I thought you had sent a post indicating the Hex was not going to be in the van for the visit to Xanadu.
It sounded like he was taking the night off, which is fine. (Post #217 of the IC thread)

Joel / Mack

right back now!!! Give me 10 mins to post my IC up!

Do I also have the signal booster for sybercat? If so, what do I do with it?

I would just assume she handed you the booster. You probably just need to place it next to the terminal in the producers office.

Joel

Yes, you have one. It's about the size of a deck of cards and needs to be placed within a few feet of Dynamo's terminal. If you can keep it hidden, that's best.

just being pushy and bumping this up... ^_^

Oh, crud. Missed that post, sorry. Yeah, just add that to your skill.

Bloody dice hate me again.

Yeah, but you got it in the right order. With that good a surprise test, he ought to get no defense, so even 2 successes should connect.

Joel / Mack

yeah. He couldn't roll enough hits on his perception test to match that so I didn't even bother.

Match that with 0 successes on his damage resistance test and I just decided, you know what, he's tired, and only has an 8 box stun track.

LOL, that's very kind of you imperialus.

Ok, having trouble finding what to test when dragging an unconcious man, so I'm just going to make a strength + body test. Is that ok?

Nice idea trying the guard's fingerprint. Even if it normally wouldn't work, Sybercat might be able to use that to fake the lock into opening for you. (And if there are any records she misses, they will be of the guard, not of you.)

Mack / Joel

LOL yeah It was a long shot, but why not.

Next IC post is up for ya Dusty. Might want to suggest to Sybercat IC the idea of using the guards print/comlink to hack the maglock. It's a good idea.

Oh and as far as dragging an unconscious man goes, really this is one of those occasions where I wouldn't even say a roll was necessary. If you were trying to do it under fire, or drag a troll or something like that then yeah, roll for it but to just drag/roll 200ish lbs of dead weight wouldn't be too hard for anyone.

Been working on Mack's Shopping list. A full list will be separate. This is mostly questions.
(A karma question in the next note.)

Definitely want to buy the XCD.

Do I dare look at buying a Full Body Suit to wear on clothing? Or will that mean that our opponents tart wearing that?
On a related question, the wording is ambiguous about how obvious the PPP parts are. The helmet is obvious. But what about the other parts? Can I wear a Vitals Protector without standing out?
I presume leg and arm casings are pretty obvious?

I presume that I would need a referal to an armorer to get personalized grips for a long Cougar Fineblade?
(And that it would spoil the look of the XCD to even consider changing the hilt of that lovely knife.)

Thank you,
Joel / Mack

A strange Karma question.
I bought Magic 4.
Cyber / Biowear then reduced that to Magic 3.

To purchase the next level of Magic, do I spend 12 Karma or 15 Karma?
(I would not ask except that quite a few posts on the forum seem to take it for granted that the answer is 12.)

Joel / Mack

I presume that between returning Slash and heading out I ws able to rest for 1 hour, to erase the 1 Stun.
Has someone fixed up Loki?

Joel / Mack

Not yet, but I can do that while you folks are in there, making action 'n' stuff. I think I will, in fact. I'm heading out right now, but I'll post tonight or tomorrow.

Hey Imperialus,

FYI:

I'd be tempted to use photobucket.com rather than imageshack.

Been trying to load that map you made for hours now and it won't load.

I myself have had real performance issues at image shack and photobucket has many more features and loads linked images REALLY quick in comparison.

good idea. I'll use photobucket next time.

Next IC is up.

Heh, I was about to post in here but I refreshed and up came the IC.

Just to respond to your IC spoiler text.

As a general rule you'd want to set your comlinks to hidden mode only when you're actively working. Meet with a Johnson, set to hidden, sitting on a stakeout, set to hidden, gearing up for a firefight on the docks, make sure you're hidden.

Going about normal business or any other brief bits of downtime, keep it active.

From a metagame standpoint this lets me post stuff from your contacts and what not at natural breakpoints. You can assume that you have it set so that it filters out 99% of the spam and crap, only in the heaviest of spam zones, like a shopping mall will any really filter though. It's mostly just a storytelling convention for me that helps control the action. As a more IC explanation you probably keep working for at least a little while after you get home, even if it is late. It takes time and effort to assimilate what you've figured out so you'll likely spend some time reviewing notes, mulling possibilities over in your head and stuff like that.

Anyhow, hopefully that was useful, likely it wasn't. Just trying to explain how I see the world working. I tend to like thinking about what my characters do during downtime. Helps them grow. Elfin Face had a habit of cleaning his guns for example. It eventually became his 'working retirement' after he got out of running. He picked up the skill as he grew as a PC though.

*edit*A disclaimer though, this is just how I see the world working. Many other very good GM's differ from me on this. Particularly if they like the Matrix a lot. I personally have never grown completely comfortable with it. I can play Hackers fairly well but it takes a lot of effort on my part.

Actually that reminds me I wanted to mention something. This is a big reason why Sybercat is kind of incognito with her stats, and why I discouraged hacker PC's. I'm using her almost as much as a tool to move the plot (hopefully subtly enough not to irritate) as I am as a PC or anything else. Please let me know (by PM or in the thread) if you ever feel she's getting heavy handed. DMPC's have been an irritating habit of mine in the past and if I'm not careful they can turn into plot hammers or railroad tracks. I won't be offended, trust me.

It's all good buddy, it's good to know we will still be on the right track.

I'm really enjoying myslef in this game.

And I probably just threw at least a minor wrench into the plot... oops? ^_^

Not to worry, I'm sure that Sybercat will find something to keep us going, or the recordings are not the originals.

The original quest I think is about to get blown into insignificance by what comes of tonight.

Yeah. Sorry, this next update might have to wait until Sunday. I'm hoping to have Padres little subplot PM'd to him tonight but as far as the main run goes I've got a draft finished but I'm trying to make sure everything fits together and I'm not telling you too much and/or too little. Dusty's right, big things are going to start falling into place after Sybercat finishes digging on Xanadu.

Of course Padre's life is about to take a turn for the effing weird. Lets just say, of all the western religions, Catholicism jumped on the 6th world bandwagon first, and with the most vigor. They also have some very strong opinions on what is and is not Godly. The current Pope is something of a millennialist.

Thanks. Knowing the time frame makes it easier to wait.

Joel

Oooooh! Sounds interesting!

Happy to wait, quality is better than speed.

Ahh, all the fun of character development... I'm happy to hear about that. I was a little worried about what the heck I could do with Padre.

Ok. We're on a roll again. Going to meet with Icelady. You can take this as an opportunity to decide what you want to do next. If anyone has any Yakuza contacts now would likely be a good time to roll them out. Just remember, organized crime syndicates are pretty byzantine. You'd better hope you're dealing with the right faction. Your initial etiquette roll will be really damn important. It might even be a good idea to blow some edge on it too.

If you have any organized crime contacts they can be used to try and set up a meeting. The threshold is going to be pretty damn high though, 7-8 depending on who you're approaching.

If that doesn't work, having a 'conversation' with Edward will get you to the same place, it's a bit more brute force oriented though.

We'll I have my fixer, an arms dealer and a street kid.

I don't know if they would fit in as a Yak. Maybe the arms dealer?

But no, I never declaired a Yak as one of my contacts.

Ok, how about this:

I never declared my Arms dealer was a Yak contact, but lets just say I don't know who he works for and make a roll anyway. If I get lucky, he could work for the Yaks. But it's a long shot.

well, those weren't too bad of rolls... hopefully they were good enough...

This brings up the need to flesh out my contacts a bit more, though. Imperialus, do you want me to do so, or do you want to so that you can play with some more plot hooks (as if I haven't given you enough already)?

On that note, who are some local gangs in the area my church is located in?

Not sure what we are waiting for at this point.
Folks have tried their contacts. We may or may not get something.
Meanwhile, we have to go talk to the IceLady.
Mack will leave it up to the talkers (Loki and Padre) to decide how much to tell her while handing over the original chip (assuming that she doesn't derail everything when she starts the conversation.)

Joel / Mack


PS: Imperialus, I had a few questions earlier in the OOC thread, when you get a chance to comment on them. Thanks

Full body armour is pretty obvious. There are large ceramic plates covering the vitals, flexible Kevlar style protection around the joints, stuff like that. This is pretty close to what it looks like. A stock suit is also generally designed to look intimidating. You can get it toned down, but the availability would go up by 2 and it's still obvious that you're wearing a lot of armour to any more than a passing glance. If you choose to wear it peacemeal and go for more subtlety you can, but it's armour value equals that of an armoured jacket then.

Something as simple as customized grips is well within Elfin-Face's capabilities, in fact you can buy them on stock knives, they just cost 10% more. Also the XCD has a longer grip than most knives due to the battery pack and vibration kit. The grip is probably a bit small for your tastes, but you could use it without penalty.

I'm gonna get the post with Icelady up soon as I can tommorow morning. Right now, looking at the etiquette rolls, it looks like you'll probably want to tackle Crull first. That'll also give the combat monkeys a chance to shine against some real opponents too.

It's a little fuzzy in the RAW. I tend to be in agreement with the majority on the forum though, so it costs 12. The only thing lowering your essence really does is lowers the cap of your magic attribute. With an essence of 5, the highest you can raise your magic to without initiation is 5, after initiating 6 times, the highest you can get it is 11.

Arrgh! I need to read peoples questions before I start posting answers to them. Hopefully I get the IC fixed before anyone catches it.

There, fixed.

Sorry will post ASAP, got some paid work on again.

Be here sooooon!!

bumping those, as well as adding a question to the list: Imperialus, did you get my response to your PM?

It's really up to you how fleshed out you want your contacts to be. You may want to put a bit of detail into a contact with a high loyalty for example but leave the lower loyalty ones a little vague. It makes no difference to me if I flesh them out as they become relevant or you do.

As for local gangs I'll leave that in your hands. You likely don't have a major gang presence around the church so any sort of street gang or two bit go gang works. If you want to you could have a bigger player claiming it has their turf like the Ancients or Spikes but I wouldn't go much bigger than that.

No... I didn't get your PM response. Things have been pretty quiet on my end recently. *checks inbox to be sure* nope, I didn't.

Oh, and if Loki hasn't posted the request for more money by this evening I'll sock puppet a response from him just to keep things moving.

Sorry for not responding. I really am - I know I'm holding up the mission. My creative juices have been kind of stopped up lately, though. I'll post a response right now.

I really do apologize about not responding very quickly lately. I'll do better from now on.

I'm sorry I haven't been super responsive, either. Work's completely draining me right now. I'm trying to get my sleep habits used to it, but it's hard. And they've blocked DS, so I can't post while I'm there most of the time! T_T

Actually, I believe that in theory my Magic and Initiation can get as high as I want, along with 5 points of cyberwear.
This probably doesn't really matter, so I will wrap up the details. It was just prompted by your comment above:

Joel

Hey ah.... Imperialuis? Is icelady ignoring my questions?

Oops! Went so long between updates I forgot about them. I edited my post. I think it still fits with Nigel's. Good catch, thanks I'd wanted an excuse to explain some of that.

Oh, and everyone gets another 5 karma.

Woo hoo! 5 more Karma!

Sorry to pick on you Imperialus but:

Looks like your rushing to get us to the good bit eh?

EDIT:
Not that this hasn't been awesome fun!! I just think your big gun NPC's are itching to make an appearance right?

Just so you know, it'll take days, if not a week or so to get the rights to the songs sorted out. You'll have to trust her on it. Chances are though, the last thing Ice wants is another batch of people pissed off at her.