Quick note: I'm travelling this afternoon; it's possible I won't be able to post until tomorrow evening. If need be, I have no issue with Lobo having Grease agree to the deal and moving forward with the adventure; I've asked my questions.

That said, maybe I'll post another 5-6 times.

-DrZ

I have to say... drugs and a critical glitch on a knowledge check have certainly made this meeting interesting.

ETA -I have the following outstanding rolls pending Invisible Castle:
Teamwork test to support Grease's negotiations: Negotiation (3) + CHA (3) + Contracts? (2)
Perception test to examine the Predator V: Perception (4) + INT (3) + Vision Enhancement (2)

See what I mean about the critical glitch and RP?

Ok, so for the negotiation tests, you couldn't get him to increase the pay, but he did double the upfront.

For Grease's Drug Knowledge test, he does not recognize the drug. The product looks pharmaceutical grade as far as manufacture, unlike the street crank and other drugs you find produced by locals.

For Jack's Perception test, the Predator has no obvious distinguishing features, apart from looking brand new.

Have to run to baby to the Doctors, be back soon. Drave will be stepping in between Ramirez and Grease to try and deflate the situation if it hasn't already been done.

IC post is up. Might a Judge Intentions (my pool is 7 Cha + 3 Int, so 10 dice) test be appropriate?

Map is updated with locations of all the murders. One is in the Hub, one is a few blocks away in the Warrens, the rest are in "safe" UCAS territory. Several are near the border with the Sioux Nation zone.

The map is so cool, thanks!

Here are a few possibly relevant rolls, though it might only lead to repeat info or just plain nothing.

Street Drugs 1 + Int 5 = 6 dice
Denver Gangs 2 + Int 5 = 7 dice (which gangs typically deal that kind of drug, dunno if it applies)
Conspiracy theories 2 + Int 5 = 7 dice (does she have a theory to what kind of conspiracy this could be)

Later on, she'll want to inspect in detail the auras of the various items related to crimes. I don't know if inspecting in detail would grant a positive modifier as opposed to on the spot looking at them. If you don't consider that it changes anything, I would just look for interesting auras on all the stuff right away, rolling 9 dice.

If she thinks she has something relevant to say to the negotiation, she would say it, although I don't really know what she could have said specifically. If you feel like it, you can throw in her participation in the teamwork negotiation with her 9 dice.

Apart from that, I'll throw in a IC post right away before getting these answers.

@Jack,

Your perception test on the Warhawks reveal a stylized "LM" engraved on the handle of one of the pistols.

Pay back time, mother fraggers.

Agreed



Your Street drugs test yields you basically the same info as Grease.
Since you can't identify the drug, you can't identify the gang
The Conspiracy Theory thing is an interesting question - I never thought about actually using that. Fortunately I was saved because when I rolled the dice you got zero hits on 7d6 (honest. I think I'm rolling like Jack now )




Non-living objects don't have an aura, and Psychometry isn't something that is available in 5e yet.

@Jack,

Want to clear up a misconception - the 3 people in lockup are not suspected of the murders, they were busted by two of the officers who were then murdered.

Officer Thomas busted Twoman (the pills and the Pred)

Officer Newton busted the two who had the Warhawks.

They are in county for possession of weapons (and in Twoman's case, possession and intent to distribute)

Once you modify your IC post, I'll respond.

Sorry, I even put that in the notes. Just got crossed. Editing...

Oh good, that was smoothed over well.

Awesome job with the map Jack!

Yeah I hadn't thought about it but going through my knowledge skills it struck me that perhaps she had her own thoughts about this Never ever saw this skill used other than for small talk before in shadowrun



Well not auras, but emotional impressions as you guessed my intention correctly. I thought it was covered, but I guess not. All I can find that is relevant in the current rules is this (p. 313):

"Objects that are neither magical nor living do not have an aura; they are featureless grey shadows of their physical form. They can, however, pick up impressions for a limited time from being in contact with living auras. A teddy bear in the Barrens might pick up a child’s fear, a wedding ring its owner’s sense of love and joy, or a murder weapon an aura of rage. These impressions are vague and fleeting, but you don’t need to assense the object to get them. Note that it’s the object that picks up the impression— a trid display used at an oppressive desk job would give the sense of stress, even if it was displaying a love note."

I stand corrected

Now the interesting thing is how to interpret "pick up impressions for a limited time."

I'm going to say the stronger the emotion, the longer it will last - and there isn't going to be a mathematical formula or anything.

The Predator and drugs have been sitting in evidence for over a month - they give off nothing.

The two Warhawks would probably give off minor auras of cruelty/violence.

I feel like Grease and Amy are showcasing a new interrogation technique unknown to Ramirez - instead of bad cop, good cop, we have "high cop", "judgmental cop"

Edit - Just saw Grease's new post - we've swung back to "druggy" cop

Well I figured it only makes sense that she's a little on edge being asked by a cop to sort out their corruption problems. She's pretty big on conspiracies and despises Lone Star for doing nothing if not hurting those who are most in need of help in the Warrens. Makes for a funny meet imo.

The guy high on drugs definitely steals the show right now though, haha.

Lobo: Having been working with these maps, I have a question. Did they build a shit ton of walls to seperate all of the districts? I assume so as most material on Denver talks about checkpoints, etc. I tried to move most of the lines of demarcation between the districts to streets to account for that (not that the goverments probably wouldn't have leveled several neighborhoods to create walls and standoff distances if they saw the need). The only area that doesn't really come off too well is the Hub. Denver's downtown is really jacked up, even using the description in the 6WA. The lines I am currently using cut through current existing streets. I can change it up if you have any suggestions.

I'm imagining East & West Berlin here.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm ready to move on to another scene. Amy will just pick up her credstick and walk away as soon as the others are doing the same. Just saying so nobody waits on me.

You are correct as far as walls. I'm in the process of putting up a document on the borders - I'll have the info on the UCAS sector up momentarily - I'll keep adding to it over the next couple of days.

Here is a quick question: I'm in New Jersey, and I assume Jack at least is also in the Eastern Time Zone. Chrome has said he is in Pacific, how about Overkill and Zaius?

That's fine with me - at this point I've given you about a million different places to you can go, you just need to decide which one first

I'm actually CST in Louisiana, but the hour difference is negligible.

The below comment is only applicable if Lobo is cool with us just hashing out plans OOC rather than IC. If we are going to RP it, I'll post in the IC thread.

Due to proximity, I would suggest we might want to check out the one murder that occurred in the Warrens. I'm not sure what value there would be from checking out the crime scene as it is a month and a half old, plus at the time of night, it might be difficult to gain access to it. If the apartment is still available, Amy and Grease could go check it out tomorrow as if they were looking for an apartment. Or, we could just try and send some drones in and see if there is anything bearing further examination.

Here are the notes:
14JUN2075: Slain by hostile magic in his apartment in Heather Gardens, 16F in Greenville Tower off of Parker East Trail. Officer Thomas was assigned to gang control in Montbello.

Evidence:
-Recovered a Predator V and 100 pills of unknown substance during a drug bust the day prior to his murder. The accussed of that bust is named Twoman and is currently in lockup.

Great question - here is my take on it.

If you are just talking stuff out amongst yourselves, and there is no time constraint, I dont' mind hashing it out OOC and then posting a streamlined IC post.

If there is something that could go wrong with an NPC, then I would prefer you not. For example, what happened with Grease and the Captain. I would frown on you hashing out OOC how to avoid having Grease piss off the captain and then post it in IC (not that you guys did that, but it is an example.)

Yeah I agree with that as it makes for the most fun in the game imo. So we might as well discuss how to proceed OOC and then post it IC in this particular case since we have 40 minutes in-game time to do so.

One thing that Amy can point out is that she knows how to control minds and make people talk.. without them being otherwise coerced, physically or otherwise. If she can get away with casting a spell in a prison visiting room, then she can get one of the gangers there to talk for a while. This can tell us who hired them, how much they were paid or whatever, and so on. I'm not saying that's what we should necessarily do first, but it's an option to keep in mind if we can get to them.

Apart from that, some of the older crime scenes probably won't yield much, I think, and I tend toward trying to find people that can give us clues. We can start by asking our contacts if any are relevant, and go from there with the dead agent's families, other random lone star officers who might know something about it, or go right to the top and aim for top brass that would likely be involved.

Sounds good. Let's get feedback from everyone else. One reason why I think it might be useful to hash this out here is because DrZ said he might be out until tomorrow evening. Rather than having a lull as we wait for Grease to respond to Amy, we can start working out some plans now that we would normally be doing in IC but can't with the hanging action.

I am in Detroit, EST.

Like the idea of game-planning in OoC, its better to be able to spitball as opposed to trying to RP each notion out ad nauseum.

K, going with Officer Thomas first sounds good. I imagine we need to start tracking down some possible witnesses from the building. Does Twoman have any known gang connections?

While we are at it, we are going to be on the street doing a lot of legwork and interacting with a lot of questionable people; do we have some cover we are using for our investigation; PIs, private Corp Detectives, etc.

I am in est. I'm ok with posting ooc, I'm on a tablet so spelling and formatting are an issue. I'd like to respond to Amy's direct question about my sobriety, I imagine grease is going to want to lie his tail off.

I'd like to examine the pills and take them to my street drug contact to see if he knows anything. We may need to use one so he can test it / see what it is. Probably a good idea to keep the rest in steady hands, though.

No matter what we do, grease is going to want to start tonight.

On second thought, I may boot my laptop. This is too juicy not to respond! IC post in a bit, then let's figure out what we want to do.

So.

I am normally opposed to rolling social tests against other players; I'll obviously defer to Lobo here, but I think each of you can decide if your characters buy the line Grease just sold (I have to admit, I'm fairly proud of it )

Otherwise, I'd say there's some Con / Performance going on there.

Per the cover: I'll have to think about that. I think it may be useful to go case by case, possibly with disguises. I think it protects us more to have "someone" asking around, rather than "an elven PI, about 6 foot, black hair, drove a fast car." That may end up happening, but my preference would be to have a layer of insulation between us and the bad guys.

Grease will offer to drive the team, at first you'll just be aware of the cab but I imagine you'll find out about the BMW soon enough.

I think Grease's preference would be to go see if the bouncer working at the club who saw one of the murders is working tonight, but you can each decide how much you want to follow the preferences of the stoned elf

-DrZ

Amy wouldn't really care that she's seen investigating anything, basically. But she will follow any consensus in that regard.

Like I've said before, I think the priority should be to find people we can extract information from. Contacts we have, witnesses, criminals in prison, police officers that might be involved or know something of value, higher ups in the lone star who might actually be our targets, etc.

Finding witnesses is a good idea first, because there's more of a timeline, same for the gangers or whatever they are who are in prison.

And by the way, I totally buy Grease's line

So I am just checking in - if you need anything from me just ask.

As far as Grease's persuasion attempt - that is sort of up to the group. I don't want it to leave interactions between the players to dice rolling - unless the player doesn't know how their character would react and wants to leave it up to chance.

Does that make sense?

That was my point; it's always sticky to have me say, "Grease rolls 13 dice to Con, so you HAVE to believe him!". Of course, his roll would probably take at least a -1 for the target(s) being suspicious...

-DrZ

I'm personally of the opinion that if one allows PC vs PC social rolls, one shouldn't have a problem with PC vs. PC combat rolls and I'm not sure we want that kind of game.

As it stands, considering Grease just "admitted" to devising a not-very-good plan involving him being high during the first meet with a Johnson, Jack is unlikely to give up the drugs to Grease, but will be more than happy to accompany him to meet with his contact. He'd even go in the role of silent bodyguard. But we can work all of that out IC.

Maybe I should have used that edge to buy off the critical failure...

I think Grease understands you not handing the pills over; we can hash out the details either here or IC. Once we break to start doing stuff Grease will message his gang contact to find out if he's available to help identify the pills. Lobo, we can work that IC or OOC, your preference.

-DrZ

P.S. This drug addiction thing has gotten a lot of mileage so far; I don't want to distract from the game as a whole though. I imagine it will wax and wane, probably getting worse before it gets better. My point being I think it will be more backstage going forward (unless circumstances change). I honestly wasn't expect such a direct question; I think he would have played it off as just "being manic" otherwise.

No problems man, I think it makes for a much more interesting scene.

I'm not sure how many successes Amy got on her assensing test, but three hits should pick up that you're on drugs (a toxin). I'm looking forward to playing up Jack's memory loss when it comes into play.

Also, I agree about visiting the nightclub. I don't remember anything about a bouncer, but that would make the most sense. With that said, I don't know how difficult it is to get into the Downtown Hub yet.

Yeah these things happen where what you wanted to be a small thing blows up into something huge. I think we can all move on from the drug thing, and it will come up in inside jokes and the like.. or you know, whenever Grease does it again.


Well we didn't really get a consensus plan in OOC first, so it looks like we're going at it IC

Indeed, the novacoke incident will no doubt live in infamy, the subject of many a joke at Grease's expense. Did make for an interesting scene though.

I think the bouncer is from the Mitchell case, murdered downtown in the Hub. Didn't specifically mention the bouncer in the file, but any bouncer who had someone killed right outside their nightclub had better know something about it.

btw- for some reason as I am writing for Drave I cannot help but here the voice of Cristoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained. After initially feeling it too cliche', it has grown on me; the two have similar patterns of speaking with
very precise annunciation and mannerisms. So if you want to know what Overkill sounds like, it is pretty much a modern Dr. Schultz.

Since Grease was able to respond to Amy's questioning, I figured we could start planning in IC. My main concern was a day and a half silence in the IC thread while DrZ was absent. It wouldn't have made much sense for us to keep carrying on IC with that hanging in the air.

I think it also makes discovery a bit more organic. In my long post, I dropped info about the Rebuilding Together rally having something to do with an increase in ODs. IC, I don't know that Overkill and Amy have met the RT people. But if they make the connection, it might make sense for us to ask Shannon Greeley about the drugs. She may have a better idea about what the pills are.

For tonight, I think Grease and Jack (we sound like a car-themed wrestling team) could go visit Grease's drug contact if they are available for a quick meet. Amy and OVerkill could run up to that apartment a few blocks up to see if Overkill can hack video files that might provide clues. Everyone can start to put feelers into contacts. I should probably start hustling for some non-lethal ammo and restraints as well, just in case.

WRT the Nightclub, one of the bigger challenges is that Amy isn't going to be able to go. She has no SIN and no fake, so crossing borders is probably not going to happen.

She could acquire a fake SIN and ID in game, we know people who deal in that kind of thing. She just got a 2000 nuyen retainer. It will hold her up for this evening, but not the entire investigation.

@jack:I was a little confused on the connection you made between the ODs and Rebuilding Together, not sure how you connected the 2.

In the meantime I like the plans for the evening's investigation, and will concur in IC soon.

@Jack: Just reread your post and noticed you were only talking about Amy go to the club tonight, not later, My apologies.

Yeah sorry, that sentence should have been part of the previous paragraph. Although... getting Amy an ID good enough to get across an international border may be a longer term project due to the cost of one of those.

With respect to the connection, the Denver Tribune had an article about the upcoming Rebuilding Together rally at Horseshoe Park. The "proximate cause" for the rally according to the newspaper is an uptick in drug overdoses over the past month that the Star is doing nothing about. I sent Amy an attachment of the article as I thought that sounded like something up her alley.

One quick note about the Hub (I'll have to add this the Border Document)

The northern half of the Hub is part of the Sioux sector, while the southern half is part of the UCAS.

You CAN cross via ground through the CAS sector - effectively hitting two border crossings each way, OR you can use the air taxi service. One service runs from the UCAS Zone to the UCAS part of the Hub (Templeton Air), and another runs from the Sioux Zone to the Sioux part of the Hub (Connor Shuttles).

These VTOL shuttles hold about 100 people and run every 15 minutes during rush hour, and every 30 minutes otherwise during the day. From midnight to 6 AM, they run every hour, and tickets run about 50 nuyen each.

The advantage is that you are not technically crossing a border. So tickets can be purchased with any SIN, but unlike the border crossings, where there is significant scrutiny of the ID, this is like buying a train ticket.

So, while a level 1 Fake SIN would not really hold up to a normal border crossing, it would be perfectly fine to buy a ticket on one of these shuttles.

Bear in mind there is a fairly strict weapons check to get on board, for the gun bunnies among you

That's good to know! As far as the weapons check, are all weapons forbidden?

Putting together something of a shopping list, let me know if you want anything added.
Tasers
Gel Rounds
Stick & Shock Rounds
Metal Restraints
Plastic Restraints
Fake ID (Amy)

Yes - since it is air travel, they frown on someone bringing a weapon onboard

When everyone will go see their contacts, Amy will go see Chomsky and try to figure out what he knows or can find out about the pills, the ODs, the Lone Star not getting involved, and anything else of similar usefulness. Let's be careful though.. the conspiracy might be really convoluted, like Greeley being part of it, in order to have a motive to organize the rally, and that in turns provides a motive to destroy the Warrens once and for all. Maybe we should look into her past as well. (Amy is quick to assume there's a conspiracy also she might be a bit jealous of that other young hot elf)

About the border crossing, there's not that much to be done over at the hub, so maybe the team will be okay without Amy there this time. After the run, she'll get herself a good enough SIN, maybe rating 3 or something. As for the rest of the list, we might want to pool some of our money together as a group, once we feel we can trust each other IC. But before that, I'd say each person is responsible for their own equipment, I guess. This doesn't mean the list isn't useful.

And as for tonight's activities, we should figure it out sooner rather than later so that we have something to do in IC, and we maybe get our first clues. So the plan seems to be: go see the most critical drug-related contacts, maybe other drug dealers as well, and maybe go to the hub and check out the night club?

Just staying in touch - as an FYI, I am simply answering questions that pop up OOC, and waiting for someone to tell me, "This is what I/we are doing", at which point other IC stuff can happen.

Not rushing anyone, just letting you know I'm not ignoring the thread

Does that include non-restricted weapons like tasers? If not, can they be checked?

Amy did assense Greeley and didn't get a bad feeling from her. Granted, it isn't a lie-detector test or anything. Either way, it does make sense to play things safely and I would hope everyone would be discrete in how we approach contacts and other potential sources. At some point though, we're going to have to put stock into some of the stuff that is told to us.

With the list, we don't really need most of the equipment until we get a better idea of our targets (other than Amy's ID which is currently on the backburner), so it can wait for now, but I did want to get ahead of the curve if anything we're wanting to get has a crazy availability.

As far as plans, I'm currently of the opinion that we should hit up the dealers to follow up on the drugs and possibly develop information on Twomen, since he appears to be a drug dealer. Guns are a dime a dozen in the sprawl, an unknown drug on the other hand could be of significant interest. My only concern is that we still don't really have any evidence that the drugs/weapons have anything to do with the murders, which is why I do think we need to extend some resources to checking out the individual crime scenes, even if they are old.

Anything that is legal (such as tasers) can be checked in, to be thoroughly scanned and checked.

Would that put undue scrutiny on my fake SIN? I'm trying to get a feel for whether there is just no way to bring a weapon of any stripe into the Hub.