Me too;) I remember AM not allowing Bobby to just give him the money because she is well... AM.

Bobby's softer side!

================

I still haven't figured out what I'm going to spend Tamarind's Nuyen on, but I thought I should at least post her knowledge skills and karma spending:

10 knowledge skills:
Lakota Sioux (language) 5->6
Contemporary drones (interest) 0->2
Contemporary vehicles (interest) 0->1
(I realized that she had a knowledge skill in pre-crash dones, but not in contemporary)

Karma spends:
animal handling 0->1
Outdoors skill group 1->2
Con 2->3
Hacking 4->5

Ha, good notes! But I'm going to cheat and make us both correct.

possible plot twist Clive is really an agent of some forign power playing a shoesalesman to test Bobby! His real name is Al.

Nah, but I heard he made four touchdowns in one game once...

Oh dang! Jack is an educated man!

I'll make sure that shows up in the interlude rewards.

One more small encounter after this and then we can wrap the Interlude. I'll give folks an opportunity to post, then will push it forward tomorrow.

I'll have Mato emerge for the RP with the PCs, as he often misses out during the Interludes. I'll have him disappear when we get to the final section.

@Thanee
As a reminder, SIS has two vehicles, a Ford Americar and a Dodge Xenon. (Details here.)

I know we usually don't get down to the granularity of what we're driving around in. I've been assuming that if we're all going together then we're in Tamarind's Eurovan, but we have the Ford and the Dodge for when our errands take us in different directions. Those are freely available to use.

If Rachel wants to buy something that can just be hers, definitely go for it. But if she's just looking to get from Point A to Point B then there are a couple existing options to consider.

We could invest as a team into a Roadmaster - that thing could work as a field office and accomodations.

Would also get fun reactions from our neighbors

@Beta, do you want to get in on this? Use Tamarind's new knowledge skills!

OOCly, I'm not opposed to a team vehicle, even a Roadmaster.

ICly, Mato's position would be "we're investigators, not a strike team, we're supposed to be subtle, and the Roadmaster is not subtle." But he's not immune to the boys-with-toys aspect of things.

Plus, you know, he got blown up four months ago, so he's mindful of the dangers of Redmond and the Sixth World beyond.

I don't think we have any practical transportation problem between AM's bikes, two shared cars and Tamarind's van. That said, my character would love to have something fun to drive... So she'll be on board even with buying a shared westwing, or an APC if Bobby feels nostalgic about the SDF.

Roadmaster wasn't really a serious suggestion

I just found the idea funny to park that tank in front of our suburban home

I figured but I felt so clever about the SDF comment. So I wrote it anyway.

I cannot remember the precise timeline of AM's transformation and whether Andrew has seen her in her new form yet. I know that AM and Andrew spoke in person during Chapter 5. They spoke again during Chapter 8 but I can't remember if that was in person or via comm, and - if in person - what size AM would have been at the time. I don't think she had grown by then, but correct me if that's wrong.

Anyway, I wrote the post assuming that this is the first time Andrew is seeing AM's new size, but I can tweak it if it's already been discussed in the past.

Everyone else is free to participate. I'll have Andrew address anyone who chooses to be present.

According to my notebook LM that contains everything we wrote in this game:

Later, in "The Found Arcana - Ninth Interlude [IC]", AM detailed her decision to change her appearance to become taller, faster, and stronger, stating that her oversized clothes suddenly fit after she figured out how to indefinitely sustain a spell she had known for years. This transformation also led to her being able to carry heavy equipment with ease. Her new physique was noted by Mato, who found her taller than him with powerful sprinter's legs. She acknowledged that people looked at her differently due to this change.
The effects of this magical transformation were also observed in "The Found Arcana - Chapter 11 [IC]", where police officers commented on an "upsized version of AM," and she explicitly stated that she made herself "magically taller" because she did not like her natural body, finding it made her feel like a child. Her new appearance also prompted comments from others, who noticed she looked different.


So if the last we saw of Andrew is in chapter 8 he hasn't seen her taller self yet.

Yeah, pretty sure when Tamarind and Raven joined, AM had not grown, yet. And I am pretty sure, Rachel has not seen or met or heard of Andrew before.

Bye
Thanee

Sorry, I looked away from the game at the wrong time, big car discussion! (But Tamarind's opinion is surprisingly mild -- nothing memorable, nothing too expensive because you never know when something will take it from you, made sure it does the job you want from it. Drones she gets sentimental about, vehicles are mostly just tools

Also, no idea of ranks in the Sioux military, or what rank would actually have a role like that. Feel free to mentally translate to something more reasonable. And I doubt that golf is popular in the Native American Nations, but apparently some people still play it.

I bet golf is still big in the Pueblo Corporate Council. I can imagine that being a significant source of tourism for them.

The way the post describes them, Private would be a suitable rank for Tamarind and Pineapple.

I loved the flashback Beta.

There is urban golf as a less than legal alternative - hit a ball in the city and play it wherever it comes to rest. You just have to outrun police and other private security

Maybe that was how 'Pineapple' was familiar with golf? (I just invented her for the flashback, but rough concept is another case of mixed heritage, in her case Sioux/african-american, but that she later married someone seriously into the military while Tamarind moved to the shady side of things so felt that she couldn't talk with her old army friend about her life anymore). While Lieutenant* Three-Crows was a slightly useless son of a well connected family (who probably did have vacations to the Pueblo Council, as well as access to golf courses in the Sioux Council if they didn't get rid of all of them)
* Lieutenant is where I really wondered if the Sioux are using 'European' ranks, or if they've come up with their own titles and structures? There might be info somewhere in the lore but I've never really read the military parts very carefully.

I would also think that golf would translate into VR very well. It would be less prestigious, but also far less expensive and thus much more accessible. I can imagine it becoming an everyman's (e)sport. The poor get to simulate being outside on manicured grounds, while the rich - especially corpers whose security remains restrictive - could squeeze in a round to wind down after a long day, or to simply avoid the risks associated with being out in public.

The biggest issue for golf courses in the Sioux Nation would probably be the weather, which is routinely described as wild and unpredictable. Hard to maintain your grounds under those conditions. (Plus, you know, the juggernauts.)

By the way: I just finished the last details for our next chapter - I hope you are up for a bit of urban exploration

Weather Control!

You will still need people to keep away the Juggernauts, though.

Bye
Thanee

I'm digging into the history books for this last post. Bonita was in Chapter 5, and the bounty from Big Stank was offered in the Fourth Interlude, both back in 2020. (Chapter 5 started just as the COVID restrictions kicked into place.) ICly this was in late November 2078, so about six months ago.

As a reminder, you successfully convinced Bonita of the dangers of an alliance with Nightmare and the Halloweeners. She took her splinter faction of the Crimson Crush off into Salish-Shidhe Lands, thus fulfilling your contract with Mayor Sonja to create cracks in the alliance.

Although not related by blood, Big Stank considers Bonita to be a daughter. He offered ¥10K for her return and ¥5K for any of her associates that you bring back. (The estimate was between 6 and 12 associates.) Not a large sum by our current standards, although it was the going rate back then. As Andrew hints, for inscrutable reasons of his own, those numbers might be flexible.

The age/duration of this campaign is both impressive and at times intimidating. (just finding an old chapter, what with the wandering between sites, being the first challenge -- and that presumes remembering which chapter you are looking for)

Yes, the same is true for me as well.

This summer (August) will mark 7 years. I think my previous record for a campaign was 4 years.

I am indebted (to Jack, I think) for the text downloads of the chapters and interludes on the official forums and on RPG Playroom. Without that, I wouldn't have remembered Bonita's full name nor the offered reward for her return.

Eh, I have an online Battletech RPG group that started in 2004 - still going strong. There's still a few years for this group to go

Oh dang! That's like half your life! (I presume; maybe I'm projecting.)

Pretty much exactly this year

@Tecumesh wow thanks for keeping tabs on her. I remember just how angry Big Stank got AM at the last time they talked after Mato was bombed, and he wouldn't do anything for us until AFTER we found her. The move to Bellevue all come from that melt down I feel.

Indeed. One of my favorite things about this game is that it hasn't been static. Things have changed, evolved. We're no longer fighting our way out of debt. We're moving up in the world. We've had a good narrative arc.

I also like the cast of characters that we've built up over the years. That kind of thing is only possible with time, so I very much appreciate it.

We're wrapping up what I had planned for the Interlude.

If there's anything people want to say or do during downtime, go for it. The sandbox is open.

Otherwise we can move on to our month-end accounting (once I remind myself how to do it).

We pay rent for our commercial lifestyle as well as the additional expenses for our suburban lifestyle

We also roll a charisma+etiquette (corporate) teamwork check and for every hit we reduce costs by 1000 Nuyen.

I had to dig way back because we haven't done this in over a year.

As Jack says, we do a teamwork Charisma + Etiquette test. AM and Mato have the same dice pool BUT AM's Etiquette skill is higher so she can accept one extra Teamwork die. The rest of us can get to 5 Teamwork dice just by buying successes. To avoid being the middleman, I'll just roll it:

Charisma 6 + Etiquette 5 + Teamwork 5: 16d6t5 9 hits

AM's Social Limit is 8 but the Teamwork test raises that, so we keep all 9 hits.

Here's the math:

- ¥2,000 Touristville office
- ¥9,800 Bellevue lifestyle
+ ¥5,000 Mato's trust fund
+ ¥25,000 Mayor Sonja
+ ¥40,000 Bellevue Hackers' Club
+ ¥9,000 Etiquette test
=
+ ¥67,200 net income
/ 5 employees
=
+ ¥13,440 each

Let me think for a minute about the final Interlude awards. But, in the meantime, enjoy the nuyen. Maybe we can all get matching Thunderclouds.

Neat. Bobby finally reaches his personal goal of saving up 100k

Also, Bobby will now begin to hunt for a Force 10 Qi tattoo focus - it only costs 30k ¥, but has an availability of 30. If AM supports his search it's 36 vs. 12 dice, searching every week

Starting this week:
Seach for Focus: 12d6t5 3
Seach for Focus AVA: 30d6t5 10

No luck

AM would happily help in the search. (I can even try with edge). Given her relationship with Bobby she'll even lead it if you ask her. (she has 12 dice for etiquette and get get 5 more). If we agree pay above the book price, and use edge(?) we might nail it in a month or two. Would make a lot of narrative sense for her to help given their close relationship and her feeling like she owes Bobby a lot for helping her finishing her debts.

An interesting option is to make a run about it, by going to Urubia. Not the wisest thing, but I think it forms an interesting narrative given we have a real life dragon to access.

What do you want to put on the focus?

PS AM also has 100k but strangely I don't really have what to do with it. I thought about a new deck but strangely the search only makes me appreciate the Erika as I can't get anything much better than it. Even if I put a lot of money. There is a 200k deck I think would be considerably better, but I also think that perhaps the right way to tackle the problem is to work on her magic and get increase gear limits spell in a way that can reliably break the object resistance of a cyberdeck.

Any thoughts/ideas about what to do with her money are very welcomed.

Rachel will also be able to craft foci in the near future. I have been looking at the rules for that (which are, of course, spread across several books and chapters).

It's kinda funny, that the only way to actually make Artificing work is to only ever craft Force 1 foci and cheese the limit with reagents (which you can since Forbidden Arcana).

But if they make it pretty much impossible to actually use the skill normally, that's how it is. Since you cannot use Edge, there is a bit of luck involved still.

Anyways...

There are also rules for upgrading existing foci (Street Grimoire p. 230). With those you can also craft a focus step by step.

The only question is... how does the Artificing roll for upgrading work. The rules say nothing about that part.

Do you only need to get the difference of Force in net hits? Or do you need the full Force in net hits?

Bye
Thanee

Thanee AM is a potential client for a counter spelling focus and/or a power focus.

I don't know abbout upgrading the focus, both options have implications one of them says that there is nothing special about powerful foci, they just get crafted multiple times until they reach the desired force. The latter implies that there is a little incenative to upgrade a focus except perhaps to save karma for the person that bound that focus because you might as well get an entirely new focus of equal power for your effort.

I assumed AM would take the lead - oh right you have the attribute increasing spell

Edge use for this is a bit iffy, since it's a downtime check.

Bobby will try to avoid going into debt - especially to a dragon.

I intend to finally start adding mystic armor to Bobby's build - so far he has been a glas cannon, relying on dodging attacks. The critter armor is good, but only viable for two forms - which he doesn't take that often because infiltration in small forms is quite a bit more common for him nowadays.

You could get your self a MOS unit (Killcode p. 58). For 16000¥, Ava 6, you can run 4 more cyberprogramms at the same time. That's equivalent to +1 to all matrix attributes with the right programs.
One of those programs could be an Agent R6 (Ava 18, 12000¥)- having a second pair of actions for teamwork and defense would be a huge boon

I was rooting for teamwork to get more dice. 12 vs 30 seems a bit like we'll need a few years of RL to get it


The MOS seems kind of cool, right now I have a program carrier with VM hardwired + 1 program from a deck rating 1, so she can run 3 programs in parallel. I'd assume the program carrier can go if I have a MOS and we can do some other modification (modify attribute?)

We can certainly look into that.

Normal Force Ratings (like 6) should be pretty achievable assuming the Telesma is not something crazy. Higher than that requires some good dice rolling.



The text in Street Grimoire only says that another Enchanting test needs to be made to re-forge the focus. Nothing about how that actually works.

The normal Enchanting / Artificing test determines the Force of the focus by its net hits. That makes no sense here, since the focus already has a Force Rating.

I can see this work in two ways...

1) You make the test and any net hits add to the Force of the focus (just like with everything else when upgrading you only need the difference).
2) You make the test and the net hits become the new Force of the focus (if you rolled more than the existing Force, otherwise it fails to increase its power; surely it wouldn't lower it).


One thing I am also wondering about Tattoo foci... how do you even buy those? Is the ink itself the focus and can be enchanted before being used to make a tattoo?

Or would you have to be present throughout the whole crafting process?

Bye
Thanee

@Thanee

Might be a good idea to find a consensus on those rules going forward

Rules from Street Grimoire p. 230
UPGRADING AN EXISTING FOCUS
[...] the focus must simply be upgraded to the same, stronger version of itself. [...] The talismonger will need to add reagents to the enchantment equal to difference in karma costs for bonding the old focus and bonding the upgraded version. For example, if a character wishes to upgrade a Force 3 Spell focus to a Force 5 Spell focus, the talismonger will need to use 4 reagents to upgrade the focus (10 being the new cost for bonding the focus, 6 being the cost of bonding to the Force 3 focus). The talismonger will need to make another Enchanting Test to re-forge the focus. [...] Because the character was only bonded to the previous version, they will only need to pay 4 Karma to fully bond with the upgraded focus.


p. 307 Core
At the end of the crafting time, it is time for the dangerous part of the process: invoking the power of the focus. Make an Artificing + Magic [formula Force] v. formula Force + telesma’s Object Resistance. This counts as the culmination of all your work over the days, so you can’t use Edge for this test. Your net hits from this test, if you succeed, become the focus’s actual Force. If you glitch, you cannot resist Drain in the next step. If you critically glitch, the magic spins out of your control and rips away 1 Essence from you—artificing is not for the weak or untrained.



To me that sounds like setting a new success total as you are completely reforge the focus - and also have the chance to ruin it completely.


p.188 Forbidden Arcana
RAW REAGENTS
These reagents are newly harvested or have yet to undergo refinement by an alchemist.
[...]
• Raise the limit by 1 for any tests using Magic


So, yes, throwing money at it to raise the limit is totally legit


For DIY crafting, I wrote in the old SR forum a little article:

- Having a spirit with Guard around prevents critical glitches (Guidance and Guardian, Street Grimoire p. 193 or Spirits of Man have those innate)
- Teamwork/Leadership checks from the spirit also increase your limit (Leadership can be used untrained
- Practice, Practice quality is also a cheap source of one more point to the limit (Hard Targets p.191)
- Crafting a Force 2 Formula is pretty cheap as a base (Arcana + Magic [Astral] (Force x Force, 1 day - p.306 Core)
- Special Workshop also adds 2 to the limit

That adds up to a F6 limit without making you stay longer than 2 days in the lodge

You can raise that limit with reagents as you said to go even further beyond the formula

The first thing you should craft is a Power Focus - on something that has no object resistance (which is why tattoos are a real good idea in general - no resistance from the Telesma)

If you want to go even further, you can use Analyse Device on the Power Focus:
p. 285 Core
This spell allows the subject to analyze the purpose and operation of a device or piece of equipment within range of the sense. The casting of the spell is opposed by the object’s resistance (p. 295). Each net hit can be used to provide a piece of information about the device that would not be readily apparent[...]. Each net hit also gives the subject a bonus die while operating the device and allows the subject to ignore any skill-defaulting modifiers for using it as long as the spell is sustained.



That's also the information, that Gladius gave AM in Chapter 10


As for tattoos: Yes, I'd say you have to present in the lodge for most of the process - after all a large intricate tattoo takes time either way.

Certainly a good idea.



That would be pretty much using the full rules for creating a new focus, though. That's not upgrading and would certainly not be something worth doing at all (especially, when you could just end up with a lower Force quite easily).

As AM also wrote above (the second part), you would simply create a new focus instead, as it is all the same.

In the end, it's mostly about how hard you try in the initial forging.
If upgrading is a real option, you can go with a decent, but not quite there yet, roll. If not, you just try until you get it right and be done with it. That way you only waste some time and reagents.




Yeah, you also posted that back when we were still creating the new characters.

I also totally need to buy an Enchanting shop. Then I can also start harvesting and refining some reagents here and there.




That is what I was wondering about. With the Artificing roll being so random, there is literally no guarantee what you get then, unless it has been created, already.

I guess, NPCs just do not have to roll for those tests.

Bye
Thanee

In the places where SR5 rules have gaps, I always like to look at the outcome that seems to make sense in the game world (at least as I see it).

1- Foci have a linear cost by force, but also a linear availability. The result is that lower force foci between super-available and about as available as high-end small-arms. But high force foci are up there with extremely high end 'ware or powerful military grade gear (or even beyond in some cases).
2- Foci show up on NPC at times, in various adventures. (Probably not as much as they should do) I haven't gone looking through books to refresh my memory, but I think I remember seeing a force 5 once, and a number of force 3s. To me that lines up pretty well with the availability numbers (other than being an order of magnitude less common than they should be, for how useful they are)

So to me it is clear that the rules should not make it straightforward to craft arbitrarily large foci if only you have enough patience and reagents. (I also feel like when they wrote about how many reagents many things took, those writers didn't know that reagents would be so cheap or readily available, but that is a different matter)

How to make it feasible to craft some large foci, but not make it so that every mage with decent money/position is walking around with a force ten power foci is the challenge.

(I love magical characters, but let's face it they are already potentially incredibly capable -- they really don't need the ability to get arbitrarily large foci even for the cost of investing in enchanting)

High Force foci are definitely hard to get, either through Enchanting or when you are shopping for one.

Availability 30 or 40 (for Force 10; the 40 is for Power/Weapon Foci) is not something you just beat. You might get lucky at some point, since there are dice involved, but that's pretty much it.

With Artificing, you would need a dice pool of 33 (Artificing + Magic; no Edge) to create one (assuming all natural Telesma) with an average roll.
With a normal dice pool (below 20), you will need many tries, but it is possible to roll that well. The cost in reagents per try isn't crazy, but it surely adds up. And it also takes time.

Bye
Thanee

I think we'll tie ourselves in knots trying to make the mechanics work.

I would take a step back and consider the narrative possibilities. We've been running a player-friendly, high-powered game for a while and we haven't really broken anything. As long as we don't push things to abuse, or to illogical extremes, the game still functions.

To me, this seems like a ripe source of storytelling material. I'd rather use it in service of the story rather than lose the narrative possibilities in dice rolling.

At this point, we have quite a few contacts that could help. Urubia is one, or the Mayor's "friend", plus Melpomene, Tony Finnigan, Chan Wu, Xavier Tien III, or Green Toes (heh). Instead of treating this as a minigame or a subsystem, I think it's an opportunity to dive deeper into some of the relationships we've formed. I suppose it's a way of returning to our roots as an In Debt game, just this time the debts aren't monetary: they are the consequences of our connections to the game world.

Unrelated to the foci discussion, I'm going to tack on a 'later that day' post just to interact with one of Tamarind's contacts who I haven't really used yet. Shouldn't stop anyone else from continuing the discussion with Andrew. (also going to spend some nuyen and a couple of karma completely frivolously).

I don't think there is much here in terms of disagreement on how things work mechanically.

The only real question is what I posted above about Upgrading Foci, since that part is just very vague.

I'm totally fine with saying that option, effectively, does not exist (aka, you completely reset the Force of the focus in the process).

Bye
Thanee

On the topic of Alchemy, just a completely different direction...

In one post early during the interlude, Tamarind thought about how SIS might need new streams of revenue, with the Hacker Club payments now being officially over.

One thing that came to mind, even though it is a bit beyond the investigative nature, would be offering magical services, like selling Alchemical Preparations.

Would that makes sense?

Bye
Thanee

P.S. And on the topic of stupid rules... there are a bunch of Alchemical Compounds (the Advanced Alchemy stuff), that you can buy, but that are utterly useless, since they have Command Trigger, which only the creator can trigger within line of sight.

I think we need to be mindful of things that change the nature of the game.

We started off as a detective agency. If we start a side hustle of magical preparations, are we comfortable with the implications of that? What if the side hustle starts to out-earn the primary hustle? What complications will arise from that? That might be part of the continued evolution of the game, but let's make that decision collectively. I suppose it comes down to, "What kind of stories do we want to tell?"