This is the OOC for the various pbp games I run in the Barrens, be that the Redmond Barrens or the Puyallup Barrens... though that doesn't mean that these criminal types, these low-life, these SINless scum who call themselves shadowrunners stay in the Barrens.

Maps/Points of Interest:
- Maps/Points of Interest in the Redmond Barrens
- Maps/Points of Interest in the Puyallup Barrens

Posting Colors:
- "Speech=cyan"
- astral=yellow
- <<Matrix=violet>>
- <<ComlinkStatus=Black>>
- Thoughts=darkkhaki
- Memories=silver

GM Notes:
I have been running pbp games in the Barrens contiguously for over 5 years and several players have held in the entire time with me (nods to Satyr & Thanee). Others have come and gone; sometimes very quickly, sometimes after a few years themselves. This is just a place to weed out short term players before introducing others to one of the existing games and build a little back story on characters.

It's my intention to have Moses drive to his office soon, but I had him stay on scene as a courtesy in case you had something planned on locatoin.

Please remember to to uncheck "Enable signature?" on posts to OOC/IC.

Roger roger. Changed the IC post. Why not in OOC though?

Some people have big signatures and it tends to clutter up the OOC. Granted your sig is small, it just keeps it clean. Especially if your flipping through a couple of pages to catch up after a time away.

Up. You had mentioned that you keep perception in your purview. I'm imagining sensor based tests, I.E. the software analysis and accompanying data search, fall under that?

I would say, Yes. I helps keep the mystery in a negative result as to whether is was truly no match to a a failure to match.

I'm editing the date of all posts to Friday, March 27th, 2071; reasons will become clear in time.

almost normal, I have a question: what does the green text denote?


EDIT: Nevermind, I just found the explanatory passage. Is Nix an AI?

Virtual Person. I'd imagine their intelligence to be pretty high. I'm planning on playing her as a digital heuristic assistant, who's also his virtual secretary when he's in his office. She has no skills of her own though, if that's what you're asking.

In a literary sense, she'll serve as a vehicle for Moses to have an inner dialogue, so that he can express thoughts to the reader without making him seem like a crazy person.

In a gaming sense, she'll let me post when there's otherwise no reason to.

Very cool. Is virtual person something in the books or your own invention? Any excuse for a private dick to have an internal monologue is a good thing.

I believe it's in the core book, right next to the section on virtual walls and such. If not, it's in either arsenal or unwired. If it's important, I'll look it up when I get home from work. Was only 100 nuyen.

It's not important. I was just curious. I think it's a pretty cool idea. I'll look it up myself when I have a chance. A little refresher run through the core book wouldn't hurt.

Just found it. You're correct, it was in the main book. I'm still as familiar as I like with the technological advances in 4e, so I completely forgot about ARE. As a music geek, reading about Virtual Surround music gave me some great idea for my next character. I notice a lot of virtual person are modeled after celebrities. Is your secretary based upon anyone in particular?

Huh. Really. I'll need to look over the universal timeline and ponder a few more elements to add to my character's thoughts. With the amount of writing/storytelling involved in pbp, I'm trying to have some of my character's musings/reactions at least somewhat thought out ahead of time to cut down on the chance of writer's block at a posting time. Apparently I have much thinking to do. Better get the hamster food.

@Raven - 117 5th Avenue Southwest, Puyallup Barrens is not a squatter neighborhood. I will move your doss to an appropriate location in the actual Barrens in your introductory post..

My bad, I haven't actually run in Seattle before and I haven't had a good chance to read through Seattle 2072 yet to catch myself up with the setting. I just gave it a guess based on a place in Puyallup that currently has that sort of apartment buildings. Feel free to move it wherever you want.

My Security Rating Maps of the Puyallups, while based on source book data, are far more detailed than anything available in print.

I have to say, I really like all the PC's so far. They're all really interesting. Makes me feel like I need to do more work on mine. Great job, folks!


@raven I have to admit that I'm finding your character a little surreal. When I used to live in Toronto, I played in an SR3 group. We played gangers in the Redmond Barrens and on of the PC's was a magic-user named Galen Stormcrow (can't honestly remember if he was a mage or a shaman.).

Quick question on the timeline, since I don't know Seattle's timeline well enough to know this. By 2071, was it still Lonestar, or was it KE? Just a minor thing really, but something my character would know.

Also

3d6 → [5,4,6] = (15) * 50 = 750 Starting cash (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3516713/)

At our current pint in the timeline, Lone Star still has the policing contract for Seattle. I don't think it switches to Knight Errant until sometime in the summer. Hopefully our characters will still be alive to note it...

Part of his backstory involves him getting kicked off the force. He saw a pair of beat monkeys beating down on an orc female who wasn't giving them any resistance. The VP is modeled after her.

Hardwire's starting cash: 3d6+8 → [1,3,5,8] = (17)*50 ¥ = 850 ¥
(+8 because 800 ¥ left over at chargen)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3517791/

@Redjack: Quick clarification, please: the Puyallups reference material thread mentions a gang called Lords of Yen; are they same as Lords of Men? Or completely separate?

Completely separate. I will add a reference for this new gang after you learn a little more about them.

@RedJack: In your post you put the time as 19:44 but the meeting time is 19:00, was that deliberate or a typo?

Bob's getting ready to cast Bind summon a spirit if his latest verbal ploy doesn't work

Typo. Fixed to 2100.

Moses/Bob/Hardwire

Your free fixer is Tyr. He runs a roadhouse (Aptly named: Valhalla) down on NE 124th, near the southern edge of Kingsgate. The grizzled old dwarf looks like he'd seen the previous century, but moved like he was born in the last two decades. The roadhouse is themed something akin to an ale house and the patrons tend to go on about Asgard and vikings.

Sorry my post took so long to go up. Yesterday got...busy. What is an acceptable turnaround time for your games? I like to carefully consider my ideas when I'm writing, but I don't want to be holding up the process either.

I will often describe Chunan's (re)actions in terms of stances. This is in reference to his martial arts training. He will always be in a position to react instantaneously. His stance descriptions are more of an amplification of his body language and would instantly speak volumes to a fellow practitioner.

Chunan's “accidental” defence means that he will attempt to make defensive moves on his part look like he is not defending himself at all, just that their attacks keep going wrong due to the rotation of the Earth, etc.

Chunan is desperately wracking his brains for more info on the Lords of Men. I would like to make the following knowledge check: Area Knowledge: Seattle (Puyallup) {current dice pool w/o GM modifiers = 7}. (I'm not sure how you like to assign modifier. Nor whether you prefer to roll knowledge checks yourself to preserve the mystery.)

Also, did I present the commlink status correctly? I tried to work off of what was present in your other pbp threads.

I know it's a lot of questions. Just want to make sure I'm doing things correctly.

That is fine, though could you switch the color to gray?

Questions are better than assumptions.

Not long at all; we're good.

All my games are presented as 1 post/week. Anything above that is gravy. As long as you post in 1/week or note your vacation/posting issues in OOC, we are good.

That said, I will be on away after Memorial Day Weekend for nearly two weeks. I do not expect having Internet during that time period (though I may sneak it in during travel stops). I will post again in all OOC's before I go.

You make the roll, I modify the threshold based upon how closely the knowledge skill used matches the required skill.

Chunan
Area Knowledge: Seattle (Puyallup): 7d = 1, 3, 2, 1, 5, 2, 4

I've added a second post because I realised that I had yet to describe Chunan in any significant detail. As well, I thought a little peak into his budding ideas about his future as a shadowrunner might prove interesting.

Some points
- American street designations always confuse me, I hope I judged the distance the Valhall right...
- Do you want rolls for stuff that's more related to storytelling, like the sprite watching the flat or threading a small Browse CF to search for "Edda for Dummies"?
- Kinda goes without saying, but the drones, revolver, and commlink are all slaved to his bionode

You have no vehicle and you live in a security rating E neighborhood, so no cabs. I'll adjust your arrival time for walking when I post.
When I need a roll that does not exist, I'll drop one from Invisible Castle to speed up game play.
Actually, it does need to be stated. Not really sure why you would slave a comlink though... Since that (1) takes the comlink off the matrix requiring it to be in mutual signal range and (2) causes it to not communicate with anything other than its master node.

@phlapjack77
Twig: Initiative(7) [1,2,6,3,1,6,2] = 2 hits = 9
Mikey: Initiative(7) [2,4,1,3,2,6,3] = 1 hit = 8
Bob: Initiative(8 ) [6,4,4,3,2,1,3,1] = 1 hit = 9

Simultaneous. Declare action.

@Raven
Zen Addiction Test Body(3) + Willpower(5) + Moderate Addiction(-4) [2,3,5,3] = 1 hit
Luck for you, hallucinogens have a threshold of 1 under normal circumstances.

Chunan's goal is to lead the gangers on a merry parkour chase, hopefully losing them without having to engage in a physical confrontation. If he can't lose them, he'll try to silently knock them out one-by-one, making them look like accidents, even to the gangers themselves. If a physical confrontation does occur, he will attempt to defend himself via "clumsy accidents", all non-letahly if possible. However, if they letally escalate the situation, he will drop the pretense and defend himself fully using killing hands.

I assume you roll initiative?

My standard rule for rolls is: If you know a roll is needed, post it. If I determine a roll is needed, I will post to streamline game play.

Excellent. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't over-stepping my bounds.


Chunan: Initiative (9) [6, 3, 4, 5, 4, 1, 1, 4, 6] = 3 hits = 12

Initiative Pass 1:
Chunan starts off on a sprint to get a good lead.
Full Dodge, Sprinting
Running (7) [4, 6, 4, 1, 6, 6, 3] = 3 hits = +6 metres
Movement = 12.5 + 6 = 18.5 metres

Initiative Pass 2:
Chunan continues running and begins using parkour to move past obstacles and become upwardly mobile.
Full Dodge, Running
Gymnastics [Parkour] (9) [3, 4, 3, 6, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3] = 1 hit
Movement = 12.5 metres

@Grinchy McScrooge
As a note: In the future, you can format like this { 9d6.hits(5);7d6.hits(5);9d6.hits(5) } and it will also calculate the hits.

Gangers: Initiative(7)
[5,2,4,2,6,2,5] = 3 hits = 10
[5,6,4,1,4,4,3] = 2 hits = 9
[6,5,2,3,6,6,4] = 4 hits = 11

I do have a Growler offroad bike, but unless I (once again) dropped the ball my place is here, so I'd just have to walk up 124th Ave for a kilometer or so.

If I'm mistaken, just assume my character knows the distance and is not totally stupid


With an unhackable (well, by 99% of the world) commlink in the head, it only makes sense to slave everything to that. Kitchen sink and external data storage included...but message taken, better too much info than too little

Bob's intention - put the desk and some space in between him and the thugs. Very defensive posture. If that means putting his back to the wall, so be it.

Just for the record, he DID try to defuse the situation by moving his hands away from the gun he had placed on the desk

Couple of quick questions, since we've mostly glossed over the details in my primary game:

1) Can you have an active commlink without an attached SIN, maybe just broadcasting a public profile?
2) Would credit in the barrens be most routinely in scrip, certified cred, or normal cred transfers with a commlink?

Also, is it ok if I say that Stormcrow has his AR gloves on under his shock gloves? I never ended up saying that he took them off in the first place and I think that would be how he'd handle it.

Assuming that the gangers don't manage to intercept him, Chunan will continue running in the general direction of away for at least another minute. Once he finds a good hiding spot, he will attempt to conceal himself and check his backtrail for pursuers.

Rules Clarification: Am I correct in assuming that the skill Running (Urban) is used to get through crowds successfully?

I seem to have missed that.

No, I dropped the ball there. You are correct in the distance.

I still don't understand what value a comlink that can communicate with nothing but your bionode is?

Bob: Charisma(2) + Negotiation(1) + NPC is Neutral(1) + Result is Advantageous to NPC(1) [6,3,1,6,1] = 2 hits
Twig- Charisma(3) + Negotiation(-1; defaulting) [1,3] - 0 hits; Critical glitch

Yes. Imagine a big flashing notice though that no valid SIN is loaded. In the Barrens where most of the population lacks a SIN, that would be common.

A little of everything, depending upon the availability of the matrix. Certified cred spends best, but the matrix isn't always available to validate it.

Yea, sure.

Gotcha

Sometimes I might call for gymnastics, but yea, both would have their appropriate times.

Bob'll be summoning a F3 spirit of Man, optional power Fear.

Summoning: 1 hit + 1 hit (forgot spec dice)
Spirit resist: 2 hits
Resist drain: 4 hits - 1 hit (wrong drain attr) : 1S

Trying again: 4 hits
Spirit resist: 1 hit
Resist drain: 2 hits, no drain

Final result: F3 spirit with Fear, 3 0 services, 1S

*edit* all services lost after remote service