internal struggles within Julian and make it clear they were a long-running, ongoing thing, not a 'oh the love of my life is dead but I have the perfect rebound chick waiting for me' sort of thing.

Another thing I tried to do was emphasize the familial relationship between him and Arika and immediately address the borderline taboo nature of their relationship.

At the same time, I couldn't go TOO far in that direction because it wouldn't be appropriate, since he is supposed to be struggling with it, after all, and I had to clarify the nature of his relationship with Cassandra, at least on paper, so it's somewhere for reference.

I was trying to add elements of stress and confusion to his internal struggles and really play up the introspection the events of the last few days brought up, as well as the beginnings of his realization of what this next stage of life will entail.

And against all that, I had to balance his professionalism and the fact that his whole life he's been a very focused, stone cold corporate troubleshooter, and not let his emotions make him look all sappy and weak.

Trying to balance genuine inner struggles and the beginning of lifelong epiphanies against professional coldness without making him look too introspective or weak or whatever and ending up with a balanced, albeit conflicted picture of a man in transition was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I basically wanted to know if I actually succeeded, or just fell flat on my face.

Great follow up post Vegas, I really like it. Great job making it look like Arika is the more certain of the two (in terms of what she wants) and also the more emotionally vulnerable one (which she is, since this is her big chance...except the way it happened makes things really dicey) with respects to their relationship.

I enjoyed the mundane things she did, like taking his hand to lead him to the kiosks, or 'stealing' (great word choice!) a quick hug, or even just taking pleasure in knowing he was always right by her side, and realizing this is the way things will be for the foreseeable future. Very good portrayal of her building up the emotional connections between the two.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to best phrase the last sentence I ended my post on, and yes, I deliberately left it ambiguous and WIDE open to all kinds of interpretations.

Vegas, feel free to go to town and interpret that however you see Arika doing so. I'm really excited to see how she responds to that statement. And no, I will not clarify what exactly I (as Julian) meant by that last question.

Post is up, why don't you move them forward to the morning, since I imagine they'll be sleeping for a while. Julian has a sleep regulator so he doesn't have to sleep for a long time, but he can if he chooses to. I'll leave it to you to decide whether he wakes up early (probably way before her if you go this route, since he can get a full night's rest with only 3 hours of sleep) or sleeps in.

if somehow no one finds this at least a little bit funny, I quit

Contact Description

Ms. Leibovitz
Connection 5/ Loyalty 4
Archetype: Fixer
Location: Wedgewood, Downtown Seattle

How someone like Ms. Leibovitz ever found herself working the shadow side of Seattle is probably a total mystery. But seeing how she handles her business, and how many people know her, odds are she's been around the block more than once. Probably somewhere in her late fifties, Ms. Leibovitz is quite an unusual sight for most runners: she is a hasidic jew. Never known to set foot outside of her own neighborhood, it seems like a miracle that she knows so many people. A kind manner and very proper woman, she usualy enjoys treatings those she deals with to at least a cup of tea, cakes and things of the sort. During dealings, she is nothing but businesslike and a shrewed negotiator who can easily throw her weight around. The woman also seems to have more “underlings� than there are gangers in the barrens... literally as if the entire community was at her service... which some doubt might not be too far from the truth. She might not always have what you are looking for, but she sure has a brother who's wife's cousin who owns the local bakery has a nephew who has one.

Ms Leibovitz conducts all of her meetings in person, somewhere in Wedgewood (Jewish part of Downtown Seattle), with the exact location changing every single time. She also never takes calls; the only real way to get in touch with her is to leave a callback number in a matrix drop box.

Security wise, she seems to base herself mostly on the tightly knit hasidic community. Any “outsider� setting foot in Wedgewood is usually spotted in a matter of seconds, and odds are Ms. Leibovitz is the very first person to know about it.

Umm...I don't find this the least little bit funny. Is there an inside joke or something I'm missing? She seems fairly standard for a fixer, if a little unique for being a little old lady who is a Hasidic Jew.

She's my landlord

Your landlord is a fixer?

I suspect she is.

Mister Juan and Vegas - Sorry, I don't have time to post tonight, but here's out basic plan:

1. I will post the first half of the day, an normal, relaxing day for Julian and Arika, continuing down the themes we've been playing up so far. I will include a call to Ms. Leibovitz during this time.

2. Vegas will post the second half of the day, bringing the themes we've explored to the next level. Right as Julian and Arika are in the midst of an potentially romantic moment Vegas will end the post.

3. At that point Mister Juan, please interrupt by posting and having Ms. Leibovitz call Julian back.

4. I will post Julian handling the call normally.

5. Vegas will post Arika's reaction to yet another 'so close, yet so far' moment.

6. We'll turn it over to you, Mister Juan, to start the actual game in earnest.

Vegas please correct me if I messed anything up, Mister Juan let us know if that plan is ok with you. If so, look for a post from me tomorrow or Friday. Tax season is starting up so my post rate is going to slow down, but I will of course try to keep in touch as much as possible.

WR, No problems with me on the plan... but how dare you not have time to post?!?!?!

Oh, and Ms. Liebovitz.. she reminds me of the Oracle from the Matrix a little.. maybe that's just the knowing everyone and the tea/cookies bit

Still a little fuzzy on just how to play out how Arika's gonna know her but hey, I'll run with it.

Vegas –

Sorry, can we change our plan slightly and split up our plan into the following:

1a (WinterRat1) – Getting things going in the morning
1b (Vegas) – The shopping trip
2a (WinterRat1) – Slowing things down a bit in the afternoon/early evening
2b (Vegas) – A romantic evening starting to get intense

I spent way too long trying to write the above post, and I finally have to admit getting stuck for two reasons:

1. I can’t adequately describe Arika because I am not sure what your interpretation of how she would dress is. I wanted to continue the whole ‘college student’ disguise thing, I even had a line that went something like, ‘It was obvious she was continuing with the whole college student disguise, but one look at her and it seemed that jailbait might be a more appropriate word’.

Basically, I pictured her dressing extremely youthful, trying to disguise her age and doing the whole ‘blending in by standing out’ strategy. After all, there’s no way anyone trying to hide themselves would possibly dress like that extraordinarily hot young thing who just flaunted herself as the envy of women and the desire of men.

However, I didn’t feel comfortable taking that much control of Arika and I wasn’t sure if that’s the route you’d want to go. And even if you were ok with that, I honestly couldn’t describe it very well.

So I left it at a key point where no matter what she dresses like, Julian is obviously smitten with her. I’ll leave it to you to set up future posts by describing her appearance and style, something he’s paying very close attention to these days.

I felt how she dresses and carries herself now has implications later, and while I continued your theme of her being sneakily and subtly flirtatious, I didn’t want to cross the line into making her seem like a teenybopper/airhead/slut/flirt/<insert word of your choice> here.

Thus I kept the flirting subtle and similar to what you had done before, and I’m leaving a major tone-setting appearance for you to determine.

2. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to setup or write a ‘date’ scene that was both light hearted and casual but deep and serious. I didn’t have a very good handle on the whole ‘domestic thing’, and I was hoping you could help me out by picking up that part of the post, describing the shopping trip and playing up the almost high school awkwardness of an ‘almost a first date’ kind of situation.

Then I can transition it into something more serious and you can take it right up to where Mister Juan gets involved, as discussed earlier.

Ultimately, it took me way too long (almost two days) to get this post to a point I was satisfied with, and for me to write the next part (the shopping trip) would have taken me way too much extra time. I decided to just take it to a point I was comfortable with and toss the ball to you, since I’d rather write something good that I’m happy with but short rather than writing something sucky I hate in order to adhere to a somewhat arbitrary plan.

Let me know if this is ok with you, hope the post gives you enough to work with for your next post.

WR

That's totally ok, we can split it up as you broke it down which will actually make it easier for both of us I think.

I will try to get my beginning post up as soon as possible. I have a seminar this weekend so I'll be away all day tomorrow and today is a lot of prep for it. But if I can swing it I'll have the post up today.

Sorry guys for the long delay. I'm gonna try my hardest to get a post up today.

WR

I know that Adam J's said DSF may go down for a couple days this week for upgrades. If that happens while we're wrapping this up before MJ jumps in why don't we just email posts back and forth so we can get to the place that the fixer calls and we're ready to rock since I know we're both getting increasingly busy.

If you do that, make sure to then actually post them here or I might have to do a little persuading ....*wanders off to look for his knee capping bat*

Oh, also great game/thread/story. Keep it up....please.

Chris

Haha Thanks!

We'll be sure to post them... I was just thinking in the best interest of using our time wisely if DSF is AFK for a few days

Gotta get my fix somehow.

Understandable, I would do the same.

Chris

Mister Juan - Vegas's post is up and our sequence of posts is done, we're now waiting on you.

This is the most disappointing first post I've EVER made in a game

Yeah...that post sucked.

I'll get a reply up tomorrow.

Give me a break will ya! How the hell am I supposed to top all your stuff with a week's work, and it's 2:00am

Uh, because you had even longer to prepare your post than we did, and because you're the GM...we expect perfection from you blast it! Or excellence at the very least!

That is all I have to say!

How about you stop making faces and get us closer to meeting our fixer....

C'mon, redeem yourself here!

Yeah! For a game titled 'The Gospel' I'm not seeing a whole lot of attempts at redemption on the part of the GM here!

We're so gonna get an orbital cow dropped on us mid run, you know this don't you WR?

I will go ahead an inform WR1 that I did get my hands on Arsenal.
I like all the demolition rules. I like them a lot.

See, now we're getting to the root of the problem. If you spent less time making faces and reading up on rules you'll never have a logical reason to use, you'd probably have more time to post. Less reading, more posting. A simple formula that should keep this ship moving merrily along.

Oh we're SO screwed.

Mister Juan –

I need clarification. Is that address supposed to mean something to Julian? Or did she say something specific you didn’t highlight but somehow became relevant?

You went from Random Ramblings  Envelope w/Time and Address  Not so innocent, scary but entirely vague and unspecified insinuations  Her asking Julian what he thinks

Uh…thinks about what? There’s nothing specific he can respond to except the address, and it means absolutely nothing to me, as far I as (the player) know. Is she asking him to respond to her nebulous ramblings of ‘Seattle is going to hell’, the address, or is there something I’m missing entirely?

I’m assuming if she’s just doing a crazy old granny act and this is Julian’s cue to smile, nod his head, and agree with her, he would know, even if I don’t. So if that’s what he’s supposed to do, let me know.

Otherwise, please clarify what just happened in your last post and I’ll respond as soon as possible. Thanks.

I'm guessing the envelope/address is in response to Julian asking her were we can meet her and her nephew for frooty French Marmalade and breakfast tomorrow

as for the rest of it, no clue I think it's the ramblings of a sickly GM

I figured out the address and time = meeting location and time.

Forgot to mention I did understand that part. Don't worry, I didn't wack my head since last we spoke and thus saddled you with an idiot for a partner.

But I agree, I think the rest is the ramblings of a sickly GM...

..... I hate you all so much.
Ok, I wasn't clear. Just trying to push things along.
Basically, she's giving you a meet location, with time, and rambling on about how she knows MANY PEOPLE wit MANY PROBLEMS.
All in all, she's saying she has more than one job lined up for you.

I was hoping the stress of the season hadn't gotten to you already, it's a LONG way to 4/15



You don't hate us, you love us. Otherwise you would have had the restaurant explode in a fireball already er... I mean.. Ummmm... *whistles and walks away*