Behind the Screens Continues · Page 5

As well you shouldn't. After all, how would you?

And don't worry, I'm not telling you that you should do it. I thought maybe you thought MJ was telling you to, so I wanted to clear the potential confusion.

Yeah Scott, it's cool. The thing is that, to be honest, I wouldn't care about that, even if I was a verser. It's not my problem. Whatever is going to happen will happen. It would have happened whether I was there or not. Also, I don't know any more about the problem than anyone else. I'm no more qualified to fix it than the King's stable boy. I just want to see if I can move on a bit and try to set myself up with a house and maybe a little blacksmith shop. What's so bad about that?

What's so bad about that?

I understand your point of view, and why you're doing what you're doing - and I'm glad that you're doing what you believe you would really do and not just what you think you're expected to do because "it's just a game."

It's not what I, personally, would do, but we already had that discussion waaaaay back in B Movie Monster World. Over dinner, I think.

Yeah, I remember that discussion. We had it several times. Actually, I'm thinking I might go save the princesses. I was thinking about it, and the chance to make a lifetime's worth of gold in one day...... That's pretty tempting. Still though, all I want is a little house, and a blacksmith shop. I want to "become" an indig.

Scott's right--I don't care whether you rescue the princesses or not. In fact, if you don't, you'll be the first one I've ever put in this world who did not think marrying a princess or getting the gold or the slice of the kingdom or even merely be the hero was sufficient reward to take the risk, and I'll get to see how the scenario plays out in that case.

On the other hand, they are some pretty gorgeous girls there.

Harry, Edward, Scott, John II, and Adam are my players today. If I have missed someone, you have my apologies in advance--I'm pretty beat, and might not be fully focused or functional.

I don't really have much more to say to Edward, but I expect Eric will in an upcoming post, so I'll just keep the game afloat for the moment.

For Scott, first I need to know whether Alice thinks of anything that would do what he wants. I don't happen to know her education level or her intellect off the top of my head, but a check of 10+20=30 is not going to do it for a waitress. There won't be campgrounds or woods in a metropolis like this one (I doubt there are any in Perth Amboy in our world, and it's a bigger deal there). GE rolls seem to be favoring him, though--on phone directory magicians he gets 8.

My work with John II amounts to confirming details.

Adam has given a plausible suggestion for getting test soldiers; an 18 GE roll suggests it will work that way, but not so quickly as he would like. That will also mean another GE roll for what's happening in the world: 9 is the best he's seen in a while.

Oh, and that's all I wrote. Kewl.

--M. J. Young

I only know one thing for certain. That is that having skills in blacksmithing will last me a lot longer than becoming an heir to the throne Before I even considered saving the girls, I was going to get an education. Education is more important.

How are skill learning rolls figured out? What plus what minus what? Isn't that it?

Also, does practicing count if it doesn't work? It just occurred to me that my character doesn't know what a flatline world is. He would keep trying telekinesis every once in a while. He wouldn't yet fully understand why it wasn't working. He would keep trying though. Does that count as practice at all? Practicing focusing your mind perhaps? Just wondering. In the first world, I would practice by lifting lady's skirts as they walked by. I would keep trying that. In Pearl Harbor, I would have been trying to lift every single skirt I saw. I would also be trying to do that in this world. I would keep trying every once in a while. Sometimes lifting skirts worked, sometimes it didn't. It hasn't worked for 2 worlds, but I think I would keep trying every so often. Does that count towards practicing?

Another thing. Kyler rolled skill check rolls for the trainer when I was in Pearl Harbor learning to box. I noticed you didn't roll anything like that. Is it because Mr. Smith is too good of a teacher, and my bias is so high that I couldn't not learn to blacksmith? I'm just wondering.

How are skill learning rolls figured out? What plus what minus what?

• Add (starting from zero) your bias in the skill area, that is, your highest biased skill that is not @0; this represents your understanding of that bias area, such as 111 if you have an 11@1 computer programming skill, which suggests you know enough technology to have that as a starting point for learning more technology.
• Add your BRA (Best Relevant Attribute) for that bias area; this is your native ability at it, such as being smart enough, or intuitive enough, or educated enough to grasp new technologies.
• Add the world area bias level (level only) to account for the degree to which the world helps you (or doesn't help you) because it favors (or disfavors) skills in this area.
• If you have an example, someone or something you can copy in trying to master the skill, you add the SAL (Skill Ability Level) of the example. Thus if you're trying to teach yourself to build an automobile engine, and someone shows you how, you add his skill; or if you have an engine to disassemble and examine, you add the skill of the person who built that engine.
• If someone is instructing you who knows how to do what you're trying to learn, you also add half of that individual's BRA in the area, reflecting the instructor's innate understanding of the bias area. The instructor can also be the example, or someone else can be the example.
• If the person instructing you is skilled as a teacher or a trainer, you also add that person's SAL in teaching or training skill, representing their ability to observe and correct your efforts.
• Any sit-mods that would normally apply to the performance of a skill also apply to the learning of the skill if you are learning by doing. That is, technically you can learn to cast a spell by reading and studying how to cast it, practicing all the moves individually, and thus memorizing what you have to do, but the usual way people learn spells is by trying to do them, in which case any sit-mods built into the spell, plus any sit-mods that apply to magic generally in this world (e.g., adjustments for holy magic) also are added or subtracted the the chance of learning the spell by doing it.
• The bias of the skill you are trying to learn is subtracted, reflecting the difficulty of the skill conceptually, that is, how hard it is to understand. (How hard it is to do is presumably represented by the sit-mods built into it.)

This gives you the percent chance to learn the skill.

Also, does practicing count if it doesn't work?

In the sense you mean, usually not. I would allow someone to practice with a gun firing it "empty", but would require them to give me something to balance the fact that the gun is not working. I might let someone practice a spell that doesn't work, as long as it isn't vital that components be magically destroyed--that is, if you have to put the emeralds in your mouth, I'd let you practice it with pebbles, but if the emeralds have to vanish in your mouth as part of the spell (destruction of the components) I wouldn't allow it. I would not usually let someone practice a psionic ability that is curved out--there is no way to get the kind of mental focus required.

You're right that your character wouldn't know not to practice, but after repeated failures he'd probably figure that he wasn't getting the right focus or something.

Kyler rolled skill check rolls for the trainer when I was in Pearl Harbor learning to box. I noticed you didn't roll anything like that. Is it because Mr. Smith is too good of a teacher, and my bias is so high that I couldn't not learn to blacksmith?

No, it's because John the Smith is not a skilled trainer, he's a skilled blacksmith who is also instructing you. His involvement as an instructor means that you have cut your learning time in half, but there are no rolls because since he is not a skilled trainer or teacher you cannot cut your learning time in half again on a successful roll against his teaching or training skill.

If he were not instructing you, your improvement would take twice as long.

If he were a skilled instructor, each successful roll would cut the time for the next advance in half.

--M. J. Young

Two things: 1) You forgot to post on my game. and 2) You forgot to post the Behind the Screens for everyone else.

Also, how can you say that Mr. Smith is not a skilled instructor? He's been teaching little William for God knows how long.

I think Gaming Outpost went down for a while - possibly quite a while, I gave up trying to access it after an hour or two - which would explain 1) and 2).

I've got activity from Harry, Max, Edward and Eric, Scott, John II, Adam, and Graeme--a very busy night to end the week.

Harry is getting some basic instruction in the use of navigating tools.

Max has put forward a good plan, minus the part about who does what.

Eric is launching his planned save the world spell; Edward is part of that, but probably is going to have more to do with rebuilding once this piece happens. They've got a local, probably an indigenous indigent but healthy and happy, and they want a church in the woods. The question is whether a bum on the streets of Columbus would have knowledge of such a place, and a 19 GE does not really favor it, but isn't too bad.

I think their indig is going to need a name. I'll steal one.

Scott is looking for a nice rural place in the midst of the world's largest megalopolis. We're going to have to discuss this, I think.

John II wants to change the technology in this world, to introduce things no one has seen. Now he's going for stainless steel; the questions are does it exist, and does the smith know about it if it does? 27 is the GE roll, which pretty much shuts that down.

We already know that Adam and Geneice have successfully created this virus, with a 32 on design and a 52 on construction, but the question of how quickly a mutagenic virus can alter the structure of a human body with visible results is one for science fiction writers to guess at this point. I'll give him a 2d10+1 modified GE roll with a view to his expectations, and I get an 11, Good but Below Expectations. It seems to me that the men could be given resistance checks against the virus, but I'm going to think about a more streamlined way of accomplishing this that gives Adam the strong chance of success the dice have suggested.

Graeme has been having trouble with his potions; he rolls 65 on the next one, but he also gets a 13 barely good enough GE roll--as to my mind it makes sense for the high priest of the messenger god to be multilingual, but not that anyone in this universe ever spoke English.

I know it's been a long day--maybe the longest stretch for a single day's posting I've yet done--but I covered everyone who was here when I arrived. I'll pick up again on Sunday, Lord willing.

--M. J. Young

Harry has given me my laugh for the day; I'm not certain why I found it funny, but all I can say is it demonstrates once again that role playing games are educational--apparently our fictional navigator Donald has just helped him understand how to use a compass to copy distances accurately. After Harry, we have Scott, John II, Adam, and poor Ryan who just missed the cut on Friday and had to wait for today despite the fact that I was working well into Saturday afternoon on those Friday posts.

The question on the front of the board for Harry, really, is just how much Donald says about sighting by the celestial objects. 22 is rolled, which is Not as Bad as Anticipated--but one step worse than Bad Enough. He doesn't want to give away that he's not from around here, but I've rolled an 11 intellect check for him, which I think allows me to give him a thought that will help him in this situation.

Scott has found Round Valley State Park and one other place on his Google Maps; of course, the map sites are all going to these versions that give high-density information for people with high speed Internet connections, so I'm still waiting for the images to download through my modem--at 56K, almost forty-seven times as fast as the modem I used when I first did this kind of stuff, but insufficient for a lot of modern web sites. Still, my 17 GE roll is sufficient to suggest that the park is there, although he's going to have a bit of trouble reaching it by bus, involving a transfer at some point which I'll have to determine once this map finishes loading. Look at that--he's going to pass within spitting distance of Ubercon's currently favored location. Not surprising, I suppose--I remember a year ago coming down 287 and missing that New Jersey Turnpike exit right by the hotel, and winding up in downtown Perth Amboy. O.K., I've seen the map, and I've driven most of those places (although not to the park itself), so I know what to do.

John II has put me in a quandary, because he the character has heard of a psionic healing skill which he the player has reason to believe is a P6@1 heal self skill, and he wants to teach it to himself and use it to cure his arthritis. The problem is, that P6@1 skill heals injury as measured by intensities of damage, and his arthritis is an ongoing condition that would be classed as a disease, requiring a P6@2 skill. On the one hand, it would be very useful for him, and very nice of me, to let him learn the 6@1 skill which will not heal his arthritis but will allow him to restore injuries in the time ahead, while on the other hand it would be rather strictly fair of me to assume that he is attempting to devise whatever skill would cure his arthritis, and rule that he cannot learn it because it is a 6@2 skill, above the curve. I could wish that he had prayed for a magical healing, first because that has a greater probability of working, and second because I could then be in a reasonable position to have someone direct him to a priest who could pray such a healing for him--but that's not what is happening here, so let me consider this. My consideration is to go with the former, that he is mistaking the arthritis (whose original cause was indeed injury but the injury now healed) for injury, and attempting to cure himself psionically. He has tossed numbers at me that appear correct, but 54 fails.

I am not certain whether Adam's test is terribly practical--the effects of his virus would be mostly on the strength and responsiveness of muscle fiber, I think; within his blood he has red blood cells, which are notoriously short on genetic material, and white blood cells, which are very difficult to infect and keep alive (because of their function in fighting disease). However, if he does the test I'll roll the dice and see what he gets. I'm also not going to roll until after he says what it will take to persuade him to use it, since a severely bad roll might mean that he was deceived by the test.

Ryan wants to know whether it's a good time to visit Majdi, but given that Majdi doesn't really have many things which would take priority over the opportunity to meet with his favorite demon, er, human, an 18 GE roll isn't going to be a problem. The levitation is more interesting. Since Mitzu undoubtedly weighs more than Ryan could carry physically, I agree that extending the levitation skill to cover Mitzu is a new use; since psionic flight is defined as levitation plus a lateral control component, it would apply there as well. Ryan is limited to the 7@ bias of this world, doubled, plus his 1@6 Psi BRA, and he has a 1@3 levitation and a 1@6 flight, so we're looking at 43% and 46%, respectively. 48 is the roll on the levitation, but 35 on the flight works, and that will raise his flight SAL to 1@7.

It appears that I have flown through it all, and can land somewhere else.

--M. J. Young

I apologize for missing yesterday as I begin today. Harry, Edward and Eric, Scott, John II, and Adam.

Since the real point of all this interaction is to get Harry a job on the ship, and he's done an adequate job of demonstrating his ability (I remember the first person I ever ran in this world got a navigator position because the chief navigator was completely stunned that a boy of seven could read books), we'll put him in navigation.

I've got Edward working with Eric, and discussing what they're going to do, but it's clear that it does include going to see this priest, so I'll jump to that and let them fill in gaps on the way.

Scott is dabbling in magic as he pursues his other objective, so I'm going to have to adjudicate that--once I get answers to a couple questions.

I was going to move to the next step in John II's adventure, but I think I'll settle the new details first.

Adam just might cross the 3@ attribute barrier with his latest skill use; but it's risky, and we're going to have to see what happens.

--M. J. Young

I have Harry, who just snuck in an addendum before I arrived, Edward and Eric, Scott, John II, Adam, and Ryan.

Harry gives me a bit of trouble with his idea of doing telekinesis, because of course he doesn't know enough yet to know that a telekinetic pulse will work in worlds where a telekinetic lift won't, and that means I have to figure out whether he's trying to do something impossible or only trying to do something very difficult. I think I'll ask questions.

I'm not going to interfere with Edward's discussion with Eric; truth is, I'm enjoying the debate thoroughly, and am eager to see how it resolves. Meanwhile, I'm sure that there is a chapel in the woods somewhere, but I'm not sure whether Greg Haus is correct that Father Casey knows of one, or where that is. I'm hoping for a moderately favorable GE on this, which will give me a monastery within a hundred miles of the city (something I already started writing before I realized that I ought to roll the dice, particularly given the industrialized nature of this world), but 17 is more in the middle than that, so it's a bit farther.

Scott has constructed an interesting repel insects spell, M11@1, +17SM, 9@1 bias, 2@6 Mag BRA, and I'm not sure if he gets anything else, so I'm going to pause. The cleaning spell will need to be adjudicated after I have the answer to whether it's a holy or arcane skill.

John II has a few more details to wrap up before we can move to the next milestone.

Adam rolls an 05 success on using the virus in a test on his own muscle fibers.

Ryan is engaging in a three-way conversation with Majdi and Mitzu, and I'm trying to streamline it significantly so we're not putting a lot of posts into a chat but still benefiting from the conversation. I'll move through a few subjects, and let Ryan add his thoughts to the mix.

--M. J. Young

Bring that milestone on buddy!!! I'm looking forward to it.

I've got a new player going through character generation who is going to be John IV, just in case John III finds his way back here again; but although I worked with him last night, he's not quite ready to start. That puts Harry first again, Edward with Eric, Scott, John II, and Adam.

Harry has answered my question, and at least some of his attempts are going to be of the sort that might work, so I'll roll a few without saying which ones they are. I should first note, though, that Harry has a 7@5 bias and his intuition is 1@7; I don't see a persuasion or will power, so I'll have to ask, but he's trying to learn a 4@1 skill, so in a flatlined bias with these numbers we've got 51% chance of success, 4% chance to botch, rolling 62, 77, 41 gives him a 1@1 TK Pulse P4@1.

Ed and Eric are struggling to solve some titanic problems, and doing well despite the difficulties. I really had never intended this world to look like this, but you roll with the punches.

Scott rolls 10 on his bug dispel, which gives him 1@1 and an hour of protection. I think it should read 1@1 Repel Insects M11@1 verbal only, "Vampiros viniendo. No tienes ajo, ellos no queman en el sol, y no tienen miede de Dios. Han cruzado ríos rapídos como nubes amorfos. ¿Cómo te proteges? Loción anti-insecta.", which in English is "Vampires are coming. You have no garlic, they do not burn in the sun, and they have no fear of God. They have crossed swift rivers as amorphous clouds. How do you protect yourself? Bug repellent." (18 seconds), sound necessary, covers self only, RS/10 hours, prevents insects from biting, +17 SM but I'll let Scott correct it if necessary.

He also gets a 12 GE roll on whether the park is quiet, and that's good enough.

John II is ready for the next event, but still caught up in the details for the moment, so we'll finish his blacksmithing/weaponsmithing experiment.

Adam and Geneice have improved so much so fast that I've not been able to keep up on the character papers; but I know Adam has done so, so I'm going to get his corrections, make them on my sheet, and then determine the outcome of the virus test.

Which hopefully will all happen tomorrow.

--M. J. Young

Most of the active threads tonight are game threads; my new player has apparently gotten lost again, but I have Harry in front, with Max returning, Scott exploring, John chomping at the bit, and Adam getting details straight.

Based on Harry's description, I'm putting his Persuasion at 1@9. I'm also getting his new skills organized, and preparing for events along the way.

Max wants to talk to the leaders of a couple planets without traveling to those planets; that's going to invite eavesdropping, and I want that clear before he gets too far along with this.

Scott is giving three possible skills for what he wants light to do around him which would effectively make him invisible; the first is to teleport the energy across him directly. This would be a 12@1 teleport; the modifiers are extremely complicated, since on the one hand he is using it for an extremely short distance, while on the other hand he is maintaining it continuously in what is arguably an infinite number of directions. I'm going to give him -10 and assume that it lasts for RS seconds before it has to be reinitiated (rerolled), which will mean he has to pay a lot of attention to it. Also, if all the light is teleporting around him, he will be invisible, but he will also be in total darkness and will be unable to see anything. This might still be useful, since he can compensate with clairvoyance, but it's going to be unexpected, I'm sure. I've got his Psi bias down as 7@1, his BRA 2@1, and, but that means even if the world area bias is 15@ his chance of success is going to be slightly negative--so a roll of 19 fails.

Option two, he wants to absorb and re-emit the light; that actually sounds like a very clever use of a P7@6 Redirect Energy, which is going to show a decent chance of success, but not decent enough for a roll of 67 to succeed.

John II overlooks a point in the advancement rules; reaching professional level will be a tad more difficult than he has imagined.

Oh, darn--I really did not want to deal with the entire character sheets of Adam and Geneice; that's exactly why my sheets are not up-to-date--because I never have time to do it all at once, and need to find a way to do it in pieces. That's also why I asked for attributes only, so I could deal with attributes only. However, there it is, so I guess I'll put the time into the task as well as I can.

He is using his skill against himself, but we know he rolled 32 on design and 52 on construction; I'll give him a difficult resistance check against success, and do the same for Geniece. It's not as if they can tell their bodies not to fight this. He rolls 23+10=33; she rolls 2+10=12; that means it works quite well on her, but not on him. I'm going to increase her strength to 3@1, stamina to 3@1, Agility to 2@10, Hand/Eye to 2@10, and Intuition to 2@4. That also gives her

Ranged Strike Value 2@7
Martial Strike Value 2@8
Target Value 2@5
Damage Value 2@3

I think that does it.

--M. J. Young

I'm sure you meant 13@ something for the teleport, but it doesn't matter either way. Right now I'm hoping the world bias is something under 14@2 so that I don't blow myself away with my latest method. (Negative seventy-one plus twenty-one plus fourteen = 14% chance to botch.)

The whole universe-as-communication thing is something I was toying with while cooking up Men of Psience. Most of their top researchers would be working on the teleportation problem, but there would be a few people - the equivalent of theoretical physicists - working with this model of the universe (or else with "aura theory") who would eventually break through into level 14 skills.

Unrelated question - let's say someone has a 101% chance of success and a +10 die mod. If the dice show 92, does he botch? What about 97?

I believe I remember MJ saying something that you can only have no chance of botching if your chance of success is 91% or better. If chance of success is 91% or better, you cannot botch, only fail. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think MJ said something like that when I asked him about it.

Generally, yes, that's true. Your chance to botch is one-tenth of your chance to fail, rounded down. If your chance of success is 91%, your chance of not-success is 9%, and 9/10 is less than one, so your chance to botch gets rounded down to zero. If your chance of success is 90%, your chance of not-success is 10%, so your chance to botch is 10/10, that is, 1%.

The question I'm asking has to do with die mods, which are different from sit-mods and are very rarely used. A sit-mod changes your chance of success. A die mod changes what you rolled on the dice.

For example, say your chance of success is 81%, but you have a +10 die mod (for whatever reason). You roll the dice, and they come up 70. You add the die mod, and now your roll is 80 - still a success, but now your relative success is higher; you did more damage or your spell lasts longer or whatever. If you try the skill again and roll a 75, the die mod makes that 85, and you just failed. If you hadn't had the die mod, a roll of 75 on the dice would have succeeded.

Let's say you try a third time. The dice come up 95. The die mod makes that 105, which is a result you can only get if you have a positive die mod; the dice only go up to 100, after all. Since your success chance was only 81%, a roll of 100 is high enough to botch. Since 105 is even higher than that, it makes sense for 105 to botch, too.

My question is about the very rare case of a character with success chances over 100 who also has a huge die mod. It's mathematically weird, which is why I'm asking MJ. It comes down to how the system is intended to work. Do people with success numbers of 110 have a negative 1% chance to botch, meaning that a roll of 111 is only a failure but a roll of 112 is a botch? Or do they have no chance to botch at all, meaning even a roll of 125 isn't a botch?

Thanks Scott. I was wondering how botches were calculated. So if I have a 40% chance of success, which is a 60% chance of failure, I have a 6% chance to botch? So a 95 and up would be a botch? (95 is 6 numbers to 100, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100) I was wondering how that was figured out.

Er, now that I think about it, MJ may have been keeping that deliberately obscure. But, yeah, that's basically it.

Note that you rarely know precisely what your chance of success actually is, because you don't often know the bias of the world.

Well, that's the whole point in this, is to learn how to play the game. I mean yes, I'm a player right now, but I hope to referee someday.

It's fine, Scott--I am not hiding things from anyone on the forum, other than details of the worlds in which they are currently playing, and even then I'm not always doing that.

Scott, I think the answer is that if you have a 91% or better chance of success you have a 0% chance to botch, and a die mod does not change that. Certainly from a strictly mathematical perspective, the die mod lowers your chance of success, because certain rolls which would have been successes are now failures; however, from a bookkeeping perspective, your chance of success is unchanged, and thus so is your chance of failure, and so is your chance to botch. If you have a 105% chance of success, you have no chance to botch, so even if somehow you roll 200 after die mods (which I can't personally imagine), it would mean that you failed, but you did not botch.

I've got a new player working his way through character creation whom I know as Scott. This gives me a bit of a dilemma, because I only learned yesterday that his real given name is Robert, and my forum policy has to this point been to call everyone by his real given name, but he's one of those people who go by his middle name (reason not clear at this point). I think I'll stick by policy and refer to him as Robert behind the screens even while I call him Scott in his own threads. This at least saves me from the confusions of Scott I and Scott II, and allows me to retain my consistency. In play, we start with Harry, Max, Edward, John II, and Adam.

Harry's first event proves to be inclement weather, in a big way. I'm not sure whether seeing it coming will matter, but a roll of 16 suggests that he is neither on duty nor asleep at the time.

Max is still trying to work his trade deal, and I think maybe there are options he hasn't considered, but which the others might suggest.

Edward is reluctant to steal a tank, and I can't blame him--but he's exploring options at the moment, so we'll let him explore.

I agree with Scott--what he suggests sounds like a 14@2 energy control, not a 7@6 redirect energy. That's all right, because he rolls 28, which is not going to be a botch whether or not it's a success, so let me crunch some numbers. We're looking at a 14@2 target with a 7@1 bias which puts us at -71, 2@1 BRA brings us to -50, and since the world bias is at least 11@ we are down to not worse than -39, a 139% chance to fail, a 14% chance to botch, nothing happens.

John II rolls 90 on his effort to make a knife under adverse conditions; that's not going to happen. I'll address the rest of his questions.

Adam has decided to try again on infecting himself, by adjusting the virus to meet his particular system. He rolls 53, which given a 2@5 modify organism is going to work and again mean a difficult resistance check, 23 rolled against a 2@2 resistance is going to work for him. I will increase his strength to 3@1, stamina to 3@1, Agility to 2@10, Hand/Eye to 2@10, and Intuition to 2@7. That also gives him

Ranged Strike Value 2@9
Martial Strike Value 2@9
Target Value 2@6
Damage Value 2@5

During this time another month will pass, and a 21 GE roll is a bad sign.

--M. J. Young

I've tackled the new character generation post, and now turn my attention to Harry, Edward, Scott, John II, Adam, and John I.

Harry is expecting pirates; it's not what he's getting. It's been a long time since I had a player in navigation when a storm hit; this will be fun.

Edward has come up with a good idea--an abandoned riot vehicle. I'm uncertain, only because the presence of the army is so strong around here usually that I'm not sure whether the police would have such things--and the army, of course, was pretty much decimated a few days before Godzilla arrived when John Oakmaster had that other psionic botch. A 15 GE roll is favorable, though, even if only slightly, so we're going to have one. Eric is going to use his clairvoyance to find such a thing.

Scott rolls 34 on a crygenesis attempt; building from a 7@1 bias with a 2@1 BRA in a 15@ world, targeting a 7@4 skill, that misses by one point. On consideration I've decided that his effort to alter the charge of an object constitutes a P7@2 control energy source; 41 will not work for that. As to the storing of energy--uh-oh, we've got a 96. Since we're looking at 7@1+2@1+15-7@9, that's less than a 30% chance of success, a 7% chance to botch, and a 96 is clearly a botch. We're below the level at which I usually do explosions (I reserve those for 9@ chemistries and above), but we're playing with energy here. Let's get a botch list going:

1. Absorb enough energy to glow
2. Burn, take fatal level damage
3. Send psionic beacon
4. Psionic Shock Wave
5. Neural Breakdown
6. Full reflective shield
7. Brain Burn
8. Temporary increase of neural energy--agility and hand/eye bonuses
9. Temporary increase of neural energy--intuition bonus

That's nine, and the roll is 7, well, that's boring, but at least it's not terribly dangerous.

John II is trying to do that copper blade in primitive conditions. He rolls 74, 70, 06. He gets his skill mark, four days later.

Adam is moving into the field again, to face the dangers. As he says, it's World War III out there, and he's one of the top commanders of the top commandos.

John I has outlined what looks like practice of a skill that my sheet doesn't show him knowing, so I'd better get that clarified.

And with that, I'm finished here.

Hey, Harry--I won't be back until early tomorrow afternoon, so you can take the morning off. (I'm teasing; I hope that's permitted.)

--M. J. Young

I'd almost have preferred something dangerous . . .

Yeah, well--close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, and in atomic warfare, with the caveat that you don't have to be as close. Brain burn is annoying, but it doesn't last forever.

Harry, Edward, Scott, John II, and Adam are playing.

Harry is taking advantage of the opportunity to equip himself against the foul weather; the storm is moving in fast. Let's throw a lot of confusion into this, and give Harry some orders.

Edward is following Eric's lead, but at this point I'm playing Eric, so I'm going to 1) offer Edward things to do and 2) get through this trip as quickly as possible.

I need to clarify Scott's affliction, and roll for his cleanliness spell. Looking back, I find that as Cleanliness M3@1, caster gestures with both hands while saying, "Dicen que El Hijo se senta al lado de Dios. ¿Que está al otro lado? / Limpieza," cleans caster and on-person equipment; 6 seconds, sound vital, -5 SM, not yet learned, so let me roll the dice: 67, and he's got an 11@1 bias minus the 3@1 target plus his BRA and the world bias minus the sit-mod, this is an easy success for a 1@2 SAL, and it does an excellent job on the first try. He still has to get to the bus stop, though.

John II moves forward to the next phase in the story, the part that's never been told. It won't look like much yet, but we'll see what he does with it.

I'm just going to make sure I understand what Adam wrote before I start the general effects rolls to see how various parts of the plan are working.

Otherwise, I'm done here.

--M. J. Young

One of my new players, Robert who is called Scott, is ready to start, and so gets his own thread. Harry, Edward, Scott, John II, and Adam are in line behind him.

I've picked a world, and started a thread entitled Mr. Glenning to the Information Desk, Please. I'm thinking this is a good choice for him, although I'm not sure how it's going to work out just yet--but when do I ever know that?

Oops--I forgot to check the use of the TK pulse to uncover Harry's roommate, Dooley. The roll now is 02, which is going to have a pulse effect. His rolls are positive here--03 on the compass, 16 on the telescope. Oh, and I'm going to bump his telekinetic pulse skill to 1@2 for the new use.

Edward is getting a bit of conversation in; probably Eric will answer the question that hangs in the air, but I'll have to think about how to answer that after Edward takes a stab at it.

Scott has outlined a good plan; he rolls 57 on his 1@5 create blindfold from T-shirt skill, and since he's got a 2@6 BRA that's 41 plus twice his bias, which if it's only 9@ is still 59% chance of success. He rolls a 23 intuition check against a 1@7 intuition, so I can't give him information he doesn't request.

John II is returning to business as usual.

Finally, Adam is storming the beaches; I need a bit more detail on how he's going to do that. This might be Normandy revisited, depending on his plans and the die rolls.

With that, I'm gone.

--M. J. Young

I just read Adam's list of skills, and ... ... ... great gods, man... O.o;

Yeah, well, Adam's been at this a while, and he's very focused on his objectives at times. Our new player Robert is first, then Harry, Scott, John II, and Adam. I've got a rehearsal in just under two hours, but that should be time enough.

Robert is getting a good start.

I would give anyone who can tie every knot in the Boy Scout Handbook a professional level with knots, particularly if he can trust someone's life to a harness he tied. We'll give Harry 2@5 on knots, which makes him as good as many deckhands on this ship, and better than some. That's a T2@1 skill, if memory serves--which it does on this occasion. He rolls a 93, though, so even with his 2@5 SAL+2@3 BRA, the limited world area bias means that this is a failed roll. That will only matter, though, if the storm becomes a problem. Unfortunately, bad rolls seem to be plaguing him--25 on a GE roll is remarkably bad but not totally surprising. I'm giving him a simple check against his excellent 2@3 agility, 1+anything is going to succeed, and the second roll is 12, making 13, a decent but not fabulous success.

This actually could be the end of this world for Harry--although that rope will go with him if he goes, and he's still got a couple possible ways to get out of this.

No one has ever suggested it before, but programming a programmable calculator to roll dice and play games sounds like 11@1 programming to me, so I'll put Scott down as a 1@4 below average programmer, 1@4 Program Programmable Calculator T11@1. That gives him an 11@1 tech bias for future reference.

I'm surprised at his explanation; I think I'd have said that I injured my eyes in the woods and need to get to my doctor--but the headache thing has the virtue of being true. I roll a simple check of 5 against his 1@9 An-Mag, so this actually works a bit for him.

John II's experiment gets rolls of 05 and 16, so both pulses work nicely, and I'll give him new use for batting around a moving object. I don't think he's done that before, but it's only +1 mark on his 2@2 SAL.

Adam has a good solid plan going; I need a few more details.

--M. J. Young

As far as a new use for batting around a moving object, I used TK pulse to deflect a knife thrown at me by The Architect in the first world. If that means no new use, that's fine, I'm just being honest.

Wow, look at all the players--Robert, Harry, Edward, Scott, John II, Adam, and Graeme. I'm not sure how long it's been since I've had six in play.

Robert is getting his bearings; it will be a few posts before he is really involved in things here.

Harry doesn't have much hope, but he's trying to use his agility to save himself, and describing a plausible approach to doing so. We'll give him a difficult agility check, given the storm and all that is working against him; he rolls (on d30+10) 39; his predictions for his stay might be right--but he does have that rope attached to him, trailing behind him.

In Eric's absence, I'm going to run Tadeusz for Edward; maybe the explanations to the priest will help make sense of it for the player character.

Scott never heard of Motrin, apparently. How odd. It doesn't matter, of course, because to some degree this is going to be a GE roll for whether it helps at all. 17 is in the middle, which I would say means it helps a little.

Good thinking on Adam's part--night vision goggles up his odds of getting all his men where he wants them to be significantly. A General Effects Roll for conditions/circumstances, with the understanding that even a somewhat bad roll isn't going to undo this, and he gets a 26, worse than anticipated--but that's not going to be fatal.

Graeme wants the high priest of Mercury, messenger of the gods, to arrange for him to speak to Caesar and, apparently, the Senate. This is going to be iffy, since Caesar isn't interested in hearing from anyone but Mars; but a General Effects Roll is the appropriate mechanic here, and just because Caesar won't listen doesn't mean Graeme won't get an audience. 15 is that not unfavorable result.

As always, I expect to take tomorrow off; I will be back, Lord willing, on Sunday.

--M. J. Young

I see Robert, and Harry, and Edward, and Scott, and John II, and Adam, and memories of Romper Room....let's play.

Robert is starting to explore, checking the blind direction first.

I really had expected Harry to shout for help; since he did not do so, I'm limited to how well he swims and what happens with a GE roll. His 05 swimming check means he's going to be able to keep himself afloat for a few minutes despite the storm and his encumbrance; the 15 GE roll barely favors him.

Edward gets a 23 GE roll, but since this is really Eric's plan and Edward is simply along for the ride, we're going to keep the problems simple. I don't recall what it was that Eric did to heal Greg, but I'm sure that a roll of 27 is sufficient to make a positive difference for Father Casey.

Scott wants a payphone, and a 19 GE roll makes that difficult but not impossible.

John II is challenging whether I'm right to conclude that the blacksmith would not attempt to make a Leatherman pocket tool. I've got a 15 GE roll on the first roll, so I don't need to consider the second. However, the other challenge is whether he can do an out-of-sight TK Pulse. The answer would, I think, be that he cannot do out-of-sight telekinesis in a world in which that's not possible; but then, out-of-sight telekinesis is really intended for things for which you're guessing their position. I'm not sure I would say that you have to be looking directly at a penny to push it, if you were looking at it a moment before and neither you nor the penny has moved. On the other hand, I don't see where the line is if it's not here; so at the table I would roll and say it didn't work, but here there's no point to rolling.

Adam is landing a dozen boats within a hundred yards of an enemy camp in the morning light, and hoping to be undetected. We'll give him his stealth roll, penalized -20 for trying to do this with so many people (who are also trained in stealth, but we're using the single roll), and I'm certain that 43 will work.

And so the new week begins.

--M. J. Young

No, I wasn't challenging whether you were right to conclude that Mr. Smith wouldn't want to duplicate the Leatherman. I was feeling lucky, and I kind of need some luck in the near future, so I was hoping for a 3 to verify my lucky feeling. I didn't get it, so I guess I'm not so lucky after all. Maybe I was lucky, at least it wasn't a 30........

Who would've heard me shouting for help in the middle of a storm, from the water? It's a good distance from the rail of the ship to the ocean, through wind. :-P

I think I still would have been screaming for help, but that would probably be more due to shark phobia than anything else hahaha.

Sharks are probably all hiding from the storm, too.
I just hope my next Verse is a relatively psionics-friendly one.

Osevens Wrote: I just hope my next Verse is a relatively psionics-friendly one.

Don't count on it hehehehe. My advice, get good at what you can do, because it's probably all you will have most of the time.

A1Nut - wasn't it your skill list I was reading that I was all "WTF? *drool*" ?

Every active thread today appears to be a game thread. We start with Robert who prefers to be called Scott, then Harry who prefers John, then Max, Edward, John II, Adam, and Graeme.

Robert adds a piece to his equipment, and just got a hint that this is not necessarily quite what it seems.

Harry didn't lose this world yet; I think he did lose a telescope, though.

We get Max onto the freighter and on his way to the negotiations.

Edward reaches the chapel, and is introduced with Eric, who is preparing his magic.

John II is going to attempt to make a tool that is going to be a significant challenge to his abilities.

I'm not going to roll individual skill checks for Adam's team, but will take into account that he's got stealth on his side, plus elite forces against what is probably conscripts (there are not enough supers on the enemy side to man these outposts with them), plus probably more troops, and with that in mind I turn to a GE roll. 22 is not the roll he wants, worse than Bad Enough but listed as Not As Bad As Anticipated; I take it thus that it does not go like clockwork, but it isn't going to be a serious problem.

That brings me to Graeme, who is almost ready to face the Roman Senators; we'll see how that goes.

--M. J. Young