This is the OOC thread.

Just to make it perfectly clear, the car described in the Information thread is the rare luxury car the group has been driving from North Carolina. You are already in California when we start the game, so there are only about 90 minutes before we reach San Diego.

And as a fun fact, from what I can find on the internet, it is the sixth most expensive car ever! The three most expensive ones are unique, the fourth is made in three examples, and the fifth in 14 examples. And this one will be built in over 100 examples!

At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrUVMdkb4_k we have an 8-minute youtube video about another 6x6 Mercedes-Benz pickup, which was the most important inspiration to the BM39, and the BM39 is better than that one at everything!
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:57, Sat 12 Oct 2019.

I'm very curious to learn how the group ended up with such an amazing machine!

Quoting from Game Info:
"One of you has arranged to drive a very expensive car, on behalf of a car dealership, to its buyer on the west coast. And have posted on the college bulletin board for other San Diego students willing to drive some of the distance for a free trip home. The PCs are those students."
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:28, Sun 13 Oct 2019.

Hey all!  This is my first GURPS game and I'm really looking forward to it.

Abe's just finished his freshman year as a Criminology/Police Science major.  He's attending on the GI Bill and the Yellow Ribbon program.

What are you all working on?

In unrelated news, Abe does not approve of your new haircut, Tom.

Hey guys, and welcome Abe to the system. It's probably my favorite, so hopefully you will enjoy it as well.

Dean also just completed his freshman year and is majoring in Sports Medicine. He plays Defensive Tackle for Croatan and is attending on an Athletics scholarship.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 18:57, Mon 14 Oct 2019.

What's up, guys? Tom's finished up his second year majoring in Broadcast Studies and is in Air Force ROTC.

Sorry you don't like the new haircut, Abe. =)

Hey all. Jack's a sophomore trust fund kid here to study political science, party his brains out and generally bring shame to his family's name.

Glad to meet you all.

Sounds like it's gonna be a killer road trip.

There's not much left of the road trip when we start, as you are already in California. Though we could do a thread to cover the road trip, at the same time, if you think that would be interesting. Traveling across the country in a little over 40 hours doesn't leave much time for sightseeing. Or anything else for that matter. But we could use it to introduce the characters to each other and to the car.

Might I suggest that each of us could making a meaty introduction post instead of a few pages of small talk?

We could go for general demeanor, a few interesting things about them that came up during the ride? The kind of information you might learn after a few days in a car with another person.

That way we can start where you envisioned, but still have a little less in to help us interact with each other and the truck?

If that works for the group, that works for me.

Looks like we are live.

Good luck guys.

Other evidence that the character Jack's on something: his internal monologue about looking at girls in San Diego when we haven't even seen the eastern edge of San Diego yet.  :-P

(Unless I'm on something?)

Hah, I think he just read over a few things.

To my (limited) understanding. I think they have only been in the truck for about 40 hours, taking turns driving and sleeping.

They have not made it to San Diego (or any beaches) yet, but they are getting close to the end of the trip. The last fuel up, the last drivers shift.

They also did not actually see any Soldiers, just a blacked out mini-bus pulling into the base, which I assume is well marked as far as signage is concerned.

Jack actually did see a couple of guys in camo, which is what I was trying to relay.

Oh, gotcha. Good to know!

You have traveled for about 40 hours from Havelock, NC. You have not arrived in San Diego yet. And this trip is about going home, not staying away from home as all of you are from San Diego.

I could have been clearer about there being a sign indicating that Naval Support Activity Colorado Desert was off to the north. Far enough that no base or fences could have been seen even if it had been the middle of the day.

And some may have received individual messages in that first post. As some may have seen what others did not. Or know things others do not.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:27, Fri 18 Oct 2019.

Well, that escalated quickly.

That’s what she said.

The GURPS Mechanics thread is there if you want to "read ahead." It's not necessary to read it at all if you don't want to or if you are already familiar with GURPS.

Appreciate it Dragon.

Deans kind of down for the count obviously, but I'm curious to see just how bad it is.

Of course. I think we're all looking forward to that.

And I wanted to point out that reading the mechanics thread is not a requirement to play in this game, as there is A LOT OF TEXT in that thread.

I decided to make a summary of each post in the mechanics thread to distill the contents of each post down to its core. One of the post's got two summaries.

"One! Ah ah ah ah!"

Can we keep Jack moving along his stated intention of action to keep things moving?  Or should Jack post his next 1 sec of planned action in case it changed?

I followed your suggestion. That didn't go well for Jack. Not that this encounter would have ended well for him anyway. Again, I didn't post his current status. You'll have to figure that out.

This is really what they get for stopping at a place called the "Jade Dragon" in the middle of the desert.

I'm retrospect they should have held out for a well lit Chevron with a reasonably clean restroom.

Sorry I haven't posted. I've had a very, very busy couple of days and I'm only getting to posting now.

...Although I now see I'm effectively dead, so it's kind of a moot point.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:28, Wed 23 Oct 2019.

No worries. Real Life is always more important.

Well, like I said, the point is kind of irrelevant because I got knocked out on the next turn. Since I basically can do nothing except lay there and get eaten, I suppose posting is a bit redundant.

For the sake of the others, we continued with what you had said that you wanted to do previously. Now we'll see what Abe chooses to do.

Welcome to the club Jack! I'm guessing we won't be for long.

Although part of me thinks it would be pretty funny if everybody but Abe had to roll up new characters. I've played under DM's that would not shy away from crushing a group in the first encounter!
This message was last edited by the player at 04:39, Wed 23 Oct 2019.

Your post-death life is close enough to rolling up new characters. But more about that later.

Did you all put "zombie" as a supernatural you wanted to be?

*Lady turns out to be crazy, stabs Abe to death.* "There, you're free too!"

I sincerely hope I didn't make a character just to have to make a new character after the introductory scene. But since there wasn't a realistic way for any of us to win this fight, I'm assuming this was part of the plan to transition to whatever weird shit we're gonna wind up being.

It was indeed the doorway of your transition. So in a sense, your characters have become new. But not NEW new.

It would have been clear in Greek.  :-P

kainos = new in quality (New character because it's now supernatural)
neos = new in time (New character because Jack is gone for good)

Yes. New in quality. Even Abe who didn't die. You will see his newness first. Or part of it at least.

Sparkly vampire was not on my list. :-P

I think all the other bodies are disappeared.

It was mentioned that nobody else was around. I suppose that could be taken to mean the dead as well.

If that's the case I'll be happy to edit.

That was my intention. There are no dead bodies here.

Got it. I'll edit that last one.

There was talk about disposing of the old clothing earlier. What are your plans there?

Bag them up good and tight and take them with us for now?

Abe suggested burning them IC.

Whatever the group decides is fine with me.

That would be preferred, but I can't think of anything short of a dumpster fire that would take care of that much material.

The oven would just be a smokey mess I imagine.

You guys moved way faster than I anticipated. That's what I get for getting busy IRL, I suppose.

Yeah. The last 36 hours have been quite active. My schedule at work is different every day and as I'm working this weekend, I haven't been at work since the last time you posted OOC.

Sorry about that Jack. Would you prefer we hold back in the future?

It's fine, but it does mean I'm gonna be behind, especially over the next few weeks where my schedule is pretty packed.

Talking about places to hide. For those that haven't done so, feel free to send me a PM about your family. Or I can make them up if you prefer.

If you decide to create a foundation for your family, are both your parents alive an in the picture? Any siblings? Others? Give me a name, age, sex, and something about them. Or I can make that up. You will likely run into them soon

That post became longer than I had intended. Most of it is what you see as you travel to your new location, courtesy of Google maps as translated to words by me.

A summary of my latest IC post:

You left the diner with GPS directions to cabins.
You saw a sign to Agua Caliente Springs County Park, but didn't know how far it was, so you decided to follow the GPS.
You tried to contact Sparrow through the coin, without response. Perhaps because you weren't stationary.
You traveled for half an hour, you saw a sign for Jacumba Hot Springs, and since it seemed closer, you decided to go there instead of following the GPS to the Golden Acorn Campsite that still seemed to be far away.
You arrived and it turns out it's a spa.
You could continue to the campsite or figure out how to get Dean and Jack into a room, reconnoitering might be useful and getting a room beforehand would be advisable.

Thanks.

Sorry for the delay, team corpsey.

No worries, appreciate you keeping us in mind while you struggle with your new found sexiness.

It's a burden, but I do my best to deal with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKjCOYBklI0

You guys are killing it.

I can feel Dean getting closer to conciousness...

You know that for the next month Dean is going to have to act surprised when all this exposition is repeated in casual conversation.

Dean: "Bro, I'm so lost right now. Whose the Vampire King again? Oh a Baaarron, Baron right. Gotcha, no, no I'm good man. I got this."

Morgan Freeman Voice: "Dean might have thought he was prepared, but that was just not the case..."

Again, this is what I get for being busy. I'm a full page and a half behind you guys, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to catch up.

Honestly, I'm not sure I can keep up with the pace this game is going, and that's just with three other people.

I feel for you man. I sometimes feel that there should be an easily toggled "post rate indicator" to prevent people with significantly different rates from winding up together.

I post often, but I've been in some games where people were racking up dozens of posts each over the course of an 8 hour period. I just had to bow out.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:52, Fri 01 Nov 2019.

I usually post closer too once per day, but since half the party is only able to post that they continue feeling burnt, I am trying to push us forward as fast as I can manage to post.

Appreciate it Abe!

I'm usually good for a post a day, but I can do more depending on the day as long as they're spaced out. I'm not great at flurries of posts unless you catch me at the right time.

I'm usually good for a post a day too, except Sundays as I'm not online then. I'm only working 20 hours a week on average right now, but I'll be back to 40 hour weeks in January. And my schedule changes every day. It may be a long day, a short day, or a day off without any semblance of consistency. So I'm capable of posting more frequently right now. At least most days.

All in all we have moved quite a bit in the last 2 weeks (real time) or so since Dean and Jack were laid low.

And it seems like we are hopefully getting close to them being able to act again.

Your return to the land of the living shouldn't be far away at all.

This message was deleted by the player at 13:42, Sun 03 Nov 2019.

Everyone is back!

Nice!

Over the past few days, I've been thinking about trying some things I've never tried before in this campaign.

Mostly this is about the framework around the campaign, rather than the campaign itself. Some things I've never seen done in a pbp game. Perhaps there's a very good reason for that. Some things I've heard others do, but I've never experienced myself.


I do very little story writing in the present tense, none would be accurate. So if we tried that, I might mess things up from time to time, but it is something I would like to try. How would you guys feel about writing this campaign in the present tense?

I am willing to go along if everyone else likes it, but I find it a little distracting and m likely to mess it up frequently.

You’re a madman, DD!

I nearly always post in present tense. Most novels are written in past tense, though, so I’m okay either way.

I'm with Abe, I'm willing to try but it's not a "natural" style for me. We can give it a shot and always go back of course if it ends up not working.

So for example, Deans most recent post would look like this:

"Dean looks to Jack, obviously having some idea of what the other young man (could they really be called Men anymore?) is experiencing. Abe's explanation was as accurate as it was brief, and he has nothing much more to add. Hearing it just laid out like that does not make it any easier to accept.

"Thank you for that" Dean says seriously, referring to Abe and Tom saving them. How many like himself did not survive their first day? Their first week? Their first year? He can easily imagine the majority of new Vampires perishing through all sorts of violence. The thought is sobering to say the least, especially in the company of those willing to kill at the whim of this "Prince""

Not terribly different I suppose, so long as we are staying third person.

Yes, I probably am.

Posting in present tense is not "natural" for me either. And I will likely mess up too. And that's likely true about anything we've never done before. Talking about the heroes as "you" rather than "they" is messing me up already. So I definitely understand.

And I'm not saying we're going to do this for the rest of the campaign, only that it's something I want to try. And only if you're cool with it, which you seem to be.

Let's see how it goes.

Feel free to ask questions IC about your new condition. We can discuss the rules here, if you have questions on those.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:51, Fri 08 Nov 2019.

I chose to answer your questions without quotation marks as you posted your questions without them.

In case I didn't answer all of your questions, please let me know.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:46, Fri 08 Nov 2019.

I am going to try to return Abe and Tom's courtesy by not keeping them out of the loop for too long. That being said I don't want to rush things for Jack either, so of I am going too fast, just let me know.

Wait, are we all with the Baron or did I miss us getting split up?

All of you are there. In msg 130, Sparrow wasn't allowed to come with you. And even though Abe and Tom aren't vampires, you are still part of a vampire cohort and now under De La Vega's command. So he wants you to know your way around too.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:58, Fri 08 Nov 2019.

Oh, my mistake. I thought they were left behind. That works out then.

I reread the post and I could have been clearer that all four were invited.

The traditions were covered in "Over the next few hours, you speak about rules and expectations. Of vampires in general and of cohorts in his service." which is why I listed them in the Lore thread.

The Lore thread is for lore your characters know. I'm sorry for not explaining that.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:15, Sat 09 Nov 2019.

Just to let you know, you do not feel tired. The time it took you to transform, through death or otherwise, apparently counts as sleep.

Man, if this game were a movie, the salaries for the cast would be enormous! =)

That's one of the benefits of having an infinite budget.

Having put a face on all of these vampires, we need to give Baron De La Vega a face too. And who better to portray him than Samuel L. Jackson!

My current plan is to approach three of the potential Sires individually, and if he has not guessed correctly by then, to go for the "list" post to move things along.

Also Prince De Vega is now Samuel L Jackson in my head, and it's a good look for him.

I had expected recruitment to take longer. You don't know very much.

You know the names of three out of eight clans, Cravat, Lupator, and Schimba.

You know that the monster clan can become invisible and that the Lupator clan is strong.

You know that more powerful vampires of four of the clans, including, Cravat, can be impressively charismatic and extremely magnetic.

You know that some have claws and that some can teleport over short distances.

And you know that dogs normally don't like vampires.

We'll see how much will be revealed when Jack is recruited.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:03, Tue 12 Nov 2019.

Yeah, hopefully we get him back. Noticed he has not logged in within the past week or so.

Man, that's too bad. I was looking forward to seeing where his story was going.

One of the players mentioned that they are making the assumption that Vampire: The Masquerade and other White Wolf products or anything else based on or inspired by their products don't exist in this game.

Have anyone else made the same or opposite assumption?

As mentioned in the intro, I had assumed that elements had been "inspired by" but we're not direct copies.

The notion of a ruling figure, Vampire Clans, etc. I'm trying not to make too many assumptions however.

Let me rephrase my question.

In the universe where Abe, Dean, Jack, and Tom live. Where vampires and Fae and Hunters are real. Does White Wolf, Vampire: The Masquerade, and related products exist? Or in other words, could the four characters sit down and roleplay as vampires in the World of Darkness?

Have you, as players, made any assumption on that?

I as a player have assumed that:
-MCU exists to be able to talk about Dr. Strange IC
-Some kind of movies and games about the supernatural exist,.of which Abe is tangentially aware (no particular assumptions about its nature other than that hanging out with severely injured vampires as a mortal might get you drank)

Thanks for the clarification. I had not really thought much about it.

As Abe said, it seems like a few other sources of entertainment have been mentioned that contain Vampires. I think at one point Dean alluded to such, that everyone knew what a Vampire was, just nobody believed they actually existed in any form.

That's about as far as I have gotten with it.

Let's go with that then. Everything that exists in the real world exists in this one, unless stated that it doesn't.

Sounds good.

So, my conversation with Sparrow was just intended to cover while the guys were testing... I'm fine to move on whenever.

I'm having trouble finding the post with our new disadvantage to add it to my sheet.  Could you point me to it or tell us what it is again here?  (I remember it means us owing the baron comes up on a 6-down, but I don't remember its name, or point value.)

Sure thing.


Duty (Baron De La Vega; 6 or less) [-2]

Thanks!

Sorry I haven't been posting. Real life has been kicking my ass, and I'm way, way behind you guys, to the point where I'm not sure I'll be able to catch up. I'm gonna try to get something up tonight to at least finish the scene before, but I feel kinda like crap because everything is charging ahead and I don't even really know what's happening.

Sorry to hear that, Jack. I hope things get less hectic for you.

Likewise man. I know that feeling.

Maybe Dragon can keep you in a private thread for awhile until things calm down? Just move at your own pace?

Well, I can tell you one thing that'd be really helpful: separate NPC profiles.

As it is, everything just in giant walls of text, and I cannot for the life of me follow the conversations that have happened since new characters started getting introduced, because I constantly need to go back and figure out who's referring to what in what post.

That's a part of what's kept me from posting: I look at the basic post, and feel overwhelmed by all the information I'm supposed to be keeping track of or responding to. And after a long day of work, my brain just kind of shuts down rather than wanting to try organizing it all, so I put it off until later.

...At which point there's another five or six posts and I get even *more* lost. At least with separate NPC profiles I might be able to keep track of the conversations, you know?

Thank you for the suggestion. I have been experimenting a little with separate NPC profiles behind the scenes as I want to use those. At least for the NPCs that stick around. I have never before used this many characters in this short time that the PCs are going to interact with. At least in other ways than a short term fight. So this is new to me.

I want to use faces on the NPC profiles, but I have already given them faces in the text and I don't know if there are suitable images available on Rpol. Do you know any images for Gal Gadot, Emma Stone, Mia Kang, Liam Neeson, Alfre Woodard, Keanu Reeves, Sophia Ali, Priyanka Chopra, Eli Santana, Yvonne Strahovski, Brad Pitt, Oluchi Onweagba, Mike Colter, Samuel L. Jackson, and a male and a female monstrous vampire?

Or do you know of any images we can use instead?
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:46, Fri 15 Nov 2019.

I did a keyword search for each person and didn’t find much. Perhaps if the portrait does exist, it hasn’t been tagged.

Emma Stone: http://rpol.creativelass.net/fmb465.jpg

The only portrait I could find from a “Liam Neeson” search (good for a monster): http://rpolportraits.shannara-rose.com/mcm150.jpg

Keanu Reeves: http://rpolportraits.shannara-rose.com/mmc241.jpg

http://rpolportraits.shannara-rose.com/mmc342.jpg

Brad Pitt (other than Abe’s portrait): http://rpolportraits.shannara-rose.com/mmc347.jpg

http://rpolportraits.shannara-rose.com/mmc317.jpg

http://rpolportraits.shannara-rose.com/mh19121.jpg

Samuel L. Jackson (as Mace Windu): http://rpolportraits.shannara-rose.com/mfr126.jpg

I’d be happy to submit suitable portraits for uploading, but I think they’re only accepting one or two per person per month right now.

I didn't know that there was a search feature. Thanks!

There's also the option of finding the images out on the web and putting them in the description with the following code:
<img src="http://website.com">

(the quotation marks are part of the code and need to be there)

Thank you, let's try that too.

I added Emma Stone's photo to Isabella. The other images didn't work with the character, but I'm grateful for your effort!

I've added images in some descriptions. I haven't found any "good" images for the other possible sires.

Grats to Dean on getting the first superpower (beyond all of you guys' strength and my amazing hair).  I can't wait to start learning things too!

Because they were near death, it made sense to go here first and get them started.

We have characters in three different threads right now and there will be a mix of flying solo and a mix of being together as we move forward.

Some questions have been answered, but other answers are still mysteries.

And our current NPCs have their separate identities now, so hopefully, that will be helpful as we move forward.

I absolutely understand and have no problem with it.  Dean and Jack definitely earned this with their weeks of patience for us to get here.

I'm just excited about things. :)

So am I.

Thanks Abe.

Also very excited to see how each of the stories proceed, both individually and as a group.

Very curious as to which Clan Jack ends up with.

I'm racking up the post count, making short posts as different characters, instead of making a longer post as one. I hope that makes this easier to follow.

It sort of rolled on its own. I wasn't expecting to see the Baron or that the Schimba would be walking out. That just happened in the moment.

I was recently reminded of the rules this site has for the mature rating.

"Mature games are games which have (as some minor portion of them) mature themes, strong language, drug use, and/or extensive violence.  Mature games use the Mature Content flag to warn potential readers that some of the game material may be considered offensive.  Despite this flag, Mature Games must remain suitable to all ages."

Those who have let vampires drink their blood have displayed some characteristics that may be similar to drug use. Depending on what route we choose, some of the themes of this game might be mature, whatever that means. How much violence is extensive?

And even if we decided to give this game the mature rating, there would be no strong language, as I'm not a fan of swearing.

So having said that. What do you think? "Mature Games must remain suitable to all ages."

Is this a game that would be considered mature? Or is it going in that direction? And if it does, what changes by giving this game the mature rating. And will that change how you play the game? Or if you are willing to play in this game at all?

You may respond to me in PM if you prefer.

I think the switch to mature shouldn't change the game, but that it would keep the game in accordance with the site policies.  For some reason I thought we already were mature, or I'd have poked you about changing it after the truck stop scene.

Yeah, I know I have had Dean curse a bit in the past.

I can knock that off if you prefer, but given the nature of the game a Mature eating would make sense.

The game rating has been updated to Mature.

Meant to ask with my last post: what time is it in the epilogue thread?

Right after you left the club. Or in other words, when that scene started, was just after you stepped through the portal in the club.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:56, Fri 29 Nov 2019.

Right but are we looking at around 7pm, 9pm, later?

It's a little after 2 AM.

Forgot about the unconsciousness thing in my post.  Oh, well.  Sleep is still good.  &#128539;

It still has been a full day. And now Sparrow has her first chance to talk to Tom in private.

That too.

I recently heard Laura Branigan's "Self Control" and it made me think about this game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP0_8J7uxhs

Cool!

I like having a soundtrack for a game. Consider these additions:

For Jack and Dean: Blindside, “King of the Closet” - https://youtu.be/10MVcyW5-xk

Tom: Queen, “Princes of the Universe” - https://youtu.be/VEJ8lpCQbyw

Abe: “Rise of the Fae” - https://youtu.be/OwtNKtHxb-4

Good picks all.

I can completely see Dean blasting that riding around on his new bike! Heh.

Tom now has access to Highlander Space!

Coolness factor upgraded!

Hey guys o/

Hey!

It's nice to not be the prettiest one in the group anymore! #FeyWorldProblems

Don't worry, if Abe has it at the same level as Cailin, he'll appear more handsome than she is beautiful. As long as she doesn't decide to do anything about it (or is convinced to). Then I suppose it'd be a tie.

It is not a tie, Abe is correct on the stats.

Damn. Poor Cailin. Well, maybe she's a fae, in which case it would still be a #FeyWorldProblems!

Unless you want to continue posting in the present tense, I'm happy with my little test, and we can go back to posting in the past tense. Some may have noted that I'm already doing that in Cailin's thread.

I read the bit about trying present tense but I completely forgot about that in my first post.

Funny thing is, in the beginning I always wrote in the present tense for my characters. However with a lot of GMs insisting on past tense I switched over. Though there are still times were I slip back to the present in the middle of a post…

Ooops.  I had forgotten about the experiment.  Sorry!

No worries. I noted that I returned to posting in past tense over a week ago in your thread so it's all good.

*cough, cough*

Sigh. Thank you for coughing. I had posted in your thread, but I am plagued with posts vanishing when I'm using this computer.

Are you sure you're not clicking on preview and closing the tab?

I know it's probably a stupid question, but I don't see what else could cause that kind of problem…

Yes, I am certain.

I'm not sure why, but sometimes when I post to this website on this computer, the message vanishes as if it never had been there.

I had a computer with that issue once.  I started typing things up in notepad and making my posts from copy-pasta.  That way if it didn't stick, it only took a few seconds to make a new batch.

Yep, that's what I always do too: never directly in the navigator.

That is a good idea. Though I obviously am used to type it directly on the page.

Now when I see an answer to Abe and not me I don't know of I should pkoe or just wait though :D

LOL.

I don't have an answer to that. In some cases it has taken me some time to respond in your thread after having responded in his. And sometimes my response has vanished, so....

I almost didn't get that joke, I almost asked what he was going to do with eight sprites…

Don't be surprised if you put another one like that and I miss it, English is not my native language after all ^^

I'll try to remember that. I haven't used that many puns in this game.

I realized we don't have a Sparrow photo or person equivalent.  How about Morgana from 2008 Merlin?

Sounds like a good choice.

Damn, I'm hitching. Should I say something? I don't want to be pushy… Should I wait patiently? I don't want to miss out though…

Oh wait, did I inadvertently do it anyway?

Hitching?

Well, if you remove the first h, it works. I knew I should have checked that one…

This time it was just me trying to figure out what to post.

Just to give a couple of examples.

Now that Cailin is at the Citadel, I have a broad strokes knowledge of what is going to happen, but I don't know the details. And then we add Cailin's choices to that as those are completely under your control.


The second example is Thomas. When I created him he was supposed to be a one scene NPC. Give the warning and fade away from the story. An element, like the Hunter, showing that the main NPCs don't know everything. Adding some mystery to the world.

And then Abe decides to have a sister that also is a student at Croatan, which I approved and am totally fine with. And despite my best efforts to keep her away from San Diego, as that's what made sense for her character and what she wants to do with her future, he found a way to bring her home. And I thought it might be interesting to see what happened if Thomas accompanied her. Nothing would have been an acceptable result as the story is driven by you and your characters, but that's not what happened.

It's cool to see where this collaborative story takes us.

It's perfectly fine :)

900 posts. Good work guys.

Awesomeness!!

ie. Twilight vampires don't exist in this universe!

<parties>

I considered making Cailin love Twilight.

But… I would have had to torch my keyboard everytime I said that which could have been expensive, Cailin was only 7 when the first movie came out, and considering her family… Well, I went the other way.

Oh by the way: I demand (yes, demand, exactly!) to have my official Team Chicken Angel tag!

Your tag has been updated.

Thanks :)

I was half-expecting to have something silly instead of the Angel though ^^

I could change it to something silly if you prefer.

Hmm, I'll think about it and I'll let you know!

That's because you're not using the r.rpol.net site :)
You should try it, among other advantages, the rolls can be formated as tooltips.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by formating them as tooltips.

Let's see if I remember using that site in the future. I'm not that enamored with the layout or the coloring.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:18, Wed 11 Mar 2020.

This:

Yeah, it's shocking at first :)
You get used to it though, and with the dark theme it's pretty nice.

Changing themes doesn't affect the first page though.

Yeah that's a bug, you have to log off from the normal site for it to change.

Yeah, turns out I'm even less of a fan of the dark theme.

There are some interesting features, though I couldn't see how to make dice rolls into tooltips. And more importantly to me, the information I need isn't available. Or at least not as clearly as on the old site.

To make the roll into tooltip, you just have to paste in the message the [xxxx.xxxxx.xxxxx] stuff next to the result of a roll in the logs.

So I feel compelled to ask, this being our first non-scripted combat.

Are we using GURPS rules? Or is this still narrative?

We are using GURPS rules. The first combat, that ended in your transformation, also used GURPS rules, when the PCs were involved. For even though the end result was a foregone conclusion (i.e. your transformation) I didn't know all of the details regarding how you'd get there. But I did have so many overpowered enemies to make sure that you would get there.

The Fright Check and its results were all rules as written. After that Dean didn't have a chance. I don't think I rolled damage for when Jack and Tom died, but their opponents were so much more powerful than they were so it was clear that they would die. And I did land Tom through the glass for dramatic effect. Abe, of course, didn't die

Cool. Just checking.

I ask because I was curious as to you were factoring Dean's current situation mechanically.

It would've fairly difficult for him to miss, no impossible, but I would be curious to get your breakdown on the current situation.

I had to refresh myself on several grappling rules for the occasion.

You grappled him. A person defends normally when grappled. You succeeded with the Takedown so he is grappled on the ground. My read of your post is that you are on the ground with him. You then have a -4 penalty to melee attacks and he has a -3 penalty to defense.

The reason why my post reads the way it does was because I missed including both those penalties, so by the rolls I made you hit and he defended. With the penalties, you both would have failed.

Thanks for breaking it down. Much appreciated.

Abe and Dean, I'm not with my books and notes right now and I need those to post in your threads, which is why I've only been posting in Cailin's thread. You are not forgotten.

Let's assume that someone picked up Dean's stuff.

Just a head's up, I'm French and things are a bit of a mess at the moment here (compounded with the fact that I was supposed to move to a new town and start a new job there), so if I answer a bit erratically for a while, that's why.

Nothing to worry about, just figured I'd let you know in case it happens :)

Does any of you recognize Jack's portrait? You can see it at the end of our first thread, link to a message in this game. I'd like to add it back to the character.

Jack's portait is from the Modern, Male, Casual category, #617. It's on page 19: Link back to this game

Thank you so much!

I corrected my previous post as the map only covers San Diego County, not going as far as the California border.

It seems we've got a roadblock.

Any suggestions?

Well, I wanted to let someone else answer before I did, but I guess I can do that now.

People keep mentioning replacing the driver, but we have no one skilled at driving a big rig, right?

Dean has some skill is normal driving, but not heavy equipment

Driving (Heavy Wheeled) is the skill you need. If you have Driving (Automobile), a -2 penalty can be taken to roll for driving an 18 wheeler. If you have another Driving skill, a -4 penalty is needed. A professional driver has at least a skill level of 12.

If you don't have it, you can "convince" the driver to drive for you or find another driver outside your group.

Sounds like Dean might be able to pull this off then.

Well then. One problem solved. You also need to decide where to replace the driver.

As for weapons. We need a silver sword. Guns with silver bullets. Grenades, perhaps homemade, that do persistent fire damage.

Anything else?

Maybe a police scanner?

So we know if some poor bystander calls in all the gunfire and explosive concussions?

That could definitely be useful.

It's a civilian looking vehicle. Something like https://oppositelock.kinja.com...ock-review-450845396. The size and the white, black, chrome coloration fits what you see too.

Unfortunately, I'm having difficulties getting in touch with Dean and Tom. I hope things are well with them.

Should we keep going in the main thread?

I want to, though I would have to NPC the missing PCs. Which I had preferred not to do. But it seems to be the only choice.

How are things going?

Pretty good.  Finally finished my semester.  Last post I have vision of was mine, so I'm kind of in limbo here.

How are you guys?

Yours was the last post. I was hoping to see some of the others post, but it seems Corona has taken hold of our group.

Whoah, is this live again?

I offered to continue this as a solo game for Abe when everyone else stopped posting over a year ago. Recently he asked if I was still willing to do that. So that was the plan. You're obviously welcome to join us if you like.

I would be interested, sure.

Should I just hop right back on in?

Certainly.

Great!

There are some images of the almost seven feet long and 1" diameter staff weapon on the following page. Just so that you know what it looks like. There are also some photos showing alternative ways of holding it when you fire.

https://www.thathashtagshow.co...t-desperately-needs/

As for the other device, it's not working, so, unfortunately, I have to take away the cylinder.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:18, Fri 27 Aug 2021.

Glad to have you back, too, Cailin.

As this is the first time anyone shoots more than once in the same turn, let me clarify the rule.

When you make a ranged attack roll. You make one attack roll and the weapon can fire up to Rate of Fire times. It is still only one roll, even if you are pulling the trigger several times.

You have to decide how many times the weapon should fire before you roll, in a pbp game you have all of that information before you post, so I'm trusting that you are following the rules.

If the roll succeeds, you make at least one successful hit. Compare your margin of success to the weapons Rcl (recoil) value. An attack scores an extra hit for every full multiple of Recoil by which you make the attack roll.

The following are the stats of the pistol Abe is shooting with right now.

* Pistol: 2d+2 pi Acc 2 Range 150/1900 Weight 2/0.7 RoF 3 Shots 18+1(3) ST 9 Bulk -2 Rcl 2

He starts with a skill of 11.

As these Wolfmen have a SM +1, he gets a +1 bonus.
They are not moving enough or far enough away to give him a penalty for that.
As he is focusing on Aiming, he is taking the All-Out Attack (Determined) maneuver that gives him +1.
He Aimed for one turn, so that gives him +2 (from Acc).
I'm assuming he's holding the pistol in both hands, so that counts as it being braced, +1.
The fire, fortunately, eliminates any darkness penalties.

That would give him a bonus of 5 for a total of 16.

As he only rolls once, his first attack roll becomes his only attack roll. And that was 11. As it's lower than 16, there is at least one hit.

The margin of success is 16-11 = 5 and the weapons Rcl is 2. 5/2 = 2.5 and rounded down that is 2. So that's at most 2 extra hits.

For a total of at most 3 hits. And as the gun has a RoF (rate of fire) of 3 and he chose to fire three times, he has indeed hit three times.

Feel free to ask about that here or in PM, if there's something I need to explain further about this.

Hey guys, I'm happy with posting and doing the story-driving, but I also don't want to run over you or leave you out.  Would you guys like me to slow down, or just keep going ahead?

Cailin is here purely as an advisor at the moment, and I don't have much of anything for her to say right now, so don't worry about me.

I'll post when I have something to say :)

Tom's back!  Glad you didn't get turned corpse-shaped, Tom!  (IRL and in that last scene with the werewolves)

Ha! Thanks, Abe!

It's good to have you back!

Sorry for not being around.

I had a plan for this game.

As it turns out, this back and forth between group and individual missions is getting difficult to manage as things that are supposed to take the same amount of time in the game take different amounts of time in the real world.

I've tried to figure out a solution that allows for both advancement for the group and advancement for you as individuals doing your own thing. Adding in the holidays and having my storage broken into with 100 novels or so and other stuff being stolen, it has taken some time.

And I haven't been able to figure out a solution.

So right now it seems that all I'm left with is closing this game, unless any of you have a solution to my conundrum.

I think the best solution might be to run group threads and solo threads at the same time, with one being declared to be before the other.  On the down side, it leaves open the possibility of needing a retcon (or just 'remembering' something new) once in a while.  On the up side, it keeps everyone going without having to catch up or wait for the next group event.

I considered that and I didn't want to make a unilateral decision to do that as some may not feel comfortable with multiple active threads. As well as the time travel aspect you mention.

But if that is something that works for all of you, we can do that.

I'm perfectly fine with multiple active threads myself.

As long as what we do in one doesn't have any direct impact in another, and we agree to not nitpick when some info/ability wasn't revealed straight away simply because we just happened to have it in another thread that was in the past compared to the current one, it's all good.

We'll try that then.

I'm going to be away all of next week. So I'll start posting IC again when I return.

I likely won't be active much in the week of the 14th myself: I'm getting my eyes fixed so I probably won't spend long on screens.

My (late) suggestion would be to run this as though it were an in-person game. We do group threads (the weekly in-person session) and then solo threads in-between (the downtime stuff).

Or you could think of it in terms of Avengers movies. We have one big adventure, and then have (shorter?) solo adventures in-between.

FYI

I'm not feeling very well.

That may affect the frequency with which I post here and how intelligent my posts are.

Just so that you know.

That was my plan Tom. And it was working. But unfortunately, it isn't working anymore

Take your time, there's no rush.