We now have four teams, and 3 unaligned players that can be coalesced into a fifth team. As soon as Keroline and the other Enforcers are ready to go, we can start.

If Karoline doesn't make it back any time soon, since she may be suffering from connection issues (ISP or Starcraft2 related) we should figure out how to run this anyway.

I have character sheet ready to go also, just need a place to send it. I will check and see if the guy that was going to be my partner is still going to play.

RINMAN
"Character"

added to the roster.

Just a small detail: my name is pbangarth, with a "b".

Fixed it, sorry for the typo.

I don't think Karoline was in a rush to get this started as well, said she had alot to think through and setup. I'm in no rush to play either, I still haven't completed my character. Although the concept is there ready to be statted....

Don't die Shadow Wars, you can make it!

Lots of sub-human scum to kill.

Haven't heard any major info on this, which is why I'm loathe to move ahead with it. When I get a better idea of what she wants to do, I'm happy to dive on in.

I'm sure its just a small hiatus, Karoline is a rather active member, and I know how addictive Starcraft 2 is.

I made my character! Hooray!

His name is Gaius "Boat Times" Harborford.
He is a rigger w/ benefits.

I have been playing the "Desert Strike" tug of war map in multiplayer for a few hours each night.

I've been alternating among WoW, Fallout 3, and Dwarf Fortress.

Is there, you know, "tossing" involved?

No, I don't have the materials to build a catapult yet.

I did drown two fortresses by some misengineered water canals, though. MAN that was hilarious.

Any word from her yet? I was hoping to jump in as well. Looks exciting!

I saw postings in the SC2 thread down in the general gaming forum, so we know Karo's alive.

Hey all, thanks for all the interest. Sorry for my long absense, got caught up in classes and getting my computer fixed and then catching up on some missed gaming time on said computer

Anyway, reading back through all the posts. I'm currently on 165, so a ways to go to catch up. I'll try and answer the various questions that have cropped up when I'm done reading through, and then I'll go through the PMs that people have sent me. It seems my box managed to fill up while I was absent, so if you don't get a response to your PM in a couple days or so, assume I didn't get it, and send again. And if you know I didn't get it because the board does some kind of returned message thing (I have no idea) then please send it again as I've cleared out my box some.

Actually, last one I got was aug 26, 10:36 PM, so if you sent it after that, please resend and I'll get a look at it once I've caught up.

Since none of your characters have been there before (Or even know where exactly there is) you don't get to know in advance.



Actually I got my SC2 fix before I went on hiatus, which was handy, because the hiatus involved installing a new operating system on my computer, which meant I had to re-install everything on my computer. Luckily I have an external hard drive, so I didn't lose anything important, like all my shadowrun stuff


Mmmm, DF, been a while since I've played that...
My problem is always that I get to the point where I have infinite wealth, can't be successfully attacked by less than a hundred or so enemies, have all my dwarfs completely happy, and get bored waiting for my tower of babble to finish building
Anyway, back on topic.



So, the biggest question I noticed was asking about the entry.

First, there is no fence around the city, you'll get AR warnings if you start to stray towards the boundries, and even without that, as long as there are buildings or trees around you, you're likely to be in bounds.

As for the dropping question, yes, you are totally allowed to push gear out the plane with you, but unless you're skilled with parachuting, you're unlikely to land near it, and regardless it is unlikely to still work, though some more solid stuff might survive.

Don't remember if I mentioned or not, but each team will actually have their own plane to jump from, so everyone will jump at the same time, from the same height. This does mean that people highly skilled at jumping might be able to freefall for longer than unskilled, and gain a couple minutes of ground advantage. I think to prevent some potential problems there will be a 5-10 minute 'no spells/spirits/guns' grace period, but it does mean that the quicker teams could possibly set up in good positions to catch another team while they're still trying to remove the parachutes.

In short, parachuting skill can potentially be useful, but it won't allow for any instant wins.

As for how much equipment you can carry. That's a bit trickier, because a parachute could theoretically be made to carry about as much weight as you want. I don't want to give a flat weight, as that would punish trolls quite a bit. Here is what we'll do. You can carry up to your carry weight without issue. You can carry up to 2x your carry weight with fairly minimal trouble. You can carry more than that if you want, but doing so will risk serious (broken limbs) injury upon landing. Things like hydraulic jacks, adept freefall power, high body, parachuting, and gymnastics skill will help alleviate the risk. I'll set an absolute max of 4x your carry weight before the parachute simply collapses on itself from the weight (Arbitrary I know, but I want a max in there somehow).


Oh, right, nearly forgot. The city will be converted to a grid (x, y) for character locations, travel paths, etc. But that will be for the sake of making it easier to say where you are and are going. There will be plenty of ability to take high ground in the form of buildings (and possibly hills or trees), choke points in the 'natural' form of streets and alleyways, and all kinds of other possible tactical advantages. This is one of the things that I so love about an RPG like this over a video game, if you have a tactic or something that you think will give you an advantage that I didn't think of (Like pretend I hadn't thought of high ground giving you a bonus), you can still try it and I can still give you a potential benefit.

Okay, hope that covered everything for now. I'll look over my PMs tomorrow morning, so if you tried PMing while my box was full, please resend it. And if it is full again... well then this is scary popular because I freed up alot of space

What about really, really little PCs, like a pixie for example? Or a pixie with the Levitate spell? Oh, right, can't use spells outside the zone, which begins 10 meters above the tallest building. Still, a pixie riding a package down can take control of the package once in the zone. Right?

EDIT: Oh, not with the 5-10 minute thing. I'll just shut up and wait for Karoline, now.

Most likely going to treat little PCs like others. A bit unrealistic that they could carry that much weight at some of the higher strengths, but oh well. That's how the rest of the game works. Pixies have the same falling damage, same weight limits, etc.

Are the crew of the aircraft considered "neutrals" ?

Yes. No attacking them.

I wonder if it's possible to give a ground vehicle gliding wings.

And by extension, no impersonating them.

Trying to get a head start here

For what purpose?

So that they could be pushed out the plane and glide to the ground.

No, no gliding wings as that wouldn't be much different from installing your own parachutes.

I thought the weight limits were pretty well established.

Yeah, but we're talking about gamers. They'll go crazy to try and find a loophole. We should likely all be lawyers

I was just thinking about having a big bus fall to the ground, armored up the ass for a home base, but oh well. I have different ideas now, ones that don't require so much weight.

That would actually be viable. No promises on how great a shape it would be in even as an immobile base, but it is certainly an option.

A six-ton steel weight from 10,000 feet up?

Heh. Heh heh.

Questions that have cropped up in forming teams: Installment #1 - Sharing gear.

Say, one guy wants to bring much heaviness, and another is mostly bare. Can the 2nd fella help shoulder the burden on the way down?

Also, programs? Can we share those as well? Between the team, between the drones, etc.?

Good questions Saint.

Yes, you can have someone else help carry stuff. The presumption is that your team has been together and planning this for a while, so you can also share programs. If you have someone in your team that could reasonably crack programs and share them, then feel free to share programs all around.

So, bit of a silly question. Are we allowed to create a whole TEAM of folks? I can't tell if that's what's happened so far or not.

Yes and yes

Oh, thank god. I can stop trying to settle on a concept and go with three! Bahahahahaha. Ha.. Ahem. Thank you!

Nothing is really known about them, other than what was seen in the few seconds of air time that they got in the Shadow Wars ad. They are presumed to be show sponsored operatives of some kind, but otherwise, info on them beyond what has already been posted (their general duties, the cash prize for taking one down, etc) has yet to be found. One thing you will know is that they are not being air dropped with the rest of you. Weather that means that they are already there, or will be dropped at some future point or come in another way is unknown.

Alright, finally go around to going through my PMs and responded to the people who have sent me characters/teams so far. Some interesting concepts, should be fun to see how some of them play out.

Alright, new little house rule that just came up. You can't get used alpha ware to get a free essence reduction. It's a bit of an annoyance of mine, since it costs absolutely nothing for an essence reduction.

Triple post goodness to announce that the Enforcers are nearly done. Next task is to work on the map, and finally to populate (With innocuous things of course) said map. After that point, I think I should be ready to run. ATM it looks like I have the weekend free, so I'll hopefully be able to get a decent amount of work done on the stuff.

Will likely still be a couple weeks, but this means we're actually getting closer to start point, so its a good time to start submitting characters for those that haven't yet.

You don't need it right away for your characters, but for the sake of this being a show, I'd like the following on your character(s):
*Physical Description, this should include equipment that others could easily see on you (Like a heavy weapon on your back, etc). This will be a snapshot just before getting your parachute and loading onto the plane.
*Character Intro, this will be a short description that your own character would give on themselves. It can be first or third person "I'm an ex-SEAL" "She's an ex-SEAL". You are allowed to say whatever you want here.
*Team Intro, Similar to the Character Intro, except for the team as a whole. In multi-player teams, you're welcome to pick whoever to do the team intro, and collaboration is allowed and encouraged.

Okay, house rule going up. For virtually all purposes, used cyber/bioware is a grade onto itself, not a modifier to a base grade.

What this means is there is no used alpha for a free essence reduction, and there is no sticking used things inside a new cyberlimb for a freebe cost reduction.

Basically the only way that used ware can be used, is as a cheap but essence costly version of normal ware.

Note that this does still mean that if you get a used cyberlimb, all things that go in it can be used as well.

The pin in the map points to:
Rapid City, South Dakota as the War Zone. It has a range of terrain, including mountains and forest, as well as plenty of cityscape.

Some changes will of course be made, but it should give you a general idea of where you are.

Should we post these things here as this should all be freely available background information, or is this just fuel for the intro?

Either works. It is fuel for intros, but you're welcome to share it with everyone beforehand.

With my return impending, and the evening out of my schedule to something predictable, and thus condusive to online play, this concept has me bloody intrigued... once I've got myself re-oriented with things, do you still have room for a new team?

Always

Well, until the game actually starts.

Then I have room for... well, less teams and more target practice

Shadow Wars begins the 4th of October!

All people wishing to enter the contest must have PMed me their character(s)/team by the 3rd. Hopefully two weekends will give everyone enough time to make their characters for those who have been waiting for me to get closer to the ready point.

Creeping up to the start time!

*Physical Description: There isn't much to see of the Ork beneath the armor. He appears as if some kind of massive starfish, limbs as thick around as telephone poles, and a torso that fits somewhere in between them, held upright by the stiff backing of the heavy armor. He stands perfectly still with his massive belt-fed machine gun pointed upwards and balanced by the articulating arm of a gyromount harness. On his back is a pack, dwarfed by the limbs and carrying who knows what. When he talks, he has a sort of high pitched nasally voice and he seems to enunciate things fully, refraining from contractions.

*Character Intro: Gaius Harborford, "Boat times" to those who know him is a heavy gunner and technician, trained and, well, constructed by a branch of the military tasked to deal with Radical groups such as the infamous Winternight cult. He earned his nickname by falling into deep bodies of water on multiple occasions, where he then sunk like a particularly hydro-dynamic stone, and finally proceeded to walk himself out along the bottom, sometimes traveling 5 miles or more though the sediment and sludge. When asked by a new transfer if he ever felt like "this time was going to be 'his time'," he responded, "The only times I am afraid are the boat times," and was "Boat Times Harborford" to his squad from then out. When he retired from the service, his limbs were left to him, as they were old tech, and their custom fittings would do little good to anyone else.

*Team Intro: Can we be the Mongooses?

*Physical Description
Lucky Eddie is short, even for a dwarf. That, combined with his babyface features, makes him the butt of many jokes. His voice is even squeakier than Boat Times' is. But the childlike persona is wrapped in armor and extra guard pads on arms and legs, and with pistol or grenade launcher he no longer looks much like a child. In short order what stands out about him is not his appearance, but the way he moves. It's like he's made of india rubber, pulled tight and ready to snap at any instant. "Constant, liquid tension" was the last thing one opponent said of him. Last thing he ever said.

*Character Intro
Born to the streets, clawed his way up, dodged death so many times he has to be "Lucky". A bad decision got him some dream tech, but the vendetta of a criminal organization. If he doesn't win a lot of money here, he's a dead man.... in the Wars, or right after he steps out of the arena.

*The mongoose is a perfect animal image for Eddie.

"Mongooses" is fine.