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DigitalOYABUN
And Joel, I just noticed you live in Leesburg VA., I live in Leesburg FL. grinbig.gif
BlueMax
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Oct 29 2009, 01:09 PM) *
The questionnaire is interesting, as it forces me to say more than just "he's a Troll with a lot of knives." (Actually, I did start saying more than that, but ...)

Mach / Joel


Its interesting to a point. Its like Electromagnetics homework. Counter-inuitive, repetitive and long. But I guess it gets the answers in your mind before the questions are asked.

/me ducks

BlueMax
Karoline
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Oct 29 2009, 05:09 PM) *
I actually took In debt. Largely because Kerenshara sent such a big grin when I asked about it.
I'm going to have to pay off 22,500 nuyen and 30 karma. Although I hope to pay part of the karma with a replacement negative quality.

The other reason was that it was just enough money to flesh out the equipment in ways that made sense.

For life style, I ended up with middle everything, high security, living in a mixed metarace apartment building. Due to background, it just didn't make sense to lower any of the components further.

The questionnaire is interesting, as it forces me to say more than just "he's a Troll with a lot of knives." (Actually, I did start saying more than that, but ...)

Mach / Joel


AFAIK you don't have to pay off the in debt quality with karma at all. It wouldn't make much sense after all that you have to pay karma in order to give someone money. You technically still have the quality, it just doesn't affect you any more. Remember that every other quality that can be circumvented by in-game measures specifically includes mention of having to buy off the quality in the process, but In Debt makes no mention of ever having to buy off the quality. It would be a horrendous quality otherwise, because it would cost you nuyen and net you no karma.

Also, how long is everyone else's questionair? I'm at 12 pages with only the dreams question left.
BlueMax
QUOTE (Karoline @ Oct 29 2009, 01:39 PM) *
Also, how long is everyone else's questionair? I'm at 12 pages with only the dreams question left.


My first draft is much much shorter. Orb is a creature of few words and worst of all, it said "In character". I assumed it would be filled out online and well, being an E-scapist.... in character and online spells trouble. So I whipped up a whole case of trouble.


BlueMax
adamu
Hello.
I just want people to know I am still around.
The master of our universe knows this because of daily e-mails and PMs.
But I realized it might be courteous to let the other players know as well.
JoelHalpern
DigitalOYABUN: You mean that town that shows up every time I forget to specify the state when looking for my local information? I never actually looked to figure out where in Florrida it is. (I'm about 50 miles northwest of Washington D.C.)

Karoline: The board discussion of In Debt seems to be all over the place as to whether one has to pay of the Karma as well as the money. There are arguments both ways. I will say that I started out assuming your reading. I am not so sure Kerenshara is assuming that, because otherwise it is basically free points. But I'll let her speak when she chooses.

Single-spaces, with some white space to break things up, Mach's profile was almost 11 pages.
If I get the energy I'll probalby post the character sheet. It just takes work to get the formatting right. And I'll probalby wait for our GM to vet it first.

Yours,
Mach / Joel
Kerenshara
Follks, I'm sorry I haven't been around much the last day and a half, but I've been down with a sinus infection, and they seriously kick my hoop. I am doing a bit better, and I will try to catch up tomorrow for everybody since I will be sitting around waiting around for UPS and my new T400s to be delivered. I've got a pile of PMs, questions, material to (print and) read and answers to craft.

Don't stop what you're doing on my account.
Marwynn
Get better Kerenshara! Seems we're all passing around some nasty stuff.

This stuff can wait.
Embers
The arrival of your new electronics will make you feel better. Nothing like the pick me up of quality toys.

Karoline
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Oct 29 2009, 10:15 PM) *
Karoline: The board discussion of In Debt seems to be all over the place as to whether one has to pay of the Karma as well as the money. There are arguments both ways. I will say that I started out assuming your reading. I am not so sure Kerenshara is assuming that, because otherwise it is basically free points. But I'll let her speak when she chooses.


I understand where the free points argument comes from kinda, because the quality doesn't last the length of the game like others do, so it is 'free' points in that it only costs you 750 nuyen per karma to pay off your debt, which is fairly cheap. On the other hand, having to pay it off means that you end up paying karma for nothing at all. It isn't like your getting rid of some long lasting penalty or anything like that. And if the first thing you do after character creation is pay off your debt, then there wasn't any real point in taking the disadvantage in the first place, because you've spent more nuyen than you got from the quality (Which totally makes sense) -and- you've broken even on karma since you had to buy it off.

In short if you have to buy In Debt off with karma, then the only thing the quality does in the end is cost you 2500 nuyen per level, which means that it is utterly pointless and there is no reason to ever take it beyond story reasons.

Still, it is up to Keren. Sorry to hear that you were feeling so poorly, I thought you weren't talking nearly as much as normal. Glad that you're getting better though.
pbangarth
QUOTE (Karoline @ Oct 30 2009, 06:08 AM) *
In short if you have to buy In Debt off with karma, then the only thing the quality does in the end is cost you 2500 nuyen per level, which means that it is utterly pointless and there is no reason to ever take it beyond story reasons.

Still, it is up to Keren. Sorry to hear that you were feeling so poorly, I thought you weren't talking nearly as much as normal. Glad that you're getting better though.


Except, that In Debt is a Negative Quality, so it also brings with it the opportunity to balance it with a Positive Quality. So in calculating its worth, one needs to take into account the Positive Quality that came with it.

}}}}} Mojo of healing sent towards Kerenshara {{{{{
Karoline
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Oct 30 2009, 07:36 AM) *
Except, that In Debt is a Negative Quality, so it also brings with it the opportunity to balance it with a Positive Quality. So in calculating its worth, one needs to take into account the Positive Quality that came with it.


Not really, because you could have used the 10 karma used to buy off In Debt to instead buy a positive quality. Or more notably, you could get the quality anyway, and instead take fewer skills, and then buy those skills up with karma in game. Or take fewer points worth of stats and improve those with that karma.

Also, it should be kept in mind that there are plenty of other qualities you can get, it isn't as though In Debt is an absolute requirement for getting positive qualities or anything. I still hold by the fact that every quality that needs to be bought off to bypass it (Blindness, deafness, allergies, ect) state explicitly that they require being bought off with karma. In Debt notably lacks any mention of paying karma in such a way.
BlueMax
I am defeated by formatting. If anyone has any tips on how to get even and clear spacing when posting a character, hit me up.

BlueMax
JoelHalpern
I've never gotten a posted character to look reasonable. I'd be interested if someone tells you a good way to do it.

Yours,
Joel
pbangarth
It appears to me as if the system has built into it a filter that removes multiple contiguous blanks and tabs. So I suspect getting pretty spacing will be really difficult.
BlueMax
I have an urge to just PDF the character and link to it.

BlueMax
/who is at work
// and therefore cant upload anyway
Karoline
You can use the "Lucida Console" font. It has even spacing. I believe there is also a way to insert tabs, though I'll have to double check on that.
milk ducks
Wow, this is a long questionnaire, lol.

-milk.
Karoline
QUOTE (milk ducks @ Oct 30 2009, 05:15 PM) *
Wow, this is a long questionnaire, lol.

-milk.


Oh come on, it only makes the SAT look like a pop quiz wink.gif
Embers
Is everyone ending up with 13 pages or am I too short?

Karoline
QUOTE (Embers @ Oct 30 2009, 05:38 PM) *
Is everyone ending up with 13 pages or am I too short?


I think you hold the current longest smile.gif Mine is only 12 full pages, but I have the dream question still to do, and that could get long.
DigitalOYABUN
I'm at 10, but not even close to done. Of course I plan on editting it for conciseness.
BlueMax

Preface: I have never made a character with the Karma system before. I expect this the be error filled. As for maximizing, its not:P

Any help appreciated.

[ Spoiler ]


JoelHalpern
BlueMax: Mostly, looks quite nice. A couple of questions though:
You list Body as 6, for no cost. I presume that this is actually body 5, +1 natural armor? (The armor is not the same as body, for example for toxin or healing tests.)
You seem to have initiated (submerged) 3 times. I thought Kerenshara had specified only one initiation (submersion) from the 50 karma. I may have misunderstood. I also thought she said that if you used extra karma for initiation, you had to make sure your relevant stat was one less than maximum. (On the other hand, I can easily understand her choosing to relax this for a TM. TMs have lots of problems, and lots of neat.)
You listed the costs of initiation as 11, 13, and 16. It looks like you were taking into account the party, which gives a 20% discount. The nice thing about that is that it rounds in your favor, giving costs of 10, 13, and 15. Have 3 Karma.

Yours,
Joel
Embers
It was 1 immersion/initiation from the initial 750 Karma, and do whatever you want for the other 50 karma from what I remember.
BlueMax
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Oct 30 2009, 08:00 PM) *
BlueMax: Mostly, looks quite nice. A couple of questions though:
You list Body as 6, for no cost. I presume that this is actually body 1, +1 natural armor? (The armor is not the same as body, for example for toxin or healing tests.)
You seem to have initiated (submerged) 3 times. I thought Kerenshara had specified only one initiation (submersion) from the 50 karma. I may have misunderstood. I also thought she said that if you used extra karma for initiation, you had to make sure your relevant stat was one less than maximum. (On the other hand, I can easily understand her choosing to relax this for a TM. TMs have lots of problems, and lots of neat.)
You listed the costs of initiation as 11, 13, and 16. It looks like you were taking into account the party, which gives a 20% discount. The nice thing about that is that it rounds in your favor, giving costs of 10, 13, and 15. Have 3 Karma.

Yours,
Joel


Yeah, I haven't listed the natural Dermal. Thanks for catching it.

As for the one less, I may have missed that and await Keren smacking me if necessary. I can game it one way or tother with the 50 karma.
I thought the rounding was against me, but I will check out Unwired again and make sure.

BlueMax
JoelHalpern
On the rounding, the way it is worded in Unwired it could be read either way. While they have not published an errata, the devs have said several times that they intended the discount to round in the players favor. The general rules seems to be that things round in the characters favor. There are a few scattered exceptions.

Joel
Karoline
Well, since my character initiated and I talked to Keren about it, it rounds like it would in math class. Which is to say it goes up at .5 or higher, and goes down at .4999999999999 or lower.

And yeah, she basically said 2 initiations total, but she might relax that for TMs.

Also, does a TM group not cost karma to join like a magic group doe?

Great my laptop' keyboar i giving out on me for no reaon no key between a an f for me frown.gif
JoelHalpern
Karoline: The TM has access to informal groups, which you don't have to join, but which still give you the 20% discount. Why? Because they wrote it that way? On the rounding, that means the 2.2 discount rounds to 2, the 3.2 rounds to 3, but the 3.8 rounds to 4?

Bluemax: One question that finally occurred to me: What take the bonus on Compiling rather than registering Sprites. One of the nice things with TMs is that it does not cost money to register sprites. And registered sprites can do all sorts of useful things. The roll for compiling is against force, while the role for registering is against 2*force, so a bonus on registering would seem very useful.

Yours,
Joel
pbangarth
Kerenshara, I'm falling behind in my work and in my GMing. I think I have finally bitten off more gaming than I can chew. Please forgive me, but Stardust is going to have to bow out. Please put me in the waiting list, and call another player up from the minors.
BlueMax
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Oct 31 2009, 05:22 AM) *
Karoline: The TM has access to informal groups, which you don't have to join, but which still give you the 20% discount. Why? Because they wrote it that way? On the rounding, that means the 2.2 discount rounds to 2, the 3.2 rounds to 3, but the 3.8 rounds to 4?

Bluemax: One question that finally occurred to me: What take the bonus on Compiling rather than registering Sprites. One of the nice things with TMs is that it does not cost money to register sprites. And registered sprites can do all sorts of useful things. The roll for compiling is against force, while the role for registering is against 2*force, so a bonus on registering would seem very useful.

Yours,
Joel


Joel,
If I were an Elf and could keep a great number of registered sprites, yes. As I can hardly keep a few, I want to be better at the remaining flexible Sprite. And besides, since I am not an elf with a Charisma stream, there is no way I can handle that much Fading. The Fading on Registering can be deadly.

BlueMax
JoelHalpern
Yeah, the fading from registration can be nasty. Understood. Just wondering.

Joel
Kerenshara
Ok, I am back up, finally. Not at 100% mind you, but I'm going to take a crack at getting caught up for you folks.

@PBangarth - Peter, I'm very sorry to lose you, and that has nothing to do with losting half the party's full-Magician strength. Let me know when you're available again, because if this goes as I expect it will, cycling you back in shouldn't be a problem.

Everybody else, give me a few hour to digest this python lump of questions and data.
Marwynn
If that's the case and our Magic just became even more of a necessity, I'll re-iterate through my Magigger and make him a better overall Magician. Gonna hafta drop the minor hacking skills... focus on one type of firearm.

Or if necessary start all over. Might be hard to be the sole magician and rigger though.
Kerenshara
We've got some secondary casting abilities in the group (2x MAs IIRC). We can make this work one way or another.
milk ducks
Okay, got some time before I have to do the Halloween party thing this evening. I should be able to finish up the rest of these questions in about an hour or so.

-milk.
Kerenshara
Ok, here we go:

JoelHalpern


Smartgun software - don't worry about a license.

Ravensoracle

This goes for everybody, but here's how I am ruling this, and why re: kits/shops/facilities.

You may purchase a single general-purpose kit at 150% of normal base cost. This will cover all Mechanic Group repairs.

For Shops and Facilities, you MUST purchase separate equipment, and here is why:
Yes, when you're dealing with internal combustion engines and so forth, you will have very high commonality of tools. But by 2070, you have hybrid-electric alongside turbines and pure electric and so forth. The tools needed to overhaul a turbine engine don't have that much in common with those to overhaul a V-8, and there are a LOT of very specialized tools needed. Yes, you're going to have some overlap, but not enoguh to be worth discounting (and certainly not from the selling corp's perspective!). Keep in mind also, that these kits also have to handle drones of the apropriate types, so you might have to deal with tracks, rotary wings, hydraulics, propellers, fans, skirts and legs.

Can everybody live with that?


DigitalOYABUN

Your plan for Everett is fine. It looks like you got a lot of help from the others, but if you still have questions, ask away.

JoelHalpern

There is no Karma cost for repaying In Debt. The math assumes you repay things in the first month, but remember: the interest compounds monthly at 10% of the total owed, so just making the INTEREST payments can be a steep number; At 30,000¥ debt, that's a whopping 45,000¥ due the moment you take the money PLUS 4,500¥ the first month in interest... if you pay just the interest, you still owe 4,500¥ the next month.

Embers

I am seriously in love with my new laptop. I am looking foward to doing writing on it; I now understand the cult of people who gush over the Lenovo keyboards. I like it better than my desktop keyboards, straight up. It cheered me up, though I am still less than 100% physically.

And yes, the +50 Karma is unrestricted, including buying more money at 2,500¥ per Karma.


I think that's everything, and I replied to all the PMs I had that I don't think I previously responded to. If I missed anything, please let me know.
JoelHalpern
Thanks for the clarifications.
With In Debt, if I don't make the 2,250 monthly, things get really out of hand really fast. Nice to hear I don't have to worry about the Karma if I can ever get the 22,500 to pay off what I owe (15,000 + 50%).

I'll reallocate the 800 nuyen from the unneeded licenses. I am presuming that a knife suitable for woodworking (not a fighting or throwing knife) is relatively cheap?

Joel / Mach
Kerenshara
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Oct 31 2009, 02:40 PM) *
Thanks for the clarifications.
With In Debt, if I don't make the 2,250 monthly, things get really out of hand really fast. Nice to hear I don't have to worry about the Karma if I can ever get the 22,500 to pay off what I owe (15,000 + 50%).

I'll reallocate the 800 nuyen from the unneeded licenses. I am presuming that a knife suitable for woodworking (not a fighting or throwing knife) is relatively cheap?

Joel / Mach

Um, is it a really NICE woodworking knife?
JoelHalpern
QUOTE (Kerenshara @ Oct 31 2009, 02:51 PM) *
Um, is it a really NICE woodworking knife?


I can't imagine that it is 800 nuyen nice. (Particularly since a cougar fineblade is only 900 nuyen.
(I don't know that much about woodworking, so I am guessing) I would think probably two different sizes of folding clasp-knives, one for large work, and one for small. I would have assumed that they came to about 100 nuyen. I suppose that I given the "environment", I amy need to allocate measurable (not large, but measurable) quantities of money for the wood itself. 10 nuyen per fist sized piece, 50 Nuyen if I ever want a large block/ (An awful lot of analysis for fluff...)

Joel / Mach
Kerenshara
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Oct 31 2009, 03:34 PM) *
I can't imagine that it is 800 nuyen nice. (Particularly since a cougar fineblade is only 900 nuyen.
(I don't know that much about woodworking, so I am guessing) I would think probably two different sizes of folding clasp-knives, one for large work, and one for small. I would have assumed that they came to about 100 nuyen. I suppose that I given the "environment", I amy need to allocate measurable (not large, but measurable) quantities of money for the wood itself. 10 nuyen per fist sized piece, 50 Nuyen if I ever want a large block/ (An awful lot of analysis for fluff...)

Joel / Mach

So why not say you spend a hundred and call it a day?
BlueMax
I think he spent 700 on sentimental value.

or AWESOME.

BlueMax
Karoline
QUOTE (BlueMax @ Oct 31 2009, 06:09 PM) *
I think he spent 700 on sentimental value.

or AWESOME.

BlueMax


700 on a 100 item is a +3 to awesome. wink.gif
Kerenshara
Seeing that statement made me thing:

An Emotitoy RTG 6 could be described as a "+6 Wondrous Item of Influence". *gags*

Incidentally, since the topic came up (which is what got me thinking in the first place) of Emotitoys:

To work, they have to be pretty obvious to you and your target. That means that if everybody has them out at a meeting around a table, it's going to start looking like a PokeMon tournament. Expect most Johnsons to frown on "toys" at the table... especially since native skill and attribute will generally favor the Johnson over the 'runners. That also means that you can't use it "on the fly" like Leadership inspiring somebody for a "gut check". *shudders at the image of a troll with a cheerful woodchuck popping out of it's pocket helping encourage you to "move your hoop!" by chirping "Pika! Pika!" at you...* Generally, I'm going to call that one "common sense" but I generally will rule AGAINST the obnoxious devices. If you would like to know my preference, a camera (or cyber eye or SimRig) hooked to a comlink running empathy software gives me a LOT less in terms of hives.

"Not a sermon, just a thought" - Some jackass preacher on the radio.
Embers
Doesn't empathy software cost something like 10 times an equal rating emotitoy?
Kerenshara
Depends on the rating. I don't recall precisely, to be honest. But it's SUBTLE. You can easily sneak it by... which is the point. You're going to take time to "I choose you!" your emotitoy just as the Troll Ganger with the railroad tie-er, I mean baseball bat is bearing down on you? *grin*
Karoline
Yes, the software is far more expensive than the emotitoy. This doesn't make alot of sense, because in theory you could buy a cheap rating 6 toy and rip the software out of it, but I figure that there are a number of things written into the program to prevent this, like it only works when used through the emoti-toys eyes and is registered specifically to the toy, and various other copy protections.

It does make sense from a rules balance point of view because like Keren said, the software itself is more useful because it is more 'lightweight' than the toy, but from a real world perspective, it doesn't make alot of sense that you can buy something that comes preinstalled with software for less than the software itself costs.

Then again, this is the case for alot of drones that come installed with rating 3 pilots when the drone costs less than 3k.
Embers
600 for a R6 toy
3,000 for the R6 Software

I think I'll wait for someone to crack a copy.
Embers
Actually, on that note, does anyone have a Tactical Program for us to share?
JoelHalpern
Relating to tacsofts, they apparently require an even number of sensors from every person, and work according to the number of sensors. Which sort of makes sense, until you try to figure out how it relates to reality. How many sensor are folks carrying. And if one of us only has his eyes, does that really mean the tacsoft does not give the rest benefits?

Yours,
Joel
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