Now that I have completely read through all 30+ pages of this here planning thread, I have a much better grip on what's going on with the gang scene and such, and the OPCG and the NPCG and such.

I'm going to be going through the 8-Balls background a bit with Vegas and after we get that stuff kinda straightened out to where I'm comfortable with it, I'll do up at least one vignette from Doc's perspective. I'll also probably be editing his background a bit now that I am more comfortable with the background of the game, and his takes and such. I'll be finishing up my character sheet tonight too, for approval soon. =)


@Abbandon

I like the idea of having us supervise other NPCs that might be working on our drugs, but it seems a bit powerful for us to be doing stuff like that right off the bat. Part of the fun of playing the chemists is going to be setting up our drug making operations and stuff, so we might not get any NPCs in there for a long time. In the beginning we can mostly be identifying drugs, cutting drugs with baking soda and stuff so that we can increase our quantities, making crack out of novacoke, etc. I'm down with doing that stuff, and I've made doc a fighter as well as a chemist so he's not so one-dimensional.

@ WR1

What kind of beer do you like? I pay attention good.

@Unarmed: My Idea! Mine, get back. Sides Canada Post won't let you ship batteries so I think beer is a no-no.

@rob: Excellent idea on the static zone. Brings back hand jive, and all that other fun stuff for when we're out of commlink range. Thou I think Tootles will be getting the short end of the Jimmy stick. Sorry DR

@Winter: Still here, paying attention. Listening very carefully.

Amazing. I use the word 'rewards' and the posts and PMs all notice what I said. I should use that word more often.

Unfortunately, I don't drink everyone, so sending me alcohol won't accomplish very much.

Hey, are any of you going to GenCon Indy this year?

I'm paying attention.. albeit sleepily. *passes out*

Baking/cake decorating for 11 hours (practically straight) took the very life out of me.

@ Unarmed
More stuff from me tomorrow. If I try to write anything of substance right now it'll come out worse than when I'm drunk

@ WR1

*raises hand* I'll be at GenCon, but you already knew that.

@Winter: Un-bloody-likely, you know how expensive plane tickets are? Not to mention customs, ugh. I can't even cross the (Johnstown to Ogdensburg) bridge without a stinkin passport. And it's a ten minute drive from my fragging house! (Sorry to rant, not your fault.) I know I'm no terrorist, but will US Customs listen? Noooo. I need a passport. Why, I never needed one before. (Granted I was ten, ten year olds make lousy jihadis) {Very sorry to rant, just gets under my skin is all}

And that's why when Mister Juan shows up from Quebec for GenCon I'm buying him a drink, just cause he deserves it for going through all the pain it'll take him to get there.

@carjack: Fat, white, shorts and tee shirt wearing, with glasses and general dislike of activity ten year old Canadians make lousy jihadis. Marines?

Ok, Looking for clarification here and or making sure I've got this right.

Doc = Ex-8-Balls and joining up with the NPCG (yet to be named gang after the war)

Ghost = Ex-Hammerpack

Trojan = ?????

For those looking for something to do, you might want to heed Konsaki's earlier words and add some detail to your contacts.

Vegas - If you have time, would you like to port over Vegas to the wiki so people know a little about her? Obviously only Shade and Felix would really know her, but the others probably know of her, since she's part of the Splintered Crash, at least to some degree. It's your call, this is strictly optional.

I deleted it because I changed when it happens. As to why, it's jumped to one of the most significant events of the war, the proverbial lit match about to set off the powder keg.

Unarmed - You probably don't want to have Doc fighting members of the Hammerpack halfway through the gang war. It wouldn't make sense.

I'm almost done with the narrative, my goal is to finish it tonight. You'll see what happens to the 8-Balls and their role in the war then.

October 21 is up. FYI, I will be editing this draft to account for feedback once it's complete, but for now I'm focusing on getting it up so everyone knows what happened first.

@Vegas Trojan is ex-Brickhouse Boys. Their resident drug expert.

First draft of Shade's Journal is COMPLETE!!!

You'll notice on Oct 31 I have only summarized the results of the climatic battles. I specifically want the members of each of the destroyed gangs to PM me an IC vignette recalling their gang's final stand, since I think it's most appropriate.

Shade will give a final commentary at the end, but I want the meat of the grand finale to the gang war to come from those whose characters were involved in the final battles.

Let me know if you have any questions, and what you think of the Journal. When I start going through everything for revision (gang profiles, placing locations on the map, etc) I will go through the Journal and incorporate feedback. For now, my creative brain needs a well deserved rest.

Ghost was indeed Hamerpack.

Quick question, I went ahead and added a couple of people to the NPC sections, is that ok?

@Shadow - the policy so far has been that the Locales and NPC pages are open for anyone to contribute to, with Winter reserving the right to make any edits he wishes.

Personally, I am glad to see your contributions, although Grack and this Fury character may need to have some words.

Cool, thanks adamu or the heads up.

Beginning of OPCG Explication Forum

Okay, looks like my little rant yesterday was totally unnecessary (note to self - don't be pain in the ass to hard-working GM staff). So now it is time to get constructive.

People, we are sorely in need of some more detail on the OPCG, affectionately known as the Hammerpack.

Here's what I propose to do. I am going to lay out a few topics for discussion. EVERYONE in this game is welcome to join in (though opinions of actual OPCG-declared players will have to carry more weight). EVERYONE in this game is also welcome to add new topics.

Every day, I will summarize the responses to these topics in a new version of this post, so that we can see the results of our brainstorming in one quick-and-easy spot.

If the GMs want, I will move this topic to its own thread, but thought I would see if there is any response first.

NOT putting it on the Wiki for four reasons. First, the Wiki-babes appear totally swamped as it is. Second, as new topics/questions get added to the discussion, the page would need constant reformatting. Three, this is a transitory discussion; any conclusions reached may in time be wikified. Four, my crappy computer won't edit on the Wiki.

This is NOT an attempt to step into grendel's shoes. Grendel - your word is law in the Pack. But I understand you are swamped with other responsibilities a this time, and many of us are having a hard time fleshing out our characters without knowing anything at all about the Pack.

So on to the topics. It would help if responses to any of these topics was headed in bold.

Nature of Organization

How organized were we, and how were we organized?

How organized were we? Some of the rival gangs are practically like corporations - they obviously have high levels of discipline and clearly defined structures. Each ganger has a set role. Other gangs will be no more than loose collections of individuals bound by loyalty to an area/group of friends.

OOC - the more organization the better. Organization is power.

IC - come on. I know Grack doesn't want anything to do with a bunch of rules. Seems to me like people with a lot of discipline, sense of responsibility, and who choose to live in a rigidly hierarchical group GET JOBS, or at least parlay their street skills into a gig with the Yaks or the Vory. The whole organization thing seems anathema to GANGERS, which is why they are still GANGERS.

But GANGERS are at the bottom of the criminal food chain...

How were we organized? Assuming we were at all, there could be set ranks, with Legion at the top and everyone in a set pecking order (Ghost #4?). At game start, there would be a lot of empty slots....
Or are we stovepiped, with different people in different jobs, but everyone reporting only to Legion personally?
Maybe we are in groups, like cells, also stovepiped straight to Legion.
Or just everyone does what they want, with Legion's role to set "foreign policy" and "tax" our profits, but otherwise we all just do what we want?

Look forward to comments.

What was our relationship to our victims?

By victims, I mean every non-ganger in our turf. 'Cuz that's what they are.

If we are providing protection, it is for more than they can afford - since they can't afford anything. And if brutal gangs like us weren't around, they wouldn't need protection from us, and the Star wouldn't be afraid to show up when they did.

Are we just selling to willing buyers of vice? If so, who are the girls we're turning out? Where are they coming from? Who is buying the drugs we addict people to?

Barring extreme "do-gooder" cases, a gang is bad news for the people that live on its turf.

That said, the sheep may or may not know that.
What is their perception of us? What efforts do we make to manipulate that perception?
Do we pay for goods and services (with extorted money), or just take them?
Is Grack under orders not to kill children that piss him off? Or left to his own devices?
Do we make a big (ultimately meaningless) show of only selling drugs off our turf, or not to kids?
Are we less bad than the neighboring gangs (are perceived to be)?

And most important, what will happen if our relationship with our victims goes too far south? Our gang is what, 20 people? How many people live on our turf? A few hundred? A thousand? If we piss them off to much, where are we? Or if we get invaded, do they throw flowers to our foes, or shut their doors and refuse to deal with them?

Did we have a set HQ?

This goes to what sort of qualities we will be looking for once we choose our new turf, and also to what sort of organization we have.
An HQ is a fat target, but also an organizational rallying point.

What was our communications infrastructure?

And did any of it survive Halloween.

I really appreciated rob's discussion of Matrix accessibility in Kingsgate. I agree with it almost 100%. I would add one tiny point, which is that while his discussion focused largely on the availability of repeaters, canon has talked about how the mesh network often doesn't even need repeaters, cuz the fact that (non-Barrens) society is freaking inundated with little Signal 1 devices everywhere you go, and that most of the non-secure ones are bouncing signals through each other.
So even on our turf, if enough kids (and beetleheads) have chip (BTL) players, and enough working poor have automated rice cookers and enough vendors have rating one comms, we could very well have a spotty local mesh network just off of that.

In any case - eager to hear from any and all on how we might have been set up for intra-gang comms, and what we might be able to do in the future.

How many guns are floating around?

This is more sort of an environmental question, but it also goes to our gang. My impression is that guns (or at least good ones) would be relatively rare in this game. I think that is being borne out so far in the materials I have seen, but if so why?
Do we have a stock of weapons? How many of us do have guns? How much of a target does that paint on their backs? Are the gun-wielders carefully distributed among our action-teams, or just haphazardly spread out?

Conclusion - for now

I've thrown out my opinions on these topics as conversation starters. The LAST thing I want to do (believe me) is take charge of anything here, aside from a secretarial capacity. Very much hoping to hear from any and all on these topics and any others.

As is said, I will keep generating a new working summary of where the discussion is at.

Hopefully tomorrow we can add a working list of our assets and liabilities for everyone to start contributing to. (Just cuz I think gangers are disorganized doesn't mean I have to be!)

@WR1

Heh, figures you had a "plan" all along with it. No big deal. I'll just edit out Nevada ever being a part of Hammerpack and go back to the original deal of her being a NPCG convert. Makes it a little easier on me actually to not have to add in a big part of her history with the gang... and it'll be fun RP to have to prove herself on TWO fronts now I'll be editing her sheet up today..

I will attempt to get Halo up on the Wiki sometime today. Should be easy enough. I won't however do takes and all that unless you absolutely demand them and or I have the time.. I'd rather finish up some of the other DITG related stuff I've got cooking...

@ Vegas

I've been trying to PM you a couple times today and it seems like the DSF have been going wonky for some reason. I don't know if you're getting them or not so I don't want to try and send any more and overload your inbox. Lemme know.

I got em Unarmed... responded too.. let me know if you didn't get the last one about MSN.

Yeah, it seems like everything is sending okay, I just don't get copies in my sent folder and such. Weirdness.

@WR1
Thank you very much for writing up such a glorious ending for the Splintered Crash. Honestly, it was one of the most... impressive read I had in quite some time Thanks a bunch!

But I do notice one thing: Nurse and BronzeWyrm are missing.

doublepost

@WR1

Ok, Halo's up on the wiki. I'll add her into cast of characters or something if you want. I"ve only put up what was from the 410 game, no edits, no changes to background to bring her up to speed to 10/31/70.

I might get around to that... eventually

@WR1 -

Regarding the 'final climactic battle' - in the case of the apocalycptic stuff, and the fact that the game is going to begin shortly after 0000 hours 1 Nov 70, how much of this stuff dow we want to throw in the journal? Will the IC vignettes be written from the first-IC-post point of view or the factoid history point of view?

It seems pretty odd if we've got a chronicle of the events down to the minute; I know commlinks probably make ghostwriting pretty easy, but damn...

for example, characters in other parts of Kingsgate may not know any specifics of the loss of the splintered crash...

Rob

sorry, double post

@ Konsaki

I put an X next to doc's name on the wiki because I'm pretty sure he's good to go. I still have to do his mechanics sheet but everything on there is derived from stuff I already have down.

For kicks:
Current Gang Roster
94% male
6% female

58% human
29% ork
5% troll
5% dwarf

23% awakened
5% technomancer
72% mundane

It's because I didn't round them down or up that it's off by 3%.
Reason why Nevada goes to 6% instead of 5 is because I just calculated all the guys, 94 and deduced her % from that.

@Vegas:

@GM Staff: Looking at the official map on Google, I noticed a large pink section immediately south of the Kingsgate area. Should we be worried about the terrible things that lurk there? NM just Touristville easy pickings y'all.

@Meriss

Big Pink section at the bottom that is unlabled (assuming it's the light pink) is Touristville. Not saying it doesn't have it's very own "terrible things" lurking in its shadows, but it's not a big major gang turf like Raider Nation on Steroids or something... that *I* know of at least

@vegas: Yeah I figured that out. After I posted duuuuRRR

Should I make a drug supplier contact for getting uncut drugs or is that something that will happen outside of contacts? I'm almost done with the sheet, just need to spend 7bp.

Hence 'more woman than anyone can handle alone'

Hehe point taken

Shade's pages are fixed.. takes might be slightly out of date, but they're up there and ready to be populated

@Winter: I hope you don't mind I posted Inks interviews directly to the wiki.

@Winter

My hat is off to you, man.

That 410 demise story was THE best piece of SR fiction I have EVER read. Better than anything in any of the novels - okay, sorry, not saying much there in most cases - but also better than anything I have read on DS - and I have read some damn fine IC posts over the past year.

I literally was getting shivers up my spine. Can only imagine what the read must have been like for players that had deep histories with those PCs.

End of effusive praise.

Meriss - Actually, there's a particular format we're using for the vignettes to make them easier to find, so please send them to me directly and I'll post them. It'll be easier in the long haul. Thanks!

Adamu - Thanks much for the compliment man. It was an awesome piece to write, the 410 Crash game had a lot of potential and really served as the inspiration for this game. I wanted to do the Splintered Crash's Last Stand justice, as the final straw that led to the last battles of the Kingsgate Gang War.

Writing that was surprisingly easy, I was just in a zone and let it flow, and somehow it all worked out well. I reread it today and got chills reliving it all over again; it's really cool to know it had a similar effect on you.

Meriss - Modified Ink's vignette format.

Adamu - Posted Grack's vignette.