Here's hoping that I can get through all the active threads tonight--I had an appointment earlier that ran long and put me behind, but then, that's why I made the appointment for Tuesday. I'm looking at Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, Adam, and Kyler.
Eli will get his initial acrobatics training, which will include the crawling skill plus introductions to bars and ropes. The crawling skill is low bias and he has a good teacher with a good example, so a roll of 61 is pretty certainly going to give him 1@2 Crawl at Walking Speeds 3mph B1@4. He also has to learn (how did I overlook this?) climbing, so we'll cover that: 46 is 1@1 Climbing B1@3, unless he actually already knows how to climb some of these things.
Michael gets a description of an object he would recognize in an instant and Molly wouldn't recognize at all.
Ahmetia gives a good answer to Flavius; I'm curious as to how this conversation might progress from here, but don't want to stop the story for it.
Kurt asked me a question I don't understand, but at least I can follow the part I do.
I wondered whether Harry's pirate would know what Harry meant when he mentioned Captain Jack, but a 9 GE makes it go very much his way. I'm not sure which way his is, but it's going to give him cred around here, and maybe open possibilities for future attacks.
I feel like I've put Nikolaj in something about as near the tension between first century Jews and Christians as I can manage in a fantasy setting, and he's responding in intriguing and promising ways. It's not the same, but his preaching is building the old Gaian faith into the new Christian faith, such that those who believe see Christianity as the continuation of Gaianism and those who do not believe see Christianity as the enemy religion that is destroying the faith of good Gaians.
On a roll of 36 I don't have to check whether Adam moves stealthily; that eliminates any intuition check they would have to notice him, and gives him surprise when he speaks. Of course, they could fight, they could surrender, and they could flee--28 is a very bad GE roll. I'll eliminate intuition checks for the three companions, because a 28 is bad enough to eliminate them and I want a bit of color here. Adam does get an intuition check, because they aren't skilled at surprise; 17+16=33, which is outside his impressive 2@7 intuition.
As the old joke says, "Wanna fight? Gonna run? How you gonna catch me?"
Kyler checks the database for a supervillain he himself defeated shortly after he arrived (or he assisted Twilight, perhaps, in defeating). My inclination is that he was a recent small-time villain, and therefore not reported by previous versers who made the database, but I'll roll the GE: 17, falls into the category I expected.
--M. J. Young
I'm late and it's tired, but I'm moving forward with it anyway, and hoping that in my less-than-fully-alert state I have not missed anyone. I have opened threads from Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, Adam, and Kyler.
We're correcting Eli's sheet to read 1@4 Climbing B1@3 and continuing his training.
Michael rolls 92 on his first effort to cut the wire with the psionic drill; his chance of success is better than it was, but not as good as that; but it's not a botch, either. On the other hand, I would allow him to shoot again if it were combat, so we'll try again. The second roll is 08, which is going to do one intensity of damage, which is not going to make much difference to a wire given its density. He then rolls 46, which I think will do the job assuming it hits; 1@4 SAL+2x7@ bias+2@1 BRA=49%, and that will do enough damage to sever a wire, I think. As to trying to remove it, it's still hot and fully operational (but that the remote antenna which he failed to note is aimed down, not up at a satellite, has been disconnected), so it will shock him if he touches it again. I'll await his clarification on that.
We'll move Ahmetia through more of her practice session with the Prince.
Kurt is wandering around in Nottingham, but he's not familiar enough with the world to know that's where he is--although probably he'll guess that's right when he hears that the shire reeve's castle is here.
I'll toss Harry a curve, because it's one of those questions that probably would arise sometime and as long as we're having conversation it might as well be now--but don't let me forget that they are headed back to that romance novel hero evening.
The question of whether people can read comes up more than once in Nikolaj's post, and I don't remember whether that's been answered already, so before I roll a GE roll I think I'll ask.
Adam intends to use his great jump to get in front of his fleeing victims. He rolls 73, which is either a great jump or a fail, so I'd better crunch numbers: 3@1 BRA+2x10@ bias+3@10 SAL=91% chance of success, and with a 3@ SAL and a roll that high it's going to be quite a jump. He then wants to land an ordinary punch, pulling his punches some, so I'll let him get away with damaging; that roll is 39, no doubt on that, 2 intensities to his target. I can't imagine that they will think that jump anything less than flying, and that's going to scream magic to them, so we're in that territory now: he must be a wizard, or at least we hope he is.
Kyler wants to know what the computer says about him, but since it's his computer it will only say what he told it.
--M. J. Young
Yes, I left this undone yesterday, and did not mention it because at the time I was not certain whether events would transpire such that I would return last night or push the game threads into this afternoon. The answer to that question is obvious at this point. It also appears (and thus is apparent) that no one has joined the list of active players I compiled yesterday, so I'm looking at Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, and Adam.
Eli asks a good question: did his equipment move? You have to relax to notice, and you have to notice while you are relaxed, so it seems he's attempting to backwrite an event; but I will let him know the answer since he can find out fairly quickly. However, I won't know until I get the results of this GE roll--I've looked over his equipment, and although it would be a particularly bad roll that resulted in the clothing vanishing, there are a few items there that would attract attention. The roll is 9+9+5=23, a cringe roll for certain. I'm marking off on his equipment sheet a few items I think would have been taken, but rather than scatter them among several bushi I am keeping them together. (Worse rolls would have meant that more ordinary items were also taken and that they were shared among multiple individuals, giving him lots of vectors to track. Better rolls would have them closer together.)
I know that the Multiple Object TK will fail on the box, because the box is attached to the stone and TK can't break connections; but I would roll at the table, so the roll is 02, and I would tell him that he can't move it. Michael has a Hard Metalurgy Package, 1@5 SAL, which the back of my mind tells me includes Use Standard Hand Tools, which would be required for the task of prying with a screwdriver. I'm suddenly flashing back to a Dave Barry article, which maybe I'll mention in the Peanut Gallery thread, but let me roll for the prying action: 89, not going to accomplish the objective at all.
When Ahmetia said she was being inattentive to the water skills training, my immediate reaction was that Sapt would call her back to it; but then, why should he? The story says that the duplicate rescues the king, but Ahmetia isn't playing it that way--she's doing her part to substitute for the queen and help with the planning, but she's not likely to be the hero. I've got an idea, though.
We'll get Kurt to Nottingham Castle and see how he handles himself here.
Oh, yes, I recall that there are several irons in the fire for Harry, and one of them is the rental of the other half of his property. It's been a while and he put out feelers, but I don't remember anyone taking it so I'm going to reopen that. A GE of 17 says nothing is happening on it at the moment, but it's good to mention it.
Nikolaj has raised some issues concerning his color books.
Adam may have hooked his first students. In any case, he seems set on doing so, and they don't have a lot of options, and what they would understand him to be saying amounts to winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, so he's probably succeeded.
--M. J. Young
I'm sort of dragging through today. In a bit of turnabout, the room is cool and I'm a bit chilled--but the computer is much more stable, thank you. I see posts from Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, Brock, Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, and Adam.
Eli has new equipment which I will have to add to his character sheet, although I'll need to determine the color or colors.
I'm going to assume that Michael is probing around with his screwdriver; that's helpful, because that's what the book's hero did to show exactly what the machine did, but a GE roll is still appropriate: 11 is certainly going to work for him.
Ahmetia asks about the plan, and Flavius gives her what he's got.
It's time for me to give Brock the GE roll that will determine just how complicated or easy this mission is going to be. 15 is not unfavorable. Of course, it's not terribly favorable, either, so it's not going to be a cakewalk.
We'll want a GE roll for Harry for how things go over the next few days: 13 is barely good enough. I know he's not going to want people to make a fuss over him, but it's really about the smallest thing that could go wrong here.
That was out of sequence--for some reason, this Firefox browser (or maybe it's the Windows XP) doesn't always remember the order in which I stacked my windows and gives them to me in a different order, and I don't always remember to check. That should have been Kurt next, but it's too late to change the order, so we'll go with Kurt now. I think I'll give him a charisma check for how easily (or not) he talks his way in for an interview: 1+10=a number that very few would fail, and certainly none of my players.
I can't at this point imagine those men not following Adam, so I'm not rolling for it. He's offered them a leap from highwaymen to noblemen (for indeed only noblemen are trained as knights and live in castles), and doesn't seem to be questioning their ability to do it.
And that's twice it did the wrong order on the windows to me; I must be more tired than I thought. I've got Nikolaj also waiting.
Nikolaj has put me in a bit of a quandary. It appears that he is creating a magic device; I doubt that he has any chance of actually succeeding at that, even with his moderately high bias and high religion SAL. When someone does this as a holy magic skill and I know that it's not going to work, I look for some other way to achieve the same effect; but he intends for the magic to go with the objects and stay with the objects when used by others.
What comes to me as a solution is a single delayed event spell: Nikolaj prays now, and the first time each booklet is used the prayer is answered. The second one is pretty easy: the person explaining the book gets the effect of a Bonus Persuasion Checks M1@4, +RS/10 intensities to his persuasion for the duration of the telling. The first is a bit trickier. It is phrased as a secret messages or magic writings spell, M7@1, in that it puts the magic on the page in such a way that it is conveyed to the reader clearly.
Working on the secret messages skill, I think that a baseline of 2:00 would be appropriate. The prayer is being prayed for the page, so the page cannot be a material component (it is the object of the blessing). He says 5:00 for the spell, which is +13 for time. Sound is necessary for +2, and the words are appropriate for +5, but I see no necessary actions or objects which means -10, and think that there should be a -10 for the indefinitely delayed effect here, particularly as the effect is triggered by someone else. That puts the casting at the baseline, +/-0. I'm wondering, though, about another point, and that is whether it is part of the spell that it must be cast while the object is being created, or whether it can be cast on an already existing object.
That same question applies to the second spell, which attaches to the entire book and appears to be cast during the binding process. Here, though, the book itself can be a material component since it is the part that conveys the magical effect to the object affected. This one has a 1:00 TF, so that's +23 for the 5:00 version, and again he has +5 appropriate words and +2 necessary sound, +4 for the fact that it includes a manufactured book, although it still gets -10 for the delayed effect. I'll hold there and get the answers to the questions.
--M. J. Young
Remember that I mentioned in tonight's Blogless Lepolt entry that I often make plumbing problems worse? Well, they brought me another one tonight and I succeeded in making it much worse, so I'm going to have to call it a night and get an incredibly early start tomorrow.
--M. J. Young
If it can't be fixed with a toilet plunger or with Drain-o (Bleach makes a good substitute) I call the maintenance at my apartment complex. I'll never own a home, for that very reason. Good luck with it buddy.
(Doing Therapy)
Two
What are MJ's chances of fixing the plumbing problem?
BRA 2@5 (Intellect)
MJ's Bias 11@1
World Bias 15@ (Prove it isn't.)
25 + 111 + 15 = 151 - 5@ plumbing skills package. 151 - 50 101% chance of success. And he botches more often than he succeeds. Tsk Tsk MJ, somebody put a huge negative sit-mod on you or something. (Said with a friendly laugh)
(Doing Therapy)
Third and Last
Speaking of the world bias being 15@, it has to be. You verse out by getting hit with a "Scriff Inside" tech device, right? Scriff control is 15@10 Tech. So yeah, this world does have a 15@ tech bias, at least for game purposes.
(Doing Therapy)
Your DIVERGENT is in a world where scriff is used. Our bias is probably NOT yet that high. Regardless, MJ is not trying to LEARN a plumbing skill, so all that is relevant are his plumbing SAL, character ABL, tech BRA, and any sit-mods. I've helped several plumbers in my time, so I'd give him a 1@5 based on his solid understanding of plumbing systems he's been familiar with. Tech bias I would put at 10@ I believe without reason to put it higher without the book in front of me. BRA would definitely be intellect, which I'd actually put somewhere are 2@3 ot 2@4, we'll go with the higher as is my general thumb rule. 24+20+15 =59% chance of success, 4% chance to botch.
Tech bias I would put at 10@ I believe without reason to put it higher without the book in front of me.
Computer programming was 11@1, and I know he's got some coding skills, so that qualified.
It just baffles me that you call him MJ instead of Dad. Calling your father by his first name? Not many people I know do that.
(Doing Therapy)
I call him MJ on the boards because not everyone here knows without taking a moment to think on it that he's my father, John. It's for clarity, not from disrespect.
My own father died when I was 6. From what little I remember of him, I have a feeling I would have gotten rapped in the mouth for calling him by his first name. That's why it baffles me.
(Doing Therapy)
Really. You believe that if you were talking about your father in the third person and referred to him by his first name rather than calling him "my father" or "my dad" for clarity's sake when you were twenty five years old he would have rapped you in the mouth. My comment is simply a restatement of what you just said.
If I was talking to my dad, I would find no end of pleasure calling him Dick. No man should ever be called Richard with angry family members :P
Kyler, that's based on vague memories of a 4-5-6 year old child, don't forget.
(Doing Therapy)
I am sorry for your loss, John, but I am not a four, five, or six year old child, don't forget.
And you're a very lucky guy. Don't EVER forget that.
(Doing Therapy)
The discussion of my chance of success at plumbing has been answered in the Random Chat thread. I do want to comment on the tech bias issue, though. It says (somewhere) in the rules that skills which use scriff only count if they involve understanding scriff and using it as scriff. Pouring scriff into a tube and using it as an electrical conductor (which is what all the scriff-based electronics in the starting world do) does not count as a scriff skill. At the very least you would have to be able to contain scriff, an electromagnetic process akin in some ways to containing antimatter. Scriff in modern electronic devices dissipates and leaks back into the scriff between the universes as electrons bombard it; it just happens slowly enough at those low power levels that scriff makes a good superconductor for a reasonable time. I've not stated this world's tech bias officially because I don't actually know what sort of technological experiments are being performed in secret. I think that the bias is somewhere in level 12, because I know it is at least that high and don't think there's been anything successful in level 13.
Let me formally observe that Kyler has taken over Eli's current game, and that Brock has apparently abandoned his present game thread in favor of starting a fresh character with Kyler. That leaves me posts today from Michael, Ahmetia, Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, and Adam. (I thought Kyler was picking up Kurt, but I guess that's not happening at present, which is fine; I appreciate what he is doing.)
Incidentally, the clue that Michael never recognized that now is superfluous is that a banshee appears when someone is going to die, but this one appeared more than once when there was an unsuccessful attempt on the queen's life. That means that the harbinger of certain death appeared and there was no death, so the harbinger must be a fraud. But he worked that out anyway, so he doesn't need that part. Michael gets a 16 GE on Randall's lesson in digging, which is neutral. He rolls 08 on his flying skill, which will give him a one mile per hour speed for eight minutes, which is probably fine although Randall will think it slow.
We'll talk a bit more about the plan for Ahmetia to rescue the queen.
It hardly seems necessary to roll for whether Kurt can demonstrate his abilities at math. Writing is a bit different though--10+12 is 22 against a 2@1 Ed Lev.
I've rolled an 18 GE for tenants for Harry, which is not favorable but close to the middle, and it's already been quite a while.
Nikolaj has answered my question. He does not yet realize that he is making what amounts to a single use device--it will release the magic the first time it is used to explain the gospel to someone, and then it will be ordinary thereafter. He has also indicated that these prayers, at least, will not recharge the books. For the present, though, I will bonus both skills for the limitation that they can only be used during the creation of the pages/books to be enspelled. I'll make the bonus +10, because it strikes me as a significant limitation given that the books themselves would still be useful for that purpose absent the magic and could not be recharged with this spell.
Thus looking again at the first skill, it is a secret messages or magic writings spell, M7@1, in that it puts the magic on the page in such a way that it is conveyed to the reader clearly. I stated that a baseline of 2:00 would be appropriate. He says 5:00 for the spell, which is +13 for time. Sound is necessary for +2, and the words are appropriate for +5, but I see no necessary actions or objects which means -10, and think that there should be a -10 for the indefinitely delayed effect here, particularly as the effect is triggered by someone else. With the new +10 for the limitation that it can only be prayed during the making process, that makes the sit-mod +10. He rolls 80 on the first attempt; his chance to learn the skill is +10SM+1@9 BRA+7@9 bias+2x7@ world bias+10 alliance affiliation+10 for 1/2 1@10 religion-7@1 target=71% to learn. There's nothing to tell him that the first page did not work, so he will move to the second, 98 is actually not a botch--there's a 2% chance to botch and that's 3%. 92 fails, and on the fourth page he rolls 36, which gives him 1@1 Bless Communication of Message from Page M+7@1 while page is being created pray 5:00, sound necessary but not necessarily loud, appropriate words; when someone presents the page to someone else, the target receives +3 to an attribute check for understanding the meaning of the message on that page, +10SM. Now for the second aspect: his chance to perform the skill successfully is +10SM+10 for religion+2x7@ bias+10 affiliation+1@9 BRA+1@1 SAL=74%, which means about three out of four pages will be so blessed, but 2% will botch, which is one in fifty. Since it's a five-page book, that's one page out of every ten books, on average. The obvious botch is a misunderstanding of the meaning, which could become interesting in the long run.
Now for the other prayer, a Bonus Persuasion Checks M+1@4. With the additional +10 for the limitation that it must be done during the creation of the book, the sit-mod comes to +32SM, and the roll is 36, so it's going to work the first time, 1@1 Bonus Persuasion Checks M+1@4 pray for 5:00 aloud but quietly with appropriate words, sound necessary, while constructing a book; someone using the book at a later time to explain its meaning will receive +3 bonus to persuasion check related to the book's message, +32SM. And now the other numbers, which include the same string except a +32 instead of a +10, so 71-10+32=93%, no botches on this and something close to fourteen out of fifteen books blessed.
Adam will find food in the castle; the brigands have been hungry for a while, and are likely to overreact, but we'll see how he handles it.
--M. J. Young
I see Michael, Ahmetia, Harry, Nikolaj, and Adam all active; if I overlooked someone, please reprimand me. (Insert appropriate emoticon here.)
For Michael to learn a psionic skill, he is supposed to watch someone perform it, using his mind reading. The one performing the skill in this case, Randall, rolls 71, has a 2@5 intuition BRA, at least 2x13@ bias which makes 51, so he needs to have at least a 1@10 SAL for a 71 to be successful (the skill is not yet listed on his sheet). A GE of 13, Barely Good Enough, makes it 1@10, which means that's the example value if Michael succeeds in reading it, for which he rolls 43 on a 2x7@ bias+1@1 SAL+2@1 BRA=46%, so he gets the example and instructor bonuses on this 10@7 target skill with his 7@2 bias and rolls 18, good for 1@1 Force Digger P10@7.
Ahmetia is still talking with Flavius, but hasn't actually done anything.
Harry has a 1@6 An Mag, and that's what we use for initial impressions, so we'll roll a simple check here for the prospective tenant. Normally I wouldn't bother, but he has made a point of the fact that he's carrying his weapons, so a sailor might hesitate. The rolls are 1+15, an exact failure.
Nikolaj is thinking of another trip to town, but obviously everyone would like to go to town and not everyone can, so we'll have to cover the question of whether he gets to go this time.
I've got a 16 GE roll for the remainder of Adam's night--which I rolled mostly to see whether his bandits would think about turning on him while they thought he was asleep. That's not going to happen, but nothing particular bad or good will happen either, so he's good for the night. 93 on the Alert Rest means he's not getting any more rest, though.
--M. J. Young
A sailor might hesitate, but a pirate might reconsider...
It looks like I'm down to a manageable five players today--I usually say that I can run four comfortably, six maximum, but that's at a table when everyone needs time. Here I can just stay awake longer or skip dinner or something, right? Anyway, kidding aside, I've got Michael, Ahmetia, Harry, Nikolaj, and Adam waiting.
Michael is making plans for the flight home, but hasn't considered whether there might not be a flight home. His roll is 02, which gets him airborne at one mile per hour for two minutes--which is just far enough to get him to the walls, as I recall. There are several things that ought to happen to him inside the city but not inside the castle, none of which have happened because he hasn't been there, but maybe or maybe not this will be the time.
Ahemtia's 1@1 SAL at using a small boat is going to fail her when she attempts to follow the instruction and rolls 74; I don't have to crunch the numbers for that.
Donning his marks of office will boost Harry's persuasion--and shift him from charisma to persuasion for this check--so we'll roll against a 1@10 persuasion with +5 for the indication that he's an officer of the watch, 6+13=19, a strong success.
Nikolaj also needs a persuasion check, in his case against a will power check, to see whether Mr. Kucher is persuaded to let him make his trip to town. I'll give him +2 for the argument--he does need pigments, and it makes sense for him to be there to answer questions about the coloring used on his leather goods. He rolls 11+8=19, and I see a 1@8 persuasion with +2 makes 1@10, so that's the best roll he could have; Mr. Kucher rolls 7+5=12, not as high a roll and so Nikolaj's roll wins. He also wants to know whether any of his new believers can read, but a GE of 21 makes it minimal--and I'll use a trick I learned in a recently read book.
O.K., let's take a look at Adam's gate in the daylight. A GE of 15 reads not unfavorable, as close from neutral as you can get on the positive side.
--M. J. Young
bump!
I see four players, by name Michael, Ahmetia, Adam, and Kyler. I may have missed someone, or I might have opened the threads too early and so excluded someone. I'll be back Sunday, at any rate, so we'll catch up then.
Michael has put himself in a position to view things in Runneymede. There are things about which he has no knowledge.
I have an immediate reaction as to what Flavius would do, but I think Ahmetia deserves a GE roll on this: 21 is bad enough, so it's going to be a bit worse than I thought. ("Worse" means "contrary to the character's wishes and expectations".)
I remember Adam downing trees before, and indeed on checking I find his 1@10 Felling Trees T3@3 using saws, axes, and other wedge and lever technologies. +2 skill, which along with his 2@6 Tech BRA is going to give him 46 plus two times the lower of his or the world's tech bias, which I might not need to reveal (or consider) depending on the roll. The roll is 83, and while it's not a botch, I'm going to need to explain why he failed to bring down the tree with the borrowed axe. He'll try again with the vibrokatana, for which I'll give him +15 if he gets the device working, a separate question. The roll on the device is 46, and since that's 3@1 Activate Vibroblade T9@0 with a +15 Sit Mod I don't have to do any math for that; the roll for bringing the tree down with the sword is 49, definitely in there. I do, however, need a GE roll for the reaction of the men to a magic sword: 15.
Kyler has a question concerning information in previous posts and what of that he knows and doesn't know. We'll resolve that.
--M. J. Young
There were a lot of threads calling for my attention, but I've gotten down to the game now, and I've got Michael, Ahmetia, Nikolaj, Adam, and Kyler.
Michael gets his first look at one of the players in this game he has not yet met.
I suppose that Ahmetia should have to make a successful persuasion to get Flavius to take the oars, although I'll give her +1 on her persuasion and take -3 off Flavius' will power, so let's see what numbers we get. I don't have a persuasion score for her. I've met her, but I'm going to have to get some feedback. Harry, if you're reading, I'll take your opinion on this, too.
I'll need a GE roll for Nikolaj to see how his trading venture goes: 23 is pretty badly.
Adam is rebuilding the damaged fortress.
We set Kyler's 1@7 persuasion against his sister's 1@10 will power, and roll 9, 8, he wins narrowly.
--M. J. Young
O.K., the computer has been holding for the last hour or so, so let's see whether we can manage to post to Michael, Ahmetia, Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, Adam, and Kyler.
I'm struck that Michael so quickly recognized Tuan Loguire, but that's good. I might have to go reread that book, though, because I'm losing bits of it that apparently didn't make it to my notes. For the moment, though, he's going to attempt to read Durer's mind, and rolls 99--that's going to be a botch, let's make a list. The quick list is:
- Brain Burn
- Psionic Shock Wave
- Mental Breakdown
- Project Thought to target
- Wrong target
- Mind Meld
Ahemtia takes a 1@5 Persuasion, and rolls 19, which is a failure; Flavius doesn't have to roll to avoid being persuaded, but his 11 will power check is successful so that's going that way. She rolls 80 on her next boat use skill check.
Nikolaj isn't doing anything that requires much response at this point.
Kurt asks a reasonable question; we'll invent a plausible explanation for the position of a senior administrator.
I hate to hit Harry with a short post, but it seems a reasonable post under the circumstances, and suddenly there's a thunderstorm raging outside which might take out my posting ability any second, so I'm typing as fast as I can.
A 15 GE will get Adam through the night reasonably safely. A 21 skill check on his alert rest will catch him up on his sleep, I think.
I do believe Kyler made a joke about how to dispose of the bubblegum. Mariska will joke with him about it, and maybe he'll make a few more jokes between hers. But we'll move on to the cards next.
--M. J. Young
It's a short post that still advances the situation, so I'm fine with that. It's when it's a short post that's basically "You meant this, right?" where all I can do is post, "Yes, that one" and it wastes a whole day's update to basically do nothing, that's when I mind.
I see Michael, Ahmetia, Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, Adam, and Kyler, and I've been delayed and derailed and almost decided to abandon the posts tonight--but let's make a stab at it.
I know the answers to most of Michael's questions, and those for which I don't Durer doesn't either.
Ahmetia is having a terrible time with the boat, but we'll give her +10 for calming herself and starting over. The roll is 46, which with a 2@2 BRA+1@1 SAL and the bonus puts her within three points of that roll without bias, which is high enough to include electricity so she's good.
We'll give Michael a schedule of sorts. I'll let him figure out what time those things are.
Harry gets a 21 GE on his situation, which means he's not going to be able to use those references.
Nikolaj will have some time in town.
Adam reminds me of his leanto, and that will protect the men from the rain, so we'll move forward into the next day's work.
Kyler has just about resolved the superhero cards questions.
--M. J. Young
I am again changing the "order" in which I address game thread posts.
The impetus for this is simply practical--there are now so many active games in which I am not involved that it's getting harder for me to spot the ones in which I am. Further, the Firefox browser doesn't seem always to remember the order in which I opened the windows, so when I close a window and do a window view swap, I don't always get the one I stacked as "next" and I don't always realize it. So it's easier for me to attempt to sweep the page from the bottom up and open every thread that belongs to me, and then respond in the order I get them to open on my computer.
I expect tonight's sequence will be Adam, Ahmetia, Harry, Michael, Kyler, Kurt, and Nikolaj, unless Kyler beats me to Kurt's thread or the browser changes the sequence at some point.
I think Adam needs a GE roll for conditions inside. Lots of gore in lots of beds is a distinct possibility and rather undesirable, so I'll figure that for a moderately bad roll; most people having been killed out of their beds is slightly good, and we'll work out the rest from there. The roll is 8, so the gore is going to be almost entirely on stone floors where it's a lot easier to clean.
There's something of a battle going in Ahmetia's thread--because Flavius is trying to draw out information Ahmetia is trying to hide, but neither wants to appear to be doing that.
Harry has a 23 GE roll today, and he was on his way to work, so I think we may have something interesting happening.
Michael calls my attention to gaps in his character sheet relative to his tech skills, which we'll address before we continue.
Kyler is picking up supers cards. He'll want to know about Silverblade, and whether there are cards on Mariska and himself. 22 means he's not going to get any of those the first week.
Kurt has had a very busy day, I think. Dinner looms ahead of him, and then he'll be settling in for the night.
I'm not sure whether Nikolaj is hoping that he will or will not have hayfever, but given that there's a healing service in progress if he does he might be able to be rid of it permanently. I've got an 11 GE, and Qormlach rolls 18 on the healing prayer, which will do the job. He gets 18 GE on finding paper, so that's going to be possible but not promising.
--M. J. Young
So it's easier for me to attempt to sweep the page from the bottom up and open every thread that belongs to me, and then respond in the order I get them to open on my computer.
Didn't you try that before and people were bumping threads to get others answered last? Some people are so immature.
(Doing Therapy)
1. I don't believe people were bumping threads for the reason you believe. I believe people were commenting on the game within the game thread, which isn't how it should be done. Game threads should be mainly IC and comments should be reserved for the Peanut Gallery, which is relatively new to the boards and I feel attempts to provide that elusive social quality of table gaming where players pay attention to one anothers' campaigns, sometimes poking fun at them, other times just making a comment on them.
2. I also believe that your comments are not enjoyed by everyone who needs to look in the behind the screens thread, which is where MJ's mechanics are posted for his games. They are spam to those of us who are wholly uninterested, so why don't you simply post your questions, mechanic related or otherwise, on another board in the forum and leave this for MJ's mechanics?
2. I also believe that your comments are not enjoyed by everyone who needs to look in the behind the screens thread, which is where MJ's mechanics are posted for his games. They are spam to those of us who are wholly uninterested, so why don't you simply post your questions, mechanic related or otherwise, on another board in the forum and leave this for MJ's mechanics?
Then that goes for everyone. Please note, it says "17 voices" at the top. What you're saying is that this thread should only say "1 voice."
(Doing Therapy)
I've addressed the issue of who can post in this thread when and why over in Random Chat, which I suspect you have both already seen.
As to the issue of my changing the system, I suppose that's a somewhat relevant question here, and there is confusion about it.
Kyler is right that the majority of posts made in those threads were social/commentary posts, and that the new random chat and peanut gallery threads are better for those. He is wrong, however, in thinking that no one made posts like that to move someone to the end of the line. There were mixed feelings (and mixed signals) concerning the appropriateness of such out-of-character posts, some players disliking them inherently and the more so when it bumped their thread to the end of the line, others enjoying them. The rule concerning posting in others' game threads changed a couple times, and now stands (and has for several years) that you don't normally do it--if there's a question or problem, post it here, or in the peanut gallery, or in another thread. But before that rule was "written in e-stone", people did post just to bump someone else's thread. Some did it in retaliation for bumping them "legitimately". Some did it in playful teasing, and some did it in vicious response to teasing. Because of this, I determined that I needed a new way to sequence game threads, and so I decided that it would be done by reverse seniority, the newest players going first, the old hands like John and Kyler, Eric and Graeme, going last.
Some of the people who did the bumping are no longer playing here, or at least not in my games. And it is rare in the extreme for anyone to post in someone else's thread now, so it's not going to happen incidentally, at least, not often. And I find myself searching through the board looking for the games I'm running--which is wonderful but that it makes it more difficult for me to determine which players are and are not here and get them in the right sequence. So the "right" sequence is out, and I will do games in the order they pop up on my screen once I've opened them all.
Now, that order today might be Ahmetia, Adam, Kyler, Michael, Nikolaj, Harry, and Kurt, because that's the order the buttons now have on my bar; but since the browser doesn't always give me what I thought was the next window, we'll find out the order as it develops.
Ahmetia is not who they think she is, but they still think it.
We'll need a GE roll for how the night goes for Adam: 19 is not thwarting but generally unfavorable.
Kyler has not, I think, explained to Mariska that Kat's parents will want to know that there is adult supervision at his apartment before they let their daughter play over there.
I'm finishing up the brief skills discussion aside with Michael, and returning to the fact that he's mind-linked with Counselor Durer, one of the chief villains in this story.
I don't like seeing a 25 GE for Nikolaj's shopping efforts, but it means that only the most likely things are going to be present, and he's going to have to do some hunting for them.
- <i>rag paper</i> is established as available.
- <i>a dwarven stylus seems to be a more difficult thing to find, so that's out.
- <i>If they have two I'll take one for me too</i>, but if they don't have one they don't have two.
- <i>writing ink</i> should be available, with a bit of hunting.
- <i>quality wine/beer</i> would both be available, and <i>elvish</i> is the way to go; dwarfs don't make enough beer for it to be a major export, and in fact import some of theirs from the elves (who are the agrarian people).
- <i>a painting or something.</i> I don't know that anybody does paintings. There's stained glass work in the churches mostly, and wonderful metalwork art from the dwarfs, but paintings aren't an artform familiar here.
- <i>a story...a book</i>, books are not really common and few people read, despite the fact that the Kuchers do. Scrolls are more common, and fiction is not part of the literature.
- <i>Or a decent quality tinderbox</i> is also something he would find.
Harry has given our burning restaurant a name, and recognized that indeed if it's right across the street from the firehouse it's undoubtedly where they eat most of the time. I had to think of the name of the relief officer, because this is supposed to be a troublesome situation, so Matt is in over his head already. We'll see how Harry handles it from here.
Kyler is willing to take over Kurt's game mid-world, which is fine with me; but Kurt has not yet responded to the point so we'll wait to see whether that's all right with him.
--M. J. Young
I'm doing threads in a somewhat random order, but it looks like if all goes well I will be answering posts from Adam, Kyler, Ahmetia, Michael, Harry, and Nikolai tonight. Kyler has taken over Kurt, which gives me a bit more time for other projects.
I am following a GE roll I made yesterday for Adam; he has a visitor.
Not much to say for Kyler, other than that of course Mariska will agree to meet Kat's parents.
It looks like Ahmetia is next. She has answered Flavius' comment as if speaking about someone else (which she is), which he is going to find humorous because he thinks she's speaking about herself.
Michael thinks that his face is hidden by the armor he is wearing; that was not the impression I had, but I might be misremembering, so I'll get him to check the notes for me.
We'll pose a problem for Harry. Maybe he'll come up with a life-risking solution.
Nikolaj is going to start preaching in the alehouse and see whether he gets chased out. We'll start with an animal magnetism check (for an initial reaction) which I will bonus +1 for his 1@10 relgion SAL; the an-mag score listed is 1@7, so that's 1@8, and a simple check is rolled: 5+6=11, solidly in there. I don't know the odds of finding someone sick at the tavern, but the GE roll is 17 so I'm going to say no, although someone will have someone sick at home.
I believe that's everyone tonight.
--M. J. Young
It looks like the first response will be to Adam today, followed by Ahmetia, Harry, Nikolaj, Kyler, and Michael, but interspersed with responses to other threads. I posted already to the Old Articles thread, because I wanted to close the windows to those old articles but I wanted also to get the links copied before I lost them.
Adam is going for a mind reading, which he can do on a stranger at any distance as long as he can see the stranger, so that counts here. 74 raises questions about whether he can do it, but he is in a 15@ psi world with a 15@ bias, so that puts him at 30% already. I'm surprised to see that his mind reading SAL is only 1@5, bad news there but we're up to 45. His Psi BRA is 2@10, another 30, makes 75, so he's just inside the limit. That's going to tell him quite a bit about his target.
It seems that Ahmetia and Flavius are having a conversation about the possible advantages of he alleged abilities to consume large quantities of alcohol--which I somehow suspect is not one of Ahmetia's abilities despite the fact that her counterpart in this world is so famed for it.
I'm impressed by Harry's solution to the space problem. Maybe I can lure him into a dangerous position--I'm sure that he would rather go inside the burning building than climb on the roof of the adjacent one, but maybe he'll come up with a solution to that, too.
I particularly avoided saying to Nikolaj that any of the scrolls dealt with leatherwork; now, though, that he has asked I have to roll for it--15 on a GE roll is not unfavorable, but it's really very weakly favorable. He gets a 10 GE on his trip to the healing.
Kyler is headed over to see Kat and introduce his big sister, former British secret service agent, to her mom.
Michael has persuaded me that he is wearing a full helmet; I'll make appropriate adjustments to recent events.
I think that's everyone.
--M. J. Young
It's a confusing mass of threads, but it looks like Nikolaj, Harry, Adam, Ahmetia, Michael, Kyler, and John 1 reappearing. I will apologize up front to John 1 that it may take me a while to figure out what's happening in his game, so cut me some slack as I play catch-up on that.
I've been treating Qormlach's healing gift as background to this point, but now I'm going to have to put some numbers to it. That may also mean I need a place to put these numbers. But I'll take Qormlach as ordinary, 1@5 BRA, with a 1@3 SAL at the healing ability he has been using for some time, and a 1@3 religion SAL which gives him +7 putting us at 35, +10 for alliance, +2x his 2@ bias is 49% chance of success. I'm going to add one bonus for this situation, although I might be stretching the point: the rules say that someone on a quest assigned by a mortal agent of a deity gets +5 to his chance of performing holy magic on that quest, and taking Nikolaj as such a mortal agent we've got 54%. Let's roll: 71 fails.
Nikolaj has a contingency. He is putting everyone out of the room, and praying for some insight into the situation. Maybe I'm too tired to think, but I'm not really getting it.
Concerning the hose, I'm not even going to roll for whether it's there. After all, it was sent, the fabric people have no use for it so there's no reason to have returned it, and unlikely that it would have been discarded. So the only real question is how much Harry has. I'll give him a suitably-long sample.
Adam gets a 21 GE on his encounter with the would-be burglar, but we're also going to roll a persuasion check--difficult and opposed by a will power check, but burglars don't have extraordinary will powers, so maybe 1@4 for that. He rolls 30 against a 2@10, the nearest possible failure; the burglar rolls a 35, though, which is a really far failure.
Ahmetia has finished this reconnaissance and and should return to port.
I'm pretty sure that what Michael wants to accomplish is a P2@9 Eject defense, and he's got a strong bias so let's roll: 74 is high enough to be a 1@2 SAL if it's also in the success range. Durer is not resisting, so I'm not going to include a defensive value to this, so it's a 2@1 BRA+10@7 bias+15@ world bias -2@9 target SAL is over a 100% chance of success, and we'll list it.
John 1 is back in action, and I'm mostly summarizing what I think is are the salient points of the present situation so we're on the same page.
I need a GE roll for Kyler's cross-town trip to visit Kat. As he notes, it is always possible that there might be a bloody mess, but a moderately bad roll would mean that the bloody mess was only rush hour traffic. The roll is 9, so things go very well. Now I need a mnemonic for Kat's mother, and I'll cheat.
I think that's everyone. If I stumble on someone I missed, I'll post again.
--M. J. Young
I have so many threads open in seemingly random order that I am not even certain who the players are; but they'll appear.
It looks like Adam first, with his newly captured recruit.
Ahmetia has to deal with the fact that she's spending more time with the very handsome and attractive and charismatic Flavius.
John 1 is getting back in gear here.
I'm not sure what's going to happen while Kyler and Mariska are visiting Kat and her mother Kate, but we'll move forward and see what opens. I've decided that they can't be Katherine Smith because Kate Smith is too well known; Katherine Carlisle comes to mind, but that's probably Kitty Carlisle's name, and while probably few here would remember the famed game show celebrity contestant it would bother me. But I'll leave the last name question open for the moment. Maybe I can devise a memorable Feline name.
Harry ducked the question of whether he was going to run the roof crew, so I'll ask it again.
Michael is debriefing to several people, but not telling me what he's telling them, and that's probably going to matter.
I'm going to figure the prayerful diagnosis skill to be a M7@6 Present Information skill, telling Nikolaj what the actual problem is. That's not usually an issue with magical healings, but there are other kinds of infirmities (e.g., injury versus disease versus poison). I'm going to give him +5 for limiting those present to the ministry team and the afflicted. I'm looking at a 3:00 baseline TF and he's suggesting a 15:00 with possible extension to 30:00, trouble for me (I really do like to have things defined specifically), but I'll assume he does the one skill and then tries a variant on it if it fails. We're looking at 2.25 doublings of the TF so +23 for that. We have +5 appropriate words, +3 for both hands, and that's a total value of +36. It's also the case that three people are trying to learn the same skill--Nikolaj, whose positives are 7@9 bias+1/2 1@10 Religion+10 Affiliation+(wait a minute--I should check this, I might have gotten it wrong last time) 7@ world bias+1@9 BRA=161 from which we subtract -7@6 for 85%. Qormlach we just considered briefly, giving him 1@5 BRA, 1/2 1@3 religion SAL which gives him +7, +10 for alliance, 2@4 bias for curing disease makes 92, minus 7@6 is 16%. I'm going to assume Simon has--no, I'd better use a GE roll for that, which rolls 20, so that means not a high bias. Of course it could be worse--and after an unscheduled consultation with Kyler, we've agreed on a 2@9 Counter Possessions, essentially an exorcism skill. Simon is also head of a leathermaking shop, so we'll give him 1@6 intellect as his BRA, and since he's head of the house church we'll give him 1@2 religion, and we'd better start adding 2@9 bias+1@6 BRA+6 for religion+10 affiliation+36 SM+7@ world bias=104, -7@6=28. Now each of them has to roll against his chance to learn this skill, in that order: 11, 80, 86, no botches and only Nikolaj learns it, with a relatively low success. I'm inclined to think that this is a particularly virulent disease organism. Nikolaj is thinking it's a spiritual oppression of some sort or that sin or something like that is in the way, and I'm guessing that the opposite would be that there is poison or internal injury involved, so let's roll a GE for what's wrong: 7 falls toward Nikolaj's favor. Let's remember to put down 1@1 Diagnose Cause of Infirmity M+7@6 pray for fifteen minutes with appropriate words, both hands on the infirm subject, having removed everyone from the room other than the subject and the skilled user and a small team of other ministers, +36SM. It will be interesting to see what he does about this.
I think that's everyone.
--M. J. Young
I see Adam first on what is a fairly full dance card tonight, so between posts on other subjects let's start the dance.
Not all the criminals in the world would be good knights. I don't know whether this one would, but I don't think he thinks so.
I've pulled up the duty roster for Harry and picked a day--Day 4--when Matt commands the midnight shift and Harry relieves him in the morning. That gives me a head count and names.
Kyler is going to look at Supers cards, which might be interesting.
Ahmetia asks Flavius about his abilities, which we'll detail accordingly.
Nikolaj is attempting to target the source of the magic which has made this woman sick.
My inclination is that since Michael taught Molly telepathy, their conversations will tend to be telepathic; but that means Molly has to roll to make the connection: 71 fails. In any case, he raises a few points that are going to warrant discussion.
I'm wondering if John 1 has any particular reason to expect Ishara to appear. I can't even really roll for it, because I don't know what he hopes, either.
--M. J. Young
Let's tackle the posts as quickly as we can; there are other demands ahead.
I'll start with Adam. He's dropped a real bombshell on his would-be thief. I think he forgets sometimes that the humans of this world generally think that all that stuff is mythology.
Ahmetia is chatting with the prince, starting to relax around him, maybe.
John 1 has invited Ishara to visit him in his quarters "after dinner". There is the possibility that he will, or won't; there's also the problem that the ship does not run on a consistent day for everyone, so "after dinner" might not be a real time, or at least not one on which they would agree. So we'll give it a GE roll: 18, not favorable.
Harry is suddenly suggesting the use of something I don't remember existing in this world; but he'll enlighten me if I'm wrong, and he'll work with what he has if he's wrong.
I'm not sure whether Michael's notion is all that well advised, but we'll give him a shot at it. I'd say it's an unusual variant on a P1@2 Project Thought, in much the same way that reading someone like that would be a variant on a 1@1 Read Minds; but I would also say that the sheer, shall we say, baud rate is going to put it at a -10 penalty. That's probably not going to hurt him much, given his 10@7 bias, the fact that I'm adding a +1 familiarity to his contact with Molly, the 15@ world area bias, and his 2@1 Psi BRA. 00, though, means I'd better do the math. The starting point is obvious: a 10@ bias is worth 100 plus the intensity, so the question is whether the remaining numbers are greater than 12, and since the 15@ world area bias is and the 2@1 BRA is, even with the -10 for the skill we're looking at 111% chance of success, so he's got a solid link and a 1@3 Project Total Self-Knowledge P1@2 gives target complete mindmeld-like access to all user's memories while active -10SM.
If such a link already exists, that would bonus her chance to contact him telepathically in return: 12 is an easy success.
Nikolaj is asking me to define the illness of a character that has just been dropped into the scenario as "sick wife of nameless farmer". I've got some tools, though--it is possible that the hit locator will help, so I'll roll a percentile (d100): 65 is the upper spine. I was thinking in terms of lower back pain, but this works.
I'm scanning the remaining open threads, and it looks like none of them are games, so I guess I can post this and address the rest. If I'm mistaken, I'll try to return.
--M. J. Young
Ohhhhhh, skipped! =P That's ok though.
In response to MJ, no I don't forget, but that's my trump card. It's something you don't pull out unless you have to, and you see what kind of reaction you get.