In reply to Hannah Omdahl (msg # 231):

Enjoy!

Stumbled across this interesting piece.

http://specialoperations.com/2...nds-black-ops-libya/

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Dcoda, how was the Magic Kingdom?

Rae, that is fascinating.  I especially like the bit about the operators deploying on their totally legit second passports.

Final turn is up.  This concludes Chapter One (or our pilot episode, if you prefer).  I'm going to put the game on pause for a couple of weeks while I tend to some IRL obligations.  We'll re-engage sometime after the 20th.  Feel free to use this time to discuss desires and expectations for where you'd like the campaign to go from here - assuming you're still interested in continuing.

I'll figure out XP in the next couple of days.  Also, take this as an opportunity to re-tool your PCs if you're seeing capability gaps.

Per some backstage discussions, Spartan will be retiring Karolina, though I have not ruled out her return at a later point in the story arc.  Her injury was legit but fortuitous from a dice-rolling perspective.  His new PC will be introduced as your local liaison at the beginning of Chapter Two.  Dave has graciously agreed to put the command bull's-eye on Sébastien's chest.

The whole thread is great, but this is brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUOKWKeXfr0

The Magic Kingdom was.... magical.  We had a lot of fun, though the lines there are horrendous now; maybe 45 minutes worth of rides ... and 4.5 hours of waiting in lines and such.  Still, a good time to be had by all.

I've been very happy with the RP and the action in the first chapter.  I know that it can be difficult when the party is in three different places at once (though the comms help), but I thought that the narration on the various spurs of op were handled very well.  It felt visceral and dangerous (and fun - insofar as danger and such are fun...:)) without being burdensome.  The pacing as well has been good for me, though I know that I am on the slower end of the spectrum (I often post last in the cycle).  I'll admit that I cannot reliably post much fast (sometimes I can sustain daily for a bit, but not long term).

And though I know that some like to roll their own dice, I am fine with not doing so (just for the record).  Part of that is that the dice roller can be tricksy (in the 'I know that you need to roll low here ... so, here is a '20' on a twenty-sided die for your troubles) ... so, I am fine with not having to mess with it.

In any case, as long as the other players are willing to put up with Hannah's player's lack of any real military experience or knowledge of jargon, I am happy to fly with this bird.  Really, the player is just waiting for that alien fusion-powered hybrid saucer with the pulsed-plasma array to come online for Hannah to pilot ... :D

Oh, and I second Spartan's assessment of Warren Zevon, though thankfully, we are not reenacting 'Werewolves of London'.

+1 to what Spartan and Dcoda have already said...I think the theme / pacing / action has been really good. As has been said several times already during the course of the thread, you are a great group of people to write with - am looking forward to resuming after our mid season break?

And...yeah..."Werewolves of London" was the only Warren Zevon song I knew prior to this week...I think a visit to iTunes is on the cards...

I suspect that you don't want to name your character Van Owen or Roland in Tegs games.  Nor should volunteer for any 'tricks'.  And with that I've now exhausted my WZ knowledge.

As for continuing... this is going to be hard to explain.  Part of me thinks yes, absolutely, this has been awesome, so more of it please!

The other part is accurately aware that good closure is very hard to come by here on RPOL.

Perhaps I’m the only idiot that does this, but sometimes, if I really like a moment, I may never go back and try to reproduce it.

It is like after you’ve had a great meal and evening out at a very special restaurant.  Then you look back on it over time and realize how unique the whole situation was: the ambiance, the company, even the music they were playing.  You know if you ever returned, it just wouldn’t be the same.

There are places in the world I would find very difficult to go back to, not becuase I disliked them, but becaused I liked them so much.  Now, maybe that’s a bit heavy to lay on a pbp game, but hopefully the basic sentiment comes through.

So while I’m very happy to continue, I’m ok if Teg has other thoughts or ideas, or if we as a group want to do something else.  At the very least, I think the two week pause is a great idea, just to allow some time to enjoy the sense of accomplishment.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:59, Wed 08 Apr 2015.

In reply to Karolina Kowalska (msg # 238):

I think the key thing for me is that we have an absolutely awesome group of people here, so whatever we do (and I stress that I am very happy to carry on with Grey Cell), let's make sure we do it as a group.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:10, Wed 08 Apr 2015.

Just wanted to drop my thoughts as well.

Writing with this small group has been really enjoyable and I hopes that it does continue.  I understand the concern of not "going out on top," but if we can keep the momentum going (or really just tap back into it when needed) we can probably continue to wring some seriously cool stuff out of this.  Towards the end of Chapter 1, I kept thinking "ah, crap, two more days until the next turn is up!"

Really, I just want to compliment everybody on their writing and willingness to contribute their time.  Thanks folks!

Zevon seems to be about a third of my autobiographical soundtrack.  I recommend starting with Learning to Flinch for a good live cross-section of his work or Mr. Bad Example for the best of what I can only term noir folk rock.

This was the tightest writing I've seen in any PbP in which I've participated, probably because we had an all-star team.  I'm glad everyone's mostly satisfied with the play thus far, as this was the first PbP I've actually gotten off the ground.  I will admit to going back and re-reading bits of the IC threads just for entertainment.

Spartan, I hear what you're saying.  Part of me is a bit concerned that I can't bottle this particular lightning again.  However, if you guys are on board for a continuation, I'd like to try.  I have a good idea of where I want to go for the next mission and a vague idea of the main conflicts and revelations of the two past that.  As the first one took us a bit over four months from briefing to conclusion, I think I can come up with additional stories before I exhaust those.

I'm prepping to run a fairly large LARP event at a local con on the 17th-19th and I have a massive amount of work to knock out before game start, so I will be mostly away from RPOL through the 20th.  I'll start the briefings for Chapter Two later that week.  In the meantime, pull down 8 XP each.  Spartan, you can apply that to Karolina in anticipation of an eventual return, or you can save it for use on your new PC once he's finalized.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:04, Sat 11 Apr 2015.

8 XP!  Awesome!

Does Lina's departure leave us with any skill gaps? Am thinking things like Stealth, Disguise, Interrogation? Seb has all three but is weak on the second two, so just thinking about where to spend my XP but not sure of anyone else has them covered?

Hannah has remedial Stealth (re: quite low) and no Disguise or Interrogation.

I was thinking of boosting her Mechanic and Airplane Mechanic skills (and maybe a little more Stealth).  Or blowing pretty much the entire allotment on boosting her Pilot (Rotary Wing) ... The latter is her bread and butter, but likely to give less bang for the buck than bumping a number of lower skills...

Of course, her Gun Combat skill(s) might be nice to bump as well.

So, many places to spend ...

James has 4/12 in interrogation, not great but not bad. We haven't had to do a whole lot of... investigating yet, though.

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In reply to James Choi (msg # 245):

You got Seb beat - even if I pumped all 8XP into Interrogation I'd only have 4/10...

My FNG has Stealth, Disguise, and Interrogation, but not at the same levels Lina had.  That's subject to a bit of change since Teg and I are still finalizing things based on background (which I've got to finalize once I'm back at home).  Of course Lina's interrogation was 2/10, so Choi's always going to be our best bet there.  At this point I'd say Slavic language skills are the big hit.  There's a lot of dangerous crap out there with Cyrillic labeling.  On the plus side though, 倪浩...

Slight guidance (no spoilers).  Next op will be in Canberra, looking into an Attar sighting in conjunction with an Aboriginal separatist group's terrorist links.

Are you taking Cantonese or Mandarin?  All I can say is that Hannah's Norwegian hasn't gotten any use (though in all honesty, Teg, was up front about it not likely being a factor...).
This message was last edited by the player at 21:36, Sun 12 Apr 2015.

I'm just glad we're going to Australia and not New Zealand.

French Intelligence officer + New Zealand = bad combination.

I have to attack a couple of glaring deficiencies on Dacovetti's part.  You know, stealth, unarmed combat, things like that.  The stuff building a tech nerd leaves you hanging on...

We know why she was really there...

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/brita...editerranean-1497691

In reply to Sebastien Durand (msg # 252):

Awesome reference.  In my mind, Teg has all these bits of information coming into him from various sources all the time, so the real question is... was it all part of the plan?  Did you know this would happen before Dave found it Teg?  :)

On an unrelated note, wife on the phone to mother-in-law.  Decided to play Quite Ugly One Morning again on my laptop while sitting beside her.  Wife is giving me looks now.  lol
This message was last edited by the player at 00:43, Thu 23 Apr 2015.

If you really want to see behind the curtain...

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I burned over an hour looking for a NATO vessel that would have a good enough medical facility to take Karolina and was, in the real world, close enough to the Libyan coast to be plausible.  I didn't have any advance warning of this movement.  What finally settled me on Bulwark was her assignment to the Response Force Task Group combined with a complete dearth of information on her actual position in March.  :)

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:)

I have one or two more staging posts to do before I open up Chapter Two.  Had to fiddle my initial plot based on some things I uncovered in the course of my pre-episode research...