Nah, he got it back when he packed out. However, he's ready and waiting for people to show up, and is ready and waiting to let his drone control system act as a jumping-off point from above where the paint is peeled off.

Advancing a bit more. Other folks would have had hours to get in line between your last actions and now when you could get in. Folks getting inside should also get Angel into the mix.

As I see it, we either have to have Angel with us inside the club, or Tubesnake has to offer a way to get through the wifi-repelling paint, so she can get access from the outside. Right?

Bye
Thanee

If it happens that anyone in the club can get a line out than Angel would be able to trace it back to the passive/hidden node that connects to the outside.

I have three ways lined up:

Park a node on top of the worn area of paint. Instant stepping-stone.

Whack open one of the grilles and send in a drone carrying a node, trailing a wire.

Dismantle a part of the roof on the pretext of chasing Jauchekaefer and use that as a point of entry. Depending on how the eaves are structured, this could be simply ripping anti-pest wiring off an attic space ventilation gap and going in.

Yeah, I definitely think it is better to do it in such a way that Angel can stay outside. With her being so young, that would otherwise just draw more attention inside the club.

So, if one of those ways can work, I am all for it!

Bye
Thanee

So the shankworm performed shockingly well on its own. However in future consider that throwing a pair of dice that many times is much more likely to generate critical glitches than any sort of success.

What occurs to me increasingly is that Tubesnake and Angel are incredibly synergistic. Machine Sprites could get around some of the typical limitations on Tubesnakes creativity (per the rule book on how much you can do with novel design) due to their ability to generate their own autosofts. In the short term they seem like they could make drones much more functional.

Their stability ability seems to mitigate a lot of potential issues and tubesnakes bad luck.

Maybe you guys could do some RP later, or just get some experience together in all this to sort some of that out.

"Tubie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

On my way tonight on the red-eye to Dublin. Staying near Belfast. Probably will have WIFI. Then a few days later staying in Belfast. Same likelihood. Day after I arrive, I will meet the sire of my border collie bitch. He is competing with his handler in the 2023 World Sheepdog Trials. Woohoo!

In the game, I'm looking forward to the night out in Gatsby's.


I hope Willie gets some action, too.

Sunnyside, I'm deducing from your posts that you didn't notice that I'd specified that Paul parked a block away, and used the scaffolding to traverse up top. His van is at least 100 yards away from the club, and while his drone may have fallen into the alley, he's not there himself. I kind of retconned his presence at ground level for consistency's sake, but really he'd have been at scaffolding level. He'll retrieve the drone mechanically.

I did get it in my head the drones were using the scaffolding not Tubesnake himself.

Awesome show of talent and cooperation between human and dog at the World Sheepdog Trials. Every once in a while, there is a performance in which surely Bongo's Adept Power is in force. The boisterous crowd hushes and it is like the Magic is called up.

If only I had stumbled upon this sport a lifetime ago.

Sorry for going quiet. Change of job plus daughter in law giving birth. All in all a hectic week and a half.

It seems a lot of us are parents and busy at the moment. Though, I suppose that might be part of why we're RPing here instead o in person. Though I seem to recall some thread where pbangarth was trying to find some Canadians to play with.

Anyway in addition to text colors there are details of how to play. One is I'd encourage people to be open to being drug places by others. Bongo and Seline have seemed to be ready for quite some time, but just haven't worked out moving. Again I'm new to RPing on dumpshock, but that has worked well elsewhere. Usually with a measure of openness to the players being drug around starting their next post with something like "before following <their character> to <where they're leading>, <my character> grabbed their new heavy pistol and concealed holster and sent an agent out to keep looking for info on the cult we're investigating".

The club is now open and they're trying to get people in quicker than usual to avoid any talk about bugs.

I'd also encourage utilizing your ability to generally communicate wherever you are to each other subvocally, even in a crowd.

Sorry about the colour. I'm on my phone in Ireland. The colour selections look all wrong. I'll fix it when I get home.

Well, OK. I moved us along a bit.

So a point of clarity. Is it safe to assume that matrix chat is shared among the group?

I find that speeds things up and keeps people in the loop without metagaming. But it sounds a little like you're going back and forth. I'm not sure Seth thinks Angel knows what's up.

Seth may also be seriously playing their characters disadvantage regarding the real world. So Angel might not be able to figure out what bugs and paint have to do with not having access to internal systems.

Hey, you didn't think this bunch would work like well oiled machinery right out of the gate, did you, sunnyside?

I thought Brewster had given us a communal communication system? Is that not so?

In this edition there's no need for anything special except your commlink, which players really need anyway, and accessories as needed such as maybe a subvocal mic for some situations. Commlinks have no problem doing group calls. Anyone can also stream any other senses or infostreams you want to the group if you want to keep them in the loop. That's exactly how group tacnets work. Members of the team sharing a bunch of senses from cybereyes to drones and bodycams and then the tacnet expert system processes the information and passes it onto the team so they know where enemies they can't see are and so on.

So some stuff on the matrix in 4a for Seth. (Direct communication with them would help here. )

In 4a you hack to the source of a datastream. So whatever chokepoints or toasters the signals are going through if Bongo and Selina can get a signal out to Angel, which they can, Angel can hack into or move into their comlinks if given access.

Actually, as this is the figuring things out phase, I'll just lay the architecture out this one time.

There's a DR3 node on each of the three aboveground floors and the basement with wireless enabled and analyze 3 and "bouncer" IC with attack 3. The speaker systems, lights, cameras, entertainment systems, etc on the floor are slaved to their floor's node. They have someone generally watching over the club to make sure people are having a good time, spending money, taking pictures, and things like that from these nodes. They also take advantage of the patron's datastreams going through the node to snoop in and see what they're saying or sharing from time to time.

These are connected via fiber to a DR4 chokepoint node in the basement that connects to the outside world via a fiber optic link to a streetlight with a wireless connection. It has analyze 4, and an IC with attack and armor 4. While other nodes are thematically sculpted, the chokepoint is just plain default sculpting, since it's trying to be nondescript for anyone that doesn't know that it's the node for the club. There's one guy who is managing club security who has been working on his matrix skills but he's no prime runner. He often hangs out in this node, but does have to keep an eye on the cameras and everything, which is a lot for one guy. If he comes to believe he's being hacked form the outside and he can't stop it, he can shut down this node to knock out external access. But that's a real pain for the club.

The 3rd floor node is connected via fiber to the business node on the 3rd floor, which is identical to the nodes for the floors. The business node has wireless enabled for convenience, and relies on paint to keep anyone not in the offices from accessing it wirelessly.

Due to limited device ratings, convenience, and cost they aren't using encryption or passkeys.


In a run, in 4a a hacker can usually just say they want to hack anything or anyone they can see or generally know the location of in signal range. This might take a detect hidden node complex action if the thing is operating in hidden mode. If something is slaved they end up hacking the master node, but then you likely end up controlling more than just the one thing. You can also just spoof commands if you're in a hurry. I have found in practice this blends hacking with everything else that might be going on. Since usually all a hacker needs is user level access often all it takes is a single roll, maybe two, and they're in. If hacking is more central you might need to move around a network. Making good matrix perception tests can be key to doing this quickly, and technomancers get a bonus to that.

So in terms of Angel:

1. they could have hacked other systems of comlinks to get the access ID of the chokepoint and hacked it directly.

2. Now that people are inside, they could attempt to hack most anything which would result in them hacking that floor's node, and they could move around the system from there. They'd have to go through the chokepoint and then the 3rd floor node to get to the business node, unless Bongo or Selina was physically on the 3rd floor, at which point they could go straight from the 3rd floor node to the business node.

3. Use tubesnake's drone to hack the dr1 coffee machine on the other side of the damaged paint, and then go directly after the business node.

4. Aside from that they could help out tubesnake with the bugs, besides angel herself, a machine sprite could really really improve their performance. His drones are a little weird, but that doesn't especially bother technomancers and especially sprites who often pull programs out of their tail anyway.



Anybody see anything off with that? I am rusty. I guess it seems like a lot, but in play you don't need to know about all the details.
And I always put it out to deckers (now hackers and technomancers) to handle some of the fidly stuff and rolls if they'd rather.

Ok, I was hoping to get Seth back into the mix. But I think folks have been waiting enough. I'll start replying to your posts. I sent an PM to Seth about managing their character.

A game concept we hadn't discussed but that I've used in other games is called "the training takes over" which is to say that a seemingly abandoned character, or just someone on vacation or a temporary hiatus, continues to do what they're designed to do, just in a cautious way and with virtually no initative, requiring the other players to move the action and story. However they'll act in an appropriate manner as needed until a reasonable completion point where they could exit stage left and the team could get someone else.

I played in, and eventually took over GMing a campaign called "Post or Die". A player had a week between posts, or their PC would die, usually in a way that amused the GM and horrified the other players. Oddly enough, there was a waiting list of players to fill in the vacancy.

Your idea of temporarily taking over in a minimalist way seems appropriate to me.

Yeah, and Willie is getting antsy. An antsy man with a submachine gun and wired reflexes is not a good thing.

Sorry, you're right. Two initiative passes for Tubesnake when jumped in; he didn't shell out for hotsim.

Ok. You have a lower initiative by 2 but still can go next. You jist don't have the extra 2 die and don't have a third pass after this one.

Alright! First combat in the campaign between an armoured bug and an ... armoured bug.

Right, that commlink information stuff was something I wanted to ask, but lost track of along the way.

What is the policy there. Do you have to have commlinks active and accessible? Or can you hide everything you want?

Is there a difference between what normal folks can see and what law enforcement can access?

She will do what is normal with her commlink.

Her active SIN would be Kimberly McKenzie, Fashion Designer, currently still living in Seattle.

If it is more like a profile, it would probably read something like this (and not give too much information):

Name: Kim
Interests: Fashion, Dancing, Cats, Motorcycles

Bye
Thanee

Actually, just make sure that was a joke, you are aware your flatworkers and shankworms have no armor right?

So the books discuss the etiquette in certain places being to have your comlink in active mode. That's certainly the case In a mingling setting like this, especially where you want to benifit smoothly from VIP access.

Being in active mode means "your public profile is visible" but this is something you select yourself for social networking purposes, and doesn't necessarily even have to have your name. It could just have interests for example, and maybe alert if someone in active mode that likes the same augmented reality game is close by. But you could put whatever.

Actually you could add a public login on your comlink and have a whole sculpted VR experience available.

Name, SIN, licenses and all that are stored on the comlink at an encryption of 5 by default, without needing the encryption program.

Law enforcement with appropriate codes can access that if you're just using the default free encryption, and might have questions if it doesn't work. Everyone and everywhere else needs to ping you for permission.

You'll also be leaving a datatrail of sorts in active mode.

That's all RAW by the way as I understand it.

In the club people have wildly varying degrees of profiles. Plenty of wanna be influencers around. Bouncers and the like just have a job function and links to the club site.

Selina's commlink has Encryption 6 running. She has all (or most of) the common (non-hacking) programs there in a tricked-out version that runs on her mid-class R3 commlink, so the agent can use those.

Bye
Thanee

Well, you have and encryption 6 program. It can be used to encrypt specific things. An encrypted public profile would be the same as not having one unless she's trying to pick up hackers.

Also while players can roll perception and the like I'm fine rolling for people "behind the GM screen" and tend to do for certian perception, social and other tests where having the player roll gives it away, like the roles for finding pirated warez that can lead to little surprises in the code.

But it'd be good to have some common dice pools like that at the top of char sheets, especially if you have sneaky bonuses. Anyway I think Selina rolls 9 dice of visual perception.

Bongo rolls 16 for singing right?

Nope, 17 dice. Artisan 6 + 2 Artist's Way + 4 Improved Ability + 5 INT.

For percussion (specialization), he gets + 2 for 19 dice.

I'll make a list of some of the fun stuff and post it in my PC description here.

Hah! Public profile isn't going to be encrypted, obviously, but connecting with the phone on a deeper level. Not that it is going to stop a true hacker, but it will at least slow them down.



Added some common dice pools in.

Bye
Thanee

The character sheet I have has Tubesnake with 5 flatworkers and 2 shankworms. I think you're operating with that flipped.

To an extent I want to make sure we're, literally, on the same page. If it is backwards of how you meant it at this phase of the game I'd let you swap that out as Shankworms are cheaper. If so I can make with the rolling.

You're right. This is what happens when it's harvest season.

I edited the IC post to fix it.

@sunnyside: Your probably missed this, I edited it in later.




Anyways... time to figure out some more about what is going on in the club, maybe we will get some hints about the whereabouts of the missing girl upstairs.

Bye
Thanee

Does the band have a drummer?

No. There isn't a drum set up there the guy on the deck is handling that.

*gasp*

Philistines.

That's about my brother's opinion of Deadmau5. But he's got a 3000 seat concert near me coming up.

Let's see if Bongo can glitch twice in a row.

So, yeah. It's been a while since I was Bongo's age (about half a century!) and I have to tread carefully playing a young man dripping with charisma alone with an interesting and interested young woman.

Exactly what imaginary story am I playing out, here?

Well, I'm not having cyber sex with you, but we're all adults here for off camera stuff. How you play things is really up to you, which is much of the appeal of an RPG over a video game right?

On that note, since I've been peeling back the curtain a bit, I selected the shady business upstairs to involve underage girls because the girl you're looking for isn't underage. So it wouldn't be likely to involve her. It's just the reason the club has a bit more security. But there are still clues that could be helpful around, and your characters could choose to do something about the whole underage girls thing if they wanted.

Guess, it is not that easy to find her...

Bye
Thanee

Or, maybe not.

Well, I had to do bunch of rolls, though partly because I'm trying to learn the technomancer stuff.

Anyway I'd like to see what Thanee wants to do. There's plenty of trouble to get into here, or other things to do (with Tubesnake either helping Angel or the two of them figuring out drones and machine spirits). Alternatively you do have enough information to roll out.

Yeah, sorry. Was pretty busy this last week.

I will get a post up soon.

Selina certainly wants to explore the hidden corners of the club, mostly hoping for some clues about the missing girl (even though, you already hinted, they are likely not to be found there).

Bye
Thanee

So in terms of timing for different group members it might depend if Bongo wants to wait until the end of the set, or if they want to go up and perform (Does he have any kind of instrument on hand or around? He might be able to ask Tubesnake nicely to pick something up.)

If he waits, maybe Selina could dance until the set is up. Angel and Tubesnake could be working on hacking thing and getting info, or Angel could take an interest in Tubesnakes drones.

Uh, no, Bongo has complicated his situation enough by sparking the interest of Rose. Antagonizing one of her band mates would be too much. So, he won't try to horn himself into the production without a more uniform desire among the band members for him to do so.

He will try to find a table at which he can receive Rose when she finishes the set.

So Bongo wants a fancy 500 nuyen table like Mike and Selina have?