Behind the Screens Continues

I am going to begin by expressing my gratitude to Aaron, Jacob, and Dutch for recognizing our need to have our own official forum, and providing this so promptly.

I've a lot of work to do, as I need to identify which game threads should be considered active, and get those restarted on this forum. In fairness, I am going to begin by relaunching those games which had posts on the old forum before it closed, oldest to newest, and then work backwards through those threads which have been inactive since then, newest to oldest. If your game thread is not here, please feel free to restart your game from wherever it ended. I mean no slight and am not unilaterally terminating anyone's game; it might be that I thought you had dropped out of play, or it might be that I missed your thread when I was looking back. In either case, you are welcome to post again here.

For those who need to find their old threads, the archives of the Multiverser forum are at http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showforum=83 and should be openly accessible to anyone. You cannot post, but if you log in to your old account the unread posts markers are fixed to your last visit (and will not, apparently, update for your new visit). The old Behind the Screens at a March Pace thread is here, and I will include links (if I remember to do so) in each new thread to connect to the archives of their previous play.

I'm guessing on the coding to be used here; it appears that HTML is accepted, but I suspect that not all of it will be accepted, so we'll see what does and does not work as we go along and hope that the edit button actually does work on the new system.

Answering the few questions asked on that thread before it closed:

• Yes, John, it is because of the e-mail. Long ago I did everything every day, and it took forever to get through it all. I noticed that when I was involved in any discussion every day (be it by e-mail or by forum) I wrote a lot more in that discussion and put a lot more time into it. With e-mail, if I put an answer off a day or two, it slowed down the conversation and took less of my time; with forums, time away meant someone else would often answer a question adequately before I returned. Thus I sequestered the major forums in which I participated (but not the official forum site) into one day per week, arranged on alternate days, and put the e-mail between. However, as it happened I always did the e-mail first, then came here, then went to the other forums, so when I sliced down the workload I still did e-mail before Gaming Outpost and other forums after, which meant that on e-mail days Gaming Outpost was at the end of the day and on forum days it was at the beginning.
• Scott, I look forward to your next post.
• Shawn, I have not heard from Graeme since his last post here; however, he sometimes gets called away abruptly on business and does not have Internet access or time for extended stretches. Oddly, he's an engineer without Internet access at home, so he only posts when he's got time elsewhere. I'm not yet worried about him.

That should be sufficient for that. Donna will be first, then Adam, then Shawn, and then I'll work backwards through the other players.

Donna continues from here. She needs a difficult persuasion check because she wants these children of the Englightenment to believe that she is a person of some supernatural power, but she does have the explosions in her favor so I'll bonus the effort by +3 on her effective persuasion, 1@9. The roll is 28, so it's not happening.

For the record, it appears that I can use blockquote as well as href link codes, and there is a note saying that ol and ul lists work as well as basic em, amd strong formatting codes, if I remembered it right.

Adam was last posted here. I'm copying the last post and responding to move things forward.

Shawn last posted here. There is a 16 GE roll on whether the Duke of Kent will come to Zenda (and since I don't know which Shawn would prefer, that makes it easy for me), so we'll go with yes and no.

That means it's time to launch threads for other people based on last posts. I will list them here and link them to their archived posts, as well as launch the new threads.

Ryan from The Kid is Bah Ke'gehn.

Scott was posting in Scott Free or Not, a rather dark high psionics world in which he has just shown his hostess, a waitress named Alice who aspires to be a writer, a copy of the famed graphic novel The Watchmen.

Kyler was last playing in Kyler in a New City.

Graeme has been absent for a while, but last posted in Rome Wasn't Built In a Millennium.

Anyone who is being run by another referee should arrange with that person for how to resume play here; if there are problems, drop me a note at mjyoung@mjyoung.net. Anyone else has been absent for more than a month, and should post here to renew their game play if they are still with us. I'll post my own game for Graeme to resume when he returns.

--M. J. Young

I notice that the new forum software does not mark unread posts, although it does list threads by age of last post so it's not too difficult to find. I'm still getting used to the new system, and thus am dealing with all threads in chronological order of last post, rather than sorting out my games from other threads. I am considering changing that, however, because there's been some petty bickering about people who feel they have been "bumped out of line" by someone else posting on their thread. At the moment, though, I can't think of a better one. I could do threads in reverse chronological order, and that would then show the pettiness of those who have to post meaningless nonsense to their own threads to move them closer to the top of the list. But this is not the place to deal with that, except to say that I am annoyed at any suggestion that anyone is not permitted to post in any thread on our forum. I see that there is a thread about that, though, so I will make my comments there. I think I am looking at Shawn, Ryan, and Adam.

I'm giving Shawn four intensities on his already 2@2 persuasion, because he makes an excellent and appealing argument, and coming out of a non-commital GE roll it will be a simple check, 2+anything in there, with +15 making it 17, a good roll.

Ryan is going to attempt a gaseous telekinesis, P4@7, building on his 10@4 psi bias, 1@6 BRA, and the 7@ bias of the world. His roll is 48, which is in there without doubt, giving him a 1@1 SAL and potential hold of the target for forty-eight minutes, unless it pulls free by sheer willpower, a number which is either 0@10 or 1@1, and it rolls a simple check of 12+9=21, well outside any possibility of resistance. It will get another check if he tries to do something with it that it would recognize as antithetical to its life or primary interests.

Adam makes his way through central Mexico toward Panama.

I still have a few threads to read, but I'm reading.

--M. J. Young

MJ is getting annoyed? This is bad. I know from personal experience that it takes a great deal to annoy that man. In fact, the only time that I know of that I annoyed him was, ironically, by telling him he sounded annoyed. Better head for the hills whoever you are.

What annoys me are people who sit in front of a computer who should be working. Oh well, we all have out pet peeves.

I'll give you the psychosis and the disability check, then you can tell me I have an easy life.

It appears that I don't have to worry too much about the order in which I am going to answer game threads today, because Adam is the only player, and he hasn't really done anything.

I've got to be somewhere anyway, so I'm gone.

--M. J. Young

I notice that the new forum software does not mark unread posts, although it does list threads by age of last post so it's not too difficult to find.

There are a ton of plugins for the forum software, so I'll do some digging and see if I can get an unread messages one going.

My thanks to Aaron for his continued efforts here. My posts thus far are getting through. The unread posts function appears to mark threads that have had posts since your last visit, which is very useful even though not the same thing. (The difference is that I came to the forum index page and saw the bolded threads, then left and came back and found no bolded threads, although I'd not opened any. Interestingly, when I first saw it I thought it was marking all threads in which I was not the last person to post, because that was the distinction that was visible at that point; but undoubtedly that was because the plug-in did not have any record of my last visit to any thread other than my posts. Now it should theoretically show my any threads that have new posts since my last visit.)

Adam is going to be first, because I'm using my new turn order arrangement; Ryan will follow.

Adam has made it easy, so we'll move forward.

Ryan has overestimated the amount of time he has. On the other hand, he asks whether holding it in place is having any impact on its size or intensity, and it occurs to me that this is a very real possibility--after all, it grows by moving across the ground, in all likelihood, drawing energy from the grass. I think I'll want a GE roll, though: 13 is barely good enough, which will tell him that it seems to be having the desired effect. However, a roll of 85 is too high to chain the skill for another stretch, so he's going to lose the grasp soon.

--M. J. Young

Mr. Young, do you know where Kyler has been lately? He was having some problems with the old site, maybe he still is.

John, I know that people complain about how much you nag when they don't post regularly, and it discourages them from posting regularly. I know that Kyler was out very Wednesday night taking his girlfriend home, and slept much of Thursday, and was involved in a live game tonight. I also know that he does not have his own computer, and has to get access to someone else's, and that he had a lot of trouble posting on the old forums and has not yet tackled the new ones. He will get here, I'm sure of that.

Shawn and Ryan are today's players.

Annika will undoubtedly react a bit to Shawn's announcement that they're going to have yet another royal guest, and so soon. I'm sure there are other ways he can put her mind at ease, but Annika will suggest that she rush home to get the staff started on preparations. He'll probably offer an alternative, so I won't push the point.

Ryan is going to attempt to contact the kekh-toromak--a creature that is a humanoid preborn gone wrong, which challenges me in terms of whether to treat it as humanoid or animal. I'll go with humanoid and caveat it, the roll is 96, so we might have a botch here--and indeed we do. Let's go for the list:

1. Mind swap
2. Brain burn, self
3. Psionic shock wave
4. Neural breakdown, self
5. Wrong target
6. Brain burn, target
7. Neural Breakdown, target
8. Mind link

The roll is 8, which will be very interesting.

--M. J. Young

I'm not nagging in this case. What made me mad before was that people would post to their thread but not to mine. Kyler hasn't posted to his either. I got worried about him, because I know how important this game is to him. Speaking as someone that spent the better part of my life without a father, I hope Kyler, Ryan, well, all of your sons really, cherish this time they get to spend with you. If you talk to him, tell him I hope he is OK and I hope to see him online soon.

Somehow when I arrived and opened the threads I was logged in, but when I attempted to post to one I was logged out. That is odd. In any case, Kyler and Ryan were both waiting for me when I got here, so I'm answering them.  I had a couple people in a live game Friday night, so hopefully we'll get some posts updating the events of the game.

Kyler was one of the weekend warriors, and he has posted an sufficient summary. I know it was tongue in cheek, but the robber did not throw the gun to him, but in the tradition of Superman, having ineffectively emptied his gun of bullets through the barrel, he decided to throw the gun at the target in the hope that that would hurt him. Obviously it didn't. Kyler has no chance to hurt himself in a planned fall off the roof of an ordinary house, so I'm not going to roll it (the multiplied 3@2 SAL itself gives 96% before the BRA and bias). Let's get him to school. I've got a 14 GE roll on today, which is pleasant but close enough to the middle that there won't be anything really notable.

Ryan already has an induce emotion skill, a P1@5 suggestion variant. The creature is humanoid in its mind, but it is also linked to Ryan's mind in a unity that means Ryan is talking to himself; the penalty for humanoid is more than compensated by the bonus for self, so I'm going to give him +10 on this. He rolls 08, which is a successful roll even if weakly successful. A GE roll of 6 is fabulously favorable, so he's going to get what he wants.

Majdi, his mutahk friend, rolls 29 on showing him the example, 79 on teaching him. A Mutahk is a high 2@10 teacher (is 2@4 when he becomes a Mutahk, 2@10 when he graduates) with a 6@ bias, but that's not enough for a 79 to be a successful teaching roll. Even so, the 1@10 example will help Ryan if he decides to do it.

--M. J. Young

Footnote: the induce emotion is probably a new use, I'm giving Ryan a mark for that taking his SAL to 1@2.

--M. J. Young

I'm trying to make dinner and get out of here, but since dinner requires time I'm also going to attempt to answer Adam and Ryan before I rush out of here.

Adam needs a good GE roll to reach the right people; he does not yet understand who they are or how they work (which is why he's trying to get connected to them, but also why it is difficult to do). However, a 9 is a very good roll, as good as expected--which is not going to play quite the way he wishes, but still will play well.

I've given some thought to what skill would block the feeling of hunger in a target, and decided that it is a P6@1 Reduce Pain variant, as it is cutting off sensation of a sort. 10 is a good enough roll that I don't need to check his numbers, so I'll add

1@1 Interrupt sensory pain signals Psi 6@1 Bah Ke’gehn
Disrupts hunger in target

to his sheet, and deal with it here.

I think that's sufficient for the moment, and dinner is nearly finished, so I might be leaving shortly.

--M. J. Young

Going by the new system, Steve gets to go first; I have already launched his new thread for him, and am looking forward to whatever happens next in that quest. Adam, Shawn, Kyler, and Ryan comprise the rest of the line, unless I overlooked someone or something.

Adam arrives at the cantina to meet the arms dealer. I'll describe the scene.

Shawn has met my expectations admirably, heading out to prepare for his guests.

Kyler is in class, and has to deal with his stick question.

Ryan is hoping someone came with him whom it does not appear did so; however, I can't say with certainty that Mitzu would not have come, or at least followed, so let me go with a GE roll, bearing in mind that it would take a very good GE roll to overcome the evidence as I've assessed it. 16 is not that roll.

--M. J. Young

It looks like I have the same players, and because of the new ordering system they would be in the same order: Adam, Shawn, Kyler, and Ryan.

Adam is moving toward the meeting with his arms dealer; he was a bit vague on his entrance intentions, so I'll get Geneice to clarify the situation a bit.

Shawn wants to know whether his staff is fully present; a roll of 12 is good enough. They'll have him organized.

Miss Haas makes a difficult intuition check with a roll of 12, and she's an insightful woman, so she will recognize Kyler's worry about his stick. We still have to resolve what will be done with it.

Ryan is going to teach himself an eject defense. Different mind type is not relevant in this case, so it's a simple learning roll with an example to help, 41 a certain success for the 2@9 skill, 1@1 Eject. It's also his first psionic defense, which is interesting.

I'm making the note on his disrupt sensation skill that it lasts RSx10 minutes; that means it will hold for over an hour and a half based on his roll of 10, and that gives him some time.

I think it is time for me to move. What is today, anyway? Oh, right--it is Wednesday, and the e-mail is finished, so I'm nearing the end of the routine work. Perhaps I will have an opportunity to do some of the not so routine stuff for a change.

--M. J. Young

Adam and Kyler are my active players as I push my way through the rest of today.

Adam reminds me of his panoramic awareness, which I should roll behind the screens so he can't tell the difference between a failed (or botched) roll and the absence of anything to notice. That roll is 32, so if there's anything to see he should see it. Checking back on my notes, he had a 9 GE roll, so this is not a trap by any stretch.

Kyler is going through his day, and since this is the first day of school for him we'll create some detail.

--M. J. Young

I should just be starting my work today, given how late I was up; but given how early I was up, I'm pulling into the forums already, although I might fall down before I get the rest of the way through. Ed has returned, and also Scott, and Shawn and Ryan are continuing their games.

I started Ed's thread earlier, when I got the message in the articles/blogs section that he was returning, and it's really just a link and a quote, so there's not much to say here.

Scott is playing catch-up, and he's indicated that he has not yet caught up, so I'll give some feedback on the part he has covered and let him continue from there.

I've got to remind myself which girl it is who is staying with Shawn; the easiest way is to Google it, actually, which also informs me that my use of the title "princess" was inappropriate--she is Grand Duchess. In any event, we move forward.

Ryan does not remember whether he has skill in empathy; that would be a P1@1 skill, and he does not have it listed, so we'll roll for it now: 12 gives him the skill at a 1@1 SAL.

Perhaps I can get that nap.

--M. J. Young

My live gamers have not posted; I suspect one of them might be incommunicado for an extended time, but perhaps he will find a computer where he is visiting and get back in the game sooner than I anticipate. Meanwhile, Ed and Eric have had something of a conversation, and it's time for me to adjudicate some actions. Then Ryan is also here, so we'll cover him next.

It is not surprising that Tadeusz would have a high opinion of his plasma cannon; after all, the weapon is listed as Plasma cannon 20':50':100':200':+1/2' fatal on low or annihilating on high heat damage RF60 regenerating power supply raises area temp 10F immediately, 10'r, normal dissipation, but he's got a 2@1 professional SAL and a 2@4 RSV, so he gets two damage category bonuses, making it obliterative even at the low setting, and overcoming the damage category penalty inherent in firing it to twice its normal range, so he gets those devastating shots more easily.  My recollection is that Godzilla is between one and two blocks away, and Ed is worse off than a rank amateur--he's an unskilled user with a maybe 11@ tech bias attempting to learn a 14@1 device use skill without so much as an example, and that at range against a target with significant cover value.

I never expected all this to happen with Godzilla, so I never copied the monster's stats from the old threads. I've got some digging to do, but here I find:

All right, here we go, for Godzilla:

* 3@10 Strength
* 3@10 Stamina
* 3@7 Resistance
* 2@5 Density
* 1@5 Agility
* 1@8 Hand/Eye
* 2@3 Intuition
* 3@6 Will Power
* 2@1 RSV
* 2@7 MSV
* 2@1 TV
* 3@5 DV

If we make the eyes 18" in diameter, that's -10; although there are two of them, you can't really target both at once, so that doesn't count. I'm giving -10 for the creature's innate ability to avoid shots to the open eyes, which means the total defensive value is -41. Scott has 76-41=35% chance to hit an eye itself; a miss on the eye means possibly hitting the head, which I'll guess is 20' in diameter, 314 square feet of target, +71, but -51 for cover of the hide, so +20, but still has TV of -2@1, so we wind up at 75% to hit the head if he misses the eye. The rolls were 42, 61, 38, all of which miss the eye but hit the head. He gets +1 for new use (I don't think I already did that) to 1@6, raising his chance of success to 36/76, if I've done my numbers aright.

Citing the important numbers, there is a 2@1 TV and a -51 cover value, offset by the huge size of the beast--which I had recorded somewhere, but not apparently there, so let me keep looking and record a few other fragments I find, such as this one:

Godzilla will use a B3@6 run at 15 mph. His SAL isn't that good, only 1@3, but he's got high bias and BRA, a 3@8 strength sounds right, and 2x12@ for his invulnerabilities. Still, that's only 73% chance of successfully achieving 15 mph, and he rolled 81, so he's only going to achieve 81% of that, and using the calculator I convert to feet per hour at 81% divided to find the distance per quarter minute, he travels 267.3 feet per fifteen seconds, which is 89.1 yards.

What I don't see is a size for Godzilla, which is probably because I've not needed it to this point. However, if the head is twenty feet in diameter, we're probably looking at a height six times that, one hundred twenty feet, and an average width of about thirty-five feet, so our target area is 4200 square feet. The formula for the bonus is subtract 27 square feet (maximum area for an ordinary target) and divide by four, so we're looking at over a thousand points bonus on the attack, +1043 to be precise.

I've also calculated Ed's averaged attributes, which are

Ranged Strike Value 1@9
Martial Strike Value 1@8
Target Value 1@5
Damage Value 1@8

He has a 2@2 Tech BRA. I make the range 250 feet, so that's -25 for long range and -25 for an extreme range shot of 25% more than maximum long range. All told, Godzilla, at least in this incarnation, is pretty much a no-miss target; he's just hard to kill.

Ed rolls 80, which is a solid hit, gives him a 1@2 SAL in this device and kicks his bias up to 14@1. Now we have to do the damage. For Ed, it is only an annihilating weapon, but a roll of 80 would do that many intensities of damage. Godzilla has a 3@5 damage value, though, so he divides that by three and discards the fractions, 26 intensities, a severe injury but not fatal.

It is also a potentially crippling injury, which means I need a hit location, 40 being the right side ribs, which does not immediately suggest impaired ability unless it is the lungs, but I will check. There is a 26% chance of crippling injury, and 11 is within that, so we've got a serious problem here. The creature's stamina check is 15+12=27, against a 3@10 stamina, so this is temporary. However, the battle is not over.

Ryan attempts to reconnect on the empathy, but 74 is outside his success range.

--M. J. Young

I've got Ed and Eric tonight, then Adam back from his live game, then Ryan also Bah Ke'gehn.

Ed is making a called shot, trying to hit the point he hit already. I would estimate that to be an ordinary sized target area, which means he loses the size bonuses; but since a miss on the ribs stands a decent chance of hitting the creature anyway, those size bonuses remain in place for the contingent shot--that is, miss the named target but hit the larger target. There's a damage penalty in the case of missing the named target. We still have the range penalty, so with a roll of 15 I'm going to have to check some numbers. I've got 2@2 BRA, 1@9 RSV, 2x14@ bias, 1@2 SAL summed gives us 81, against which the defensive numbers are -51 for cover, -50 for range, 2@1 TV, that's -121, we've got an impossible shot (for a rank amateur) at this point but that of course if he misses the injury under the arm he still hits the monster. The annihilating weapon takes a damage category penalty for extreme range and another for missing the called shot making it lethal, 3 intensities of damage, divided by three leaves 1.

Eric rolls 49 on the telekinesis, so he's good on that.

Adam has provided a live game summary, and I've made a few notes on it and asked for his next move.

Ryan rolls 26 on his Read Minds, but he has to overcome the humanoid minds penalty to read the mind of a Bah mutant, so I'd better check numbers: 2x7@ world bias, 1@6 BRA, 1@1 SAL, that's 41 minus 10 for the humanoid mind is still good, and for a new use I'll give him a mark to 1@2. He then rolls 13 on the empathy, having changed the circumstances.

I heard from Graeme today; he had gotten locked out of the old forum and gave up checking back, but he was glad to hear we had the new system going and will be back to join us again after a long weekend. I didn't know Canadians had a holiday this weekend, but maybe it's just Graeme who has the holiday.

--M. J. Young

My calender says "Labor Day (US and Canada)," so I think they do.

Would there have been some sort of damage bonus if Ed had managed to hit the spot he'd previously injured?

Would there have been some sort of damage bonus if Ed had managed to hit the spot he'd previously injured?

Well, hard to say, really.

Since it was a called shot, had he hit the spot he would not have had the damage category penalty. However, in the main, Multiverser called shots are tactical. That is, if I think I might be able to do crippling levels of damage on an opponent, I might call the shot to his weapon arm so that the crippling effect will prevent him from attacking (with that arm), or to his eyes so that it might (at least temporarily) blind him.

In this specific instance, he had already gained a temporary crippling effect on the beast by damaging its lungs. This did not have a great tactical advantage, but had he again damaged the lungs and achieved a temporary crippling effect, I probably would have ruled that Godzilla could not breathe well enough to perform any strenuous actions (run, attack, breathe fire), and was now gasping for breath.

Note that crippling effects are intentionally made difficult, because I don't like to use them against player characters (particularly at low levels of ability). You can't easily blind or disable your opponent because he can't easily do so to you.

Had I recognized the first attack as being a called shot on the neck, and it had hit for a crippling injury, we probably would have had severe bleeding and, in the case of a creature who lacks the intelligence to attempt to stem the flow of blood from the jugular vein, an inevitable continuing increase in injury until it collapsed and died. (It might have been on the windpipe or spine, of course, which would have different effects.)

The question of the second crippling attack is probably moot, though, as sufficient damage to be a crippling injury is at this point sufficient damage to finish the creature.

Generally I do not allow called shots to do more damage than ordinary shots; I only allow them to have tactical effects if there is reason for them to do so, and frequently then only if there is a crippling injury (you can hit someone in the eye and give him quite a shiner, even a broken bone, without necessarily blinding him). Another referee might consider such called shots as more damaging if successful, but I trust they will let that play both ways. That is, no one can behead you for fewer damage intensities than it takes to kill you any other way, unless they have a special damage attack form that does specifically that and/or beheading will not be fatal to you. (I do have a scenario in memory in which the character beheaded her opponent, and the opponent's head started shouting orders to his cronies to get him out of there.) If I allowed player characters to do this, I would have to allow their opponents to do it to them, and players don't like that.

--M. J. Young

Woo-hoo! Graeme is back! I get to play! Of course, he gets to play first, but I'm good with that.

In response to questions, I have created a sticky thread entitled Coding on This Board, which is about--well, that's self-explanatory, really.

My thinking on boarding Heph at the zoo is that the answer will be yes, but the terms must be settled, so I'm going to use a 2d10+1 GE roll to get a result weighted toward the better side: 13 is barely good enough, but that'll do. I'm just now shifting to a Roman currency system, but I've saved it on my drive for the present so I won't take the space here. I have vague recollections that Graeme has copied some paper money, and I'm obviously now committed to paper money in the scenario, but we'll try to shift to these values. Graeme might decide to do some negotiating here, but we'll see what he does next. I note that I did not enter that information on the character sheets, but hopefully between us we can find it and reconstruct it.

--M. J. Young

Hey Shawn! Nice to see you. I did get your message delivered through the old G.O. site but I was locked out of the site and couldn't reply at the time.

Were you surprised to find the MV forum still going strong?

Eric posts on the thread with, but without, Ed, and Adam is here, and Graeme, and in view of the fact that there's a new thread with my game on it, I'm pretty sure I versed out and am starting in a new world.

Eric has mostly stepped out of the way to give Ed room to act, but we'll see what Ed chooses to do.

Adam will have to leave the main roads to get away from television sets, but I'm not sure he wants to do that, exactly. Still, he does say he is trying to get into a quiet isolated village, and a GE of 12 lets him do that.

Graeme gets his elephant settled, and gets some idea of the value of his bills, although the "week" being ten days might throw him.

--M. J. Young

Hey Graeme,

Yes, I was a bit surprised to find the old girl still up and running. Pleasantly though, when I need a break from my kids and 'real life' the site is here for me to game.

I'm missing some of the functions that the old site had, and I'm still getting used to the way this one is built, but I imagine eventually I won't even remember how the old site worked (when it worked well).

Good to see you as well.

I've got a good crew tonight, with Scott giving me quite a substantial post, Adam settling in to a new location, Shawn in transit, and Graeme a bit befuddled.

Scott, Your numbers are good; I might quibble that the shirt was worth less, but the five small objects might be worth more (there are, after all, five of them, although as you say, they could be pebbles or seeds or just about anything, and even in your own use you've defined it such that any object you decide to associate with magic would suffice). The roll is 44, though, and you're right about the bias, so this is a failure, although it might have worked.

The day begins for Adam, but there's not much to tell.

Shawn brings in his new guests.

Graeme rolls a 14 GE, not desired but generally favorable result. For those who, like me, are unfamiliar with that use of the word pension, I am reliably informed that it refers to a small hotel or boarding house, and not (as to most Americans) a retirement income plan.

That should get him through.

--M. J. Young

Given how very late I am, I am surprised to find only two players--Ed and Scott--but given how late it is, I am not complaining.

My dim recollection places the entire crew at a corner when the explosion happened; I don't see a reason to move that, but as Ed says, a blind corner for him is a box on the floor for Godzilla. On top of that, the explosion will have done damage to buildings, and so a GE roll of 21 is not favoring him.

Scott meanwhile doesn't seem to have given me much to which to respond.

--M. J. Young

It appears again that we have a small group; everyone must have been otherwise occupied this weekend. Scott starts the game and Ryan finishes it.

Scott translates his spell's words into a "magical" language--quite correct that the fact that it is "only" Spanish does not change the fact that it is arcane and mystical. That gives him another bonus to his chance of success, which I notice I did not write down before. However, if 44 failed before, that means I can roll the dice and then look up the numbers, as the added +5 still leaves at least half the board as failure numbers. The new roll is 20, which I am betting is successful.  Indeed, it looks like we are in there,

1@1 Create Darkness M4@1 caster arranges five wingnuts [or other small object which the caster associates with ritual] in a pentagon on the ground and kneels within it holding with both hands a black cloth large enough to use as a blindfold, he sings in a slow minor for forty-two seconds, in Spanish, "No se puede oir, no se puede ver, No se puede tocar, no se puede oler Esta detras de las estrellas y bajo colina Y alguandos vacio, llena Sigue despues, ocurre primero, Termina viva, mata risa Es oscuridad - oscuridad - oscuridad", while performing a symbolic, pantomimed accompaniment with the cloth. On "ends life, kills laughter," he ties the cloth loosely around his throat, and with his newly freed hands, gestures vaguely along dimensions of the area to be affected (one axis on each iteration of "dark") - said area being no larger than a bedroom. The darkness is total, affecting the visual spectrum only. arcane magic, 0:42, lasts 7:00, sound vital, +27SM.

added to the sheet. That also raises his mag bias to 4@1, which I forgot to do so I'll go do it now. It also appears that I have neglected his other biases, but the psi 7@1 and bod 7@7 are both simple enough to locate and add.

Ryan has gotten things down to something of a routine, but before I roll for problems let me anticipate one that will come eventually anyway, and see if he has a plan for this.

--M. J. Young

For reasons that are in a lost blog post somewhere, I'm pretty beat; but the reasons don't matter. I have Ed, Adam, and Graeme playing.

Let's have a race. I believe that Ed has about forty yards, or 120 feet, to go to reach the building. Godzilla has those one twenty plus the distance between them, minus cutting the bit of the corner which I'll ignore since the distances are approximated anyway. That distance was 250, which means the monster catches Ed if he can cover 270 yards in the same time Ed covers 120. Godzilla's running speed, for which he has a 1@3 SAL, is 15mph; but he rolls 87, which I know from the last time the monster ran is a near failure, 87% of 15mph is 1148.4 feet per minute, or 287.1' in fifteen seconds.

Ed does not have running skill on his sheet, but the standard dash is 300' in fifteen seconds, 1@5 SAL, 1@5 Bod BRA, 2x5@ bias, 40% chance of reaching that speed. 06 means he is in there, and 6% over, so in fifteen seconds he can run 318'. He only leeds to run 120, so he's covering that ground very quickly. Godzilla will take a good ten seconds longer to reach him. Of course, that's going to feel terribly close.

I need an ambush skill check, so we'll ask about his skill at that.

Adam is waiting for something that is going to be a while, at least; let me double-chech how long he is willing to wait.

Graeme wants to know about long-term rates, and the hotel would offer them, so we'll give them. The fact that they don't mention the monkey should suggest that they don't consider it important.

--M. J. Young

I've got two regular players tonight, but Eric is posting on Ed's thread, so I'll do that first (because when I opened it first I was looking for Ed's post), then Adam, then Graeme.

I'm not sure how fast Tadeusz is moving, so I'm going to ask.

This sounds like a situation in which the Alert Rest success or failure matters, so although they've got 3@9 and 3@10 SALs respectively I'm going to roll for Adam and Geniece to make sure they succeed. 24 and 49 are both easy succeesses. He'll be rested by the time the cantina opens.

Graeme has a problem. He wants to spot the magical in a world in which the technological is so much more developed than anything he has known. I'm interested in how he would do this. Of course, he has ways, if he can remember them.

--M. J. Young

It appears that we have rolled over onto a second page with the thirty-first post; now we know. I'm not sure which thread to do first, and part of that is that I'm too tired to sort them out in my head. Since Eric is posting as a non-player character on Ed's thread, I'll do that first, then Adam, then Ryan.

Interestingly, Eric thinks that Tadeusz is not as fleet afoot as Ed. That might be because he thinks he's exhausted from all he's just done, but he overlooks the fact that Ed, like everyone else whose life he has just saved, is barely alive at this point--falling down could be fatal. Still, I'll give him with a roll of 79 a speed roughly equal to Godzilla's, which means he's keeping the distance.

Adam is entering the cantina. Geneice will make a move, addressing the man in his own language and dialect as if she were a native. This ought to have the effect of making him think she is not an American (which of course she is not), and a roll of 07 is successful, although she could have done better. A simple check of 19 against 1@10 animal magnetism is a strong success. I'll get through the settling in part, and let Adam figure out the investigation of rebel activity part.

It seems silly to roll for whether Majdi can learn the empathic and mindreading skills, given that he undoubtedly has a fairly high bias; however, I will anyway, just in case, because it's not a guarantee. 13 for the first and 47 for the second are both solid learning rolls. The more difficult skill is the 6@1 interrupt; he only has a 6@3 psi bias in a 7@ world, which is 70 plus 1@10 BRA makes 90 plus Ryan as example, instructor, and trainer--a 1@1 example, but we know he's doing it right now so we don't have to see if he can, 1@2 Training SAL, and half the now 1@7 BRA (9) makes 122 minus 61 is 61. 03 is an easy success.

I'm also getting an 11 GE roll for the presence of another Mu tahk, which has to be within the parameters that Majdi is in charge, so either this is a mentor or a pupil, probably the latter.

--M. J. Young

Let's see, where am I? I've got Adam in the wilds of Panama, and Shawn just missing me yesterday.

I hardly have to roll for whether Adam can convince a Panamanian peasant that he's not from around here. Geneice rolls 05 on trying to sound like a Central American peasant who knows a very little Russian.

I have already decided that the Duke is interested in what Shawn is doing, so I'm going to assume that as the guiding point.

We'll let Shawn take the lead on the next trip.

--M. J. Young

It seems that tonight's forum is all play and no work; but then, my play is work, or my work is play, or perhaps both. I have Adam, Shawn, and Graeme waiting.

Adam is hoping that he will encounter one of the rebels in this cantina. This is far more unlikely than he imagines, but since the GE roll is 21 it doesn't matter.

Shawn plans a trip to show the Duke of Kent his fortifications, and gets a 12 GE roll on the trip, so that's a good thing.

Graeme is looking for clues that there are magicians in this world, but he's probably looking for the wrong sort of magicians. On the other hand, I should give him an intuition check, 17+10 is too high for any of my regular players, at least.

--M. J. Young

Ed gets to move first, and Eric is with him; Adam, Shawn, and Ryan are also here.

Ed didn't really answer my question, which was for a desired distance.  I'll determine it by GE roll, 17, which will put Godzilla at medium range, 100 feet with a -10 penalty for range totally dwarfed by the size bonus.  He pulls the trigger for a roll of 46, annihilating damage here, Godzilla divides by three for a 3@ damage value which makes 15 intensities, which will be all she wrote. In such situations I often expect the body to land in a bad spot, but he got a 10 GE roll for that, so I think everyone might just survive.

Oh, Eric's prayer does nothing, because it is above the mag bias curve. I won't roll for it here, although I would get him to roll at the table.

Adam is following Geneice' lead, so I'll give him some thoughts from Geneice.

Shawn should be wrapping up the visit from the Duke of Kent.

As per a previous post, I am raising Ryan's Intuition to 1@7.

There is a question raised concerning whether the Mu Tahk Majdi would suggest that Ryan do the teaching, or whether he would do it himself. If Ryan does it, it would be practice, but I just gave him a skill mark for training a Bah so it would not be a new use. Thus since it does not much matter to Ryan a GE roll is not a terribly effective tool. At the same time, Majdi will know that his people are leery of those human demons, and it will be easier for him (having already decided that Ryan is all right) to teach them himself.

The issue of rest was raised a few posts back and the answer was made contingent on what else happened, so now that that's been answered we get back to the issue.

--M. J. Young

When I opened this board, there was only one game active; but then my computer froze (well, I left it unattended for hours and then asked it to work for me again, but it was running fine for some time before it crashed), and by the time I got it restored I had Adam arriving to the front of the line, Shawn still waiting, and Ryan coming in behind.

Adam is looking for something that won't be here, but at least there are possibilities of it being elsewhere.

Shawn focuses on the Beretta deal.

Ryan has some good ideas, but has overlooked something.

--M. J. Young

Adam, Shawn, Graeme, and Ryan have all posted in the past twenty-some hours, and there's a game awaiting me as well.

Adam needs a GE roll on finding gasoline, and it has to be a bit better than average. 17 is not that roll. However, there will eventually be another village, probably a decent distance so that farmers can live in town and work in the fields, which I figure is roughly ten miles between villages, plus or minus. He'll probably plough right through, but at least I should pause to describe what he sees--and it will eventually give him another GE roll for the road ahead.

We zip through the summer for Shawn, as the next interesting event will be his second visit to Russia.

Pages are loading rather slowly today; it's probably my connection.

The question for Graeme is whether he will find any useful books in his bookstore--particularly given the propensity for high-tech media here. A GE of 29 says this is unlikely to happen.

My recollection is that Ryan is about five miles from the pillar which is used as home by the human settlement; but I'm assuming he is hoping to get one a bit closer. 15 is borderline, not unfavorable.

I'm not sure whether these are posting, but I am saving them, so I can repost if they fail.

--M. J. Young

Adam, Shawn, Graeme, and Ryan, and me with very little time squeezed out of a very tight day--but let's get started.

Adam needs another GE roll, but his search for "seedy elements" or someone with a gas pump has a somewhat better chance of being met. 8 is an excellent roll, so he's finding what he wants--probably a seedy landowner with a gasoline pump.

Shawn pulls a 14 GE on the eggs thing. Faberge being a specific designer, if memory serves, he'll have to settle for a copy--but he can get something like it. I'll focus on that for the moment, since that seems to be the thing.

How does one browse an electronic book? It seems like it has to be possible, so I'll give Graeme a means of doing so.

Ryan moves forward based on the GE roll of yesterday; this actually might be very good for him.

--M. J. Young

It looks like a relatively light game night, with Adam and Shawn alone on the board (although we've got some good discussion threads going).

I keep losing my Internet connection tonight. That's just odd.

Adam says he wants to approach and announce himself, but I'll need a bit more detail than that.

Shawn's toymaker rolls 05 on a skill check against a heavily penalized chance of success, and gets something made.  It will not be one of the most stunning eggs ever presented to the Romanoff dynasty, but it will be respectably comparable to a Faberge Egg.

That's it for tonight. I have a big meeting tomorrow, but should be back in place for Sunday.

--M. J. Young

Ed is joined by Eric in our first thread, and Shawn begins a journey in our last.

Tadeusz has been running all this time with the idea that Ed, who was his best friend for Ed a few hours ago and for Tadeusz a few centuries ago, is a vague memory. I don't have an intellect on Tadeusz, but I see a 3@3 Ed Lev, and a difficult check of 22+10 is a strong success on remembering that.

It occurs to me that there are many rail routes from Ruritania to Russia, but that at least some of them would run through Germany. A GE of 21 is bad enough, and I think that means Shawn will have to make that trip.

I have again misplaced the year; I really should keep a better track of what's happening on this timeline. I can do without it for the moment.

--M. J. Young