Karma for my players:

Shadowrunner13: 2 pts (Jan 18th - Jan 31st)
Bastard: 2 pts (Jan 18th - Jan 31st)
Bclements: 2 pts (Jan 18th - Jan 31st)
The Eyes: 2 pts (Jan 18th - Jan 31st)
Morgannah: 2 pts (Jan 18th - Jan 31st)

SR4 Conversion status:

Shadowrunner13: sheet received and approved, ready.
Bastard: sheet in work, not ready.
Bclements: sheet received and approved, ready.
The Eyes: partial sheet received, in work, not ready.
Cosmo: sheet received and approved, ready.

*says silent, heartfelt goodbye to the Irony.com roller*

Important Announcement

OK Everyone, I realize it’s only been about a week and a half since ‘The State of the LITS-verse’, but it has been pointed out to me that there has been little in terms of concrete announcements or progress since then. Indeed, it has been about a 2-month rut with very little activity, posting, or progress on just about everyone’s part.

As we all know from high school physics, in the absence of outside intervention, objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest stay at rest. Well LITS has been at rest for a while now, and it’s time for outside intervention to get it moving again.

First, I would like to personally apologize to everyone, GMs and Players alike, for the practical shutdown of LITS. With Sedna’s absence, almost half of LITS was directly or indirectly affected. I kept waiting and waiting for her return, thinking to myself, ‘She’ll come back, her return will make a splash, and everything will be ok again’ instead of preparing to move on in case her return was delayed beyond her control.

As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened, and although she will be returning eventually, there is no set timetable. She has a lot to deal with and as we all know, real life rarely goes according to plan.

As Universe Coordinator, it was and is my responsibility to decide when to press onward and get the ball rolling again when things get bogged down for any reason; because Sedna is one of the most integral parts to the LITS world, I waited longer than was healthy for the game as a whole. That was my decision to make, and it was the wrong one.

I do not think blame can be assigned in this situation. Sedna believed she would be back by now and no one could’ve known she wouldn’t be. However, the responsibility for making a mistaken judgment call as to when to move forward has to go somewhere, and that goes on me, and just me. I apologize to all of you for my error in judgment and thank you for your patience.

Therefore, over the next week and a half, the GM staff will be making the necessary adjustments to keep LITS healthy and vibrant. I have already sent a 9-page email to all the GMs earlier tonight addressing everything we need to do to get back on track and flying forward once again.

We will be reallocating players to GMs in order to get the action moving again and open up storylines that have been in stasis, as well as working towards our long delayed Recruitment Drive.

By Sunday, Feb. 19 (and hopefully much earlier than that) you will have been in touch with your new GM, and if you aren’t already posting by then, you’ll at least be in the process of working with them to get a handle on one another and be ready to move forward.

I want to thank everyone for his or her contributions to LITS over the past year and a half, we would not be here without each and every one of you. Thank you all for your patience during this slow time, and an extra thank you to all the players and GMs who’ve kept up their posting even during this drought. I’m looking forward to getting the ball rolling again to the pace we’re all used to and gaming with everyone on a regular basis once more.

If anyone still has any questions, thoughts or concerns, please PM me and I will attempt to respond as best as I can.

All the best to everyone,
WinterRat1

Important Announcement

OK Everyone, I promised that the GM staff would move fast, but they've managed to exceed expectations. I have the following announcements to make, as always please PM or email me if you have any questions.

1. Effective immediately, Sedna will be Temporarily Inactive as a GM and Player, until such time as she is able to sort things out in RL and rejoin us. The timetable for this is currently undefined.

2. Also effective immediately, per his request, until further notice, Shadow will be stepping down as a Run GM and Player and joining the inactive list.

3. Bclements will be taking over A Short Victorious War as the new Run GM for that game.

4. Players have been reallocated as follows below. The current roster of Player GMs and players:

WinterRat1
-Scrapheap
-Slipshade
-The Eyes

Grendel
-Morgannah
-BClements
-WinterRat1
-BanditF50
-TiredRonin

Bandit
-Cedric
-Shadowrunner13
-Bastard

Bclements
-Grendel

Scrapheap
-Mister Juan

If you have been reassigned, please report in to your new GM immediately via PM and touch base with them. Make sure they have a copy of your character sheet, both SR 3 and SR 4, as well as any relevant background notes or details.

GMs, please begin posting for your new players as soon as you are able. As of now, the game is back on at full speed ahead, so if you're ready to post, player or GM, go for it!

5. All players whose SR 4 character sheets have already been approved by your GM (previous or new one), please send me a complete copy of your character sheet. This includes your background, timeline, 20 questions, and SR 4 character sheet. This takes the place of the character audit earlier and will go on file as your 'official' character sheet.

If you have not completed your conversion yet for whatever reason, please get in touch with your new GM ASAP and work on completing it as soon as possible.

6. New Player Recruitment will probably be up sometime next week, so we'll be getting an influx of recruits over the next month or two. Before we get swamped with all the new SR 4 characters, we'd like to make sure all the current ones are good to go, so please, GMs, get after your players and let's get this conversion wrapped up.

7. Karma will be totaled up over the next week or two. For players whose GM is now inactive or has not posted karma for a while, I will assign you karma to ensure that all records are up to date as quickly as possible. After that is done, I will email/PM everyone their total karma to date, so please be sure your individual records are up to date in the next week or two to check my accounting.

All right that covers it for now. LITS is back up and running again, so let's all get back in the swing of things and have some fun. Welcome back everyone!

Karma for my players:

Shadowrunner13: 1 pt (Feb 01st - Feb 07th)
Bastard: 1 pt (Feb 01st - Feb 07th)
Bclements: 1 pt (Feb 01st - Feb 07th)
The Eyes: 1 pt (Feb 01st - Feb 07th)
Morgannah: 1 pt (Feb 01st - Feb 07th)

OK, getting back in the groove here.

Scrap and Slip - You're free to respond.

Eyes - I'll get yours up in the next day or two.

Just to let you guys know, I'm in the middle of working on the Recruitment and updated Guidelines with BC, so if I'm a bit touch and go for the next week or two, that's why. I'll try to have a reply to you guys up at least once every couple days, at least until the Recruitment and Guidelines stuff is done.

Look for me to become more consistent after that. And oh yeah, tax season is in full go right now, so if I don't reply for a few days, that's why. But rest assured I'm back and getting back in the swing of things.

Oh, and I'll get to karma catch-up eventually (so don't worry, you won't get cheated! ), but given how none of you has time to spend it at the moment, that's pretty low on my priority list right now.

WR1,

Are we using 3rd or 4th edition rules for Max right now. I just need to know which OOC to post in.

Thanks,

Slip

Slip and Scrap - We are using 4th edition rules for Max and John, so post all game-related stuff in the 4th edition OOC thread. I will still be using this OOC thread for announcements and general stuff until the conversion is complete for all current characters and we shut this one down.

EDIT: Good question Slip.

EDIT 2: Slip – To save me time looking, would you mind telling me what the material links you gathered for Nora and Keira were?

Hair samples for both, plus a couple of personal items that were important to them, though I don't off hand remember what those were. Keira had a dress that was her favorite that Max grabbed. Scrap would know more about what he had for Nora. I know he grabbered her hair brush, so Max has some hair samples for her as well.

WR/Slip- I don't remember, but I'll find it and get back to you.

Edit: It looks like a favorite shirt, and some "other small items" that I didn't identify at the time. If I remember correctly, Max had suggested a hair brush and similar items, as well as things with an emotional connection.

Karma for my players:

Shadowrunner13: 1 pt (Feb 08th - Feb 14th)
Bastard: 1 pt (Feb 08th - Feb 14th)
Bclements: 1 pt (Feb 08th - Feb 14th)
The Eyes: 1 pt (Feb 08th - Feb 14th)
Morgannah: 1 pt (Feb 08th - Feb 14th)

Hey Bandit, look, KARMA!! (hint, hint)

Update:

Slip - Thought I posted this somewhere but I checked and realized I did not. Would you please post a description of your ritual magic area and its setup? It doesn't have to be elaborate or detailed, just enough to give me a picture of what it looks like so Silverbird can act appropriately. Thanks!

Scrap - Waiting on a reply from the guest poster running the South American guy.

Eyes - Haven't forgotten you, I'll get to you sometime this weekend. I admit as well, part of it is because now I'm the one having a hard time coming up with a response!

Dragon - See ASVW

Everyone - Recruitment thread and Guidelines for SR 4 are coming along well, it looks like we'll be able to have them up early next week *crosses fingers*. If not then definitely late next week/beginning of week after. So us GMs are working over here, just fyi!

Greetings Scapheap! I will be the mysterious guest-poster playing the witty Samwell. I look forward to getting a chance to roleplay with you. . . as well as bring back an NPC who has made colorful appearences in many tabletop games that I have participated in

What languagaes do both Blaze and Scapheap speak? Samwell commonly shifts between one or more different languagues spoken throughout South America, with the right skill you might be able to glean some information about his background.

Glad to be a part of this

Bandit-
Don't know about Blaze, but Scrapheap speaks Japanese and Spanish.

-S

EDIT: And where are my manners? Welcome!

WR1 - I will try to post something IC about it today. I have the original description in a post somewhere, I just need to find it.

Blaze speaks only English and Japanese.

WR1 - Description posted.

All games related to me - It's been a busy week (as always during tax season). I will reply to everyone either tonight or tomorrow, with sunday at the absolute latest. Right now I see the following waiting on me or in need of a post:

-Scrapheap and Bandit
-Slipshade
-Eyes
-ASVW (are you waiting on me BC or are we waiting on you?) Either way, it looks like I could post, so I will endeavor to do so.

If I missed you or you're waiting for something else from me other than a post right now, let me know and I'll add you to the list. Thanks!

OK, we have a problem here Slip. I went through the magic chapter several times, and they don't have rules for ritual tracking using magical links! I'm a bit at a loss here, because the range for the detection spell Detect Individual is crap.

And unlike in SR 3, the range for detection spells is not increased through the use of ritual sorcery, at least in the SR 4 main rulebook. And yeah, that's stupid, but without that extended range (which was X100 I believe), take my word for it, Force X Magic X 10 isn't getting you anywhere.

The only possibility I see is IF Detect Individual can be cast on a astral form, and then that form could zip around looking for the person. And I don't even know if that's legal.

Grendel, is that a legitimate possiblity? If it is, we may be able to run with it. If not, I'll try to cobble together an equivalent rule system using ritual tracking with material links for now.

In the meantime, Slip, feel free to respond to the fact that Max doesn't know the spell that Silverbird expected him to know and thought they were using.

That catches me up with all my owed posts, everyone feel free to fire away. Let me know OOC if you have any questions and we'll go from there.

Scapheap: Samwell's ealier speech, and his accent, sound Spanish to you. However it doesn't seem like a dialect of Spanish because you cannot directly translate any of the words that he spoke. You can definitely tell that the language is related to Spanish though.

If a watcher or spirit couldn't find the target, ritual tracking probably won't be able to either. Probably the only benefit would be that the ritual tracker would be able to tell them what kind of magical barrier the target is hiding behind.

WR1 - Remember we were in SR3 when this all started, so I was just going by the ritual tracking rules from 3rd edition. I don't know about SR4 though.

As I recall if you had a link in SR3 it lowered the difficulty some...but I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.

WR1 and Grendel - Yes I tried with a spirit and got nothing, but at least with a ritual tracking I can find out where the trail was lost and what kind of barrier I am dealing with.

Well in SR3 it could have been a domain boundry issue as well, but of course domains no longer exist in SR4 so now the only things that keeps a spirit from finding someone is a barrier. Of course even *that* is only a deterrent if you actually limit the number of times a spirit can retry an Extended Test, as suggested in the SR4 book. This unfortunately makes it so watchers couldn't find their way out of a paper bag, seeing as they have two dice and no Edge to earn five successes on the search test.

In SR3 a ritual link made it possible to ritually track someone; you needed the Symbolic Linking metamagic to get by without one. Other complications arose from the fact that ou needed at least two mages to track someone: (at least) one person to perform the ritual itself and one spotter. You could use a spirit as a spotter, but you run into domain issues again. A great form spirit could be used as the spotter in this case, though that again requires a metamagic.

At least that's how I understood it. Is any of that wrong?

WR1: I think Samwell and Scrapheap are waiting for Max to respond in the IC.

My players- Just an FYI, tax season is even busier this year than last year. Tuesday and Wednesday I didn't leave work until 1 and 2am, respectively. I am always watching the boards, and will be able to post for sure on weekends (when I'm getting most of my DS related stuff done) , but during the week my ability to post is limited. If you think I might have missed/forgotten you, please drop me a reminder like bandit did. It helps.

I will post a reply for Samwell/Scrapheap and Max ASAP this weekend. I believe Eyes has not responded yet (unless I missed you somewhere Eyes, let me know) and ASVW is not in need of a post from me at this time. Correct me if any of my assessments are mistaken, please. Thanks.

WR1-
I didn't expect anything until the weekend, if then. I remember how busy you were last year!

-S

Same here WR1. I wasn't trying to be pushy, I just know that you like to be provided with reminders . . . .so do I.

No worries guys, I really appreciate the reminders, that's why I always ask for them.

Besides keeping me on the ball, it lets me know you guys are enthusiastic about the game (otherwise you wouldn't remind me), which in turn helps make me more enthusiastic, etc etc etc. So they serve lots of helpful purposes. So keep them coming!

Scrapheap and Bandit: Go ahead and post. BTW, both of you have errors in your timestamps. It should be 22 hours, not 25, since the clock only goes up to 24.

Slip: You're up.

All: Think that covers me for now?

Great! I will get a post up in the next day or so.

Karma for my players:

Shadowrunner13: 2 pts (Feb 15th - Feb 28th)
Bastard: 2 pts (Feb 15th - Feb 28th)
Bclements: 4 pts [2 + 2 GM] (Feb 15th - Feb 28th)
The Eyes: 2 pts (Feb 15th - Feb 28th)
Morgannah: 2 pts (Feb 15th - Feb 28th)

All my people - Friendly reminder that weekends are the only time you can really count on me to post for sure, so if you want a guaranteed reply, have a post up for me to reply to by Friday afternoon. Obviously no pressure, since I'm the really busy one, but just thought I'd toss a reminder out there so you can definitely get a reply from me if you want one.

Slipshade - OK I admit I'm piecing this procedure together from SR 3 and bootlegging it as I go along. That's my public disclaimer. That said, give me an Intuition + Ritual Sorcery Roll. Since we're now using SR 4 rules, continue this in the SR 4 OOC thread.

General Announcement

The revised SR 4 Guidelines and Recruitment Announcement are in the final review stages and we will be opening up Recruitment again shortly.

All current players, please send me your completed SR 4 conversions ASAP. I currently only have Slipshade, Grendel, Mister Juan, and Scrapheap's completed conversion sheets.

Once the Recruitment is complete, we will be moving entirely to SR 4 rules, so if you aren't done yet with your conversion, or at least are not to a functionally playable character, please get there as soon as you can. Thanks!

Karma for my players:

Shadowrunner13: 1 pt (Mar 1st - Mar 7th)
Bastard: 1 pt (Mar 1st - Mar 7th)
Bclements: 2 pts [1 + 1 GM] (Mar 1st - Mar 7th)
The Eyes: 1 pt (Mar 1st - Mar 7th)
Morgannah: 1 pt (Mar 1st - Mar 7th)

double post

General Announcement

I hope I'm not taking too much liberty by posting this, but as some of you might already know, I've picked up the post compiling from Sedna. I've got a little site up here. It isn't much, as I just started about 2 days ago. I'm mostly concentrating on getting the post in the right order... formatting them will come later.

Anyways, just thought I should share it with you guys
If you have suggestions, or things you'd like me to put up on the site, tell me.

New Recruitment post is up, nearly all of the links have been fixed/updated (let me know if you find any that are not), Guidelines have been updated to reflect SR 4 character creation. Just wanted you all to know your Universe Coordinator has been a busy beaver and not slacking off during tax season!

Whew...and the long awaited and delayed recruitment drive is finally underway...

Bandit- Waiting on you to post.

Slip - I'll try and have something for you tonight or tomorrow.

Now that the Guidelines and Recruitment post are up to speed and the links are up to date, I can focuson more direct matters at hand. Thank goodness.

Karma awards for my players:

Morgannah: 2 pts (Mar 8th - Mar 21st)
BClements: 4 pts (Mar 8th - Mar 21st) [GM Bonus]
WinterRat1: 12 pts (Feb 8th - Mar 21st) [GM Bonus]
BanditF50: 6 pts (Feb 8th - Mar 21st)
TiredRonin: 6 pts (Feb 8th - Mar 21st)
Shadowrunner13: 2 pts (Mar 8th - Mar 21st)
The Eyes: 2 pts (Mar 8th - Mar 21st)