KK speaking - this will be my doppleganger for the WttS forum.

This is the designated OOC thread for Last Laugh.

All right guys, here's the deal. You have a week to get me your character, or else I'm going to assume that you've dropped out unless you tell me otherwise. Send them to kacklingkactuar(at)gmail(dot)com. Here's a recap of the guidelines:


No NSRCG print-outs for your character sheets. As much as I love NSRCG, it just isn't easy on the eyes. I prefer MSWord format, but will accept anything else as long as it looks clean.

One thing to keep in mind when writing your background is that this game will start off only a little above street level, so make a character that fits.

You guys will start the game as a team. This is important. You've all worked together in the past, you're all good friends, you've all got each other's backs. You should use this thread to coordinate the character building process (i.e. what skills the team needs, who should cover what, etc). You should also share backstories, though of course you don't have to, and shouldn't, reveal anything that your character wouldn't.

Your team is one of the many that work for a dwarf named Jonathan Korbin. He's the man who brought you all together, so incorporate your ties with him into your background. When you're working out how to go about doing this, keep in mind that he only employs people that he knows personally and likes. To make the job easier for you, here's a short description of him:


And here's a brief history:


Lastly, everyone gets a free rating 6 fake SIN. As far as the IRS knows, you all work on the day-shift security team for Centra Corporation, which, incidentally, happens to be one of Korbin's multitude of phony companies that don't really exist.

woo hoo !! I made it

Well, to summarize my character, Winchy is a very large troll with a very good heart and a tough life of rejections behind him.

Ok, as per team building. We should definitively start simply by stating what our character will be good at. That way we'll easily see if there's something missing or if we have too many characters good at the same kind of stuff. I'll wait to see what others have before starting putting numbers down; I'm flexible on my character's abilities since he could have trained in various areas... (limited by his low intelligence though),

His abilities are what you can expect from a 'fighting-oriented' troll:
- specializes in combat (close and ranged) and use of many different weapons
- cybored for fighting (so good starting money .. )
- I plan on giving him some wired or boosted reflexes amongst other things.
- Good in Athletics (maybe a good bit of Stealth too)

Caitlin Snow is a hermetic sorceress, and DocWagon HTR burnout. She is a healer, but more of a combat-oriented one.

Her spells are mostly healing and offense (stunning spells). Skill-wise, she has mundane skills to complement her magical healing (First Aid, Medicine), and good social/tactical skills - things like psychology, leadership, HTR tactics, negotiation, etc.

She is very green as a runner, but the others could have met her earlier - either in her former vocation as a DocWagon employee, or at one of the group's hangouts (bar, nighclub, etc.). One of them might have even suggested 'running to her, when her career was beginning to fall apart. And she would have been on at least a few runs with the group by now.


@KK: Is Corbin one of our two starting contacts, or a "freebie"?

Warden is a large, well muscled human. Just about anyone who knows him as a friend knows he was a fire fighter in the past, just about anyone who cares to dig will know just why he left. He doesn't talk about it, or his past, much himself.

Skills are the hallmark of my mundanes, which is what this guy is, totally, no cyber. His specialties are going to lie with:

- Axes (Natch)
- Some firearms, though not heavily
- Demolitions (Likely improvised)
- Arson (Aye, he's using his past to his advantage now)
- Athletics, and such are also going to factor, plus he'll likely be able to handle a truck...

He'll also have a good deal of gear, since being mundane and human allows for some nice free points for resources.

Edit: Just noticed there's two former civic employees in the team, which is interesting. Might be there's only one person the old fire Captain talks about his past at all with... though it'd be pre-badness past...

The other interesting thing I noticed, reading Tanka's character, is that both sorcerers have strong face and leader-type skills. They have very different orientations, though. Tanka's character is a streetwise survivor, almost the opposite of Caitlin, who is very new to the shadows.

A thought just occurred to me, in line with something you mentioned earlier Glyph... it would stand to reason a firefighter and a medic would have met at least once, even if in passing.

Rand is the utility Sorcery Adept (Mage). He knows spells like Light, Create Food, Makeover and other such spells that are handy on the fly. He knows maybe one or two combat spells, but they are mainly as a "last resort" use.

His Face-type aspects include Leadership and Negotiation, as a result of his time leading a small but well-to-do gang from the Barrens. He left them just before joining the shadows and still maintains a small amount of contact with them on the side.

(Anybody who recognizes the character name gets 5 cool points from me. )

scoundrel: Do you allow purchasing of Spell Points with Build Points or are you sticking to 1 Spell Point/25,000 nuyen?

Slacker is about 1.91m tall. He doesn't seem to have much natural bulk, but he does seem to have a lot of 'ware (still haven't decided how much of it will be obvious). He doesn't talk about his past much, if at all, but after a few runs you can tell that he didn't grow up on the streets. He also seems well educated. He seems to have problems with his family and may have even muttered something about his brother being evil incarnate.

He claims to be a pacifist and even uses non-lethal ammo, but you have also heard him make some pretty ruthless comments.

Another oddity is always talking about how he wants to save up enough money that he never has to work again, but after virtually every run he seems to go out and spend his share on new 'ware or gadgets. So, you can't imagine that he is saving much of anything.

He spends alot of his down time playing games on the Matrix. In fact, when everybody else is doing their own legwork he goes back to his place and logs into the Matrix. Sure, he claims that is where he meets his contacts, but has he ever actually come up with any information others hadn't already mentioned? Not that you can recall.

[edit] He is in no way a decker, he just plays games on the Matrix. That and word processing is about all he knows how to do with his computer.

Glyph - Korbin is a free level two contact.

tanka - I'm going to go with the books on this one and say that you can only make a nuyen-spell point exchange, at the listed rate of 25k to 1.

Just outta curiosity, is there anyone in the group who has read or played either Harlequin or Harlequin's Back?

I've read both.

Anybody who hasn't read/played them, don't read the spoiler!

Haven't read any of this... I don't even know what the campaign is about.

I just considered something odd... a Vengeful pacafist... I know it's not so original, but a guy who spent most of his life saving people, then went on a warpath, is bound to have a twisted little brain...

I haven't read or played either of the Harlequin modules, although I have heard about them.

Tanka: The only Rand that I can think of is Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged, and proponent of the philosophy of objectivism.


Caitlin could have first met Warden at a fire/accident. She might have met one or more of the others before she became a 'runner, too. I mean, DocWagon probably meets runners on a fairly regular basis, either "Damn, I hope DocWagon gets here soon!" or "Damn, we gotta geek this guy before DocWagon gets here to pick him up!"

Rand al'Thor, if my spelling's correct. Robert Jordan's painfully long (I mean I stading them in '91, and I don't think he's finished yet) Messiah figure for the Wheel of Time.

I've got a bit of work to do with Warden, and a shift in the morn, so I'll be finishing him tommorrow hopefully, if in rough.

DH and Slacker: Bingo. I have to say the end of Book 9 was the best written chapter of any book I've ever read. Then Book 10 came out. Ugh.

Ok, I worked on Winchy quite a bit.

He's going to be heavily specialized in combat. And heavily equipped for it. Lots of ware, and almost only for use in fighting situations.

I also worked on his personality.

He's a very loyal friend with deep wounds on the inside. He doesn't take insults lightly neither to himself or his friends. He still fights to defend Metahuman Right and does not tolerate racism of any kind - especially not against him. He is the kind of guy that's easy to trust when you know him well cause he will always make you feel important. He cares for his friends' life like his own and would probably die to save any of you.

On runs, he's very professional and at the same time seems to enjoy what he's doing. Not that he likes killing ... he just likes fighting . You'll never hear him talk during meets. That's because he doesn't like to show it when he doesn't understand something and because he knows that others are more skilled them him in metahuman interactions.

gobogen: I still need 20 questions from you. I realize that a lot of them have already been indirectly answered through your background info, but just humor me.

Everything else looks good to go.

A dog bite on my hand is slowing down my typing, but I should still have Caitlin in by the deadline. But I want to post this part up here. This is the first draft of how she met the other runners, so I want the rest of you to look it over. Let me know if any parts contradict your own backgrounds, or how you envision your characters' personalities. That way, I can make any changes before I submit the final character. Thanks.


Warden:
Caitlin initially met Warden at an out-of-control tenement fire. She was favorably impressed with his competence. He gained a similar good impression of her, as she talked down a strung-out squatter with a street sweeper who was impeding the rescue efforts, and levitated a toddler down from a balcony. He was far from impressed by the rest of the DocWagon crew, however, who seemed more like callous mercenaries than medical personnel. He couln't believe it when Caitlin actually had to JUSTIFY saving the toddler. As runners, she and Warden trust each other, and can discuss things from their former vocations that they don't share with others.

Winchy:
She was on the DocWagon squad that picked him up once, when he was on the wrong end of a shotgun blast. They have been on a few minor runs together, and both like to patronize the Arena, a laid-back sports bar. Actually, it was while she was at the Arena, uncharacteristically subdued, trying to figure out what to do next (after her career at DocWagon derailed), that Winchy suggested that she would make a good 'runner. They often make trivial bar bets on various sporting events - to her perpetual annoyance, Caitlin usually loses.

Rand:
She originally met him when her squad went into the Redmond Barrens to extract a client. Her squad leader apparently made a deal with Rand, of some kind of contraband, in exchange for Rand's gang guiding them around the worst areas of the Barrens, to retrieve their client. Later, she got to know him near the beginning of her 'running career. They were the magical backup for the not-too-bright muscle-boys guarding some crates by the docks. The muscle were not exactly scintillating conversationalists, so she and Rand had lengthy talks about magical theory, applied tactics, and other subjects. They get along quite well (for two natural leaders), deferring to each other's areas of expertise with surprisingly few clashes of egos.

Slacker:
She met him casually when he was getting some 'ware from Dr. Prentiss (before the "misunderstanding" that led him to becoming a street doc). She has been on a few runs with him, and has run into him at a few places such as the Arena, Matchstick's, and Tam's Under the Needle. She thinks he needs to be more serious, and he thinks she needs to lighten up, but both of them know better than to try to "change" the other. They will occasionally take a little dig at the other, but with no serious malice behind it. She WAS irritated when he coined the moniker "Ice Queen" for her - and it wound up becoming her street name. She retaliated by coming up with "Slacker" for him, but while the name stuck, her revenge fizzled when he didn't seem to mind it.

This looks very good and fits nicely with my background. No problem there. Thanks for coming up with that, this kind of stuff will bring the team together much more easily.

One day left, and I only have characters from Slacker and gobogen. The rest of you suck.

Hey, I got kidnapped for the weekend. I have an excuse!

Sure thing.

Is there anything you think I should change with my character?

gobogen: From what I can tell, you're all set.

Note to all: if something in your backstory comes up in game and that part is vaguely written, I'll see that as a license to take liberties with it. That means that if some part of your past is absolutely crucial to your vision of your character, use details. A good rule of thumb to remember is that everything you write is (usually) set in stone, and everything else is subject to GM meddling.

Ugh. I hate to say it, but I may have to drop. I just cannot, for the life of me, come up with a good backstory or way to finish off the sheet. My brain just seems to be content with being off at the moment, and there's barely a thing I can do about it.

Sorry, I thought I may be able to come up with something at the "last minute," but it turns out I just can't.

'S okay. Everyone's headgear goes on strike sometimes.

I'll be out of town for an economics competition on Thursday and Friday, so the game probably won't start until Saturday morning. So technically, you still have four more days, if that'll help any.

It will. Caitlin is coming along steadily, and should be done by the revised deadline. I pretty much had a solid concept of what I wanted for her, so it's just filling in the details now.

I'm just doing detail work myself... seems dumpshock's gone inane for me... which is ok, because my computer's decided half the time it doesn't know what the intarweb is, and keeps disconnecting itself...

Finally got the background and questions (Bull's, I like the detail better) done for Forrest Walker, aka Warden. I'll submit soon.

Finally got Caitlin in. The background is brief, almost an overview, because I put the real detail into the 20 questions.

I'm back!

Glyph, Caitlin looks set. I still need a character from DH - I'll get the ball rolling as soon as I get it.

While we're waiting, what type of game do you guys want? Horror, fantasy, mystery, combat-heavy, legwork-heavy, globe-hopping, cinematic, realistic, etcetera, etcetera. I'm intentionally leaving this question vague, so let me know if there's anything at all you want to see in the game.

I personnally like good balanced games in which everyone has a place to shine. It's good to leave space for RP but that is generally up to the players and not to the storyline so much.

It's always fun when there's one aspect of the game that most players are not used to see often, like some of the suggestions you made.

Since Slacker isn't one for doing the work of legwork, I would prefer not having a legwork-heavy game.

Other than that, I'm up for anything.

I'm just putting the polish on Warden (who is no longer named Gordie Brewer)... I've got to remember in the future never to get smashed the night before going to a Cher concert the night before I have to start my shifts... evil is the pain...

Warden is away... and in line with Glyph's footsteps, I present impressions Warden has of his fellow runners (always subject to evolution):

Winchy:
Despite the fact Forrest [no longer Gordon] has been accused of being anti-metahuman in the past, he's got a lot of respect for Winchy, especially the big guy's loyalty to his crew and his professionalism. At the same time he is a tad wary of how much Winchy seems to like fighting, something that could be dangerous in the future.

Rand:
Given Rand's gang-roots, Forrest was initially distrustful of him, a feeling which would likely have been mutual if Rand was witness to Forrest's old 'anti-gang' press days. But Forrest is wise enough to know that he can't bunch people in with their past alone. Rand has proven to be intelligent, and capable, two things Forrest respects. Rand's preference for smooth talk to combat also tempers this respect, and the kid has grown on him.

Slacker
While Catlin may know not to try and change Slacker, Forrest continues to be stubborn about it, attempting through goading and even the ocassional lecture to try and motivate him. Sure it probably just amuses Slacker, and in the end Forrest gets nothing but frustrated, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like him.

Caitlin
The only person Forrest met prior to his entrance to the shadows, and the only one who knows a good measure about his past. Even with her he doesn't talk about the night he lost his family, or his entrance into the shadows that followed, but he'll occassionally swap war stories of life in the service of the masses with her, which is more talk of his past than he'll give the others (although he may forget they're there from time to time when she's about).

Alrighty, it's time to get this party started. Karma has been PM'ed to everyone who deserved it. Please note that OOC karma points do not count towards karma pool. Only karma awarded after a run is considered "normal karma" for purposes of calculating karma pool.

The IC thread will be up ASAP. Please turn off your signature in your IC posts so as not to break the flow of the game. Thanks.

Ok, we should probably post in order of arrival now. If I'm correct it should be Catlin, Slacker, Winchy and whenever they post in there Rand and Warden.

I'll be waiting for my turn.

Just as a head's up, tanka actually did not end up submitting Rand, so it's just you four for this game.

*pokes DH with a cattle prod*

So, who in the group does most of the talking? Slacker isn't particularly good at it nor does he like to be the one to lead conversations.

Caitlin has pretty good social skills - she would have no problems functioning as a face.

Glyph - Caitlin's assessment of the Johnson is that he's currently in an emotionally vulnerable state, and that because of this, the price can probably be driven up above 200k without too much effort. Toss me a Negotiation roll if she wants to haggle.

Yeah, and concerning dice rolls: I'll be trusting you guys to do all your own rolls, unless you prefer not to. Well, most of them, anyway. I'll be handling rolls such as perception and initiative for convenience's sake.

Just to clear something up... am I seeing things when I read that a slick looking human in a suit is our employer, but he is introducing himself as a member of an Ork meta-activists group?

"A few seconds later, the chair in which the human man was sitting in becomes occupied by a rather handsome ork of around the same age."

DH, the man changes into an ork when he sits down. It appears that the mage had casted a spell on him to appear as human while going through the crowd.

Indeed.