In reply to Nightmare (msg # 920):

Kayla wears coveralls that resemble military mechanic's fatigues with the name tape removed. It's not really a shareable garment.

Barachiel wears loose-fitting pants and a worn shirt, over which he tends to wear a piece of torso armor that looks like lighter, thinner Kevlar.  He does wear a long, thinish coat over these, unbuttoned, most of the time. It's more practical than a trenchcoat, and not as loose, but it doesn't button or zip.

Wearing my exosuit, with coveralls on underneath.

In reply to Fiernas Holm (msg # 922):

Thanks

In reply to Nightmare (msg # 923):

Anytime!
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:43, Wed 03 Jan 2018.

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 924):

...I think the current disposition has rendered that line of questions as moot...

In reply to Nightmare (msg # 925):

Relevant to Team Kamikaze: the ship you're on only had 1 docking hatch that you're aware of, and your transport is still occupying it...
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:27, Wed 03 Jan 2018.

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 926):

The group of people mentioned are the footsteps correct?

No. You guys ARE the group I was talking about. Kayla, Fiernas, Barachiel, Hadrian, Rebecca, and 2 dogs wandering the hallways after hours is unusual, that's all.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:21, Wed 03 Jan 2018.

Through space and time, Billy's laser sense is tingling.

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 929):

I get the feeling you'll be slicing through metal with that thing soon enough.

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 930):

@Nightmare: Is the quoted part meant to be OOC or typed into the secure tablets or what?

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 931):

Quoted part is psychic to those in the room.

In reply to Nightmare (msg # 932):

Sorry typing while in an ass buster of a meeting.

Wait, what the fuck?  How did Hadrian get left unsupervised?

In reply to Fiernas Holm (msg # 934):

He never entered your room. When I asked who was going into the room to get their stuff (the teen tirade post around #130), everyone present posted to the effect that they were going into the room, and none of those posts included moving Hadrian into the room from the hallway, where I had consciously mentioned he was standing. He would not have entered the room with you willingly, given his plan to lock you in.

Besides, there was no reason to suspect you'd lose field of vision on him. He was never unsupervised, and he'd been conversational and compliant to that point aside from teenage whining and sulking.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:03, Wed 03 Jan 2018.

Jesus.  If we can't even march a teenage prisoner around for ten minutes without him casually slipping away from us without anyone noticing, we must really be incompetent.

Am I really expected to go through this scene of gathering equipment by detailing everything that I'm touching and watching in order, passing custody of Hadrian off manually?  I had thought that specifying that Barachiel and Kayla should watch him and the dogs are also holding guidance perimeter would be enough to at least get us through something as tough as chewing gum and getting dressed at the same time.

In reply to Fiernas Holm (msg # 936):

I realise I'm in another spacetime but just reading along it doesn't sound like he slipped away, it sounds like you took him to your room.  There you explicitly got your kit, Barachiel and kayla probably had to get changed and nightmare explicitly dragged kayla to the bathroom. Hadrian just had to step on one side of the door and push the door close button, possibly while within eyesight of any or all of you.  he could have conceivably locked himself and the dogs outside, but can they operate a door lock panel?

Basically this.

You need not isolate each individual movement, but if you want to do something incredibly specific (eg, "never leave the obviously cowed Hadrian alone in the hallway, even if you can be within eyeshot, earshot, and easy striking range from a location technically inside the room, and establish a rotation that ensures coverage even if something sudden and confusing like Kayla being dragged into a bathroom while Barachiel is changing and Fiernas is grabbing a bag"), yeah you've gotta say that.

Your order was keep an eye on him. Hadrian was never out of your line of site or radius of control.  The dogs can have been near him too.

I'm willing to allow one or both of the dogs to be out there with him if you'd like, but you explicitly collected your gear at a certain point, and Hadrian was waiting for specifically you, as the most antagonistic person, to enter the room before closing the door. You did not and would not have ordered someone else to grab your stuff, and Kayla has been occupied with Rebecca drama.

If he had to choose amid a hypothetical rotation for getting dressed, he'd have waited until you'd left him alone with either Rebecca or Barachiel. Supposing Barachiel watches the kid from the doorway, casually, as he'd likely do, and paying partial attention to the very whiney and loud and temper-tanturmy Rebecca, the outcome is unchanged.

I know it sucks when an NPC temporarily gains the upper hand, but I feel good about your odds of resuming control of the situation :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:57, Thu 04 Jan 2018.

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 938):

Note that I will need to know if the dogs are out there before I resolve Barachiel's action.

I mean with the dogs outside the door I don't think it'll be a big deal.  But it does leave a sour taste in my mouth about RPOL in general that I can't just say, "hey, let's make sure we keep a watch on him while we're doing all this because I clearly  don't trust him and I'm treating him like a prisoner," and trust that the policy won't be invalidated because I didn't touch base or say the magic word every time we change game areas.   That's just so counterintuitive, and it makes me wonder what other basic common sense things are missing.

It's a little like how the Watcher described playing L5R online: I don't want to have to 'pass' every little tiny thing, I want us to use enough heuristic logic to keep things moving without having to reiterate every single step of the way.

In reply to Fiernas Holm (msg # 940):

Have the dogs maul him to death and then Rebecca can phase through the wall and do a dance over his corpse

Let's try to sweeten that sour taste a bit, if we can!

I hear and appreciate your concerns, but I also feel pretty confident that had we played this out to the most minute detail, the end result would have been similar (as I theorycrafted in my above post). It just would have taken us 2 weeks to get to the same place.

Here's my thinking:

Hadrian didn't have to move in any kind of suspicious way to close the door. He didn't have to slip away, get sneaky, enter a code, or anything else.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
He didn't even have to physically touch the door (spoilerz).

---

He just had to wait for the right moment.

I already knew that Barachiel would be satisfied with keeping an eye on the kid from arm's length. He's paranoid about Traveling and "the peril" that brings him places, but he hasn't indicated that Hadrian is one of the dangers he sensed. And he probably would have mentioned that. He's also not a security guard, nor trained in any sort of surveillance. He'd deem the kid smart enough to know that he can't get to the end of a hallway before a bullet or a dog could run him down, plus he'd expect the kid -- who has been by all indications cowed by Fiernas's aggression and Kayla's rifle -- to be docile and sulky.

I also know that Kayla, who would have been more cautious, more careful, and more of a problem for Hadrian, was dragged into another room to deal with Meltdown Rebecca.

You would not have left Rebecca to guard Hadrian alone, so that scenario is off the table.

That leaves Fiernas and the dogs. When I asked if anyone else wanted stuff out of the room, I was specifically fishing to learn whether or not Fiernas was going to enter it. I was pretty sure you'd want to grab your cybernetics kit, but whether and how Fiernas did that was my line for what would happen next.

When you posted that you were gathering your kit but didn't place a caveat or additional orders to the NPCs regarding the prisoner, that created the opening Hadrian needed. You didn't mention the dogs either, but we can assume the remained outside near the prisoner if desired.

Locking you in a room and waiting for help was always Hadrian's best option for solving his prisoner dilemma. If you hadn't gone into the room, Hadrian would have tried a similar ploy in the ready room, the airlock, or elsewhere. It would have been difficult to avoid it, but certainly possible with enough care and planning.

In this medium, I'm left to interpret the unwritten interactions. I try to do so in a way that stays faithful to the characters and the author's intentions, but also in a way that makes sense within the context of the story. Fiernas, while skilled in many things, is not a policeman or a security guard. Barachiel, Kayla, and Rebecca lack these traits, as well.

With sufficient distractions (and here I maintain that Rebecca's meltdown would have drawn all eyes and ears for at least a couple seconds. I've never had screaming in my head and out loud at the same time but I suspect it's jarring), an opening was likely to occur sooner or later.

Anyway. I hope that helps explain my thinking a bit.

Would this whole thing have been more fun to do in person? Absolutely! But RPOL's the best tool we've got to play together over distances and I hope that despite instances like these it remains an enjoyable medium for adventure.

PS: Are the dogs out there or not? I'm good with any answer to this. If they are outside, we can shift into combat rounds. Let me know!

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 942):

Also I actually wasn't just melting down in the bathroom.  I know more than you do and was attempting to disseminate that knowledge.  Once we were locked in the room and I could broadcast it I did.

What Watcher said is completely correct nobody really had a super high drive to drag the kid around.  You acted unilaterally knowing that I was diametrically opposed to this course of action the entire time, so you lost your primary backup in this situation.  I actually have described to Watcher how I go through doors for this reason.  I would say that if you are holding someone against their will, you need to describe everything.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:12, Thu 04 Jan 2018.

I personally wouldn't mind you guys taking 2 weeks to cover five minutes of game time for a little while.

In reply to Billy Laser Fist (msg # 944):

Pausing Kamikaze's initiative order until it's clear whether Billy wants to head downstairs.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:33, Thu 04 Jan 2018.