nope... you can only spend edge once per roll. Sorry.

Got ya, changing my IC

EDIT:
Changed.

Don't punish me too bad.

There was one other option that you could have considered, which I mention for future reference. You can, for one use of edge, reroll all failed dice. So you could have rerolled 5 dice. I believe that sixes would NOT be rerolled then. But since rerolling sixes only adds 20% to the expected result, 5 extra dice is better than 3 dice, rerolling sixes. (Still you probably would only have gotten 1 or two hits taht way.)

Joel

Next IC is up. Sorry it took so long. I've been writing a paper on the Christian monasteries that worked on copying the bible in the 6th century. Yes, it's as boring as it sounds.

Phew, that could have been allot worse!
Thanks for going easy on me imp.

Sorry about the wasted effort guys. It was me that pushed us to go see the band, and it was Sweeps/Me that messed up, and made it a total waste of time.

It's your call what we do next guys. Sweeps busy is licking his pride wounds right now, so will no doubt sulk for a couple of hours.

EDIT:
Joel, right you are. Didn't realise I could have done that. Was too busy rushing around when I read the BBB. Thanks for pointing it out.

So, I believe we have to decide how much of a gift to get for the Oyabun, and arrange a meeting.
If we can really spend 1,000 nuyen on a bonsai in a suitable pot, that would seem the right idea.
(And yes, we pay the contact for arranging this. I think that is 500+?)

Joel / Mack

So 300 each? That sounds reasonable.

Where do we get the bonsai from I wonder, and the nice pot to put it in?

Isn't that what fixers are for (You get the pot with the tree, from someone who knows what they are doing, so that the size and style match. IRL I know someone who does Bonsai. The folks who do it well are really fanatic about details and aesthetics and ...)

Joel

Ok... Next IC is up. I Fast Forwarded though the "finding a Banzai bit". Damian is going to tag along for the meet with the Yaks. If there are any questions about proper etiquette the come up along the way assume he's there to help answer any questions you might have. If you want to handle it yourself though, then he's a wallflower.

Hopefully this evenings music selection isn't too messed up . Assuming there isn't too much IC chatter, the next post will be arriving at Mindwarp.

And yes... the Low Tech's are inspired by ripped bleeding from Johnny Mnemonic.

In about 8 hours time I should be on the way to Spain. I should be there by 11am GMT. So I'll post then (We got Internet there).

To be honest though Sweeps will sit back a bit and let Damian do the talking, that's if everyone else is happy for Damian to handle Etiquette.

Oh! And BTW, while I'm traveling and thinking about my next IC, if everyone wants to pay the 2K for that plant, Sweeps will be happy to pay his share. I'll leave it to you guys to decide.

Actually I was thinking that Loki or Padre might do the talking. Damian is mostly there to help out if you need it.

well, I'm here... is Loki? if not, I'll talk... I'll post later tonight... *yawns* wore myself out at the gym a little bit ago...

anyone have a problem with owing a favor?

I can owe a favor. I have plenty of contacts, and time to kill after this - most likely.

I was gone all day today, just got back. I'll talk.

Sweeps will help you out on any favour called to you Loki. If you want/need him to help.

Welcome to the Mindwarp everyone. I've been looking forward to this scene.

I really like this place, flavor-wise. Not as a place, but great description.

I hope I'm not taking too many liberties by declaring this place has great drinks. I figure I have a 5/5 Bartender contact and 3 in Knowledge: Greater Seattle, so I know about quite a few of the clubs. Tell me if you'd like me to change it, though.

The music clip for this one is just amazing. Thanks.
Joel

first off, Imp: Love the music clip. made me smile on a bad day. good job.

Now, moving on to table talk. hopefully this isn't too blatant and cheat.

In the meeting, if you are questioned and you even remotely think that your answer might insult or otherwise anger our host in this meeting, roll edge on an etiquette check. I'm probably being paranoid, but I've got a bad feeling about this... organized crime really sucks, you know?

That's why I figure Mack better just keep his mouth shut tightly at this point. He has no edge to speak of. And no etiquette skill. (So defaults to Charisma - 1. Not a roll you want to bet on.)

Joel

Ok... Next IC is up. Everyone is going to need to make a Etiquette test during the 'smalltalk'. Run it like a complex challenge except instead of taking time, everyone is contributing to try and hit the threshold. In other words I'll add your hits together and see what you get. Don't worry too much about failing it. I might ask you to reveal something to Usaka 'accidentally' or something else like that, nothing major.

Hi guys, as already mentioned, I'm in Spain right now.

We have Internet here, but I'm going further south to pay an unexpected visit my grandmother for a couple of days.

She has no Internet, so I'm going to have to cut off here. Sorry for the short notice, I'll leave Sweeps in your hands until I get back in two or three days.

Imp, Sweeps is pretty much going to sit on the side lines here anyway. But feel free to puppet him if needed.

See you in a couple of days.

EDIT:
OK, my IC is up. I spent a point of edge to make sure Sweeps keeps his foot out of his mouth. I just read imps last post and realised he said not to worry, but the point is spent now. Ho hum, my bad for not reading posts properly.

As said I'm offline for a few days, so if Sweeps needs to do anything, if Imperialus could puppet him. See you in about 3 days.

Well, it would be hard to give a worse demonstration of the rude Troll. Although I am using Edge to "negate the effects of one critical glitch".

Two dice is the absolute worst roll for your chances of getting critical glitches. 7/36.

Joel / Mack

Hey all... Seraph hasn't posted in over a month now. I tried PMing him with no response.

I'm thinking of having him drop out of the run. This is a good point to do it. We could just retroactively have him decide to go his own way after the renegotiation with Ice. Maybe he got the payout he was looking for or some such. We could always bring him back in if he does rejoin us though. Maybe Ice will hire him back on or something, or he can always join up for another run.

This does however leave us a little short in the PC department, particularly in muscle. If you're up for it, I wouldn't mind recruiting another player.

This would be a good place to do it. Usaka might ask (insist) that you take one of his people on to help out, and keep an eye on you. This could lead to more Yakuza oriented adventures which might be an interesting way to develop after the run. I'd lay out specific guidelines for the character (needs to be muscle, needs to be from the Yakuza ect.) and try to find someone who will mesh with the group. I'd like your input. I'll hold off on the next IC until I hear back from you.

bringing on another character is fine... of course, if no one's interested, *snort* I've got a hand full of characters I'd like to play with at some point... *grins*

sorry I've not posted yet... life's gotten a little hectic. I'll get up a post whenever I can.

Given that Seraph Kast (Hex) is not answering PMs, and has not posted for a month, I suppose we have to move on.
If, as you say, this is a good time to bring in someone else, then lets do that.
Yes, it does seem we need additional gun oriented muscle.
On the other hand, a good mage design would do wonders for our overall capability.

Trying to make this work without some addition would seem difficult.

Joel

I think a new character would be a good idea, as would dropping Seraph. Over a month of absence, and no response to PMs...I think he may have quit. We have the talky characters down, so either magical or fire support is what we need.

But yeah, the integration into the existing party might be difficult. I'm fine with more Yak runs if we want to make the new character one of Usaka's flunkies.

Since Dusty is out of town for a couple days I'll put a post up. I'd encourage everyone to check out the responses and see who you think might be a good mesh for the team. Feel free to discuss it either in this thread, in the other thread thread or over PM. This is a group decision.

Next IC is up. What does everyone think of Intro? There haven't been many bites on the recruitment drive yet.

Hey guys! Just in an internet cafe and thought I'd catch up.

Yeah I thought Seraph hadn't posted in a while. Ho hum, guess replacing him is a good idea. And yeah it makes a nice twist to have the new guy/gal a Yak.

I'll not comment on the recruiting thread now, until some more people take interest, but who posted there so far look promising.

And I'll leave the IC response from Sweeps for now. Partley as I'm short on time here at the cafe, but also as I think Sweeps wont need to speak up other than to nod his agreement if everyone else agrees.

Laters! Dusty.

Two meta-questions that likely apply to all the gunny candidates:

1) What skill is used to fire the underbarrel grenade launcher on the Area Alpha (even with Arsenal, the Alpha is still a good first choice weapon.) I had thought that as grenade launchers use heavy weapons skill, that would too. But even if you upgrade a pistol to full auto, it still uses pistol skill, so maybe the grenade launcher uses automatics?

2) How much tuning advice should we give on character details. For example, one build could either free up 4 points, or pick up two skill levels, for using a skill group, and then breaking the high skills out on top, as you have permitted. (I presume any trusted Yak is going to have to be human?)

Thank you,
Joel / Mack

It's heavy weapons.

Feel free to offer advice. I'm not going to have quite as much time to go through the characters in detail this time around so especially if they're new to Shadowrun feel free to help them out.

I think I would like to see writing samples from the potential replacements in the game... just to prove that we won't have to spend time teaching grammar, spelling, and the like.

On another note, wasn't ellipsis in the original recruitment drive? that strikes me as a potential bonus, since he's apparently been following from the beginning...

finally, Imperialus, consider this a reminder about Padre's little side quest...

In that vein, here's this little piece, based on the character that I outlined in the recruitment post. While these days I spend most of my time writing code and studying biology, I haven't - yet - forgotten how language works. (I have noticed that I read a lot slower, though. It's rather concerning, actually.) In any case, here it is:


Sometime around New Year, 2070. Lynnwood, 25 km north of Downtown Seattle

"Finally finished with that piece of drek," Takashi muttered to himself as he finished ratcheting tight the last bolt on the ganger's bike.

Then he noticed that his commlink was flashing insistently. He'd taken his linked glasses off to work on the bike, something he did once in a while when he really wanted to focus on what he was doing. Sometimes AR could really be helpful in diagnosing engine problems, putting the schematic overlays right in front of you. But here the problem had been obvious: the ganger hadn't done any maintenance on it for years - it was a wonder it still ran at all, and -

Once he saw the brief message waiting for him though, all thoughts about the ganger and his decrepit bike vanished.

<<Takashi:
Shiro Usaka would like to speak with you at Mindwarp tonight.
Anguirus>>

Takashi? No one had called him Takashi in more than a year. He hadn't even realized that anyone knew what had happened to him, though he supposed it was inevitable. At least he knew the sender, a mid-level fixer in the local organization, thankfully without any MCT ties. But what could Usaka-sama want? Whatever it was, Takeshi would be happy to do it.

If he could develop a relationship with one of Seattle's oyuban, he would possess the standing that would allow him to stop hiding in this unpleasant little corner of nowhere, and maybe he would finally have the opportunity to find out who had set him up over a year ago.

With that thought, he headed inside to shower up and prepare himself for what would come next.

Intro: Welcome aboard. I think your character will make a good addition to the team.

In case anyone missed my comment in the recruiting thread I mentioned that my posting schedule will be a bit erratic this week. After 3 months of dancing around with my condo board trying to get them to fix some water damage they're finally sending a crew out this Tuesday to take a look at it. This is good but it also means my house is going to be absolute chaos for an indeterminate amount of time. We don't even have a clue if the insulation (a very good thing in Canada) is ruined or even if there's mold up there.

Welcome, Intro. I think you'll be a great member of the team, and I really like your character.

Imp: No problem, stuff happens. Good luck on the insulation front!

Welcome Intro. Thanks for joining in.
Joel / Mack

OK! Back from Spain, feeling a bit drained from the flight with 2 younglings to keep entertained the whole way.

So I'll just pop in to say WELCOME ABOARD Intro!!

Glad your on team. Hope you enjoy this game as much as I am.

I'll catch up on everything else a bit later on.

Thank you, everybody! I'm definitely looking forward to it.

@imperialus: Good luck with (literally) getting your house in order. Water damage is definitely no fun. I had a friend go through that a couple of years ago, and "absolute chaos" described it pretty well. Hope it's not too bad. Also, I did a bit of tweaking, so I'll resend you the xl sheet.

Good luck Intro have fun. I'll enjoy watching all of you finding out how deep this goes. (I my self don't know)

It's looking pretty deep already, given that one of the current objectives is "Kill of one the senior Yakuza and rearrange the criminal power structure in the 'plex." But it'll be interesting to see how we get there.

Sorry there's only one spot to go around, Dumori. I hope Streetline finds a good home.

Oh he will. Hell be here and there. I'm waiting for a new PbP to start so i can play him as i GM in RL so I play over the net.

Ho man! Here in the uk, although not as cold as Canada in most cases, insulation is a must!! Having been through this myself a few years ago, I wish you all the best. In my case, it was only the plaster ceiling that was damaged. So I hope it's not too bad for you.

WHAT THE...!! I go to Spain and now we're going to kill a yak boss!!..<reading IC>... oh wait.... am I right in thinking that we have the green light if it becomes necessary to destroy her, but we're not at this time actively gunning for her yet?

I wondered about that at first.
My read, at the moment, is that the Oyabun we are working with is basically telling us that to stop this particular plot, we are going to end up going had to head with Kat. And it does seem natural, if that is the case, that we will end up either being taken down, or taking her down. My hope is that at the point where it escalates too far (after we have gotten into fights with two sets of her folks maybe) we will be able to get more help in finishing it off. However, even that is liable to require that we do most of the actual work.

Yes, the idea of having to take down a major Yak causes me concern. But in for a penny, in for a pound. And if we pull it off ...

Joel / Mack

Well, I've read the last IC post multiple times to see where my character'd be coming from, so I guess it was more highly weighted in my mind than the earlier story. And I took the "be successful in destroying her" line to mean that we would, in fact, be destroying her. But that's not really the job. Finding Angel and not having to kill a yak boss would definitely be the more prudent course, if one could swing it. Sorry if I startled anyone.

See I want to join the group to take part in this plot but its rude to ask things like that. I wanting to ask for the plot so I can run this with my PnP group.

LOL that's ok. As Imperialus said in the recruiting thread, it may be a good idea to try and re-read the IC. I know it's allot to read! I had to re-read it a couple of times to see if I missed clues. But it may put the whole thing into better context.

Actually, I've already done that and took notes on the various clues. Even with all that, I still managed to think more about the last post and how I'd get integrated with the rest of the story.

Also keep in mind that Usaka is probably being deliberately obtuse. No matter what you'll end up eroding Kats power base and standing within the Seattle Yakuza. If you can kill her, even better.

Thanks. That helps!
Joel / Mack

Yeah... Basically he's fishing for someone to do his dirty work for free. An opportunity has presented itself in the form of you guys, and Usaka didn't end up becoming one of the three most powerful Yak bosses in Seattle by ignoring opportunities.

Oh, and Intro. The first IC post involving you is ready to go. I just need a name... Right now the word file has *** as a placeholder.