We'll use this for the prelude and the upcoming interlude.

Here’s what we currently know about our Touristville: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...is/touristville

Here is Redmond lifestyle for SIS HQ, plus some of our shared assets: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...ervices-redmond

This is the new lifestyle for Bellevue: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...rvices-bellevue

Chapter 1: Sunday, September 18, 2078
Chapter 2: Monday, September 26, 2078
First Interlude: Saturday, October 1, 2078
Chapter 3: Monday, October 10, 2078
Second Interlude: Sunday, October 16, 2078
Chapter 4: Sunday, November 6, 2078
Third Interlude: Wednesday, November 23, 2078
Chapter 5: Thursday, November 24, 2078
Fourth Interlude: Sunday, November 27, 2078
Chapter 6: Thursday, December 22, 2078
Fifth Interlude: Sunday, January 1, 2079
Chapter 7: Friday, January 20, 2079
Sixth Interlude: Wednesday, February 1, 2079
Chapter 8: Sunday, February 5, 2079
Seventh Interlude: Wednesday, February 8, 2079
Eighth Interlude: Tuesday, February 14, 2079
Chapter 9: Thursday, March 2, 2079
Ninth Interlude: Saturday, March 11, 2079
Chapter 10: Monday, March 20, 2079
Tenth Interlude - San Angelo: Tuesday, March 21, 2079
Tenth Interlude - Seattle: Friday, March 31, 2079
Chapter 11: Saturday, April 8, 2079
Eleventh Interlude: Saturday, April 15, 2079
Chapter 12: Monday, May 15, 2079 to Friday, May 19, 2079

Ugh, Thanee, I messed up

Would you please rename this topic and make it the Twelfth Interlude instead of the Eleventh?

Please, and thank you!

I was wondering, already, when I saw the topic...

I think, you can actually change that, too, when you full edit your first post.

Bye
Thanee

I had some post write but I decided to put it at the main thread rather than the prelude because I wanted to write about the reunion with Trouble.

Got sick. I'll try to get the Interlude started tomorrow.

Raven will do some Summoning and Binding, while there is time. You never know when you need some backup.

Spirit of Man F8+1 (Limit 10|15 (Summoning|Binding) with Reagents)
Summoning 9 hits +1 (Shaman Tuxedo) vs. Spirit's Resistance 2 hits - Drain Resistance vs. 4S (buy 4 hits)
Binding 6 hits + Edge 7 hits vs. Spirit's Resistance 5 hits - Drain Resistance vs. 10S 8 hits (2S Drain; rest off)

Guidance Spirit F8+1 (Limit 10|15 (Summoning|Binding) with Reagents)
Summoning 3 hits vs. Spirit's Resistance 4 hits - Drain Resistance vs. 8S 12 hits
Summoning 4 hits vs. Spirit's Resistance 4 hits - Drain Resistance vs. 8S 9 hits
Okay, last try...
Summoning 10 hits vs. Spirit's Resistance 4 hits - Drain Resistance vs. 8S 7 hits hits (1S Drain; rest off)
Binding 8 hits + Edge 6 hits vs. Spirit's Resistance 5 hits - Drain Resistance vs. 10S 8 hits (2S Drain; rest off)

Bye
Thanee

Sorry, I actually meant to add that Rachel is masking her spell and focus to my last post. Must have gotten distracted, when I wanted to edit it in.

Masking Roll: 3 hits only, though.

Bye
Thanee

Security also gets 3 hits. The masking rules require the observer to generate net hits. In this case it's a tie, so no net hits, so Raven remains masked, so the IC comments are directed toward AM.

She doesn't seem as concerned about Bobby, unless Bobby is sustaining a spell I don't know about.

Bobby doesn't have any active spells, but habitually masks as a mundane

Masking: 13d6t5 4

And just for security, he has made himself forget his lawbreaking actions of the last year for the next two hours

Well I was working on a good post but the site ate it. That's almost happened twice in the last week, so it looks like the third time finally tripped me. I need to be better about copy-and-pasting into something offline at regular intervals.

I don't have the time to rewrite it now. Hopefully by the morning my annoyance will have passed and I can knock it out.

I feel you...

google docs works for me.

That is really annoying.



Just hitting CTRL+A and CTRL+C here and there will keep it in the Windows clipboard also. Unless your computer fully crashes, that should also work as a temporary save.

Another option is to put "Work in progress" at the top and spoiler-tags around everything else, and just post partial and re-edit a few times.

Or write long posts outside in Editor or something, and copy it over here to post.

Bye
Thanee

At times just hitting the back button can bring you back to your written input also

This is what I do and most of the time it works for me. It's what saved the two posts from earlier this week. But for some reason it didn't work for me yesterday.

I was writing the post and I hit Enter twice to move down a couple lines. Pretty normal thing to do. In this instance, the site - or my browser - took that as instructions to skip forward a couple pages. By the time I got back, my post was gone. (I went to the History section of my browser to open up all the previous page views on the site, but that didn't work either. They were blank when they reloaded.) Now why would hitting Enter cause that while I'm in the middle of writing a post? I can speculate but I don't know.

Maybe it's habit but I like composing the text on the site rather than offline. It's probably because I like adding color and formatting as I go. If I write the post out and try to add the formatting all at the end, I almost always miss something. And it's one of those things I'd rather do on the fly than all-at-once at the end.

In the past I've been good about using Ctrl-A and Ctrl-C to save works-in-progress to the in the clipboard area. I didn't do it yesterday though, and now I'm paying for it. It was a shame; it was only 80% done but it was a pretty good post. I'll see if I can recreate it.

(Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Add Reply)

The focus wasn't on the text area then.

You can see that, if you pay attention. The text cursor is blinking and the text area is highlighted subtly with a narrow border, if the focus is there.

But it's easy to miss that, if your mind is elsewhere.



If you use the buttons for formatting, I get that.

I just type out all the formatting code, so it wouldn't make a difference for me.

Bye
Thanee

You type out the color codes too? Wow.


That is my theory as well. But I was actively writing at the time, so why would the text editing area suddenly not be active? My only theory is that the trackpad on the laptop was brushed ever-so-slightly and selected something outside of the text editing area. The timing must have been just so that it happened between the previous keystroke and hitting the Enter key. Seems unlikely but that's all I've got.

Separately, I did the Ctrl-C thing while writing the replacement post and it was a good idea I did because the first three times I tried to post, the site returned an error.

You can also use words for the colors.

Bye
Thanee

Red

Well what do you know. I've been on this site 13.5 years and never knew that.

This is from a year and a half ago, so it may not be top-of-mind, but here is the assensing you did during Chapter 11. (Of course, it's up to you whether you would assense in this situation or not.)


Anyone assensing during the current encounter would see the same things.

Rachel is not currently active on the astral.

Bye
Thanee

That's certainly fine, but she was during Chapter 11. Just a reminder of what she saw.

Thank you!

Bye
Thanee

Latest twist on accessing Dumpshock for me is that if I try and go directly to the forums (forums.dumpshock.com) I get an error message, but if I just go to the main page (dumpshock.com) and then follow the link to the forums it works. So my apologies, I thought we were down again. I'm catching up on the reading now, and I still owe an prelude story.

Preludes are optional if you're feeling too far behind.

Speaking of sites being down, has anyone been able to go to the official forums for the past week or two? When I try to go, I get a generic message that, "The domain has expired." The place was a ghost town, but I hate to see it go out with a whimper like that.

The shadowruntabletop one? Yeah, I noticed that, too. Couldn't reach it for some time now.

Bye
Thanee

They couldn't recover at that address, but the whole forums, with full history, have moved to jackpoint.live (was mentioned on the catalyst discord channel). Your old ID should work, but not all would (I can pass your names to Fastjack on the discord if needed). And I find it is still flakey.

still a mess, but not completely dead.

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

My prelude story might have been a bit of a bigger job than intended for a prelude, but it is what I'd come up with (loosely based on actual happenings).

Tamarind takes the 'cheating' specialization on her gambling knowledge skill. (she does more research after)

jackpoint.live! There it is; I'm glad I asked.

The conversation with the Mayor can go on, or we can wrap it up and proceed to the next meeting you'll have.

I am good with wrapping up. Unless Beta wants to chip in again.

Tamarind has said her bit now.

Hey, it's the same day IRL as IC! Just 54 years in the future.

Still waiting on that sleep regulator.

Now we can pay for lifestyle in real life and in shadowrun in the same day

Mato is not present, primarily for OOC reasons. To wit, I hate RPing with myself.

Of course. I wasn't thinking when I chose a name more or less randomly.

@Beta
Does Seraphina have any 'ware? I scanned through about 50 posts of Chapter 7 but nothing jumped out at me.

I drafted a tentative list - and she might have more than when we last saw her - but I wanted to see if there was anything in your head canon.

I didn't have a list nor did I really think of her as having substantial ware. .

It is one of those areas where the fluff/lore doesn't guide much. How common is 'ware in minors (although she is possibly 18 now). Do adolescents get mental bioware to boost stats and memory, or even sleep regulators? Or let them develop more naturally then enhance at a somewhat older age? I tended to lean towards not enhancing too young, but I'm not wedded to that approach

Of course things could have changed over several months. A data jack as an 18th birthday present would please someone who wants to be a hacker. (Data jack+?).

Personally, I subscribe to the corporate dystopian view of 'ware, namely I think it would be extensive and universal above a certain socioeconomic level.

And not just entry-level items like datajacks and math SPUs, but also bigger ticket items. Things like mnemonic enhancers and cerebral boosters are certainly expensive, but the return on investment would be spectacular. Take someone of average intelligence and turn them into a genius for under ¥100K? Less than a Eurocar Westwind, or a single year of tuition at an elite university? I think it would be practically required. Even if the Mother Corp doesn't mandate it, it would be necessary simply to remain competitive with other climbing corpers, or competitors in the marketplace.

Then that mindset would trickle down from parents to kids. Mummy and Daddy want every advantage for their little budding corpers, developmental risks be damned. Who knows, maybe there's a market for quickened Improve Attribute spells, which could be marketed as a more organic approach...

Anyway, we'll give her some 'ware but we won't go crazy with it (yet).

My impression of her is certainly someone who would not hesitate much to take measures to gain an advantages. But who is maybe susceptible to manipulation about what is most advantageous?" (Note that she is not my OC, she was one of the briefly sketched in NPCs in a 4e fan-written adventure that I ran roughly as written, to the degree that was possible).

ETA: I just went back and looked, and it really does not give a lot of info:
Seraphina Levine
Roll Charisma + Etiquette (Teen), or Logic +Knowledge (Bellevue Teen Scene).
Matrix / Skill / Result
0 /0 /"Is that some kind of porn star?"
2 /1 /She's a student at a Bellevue private
school.
4 /2 /She's a promising young computer
programmer.
8 /3 /She's part of a secret hacker's club at
the school.
16 /4+ /She's got a huge crush on Brent Sihler.

She was originally written as 'the younger sister of the team's main fixer.' Since that didn't apply I moved the relationship to the common contact who seemed most likely to let a kid try to handle the situation.

I wonder if some secondary schools/programs are streamed to enhanced/ not-enhanced, marked appropriately on college admissions, etc.? Or on the flip side, would it be more like "Why would you even bother applying to Harvard without 100k in upgrades? If you can't afford the upgrades, you can't afford the school, so it is just another unofficial screening technique."

Ha, Ping Time! I read that years ago, maybe even back in the 4E days, but evidently I didn't remember it when we went through Chapter 7.

That said, the author isn't just a fan. He was on the rules committed for 5E and has a writing credit for the core rulebook. He also had writing credits on Rigger 5.0, plus 4E's WAR! He used to be active on Dumpshock but he hasn't been around in about a year.

Anyway, it's helpful to know we're not stepping on any toes by reintroducing Seraphina and updating her story in the interlude.

Absolutely no worries. (have I thought about consequences from that run showing up in a future run? Yah, but none of which involved Seraphina or the remaining payouts)

It is facinating the way you describe ware, and the pressures one might have to use it. I was thinking how does magic fit into it would they really wait with augmentations for the off chance their kids would develop some talent, or would they just write it off (like winning a lottery ticket) and do what they can to give their kids advantages when they are young. It seems like a vicious cycle, where the other kids get augmented and then you have to augment your own child to keep up.


Or perhaps as a side effects, most mages come from population that didn't (or more likely couldn't get augmentations), which means they are likely poor because the rich have suppressed their talents early on. Either that or we should see many augmented mages.

So could magic be a form of social mobility of this dystopian world? The rich might have too little of it, so they outsource and a few people get a winning lottery ticket, while the rest are trapped in an endless race for upgrades.

Fair points about not putting in 'ware until you're sure that kiddo is not Awakened, because that's the real lottery ticket.

Lore is that Awakening usually happens around puberty, so there should be time to catch it before chroming up little Sammy and Suzie. I think I read that the corps are pretty aggressive about scanning student auras, as they're constantly on the lookout for emerging Talent. That would make sense. Depending how dystopian you want to be, the corps could be doing it on the streets and abducting Awakened kids, especially SINless.

It also makes sense that different communities will have different standards. The Native American Nations, for example, might slow play 'ware in minors, maybe even banning it until the age of maturity. Who knows, maybe there's an argument to be made that the kid should finish growing first so that a natural period of development doesn't disrupt the 'ware.

Just a somewhat random thought that came out of this discussion: there must be people out there with 'ware mis-matched for their role. The person who got cerebral boosters and mnemonic enhancers to boost their academic career but just was not tempermentally suited to studying and is now working security or in a warehouse, trying to pay off that debt and maybe struggling to fit in with the people around them who are not thinking as quickly. Or the person with obvious muscle replacement for a manual job who studied hard and moved on to get a degree and take on a white collar role but still has the 'ware enhanced physique. And then there are cyberlimbs!

GMing I think I'll start throwing in occasional NPC whose 'ware doesn't line up with their current roles as much.

Interesting discussion, my 2C:

1) Probably happens somewhere - trends come and go. Someone certainly advocates to augment toddlers as others campaign that augments should - if at all - be restricted to adults.
Disabilities are likely the main factor if early age augments come into play - what qualifies as a disability is again defined by trend and what level of healthcare you receive/pay for.

2) Finished awakening screening should be the earliest point people begin augmenting their children - as you said, corpos have a vested interest to find talent, so even the most sales hungry mega corp won't push their ware too hard on children.

3) Wrong augments can be sold with relative ease: it's too high an investment to keep and not use it.

All good points.

@Beta
I'm with you on the mismatch between ware and role. I once had an exec/Johnson with a bunch of muscle augs because his hobby was bodybuilding and, hey, as an exec he could afford it. I also thought about the guys and gals who got muscle ware to get a college scholarship and/or go pro, but are now at the end of their athletic careers and thrust back into the real world.

The guy with cerebral boosters and mnemonic enhancers (which, as cultured bioware, can't be sold to recuperate the cost) working a blue collar job could lead to some Good Will Hunting hijinks.

@Jack
Agreed about the disabilities. I sometimes think about cyberlimb replacements for minors. Do you just get multiple cyberlimbs of increasing size as you go through your youth? Are there times when you have a cyberlimb that's too large (so you can grow into it) or too small (because you're overdue to replace it)? Again, probably comes down to the resources available to throw at the problem. Maybe you just get Used cyberlimbs until you finish growing and you can invest in a permanent one.

At the high end of this, there is also cloning, and likely more bioware (and genetech, etc.) than cyberware.

Anything visible in terms of cyberware might also be frowned upon, as long as it isn't just a datajack.

Bye
Thanee

True. I suppose fashion plays a role too. Cybereyes, for example, might be acceptable if you're doing something suitably artistic/fashionable with them. Same with other cosmetic cyberware, like fiberoptic hair, LED tattoos, or skin toner.

But yeah, maybe until some rung on the socioeconomic ladder you try to show off your 'ware in the name of conspicuous consumption, but after a certain point you prioritize subtlety as you turn up your nose at the nouveau riche on the rungs below you. "Money talks, wealth whispers" etc. At some point you run out of people to impress, or are surrounded by other similarly rich people who won't be impressed by flash, so you dial it back.

Sounds about right to me. Especially since less obvious usually means more expensive.

May also get some division between what young people want and what the people funding work think is appropriate.

Looks like Bobby still knows his name.

Bye
Thanee

All in my level up notes