Wow, this has been real eye opening. Throwing spellcasting into the mix is eating up about 150 BP. Going to have to relook at alot of things. Likely to drop the cracking/electronics/mechanic skill groups I'd picked up to take advantage of my high logic with and shave down some of my stats... oh, right, can pull down edge, had soft maxed that because with my mundane build I had more BP than I really needed. Still going to require a bit more trimming here and there. For anyone interested, my spell list:


So yeah, no blasty blasty.

As long as you can point out the mage, then that will work. I think we have enough firepower that geeking the mage in a mundane fashion should work.

You can drop cracking/electronics, I have both of those groups covered fairly well, that'll quickly open up some BP for you, and still allow you to hold onto the mechanic skill group.

Anybody buying a TacNet? That will help me free up some funds.

Not me, but another important question. Is everyone buying a signal scanner and a tag eraser?

I plan on picking up a Tacnet if others will. I can also cover ground vehicles in a pinch.

I'd probably classify him as a Street Sam/Infiltrator. He's got decent stealth skills and I see his athletics skills helping him get the drop on enemies, such as coming through the window after rappelling down a building... I've also picked up a decent first aid skill.



Character Name: Samuel Archer
Race: Orc
Codename: Buckshot

Supershort Bio: Sam Archer joined the military right out of high school and became an Army Ranger. After his stint in the military was up he used his natural athleticism and Ranger skills to get a position on an Urban Brawl Franchise. Two years there, including one as team captain, he got picked up by the Seattle Screamers. He earned the name Buckshot during the game winning play, by using a shotgun to single handedly blast his way through five opposing players in order to score the winning goal.

Near the end of his first year as a Screamer he was accused of cheating through the use of "Illegal Information" from the outside. He maintains that "evidence" was planted because of his involvement in the death of another player earlier in the year, the son of an Aztechnology corp exec. The Urban Brawl League investigated the issue and despite conflicting evidence, ruled against him and issued a permanent ban from play. Screamer management maintained their belief in his innocence and most Seattle fans believe it as well.

Doc Wagon recruited him for their Black Ops team because his skill set as a Brawler made him a well rounded member of the team. He was very athletic, stealthy, great with weaponry, and trained in First Aid. Also, hiring him might give them an added bit of publicity.

I'd been planning on running a tacnet also. Probably rating 3, 4 would require too much from the slaves to be counted. 3 is pushing it.

Please no emotoys or emotion soft your opposition will reciprocate.

I just got back from my thursday night game and I am very tired although I will try and get an NPC list up before going to bed tonight. Standard Docwagon procedure (at least in my game world) is for team members to slave their coms to the vehicle which also runs the tacnet and serves as the main choke point for the teams network. All Docwagon response vehicles run a rating 3 tanet (although usually only at a functional rating two because of sensor channel issues.) Additionally they all have high firewalls and system ratings and even some IC although usually with an eye to detection and getting the spider on and looking into things over actual direct response.

Also daedelous is getting droped if he/she doesn't check in very quickly.

As promised my somewhat rough NPC list, me sleepy now.

Docwagon Code Black Support Personel

Jebediah "Jeb" Robards
Race: Human
Call Sign - Round Up
Role: Director, Code Black Operations
Jeb is the sort of guy you either think is great or you despise, similarly while he can be a great ally and even a good friend his enemies rarely live long enough (professionally speaking mostly) to appreciate the depth of the mistake they made. Jeb is a smooth talkin' cowboy Texas style always looking for the next angle disarming opponents and friends alike with a southern drawl the covers for his keen intellect and political acumen. Though no one can recall Jeb ever doing wrong by his subordinates he recieved his first team leader role after turning in the sitting TL and half the team for organ legging. That blemish and the vague suspicion that Jeb sees his subordinates more as tools and means to his own ascendancy puts people slightly off. Of course Jeb would be the first to defend and point out that only a fool of a gunfighter takes anything less than the best care of his tools. Even with all that Jeb was instrumental in getting Code Black the positive press and the corporate co-operation needed to get it off the ground in Manhattan and the company hopes he can repeat this feat in Seattle.
Quote: "Now I might not be the smartest guy in the room but...."

Coleen Steffano
Race: Human
Call sign - Mizz Fixit
Role: Armorer
A transplant from Manhattan Coleen is a sixth generation mechanic who's mother happened to be a gunsmith and armorer. As such Coleen can build, repair, customize, and fix anything with moving parts or armor slapped on it. She even dabbles a bit in electonics and computers on occasion although she has a healthy distrust for any more complicated then a food processor unit. Coleen was brought from new york specifically by Director Robards to provide the new teams with some of the unit cohesion they would need in the face of stressful situations. In addition to being a great technical person she's a fantastic listener and quite the cook. While the food processor in the Code Black communal area isn't quite up to her specs she does work wonders with it.
Quote:"No trouble at all hon."

Randy Kohl
Race: Dwarf
Call Sign - Kritzkreig
Roll: Security Spider
Most people don't have anything positive to say about Randy on the best of days. He's antisocial, curt, and occasionally quite rude. However as a docwagon security spider he gets the inglorious task of protecting both the facilities and the teams in the field and their gear from their enemies. His flaws are tolerated because he is very very good at his job and an absolutely frightening cyber combatant. The fact that his appearance and mannerisms give the impression that he's one lab accident away from supervillianhood don't hurt.
Quote: <slightly annoyed stare>

Peter Delgado
Race: Ork
Call Sign: Duster
Role: Pilot/Driver
Duster likes to joke that after his stint at Docwagon is done he's going to retire to a nice quiet cab driver job to relax and round out his tour of the most dangerous job's a ork can have. Duster got his first taste of the power of military and combat driver as an armored cavalry officer in the Sioux military. Discrimination against him both as an Ork and as Spaniard quickly brought that career to an end. He joined Doc Wagon first as an a driver/medic on a medical transport and then as pure pilot/driver on HTRT and search and rescue before beating out other applicants to join the Code Black Team. While duster prefers choppers for their habit of flipping Newton the bird he can handle most any vehicle his job requires.
"Though I travel through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no for the engines are running hot and the valley is quickly receding in the rear view."

Wow, more NPCs on the team than I expected. Cool, and late game too, if you're not getting home till 3am. And I'm still tweaking my character some, so please consider the sheet I sent you a rough draft for feedback, I'm gonna wait until Method declares what he's gonna go with before I make the final tweaks and submit finally, in case he decides to go as a rigger (which is something I have no experience playing as, used to mages and sams, and the one time as a TM).

I have my character completed for the most part, but I'm still fleshing out the 20 questions and the long version background.
Are we posting them here or should be wait for the OOC Thread, whats the plan?

Thanks,

Since we will be equipped by DocWagon, should we worry about buying ammo, grenades and other such combat consumables?

2 questions

1) Do those contacts have connectivity levels, or do we just have to buy up the loyalty for them?

2) Will there be a list of gear that DocWagon will provide for us (IOW: things we don't have to buy ourselves)?

The intent of the NPC's is not necissarily to step on any PC's toes but Doc Wagon is investing fantastic amounts of money in this operation so their going to make sure you have the support personnel you need to succeed. At least in the case of Jeb, he's your boss, sometimes he'll be a boon to you and sometimes a hindrance, that's the way bosses are. Duster exists to deal with my normal aversion to driver type riggers especially in the context of this game. Just so folks know in regards to the spider he's not just assigned to your team but the whole of the black program and he also has to back up the HTRT spiders and assist in watching over the facilities in seattle. Basically if you set the ARC on the vehicle to scramble secruity spider he's the one that's called (in addition to any of you that you put on that list) he may not always be able to respond but when he does expect him to show up long enough to deal with whatever threat and then log off again to deal with other duties.

As to last nights game, it was a wierd one as it felt that things only started to click for the players's about 10, so we ran until midnight or one and then I had to give one of the players a lift home (out to bellevue) because he's shiftless and has no car or job. But he's the fiance's brother so what you gonna do.


Edit and addendum:
You can buy up loyalty, everyone other then Kritz starts at loyalty 1 and can be bought up subject to my approval. Kritz you'll need to buy at least one point just to get him to talk to you most days. Everyone elses connection ratings are set.

There will be a gear list, I will grab my copy of Ghost Cartels and type it up now. As to ammo because of it's non lethal focus doc wagon will provide you all the normal bullets and gel rounds you could ever want. Anything more exotic will have to be specifically requisitioned or bought with your own funds.

Well I think I am done crunching numbers except for gear. I really need to know what is being provided to build around that. I'm working on background and personality now. I already had the basics down but I am rewriting him to specifically fit with this campaign.

Standard Docwagon HTRT Loadout
Doc Wagon Full body Armor and Helmet 12/10
Armor Has fire resistance 4, Chemical (and biological) seal and biomonitor, integrated
Helmet has low light, image link, infared and image link as well as an external camera Sound dampening and sound record. (The system satisfies enough sensor channels for a rating 2 tac-soft out of the box. Unless you're a mage in which case you get a more scaled down version of the goggles with image link and the audo enhancements only.
Other Gear:
Erika Elite commlink runing Iris Orb
Weapons:
Enfield AS7 [Shotgun DV 9P -1AP (Net +1 when firing gels) SA/BF, RC 4 Ammo: 24(d) w/ gas-vent 3, personalized grip, smartlink w/ improved guncam and all the gel rounds you could want.
Colt Manhunter (Heavy Pistol, DV 6P, AP -1 SA, RC0 16© Smartlink and improved guncam.

Ok after 48 hours without hearing from Daedelous and only two posts to his name Daedelous is out, with so many people both playing an eager to play I cannot chase people. Brain is coming and and bringing a docwagon background mage to the table. There will be some overlap betwen him and the current incarnation of Karoline's character. You may either work that out between you (each of you specializing a bit more in your magical talents or similar) or just keep it as is without major issues. I leave that up to you.

Tarbrush is now on deck in the waiting list if it's any consolation.

Quick question for you in order to help me determine how I'm going to fly with this as a rigger, cause I would still like to be able to be going in actively with the team instead of sitting back at HQ or in the Wagon while fully VR'd (otherwise it's fairly pointless to try and be a face if I'm never there in person). What's your interpretation of how machine sprites run drones? There's two threads already in play on the boards here dicussing it, and I'll link those, but curious what your take on it is. I've always read it as they can run them like a rigger can, either jumped in, via remote control, or via commands and let the pilot run it, and when they do directly control either via Command CF or jumping in, they use their rating as Pilot, and the autosofts of either the drone itself or the autosoft CFs they're compiled with if better. Curious to how you want to run that. Here's the links:

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=29774
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=29133

Also please do not take records on file (Docwagon) sinner (Docwagon) does work or you can annotate a different double A or better mega or nation. I will approve Records on File for other organizations on a case by case basis (as i do with pretty much all merits and flaws) however i've seen a couple of these so I'm going to cut it off at the knees so to speak. Yes I know i'm putting a TON of houserules and my own little quirks out there. It basically falls into my own GM philosophy, the rules are there to support the story, both driven by the GM and the players. If I could figure out a good way to do it I'd run completely diceless. So what that means is every tweak I make (no stick and shock, no emotitoys etc) is designed to make the rules less cumbersome and quicker and support the sort of story I want to tell and hopefully you want to be a part of. Mechanical one up manship contests bore me to tears, no rules "i win" button is needed by either side because I ultimately want my players to succeed and have fun sometimes I want them to cross the finish line bruised and bloody and death is never far away in shadowrun, but ultimately I want them to feel like their destiny was in their own hands.

The above tirade was at no one in particular but just a general observation after many years of GMing a variety of systems. We now return you to your regularly schedule game prep.

Will we be issued a Doc Wagon Contract since we are employees or will we need to purchase one ourselves? Really only asking for it flavor-wise it really makes no difference.

It would make the most sense for your to be onsite even if it's just strapped into the chopper or hanging out in the van. That way you can respond to situations as they come up and don't have to worry about connection interruptions.

Hah good questions! You will all have docwagon contacts and bracelets now obviously if yours gets triggered on a mission they' are probly not sending a regular HTRT into the situation to retrieve you.

Addendum:

Sleep, that is pretty much my take. Also before anyone asks, if you shut off a drones connection to the matrix for the most part it kills resonance links as well.

Sorry bob, I can't heal you, you don't have a contract with DocWagon, and I know you don't have enough to afford a patch up. No, it doesn't matter that you work for DocWagon and we're on the same team, no contract no healing.

Of course the infinite loop created by having another DocWagon team come in to heal someone from our DocWagon team that got hurt because they have a DocWagon contract is fairly funny.

I'm guessing we get free medical. Also I can heal an average of 4 boxes with first aid and then something like another 3 with heal (haven't looked over it really), so if you're still hurting after that, we might have bigger problems than what our medical plan is.

I was thinking more as fluff for when we are off duty.

DocWagon - Never Off Duty

I have been working on Background for a little bit today and realized I have yet to give Kristof a callsign. Right now I am drawing a blank, so I am throwing it out there for suggestions.

Eblis O'Shaughnessy? J/K but props to whoever gets the reference.

Based on your skill set of combat/stealth/face..... how about.... Tweak? Twitch? Spaz?

My vote.

Edit: Actually, it might be cool to have our callsigns decided by each other, as that is how they tend to happen in reality.

Mine is like how Joker in Mass Effect got his, was a nickname everyone called her in college and it stuck, but I wouldn't have problems with us all deciding the callsigns of the others. Though it would cut down on the random Doctor Who jokes in regards to my character (I swear her icon was not going to be a blue box).

Just noticed this, is that 2 image links, or is it supposed to be image link and smart link in the helmet? And is there a lighter form of armor for the mages/techies who are squishier and not as physically powerful to prevent the encumbrance issue, or are we going to be expected to cover our own? Or are you just going to ignore or modify the Body x2 armor encumbrance rule?

I just have to do the shopping for Vincent at this time. That, and choose a call sign. Due to my intense laziness and inability to pick nicknames for most of my characters, I hereby open the floor for suggestions.

Vincent is polite and professional when on the job and fills a number of roles, depending on the situation. He is fairly skilled as a negotiator, can serve as an infiltration specialist when things go bottoms up, and is good enough to close with most hostiles and disable them with his stun batons quickly.

Can you list Connection ratings for all of them for us? And If I want to spend 1 BP to get a little loyalty from Kritz, would I have to also buy the dots from Connection? I figure Doctor would have looked him up via the Matrix (and if need be have sent a Data Sprite into the Resonance to find out) and bought him some inexpensive gifts and talked about stuff he likes to get him to open up. She's of the opinion that you pamper your mages and Matrix types (though never let them know you're doing so) because the support they provide often makes all the difference when the shit hits the fan.

I loves the pampering

Oh, right, also a question. Can we change the spec cost to 1 BP? The 2BP cost for specs has always annoyed me to no end because I hate to waste 2 BP on a spec when I can get it for 2 Karma after CG.

And, what happens if a magic type gets restricted gear? Still maxed at 20 or is it higher since the base is already 16?

WooHooo! Made it in after all!

Tony Doughnuts, reporting for duty. Local to the Seattle area, experienced and worked out of the Cougar Mountain Hospital in Bellvue for several years before hooking up with DocWagon. Been with them for a few years and looking forward to the adrenaline of Code Black.

Karoline, I was not planing on going as heavy into the healing spells as you did so if you want to keep that load it won't bother me. By the same token, if you want me to pick some of them up so you can get a couple of others, I am open to that as well.

Better hope it's not literal *pictures that episode of the Simpsons*

"They're going to pamper us."
*bart gasps*
"Not literally"

I'm reasonably happy with my spells as they are. Plan on grabbing a handful of health sustaining foci so I can, among other things, heal multiple people at once through a combination of magic and first aid. Levitation is mostly there to help get into/out of places or to move someone particularly heavy.

Gezz, so many changes to my character, now I'm considering changing the background concept I had to run something vaguely along the lines of JC from Deus Ex.

I know the feeling Karoline, and I'm still running with the same basic concept of a hacker TM/face, but throwing in rigging and so on, and I've already sent 3 rough draft sheets to Lurker as is (none today yet since he's not looked em over the last one yet and remarked on it).

Ok, so with all the tweaks I've made to my character, I've changed my second echo a couple times, so not sure what to pick. So here I am, asking for the advice of others here who have a basic idea already of the character and see what you all say. My first echo is hands down Overclocking (+1 response and +1 IP in VR) as that's one of the few advantages I have at creation over a mundane/adept hacker who can have higher Matrix attributes and is less restricted on their programs (I can only have Charisma x2 CFs, though at any rating less than or equal to my Resonance), and in the case of adepts can have really high hacking or other skills as well. The ones I'm considering for my second and why I'm considering them are:

Advanced Overclocking Basically a second level of Overclocking, for a total of +2 Response and +2 IP in VR. This is REALLY handy if I plan on spending most of my time in VR since that gives me 5 IP (the one exception to the normal max of 4 IP) and an extra die to all defense rolls (before damage resistance) while in the Matrix. Not so helpful when not in VR though, useless for meatspace or even AR (unless Lurker decides the Response applies to AR and VR but the IP is VR only).

Biowire Allows me to basically have my own version of skillwire cyberware. Required to get Acceleration (which I'll describe below just in case someone does suggest getting Biowire and a rank of it instead of Overclocking). The problem is that the rating it is restricted to is equal to my submersion grade (currently 2) and also I would have to have a Complex Form version of the skillsoft, or thread it based on an existing one on my commlink (thus causing a -2 dice pool penalty from sustaining Threading), negating the 2 dice I would get. The benefit is that even sustaining a threaded skill myself (instead of passing it onto a sprite) helps negate the penalty for defaulting, but still doesn't help me much (I'd get one extra die at most), but yeah, at such a low submersion grade, more trouble than it's worth unless I'm using it to get Acceleration.

Acceleration Basically a meatspace version of Overclocking, or a TM version of Wired Reflexes, granting +1 Reaction and +! IP per rank purchased, and can buy up to 3 ranks of it. Downside to it is that it requires Biowire first, and is useless in VR (though handy for AR hacks and meatspace actions).

Defragmentation Kind of like a TM version of First Aid, I can heal myself once (only living persona damage, not meat body damage from Black IC or Fading) and only once with a Resonance+Willpower (1 Combat Turn) Extended Test. Anything left over after the heal has to be healed via rest (though with it being an extended action, I dunno why I couldn't just keep rolling until fully healed).

Immersion Can be taken twice, each level gives a +1 dice pool bonus to all tasks (not just vehicle skills) when jumped into a vehicle or drone (cumulative with the +2 from full VR, but takes me out of meatspace and leaves my body vulnerable).

Multiprocessing Observe in Detail becomes a free action (as opposed to a simple action) when in AR or VR, also grants an additional free action per IP for Matrix-related tasks in non-combat situations. Can pay attention to a number of extra nodes equal to my submersion grade, allowing me to roll half my dice pool for any tests required in any node where I'm not active.

Skinlink Can hack into any device so long as I touch it, whether it has skinlink option or not, or has wireless capability turned off.

Sprite Link Can compile and register one additional type of sprite (can be taken multiple times).

Swap Reduces the sustaining modifier of threading Complex Forms by 1 per rank, can be taken twice.

My big ones have been Skinlink, Multiprocessing, and Advanced Overclocking but any of them could be handy at this point.

Ok, a more up to date look at what we have in the group, divided into combat, magic, matrix, social, and stealth.

Combat:
bmcoomes (former FBI ERT sam person)
crank (straight up sam)
AJCarrington (straight up sam)
Darquewing (a combat hacker)
ravensoracle (former KE guy)
Mickle (combat/face/infiltration)

Magical types:
Karoline (medic mage)
Branmac (medic mage)

Matrix:
GrimWulf (data search/investigation)
Me (hacker/rigger TM/face)
Darquewing (infiltration/hacker)

Social:
Me (hacker/rigger TM/face)
Mickle (combat/face/infiltration)

Stealth:
ravensoracle (former KE guy)
Darquewing (infiltration hacker)
Mickle (combat/face/infiltration)

Undeclared:
Method (troll meatshield or combat/medic mage, though might pick something else)

I think we have enough tech people that we'll not need you down in the thick of things. I think I would go with Overclocking all the way. Gives you the extra passes to really kickass in VR. Since you are going for a little bit of rigging as well you will most likely be in VR anyway.

You mean combat peoples, not tech peoples. right? And keep in mind, I'm also a face so we'd like me to be able to be there in person when bluffing is required, and Skinlink would come in handy for missions similar to the fluff opening the TM chapter in Unwired (i.e. i hafta bluff my way into a wireless free facility and hack doors and stuff for the rest of the team) and was my original plan until I ended up picking up some rigging beyond a single drone to have a machine sprite in to protect me. At which point I was leaning more towards Multiprocessing for a always in VR rigger style. With the move back to trying to be more in person if needed, yeah, back to wavering between those few.

Actually I mean tech, not Hackers in the Matrix tech savvy, but Kristof has 10dice to the electronics skill group so I could connect you into the system through one of the three decent commlinks I am running and my Hardware toolkit. I've got one comm in my Military helmet, the issued one and my personal one.

Just a thought. You could also go for that 'pull them into the matrix' ability. Could be a great way to disable people. Touch someone to instantly take them out of the action, which could be good for hostage situations combined with invisibility and silence since it wouldn't give any chance for them to pull a trigger, release a deadman's trigger, do either via reaction from being shot, set off a personal bomb, or basically do anything as you destroy their mind while they are trapped in the matrix (or just leave them trapped maybe, don't know the full extent of everything).

Perhaps not the most practical route, but it might be the only option in cases like dead-man triggers.

Brief Bio, still working on it.

Helmut Leipzig
Race: Ogre
Callsign: the German
Role: Investigations/Computer Ops/Overseer
Helmut was born in Germany and joined the Army at the early age of 13 with falsified documents. He mustered out several years later with strong knowledge of computers, electronics, and tactics. He moved to Seattle about 10 years ago to take care of an ailing grandparent who has since passed on, but remains in the city. He's been with DW for awhile now working one of the many combat support tech seats back at the HQ when the opportunity for a Code Black team was offered to him.

Outside of work he runs several fan nodes for popular trid series and is an avid fan of pretty much anything new to the matrix game scene.

Helmut still speaks in heavily accented German as he lived most his life there, this has lead to others referring to him simply as the German, he resisted the callsign at first but eventually relented and accepted it as it wasn't going away any time soon.

Ah, ok, so less need for me to go completely in the flesh unless it's in some facility where Skinlink would be absolutely necessary, as you could hook me in via wires. So Overclocking and Advanced Overclocking is the current vote, any other suggestions? Keep in mind that that 1 extra Response makes my already ridiculous defense dice pool slightly more so, turning my Response in VR into 8, adding in my Firewall 5 and Shield 6 and it's a 19 dice pool rolled to resist all attacks (which is kinda what I'm shooting for when in hacking, hard as heck to actually hurt since all Matrix damage is applied to my real self, though it's Stun if it's not Black Hammer or something similar (my damage resistance in the Matrix is not quite that obscene yet, but still nice).

That Echo is called Resonance Trodes and is an advanced Echo, requiring me to first have Skinlink (and yes, they are both awesome Echoes). Still waiting to hear from Lurker on his decision about the optional rule of letting TMs and mages buy additional Echoes/Metamagic with karma, if he says ok, those might be my first purchases with karma.

If you do have to leave the meatbod behind, not to worry as Helmut would likely be left behind (or in the transport) on most occasions also. I have him up to 5 IP's in hotsim, 4 otherwise. I've never ran with a TM before so not sure of your abilities, nor how well they can work in tandem with a hacker, but we should be able to take on anything that comes our way.

At their most basic level TMs are largely the same as hackers as to what they can do on the matrix. Basically if a friendly hacker could help you out with X, a friendly TM can help you out with X. TMs also have alot of interesting differences, large among them being threading and sprites, which are similar to 1337 5ki11z and agents, but fairly different too. I suppose what I'm saying is don't go over crazy with thinking on what the TM can do, will be reasonably close to another hacker for most work in tandem regards.