House Rules
1) Assault Rifles are -2 at Near ranges. This is to provide a use-case for SMGs and machine pistols.
2) An individual piece of bioware and cyberware will never cost more than its base Essence, even if you upgrade it. Cyberarms will never cost more than 1 Essence, for example, no matter what their shadow amp level is. This is to provide mundane characters an equal opportunity to advance as Awakekend characters without being limited by Essence.
3) Spirits in the book are basically Prime Runners in terms of dice pools. They are now "Greater Spirits". Regular spirits will be the posted spirits with -2 to all attributes. Lesser spirits will be the posted spirits with -4 to all attributes. Everything else - armor, powers, etc. - will remain the same. Lesser spirits will resist summoning with 4 dice. Regular spirits will resist with 8 dice. Greater spirits will resist with 12 dice.

Posting expectations: I will check the thread every weekday. The hope is that you do the same. You do not have to post every weekday, especially if the action is on someone else, but ideally you will be checking in daily.

If the IC action is specifically to you, you have 24 hours (again, weekends and holidays don't count) to either post ICly or asking clarifying questions OOCly. After that, you get another 24 hours. If you still haven't posted, we will move on and your character will pick his or her nose until you catch up.

If you go a week without posting (ICly or OOCly) and without telling me, you'll get a warning. If you go a second week without posting and without telling me, then your character will die ignominiously. "But TecGM," I hear you saying, "What if I go on vacation? Or get deployed?" That's 100% fine, as long as you tell the group. Nothing rankles a PbP GM as unexplained disappearances. If you can't hack it, that's fine. Just announce your withdrawal and we'll figure out a heroic way for you to die, or to transition into your non-Wildcat life.

Karma
Posts are the lifeblood of play-by-post. You will earn karma (or a fraction of a point, at least) with every single IC post. You earn additional karma through roleplaying, acting in character, using your cues, making people laugh, advancing the plot, etc.

Things to expect from me
1) Pretentious literary allusions;
2) Dry wit; and,
3) I will not try to kill your character, but nor am I trying to save you.

Things not to expect from me
A) Realistic knowledge of the military;
B) Realistic knowledge of Midwestern geography, other than what I learn on Google Maps; and,
C) Realistic knowledge about Sioux culture.

These are my preferred text formats, but I am not dogmatic about it as long as it's clear what you're trying to do:
"This is verbal speech."
This is my internal monologue.
<<This is Matrix or DNI communication.>>
This is astral communication.
"This is subvocal."
This is Plains Sign Language.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 1):

I'm on vacation so I'm a little out of pocket and posting on phone so I'm gonna be quick.

Lost ICs: that's awful. Tec's obviously took a long time to put together, and was a really good read. I didn't get a chance to see any others.

Plan from here: in the short term I think we're in a pretty rough spot. Jamming signals and leaving a long crash site is probably our best bet of survival. Longer term, I'd be interested in heading to St. Louis by way of the CAS. Keep the UCAS boys and girls off our back and north Texas and Oklahoma should leave plenty of space to remain relatively invisible in

We are game on, yes?

MDMann has been granted access so we're all here now. IC and OOC posting should begin immediately.

We still need character sheets for Shiriki and Dan-Dan in the appropriate thread.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 4):

I should be able to get my char sheet posted this afternoon or tomorrow.

Any thoughts on the avenue of escape from the rest of the team?

In reply to Shiriki (msg # 5):

Yes. Let's cross a nearby border. It doesn't much matter which one. It complicates matters for the ucas. A massive emp would also be useful with side effects. Dan will suggest as much when he gets chance. Work is mad. I should have time from Friday.

Your border options:

North - Sioux Nation, 1-2 kilometers
West - Sioux Nation, maybe 18 kilometers
South - Sioux Nation, maybe 90 kilometers
East - UCAS and more UCAS until you get to the Atlantic Ocean in, I don't know, 2,400km or so

Here's a map of your location. I think I uploaded this correctly:

http://imgur.com/a/Jkmip

The Algonkian-Manitou Council is about 1,100km north. The CAS is about 350km south.

Long story short, you're very close to home and very far away from safety.

Per my last IC post, the team might be surprised by the next waves of opposition. For the moment, you are more likely to encounter local law enforcement and "patriots" (i.e. militias) then you are military forces. These good ol' boys have orders to capture, not kill, but who's to say if they will follow orders or if they decide that the best way to capture you is to shoot your arms and legs off, Robocop-style, rather than putting one in your head.

That said, you'll also feel the UCAS Army breathing down your neck. The greater fire spirit trailing you is at 10P and can probably be dispatched by a healthy spirit from Chante, but you'll still have a halo of watchers that are keeping tabs on you from a healthy distance.

Let's bang out this spirit battle. Anarchy doesn't have rules about spirits on the astral - just materialized spirits - so I'm going wing things a bit.

The greater fire spirit is effectively F6; the earth spirit is effectively F4. Following the SR5 approach of spirits being equal to their Force on the astral, their base astral combat dice pools will be 12 and 8 respectively.

My last post mistakenly said that the fire elemental was at 10P. This was a mistake; Chante's previous attack didn't bypass armor but rather sent the fire elemental straight to the astral. The fire elemental is at 2P.

Also, I'm not up for copying-and-pasting every roll. You'll just have to trust GM on this.

Fire elemental initiative: 3 hits
Earth spirit initiative: 2 hits

Fire elemental goes first.

Round #1
Fire attack: 4 hits
Earth defend: 4 hits, but ties go to attacker

Anarchy doesn't say what damage code to use. I'll use Force to keep it straightforward.

Immunity to Normal Weapons doesn't apply, but should armor? I'll say that "natural armor" applies even on the astral, but again this is up for discussion. The earth spirit takes 6 boxes and now has 6 of 12 armor remaining.

Earth attack: 3 hits
Fire defend: 2 hits

Earth does 4P as base damage, staged up to 5P with a net hit. The fire spirit is now at 7P and a -2 modifier.

Round #2
Fire attack: 3 hits
Earth defend: 3 hits

That's another six boxes of damage, which wipes out the Earth spirit's armor.

Earth attack: 3 hits
Fire defend: 4 hits

Earth spirit misses.

Round #3
Fire attack: 4 hits
Earth defend: 3 hits

The fire spirit connects and the Earth Spirit is now at 7P.

The earth spirit follows Chante's instructions and retires before it can be disrupted.

Alright, really want to throw this fire spirit from our trail, so summoning another greater spirit, using Edge.

Summon Fire Spirit: Conj 3 + Will 6 + Edge 6: 15d6t4 6 Hits http://orokos.com/roll/536934

Fire Spirit Resist : Greater Resist 12: 12d6t5 2 Hits
http://orokos.com/roll/536937

Speaking of Edge, do we have a refresh, as we're moving to an additional chapter, or will
Edge be refreshed more in line with 5e?

Shiriki is going to try to push the Dragon to its limits, distance-wise.  I'm spending a Plot Point on a Glitch die to see if he gets any help from the wind one way or the other.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/536971]Drone Piloting: AGI (8) + Pilot (5) + Control Rig (2) + Combat Pilot (2) + VR (1) = 18 dice.[/url]: 18d6t5 7 1d6 3
No help or hindrance, but a pretty decent Piloting roll.

I'm also going to roll Stealth to see if we can lose the UCAS military on radar.  That still leaves the Watcher spirits, but hopefully Chante's Fire Spirit can dispatch them after the other spirit, and double-hopefully it will be able to do so before any more can be summoned via Ritual magic.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/536972]Drone Stealth: AGI (8) + Stealth (3) + Control Rig (2) + Combat Pilot (2) + VR (1) = 16 dice.[/url]: 16d6t5 8
That's about 44% Hits on my last two rolls.

Any other strategies for how to deal with the Watcher spirits from anyone?

Edge refreshed at the beginning of Chapter 2. The next scheduled refresh will be between Chapters 2 and 3, although I may award points of refresh here and there.

Chante has cooked up a big fire spirit. Jayde, did you want to roll out the confrontation?

Shiriki has a strong piloting roll. Let's see how hard the storm pushes back:

http://orokos.com/roll/537012 Piloting difficulty: 12d6t5 3 hits

Shiriki finds a good tailwind and makes the most of the Dragon's remaining fuel.

You have to fly southeast to avoid crossing into Sioux territory that's directly south. We'll say that you can get to the vicinity of Colby, KS and I-70. Here's the map:

https://goo.gl/maps/Cw1fdQnLACr

You can follow I-70 all the way east to St. Louis, or you can make a run for the CAS border. I believe it's where the northern border of the Texas panhandle runs along Oklahoma. We'll say Liberal, KS is the border town.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 11):

Ok, so the CAS actually lost the panhandle of Oklahoma, and everything along that same parallel -- roughly 36.5 N, I believe -- in the Treaty of Richmond in 2034.  I'm sure this was a major win for the UCAS, and I bet the CAS boys are still smarting over the loss of such a bustling and culturally rich area /s.  For our purposes, this means that the CAS border is an additional 55 KM away, and the last "good-sized" border town is most likely Guymon before we hit the CAS.  Coincidentally, this is actually a step up from Liberal.

For those who don't know, I live in Oklahoma irl, and I'm actually kinda pumped about visiting it in a universe where Tulsa is a border "city," and both the Texas and Oklahoma pandhandles have turned into critter haunts.  I'd suggest that we try to hit up Optimo State Park, but it currently looks more like something out of Fallout than the SR universe.

Anyway, Colby seems as good a spot as any to try to find some new modes of transpo, assuming we can ditch our astral surveillance.  We may need to split up so that someone can keep Ite alive, or we'll need to double-back for him once we find wheels.

I'll let Chante see about obliterating those spirits, and then I'll take us to landing in my next IC.

rednblack is completely correct. I know full well that the panhandle of Oklahoma is in the UCAS but my brain lost the plot somewhere between "the northern border of the Texas panhandle runs along Oklahoma" (which is correct) and "Liberal, KS" (which is clearly not).

I'll offer a note, which may be obvious, but your target location in St. Louis is on the UCAS side of the border. Dropping into the CAS first will require two border crossings (one into the CAS, one back into the UCAS) to get to the safehouse.

But, on the other hand, the 5E e-book Coyotes lists the UCAS/CAS border as "easy" and suggests that coyote costs to cross would only be half as much as a normal border.

We need orders from Chante, as well as spirit combat.

We need an IC post from MDMann.

Glorious can post at his convenience.

Jayde hasn't been logging on, so he's probably dead or in jail, maybe both. Guess I'm rolling out this fire spirit duel.

Elemental initiative: 2 hits
Spirit initiative: 3 hits

Round #1
Spirit attack: 4 hits
Elemental defend: 3 hits

Chante's spirit connects, which delivers 7P, bringing the elemental to 14P and promptly wiping it out.

Well that was easy.

The fire spirit is off your tail. It can chase around the watchers, but only one at a time. There will be a steady stream of low-level spirits and watchers that pop up to replace any that get burst. If you want to shake your astral tails, you'll have to figure out another way to lose them.

Watcher Spirits are still summoned via Ritual, correct?  Assuming multiple actions per Combat Turn (Narration, or whatever), and assuming Chante's Spirit connects even 2/3 of the time, I would think that Chante's Spirit could render the astral threats nil unless they take more drastic measures.

If that's not possible, anyone have any other ideas?  I don't see us getting to the CAS border, and especially through the UCAS with Watchers sending out the militias to our position every step of the way.

You're dealing with the full weight of the UCAS military, which - at the moment - is displeased with you. The question the characters should be asking ICly is, "Why didn't they wipe us off the face of the earth with those gunships? or with a whole platoon of spirits?"

OOCly we know the answer to that is that the President wants to string this out a bit. That's buying you some time to get creative and figure out how you're going to slip through a formidable dragnet. The storm, the dark, and the fact that you're Wildcats will help in the physical world, but on the astral you'll need a creative plan to ditch the astral surveillance. Take it as GM fiat that whack-a-mole (or whack-a-watcher) won't work.

For what it's worth, I PM'd a clue to Jayde based off Chante's knowledge skills. Hopefully he re-emerges to use it.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 17):

Wiz.  Shiriki has definitely been asking just that question to himself.  I made mention ICly, but it will also be something that continues to plague him as we move forward.

I can think of a water to shake off those watchers. Trying to decide if Dan would know it though.

Raise the background count or aspect the local astral space and the watchers will struggle. Stronger spirits less so, but that's not the issue. We could aspect it to the Sioux or NAN or to one of the mentor spirits. I'd suggest cat for stealth (agility too but hey). Dan could assist the ritual but Chante would need to perform it. It just so happens we collected a lot of Ritual ingredients when counting coup, with all those trophies and scalps Dan gathered. Mogwai could donate some further and drops of blood perhaps, as could Dan.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 19):

I have no problem with Dan-Dan bringing that up ICly. Sioux Wildcats are highly-trained operatives, after all, and Dan-Dan is Awakened.

Chante's knowledge skill is in Astral Topography, so I had made the suggestion to Jayde that raising the background count could help lose the watchers. If MDMann doesn't think Dan-Dan would think of this then he could have Chante say it instead. That said, Dan-Dan is Logic 6 so he's a bright guy.

As an aside, I believe the writers give too much handwave "but you can always be seen on the astral" credit to well...everything magical. The theory is that it works on "life force". This being a world where you have a definable soul in essence, sure, let's run with it.

Can you see people through walls on the astral? How thick? Do they render any opacity at all? If not, how could you ever identify a man made object or anything other than living objects?

Given the answer is you can tell buildings etc, the implication is that you can, with the appropriate thickness of material, mute out your "astral life force glow". Presumably not only would puffy jackets - thicker than many doors - be sufficient to camouflage you, cars, walls, ditches, etc would all work just as well as concealement from astral surveillance in terms of blocking sight as in the near world.

Let's add on that all life signs apparently throw out a signature. If "life glow" is so overwhelming beacon like as to point you out with a searchlight, something as simple as being in a forest should be the equivalent of pointing stadium lighting directly into the spirit's eyes. The same as you would flood night vision with a flashlight. Hell, even walking through a field of crops - all living- should be more than enough.

------

That aside, I vote for putting down near a bunch of cows. Big life glow things that can be stampeded.

The fluff is pretty specific that you cannot see through walls on astral. Nor can you see through simple, fragile barriers such as glass. If you're projecting then you can simply fly through them to see what's on the other side, buy if you're just assensing then you're stuck.

I've always taken someone's aura to be the astral equivalent of their metahuman microbiota, which is to say the halo of life that exists in, on, and around everyone. Given that clothes are very much within that halo, I don't see that they would impede assensing much.

For the purposes of this discussion I am willing to entertain the implication that someone walking around in an entirely self-contained outfit - a spacesuit, for example - would then be reduced to being a silhouette on the astral plane. Being a silhouette is far different from being invisible though, as someone could track you by your absence as much as by your presence.

Anarchy intentionally doesn't go into all the details of your armor configuration. For our mutual understanding, I will say that you are all wearing full body armor and that you even have chemical seals. However, your armor's air supply with the seal active only lasts for an hour at a time. These could potentially contribute to giving the watchers the slip, but won't suffice on their own without an additional distraction or some astral maneuvering, like through a background count.

I agree with GloriousRuse's interpretation that being in a forest would could potentially be overwhelming for an astral being. In fact, for the first play-by-post game I ever GM'd I made the assensing characters take an assensing penalty while in forest due to glare/brightness. "Stadium lighting in the eyes" might be a bit of a stretch. A better parallel might be trying to visually track someone through a busy stadium crowd. Not impossible, but not easy.

Normally I would agree that walking through a cornfield could potentially be an effective approach. Alas, it's January, so there are no fields of corn. Similarly, there are no cows lingering outside in the middle of a blizzard.

Watchers are not defined in Anarchy. Consider them F1 spirits, with the intelligence of a well-meaning but dumb dog. None of your border collies here. A quick Google search suggests that bloodhounds are widely considered to be a rather dull breed (mentally), which is a convenient comparison since that's basically the function that these watchers are providing at the moment.

Dan-Dan rolls to put Ite into an induced coma to buy him some time.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/538567]Medicine 9  + logic 6 + gifted healer[/url]: 15d6t5 4

4 hits + 2 hits from gifted healer. 6 net hits, not bad. Not quite suspended animation but as close as you'll see anytime soon.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 23):

"Gifted Healer" isn't defined by Anarchy but I took it to be +2 to healing tests. There aren't any qualities that offer automatic hits on tests. Let's roll those extra two dice.

http://orokos.com/roll/538731 Gifted Healer 2: 2d6t5 0 hits

Dan-Dan has 4 hits.

Like all things in Anarchy, this will be an opposed roll based on the conditions. Given the bumpy ride and the less-than-ideal conditions, we'll call it Hard.

http://orokos.com/roll/538732 Hard 12: 12d6t5 6 hits

Dan-Dan does not succeed in putting Ité in suspended animation. You can try again if you get to better facilities. ("Any hospital, clinic or street doc will do. Heck, a veterinary or pharmacy will do. A vets could be best, looking at him.")

I'm going to touch base with Jayde to see if I can rouse him.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 24):

I've edited my IC post to reflect this.

I have no idea how to answer Dan Dan's question about creating a background count on the fly...

If the Spirit of Fire is gone, that's good... but we're saying that, for all intents and purposes, watcher spirits are infinite and constantly popping up?

You don't necessarily have to create the background count. It could be pre-existing due to the nature of the place or time.

The watcher spirits aren't infinite in the sense that there's an impenetrable dome of them encasing you. What we're saying is that they are unending, so that if one goes down another watcher (or low-level spirit) will immediately take its place.

From a gameplay perspective, the idea is that you have to think your way out of the watcher net rather than brute forcing your way past.

Raising the background count is fairly straightforward. Push a lot of power into the local manasphere. It's safer done as a ritual. It likely won't persist but it doesn't need to. Dan can assist as awakened but he foes the have the I game skills needed to perform the ritual.

Corrupting the local astral space is the brute force version, such as blood sacrifices or dumping toxic waste into the environment.

Aspecting things is a more subtle  approach. It means dedicating it to an entity or ideal through ritual. It aids some actions whilst hindering others. If it doesn't work, it would still raised the Count though less powerfully.

The effect of all of these is it makes things harder for spirits and magicians. It's only likely to stop the weakest, such as watchers but will affect all. Including us. It's like throwing a cloud of chaff or smoke. They know we're somewhere inside it but it's hard to target us or pinpoint exactly where. It's also temporary unless the action causing the change is persistent or repeated into the background a lot.

The advantage to aspecting things is whilst it might make most spells and effects harder it makes others easier. As cat (who Dan follows, not that he'll mention this) is about stealth and agility, magical actions that favour these and it's followers are easier. Everything else is harder, which knocks out the watchers. Things that are diametrically opposed to stealth and agility such as finding us are much harder. Expect an uptick in crime as it affects people's emotions. Of course this has little effect on purely mundane means.

Oh and it requires a lot of force with resulting drain.

The other hurdle is that the background count can't be too localized, otherwise the watchers are just going to wait outside of it and catch you when you get out. If you just walk into a church, they're going to be patiently waiting outside for when you emerge ... if you ever do.

What you need is a perimeter large enough to potentially evade or lose them. We'll say 5-6 is the numbers you're looking to avoid at any given time.

@Jayde Let's get some orders up ASAP or you'll land wherever I land you.

OK... so trying to get my head back in the game.  Honestly, losing our initial posts and switching over has thrown me...

So, did a bit of research.  Spending a plot point and utilizing Astral Topography to have the site of the Massacre Canyon Battle have a background count.

Looked up various real world historical incidents that might have created background counts, massacres, natrual disasters, etc... tried to find one that was relatively close.

Massacre Canyon is 50 miles away as the crow flies, maybe we can make it, maybe not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_Canyon

"'71 Pawnee warriors were killed, and 102 women and children killed', the victims brutally mutilated and scalped and others even set on fire"

It's especially poignant since it's the Souix that did the massacring.

In reply to Chante (msg # 30):

Shiriki is Pawnee. This should be interesting

Well Dan-Dan is Dakota, so ... a bystander?

Dakota = Souix

They had it coming!

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 34):

So, Knowledge Skills don't have a dice mechanic in Anarchy. Shiriki has N. American History, and it would make sense for him to know about inter-tribal warfare, especially as it relates to the Pawnee, as he's had a hard time finding a home nation over the years, but knowing about this particular battle seems like it might be a stretch.  I want to let the dice have their say, so I'm going to say he has 4 ranks in the skill, with a specialization in Pawnee History and call this a Very Hard test.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/539565 ]LOG (7) + History (4) + Pawnee Spec (1) = 12 dice.[/url]: 12d6t5 5

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/539566 ]Very Hard: 12 dice.[/url]: 12d6t5 6

Well a good roll followed by a great one.  Shiriki doesn't know what's up.

@Tec, I'm not sure what you want me to do about getting to the battlefield.  Shiriki started piloting the Dragon SE, the team discussed their next move, and now he's going to turn and go NE.  I'm not sure how long this conversation would've taken ICly, but I'm guessing at least a few minutes.  Do you want another Piloting roll to see what kind of ground we can cover, or are we at the end of our rope, and I just need to set us down?
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 18:52, Wed 09 Aug 2017.

This is a good plan. I like it!

The last stated wind conditions had the wind swirling and actually pushing you N-NW. (ICly, this was to make you downwind of the possible nanite cloud, plus to add some extra aggravation when turning around from the Sioux border.) Given those wind conditions, I'm going to say that tacking 50 miles to the NE is actually easier than the previous plan of flying SE toward Colby, KS. With Shiriki's strong piloting roll - which we can use without calling for another - you'll be able to reach the canyon before the fuel gives out.

Rednblack will be disappointed that we're heading away from Oklahoma. It's still a possibility! You just need to lose the watchers, then you can double-back if you choose.

The Canyon has a nasty background count that will serve as a brick wall for the watchers. The Anglos - specifically, the border-dwelling Nebraskans - have done nothing to diminish the site or sweep it away. On the contrary, they have maintained and even developed the site as a monument to the Cruelty and inherent Barbarity of the Red Man.

@rednblack I'm going to overrule you. Given Shiriki's age, Logic, and Knowledge Skill, this is definitely something he should know about. If you insist on making it a dice roll, then I'm going to call it Hard, which drops two dice and one hit from the resist roll. That means 5 hits each, which is a tie, which go to the attacker, which means that Shiriki knows about it.

If, for story reasons, you don't want Shiriki to know about it, I'll let you spend a plot point to forget.

Some things to consider: as best I can tell, the Republican River (which runs through the canyon) joins with the Kansas River which joins with the Missouri River which joins with the Mississippi River which runs through St. Louis. This would be the very scenic route to your safehouse. I actually have no idea what river traffic is like in the winter.

This plan has an excellent chance of losing your astral surveillance, but you'll want to be careful not to reacquire said surveillance by making a splash in the physical world. If you want to do something that might garner some attention - like raiding a clinic to treat Ité, or breaking into a store, or getting in a dust-up with the local authorities - you may wish to do it before losing your tail(s).

Wizard.  I really hoped Shiriki would know, but it kinda felt like cheating to just assume it.  I'll keep my plot point for adding a Glitch die to whatever Negotiation or other social test Shiriki may make to inform his Sioux brethren that their forefathers were absolutely barbaric in their treatment of the noble Pawnee, thank you very much.



I think Shiriki might actually be the first to use one of his Contacts.  Margueritte White Owl might be an ideal person to tap for some sort of underground street doc who may be in these parts, and could keep Ite under care so that we're not dragging around an unconscious troll for the next 1,000+ km.  Or, she may be able to forward a name for some really unsavory types who may be able to give us vehicles in exchange for some equally unsavory work.

Anyhow, let's see about getting the Dragon to touch down voluntarily.  Piloting roll!
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/539618 ]Drone Piloting: AGI (8) + Pilot (5) + Control Rig (2) + Combat Pilot (2) + VR (1) = 18 dice.[/url]: 18d6t5 6

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/539619 ]Environmental Opposed Roll: 12[/url]: 12d6t5 3
What storm?

Landing is a snap. "Snap" as in easy, not as in "it snaps you in half".

The default location is the municipal airport just northwest of Trenton, but anywhere is fine. Chante can give orders but Shiriki, as the pilot, gets the final say.

For the record - mostly because I just spent way too long trying to piece this together from old maps - the Sioux/UCAS border is approximately in Stratton, which is 20km west of Trenton.

The good news is that Margueritte White Owl is awake and takes Shiriki's call. The bad news is that it's 1am on Sunday (so, late Saturday night) and she's a bit intoxicated down at the watering hole where she and Shiriki play their pilot sim.

Margueritte knows the area because it's along the border, and it's her job to know the border. She knows of a medical clinic in Trenton but it's tiny and only open during daylight business hours. You could break in for medical supplies, but there's no secret underground clinic there.

If you want a secret underground doc, you have to go to McCook Hospital, 40km to the east down Highway 34. There's a doctor there - or maybe he's a Physician's Assistant? - who has a problem with Cereprax (p. 180, Chrome Flesh) that he supports with shadow work. The only question is whether he'll be "on" or "off" when the team comes to visit ...

Ghost fraggit.

Ok, this should be good. I'll get an IC in tomorrow, hopefully early.

What are our rules on boosting cars?

If they sotto us coming down near here they m7st think we're making a run for the border. Especially local yokels. All  icely diverted and out of position when we don't. Not saying they won't have peeps looking at the other directions but they'll be far fewer.

Street doc nice. Facilities nicer. A vets would be good.

You're Wildcats. You'll be able to boost something.

I'll say Logic + Hacking vs. 8 dice by default for a regular car. An expensive one or a security vehicle might be 10 dice. I'm open to other skill suggestions. I can't remember what Hardware got rolled under in Anarchy. Electronics? Anyway, it's flexible.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:47, Thu 10 Aug 2017.

In reply to Shiriki (msg # 37):

Ike Richmond, awakened physician might also know things in this line. He's less shady though, so perhaps not. Dan's talislegger might know more ,maybee. Let's go with your coyote friend after we shake the watchers. I still think a big emp would help. We could use the bird as the basis for it. If there's a welcoming committee it should mess with them. Probably best after we set down though.

I grant that my technical credentials are minimal, but I don't see:

1) how you're going to trigger an EMP, and
2) what good it's going to do you since there's nothing technological on your tail that you know about.

If Dan-Dan raises this possibility ICly, I'll be curious to hear Swoopy's thoughts on the matter given his "Bias against Emission" negative quality.

Following up on Shiriki's questino, I will accept any of the following skills for pinching a car: Hacking, Electronics, Engineering.

All you need is a big (really big) unshielded electric current. Your phone or your toaster gives off a very weak electrical signal. It helps if you can charge some particles in the atmosphere such as with a nuclear blast, though it needn't be one. That's all it is really, lots of highly charged particles flooding a region. Of course, my knowledge is very old and half remembered from my school days, but I think that's the basics of it.

With the anti emissions bias. Interesting. It very clearly is a very big if brief emission, that has the effect of knocking out a lot of electronics. How would he react?

Dan-Dan already suggested it in character as a way to slow any nanite spread, though he doesn't have the know-how to enact the suggestion which would have to be by Swoopy or Shiriki.

IC up. I thought this would be a good stopping place in case anyone wants to respond, or deal with some of the EMP discussion, or ICly address the Watcher Spirits, which Shiriki can't.

Shiriki's opinion on the EMP are complicated. 1. He has a lot of cyberware, so CFD scares the drek out of him. 2. If what he knows about other infections holds true for CFD, knocking them out early stands the best only chance of success. 3. Setting off a bomb right now risks drawing in local attention, and if that local attention focuses on them before they make their escape, the Watchers will just be right back on them as soon as they exit the canyon.

It would be possible to set off a small explosion inside the Dragon, and so not otherwise alert anyone nearby.  We'd all be likely to take some substantial S damage if we did so.

To the best of my knowledge, those exact coordinates are the location of the roadside marker for Massacre Canyon, but not the Canyon itself. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the canyon is about 3km south of that position, with the Republican River running down the middle of it.

@Jayde Let me know if the intention was to land closer to the canyon (as 3km is a pain in a blizzard) or if you were specifically landing outside of it, perhaps to hijack a car on Highway 34, before passing through the canyon's background count.

I believe the Dragon still has a couple grenade rounds left, if you wanted to detonate them.

I noticed that as well. I thought the intention was to land in the canyon proper for concealment purposes and to keep meat-based surveillance from immediately tagging on us, but I left in vague in the IC.

Intention was the Canyon itself, but wherever we are is where we are, Chante's not super picky, "OMG YOU DIDN'T PUT US RIGHT IN THE CANYON, GET OUT!"

FYI, next week, I'll be at GenCon running tables for Catalyst, so my availability to post will be slim to none.  Hoping for some real good stuff to come of this years trip, so...

In the meantime, can we get a new thread page or whatever that just has our current info on it?  Kind of like the combat tracker, but not buried in these other threads?  Also it would be the combat tracker when we're in combat...

I'm still a little confused. Are we playing this like we're in the canyon, or above the canyon and near the highway? Shiriki would've piloted where he was told to, but I think going into the canyon proper is a smarter call. We can always move by foot to the highway, or the town, and run less of a risk of having meat/drone eyes put on us.

Further notes on my IC:

To my knowledge nothing has been said explicitly about heading to the Canyon for its Background Count. As Shiriki is not at all sensitive to this kind of thing, he's a little unsure about why the hell we're out in this canyon, and is probably thinking that the Captain chose it for its low profile.

Also, while he's not sensitive to noticing the BC, I am playing this like the BC is having an effect on his personality, so he's going to be grumpy and more combative than usual.

Shiriki's a smart guy, with Logic 6. He knows the history of Massacre Canyon and can put 2-and-2 together.

GM ruling: we're landing on the edge/lip of the canyon. Let's not be too literal; we'll go with the spirit of the intent.

Speaking of spirits...

You are all consciously (or subconsciously) affected by the background count. I was going to give suggestions very much in line with Shiriki's approach. That said, I would suggest that Shiriki (Pawnee) should feel gloom and sadness. Dan-Dan and Chante (Sioux) should be feeling aggressive and confrontational. Swoopy, who is more Anglo than not, can feel however he wants.

As an aside, I watched The Revenant last night and there was a one-line aside (not central to the plot) about a Pawnee man's family being killed by the Sioux.

I plan to IC post sometime today. Feel free to keep RPing.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:11, Mon 14 Aug 2017.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 51):

@Tec, that works for me. Given that in his early life he was being prepped to be a magically active finger-waggler it'd make a lot of sense for him to have some understanding there.

ETA: this week is my last week at the day job. I am also having to balance that with prep for the upcoming semester, which starts next Monday. I should still have time for posting, but ICs may be on the short side, and I may miss a day here or there. Fair warning.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:56, Mon 14 Aug 2017.

It sounds like Jayde is GenCon'ing this week and rednblack is in crunch-time at work, so we might be at half-staff this week.

@Jayde What are you requesting a separate thread for? The table with plot points and Edge and the like?

Swoopy's earlier IC post had us exiting the storm, so the blizzard is done. There is plenty of snow on the ground to contend with. There's a full moon, which will reflect off the snow and provide for excellent visibility. (Side note: about twenty years ago I was driving through rural Oregon in the middle of the night in very similar conditions. The moonlight reflecting off the snow was so bright that my headlights basically did nothing. It was like having them on in the middle of the day, as far as additional lumination was concerned.)

Swoopy's recent IC post is suggesting a quick foray into Sioux territory to drop off Ité in friendlier arms. As previously noted, it's not that far away (~20km west). The risk/reward equation is the wrath of your superiors vs. the probability of Ité surviving.

Let's come to some shared understandings about the the UCAS/Sioux border. There is no wall, because walls are expensive and not terribly effective against modern ordinance - but there is at least some fancy fencing to help keep the Anglos and their cows on the right side of the cornfield.

Security is primarily sensor- and drone-based, and most of those are intended for long-range detection. The Sioux are more concerned about Ares Ocelot and Ares Scorpion assault and battle tanks (p.168-9, War!) than illegal immigrants, which are so rare as to be a laughable notion. Smugglers rate somewhere in the middle, with the occasional battery of SAMs or Ruhrmetall Vogelhund Air Defense Vehicles (mobile anti-air support) to let the LAVs know that they mean business. There are spirits and watchers on patrol too, but let's be honest that it's a big border. The good/bad news is that there isn't much in the way of geographical complications, so the sensors have good, long, wide views of the surrounding terrain.

I'll leave some of the more precise details vague so that, in the spirit of Anarchy, there's room for people to fill in the blanks.

Highway 34 (leading west) will have a heavily-fortified border crossing. We can use Coyotes for reference material if that crossing is of interest.

Today is the day of the Great Ghost Dance. If I wasn't in crunch time at work, I'd have Shiriki regale everyone with the time he met Daniel Howling Coyote, but we'll have to save that for another day -- to be fair, it's not a very good story anyway.

For our present situation, what is everyone's thoughts? Should we try to hike out way out and stay under their radar? We could also just blast them out of Massacre Canyon with the Dragon's Assault Cannon. Given our approach, the gun should be facing in that direction anyway, but I'd be happy to spend a plot point, if necessary. ICly we may want to shy away from doing so, as the UCAS military has just pulled out, and setting off heavy ordnance may well bring them right back in.

Indeed it is. I actually went outside this morning and looked south to Mt. Rainier at 10:32am to see if anything would happen. It was cloudy so I couldn't see the mountain, but I waited a couple minutes to listen for any explosions. I didn't hear any so I presume everything is fine.

Let's do a group award of 1 karma to celebrate this non-milestone.

GenCon concluded on Sunday so I'm hoping that Jayde is back online soon.

In the meantime, let's get some discussion around Swoopy's idea of dropping Ité off across the Sioux border, orders be damned. Everyone is encouraged to offer input.

We still need input on Swoopy's plan from the following people:

- Chante
- Dan-Dan
- Shiriki

In other words, everyone who is not Swoopy.

You're on the lip of the canyon. You can detonate the Ares Dragon with the vapors in its tank plus the two grenades still in its launcher. You have a snowplow and two police cruisers closing on your position, but you still have a few minutes before they arrive.

It sounds like Swoopy's post suggests that there is a tourist center of some sort, with ATVs for rent that the Anglos can use to further defile the Amerind sacred grounds. The ATVs can be repurposed for reasonable mobility. Under ideal conditions, they could get 100km or more from their 12-liter tanks, but heavy snow and hauling around Ité do not make for ideal conditions. How long the gas will last, only Ghost knows.

Gen Con was a good time.  You'll be happy to know that I hold the dubious honor of collecting to most edge from my table during the CDT introductory run of the Chicago arc finale for Missions.

That's between both Origins and Gen Con... 15 Edge and one character dead.

It's a rough but very satisfying scenario!

They basically held off on running it til Saturday night and then ALL tables ran it.

I've gone ahead and posted in the IC.

If the purpose of the explosion is to create a diversion, Shiriki can keep his jammer. If the purpose is to create a diversion, and possibly knock out the budding CFD infection, it'll be a necessary part of the EMP.

Let's see how the Hacking goes.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/543265 ]LOG (7) + Hacking (5) - Noise (2) = 10 dice.[/url]: 8#10d6t5 0 5 3 2 2 3 4 4

Opposing with 8 dice.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/543266]V. Hacking = 8 dice.[/url]: 8#8d6t5 1 3 3 1 1 1 3 2

That gets us 7 ATVs. Should be enough if we double up on a few to have some for transport and still send some off as a decoy. Chante's plan is for the inferno to maybe look like it killed us, though, so Shiriki will hold off on giving any orders.

Good IC posts, everyone. I'm going to kick it back to Chante to make the final call and I can IC it out from there.

Chante is going to call up her smuggler contact.

When we deploy, we are given something called a 'blood chit'.  each chit has a serial number and is a sensitive item.  The chit has a message written in the language of the country we're in and the serial number is on each corner.

The message basically states that any aid given to the Soldier who presents it will be rewarded with monetary compensation.  The Soldier tears a corner and gives that corner to the person who aids.  That person then presents this (however they may) to the US and will receive that pay.

So, I imagine the Wildcats may have something similar.  She'll use that as a means to promise payment.

The idea is that the smuggler comes into town, lays low, keeps tabs on what's going on, let's the local medical worker do what he can, then takes Ite to the next place.

This frees the team up to move on and hopefully the smuggler gets there in time and can render the additional aid that the team can't (by moving him to better facilities or if deemed safe, back across the border).

Ok, so it looks like our next steps are to try to lose the UCAS militia, and not be re-intercepted by any passing watcher spirits. @Tec, what would you like in that regards? Also, Shiriki's strategy will be dependent on a shared understanding of the world and astral perception. As far as the Watcher Spirits go, is something small like a Fly Spy likely to be seen? If not, Shiriki will deploy both Fly Spies, sending one to keep track of how the milita responds and their general whereabouts. The other will be sent to scout out our best way forward and minimize the chance of having to double back in the event of a dead end.

IRL from Massacre Canyon there's a slightly wooded area running along the Republican River as well east as Culbertson. Keeping near trees should affect our astral imprint, and the cover in general will be good against meat and drone-based surveillance as well. Shiriki will recommend that we duck south to the mountain range 5-6 KM east of Highway 17, and then head into McCook through the valleys. This will mean that we need to take a short jaunt across some farmland, but we should otherwise have very good coverage for the whole trip.

If we can get Chante's smuggler contact to pick Ite up in McCook, then we may be able to leave him with the ceraprax addict there, and then continue on our way toward St. Louis.

What do you guys think?

While Shiriki is working out the kinks in his head, he's at least going to get the team moving eastward, and toward the Republican river.

I'll put in a roll for Navigation and Sneaking. Ok, so no Navigation skill, so how Tracking instead.

Tracking:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/544793 ]LOG (7) + Tracking (2) = 9 dice.[/url]: 9d6t5 5

I don't think this would be too terribly difficult with the good lighting conditions and probably the Fly Spy to help. Almost feels like a waste of a good roll.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/544797]Easy Opposing Roll = 6 dice.[/url]: 6d6t5 3

Sneaking:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/544800]AGI (8) + Stealth (3) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1) = 14 dice.[/url]: 14d6t5 5

I will admit that I haven't heard of a blood chit. However, I have been thinking about the question of currency for a couple months now, especially since Anarchy rolls money together with karma.

Twenty-some years ago, I read a book called Bravo Two Zero about a British SAS mission behind Iraqi lines during Desert Storm. One detail I remember from this is that every soldier had gold coins sewn into the waistline of their fatigues that could be used to bribe an otherwise uncooperative goat herder or whoever else they came across that might be more interested in nuggets than nationalism.

When the game started, I debated giving everyone ____ karma worth of American gold eagles. At the time I decided against it because I figured that Chapter One was straight-forward enough that the money was unlikely to be necessary.

I thought again about introducing them at the beginning of Chapter Two. I decided against it because, from a gameplay perspective, I didn't want the response to be, "ok wiz let's just pool our money and hire one of our smuggler contacts to fly us to St. Louis" since that would largely defeat the purpose of the game.

This daisy-chains into other logical questions like, "How do we treat money that we, um, acquire in the course of our travels?" and "What about my food/housing/clothing/deployment/special-duty/hardship-duty/medical-provider pay and allowances that I'm presumably accumulating but not spending right now?"

The answer to these is that we'll be using your available karma to represent available funds you may or may not have to draw from. Yes, it's goofy because you'll be earning a lot of karma over the course of 24 hours, but we'll work within the system. I think Shiriki is the only one who pre-spent his Chapter Two karma like I said you could, so this technically gives you an allowance to draw from.

Circling back to the beginning, I'm going to give everyone enough American Gold Eagles to represent 1 karma = ¥2,000 for bribes. I'm then going to take all of them back by making the pooled amount the price that Chante's coyote, Paytah 'Peter' Venom-Spitter, is charging for the requested services. The price is high, but so is the risk, given the border lockdown between the Sioux and UCAS at the moment.

Going forward, you may spend karma as nuyen per the Anarchy rules. Whether that karma takes the form of another American gold eagle magically appearing (which would be appropriate for a bribe) or something conveniently appearing when you need/want it (like Shiriki's new Doberman) we can decide based on whatever makes the most sense in context and/or whatever makes the best story. This does come with the explicit (I'm making it explicit right now) understanding that you can't just throw karma/money at your problems to make them disappear. You can certainly use money to grease the wheels, but if we start accomplishing too much with money then I'm going to ratchet up the pressure in other ways.

I probably won't have time to IC until Wednesday evening at the earliest. Venom-Spitter will accept the job but with conditions. First, he needs two hours to get to you, because it's 1am and he's not exactly waiting around for your call, plus there's a blizzard between you, plus there might be a war too. Second, he won't go within 5km of Massacre Canyon because he's superstitious and also the place makes him want to irrationally murder people, which is bad for business. Third, you need to not have any tails. The job is hot enough without starting from scratch with heat. So, in order to procure his services, you need to 1) stay alive for a couple hours, 2) reach a new rendezvous point, and 3) lose your trackers.

Anyone who wants to IC something along those lines is more than welcome to. Otherwise, I'll try to do it Wednesday.

---

I think that covers Chante's post. I'll move on to Shiriki's.

Let's treat watchers like F1 spirits. They are well-meaning but dumb. If you were going to duck into a church hoping that the background count would confuse them, then they wouldn't pursue you in there but they'd be bright enough to just wait for you to come out. But Massacre Canyon is a much more ingenious solution. They will reach the perimeter of the background count - say a kilometer or two - and will stop because they don't want to be dismembered by the churning mana. The canyon and it's background count are long enough that they can't surround the entire thing to wait for you to emerge. Thus, passing through the canyon using Shiriki's plan will effectively lose your magical surveillance as long as you're not engaged in some running gun battle that will simply put you back on the radar as soon as you emerge from the background count. Dealing with the militia first and then winding your way through the canyon is a valid approach. Trying to distract and/or outrun the militia on the ATVs are also valid approaches. Or you could waste the militia and take their vehicles, or any other combination that you find suitable.

I'm not entirely sure how long Massacre Canyon is, but McCook looks like a reasonable rendevouz point with Venom-Spitter.

Shiriki will have zero issues with Navigation/Tracking. He comes up with a good plan.

What's the Sneaking roll for, precisely? ATVs blasting through powdered snow aren't exactly stealthmobiles, or did you have something else in mind?

Watchers are dumb and see on the astral. They're unlikely to see any drone, even if it was on top of them, playing a marching tune and setting off howitzers. The flyspys should be OK.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, as watchers would still notice the astral "shadows" cast by a drone (or a vehicle or a howitzer). Now a Fly-Spy isn't going to cast a large shadow, but nor are drones perfectly invisible just because they are mechanical instead of organic.

IC is up.

I'm still unclear on what the exact plan is for the next five minutes. Outrun the law? Gun them down? Distract them with illusions and explosions?

@Shiriki Let me know what that Sneaking roll was for.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 67):

Why not all of the above?

Gun them down with a near miss (no casualties but let's give them the willies before they head into the canyon). Distract with explosions and illusion. Run the gauntlet and lose them in the mix.

It's multilayer. It reinforces and supports itself. If any one element fails (although a miss is better than casualties)it's no big deal. If they all come off we can slink in the chaos.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:32, Thu 31 Aug 2017.

The Sneaking roll is to avoid detection by the incoming UCAS militia. Some things to keep in mind: ATVs are loud, but snow is damping. Across a level surface, the sounds of the ATVs will still travel a good distance, but 1. the UCAS militia are likely gunning their own engines trying to make up the distance, 2. their windows are likely up because cold as balls Nebraska winter, and 3. when we do hit the riverbed the topography should eat up a lot of our sound emissions. GM call on whether or not ATVs are electric or gas-powered. The latter will be much louder than the former.

An explosion, coupled with a few decoy ATVs will also be distracting.

A Spirit's Concealment power would also go a long way.

Considering the visibility situation, I think it will be more difficult to avoid LoS with the incoming militia than the sound angle. @Tec, let me know if I'm off base here, as Shiriki would have a better idea than I would what we're up against.

@Dan-Dan, I agree. If we can still blow the Dragon if it's down one or two rounds on the Assault Canon, Shiriki will be in favor of letting off a round, preferably toward the Gopher. No snow plow = much slower incoming speed. I'm also of the impression that our mission parameters have changed, so the no lethal force directive should be off the table at this point.

Due to the nature of PbP I'm a little unsure how to proceed here. Shiriki would obviously check with his superior officer before making a call like this, but waiting on that here would bog down the game another day or so. I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm rolling for an attack and defense, and making that roll secret to Tec. @Chante, if Chante would tell Shiriki not to try to frag up those anglos, then the roll never happened, but this way that decision won't be tainted by OOC info.

I'm going to spend a Plot Point for Malfunction (Gopher doesn't get Armor)

url=http://orokos.com/roll/545811 Dragon Shooting: AGI (8) + Vehicle Weapons (6) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1)  = 17 dice.: 17d6t5 7

I forgot the -3 for the defender moving at top speed. Since I don't have Shadow Amps for piloting a vehicle like the Dragon, that penalty should have been included.
http://orokos.com/roll/545812 -3 for defending vehicle moving: 3d6t5 0
Cool, so 7 Hits.

I'm going to go with the Soldier stats, as I'd bet the rough and tumble cops out near the western edge of the UCAS border are better than the rent-a-cops.
http://orokos.com/roll/545813 AGI (5) + LOG (3) = 8 dice. 8d6t5 2

12P base, staged up to 17P. Hopefully, that should grind it to a halt.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:02, Fri 01 Sept 2017.

I'd still try avoid casual at this point (at least until they're plausibly deniable) if we can, since it's going to generate far less heat down the line. It's pretty obvious you don't want to be the ones to start off the war if you can. It's far more likely we'd be hung out to dry to make peace if that happens than be backed by the Sioux command.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 70):

I'm not entirely sure what Dan-Dan is saying, as some of the language seems to be contradictory.

Your plausible deniability is pretty much gone. You were at the site of a military base that simultaneously blew up and imploded. You've already engaged in one gun battle with UCAS forces. They've tracked you this far. You know who they are and they know who you are.

Whether or not there is a war is up to the diplomats. Now, you can certain make their jobs easier or tougher depending on your actions behind enemy lines. Your orders to remain non-lethal (count coup) have not been lifted. Your orders are to get to St. Louis. Whether you determine those orders are contradictory or mutually exclusive is up to you. How much you trust Sioux command is also up to you.

Broadly speaking, the Wildcats command structure can be depended on not to hang its troops out to dry. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones with a seat at the table. The Office of Military Intelligence (OMI) is an internal rival and is far more pragmatic about Sioux assets and their roles (or lack thereof) in the grand scheme of things.

To be clear, you are not obligated (from a GM perspective) to follow orders. Chante has decided to trust the powers that be for the time being. If that changes, and your direction changes as a result, then the game will as well.

Going back to our Chapter 1 discussion, I wanted there to be a Captain to break ties in decision-making, not to introduce a potential veto to any in-game decision. I am much more interested in reducing OOC friction than I am in perfectly mirroring a realistic command structure. In this case I will give Chante an opportunity to override Shiriki, since the decision is fairly pivotal, but for the most part we'll be declaring and resolving our actions individually rather than letting the nature of PbP grind us to a halt in the process of consensus-forming.

Further, if it hasn't been obvious, Chante's pretty open to the team doing what needs done, for better or worse.  If it ends up being a dumb idea, the whole team will probably be heated about it, so that's the control.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 71):

I meant: say we get off the grid, we can make any killing we do look like it's by some other source. Whether we're believed of not, it's plausibly deniable, meaning without solid evidence we have more latitude whilst following the spirit but not the letter of our orders.

I edited Shiriki's OOC post so that it shows the rolling he did in private.

Due to wind, etc. you have to wait until the Gopher is within 500 meters to get a reasonable shot. You don't need to take a penalty for the defender in a moving vehicle because in this case the vehicle is moving directly toward you. You do have a penalty for crappy conditions, but the -3 you already rolled (with no subtracted hits) will suffice for that.

rednblack spends a plot point to avoid the Gopher's 12 points of armor. That delivers 17P directly to the Gopher. The APDS ammo in the heavy machine gun shreds the snowplow like tin foil. The rounds continue through into the engine block, turning it into Swiss cheese.

The Gopher's Condition Monitor is 13 boxes, which are totally filled. The four boxes of overflow represent the rounds that pour through the windshield that chew up the two members of the redneck militia, "Handfishin" and "One Punch". They each take 4P, thanks to the APDS.

An exaggeration, but this is how they'll tell the story if they make it: https://media.giphy.com/media/11t7vv2xFWW448/giphy.gif

That will stop their progress cold. The two sheriffs are bright enough (and sober enough) to know that they are completely outmatched. They have Remington shotguns are utterly inadequate for the range in question. They stop and render aid to the two good ol' boys who are bleeding. They also call for "backup," whatever that means out here.

@rednblack, the IC post is yours if you want it.

Top-notch IC post, rednblack. I really liked it.

I'll take the next IC post, which I hope to get up this afternoon or evening.

In the meantime, a little popcorn to keep you on your toes. One of the sheriffs found a hunting rifle in the Gopher and will take some potshots at you. We'll say five shots, one for everyone, and I'll roll them in alphabetical order.

http://orokos.com/roll/547650]Agility + Firearms - Environment Modifiers: 5#1d6t5 0 hits 0 hits 0 hits 0 hits 0 hits

Well, that's no fun. Not surprising, but no fun. Anyway, you hear rounds whipping through the air around you, but the sheriff doesn't hit anything but snow.

I've posted a secret medicine roll to scalp Shiriki and appease the spirits without damaging him too much. I imagine he'll be fine...
Medicine 8  + logic 6 + gifted healer 2[/url]: 17d6t5 7 ]]
This message was last edited by the player at 10:09, Wed 06 Sept 2017.

I used the dice roller attached, I imagine Tec can see it?

Basically used the 'Composure Roll' / resist Mentor Spirit compulsion of Cha + Wil

Will (6) + Cha (6) = 12d6t5 6

Then for the next roll, trying to force the spirits to silence themselves.

Will (6) + Conj (3) + Edge (1) = 10d6t4 4
This message was last edited by the player at 16:39, Wed 06 Sept 2017.

In reply to Chante (msg # 77):

I can see the roll if I go to the "Dice Roller" link in the subnav. However, if people want to use that then I strongly encourage them to check the "Record Each Die" checkbox, as that will record each die separately so that each die result is listed out individually:


This is important for two reasons:

1) if we need to subtract dice due to modifiers, we can drop them off the end without rerolling, and,
2) the dice roller uses the 4E calculation for glitches and critical glitches.

The 4E threshold for a glitch was 50%, while the 5E threshold is 51%. The importance of this came up in another game. If you don't roll the dice out separately and the system reports that you glitched then we're going to assume that it really was a glitch. But if you list the dice out separately, the dice may absolve you if you only rolled 50% 1s.

@Jayde I wasn't aware that Chante had a mentor spirit. What is it?

The spirits here are strong and aren't particularly interested in being silenced:

http://orokos.com/roll/547927 Spirits resisting Chante's Will: 12d6t5 4 hits

Chante wins the battle of wills. The spirit speaking to her rides off with a huff.

Let's see how Shiriki stands up. I'm going to call it Hard, as I think Very Hard would make more sense in a higher BC area. I'm also including a Glitch die because that's how you roll with this stuff.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/548041 ]Composureish Check: WIL (6) + WIL (6) = 12 dice, plus Glitch Die[/url]: 12d6t5 4 1d6t5 1

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/548042 ]Hard: 10 dice[/url]: 10d6t5 3
Ok, so it's close, but Shiriki is mostly in control of his senses. More importantly, Shiriki got an Exploit! Imma have to think on that, but I've already got some stuff written up, so it should come later tonight.

Got the IC in. @Dan-Dan, I'm not expecting what Shiriki's saying to stop him, so keep playing it out the way you think it should go.

Tec, I see how that's confusing.  I didn't mean to say she has a Mentor spirit (though she would if this wasn't Anarchy).  I was just noting that mentor Spirit compulsions are usually Cha + Will so it made sense that resisting this Spirit's compulsion would be the same thing.

If having one is just a matter of saying there is one, it would likely be Wise Warrior.

Well Composure tests in general are WIL+CHA, so if that's what you're going for then that makes sense.

Mentor spirits are actually some of my favorite qualities. I think they add a ton of flavor to a character.

We can do this two ways:

1) We can just say that Chante has a mentor spirit, but it's narrative-only and doesn't provide any mechanical benefits.

2) We can add a mentor spirit to Chante but it has to have both a positive and a negative mechanical impact.

SR5's negative for Wise Warrior is probably too light for Anarchy so we'd have to come up with something more robust.

@MDMann I'll make the same offer to Dan-Dan. He can either keep Cat as a purely positive quality, or he can add a negative quality to Cat and upgrade Cat's positive quality so that the bonus applies not only to Stealth but to Athletics as well.

Speaking of which, MDMann, why does Dan-Dan have Athletics and Gymnastics listed separately on your character sheet?

I'm looking for IC posts on the current situation from MDMann and GloriousRuse, preferably before the weekend.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 82):

I'll take the negative. It's likely to fit his personality.

I'm not sure why they're listed separately. Probably an oversight on my part.

There's a good chance of Shiriki surviving his haircut by the way... well, some chance.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:56, Mon 11 Sept 2017.

Action back to Chante/Swoopy/Shiriki.

At this point I'm going to say that Dan-Dan is set in his course and that he must be physically stopped or avoided if Shiriki doesn't want a haircut.

Shirki's going to continue traveling east. If Dan-Dan follows he's going to try to stay ahead of him until we reach the end of the background count. If not, he'll try to shoot him with the roto-drone, and then pick up his body and pilot the ATV out of it for him.

@Tec and @Dan-Dan, let me know if I need to make any rolls.

Alright, you slackers, I'm looking for real posts, not pretend posts that you think up in your heads but don't write down.

If Chante and Swoopy aren't going to physically intervene then we'll have ourselves a chase sequence.

Shiriki and Dan-Dan can pre-emptively roll and post the results privately to keep the results hidden from the other. I'm thinking AGI + Pilot (Ground) + Amps, etc.

Shiriki has the better dice pool but who knows. Some fancy rolling by Dan-Dan, perhaps with Edge and/or a Glitch die rolling an Exploit, could bridge the gap.

Well cat gives that agility boost...

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/550515 ]AGI (8) + PIlot: Ground (3) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1) = 14 dice.[/url]: 14d6t5 4
A little sub par, so a good roll by Dan-Dan might bridge the gap.

I'm not sure what kind of time frame we're looking at here, but Shiriki will instruct the Roto-drone to fire on Dan-Dan if he closes within 5 meters of Shiriki's ATV. It will use SnS instead of gel rounds.

Dan-Dan, roll it.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 90):

Agility 6 + Catlike 2 + Mentòr Cat 1 + pilot 2[/url]: 11d6t5 3 rerolling misses with a fate die. 2 more successes[url=http://orokos.com/roll/550956]Reroll[/url]: 8d6t5 2. Total of 5.  ]

I have Dan-Dan's rolling. I reached out to him for some clarification. Once I have that, we'll roll the next steps.

I'll post something tomorrow.

Alright:

Tomahawks Thrown: AGI (7) + Projectile Weapons (5) = 12d6t5 4 Hits

Sorcery: WILL (6) + Sorcery (5) = 11d6t5 3 Hits (I got four, but then remembers Background Count, so took off the last few dice)

She puts some mojo into the command, Hypnotic Suggestion.  Further, Leadership 3 amps for whatever that's worth.

Hmm, an interesting question. Would the background count be aligned to Chante, which would actually make her magic more powerful, not less? Or is the hatred here so foreign to her that it interferes with her casting?

Jayde declared 3 hits so we'll go with 3 hits for now. @Jayde, if you're going to use the RPoL roller then make sure to check the box to record each die separately.

However, the roll came in after the other rolls so we're going to change the order of operations a bit.

1) Shiriki doesn't wait around for Dan-Dan to close the distance. He takes off on his ATV.

2) Dan-Dan pursues. After subtracting the dice that don't count, Shiriki and Dan-Dan tie on their piloting rolls with four (4) hits apiece.

3) This means that Dan-Dan closes the distance, but not close enough to strike yet. Chante can cast.

4) Chante can be "heard" over the roaring ATVs because it's a mana spell, not a Leadership/Intimidation roll.

Next Steps
5) Dan-Dan rolls WIL+LOG versus Chante's 3 hits.

6) If Dan-Dan resists the spell (4 hits or more) then Shiriki will have to open up on him with stick-n-shock.

7) If Shiriki misses, then Dan-Dan gets a swing.

Chante's tomahawk throwing is for narrative purposes and can be used to get Dan-Dan's attention.

Will 4 + logic 6[/url]: 10d6t5 3]

So, where are things headed now? If Chante can get Dan-Dan to pause for a moment or two, that's good for Shiriki, but it still leaves us staunchly within the BC.

As for the BC affecting Chante's magic, I would think that since her goal is to minimize interparty conflict and the BC is aspected toward fighting and all those nasty bits that she would be penalized.

I've sent a private reply with my rolls, so it's with the UK right now...

Dan-Dan's magical defense roll tied Chante's casting roll. As ties go to the attack, Chante's spell wins in this case.

Obviously this is an awkward situation in how to interpret a spell mechanically while not steamrolling Dan-Dan's roleplaying, which I am enjoying.

I'm going to take the key phrase of the Hypnotic Suggestion to be "You will get a hold of yourself." This indeed will cause Dan-Dan to pause for a moment or two.

I'm not going to dictate that this completely halts the attack in progress. If Dan-Dan wants to call it off, I'm fine with that. If Dan-Dan wants to resume the attack previously in progress - simply with a calmer, more composed demeanor - then that's also acceptable. In which case Shiriki will get a shot at him.

I still haven't heard back from Swoopy. I'll reach out again.

On my side of things, I've been trying to comfort a toddler with a cold, which may have been passed to me. I'm also on my way to Bug City on a last-minute business trip. I fly out Thursday morning and will be back Friday night. I should have internet access the entire time, minus the hours up in the sky. I've never been to Chicago before and wish that I weren't going when it's supposed to be 88 degrees. My primary goals for the 30 hours are to eat pizza and to not get any sicker.

Dan-Dan will indeed get a hold of himself.Chante will probably infer this,but I'm not sure Shiriki will, so he might want to take the shot anyway. I think I'd get to roll a dodge?

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 100):

Sure, that sounds good. Let's get a shot from Shiriki with a dodge from Dan-Dan. Dan-Dan gets a bonus due to being a moving  target. I know +3 is SR5 but let's do +2 in this case.

Shiriki should take a small penalty due to visibility conditions, namely the huge plumes of snow being kicked up by the ATVs.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/552356]AGI (8) + Gunnery (3) - Moving at Top Speed (3) = 8 dice[/url]: 8d6t5 1

Should be an easy dodge for Dan-Dan. According to page 48 of Anarchy the attacker takes the -3 penalty to shooting at moving targets at top speed. The defender does not get a bonus.

In reply to Shiriki (msg # 102):

Well I haven't added the extra dice and I only added the one die for cat (which may be two) but I got four successes anyway. Perhaps it should have been more but it'll do. [url=http://orokos.com/roll/552377]Dodge agility 6 + logic 6 + Cat 1[/url]: 13d6t5 4

@rednblack Thanks for the correction. I was in the taxi on the way to the airport and was trying to shoot from the hip.

@MDMann Why are you adding a bonus die for Cat? You don't need it to successfully avoid getting hit, but none of your amps or qualities give you bonuses to dodge.

Alright, next steps. I wouldn't mind a reaction IC from Shiriki, and a post from Swoopy is long overdue. Hopefully the canyon doesn't consume him.

After that we'll proceed toward McCook.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 104):

I'm a little confused. If Dan-Dan wants to take some of Shoriko's hair he needs to roll for it. Ain't nothing free in this house ;)

In reply to Shiriki (msg # 105):

I disagree. In the "yes, and..." spirit of Anarchy, I'm comfortable skipping rolls for actions that have narrative-only effects. Given that Shiriki is not materially damaged - other than his pride - I don't see a need for rolls.

Again, I'm sensitive to player-vs-player OOC implications, but I'd rather build the drama and let it play out ICly. If this is a sore point then let's be transparent and work it out in the open, but otherwise let's move forward rather than restating/retconning.

I'm happy either way. I was just aiming for an in character interesting post. I'm happy to retcon if you'd like.

I added the cat bonus for agility. It made no difference anyway of course. Did we ever say what the negative aspect would be?

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 107):

If we're talking about Catlike, the Quality, then it's +2 to Stealth or +2 to Gymanstics, or +1 to each. There aren't any qualities that give +1 to Agility, which would be overly powerful.

The negative quality from SR5 was that you toy with your prey and can't go for an incapacitating strike. We already broke that with Dan-Dan shanking/chloroforming the UCAS guard in Chapter 1, so we'll probably have to think of a new approach.

Action is to me, although anyone is free to post. I'll try to IC in the next day.

Toying with prey fits. What should we use use as an alternative for no crippling strikes? Open to suggestions.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 110):

I think crippling someone is fine, as long as you don't incapacitate them.  It's cruel, but cat's are cruel.

Tec:

http://stuffershack.com/shadow...-maps-the-way-to-go/

Might be interesting read for you.

Anyhoo...

I'm a little confused on where everyone is standing.  I thought Dan Dan was on his two feet when I threw the Tomahawk... but then he was on an ATV?  Shiriki on an ATV?  How far did they get?

Can you paint a picture of where everyone is standing?  It can be OOCly here, but I need to be oriented before I post again... and Swoopy demands a post!

In reply to Chante (msg # 112):

I read that post by Gingivitis. I reached out and asked if there's an easy way to get a graphical representation of a node system without falling back onto ASCII art. RPoL isn't as good as the official forums were for uploading images, but hopefully we can figure out something that works.

Whether Dan-Dan chased Shiriki on foot or on ATV is a bit ambiguous. I was imagining a short ATV chase - hence the Piloting tests - but Dan-Dan's post sounds more like him running down Shiriki on foot. This isn't impossible: Dan-Dan's Traceless Walk would allow him to run across snow as easily as concrete, which could (in theory) allow him to run down an ATV that had to fight through powder. I'm not concerned enough about it to request a revision.

As for where people are standing, I imagine that Chante and Swoopy are within close proximity to each other while Dan-Dan and Shiriki are close to each other and a medium distance away from Chante/Swoopy, say 50-100 meters. But this is flexible based on what works best for a narration.

If we're breaking this into nodes, let's call Massacre Canyon the first node (our present location), the next obvious node would be the area surrounding the small town of Culbertson, and the third node would be McCook, your destination. In a semi-visual format:

Massacre Canyon -> Culbertson (10km away) -> McCook (20km from Culbertson)

Now that's the linear approach. The ATVs mean you don't have to move in straight lines, or follow roads, although you'll travel more quickly if you do. As stated earlier (a month ago), the base range for an ATV is 100km, but the heavy snow and hauling around Ité will limit that. In theory it's enough to take you the ~30km to McCook, but in theory communism works.

Hope that's enough for Chante's IC post. I'll hold off until that's up.

@Jayde, it's been a couple days. Were you still planning on responding to Swoopy's post?

Fuck fuck games is a military colloquialism that refers to stupid shit Soldiers do that get them in trouble with their immediately leadership who respond with their own fuck fuck games, some sort of on the spot military correction.

"Oh, you privates wanna play fuck fuck games?  I got some fuck fuck games you'll love."

A few minutes later, you got Soldiers doing the Koala on the telephone pole outside.  (The koala is where you invert yourself and hold yourself up on the telephone pole).

Next IC is to me.

The spirits are pissed. Let's get a round of Initiative rolls up.

Well, Tec, it's been 72 hours since your call for Initiative rolls and your players are 0 for 4 in responding. That's not encouraging.

Swoopy: http://orokos.com/roll/555675 Initiative: 9d6t5 5 hits
Chante: http://orokos.com/roll/555676 Initiative: 8d6t5 2 hits
Dan-Dan: http://orokos.com/roll/555679 Initiative: 9d6t5 2 hits
Shiriki: http://orokos.com/roll/555677 Initiative: 9d6t5 0 hits

We'll call the spirits two spirits of man and two spirits of beasts. Each pair has one greater and one regular.

 http://orokos.com/roll/555684 Greater Spirit of Man Initiative: 8d6t5 2
 http://orokos.com/roll/555685 Greater Spirit of Beasts Initiative: 8d6t5 3
 http://orokos.com/roll/555687 Regular Spirit of Man Initiative: 6d6t5 1
 http://orokos.com/roll/555686 Regular Spirit of Beasts Initiative: 6d6t5 3

Initiative Order
Swoopy
Greater Beast + Regular Beast
Chante + Dan-Dan + Greater Man
Regular Man
Shiriki

@Glorious Action to Swoopy

In reply to TecGM (msg # 117):

Apologies for my absence. Kiddos and papa red have been sick this week. This stomach bug is not joke. I'm mostly back in the saddle, so I should be set for when my turn comes up.

Wow, time shoots by.  I didn't realize that request was on Monday!  I've just been uber busy lately and not realizing how quickly the days are going by.

I realize suddenly that I didn't mention what I'm up to these days that's taking so much of my time and attention.  I didn't say it right out of GenCon because nothings certain until the ink is dried.

So, I submitted my 'resume' to Catalyst and at GenCon interviewed with Jason Hardy for and for the Shadowrun Missions Developer job.  The last Developer, Ray Rigel, resigned in spring.  I applied once I realized how much time I spent doing random SR shit and also after a few frustrations with the program that came directly from there not being someone in the spot.

So the Chicago Missions arc was pretty much on track when Ray resigned, but the next story arc (and Missions Location) had been left untouched, but for the idea that it was going to be in Neo-tokyo and a few plot submissions from hopeful writers.

On the back-end of GenCon, I found myself way behind, needing to update the Missions FAQ (after reconnecting with the FAQ Committee and updating its membership with a few folks), familiarize myself with as much Neo-tokyo lore as I could, develop the metaplot for the 4 seasons, select writers for Season 9, and deliver Titles and Hooks in time for Catalyst to submit their events to Origins and get the nice hotel.  (I was NOT going to let 'We lost the Nice Hotel' be my introduction to the CGL team).

Since then, it's been coordinating with writers and getting everything planned for the year to ensure we're ready to run these at Origins and GenCon 2018.

It's not that I'm too busy, it's just that the days are slipping by quickly and I look up and suddenly it's the weekend.

So, yeah... I'm still dedicated to following this story through the planned plot!

So you got the job?? That's fantastic! I want to hear more!

I'll write a report next week!

This weekend I'm out of touch, might be recovering Monday... so I'll post up on Tuesday if it's gotten to me.

Congrats, Jayde! That's very good news.

I look forward to seeing what comes out under your leadership. I'm sure that you'll do a fantastic job.

I've only played about two Missions in my life so I'm far from an expert, but I've always found them to be an interesting concept. From a design perspective, how do you account for the unknown group composition? The table could be five face, or five technomancers, for all you know. They often seem to default to the lowest-common denominator as a default, namely the physical realm, since everyone has a body to participate in the ol' shooty-stabby antics.

One of these days I'm going to write something more formal for Shadowrun - I've had a ganger novel kicking around in my head for a few years - but I keep going back to PbP because I like the back-and-forth and the unexpected twists from the players.

Speaking of which, back to the action at hand. Swoopy has had 40+ hours so he'll hold action and we'll move down the order.

Next up are the Greater Beast and the Regular Beast spirits, which will be going after Dan-Dan and Chante, respectively.

Attacking Dan-Dan: http://orokos.com/roll/556159 Agility 7 + Close Combat 3: 10d6t5 2 hits

Attacking Chante: http://orokos.com/roll/556160 Agility 5 + Close Combat 3: 8d6t5 2 hits

Not great rolls but these things hit like a hammer (11P and 9P, respectively) so don't get tagged.

I'll try to work up a table for initiative order, Edge, plot points, damage, armor, and so on over the weekend. We're not at full Edge but I think at this point everyone is at full plot points (5 each).

Next
Dan-Dan defense roll + Chante defense roll
Dan-Dan attack + Chante attack

Shiny. 3 hits, dodge away.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/556296]Dodge agility 6 + logic 6[/url]: 12d6t5 3

Congrats on the job. Sounds cool, tell is more.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 124):

Dan-Dan also needs to declare and roll his next action, be it an attack it otherwise.

Any bonus dice against the spirits for aggressive actions in massacre canyon?

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 126):

Not by default, no. But, in the spirit of Anarchy, if you feel that the background count is aligned with Dan-Dan's magic or tradition, then you are welcome to assign yourself a bonus as you see fit.

And, if we're going with Cat's negative quality, Dan-Dan will need to toy with his prey first to prove his superiority.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 127):

I thought long and hard about whether to add dice before rolling but eventually decided against it. So, I only got 5 hits... against the greater beast. Let's dance. I also thought about adding a dice for Mogwai my familiar but didn't.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/556415]Combat agility 6 + close combat 4 + weapon focus 2[/url]: 12d6t5 5
This message was last edited by the player at 21:01, Sat 07 Oct 2017.

ATV target spirit into the line of fire

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/556511]ATV...AGI 5 + 2 bioware + 2 pilot[/url]: 9d6t5 2

Spirit of Man (reg) generic roll

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/556513]Spirit of Man vs deliberate mislead[/url]: 6d6t5 1

Well, at least it rolled poorly for both. I'm going to blithely rule being hit by spectral musket balls is a base 8 damage. So 9P to our friend.

Alright, rolled the dodge with a total of 4 hits, but I needed to use edge to get it.  1 hit on that first roll.


Following up with her own attack with the Tomahawks.

I'm going to subtract 4 dice for attacking while riding the ATV.  I feel that's appropriate?

Got 5 hits on that roll.

It's closing in on midnight PST and I'm just wrapping up my work day. I'll catch up on everything Wednesday afternoon.

This afternoon I saw a play that was set in Genoa, Nebraska. Many of the characters were Pawnee, and there were references to the Lakota too. It was interesting to watch with the background knowledge of the things I've learned in this game.

Back to the action. We'll go step-by-step:

@Dan-Dan You have two Shadow Amp points in your weapon focus. The first point doesn't do anything - it's just for narrative purposes - and the second point gives you +1. As such, you rolled 1 die too many, although your last die wasn't a hit so that doesn't affect anything.

Dodge for the Greater Spirit of Beasts: http://orokos.com/roll/557486 Agility 7 + Logic 6: 13d6t5 3 hits

Dan-Dan connects with 2 net hits. Base damage is 6 STR + 1 knife + 2 net hits = 9P. Immunity to Normal Weapons does not apply so the damage is not reduced. The spirit has 9 boxes of armor, which are completely wiped out in the attack.

@Swoopy If I'm reading your posts correctly, Swoopy is diverting the charging spirit (we'll say the regular spirit of man) into astral gunfire coming from the surrounding US Army spirit "soldiers"? (I'm not sure the rest of the team is aware of them, as they were part of Swoopy's vision.)

This seems viable as an extension of Swoopy's willpower, although this might engender an identity crisis that the US Army soldiers seem to be helping Swoopy. What does that say about his race and his loyalties?

Anyway, 9P wipes out the spirit's 6 boxes of armor and leaves it with 3P.

@Chante You asked about subtracting dice for attacking on an ATV, but your roll didn't subtract any dice. I personally don't think it's necessary to subtract any. Attacking on an ATV is certainly unusual, but in theory any penalty could be offset by a "charging" bonus if you wanted. We'll keep your 5 hits on the roll.

Regular spirit of beast wants to dodge: http://orokos.com/roll/557490 Agility 5 + Logic 4: 9d6t5 4 hits

A valiant effort but ultimately unsuccessful. Chante connects with 1 net hit. Base damage is STR 5 + Tomahawk 1 + net hit 1 = 7P. Immunity to Normal Weapons does not apply so the damage is not reduced. The spirits 9 boxes of armor are knocked down to 2 boxes.

Initiative Order
Swoopy
Greater Beast - 0 armor remaining
Regular Beast - 2 armor remaining
Chante
Dan-Dan
Greater Man
Regular Man - 0 armor remaining, 3P
Shiriki

Greater Spirit of Man
This fellow will take a swipe at Shiriki.

Attacking Shiriki: http://orokos.com/roll/557494 Agility 7 + Close Combat 3: 10d6t5 2 hits

Base damage is 6P if he connects.

Regular Spirit of Man
The regular spirit of man will be using his Accident power against the group. It affects (WIL rating) rolls. Its WIL is 4, so everyone gets a glitch die on their next roll! Hurray!

It seems incongruous to me that the Accident power would be twice as likely to help the target (via an Exploit) than to hurt them (via a Glitch), so I'm going to remove the possibility of Exploits from the Accident power. You are, of course, welcome to add your own Glitch dice (via Plot Points) if you want to try for an exploit.

Next
Shiriki defend against 2 hits
Shiriki's turn w/ Glitch Die
GM to create a proper initiative/Edge/Plot Point/Armor/Condition table

Good call on Accident. That doesn't make much sense.

Shiriki's Defense:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557829 ]Vehicle Defense: AGI (8) + LOG (6) + Cerebral booster (1) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1) = 18 dice.[/url]: 18d6t5 7
Gratuitious.

Tacticswise, I'm tempted to push the bounds of the ATVs and get the frag out of the BC. If nothing else, the spirits might be weakened. To that end, I'm going to do something that might be stupid. I'm going to spend my action this turn to double my movement, and then perform a stunt to ride this frozen river like a bobsled course. Seems like a good roll for the Glitch die. Shiriki will also order both his drones to fire on the spirits.

The idea will be -- hopefully -- that next turn Shiriki is out of range of the spirits and can go Hotsim in one of the drones to provide fire support.

Or maybe Shiriki's just gonna nope the fuck out of there, and leave the Lakota to deal with it.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557830 ]Drone Piloting: AGI (8) + Pilot Ground (3) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1) = 14 dice.[/url]: 14d6t5 6 1d6 1
Glitch Die! A really good roll for the environment could be a really bad one for me.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557832 ]Hard: 10 dice[/url]: 10d6t5 3

Ok, so Shiriki succeeds, but we've got an unforeseen problem. I'll cover the fluff in my IC, but Shiriki suffers -1 to dice rolls until his next narration, and will need to make a Survival test at GM's discretion.

Let's see how the drones do. I'm going to let them pick their own targets this round.

Doberman:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557854]Drone Dogbrain Attack: AGI (8) + Projectile Weapons (3) = 11 dice[/url]: 11d6t5 4
Promising start.
Target:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557859 ]Target: 1: Greater Beast 2: Regular Beast 3: Greater Man 4: Regular Man[/url]: 1d4 2
Going after the Regular Beast Spirit

Beast Spirit Defense:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557862 ]Agility 5 + Logic 4: = 9 dice[/url]: 9d6t5 5
So, that's a miss.

Roto-drone Attack:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557860 ]Drone Dogbrain Attack: AGI (8) + Projectile Weapons (3) = 11 dice[/url]: 11d6t5 2
Not great.
Target:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557863 ]1: Greater Beast 2: Regular Beast 3: Greater Man 4: Regular Man 5: Dan-Dan[/url]: 1d5 2
Also going after the Regular Beast Spirit

Beast Spirit Defense:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/557864 ]Agility 5 + Logic 4: = 9 dice[/url]: 9d6t5 5
I mean, 10 Hits on 18 dice isn't insane or anything, but it sure seems it when you're rolling for the other guy. Sheesh.

Hope to get IC up today. I'm going to start formulating something right now, but if not, I'll get it up before my classes tomorrow.

In reply to Shiriki (msg # 133):

Well let's least make the glitch interesting. Perhaps the ice gives out? Of course, given the trickle of the Republican River at this time of year, Shiriki might only be falling into 6-12 inches of water, but that would be enough to slow down the ATV and possibly get Shiriki wetter than he wants to be, given the environment conditions. But I leave the exact glitch and details up to you.

That takes us back to the top of the order:

Initiative Order
Swoopy + glitch die
Greater Beast - 0 armor remaining
Regular Beast - 2 armor remaining
Chante + glitch die
Dan-Dan + glitch die
Greater Man
Regular Man - 0 armor remaining, 3P
Shiriki

@Swoopy Action to you. Don't forget your glitch die.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:43, Fri 13 Oct 2017.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 134):

That's what I'm going with. I figure Shiriki could hit an eddy, which can explain the extra depth.

FYI my fam's been sick on and off for the past few weeks, and I came down with this stomach bug. I should still be able to post today but my IC may come in the afternoon or early evening instead of this morning

Its less "we're helping Swoopy" for the US spirits and more that the battle continues on the other side of the veil - and while nothing there can affect swoopy, it can certainly hurt the spirit on it's home ground...kind of the reverse of a mage in astral having to worry about his meat space body, presumably the spirits in meat have to worry about their magic space body.

And since we can sort of see what's going on, on the "far side", might as well take advantage of that.

That said, I'll happily roll the willpower glitch anyhow on account of this essentially being a mundane trying to see beyond the veil now that it's so close,,which may end up being rather disturbing...

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/558460]Swoopy Willpower versus Glitch (2x5 WIL)[/url]: 10d6t5 4

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/558461]The "other side" ...Hard (10) + swoopy's essence loss (3)[/url]: 13d6t5 7

Well, that won't be good...

Piloting check

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/558462]Driving, 9[/url]: 9d6t5 6
This message was last edited by the player at 20:17, Sun 15 Oct 2017.

Top-notch IC posts, Shiriki and Swoopy.

Swoopy, I meant a literal glitch die - a 1d6 where you don't want a 1 - with the understanding that it's the Spirit of Man trying to hose you in the meat world. Shiriki going through the ice is a fine example. That said, it sounds like Swoopy's mind is giving out, which is duly interesting, so we'll roll with that.

Alright, so Swoopy is high-tailing it and Shiriki is well-ahead of the pack. That leaves Dan-Dan and Chante in the thick of things, namely four pissed spirits.

Let's figure out the two beast spirits and then it will be back to Chante and Dan-Dan to either exfiltrate themselves.

Greater Beast
Going after Dan-Dan: http://orokos.com/roll/559819 Agility 7 + Close Combat 3: 10d6t5 3 hits

That's 11P plus net hits if it connects, so don't let it connect.

Regular Beast
Going after Chante: http://orokos.com/roll/559820 Agility 5 + Close Combat 3: 8d6t5 4

That's 9P plus net hits if it connects.

Next
Dan-Dan defends then Dan-Dan attacks with a glitch die
Chante defends then Chante attacks with a glitch die

Again, feel free to do your defense and attack all at once. No need to post separately.

@Swoopy, a point of clarification on your IC post: Shiriki spent his action on Movement, so he'd be covering 1 range of movement farther than the rest of the chars could reach this turn, unless they also spent their action that way.

Shiriki is correct, but I don't see Swoopy taking any other action other than Piloting. That seems to suggest that he took no other action other than hauling ass.

Small aside here. The default rules are 1 movement and 1 action/attack per turn. Spending a plot point allows you to double-time it and take two movements.

The book is lovingly inconsistent about wired reflexes (Shiriki) and synaptic boosters (Swoopy). Synaptic boosters aren't even listed in the back of the book, but they are listed for a sample character and one of the goons. Wired Reflexes usually say +1 attack/action, but there are three instances where they say +1 attack/movement instead.

I'm not sure if additional movements are intended to be a default part of initiative enhancement or not, or if they're supposed to be represented by the additional Plot Points that initiative boosters offer.

I'm going to adopt a player-friendly (I think) ruling and say that players with initiative enhancements can spend their attack/action on additional movement instead. This makes more sense on foot where your legs can spin in blur Road Runner-style. This makes less sense while on an ATV - since how do reflex enhancers help your vehicle go faster - but this is such a long-entrenched inconsistency within Shadowrun (the primary one being initiative enhancers helping your fully automatic weapon cycle faster... somehow) that I'm loathe to eliminate it.

End aside. Long story short, Shiriki and Swoopy are 2 movements ahead of Chante and Dan-Dan. The latter can close that distance to 1 movement simply through the natural course of their turns (which assume forward movement on the ATVs unless stated otherwise) or to 0 movements either via a plot point (Double Time) or spending their attack/action on piloting as Swoopy did.

@Tec, you're absolutely right. I thought Swoopy had taken another action. Also, I was wrong when I said that by RAW you could take an Action as your Movement -- that costs a Plot Point.

That makes me feel better actually, to have Swoopy alongside Shiriki.

My reading is that Wired Reflexes/boosters are intended to give an extra Movement or Action each Narration. I think that's where my above mistake stems from.

Just posted an ic post for my last action. It doesn't count the next action.

Let's do a quick roll call.

I was out of commission last week with a head cold that was yo-yo'ing between my head and my chest. It made three total round trips but I'm hoping the worst of it has passed.

Jayde hasn't posted in almost three weeks, which is especially an issue since the action has been on Chante for almost two weeks now. That's enough to put Chante in GM control, which I'll assume once MDMann makes his rolls.

@MDMann Thank you for the IC post. That said, we actually need a roll from you before we can declare that you've successfully dodged the spirit.

Next
MDMann: Dodge 3 hits
MDMann: Declare an action and roll to resolve, including a Glitch die

Will do. The dodge I wrote about was my previous dodge. I still need to roll the new one.

lol, I've been waiting, actually!  Checking almost everyday and seeing no new posts.

Based on you saying we were waiting on me just now, I went back through and see where I made an error, seeing Shiriki post on the 12th and then the next time I checked was on Monday and seeing Swoopy posted on Sunday after Shiriki's post.  Then some back and forth between Shiriki and Tec.

I totally missed that there were posts on Friday the 13th.

I would like to say, however, that I think it would be helpful for me if every OOC roll-up from the GM came with an IC post, kind of refreshing the scene and accounting for what we all did.  This helps me especially with keeping track of things, because I sometimes get lost amidst folks different writing styles.

Defense Test:

Agility (7) + Logic (3) = 10, Rolled for 3 Hits and the Glitch Die came up 4.

Chante is hit for 10 Damage, which is taken by her armor and leaves 2 Armor Points.


Responding with her own attack:

AGI (7) + Close Combat (6) + Specialization (2) + Qualities (2) = 17 dice 7P Base

Rolled 4 hits, the dice gods aren't my friend today!

Since one hand has to be on the vehicle, not getting the benefit of the Ambidextrous Quality.

Next steps are to me. My wife and son are both sick so I'm scrambling a little bit to keep the household together. I hope to resolve things tomorrow, perhaps during a break at work.

Now it's my turn to fight the flu. I'll try again tomorrow.

Alright, I'm back from the dead. I was completely flat on Thursday and Friday with a flu that felt like I had been hit by a train. I'm 90% better today, which means that it only feels like I've been hit with a wooden chair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC7bV9PY3e4

Yes, I realize that the math is fuzzy, and that getting hit by a train is more than 10x worse than getting hit by a chair. Maybe it was a slow-moving train.

@Jayde I PM'd you a week before your last post. That should have alerted you directly that the action was to you. Also, the glitch die was for your attack, not your defense. I'm guessing you just picked the last result in your roll to be the glitch die, but let's roll the glitch dice separately so that they're easy to pick them out.

Attack glitch? http://orokos.com/roll/565631 Glitch die: 1d6 3, not a glitch

You didn't specify which target you were attacking so I'm going to presume the regular beast spirit since that's the one that just took a chunk out of your armor.

Regular beast dodging: http://orokos.com/roll/565633 AGI 5 + LOG 4: 9d6t5 4 hits

That's a tie, which goes to the attacker. That does 7P. Immunity to Normal Weapons doesn't apply to the foci, so the attack wastes the last 2 points of armor and take 5P out of the spirit.

@MDMann Let's get those rolls up ASAP, as it's been 2.5 weeks now. I'll push things forward on Monday if they're not up by then.

@All I will definitely NOT be doing an IC post for every GM roll. To me that would largely defeat the purpose of Anarchy, which is have the players inform the action as much as the GM does. I don't want to describe how something is attacking you or how you respond. I'd rather have the exact details of the exchange play out however it makes sense to you in your own theater of the mind.

REMEMBER: You are authorized to make the defense rolls for your targets when you attack! You don't have to wait for the GM. Roll your attack, roll the opponent's defense, and then IC post based on the results.

However, I can also understand it if we do want more GM posting, if only to recap the current situation. With that in mind, I will do my best to post ICly once per round. That will help summarize things and keep some semblance of an initiative round.

Here's the current status:

Initiative Order
Swoopy
Greater Beast - 0 armor remaining
Regular Beast - 0 armor remaining - 5P, -1 to rolls
Chante - 2 armor remaining
Dan-Dan + glitch die - we are here
Greater Man
Regular Man - 0 armor remaining, 3P
Shiriki

Next
1) Dan-Dan defends against the Greater Beast spirit, which rolled 3 hits and will do 11P + net hits if it connects

2) Dan-Dan attacks with a glitch die

Yeah, I have no message!

Good shooting Tex.  Dodge. 6 bites.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/566339]Dodge agility 6 + logic 6[/url]: 12d6t5 6

Roll to attack. 3 hits. [url=http://orokos.com/roll/566342]Attacks Agility 6 + close combat 4 + foci 1[/url]: 11d6t5 3

Spirit dodging. 3 hits. Ties to attacker. [url=http://orokos.com/roll/566343]Spirit dodge agility 7 + combat 3[/url]: 10d6t5 3

Glitch die... drum roll: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/566344]Glitch[/url]: 1d6t5 0. No hit.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:53, Mon 06 Nov 2017.

@Jayde Thanks for the IC. It sounds like Chante is pushing past (advancing one 'move' away from the spirits) instead of continuing to engage in the fight. Let me know if that's incorrect.

@MDMann Thanks for the rolls. There are a couple things to point out:

1) The spirit dodges with AGI + LOG, same as you do, not AGI + Combat Skill
2) The glitch die isn't a roll to get a 5 or 6 but rather a roll to get a 1. In this case, your glitch die actually did come up a 1, so Dan-Dan did indeed glitch.

Let's take these sequentially.

For #1, it's not entirely clear who Dan-Dan is attacking. The Greater Beast spirit would make sense, since it is the one that attacked Dan-Dan, but you could be tag-teaming the regular beast spirit attacking Chante instead. It's also entirely possible that Dan-Dan decided to go out of his way to track down one of the spirits of man and attack them instead.

Let's go with one of the regular spirits, since their dice pools to dodge are essentially what MDMann already rolled. We'll flip a coin for which spirit. Heads (1) for Man and tails (2) for Beast.

http://orokos.com/roll/566491 1 = Man, 2 = Beast: 1d2 2

Beast it is then. The beast spirit nearly knocks Chante off her ATV but she manages to drag her tomahawk along its side. Dan-Dan swoops in and delivers another 7P. This brings the beast spirit up to 12P and fills its condition monitor, which sends it packing!

For #2, the glitch has many possible interpretations. Jayde hinted at some good options in Chante's IC post: Dan-Dan could drop his weapon focus after the attack, or he could fall off his ATV. Take your pick or create your own, but it does need to have negative (or at least inconvenient) consequences.

It's late where I am so I'll pause here and give Dan-Dan a day to decide, as it might influence what the spirits of men decide to do. If Dan-Dan doesn't declare then then they'll just act.

Next
Dan-Dan decides his glitch
Greater Spirit of Man
Regular Spirit of Man

No word from Dan-Dan so we'll move on.

Greater Spirit of Man
Everyone else is bailing out except Dan-Dan, so the Greater Spirit of Man will turn his attention from Shiriki to Dan-Dan.

Attacking Dan-Dan: http://orokos.com/roll/566730 Agility 7 + Close Combat 3: 10d6t5 3 hits

Damage is 6P + net hits if it connects.


Regular Spirit of Man
The accident power was surprisingly effective last round so let's do it again.

The regular spirit of man will be using his Accident power against the group. It affects (WIL rating) rolls. Its WIL is 4, so everyone gets a glitch die on their next roll.


Initiative Order
Swoopy
Greater Beast - 0 armor remaining
Regular Beast - 0 armor remaining - 12P
Chante - 2 armor remaining
Dan-Dan + glitch die
Greater Man
Regular Man - 0 armor remaining, 3P
Shiriki - we are here


Next
Dan-Dan decides his glitch
Dan-Dan defends against 3 hits
Shiriki w/ glitch die

Shiriki will keep the ATV on an easterly/riverly course and jump into the Doberman to wreck some spirits with a puny assault rifle. We'll focus on the smaller spirits because -5! to damage from mundane attacks is sick.

First two attacks are against the Regular Man, while the third attack is against the Greater Beast. The Roto-drone will also target the Greater Beast.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/566925 ]Drone Shooting: AGI (8) + Vehicle Weapons (6) + Assault Rifle Spec (2) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1) + Smartlink (1) = 20 dice. Targets: RM, RM, GB, Glitch[/url]: 3#20d6t5 4 5 3 1d6 1
Another Glitch!!! Not only that, but I forgot my -1 to actions penalty. Luckily, I don't lose a Hit by dropping dice.

Regular Man is at -1 for Wound Penalties
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/566939]Defense: AGI (7) + LOG (7) - Wounds (1) = 13 dice.[/url]: 13d6t5 5
Fragged the field and only made one roll.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/566940]Defense: AGI (7) + LOG (7) - Wounds (1) = 13 dice.[/url]: 13d6t5 4
A miss and a hit. Damage is staged to 9P and dropped to 6P. Not enough to put him down. Frag. Regular Man is at 9P now.

Drone Attack:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/566941]Drone Dogbrain Attack: AGI (8) + Projectile Weapons (3) = 11 dice[/url]: 11d6t5 3

Greater Beast has 2 Defense rolls coming:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/566943]Defense: AGI (9) + LOG (8) = 17 dice.[/url]: 2#17d6t5 4 6
Whiffed and whiffed.

IC will come up tomorrow, probably in the late-ish afternoon. I will cover the Glitch from the Glitch die in my IC post. I think I know what I want to do.

The official forums are down again, just like the good old days.

Man, getting a lot of traction on these glitch dice.

Initiative Order
Swoopy
Greater Beast - 0 armor remaining
Regular Beast - 0 armor remaining - 12P
Chante - 2 armor remaining
Dan-Dan + glitch die
Greater Man
Regular Man - 0 armor remaining, 9P
Shiriki
we are here

Next
Dan-Dan decides his glitch
Dan-Dan defends against 3 hits
IC for Dan-Dan
IC for Shiriki
IC for GM to summarize things as they currently stand

For the glitch, how about greater man mounts the greater beast for a combo attack and outnumbering? I'll add in some taunts by Dan to incense tgem too.

@Dan-Dan I'm cool with having the glitch be combo attacks and tag-teaming Dan-Dan. I really like the idea of it being spurred by taunting since that fits really well with Dan-Dan's "Did you just call me dumb?" negative quality.

@Shiriki Thanks for the IC. I like the glitch.

I'll give Dan-Dan the weekend to make his dodge roll and IC post. If I don't see it by Sunday, I'll roll the dodge for him and will incorporate the results into my end-of-the-round IC summary.

Next
Dan-Dan decides his glitch
Dan-Dan defends against 3 hits
IC for Dan-Dan
IC for Shiriki
IC for GM to summarize things as they currently stand

Well that sucks.

Defender rolls dodge. 2 hits. 1 net hit.[url=http://orokos.com/roll/567859]Dodge agility 6 + logic 6[/url]: 12d6t5 2

I think that means I post my IC, where I dispatch the spirit and taunt the survivor's, the greater beast gets in it's licks (or kicks) before the greater man mounts the beast ready for the next round. I think armour covers it, but hey ho
This message was last edited by the player at 13:10, Sun 12 Nov 2017.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 157):

Action is to me. I was going to IC post tonight but the power is out in Seattle due to a proper windstorm. I'm on my phone now.

I've been living in the city with underground power lines for so long that I don't even remember the last time I lost power. 2004? It's been ages.

IC is up. Let's head to the top of the next round.

Actually, I think I wrote the IC wrong. I think it was supposed to be the Greater Spirit of Man striking Dan-Dan and not the Greater Beast. Eh, details details.

Anyway, the damage was 6P + net hits, and there was 1 net hit. That delivers 7P to Dan-Dan's armor, leaving him with 5 boxes remaining.

Initiative Order
Swoopy + glitch die ← we are here
Greater Beast (0 armor remaining)
Chante + glitch die (2 armor remaining)
Dan-Dan + glitch die (5 armor remaining)
Greater Man
Regular Man - 0 armor remaining, 9P
Shiriki

Next
Action to Swoopy, who needs to include a glitch die. I'll PM Glorious, as he hasn't been on in a week (and hasn't posted in a month) since the action was off of him for so long.

Attempting to recover Shiriki:

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/571327]Piloting plus glitch, last die is glitch[/url]: 10d6t5 1

Hmmm...just one hit, but the glitch die is a 2, so we'll call it managed to get there on that action.

2nd action is dragging Shiriki onto the ATV

I'll wait to see the crunch for the greater spirit, then post.

Action is to me!

I had taken the holiday weekend off and was certain I was going to get something up yesterday, but that obviously didn't happen.

Alright, we're basically down to three spirits:

1) Greater Beast - attacking Dan-Dan
2) Greater Man - attacking Dan-Dan from the back of the Greater Beast spirit
3) Regular Man - using Accident to cause glitches

Dan-Dan is drawing aggro due to his glitch, so he is the target of the two Greater Spirits' love and affection. Let's roll out the Greater Beast attack.

Greater Beast attacking Dan-Dan: http://orokos.com/roll/572496 Agility 7 + Close Combat 3: 10d6t5 2 hits

Not terribly impressive. Dan-Dan should be able to dodge that. In the event that he doesn't, the base damage is 11P, to which we will add net hits.

Next
Dan-Dan defends against 2 hits vs. 11P
Dan-Dan (include a glitch die)
Chante action (include a glitch die)

Chante just wants out.  So she's trying to escape.  Not sure if I needed to roll, but I rolled the glitch die anyway, just to see if I got a 1.  Got a 6.  Shoopty whoop!

That means you get an Exploit! Or does it? AFB so I don’t know if the Accident power works like Plot Points.

Back at the beginning of this encounter I ruled that the Accident power couldn't trigger an exploit. See this post for the ruling:

link to a message in this game

This scrap has been going on for two months. So much for Anarchy speeding things up. I suppose PbP is the immovable object in this equation.

Dan-Dan logged into today so presumably he isn't dead. I'll ping him again.

Sorry, I've just changed jobs. It's been a bit crazy.

Dan-Dan dodges. 3 hits. I think I should have rolled another die for Cat, but meh, academic.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/574145]Dodge agility 6 + logic 6[/url]: 12d6t5 3

Then attacks, last die is a glitch die. No glitch. 6 hits.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/574148]Attacks Agility 6 + close combat 4 + foci 2[/url]: 12d6t5 6

Greater beast defends for 4 hits.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/574195]Beast defender agility 9 + logic 8[/url]: 17d6t5 4
This message was last edited by the player at 16:14, Mon 04 Dec 2017.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 166):

@MDMann Just so we're clear, Cat doesn't boost your dodge rolls. Cat boosts your Stealth and Athletics rolls.

In this case, 3 hits is enough to avoid the incoming attack.

Dan-Dan then counterattacks versus a far superior dice pool. In fact, MDMann rolled too many dice on the spirit's defense. Remember that "spirits as listed" in the book are now Greater Spirits, so it should have only rolled 13, not 17 to dodge.

That actually subtracts a hit, so Dan-Dan connects with 3 net hits. Base damage is 7P staged up to 10P by net hits.

The greater beast spirit has 0 armor remaining. Immunity to Normal Weapons does not apply, so those boxes of damage go straight to the condition monitor. The spirit has 2 boxes remaining, and is now at -3. Dan-Dan gelded that mustang.

Greater Man
Dan-Dan is the only one around to attack, so attacked he shall be.

Attacking Dan-Dan: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/574659]Agility 7 + Close Combat 3[/url]: 10d6t5 2 hits

Not exactly the hottest dice from the spirits. Damange is 7S (plus net hits) to Dan-Dan if it connects.

Regular Man
This one is still at -3 so Sir Derps-a-Lot can't do much other than continue use of its accident power to harrass Shiriki into breaking through the ice and crashing into scrub brush. It will continue to do so.


Initiative Order
Swoopy
Greater Beast (10P, -3 to actions)
Chante (2 armor remaining)
Dan-Dan (5 armor remaining)
Greater Man
Regular Man - 0 armor remaining, 9P
Shiriki + glitch die ← we are here

Next
Dan-Dan dodge 2 hits vs 7P damage
Shiriki + glitch die!

No response from Dan-Dan so I'll dodge for him:

http://orokos.com/roll/575344 Agility 6 + Logic 6: 12d6t5 4 hits

4 is more than 2 so the attack is dodged. Dan-Dan is safe.

Next
Shiriki + glitch die!

We're gonna run this Narration like the last one. Two of the jumped in shots are heading toward the Regular Man bc that Glitch Die has been absolutely horrid, and then the third jumped in shot, and the roto-drone attack will center on the Greater Beast.

Major thanks to Swoopy for grabbing Shiriki. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have the action economy to get these attacks off. Here's hoping they stick.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/575995]Drone Shooting: AGI (8) + Vehicle Weapons (6) + Assault Rifle Spec (2) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1) + Smartlink (1) - Glitch Effect (1) = 19 dice. Targets: RM, RM, GB, Glitch[/url]: 3#19d6t5 6 5 3 1d6 3
No Glitch!

Let's see how the Spirit's defense holds up.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/575997]Defense: AGI (7) + LOG (7) - Wounds (3) = 11 dice.[/url]: 2#11d6t5 1 1
Finally, the Regular Man Spirit is disrupted.

Roto-drone Dogbrain:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/575999]Drone Dogbrain Attack: AGI (8) + Projectile Weapons (3) = 11 dice[/url]: 11d6t5 5
Not bad.

Greater Beast
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/576000]Defense: AGI (9) + LOG (8) = 17 dice.[/url]: 2#17d6t5 3 8
The gigantic horse moves with preternatural acumen on the second dodge, but ties go to the attacker. Base damage is 9P, reduced to 4P, but the Greater Spirit doesn't have any Armor left, so it's now at -1 to all actions, and sitting on 4P damage.

All in all, a successful round of dice throwing.

I'll get an IC up later today.

The regular spirit of man gets scrapped by Shiriki. KO. That leaves the two Greater spirits.

Shiriki connects one with of his jumped-in shots, but base damage should 8P not 9P unless there's something about the assault rifle I don't know about. (Also, the Greater Beast is at -3 to dodge due to damage, but dropping the last three dice doesn't affect either shot - neither Shiriki's jumped-in shot nor the rotodrone shot.)

Immunity to Normal weapons drops this from 8P to 3P. The spirit does not have any armor left. It was already at 10P and is now at 13P. This exceeds its condition monitor and so the Greater Beast spirit goes poof. KO.

Alright, we're back to the top of the initiative order. There's only one target left; what does it do? Decisions, decisions. On one hand, this is Massacre Canyon. On the other hand, I'm guessing that the spirits don't actually enjoy being massacred. Again. But Dan-Dan did glitch, and that glitch was to draw aggro...

Back to the top we go. Let's finish this.

Initiative Order
Swoopy ← we are here
Chante (2 armor remaining)
Dan-Dan (5 armor remaining)
Greater Man
Shiriki

Next
IC from me to finish off the round
Action to Swoopy, Chante, and Dan-Dan. Feel free to declare, roll, and post as you are available.

How many movements to be out of the storm or at least at its edges?

Assuming its still around by then, here's Dan-Dans attack roll for the great man.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/577971]Attacks Agility 6 + close combat 4 + foci 2[/url]: 12d6t5 1 1 hit. I think it'll be ok...

Dodging Dan-Dan: http://orokos.com/roll/578106 Agility 7 + Logic 7[/url]: 14d6t5 4 hits

Attack dodged!

@Chante
There is no storm. Per IC #20, you flew out of the storm in the helicopter you stole from the base. The weather is clear, which is nice from the not-freezing-to-death standpoint but does make it easier for drones or aerial surveillance to spot you.

There's wind from riding on the ATVs, and they kick up snow too, but the weather itself is calm.

Action to Swoopy and Chante!

I suppose I was unclear.

It appears that we are currently in a sort of mana storm or alchera or similar event (this is more than just standard background count stuff).

So how close to the edges is Chante?

Though I guess in Anarchy, she's as close or far as I want her to be...

Yes, exactly right!

Since this is Anarchy and things are relatively transparent, this last spirit is the end of the current opposition. After this you'll be free to escape Massacre Canyon . Once you've done so, you'll be free of your astral pursuers (specifically the watchers and fire spirits from the UCAS) but you'll need to be mindful not to pick up new tails on your way to McCook to drop of Ité.

Alright, brother, I'm bowing out.  I don't know if its the pacing or Anarchy as applied to the PbP format, but I'm having a hard time maintaining energy for this.  I am enjoying the plot and your GMing, both as evocative storytelling and organization for mechanics is good... so it's not that.

I'll probably pop in from time to time to catch up on the tales, but Chante is at your disposal for whatever dramatic purpose you need.

Thanks for putting up with me thus far.

Alright, let's do a quick roll call.

I'll be the first to admit that our pacing has been poor, even by PbP standards. We're five months into chapter two and have only been averaging a dozen IC posts per month. That's not very good.

Everyone else sound off about whether you're still with us and/or interested in continuing. I'll give everyone the weekend and New Year's Day. After that, I'll make the call to either push on or tie this off with a pretty bow.

I'm good to continue. I think it's the combat scenes that slow things to a crawl. The other thing would be to open things up to more players.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:19, Fri 29 Dec 2017.

I'm still in.

The pacing is bad, but we can turn that around.

Roll call complete.

Chante has withdrawn and Swoopy hasn't been online in three weeks, which is enough to consider him dropped even with the holidays.

That leaves us with Dan-Dan and Shiriki. I can work with that.

Let's skip past this final spirit. I'll compose an IC post that advances us out of the Canyon and onto McCook.

Alright, a fresh IC is up.

RPoL.net, for inscrutable reasons of its own, sent me an e-mail notice that I had posted something to the forum. Thanks for that, rpol.net.

I'm looking at the January 2075 calendar and it says that the 31st is a Thursday, not a Sunday like I've been writing in the IC thread. I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong when the game started. The politics and election stuff from Chapter One make sense for 2075. I was using Dirty Tricks for that, which has a street date of November 2074. I might need to retroactively change the date to make it be a Sunday, since it will bug me if I don't.

Narrations are to Dan-Dan and Shiriki now. Remember the "yes, and..." spirit of Anarchy.

I'll take care of Chante and Swoopy. Include them as normal for now and don't worry about getting rid of them yet.

Let's get some posts going and work on rebuilding our momentum.

The traditional Anarchy rules have narrations going around the table in a circle. I thought that was too unwieldy for a group of six, but it's possible now for a group of three. Let me know if you want to try that approach so that we always know whose turn/narration it is.

As for lockpicking, I'll accept either Logic plus either Electronics or Hacking. These are mom-and-pop stores, which the book suggests should be Very Easy (4 dice). See the top-right of p. 38.

You both have gear to use during narrations. Shiriki has a maglock passkey and Dan-Dan has thieves' tools.

Thanks for the IC post, Dan-Dan.

Why don't you give us some rolls to see how well the expedition goes:

1. Stealth, for sneaking around town (should be about 13 dice for Dan-Dan vs. 4 dice for the opposition)
2. Lockpicking the thrift store (note, in a town this size, there's probably just one of these stores, not half a dozen) (8 dice vs. 4 dice)
3. Lockpicking the recycling center (8 dice vs. 4 dice)

In reply to TecGM (msg # 183):

I rolled and got 12 successes on 13 rolls! Then I looked and saw I'd rolled d66 instead of d6. What I actually got when I rerolled was:

5 successes. [url=http://orokos.com/roll/584081]Stealth Agility 6 + Catlike 2 + Mentor Cat 1 + Stealth 4[/url]: 13d6t5 5 didn't bother rolling the 4 dice defence. I might edit the post to say I just walked around openly with breezing my way along. Nah, I'll leave it.

Lockpicking twice. [url=http://orokos.com/roll/584086]Lockpicking Agility 6 + Catlike 2[/url]: 2#8d6t5 4 4 4 successes both times.

Lock defence twice. [url=http://orokos.com/roll/584087]Lock defence 4[/url]: 2#4d6t5 2 2 2 successes both times for two net successes both times.

You smoked them! Small Town USA is no match for a Sioux Wildcat. Dan-Dan has his way with the town.

Action is to Shiriki, who can build on Dan-Dan's successes or do his own thing.

Next IC is up.

Let's get a couple Hacking rolls from Shiriki, one for the doors and one for the cameras. The Computer Hacking specialization applies to both.

Both rolls are opposed by 8 dice.

I won't get an IC in until tomorrow, but I'm gonna get my rolls in, and see how things go.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/585867]Hacking: LOG (6) + Hacking (5) + Cerebral Booster (1) + VR (1) + Computer Spec (1) = 14 dice.[/url]: 2#14d6t5 3 3

Well, that's not off to a great start.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/585868]V. Hacking = 8 dice.[/url]: 2#8d6t5 3 6

Ties go to the attacker, so no problem with the doors, but it looks like Shiriki raises an alarm against those cameras and their 75% hit rate.

This could complicate things.

As with all things in Anarchy, how much of a complication is up to you.

So Swoopy was spotted entering through an emergency exit. What does that mean? Maybe the security guard notices but, for lack of an alarm from the door, decides that it's a non-event. Maybe Swoopy gets a lecture about using the emergency exit for smoke breaks. Or maybe the security guard is a little lit on Long Haul and, full of energy, decides to run Swoopy's face through the database, which will come up blank (unless Shiriki plants some credentials quickly...).

Swoopy is probably capable of talking himself out of a minor situation, as long as the situation stays minor. If you don't feel comfortable RPing that on the character's behalf, I can take care of that. Just go where the story takes you.

I put in a second attempt with a Glitch die attached.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/586000 ]Hacking: LOG (6) + Hacking (5) + Cerebral Booster (1) + VR (1) + Computer Spec (1) = 14 dice. Glitch Die[/url]: 14d6t5 6 1d6 5

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/586001 ]V. Hacking = 8 dice.[/url]: 8d6t5 4

The Host is still really very strong, but Shiriki pulls it off with an Exploit. I'm going to say the effect of the Exploit is to give Shiriki control over the hospital's alarm systems.

Next, Shiriki is going to do a patient records scan to see if he can find anyone who'd be a good candidate to pull the sec guard off Swoopy's back, if it comes to that. Patients with mental illnesses, those being treated for addictions, or any criminals under medical care are good candidates. I'm rolling Perception + VR bonus. Does that sound right?

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/586006 ]Matrix Perception: LOG (6) + WIL (6) + Cerebral Boosters (1) + VR bonus (1) = 14 dice.[/url]: 14d6t5 4

This is pretty specialized, but terribly unrealistic, so I'm going to say this is a Hard test.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/586007 ]Hard: 10 dice[/url]: 10d6t5 3

Looks like he finds a good candidate should it come to that. Hopefully, Swoopy should be just fine, though.

There shouldn't be a roll needed to find out where our contact is, so after Swoopy deals with the guard, Shiriki will direct him there.

Swoopy intimidating the guard: http://orokos.com/roll/586362]Charisma 5 + Intimidation 2: 7d6t5 3 hits

Let's throw a glitch die for fun: http://orokos.com/roll/586363]Glitch die: 1d6 1, glitch!

Guard defense: http://orokos.com/roll/586364]Resist Intimidation: 6d6t5 1 hit

The glitch is that Swoopy's browbeating has attracted attention. The situation is unresolved but I wanted to let someone else have some input rather than roleplaying it out entirely on my own.

Rolling medicine to see if Dan caught everything. He has knowledge medicine too. Last die for a glitch die.

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/586532]Medicine 9  + logic 6[/url]: 15d6t5 3

3 hits, relatively poor but should be enough. No glitch.

I'd like to hold up Dan-Dan's IC post as the power of collaborative storytelling, and the amazing results that can happen when people bring their own experiences to the table.

I'm a soft corporate worker who could write about office politics but would understand 0% of what Dan-Dan said without the OOC explanation. Personally, I love that.

I'm going to award a free Edge reroll to represent the strength of the IC post and Dan-Dan's argument:

http://orokos.com/roll/586592 Edge reroll: 12d6t5 4 hits

That's 7 hits total.

The opposed roll: http://orokos.com/roll/586593]Average Resist: 8d6t5 3 hits

The story succeeds wildly. Nurse Hanna falls into line and turns into an ally. She won't even check Swoopy's credentials right now, although Shiriki is free to forge them if he likes.

@rednblack Narration to you, if you like. If not, I'll tie it off.

Thanks. I'm a civil servant in healthcare. I know it from the outside looking in, mostly when things go wrong. Work as an analyst at an arms length body, one of the regulators.

Incidentally, the idea I had for s glitch was of Swoopy getting called away to some other part of the hospital to deal with some incident, as he is on call. Perhaps overflow from the military base or a RTA.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:11, Mon 22 Jan 2018.

That would have been a good glitch! That said, the military base is about 87 miles / 140 kilometers away, so it's not particularly close and not particularly likely to send overflow to McCook.

Rednblack has been dealing with a sick daughter this week. I might IC post again tomorrow if we don't hear from him.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 194):

Tec and CO, thanks for covering down while I'm intermittently in and out. I cannot say that I'll be consistently available for the foreseeable future, but I will try to interject where possible. In the interim, Tec and others, please feel free to use Swoopy as you see fit.

Checking in here. It's obviously been a few weeks since our last post. Shiriki's been KO'd with the flu, and then a backlog of work that stacked up. He's running a separate game that he hasn't logged into for a week and a half, so I know he's behind.

I'm debating the best way forward, given everyone's mixed availability. I see Dan-Dan checking in, even though there's nothing to see. Swoopy comes and goes as able. Who knows when Shiriki will emerge.

I'm generally stubborn about keeping things going, even if they're on life support. I feel the same way here. I'm considering splitting the threads so that there's one for each PC. While this requires the PCs to split up ICly, it does have the advantage of allowing everyone to proceed at their own pace.

I'm open to thoughts and suggestions, especially from Dan-Dan, as his schedule has been the least variable.

I'd be happy to work it either way. I tend to check every couple of days but post (where appropriate), every few.

Hey, guys. Many apologies for the radio silence. As Tec said, I was sick, and then the flu circled back around and got some of the fam as well. It's been pretty gross at home. I've also picked up an extra class, late in the semester, which brought about its own series of challenges.

I'm not at a spot where I can realistically be posting with any regularity until about the second week of March. It's probably better that I bow out. I don't like dipping out, and this game has been a lot of fun, but I don't want to add more than I already have to any irritation that's caused by my absences.

In reply to Shiriki (msg # 198):

If you can't commit for three four weeks, I'm happy that you move to a quiet part of the story and pick it back up when you can, if everyone's happy with this?

Thanks for the update, Shiriki. With that in mind, I'm going to do what I proposed, which is to split everybody up into their own threads. This will effectively make the game a batch of 1:1 games, which I've done before and worked out fine.

If circumstances allow the team members to reunite down the road, literally and/or metaphorically, we'll do so.

In the meantime, I'll try to cook up a semi-plausible reason for the players to all go their own directions ICly. This will certainly be forced and less organic than I would prefer, but we'll work within the realities of our situation.

I probably won't get that up today; Thursday or Friday are more likely.

Ha-ha, I got a post up before the end of February! In my time zone, at least, and barely, but technically correct!

This IC post actually wasn't what I was expecting to write when I sat down but, lo and behold, here we are. Consider the group split up for now.

I have an initial post up for each individual thread for whoever wants to continue.