Hey guys, I am not sure what is the frak is wrong with my PC or the website, but this is this first time the Forum has actually loaded for me since Saturday.

Did I miss anything?

It was down for everyone. So, no.

K, I will read and catch up real quick.

All the talk of clothes made me realize I hadn't really given any description of Drave's other clothes, I figure nice slacks, boots, and a grey polo shirt with a ultralight jacket over it (to keep his gun and Deck concealed).

btw- I loled when I heard Amy call out that the government was on to us. Currently debating whether Drave would too

Oh shoot, I didn't check often enough, the board has been back for a while, damn.

ETA: Edited to say car instead of drone in IC.

I also want to make a Composure test for fun. I'll adjust my roleplay according on the result
13d6.hits(5)=5

ETA: Clearly, Amy is not afraid of dangerous gangers on their turf, but she wants to hide at the sight of a single police car It just goes to show where her roots are.

Just an FYI - I haven't posted because I'm waiting to see what happens between Grease and Amy - and I'm sort of shocked that Overkill hasn't chimed in - curious what his reaction is to all this.

Sorry for the delay in response, haven't been feeling too well the past few days and crashed really early.

If Amy is still panicking, Grease will let her into his car. Otherwise, I'm cool with moving the scene forward.

Thanks,
-DrZ

Ok - we'll wait and see what Chrome posts when he comes on line.

As far as moving the scene onward - just an FYI, here I 'm going to be reacting to you. There are several shops around (the names are in the IC post I put up), there are security cameras at the traffic lights - there are several different ways you could go about this.

Once I know how you are going to handle it, I'll put up whatever we need.

After about noon I'm going to be on the road, so I won't be able to post IC for most of the remainder of the day. Feel free to move the scenes along without me.

Tomorrow I'm out of town, so I probably won't be able to post for the majority of the day. I will try to post tomorrow evening. Again, I trust Lobo to act appropriately Greasy if need be; otherwise just move him along with the rest of the team.

Thanks,
-DrZ

I will attempt to act Greasy enough

Do you have anything specific you wanted to attempt that I can keep as a guideline? Do you prefer talking to shop owners, or having Overkill try and hack a camera, or is there a third option you'd like to try?

If this was D&D, I would attempt a "Gather Information" check. He'd talk to shop owners, etc. And try to determine what happened and where. It was so long ago it seems unlikely that a camera would still have video on file, but who knows; storage is pretty cheap. Grease will let either Overkill or Amy in his car if they need to Hack / Hide from the police

-DrZ

Oh she might take you up on that

Considering Amy's mood, she wouldn't be the one taking the lead here, but I think we can just split without staying far from one another, and just go to a few stores until we have a first idea of about where it happened, then go in that direction and ask again in a few stores, until we find the store in front of which is happened, or something like that depending on the information we find. From that point on, we can try to track a witness, look for cameras, etc.

Headed out to my friend's for D&D, have a good night all!

Actually, as it turns out, game is cancelled tonight. Should be able to check in a few more times if people are about and want to move things along a bit.

I'm up for it, as I usually am when it is the evening for you.

My character doesn't have much to add at this point. I think we already have a lot of information. Maybe we should inspect the place pointed at by the bike salesman, and look for cameras.

We can also start going around the block asking in each store.

Thoughts?

He gave us enough of a start. Given his story, he wont have many details to add, but at least we know where it was. We can ask what time it occurred. That will at least give me a time frame to aim for when hacking into the street cams.

Is the site of the shooting in front of a particular store?

The shooting took place basically right outside the bike shop, which is at the corner of 80th and Newport.

lol, I had actually assumed that this was a motorcycle shop, not a bicycle shop.

hehe me too

Hey could you roll perception on looking for visible cameras in the surrounding area? My character rolls 9 dice.

No problem - Amy spots a surveillance camera on the traffic light.

I'd like to wander into Stingrays and talk to the proprietor.

Thanks,
-DrZ

EDIT: I Can post IC tonight, but tomorrow will be spotty. May be able to post tomorrow evening. Just laying out what I'd like to do

No problem - let's see if Amy and Overkill have any further questions for the manager of the bike shop, and if not, then I'll put up an IC post putting you in the talismonger's shop.

Actually I am done with the bike manager. So if Grease would like to check out another shop I will bid the man a good day and accompany the team to Stingrays.

Given that Chrome has said he is taking a back seat in this part of the investigation, I will assume that Amy is also done with the bike manager.

IC post up shortly.

You're correct that she was taking a back seat.

Wow that shop is amazing. She thought that a lot of those were just fake shops for wannabes, but this one's real and it's impressive. She'll throw a few assensing tests here and there. I wonder how much of this stuff is reagents, as opposed to foci or fetishes. She'll specifically assense some of the stuff that glows the most just for fun, as well as the "presence" (is it a spirit?), and the manager when he shows up.

Assensing: Int 5 + assensing 2 + perceptive 2 = 9 dice. Btw I was wrong earlier, she throws 11 dice for perception.

What she observes will affect my IC post.

Per your OOC request, I will keep your Assensing tests secret, only giving you the results:

The form in the corner is a Spirit of Earth with Force greater than your Magic Attribute.
The east and west wall seems to contain mostly reagents, though there are a few low powered foci as well.
The south wall (the one you entered from) doesn't have much on it, most of the space being taken up by the door and show window.
The north wall (behind the counter) has mostly foci - all types, and these seem to be mid-tier foci. In the glass cases themselves are foci that are near or above your magic rating.

There is a door in the north wall, which you would assume leads to a back room/office of some sort.

The entire room has a very powerful Mana Barrier around it.

Jesus... can she communicate with the spirit?

ETA: Since you like your magic to be a little on the low side in your setting, I'm very surprised by the amount and power of what can be found in this store. The contents of this store seem to be more valuable than a number of jewelry stores!

Yes - this is a good point, as I know that all GM's run their spirits differently. For me, I imagine them as fully functioning beings, completely familiar with the modern world - including language, modern technology etc. (since they have been interacting with the modern world for 60-odd years now).

Let me clarify that last point. They might not be able to identify the difference between a Ford and a Hyundai, but they will know that they are cars, and not "metal boxes on round things that carry people."

The higher the force, the more intelligent the spirit is, and since it is at least force 7, that means it has a Logic of 6 (minimum). It may not choose to communicate with you, but if it wanted to, could carry on quite an intelligent conversation.

Since it is not your spirit, you have to speak out loud to it (which will look a little weird to your friends, but you can explain that to them) - but it communicated to you in English.

Since it is not currently manifesting, Grease and Overkill can neither hear or see it, but it can hear and see them. Any other questions, please let me know.

It is nice to surprise players every now and again - especially the variety of surprises that doesn't get them killed

With regards to magic in my campaign - you are correct that I want it limited.

I suppose to clarify that:

1) There are still mages/shamans/adepts in the world, just few and far between. If you think about it, of all the people you have met so far, you have seen exactly one NPC who is magically active (the mage at the Los Mags camp.) Stingray will be your second.

2) There are still powerful practitioners of the arts, but these are even rarer than the other mages. It is relatively harmless to have you interact with one who may or may not become a contact later on, as opposed to have to fight one, or have one be a member of the party. (Ok, I suppose you could succumb to the temptation to rob Stingray's store, but that may be a foolish idea given his magical security.)

And both have been absurdly powerful! I imagine magic 6 to be a huge deal, and most magicians lying in the 2-3 range, personally. Or even with magic 1 and possibly unaware, especially adepts. And adepts are more frequent than mages. This being said, I guess it just so happened that the two I've seen are absurdly powerful and I have to deal with that

I have to say though, that I do like how you've set up magic so far.

Oh and I also imagine spirits as partially aware of the modern world, with some simple things still outside their grasp, such as having a clue how to use a commlink, or fueling a car. Yet they know roughly what those things are and sort of what they can do, especially spirits of man.


Step one: geek the mage. Step 2: ??? Step 3: profit.

Quite impressive, if Drave could actually see any of it.

Probably looks like junk to him, (though obviously, he knows better)

Was Grease going to be taking the lead on this one, not sure if he said he could post today, or should I post an intro to our questioning?

Brilliant!!!!!

Quick question though, how is the spirit communicating with Amy if Amy can only use voice to talk back to him? Also, we can hear the material world while projecting!?

Ok - slight retcon (I'm posting at work and apparently had a brain fart )

1) You cannot hear the physical world while completely astral (sorry about that) - that means that the spirit can see Grease and Overkill's auras, but may not hear what they are saying)

2) You are Astrally Perceiving, which means you exist in both planes. It isn't very clear how communication is done in the astral - i.e. how do two astrally projecting mages communicate with each other?

3) For right now, unless someone can spot a reference in a rulebook I've missed, I'll go with this:

a) Astral forms communicate with other astral forms through speech, only audible to beings who are either completely or partially astral
b) Meat forms can only communicate with other meat forms, manifesting or materializing astral forms, or dual natured beings.
c) Dual Natured beings can communicate with all forms.

@Overkill,

Right now, there is no one in the shop for Overkill or Grease to talk to. I'm giving Amy a chance to post IC before you meet Stingray, as she has stuff to interact with that Grease and Overkill can't.

I think the spirit and Amy can communicate while Amy is astrally perceiving. It's probably "telepathic" without being the telepathic link that a spirit and summoner have (ETA: or just speaking normally is probably fine as well, I can't find a rule specific to it). In order for the spirit to hear/see/speak on the physical plane, I think it has to Manifest.

K, just wanted to make sure I wasn't holding us up.

Running to the chiropractor, be back in an hour or so.

Ok thanks that makes a lot more sense.

So assuming there's an astral communication vector. Is it like speech or like telepathy, as with the special talking allowed between summoner and spirit? I also want to know if it can be intercepted, though it makes no difference right now. Oh and I guess, range?

And depending on that answer, when a perceiving dual being decides to talk in the astral, does he have to talk in the physical world at the same time?

Edit: added some stuff.

I think that, in retrospect, to avoid having people who are astrally perceiving running around having conversations with invisible people, why don't we make it so that if dual natured beings are speaking on the physical plane, they are only heard on the physical plane, and if they speak on the astral plane, they are only heard on the astral plane.

We'll call it "speech" in that mages should have some benefit to being able to interact with their summoned beings. Yes, it can be intercepted, and range is equal to Magic x100 in meters

That seems the most easy to play with, and doesn't break the physical/astral separation. IC post incoming.

While posting, another thought came to me. How can any of this be legal? I thought the law limited magic use, including focus force, summoned spirits force and spells force, to 3. All this requiring a license to begin with.

Is that in SR5? I don't remember that reference in SR5. I do think I recall it in SR3 or SR4.

Jack starts to check over Amy's expense account...

It's an SR4A quote I believe, and I think SR3 as well. You're right that I don't recall reading this in SR5, but then again there's a lot missing in SR5.

With that said, they do seem to have changed a few things. I was flipping through my SR4 (notA) book last night and I believe spell formulae were only restricted if they were combat/manipulation in that version. Now they all are. Perhaps they just went to a generic regulated magic setup.

Currently in SR5, all magic equipment is just restricted, not forbidden.

I assume you would also need to have a license to practice magic.

(Something for Amy to look into when she buys her fake SIN)

This may all change when the magic book comes out, but for now we'll roll with this.

Sounds good.

I bet you'd need a SIN (and license) to buy things legally in a store like this, if she were actually interested?

Might depend on the respective government but the book does support license & registration for the Awakened.

Yes

This is a legal shop, and so your SIN would be run here should you wish to purchase anything.

Lol what SIN