Hmmm I guess it isn't 100% clear if Angel is in the loop for that message, but I presumed it went out to everyone in the room.

What I meant by relay is that while the whole team heard him, somebody needs to ask the question in person in the tower.

Though since Monifa has agreed to an off-site hacker being in the team, so might be open to direct communications.

You could also reply to Paul, if, for example, you'd prefer to take a "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" approach to where you can go in the building.

I'm assuming, since we are being accompanied, we will also be able to ask them.

Bye
Thanee

FYI I'm operating under the understanding nobody has sent Monifa or her crew a picture of Paul or requested an escort.

Seeing as that is indeed what has happened, or not happened, you are right. We have to get our act together. We're all waiting for someone else to take the reigns.

Eh. The genre is fantasy fueled cyberpunk, not project management simulation.

I don't think a team needs a clear leader. Mostlyit's a trick of managing to shift folks through locations. I'm being a bit more liberal with that, but let me know if I skip too much.

Then again, you'd think that the guy (Bongo) with 10 dice in Leadership would step up on occasion.

Daughters graduation was today. I'm back now but I'm wiped and heading to bed.

Alright, relatives and friends are finally out of the house. It was nice to have them around, but there's just a lot going on IRL.

In game, given their level of paranoia somebody as out of place as a maintenance guy heading to the hundredth is the sort of thing that would draw fire.

Realistically it'd be a way to make a move on the floor. With the open area, someone could latch a rappelling cable, throw a bomb, and jump clear. Not a perfect plan, but most people have at least had intrusive thoughts about doing a crazy hundred story rappel.

Anyway a way I try to balance moving forward and risks of the world is with knowledge skills and generous defaulting, particularly to logic. So a pretty decent chance Tubesnake would have sussed the developing situation. Usually, there's some perception test of some sort before things finish going sideways. But Selina might have indeed stepped out and seen him coming and calmed down the building commotion. To keep things moving lets go with that.

Short on time. So maybe an OOC question. I hadn't thought of clues that might be found with actual cybersurgery skills. But while (most) runner types know to have a fake SIN and associated comlink for runs, they aren't so likely to scrub the cyber.

Even scrubbed cyber tells a lot of stories. How sophisticated was the scrubbing? Did people rub off serial numbers on parts, but leave controller software signatures in place? What was the strength/speed calibration? Based on the models and skills behind integration with the meat, what was the price? Was this high end hypermodern deltaware, or cheap back alley drek?

And if there are serial numbers or similar, that should be able to lead back to sources, possibly even a legit installation.

The features tell a lot of stories as well. Cybereye features tell a tale of the probable techniques and strategies, for example. Or how well they were maintained.

And then don't forget bioware - that should be open to genetic and structural examination as well.

Really, the possibilities are endless. Even without installed tags on them. And there probably are.

Cyberautopsy inspection: 6d6t4 3

The roll for figuring out what's inside the stiffs. I think I screwed up the target number, but the rolled dice are visible.

It occurs to me I should give Tubesnake a meditech roll too.

Meditech: 6d6t5 2

There you are; Meditech roll.

We didn't count Angel for the payment distribution. Is she out for this, or is that new drone of hers going to be part of the investigation?

For Angels part she just wandered in while the teams was discussing things and jumped in without asking. Much like certain actual cyberpunk games that are popular now, she's used to games where you just taking missions without worrying about the rewards, you just get whatever at the end, so she's going along with everything.

Also I wanted to give a heads up that I've got a vacation coming, so I might be sporadic, though probably not gone entirely. I'll be away from my books and notes though.

I thought the "five" did account for Angel, but I forgot that Willie is also there.

So, our "off-site hacker" was Tubesnake, after all.

Bye
Thanee

Well, looks like I still have access from the ship. So feel free to post.

Well I'm back. The vacation wound up not leaving any time for the internet, which was nice in a way, and I've been disgustingly slammed these first days back, but hopefully things are back to a busy normal again.

No worries! Hope you had a nice vacation.

Bye
Thanee

From 3 July to 9 July I will be on an island in Georgian Bay (in the Great Lakes). Allegedly there is WIFI there. We'll see.

Alright I didn't get an error this time. Let's see if I can post.


If I can, is there any sort of back up plan or second best Shadowrun forum if this ever permanently goes down?

Hmmm. Meet once a year for a week and play solid through the week? I have room at my place.

For that unlikely scenario, and just to keep in touch, we could share email info by Dumpshock's Messenger.

I sent mine to the rest of you.

Now to get back in the loop as to what is going on in the tower.

Nice, the forum is back up!



Thanks. I've replied back with mine.

Though I am worried about the game. You guys really had great "grip" on the game, and Thanee has been showing the ability to pick up on nuance.

However with the big gaps it's got to be hard to keep track of things. Even with something more immediate to deal with, I'm worried folks won't know how to move forward.

Yeah, it is not ideal. But we will manage somehow.

Bye
Thanee

I guess it just needs going back over old posts.

Alright, I'll bite. Here's a perception test for Bongo to hear something else:

I hope I can get up to speed about what we are doing today.

Bye
Thanee

Like a drone?

Bye
Thanee

Most likely. But I reserve the right to introduce jetpacks.

In terms of the positions of things, the Rover was parked a very short distance away. I imagined it just a bit to the west in street parking by houses and parks. I believe there's still a flyspy sitting on Bongo. Fiona is in the Rover.

Background Count was 2, where we are, right?

Is there an area with less Background Count nearby, that we know of?

Bye
Thanee

Yes.

Lisa had talked about building a room where the background count was lower up on one of the elevator shaft's mechanical rooms up on the roof. Not in terms of its precise location, but you get the idea the background count is generally lower up there.

Similarly, while the background count extends past the walls of the building to the sides it does not do so for a great distance. The balconies might even be BC1 normally, but that spirit is roilling things up and the building is on edge after the recent violence. Fiona was able to observe that while scouting at a distance.

Off to train with sheep till Sunday. Will try to keep in touch in the evenings.

Selina Initiative 7

Bye
Thanee

Paul
Roll Initiative roll: 6d6t5 2

Total initiative: 8

Paul will be sending the FlySpy ahead of Willy and Bongo.

Hoping pbamgarth survived the sheep.

Alive but exhausted. Will roll initiative and.post in the morning.

Initiative for Quick Willie:

14 dice: 6 hits ==> 20 (3 IP)

Initiative for Bongo Slade:

8 dice: 4 hits ==> 12 (1 IP)

Welcome back!

Willie has quite the initiative and Bongo goes before anybody in the vicinity. The gangers lined up on the 100th floor promenade are looking towards the noise, but haven't moved much yet. So play to them in terms of what they want to do. They're roughly 6 meters from the door to the "apartment" they just left, and two to the apartment they were going to. Close enough some of that drywall dust might be getting on whoever has point.

I guess it's up to Bongo and Willie if they closed the door fully behind them. The door to the other apartment getting shot up is partially ajar.

For completeness, there is an apartment in between, that door is closed and Bongo and Willie would be pretty close to it. Each apartment also has a window near the door, but they all have drawn curtains, especially on this floor.

OK, I'm confused as to the layout and where Willie and Bongo are in relation to the action. Here's what I think is the situation, please correct any errors. Places where I am really unsure are marked with (!?)

Monifa's establishment is a bunch of apartments combined into one compound. Somewhere in one of those apartments there appears to be a breach attempt.

Bongo heard a similar uproar down the hallway at some other apartment (!?) not part of Monifa's compound. Bongo and Willie headed out of Monifa's compound, closing the door behind them, into the hallway to investigate. The rest of the team stayed in Monifa's compound to deal with the breach attempt there. A drone is moving to accompany each of the two sub-teams, but in Willie and Bongo's case the drone had not yet taken the lead when shit hit the fan.

There is a group of gangers, which I believe are Monifa's (!?), also out in the hallway. I believe they had just left an apartment and had been approaching the other apartment being assaulted. (!?)

Willie and Bongo are near the other apartment being assaulted, with one apartment in between. The two are to act before the gangers. The two have a choice of going to the target apartment or trying the intervening apartment to get info/advantage. (!?)

Once I have a clearer idea of the situation, I can let Willie and Bongo do their thing.

Fair questions, especially since it's been a while. (also since this site isn't good with pictures).

Monifa would claim the whole building as her territory, but her crew specifically occupy the 100th floor.

The layout of each floor started the same. A square where the sides are all long narrow apartments with a small balcony with a trellis, the corners were intended to be reserved for clinics, businesses, schools etc as they have a little more open space.

the "front doors" of the apartments open onto the promenade which is an industrial metal walkway going all the way around. Attaching to the promenade is a relatively open area cris crossed by stairs, elevators, and extendable walkways that can connect to the maintenance tower in the middle of the structure. Monifa seems to have no sway over the people in there, but it seems they just generally distribute food packs and drag off trash and bodies using drones, despite Bello worrying they could deploy a swat team.

In the middle of the north row of apartments Monifa had carved out most of the walls to create an open area in which she could store stuff and hold court. This is where you first went.

Then you left to walk around to the south where there's an apartment with all the original walls and fixtures intact that they seem to be using for storage. Specifically including the dead bodies of some of the runner team that tried to use the stairs in trunk freezers in the dinning room/kitchen which is just inside the front door. Paul was mostly dealing with that while the rest spoke with the gangers that escorted the team over there (Abeje, Bello, and Lisa the less powerful magic user Monifa seems to have).

Everyone could hear the racket in the apartment they were in with the bodies, but I think Bongo heard similar sounds through a few walls and they were going to investigate when things went from messing with the external windows to explosive breaching and full auto fire. Bongo and Willie don't exactly know how things work here, but as far as they know all the apartments around here still have their original walls, and might actually be used for people living and sleeping, presumably Monifa's people....but for all they know they gutted that one too and it's a dojo in there.

All they know is that it was missing the trellis (which Bongo could see from the outside) and it still had the plastic window presumably was removed.

Regarding the drones it occurs to me that Koekepan should roll initiative for at least his shankworm, as he'd given it a command to investigate and it could do so autonomously (unless there's some rule I missed about synching drone initiative to the rigger, which would be quite convenient). He isn't sending a drone to Bongo and Willie, the Flyspy has been perched on Bongo like a tiny parrot for a while now. He mentioned sending it ahead, but hasn't been able to execute on that just yet.

The gangers scattered around the promenade were standing around earlier on guard, presumably all Monifa's, and they're starting to respond to all the ruckus. At this point they're mostly just staring, but presumably they'll start taking some initiative....when they get to their initiative.

So you've about got it right with the options. They could continue on to the apartment they were heading to (either charging in with their higher initiatives, or holding actions until Paul could send in the flyspy ) They could head back to the team, which is a little further. They could break into the apartment in between, but for all they know it's just a scared family having dinner in there.

But, hey, part of the advantage of this kind of game is they could do something else entirely, like trying to rally gangers together to charge in as a group, or run to the North where they last saw Monifa to try and protect her.

Feel free to say if that didn't clear things up....

Helped a lot, thanks. Where are we and the gangers in relation to a walkway to the central tower?

None are out at the moment. So far you've only seen them deployed when they were giving out the food packets and collecting refuse, and then only as long as necessary. They connect roughly to the center of the promenade in each cardinal direction, so if the central tower wanted to extend one towards the south where you are it'd be quite close to your position. Getting there via swinging, jumping, and balancing along the latticework around elevators and pipes is possible, but would make for some exciting athletic checks against a hundred story drop.

I'm pretty sure I'm right so I might just post if I get a little time tonight away from the family.

But I'm taking it that Bingo and Willie are holding actions, expecting trouble to come bursting out of door to the apartment they were heading to.

Alternatively, if Tubesnakes initiative comes up first he might send the flyspy ahead for then.

You assume correctly a out the two of them.

I'm getting all sorts of errors, but I think I got a post up.

A little short but enough to keep things rolling, and it took forever anyway as I had to look up a bunch of drone rules I didn't have memorized.

To a point speech is a free action. Granted we're slicing time into seconds, but I think tradition is to allow a quick statement.

Moving isn't an action necessarily, but it is if you roll to move faster.