Huh. Is one of you a mod or is someone else reading all this and curating the threads? Somehow that post from the IC thread got moved to the OOC thread.

Must be some AI going rampant!

Bye
Thanee

Technically Bongo could make a dodge roll. In the spirit of moving forward I may take what are hopefully minor liberties. But I don't intend to god mod your characters, and the option to walk things back is usually there in such cases.

It'll be a sad day when Bongo tries to dodge a hug.

I'm assuming, we will be getting the money from Brewster?

Bye
Thanee

I think the Blackwater timeline is out of synch with the Frank job. How far are they out?

Right now Blackwater is still in the afternoon whereas the main thread is getting towards dawn on the following day. However I think your plan is to sit tight until nightfall, and you'll have a trip back by boat at some point, so that should go a long ways towards catching things up.

In terms of the main game now might be a good time for feedback. This might not be my first game, but it's my first on dumpshock. Post length, level of detail, etc.

What I will say is that it's interesting how your team managed things quite differently than I expected. I figured the most likely scenario was a less flashy version of what I wrote as Angels expectations. Much faster and most aggressive. You also hit a very different level of engagement with Nari. The character was always there, otherwise the players wouldn't get what was going on. But I figured either they rush in right then, or wait because they were simply callous. You guys actually spoke with her ahead of time, and then waited but weren't callous.

Also particularly noteworthy is actually getting through a run without having to resort to combat at some point (well, barring a drone fight with some bugs). Not sure that's happened before with me. I'm curious how that hits you guys. On the one hand you put in a lot of thought and effort to make it happen...but maybe you wanted combat anyway.

Feedback: I do not have anything negative to say. Some things are a little hard to visualize, like that strange architecture (I am still not 100% sure, I got that right), but that is hardly your fault, but lies in the nature of this. A picture would be awesome, but I don't think it exists, so... All in all you are doing great!

No Combat: With our current characters, it seems pretty likely that we would rather avoid any combat situations than go looking for them. So, not surprising at all to me. And this was a job, where a stealthy approach clearly was the best option. There are multiple layers of security in the building (the building security and Frank's own people), and then maybe even the official security (i.e. the police), which we would have to deal with, if we just go in and kick in the door (not to mention, that two of us where pretty much unarmored).

Bye
Thanee

The best run, in my view, is where nobody knows that anything happened - except that you got paid.

I mean, we totally could have gone in guns blazing and converted that side of the building to burning swiss cheese, but would that have done the job any better or cheaper?

Certainly the group of PCs that sought Sophie is tailored for quiet infiltration more than firepower. I think this was a typical run for such a crew. Causing a firefight in the middle of a residential district would have been very troublesome. Amazing how we gelled on the very first run. Our skills and gear worked together seamlessly. I look forward to great things in the future.

I had a great time with Bongo and feel he was in his element. With Bongo, combat is way down on his list of preferred behaviours. There are a couple of surprises in his skill list if push comes to throw, though. For him (me?) the best reward was getting Nari out, too.

Now, Willie ... If you really want fireworks, slot him in with the mage and the rigger! And he's still hoping to get his hands on a couple of grenades in that storehouse under the church.

I agree with Koekepan, "The best run, in my view, is where nobody knows that anything happened - except that you got paid."

But, Frank knows. And he will know it even better, soon. I fear the other enthralled people may 'disappear' soon.

Can I assume that the 24,000 mentioned means each of the three involved gets 8000?

Technically, there is Angel as well...

Bye
Thanee

Yup.

Oh, yeah. Sorry .... er ... Angel.

By they way Willie can always try to throw dice for social stuff. Generally I try and remember the hits you can buy and feed in extra details for folks like Selina and Bongo. Willie just gets stuff they're trying to deliberately emote.



One thing about the city that might almost be a retcon, is that the shadow city area should really be going all night. And much of the rest of the city too. Night and day aren't really that meaningful there anyway underneath the Ares HQ. Although there could still be liquor laws with varying degrees of enforcement, and Gatsbys might have a more playful arrangement with the police about getting "busted" to shut down late at night. There's also the flavor of very distinct areas, especially downtown, but maybe takes some local knowledge, or more of a matrix search to ferret it all out. So maybe it all can stand as written, but appreciate there should be more after dusk in Baltimore than there is now.

Also the metahumans out in the butterfly aren't going to be nearly as bothered about the dark as we are. Same with anybody who can afford basic cyber or even glasses/contacts with some low light or thermal mods...or that wants to pretend like it isn't a problem around everybody else.

Sure, you'd like to see Willie try social interaction, wouldn't you, GM?

On the note of hard bread in Blackwater, I wonder if any of you have actually had something like that. I got some for the novelty from a Polish market recently. It was sort of like a pumpernickel, but was so dense you could have dropped it in a shopping bag and used it as flail and the other person would get the worst of it rather than the bread.

The family tried it, but it was too much work and I wound up having all of it. The key was using a knife to take of pieces you could bite through.

Years ago I visited the historical site Lunenburg in Nova Scotia. People in costume demonstrated life back when it was a French fortress against the British. We got the chance to buy and eat a.loaf of the bread that was the soldiers' daily ration. Cannon ball size and almost as hard.

Yep! Already mentioned giving Brewster the details of what went down there in my last IC post.

Don't see why we would need to hold anything back here.

Bye
Thanee

No. Lay it all out.

Why would Angel be tagging the full video when Paul already cut it down?

Because they/I thought the group wanted her to show Brewster the whole thing not the cut down version. But you're right, Toubesnake already picked a cut. Probably best to just remind her IC.

We should talk about Karma expectations. I seem to recall reading something here about karma being related to number of posts. Any etiquette about that around here?

I'm inclined towards a "normal" award. However with an addition of Brewster deciding to support the team with some training. He's got some reasons for that. This might be more geared towards Angel, so they could in principle actually go out into the world. But Tubesnake could use some help with that too. Basically getting a boost in skill groups, probably of the athletics/stealth sorts. Training montage optional, but I'll point out cyberpunk and Shadowrun are entities of the 80s.

In general, rewards are a little more generous, typically, because of the nature of PBF taking quite long.

This run would probably be one or two session(s) in RL, and it took us a whole year (Wow, time flies! Wouldn't have thought it was that long, actually!) to finish it.

But I don't think there is any special etiquette or guideline for that.

Bye
Thanee

Heh, karma by number of posts would reward posters like me unduly.

Thanee's point makes sense. I've played in campaigns here that lasted for years (real time) with hardly any advancement.

Karma plus training sounds good to me. I suspect Bongo will be looking for Initiation or something weird like that.

The "award by number of posts" thing isn't meant individually, but just as a guideline. In one group here, the Karma award for everyone is simply based on the total number of IC posts (divided by some fixed number) at the end of the run/scenario. The idea is, that the amount of posts correlates fairly well with the amount of stuff that has happened overall.

Bye
Thanee

Ah, got it.

Wow. While it didn't get started right away with that first post, it will have been a whole year tomorrow.

I start doing awards via PM as things go along like in some other non SR games I've run instead of exclusively at mission completions.

Any history somewhere on going rate for karma per posts? In the meantime you've got some downtime. With in person games I've found that to be a lot of fun.

I don't think there is a "going rate". This is probably done very differently in different games.

The one I know is using 1/10th of the number of IC posts, but that is quite a lot of Karma.

Bye
Thanee

Well, that would put the four who saved Sophie at about 13 karma each, and Willie et al at about 4 each, for a shorter run. (Though they have to make it through the night and back past that thing in the water yet!)

Karma isn't divided among the team, hence the "quite a lot".

Bye
Thanee

Wow! 54 per PC? That's about what all my DS PCs combined earned over my 20 years here.

Of course, many of the games were a slow, agonizing fade into oblivion, sometimes after years, sometimes shortly after character generation.

Alright, I think I'll do something roughly like a double award. It should come out to about those levels since this wasn't a high threat level job. I'll probably also do the Brewster thing on top of that, making things a little rich.

Also just to get through what I'd like to, I think I'll compress things a bit from what I was originally planning.

I don't think you're all Americans, but happy 4th if you were.

I'm back after some family holiday stuff and should be able to post more frequently for the coming week I think. But the next week I'm on a work trip. I'll probably say active on my phone, but there might be some short replies.

For the IC thread there's the question of how much you guys want to have some downtime RPing or interactions versus diving into the next thing.

You've got lots of options if you indicate what you might like. But for example Mike would probably want to take Selina back to the club when he hears they're giving something else a try on the third floor and wants to support the change.

Bongo is supposed to call Ruby. Angel would want Tubesnake to show her around town.

Brewster might want the team, or at least Angel, to do the training thing to be able to function in the world with stealth and speed.

This also might affect Pbangarth's choices in the other IC thread, in that he could choose to wrap things up and get Willie back, or keep at it.

On that note, the team might do well to use some cash for some stealthy and non-lethal weapon options.

Actually, Willie doesn't have Tracking Skill, though the current enterprise suggests to him that it could be useful.

Willie hasn't been on the receiving end of a smackdown in a while, so he is interested in getting some more payola, but considers the other two (about whose resilience and staying power he knows little) as almost as vulnerable as the locals. "Sorry, Brewster, the other two didn't make it back," is not something he would like to report. The other team members would be wary of him from then on.

I too am curious about that place at the end of the trail. At the same time, I would like to get the whole team on the same timeline. Seeing as you have been playing Lenny and Flatline for a while, sunnyside, I sort of guess that their players are out of touch / out of the campaign now.

Unless things have changed dramatically, the trail in question is reachable by road in a roundabout fashion, without passing by the settlement or the church, so Brewster's curiosity could be satisfied at a later date with the whole party together. Assuming he is willing to risk his rep with the locals.

Well, to quote Willie, "fuck it."

It sure looks like tracking is on his character sheet.

Also I hope we didn't lose Koekepan

Huh. It looks like I fined tuned at the start but didn't make my paper copy match. OK, he's got tracking!

Koekepan is around, also running another campaign here. I think there is some travel interrupting access.

Let's assume he'll be back at some point. knock on wood.

But time outside of a run is actually an ideal time to be a player down while others do non mission related stuff. Unless it's a serious breach of dumpshock etiquette, I say we just have him drive home, folks get some rest, and you get into some non-mission stuff. I'm betting he'd have been fine with doing that days ago. He can then jump in the minute he gets back. Especially since he wouldn't necessarily have to read any of your posts.

Works for me. It looks like we will be doing a bit.more with Willie, anyway.

I'd have made a post dropping people off, but he replied to the karma PM. So I'm hoping he's about to post.

Seems pbangarth isn't sure what path to take. If it matters I think the last house rule I have that I hadn't mentioned is if you need to burn edge to say alive, the max I charge to get the point back is the cost to go from 2 to 3.

Maybe that would have been relevant to some people in chargen, but I figured things were already confusing enough without the cash for karma and edge buy back stuff . But now we've gotten those out of the way.

Also if you felt like doing something with your characters together, remember that I'm about to take a business trip and may have short replies. I guess we'll see. But whatever I do will have to be via my cell phone as I'm not using my work laptop to go to dumpshock. Probably couldn't even if I wanted to since it doesn't support a secure connection.

I hope, that won't come up too often.

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, I was of two minds about what toi do with Willie, both wanting to get the whole team together and satisfying my Willie's curiosity about what is at the end of that trail. Seeing as you are less likely in the next few days to want to start a new run, I'm going for the extended mission.

Besides, I am trying to figure out how Bongo wants to progress. There are skills he can pick up or improve that directly relate to the work he might do with the team, and he has that long range goal about Gaia that will almost certainly require initiations and metamagic. So a little real time down time for him is a good thing.

So, there are a few things I would like to run past the GM. Some might be interesting to Thanee as well.

1) Improving a Skill. In the past with other PCs, I have improved Skills that my PC had actually used recently. So, for example, Bongo just used his Locksmith Skill for the first time in a run. Would the GM be OK with him improving that Skill by 1 to 2 without seeking a teacher/trainer. Maybe checking the Matrix for hints/explanations for what he experienced.

2) Gaining a new Skill. Forgery looks kinda cool and right down Bongo's alley. Find a teacher/info through Brewster?

3) For both of those endeavours, there is an Extended Test. Will the team be off duty for at least a week to allow such a test to be done? Can Edge be used for the Test? If so, when is Edge refreshed ... end of run or at the start of the next run? In Bongo's case, he has some Edge points left from the previous run, so when refresh happens is pertinent.

4) Bongo is interested in Initiating. He is not a joiner and bristles at rules and strictures, so joining a Group is not for him. How does a PC go about it on their own?

5) There is an option to do an Ordeal to reduce the karma cost. One option for an Ordeal available to the GM is to create a Masterpiece, which uses the Artisan Skill, This is REALLY up Bongo's alley, and I hope it's OK with the GM.

6) The only place in SR4A I can find mention of complementary skills is in the discussion of Forgery. For example, using the Artisan Skill to paint a painting and using hits on that as a limiter to hits on the Forgery Test. Yet again I mixed up SR3 and SR4 because in chargen I had given Bongo a strong Knowledge Skill in Music Composition, with an eye towards complementing the creation of Masterpieces. *sigh* Nevertheless, there is lots of room to use that Knowledge Skill, especially since Bongo has already met another musician!

7) It looks like Leadership is being 'thrust upon' Willie. He is catching on to the value of that Skill and might start developing it. (As per #1/#2 above.) Because of the Uncouth Quality, he will have to pay double.

That's all for now. More likely to come later.

Let me get back to you on the rules questions once I'm back with my books.

Mostly I'm apologizing for coloring. Thumbs are too fat for the phone interface.

Off to my first sheep-herding trial of the season. Wish me luck! No! Wish me compliant sheep.

Will be able to contribute again Sunday night.

I picked up covid on my trip to LA. But it looks like the rest of you also have summer stuff going on. I should be lifting off for Vegas on Tueaday, when I hopefully will be better. I'm already mostly on the mend.

Hah, Been there myself.

Take care.

P.S. The first run of the trial was a disaster. The second won us a ribbon. Watch out, world! We're comin'!

Well, I got over covid and I'm back from Las Vegas for the family vacation. I actually have my brother visiting this weekend, but generally I should be a lot more present again.