Rather than my original proposal to play two PCs simultaneously, I think I shall play Darlington as my main PC and have Molly as a 'backup' in case Darlington dies. I will use the link that Darlington calls Molly every few days and gives her insider information on what is going on with the case, and she uses it as inspiration for sensationalist stories in the Scoop, for which Darlington receives a pretty penny.

Molly could still make the odd appearance and help out with certain tasks and situations where her skills would be useful.

In reply to Albert Darlington (msg #146):

Paul,

I concur, and having Molly as a backup vs. player death or even TPK is a pretty good idea.

On with the show!

Tony

In reply to The Keeper (msg #147):

sorry, a week of 12 hour night shifts and recovery thereof knocked me out of play there for a bit!

In reply to John-Marc Falcon (msg #148):

Lee,

Not a problem, I'm not too worried about you. Thanks for posting to the new thread!

As soon as others do the same we can move the game forward.

Tony

Group,

Sorry about the massive info-dump!

That about sums up the campaign, although I wasn't there for most of this.

Also, I found another inactive Masks game that has some great documents in the reference section that I reposted. You might be able to glean additional information from them.

Tony

Wow... info-dump-a-rama! Kudos on typing all that out, Mr Keeper, I'm so slow at typing that would have been three hours work for me!

Regarding the meeting in Lampton's suite: shall I assume that the party fill Darlington in on everything that has happened so far? RPing it all out will take forever and is rather uncalled for I feel. I will then impart the extra information about the Soho Slayings that Darlington knows and then everybody will be on an equal footing information-wise.

All we need to do then is come to a decision about what our next steps are going to be and discuss a plan of action.

In reply to Albert Darlington (msg #151):

My pleasure, and yeah, it did kinda take a while. I felt it was worth bringing everyone up to speed, including myself.

The info dump from Fulty should cover all the party's main past activities, but also summarise Jackson's investigations and the story of the Carlyle expedition.

Please ask IC questions and either an NPC or PC will answer. But yes, let us formulate a plan of action for the future!

Before I took over as GM, JM was my character and he had an idea to watch the club, Tewfik's warehouse and the Penhew Foundation. As you don't really have the manpower the idea was the investigators could trade the juicy story of the Ju-Ju House massacre to Maloney in return for either help in staking out these locations or at least supplying names of people we could hire to do it for us.

Tony

In reply to The Keeper (msg #152):

Truly this is a horror game.

Ketchup on a bacon sandwich???


AHHHHHH!

In reply to John-Marc Falcon (msg #153):

Darlington is being awesome as usual.

Someone kindly make a plan of action! A bad plan executed today is better than the perfect plan tomorrow.

Tony

Group,

I'd prefer you to make the call yourselves but if stuck on a way forward you can also ask to make Idea rolls on what difference evidence means, how best to foil surveillance or change hotels, and so on. My purpose is neither to stymie neither hold your hand but keep the investigation moving forward at a natural pace.

Before the old game ended I sensed players getting a little frustrated and suggesting skipping London and fast forwarding to Egypt and beyond.

This is not necessarily a bad plan and I won't act against it if that's your decision. A similar plan served Jackson Elias well enough to at least give him a glimpse of the truth, and he was a single man without many resources. It's worth bearing in mind that skipping London might leave you without information that could be crucial at some point. Jackson left London until last and then didn't spend much time there investigating. If you do the same, who can say if you'll come to a similar end...

Tony

I think the silence is mostly consent with Darlington's plan -- he seems to think he knows a way to interview Safid, and his professional opinion is that we do not accompany. The upside is, we have a plan. The downside is ... it's Darlington's plan, so he needs to take point :P

In reply to Cynthia Jane Holloway (msg #156):

Don't worry, to clarify I don't think you're stuck now. Darlington's the only one who probably has any experience whatsoever in investigation but of course anyone can throw out suggestions or ideas.

Please bear in mind there's a lot of information. Don't forget to ask about things like Idea, Know and Luck rolls.

Tony.

I'm going to be absent pretty much all of Halloween weekend I'm afraid.

Not the best time :P If it's any consolation, I'll be present, but extremely busy, until Thanksgiving.

Group,

Should I skip ahead to Darlington's interview or do you want to go into more detailed planning?

Tony

I don't see any real planning going on whatsoever, and Cynthia isn't involved regardless, so I'm happy to skip ahead.

(I'm also super distracted, so I'm happy to let people plan, if they wish.)

In reply to Cynthia Jane Holloway (msg #161):

If no one minds I'll just do a narrative of the day's events and skip forward to the evening. I assume Darlington will update everyone as to his conversation with Tewfik.

As I've mentioned, we are not much into a sprawling adventure and I wish to keep things moving along.

[Private to Albert Darlington: Let me know anything specific, or if this is just a routine questioning on the murders or some other matters. Also, if it's on behalf of the CID, etc.]

Tony
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:37, Fri 04 Nov 2011.

Group,

I'm posting to move things up. I've also made something of a plan combining the elements that have been proposed. Unless they're gainsaid that's what I'll use in the absence of solid planning. Dr. Weston is stuck searching records but be can be part of the burglary if you wish!

If anyone is going to post regarding Tewfik's warehouse I will give you a couple days to post, then move along.

I understand the expectation that Darlington is going to take the lead in investigation, bear in mind the player is no more a CID Detective Sergeant with the London Met than I or anyone else is.

Tony
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:16, Sun 06 Nov 2011.

Group,

The game lagged a little because I couldn't answer Lampton's question due to computer problems. Those are getting solved and I'm glad there was also a post for Imran! Other players seem a little pretty passive and as mentioned without posts for their actions they will be NPCd as needed. Darlington seemed to have dropped off the map which is unfortunate but the show must go on and there are other players waiting for an opening to join.

That said, I hope you as a group keep being interested and engaged in investigative RP. How do you all feel about a 3-day cycle? I generally check and will post daily if needed, every few days I will advance the narrative whether you've posted or not. Players can post at their own pace but those that post more often will get the most benefit.

Regarding a visualisation of the shop, I posted maps and will repost the map links to Reference (link to a message in this game). The scale is uncertain, probably a few feet at most per square, but should give you some idea. I don't know what else I can do to describe the scene; 3-D models are not within my capability!

Tony

I don't think the issue is maps, as much as 'what is of note'? Since we can't be in the room, nor should we expect you to provide 3D maps, as players, we can't really do much about that. As a player, I don't want to be scouring maps anyway, asking what's in this chest or what that object is, so I don't think this should be a big deal except perhaps in combat.

What I am looking for as a player, especially as a player who is still largely innocent to CoC, is that when my character searches for clues, I either find them, that I didn't find them, but that's because my character failed on a roll or lacks a skill and thusly nothing I do as a player will change that, or that the clue doesn't exist. I don't know if this is the case here, so I'm sort of at a loss as to how to proceed. Are there clues in the warehouse that I need to do something else to find? How would I know what I need to do? I *feel* like there should be another clue, but I don't know how I would find it, so I'm hesitant to leave, but I really have nothing to do there.

I don't mean to be confrontational, but I feel like I'm at a loss as to how to proceed (both in the warehouse and in general, since we have so few threads to follow up on). I'm hoping one of the other players has a good idea.

In reply to Cynthia Jane Holloway (msg #165):

I'm sorry if I've made anyone feel defensive.

For anyone new to CoC, nothing would please me more than for you to rise to the challenge! Any frustration over a lack of leads doesn't cut a lot of ice, no one said this would be easy, eh? For my part I don't want to lead you around by the nose.

Thinking analytically and acting systematically is the key in this style of adventure. You can, and should, be specific about what you're doing whenever you can, try to cover all avenues you can, not just the high-probability ones.

For example, I heartily applaud Lampton for taking specific actions and looking in a well-defined area for clues. This approach will be rewarded if at all possible and more non-specific Spot Hidden rolls will be more difficult. PCs not otherwise engaged can at least help keep a lookout.

I hate to sound like it's mainly on you, the players. If you're finding this mind-set difficult for whatever reason, then no matter what I do for you this is not going to be a fruitful experience.

Tony
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:21, Fri 11 Nov 2011.

In reply to Cynthia Jane Holloway (msg #40):

[ooc - I think anything more than an hour would be pushing our luck.]

Group,

As a request, all-OOC posts should always go in the OOC thread. I took the liberty of transferring it, please accept my apologies.

Also, this is a perfectly valid IC comment! Unless Cynthia can read Imran's mind, how is she supposed to take this reasonable suggestion into account?

In general, try to confine OOC comments in IC posts to clarifying your post to me or the other players. Else, post a separate comment in the OOC thread so the discussion can freely continue. Thanks.

Tony

Not a bad idea.

1) If your Investigator is doing this, then it needs to be phrased as a character action.

2) If this is a suggestion or question for other players or for the GM then it again needs to be in the form of dialogue or action (etc.). If not then it's posted here in OOC, but this may as well be a player action.

3) Otherwise, I'm thankful you're getting into the swing of things. Not everything will work, but usually it's better to try and fail!

Tony
This message was last updated by the GM at 17:53, Sat 12 Nov 2011.

In reply to The Embarrassed Keeper (msg #169):

Oh goodness, this is confusing!
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:53, Sat 12 Nov 2011.