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