Hmmm. I guess to be seen, one has to be seen to be rich.

Fuck it. He goes for it. He didn't embarrass himself in the back hall, so let it happen out here.

I was just struck by how very different things are going from how I imagined this to go when I was writing the plot. But that's the fun of having players. Otherwise I could just have tried writing a novel.

So, for the team and the GM, that particular Enthralling Performance roll is on the better side of average. The hits would be added to any perception roll a listener would make while enthralled. Team members will have to be sure to know Bongo is doing it, (Be warned?) so they don't get mesmerized, too.

Imagine having to sneak past a guard whose target number to see you is 8 higher.

Well, in terms of not being warned this time, if Selina went straight for the third floor after the last song she would be up there before Rose managed to get off the stage and to Bongo.

I assume a Perception Test to notice any resistant ones is the GM's purview.

I'm inclined to say that it isn't so easy to tell if enthralling performance has worked on someone or not. I'm not reading it like a spell attack that is resisted and stuns people, though that might have made more sense. Rather it seems to apply its perception effect to everybody that can view Bongo and perceive the performance. However if they were heading to the bar, they might keep going or generally go about their business. It does mention folks getting snapped out of it though.

This also partly helps with stealth. Bongo can play and affect perception without everyone turning into zombies which might well alert anybody watching the cameras or expecting guards to check in.

You mean (Dance)?

Bye
Thanee

Yup

Unfortunately I don't think the aura reading specialization is going to work out so well in this case. I'll specifically refer to the quote "Astral forms are more colorful and brighter than auras" to indicate that they are different things. The reflection of physical things in the astral are auras, but wards are a purely astral construct. So that and the background count would knock Selina down to three dice.

Perhaps assensing for unchanging things would be something that could be repeated, barring glitches, and Fiona can "fly" around to try and carefully peek to find the extent of the ward, but Selina would have to stall to give time for all that.

Yeah, it does not help with general, astral perception, just with that Assensing test to gain information about someone/something. That is specifially for Auras, as mentioned in the text on p. 191 SR4A (second paragraph under Astral Perception).

Astral Forms should still have Auras as well, which is what you interprete when assensing them. It is a bit more detailed in Street Magic p. 112, though still not entirely clear. Either way, it would be pretty weird, if you could not assense an Astral Form or, more specifically, an Astral Form's Aura. There should be an Aura either way.

She is just looking for obvious stuff here, anything active in astral space, like actual Astral Forms (i.e. patrolling spirits), which are like bright lights in a shadowy mass and easy to see (i.e. no roll required ).

Bye
Thanee

On my sheet here I have his CHA as 1 + 5. I'll check the arithmetic and figure out which one is a typo.

Selina has nothing active (except at the moment the Astral Perception, of course, which she will drop before heading in). She can just go through.

I thought, we were through the door and ward, already... now I also get this part here!



Bye
Thanee

Yeah, I thought she might have a wardrobe malfunction going through the ward, and wasn't sure she didn't have something else active. I think we have that sorted.

You could roll for Fiona if you like, otherwise Ican just do it later today.

The 1+4 = 6 on Bongo's stats was a typo. I fixed it. In order to reach the 357 karma points for Attributes, his CHA has to be 6.

Fiona rolled 3 hits (assuming there is BGC 1 still), this will be opposed by 2x Force of the Barrier.

Fiona needs 1 net hit to make it through, otherwise she cannot pass the Barrier.

Bye
Thanee

So, this is where our Heroics compulsions are going to kick in...

Bye
Thanee

Yup. 'Cause one of us just had to go up where the underage girls are being exploited.

You do realize, Koekepan, that "Mr. Snake" is gonna stick?

That's what they call him on the porno circuit, too.

A solution isn't clear enough to require a compulsion roll. You have to operate around a fair bit of dystopian stuff you can't necessarily resolve.


But yeah.

I like how Deadlands handles these sorts of things. Instead of characters trying to work around disadvantages, they get rewards, sort of like getting karma, when they lean into them in story appropriate ways. So it's more like that in these cases.

Yeah, sometimes business has to come first. Bongo's gotta pay himself back for that table somehow.

I'm still here. I'm just wary of doing many posts before Thanee.

If you don't want to engage, Selina could just be uncomfortable, confirm nobody involved in the photo seems to be there, and Mike could take her away. You have a woman to focus on, you could choose to come back to this later.

Sorry! Work is just very busy at the moment.

I will check in later today!

Bye
Thanee

Right now, this isn't really helping us, yeah.

Bye
Thanee

So I had to look up the details of drinking Absinth since it came up, but I hadn't done it that way myself. I got curious enough to get a bottle and absinth spoon.

I have to say I'm a fan! Give it a try if you like cocktails at all.

With no actual magical security around, Fiona could maybe use her Influence power on one of the managers (the one that was not arguing for turning the third floor into a regular area), to nudge him into that direction as well.

She just needs a shadowy area to materialize without people noticing, but that shouldn't be too hard to find here. And afterwards, she should probably remove the traces of magic-use in the astral, before heading back out again.



The BGC will hurt a bit, but with Edge that could still work decently.

Bye
Thanee

Is there a rule somewhere for erasing Astral signatures other than using the cleansing metamagic?

I think, per raw AFAIK, powers don't have a noticibilty like spells, so that would make a sneaky cast possible. The advantage of a subtle effect is folks might not think anything happened and check the way they would for combat spells.

SR4 p 192, under Astral Signatures, last sentence.

Yeah, you can wipe away the traces of recent magic, so you won't see any lingering auras from the magic use. Mostly takes time, really, so if you are in a hurry, you might not be able to.

Cleansing is for actual background count, I believe.

Bye
Thanee

Cleansing does signatures too, and faster, but I see what you're talking about.

The room doesn't have a lot of cover. But for a cat they could try hiding underneath a table, behind someone's legs, maybe around a doorway they don't think will be used for a bit.

So I'd think describe what you're trying and then it would be an infiltration roll and then a roll for the power. Cleaning up the signature is just time, and it seems to be time one could spend astrally. You wouldn't be to start the process until the power isn't active, but this particular one is instant anyway. The realistic form also helps as a cat might be odd to see there but not cause an automatic hostile reaction the way an obvious spirit might (unless someone spots the materialization itself).

Okay.

Infiltration 3 hits

Influence + Edge 7 hits

Bye
Thanee

I just made an IC post. In your reply you could flesh that out some.

I guess with the groups sort of splitting up I could advance with the two. I don't want to leave you hanging too long.

On that note if you're hung up I won't put people down for short posts. It's fun to flesh things out, but sometimes a one liner keeps things moving forward.

It's also fine to generally describe how you're conducting a conversation or interaction to advance time. The game sort of already has that in RAW with legwork where your character may be engaging in longer conversations with a range of contacts, but the GM just shares some relevant snippets.

Ran across Pbangarth's thread on how long he's been here. Which introduced me to the term "magicrun" which led me down a bit of a rabbit hole, which ultimately led to

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1270116

So I guess a couple of you have quite the history here.

I don't feel old.

I believe your exact phrasing was "the oldest"

Those of us past 40 appreciate having a place to have fun where we can still be the upstart whisper snapper!

So to make sure I understood the post you're driving underneath the uptown structure north along Falls street until you reach and manhole, which looks to be just a bit before East Ware Street.

From there you have an unobstructed line of sight on Frank's window, but you aren't underneath it.

No, driving one block away, keeping a polite distance as it were. But yes, finding a manhole and parking there. There's no call to approach too closely at this stage.

oh. Does that mean Bongo doesn't see the window?

Oh, he should see it. Big, tall building towering over the environment? It'll be up there. He's just not directly under it.

Got it.

I was going to have tube drive ahead, to about 24th and greemont, at which point you wouldn't be able to see the window even if you cpuld see the building.. The problem is his window is on the underside of the angular arch spanning Falls street. So good views are avaoloble on Falls street, but elsewhere it's the issue of trying to see underneath a bridge. If Falls street continued in either direction you could go there, but the road is just access to the back of the rowhomes and has T intersections at both 24th and 25th.

But you could assume Tube cruised slowly past. I think you have an adept ability for this sort of thing.

Edit: You do. I'll make a post. Tubesnake can reposition if they wish.

Multi-tasking might apply, indeed.

As an aside, have Willie and Flatline been retired for now?

I had the same thought since the others are going slow. I pmed crossbow about ideally playing but if not letting me use their char as an NPC. I haven't heard back yet. Though since they didn't post I could just swap in a different character. I suppose on this forum I can even do things like change names in posts to retcon stuff.

Crossbow is the GM in one of the other campaigns I'm in here on DS, so they are around.

They haven't been on in days. But maybe a slow but consistent pace is more the norm here. That's worked out for me. I've been sick this last week.

Hope Thanee is OK. They're in multiple games and made a couple posts on the 6th and then just vanished.

Sorry! I am here, just have been more busy than expected with end of year work and stuff.

Right now, Selina has not a whole lot to add, but she could send Fiona to the place to check it out from the astral.


Merry Christmas!

Bye
Thanee

I'm flexible on if you'd want to advance time. A few hours could give Angel time to carefully crack that node and maybe Mike would be asleep, depending on how Selina chooses for things to go.

Happy New Year!

Bye
Thanee

Happiness to all!