[OOC] Sudden Payback

Happy New Year, everyone!

As it's the beginning of the month, you all get +5 XP. Feel free to spend it immediately if you wish, or to bank it for later use. Just drop me a line here to let me know what you're doing with it.

I'll bank mine

Same here.

Hoping we can do a bit of strategizing before our next turn for pc order. Whether it is better for the inside ppl or alley ppl to go first largely depends on which npc go when. I think it makes sense for either Hank to go first in the alley (I bet your chain will do more dmg than my knee) or for Max to go first inside to keep shaking the goons loose. What do you guys think?

If the baddies inside can fall off that would be fantastic. Kind of a tough situation since all the goons have consecutive initiative.

Also banking the xp.

Just to clarify the shake-the-rope strategy: There are no hard-and-fast rules for such a thing, so I decided that each uncanceled success equalled one minion taking a tumble. At medium-range height, that's likely going to equate to an insta-kill per minion. With that in mind, Max could certainly take another go at a Hard (PPP) Athletics check to shake another few loose. There are six up there (two groups of three).

That sounds like a really good next turn to me. Insta-killing the minions on the roof before they come in will likely be more effective than either the chain or kneeing in the alleyway.

I was having serious second thoughts about another chain strike. The three automatic setbacks make that much less tempting, so I was considering trying a Takedown.

Bob, rules clarification question: the Takedown is an attack, but it's a grappling attack. Does that mean that a successful Takedown has the potential to activate Disorient/Knockdown weapon qualities given enough advantages, but you also automatically ensnare the opponent AND place yourself in an advantageous position?

I agree, shake the rope is probably our best next bet. I say take the back to backs, Max!

I'm more likely to try and get them to not cause any more property damage and just stop. Mr M is probably going to go full Dark mode and grab them by the spine for trashing his place. XD

Good question. From what I understand, and from what the author of the "Ready... Fight!" supplement has said, it sounds like you can use a Brawl (Grappling) attack in two ways. The first just uses the standard difficulty of Average (PP) for melee combat, but it doesn't let you get a superior position and any of that kind of stuff. You'd have to get enough Advantage to activate the various weapon qualities (Knockdown, Ensnare), and you'd need to use one maneuver to Prepare the attack.

The second way is to try to throw the guys and maintain your position over them. This version would use the grappling rules, meaning your attack would be resisted by their Brawl (Grappling) skill. (In this case, that would be Hard [PPP], but since there are three of them, I think two setbacks would apply). If you succeed, you can get an advantageous position and so on.

So, yeah -- grappling isn't ideal for minion groups, which is why a striking attack might come in handy.

Makes sense. That's cool that they're two separate types of attacks. It actually makes the Takedown more useful against minions, because it's not as cripplingly difficult. But it's also better for an early-fight move to make effective use of disorient and Knockdown.

I think any of the inside folks make sense to take the top of the order slot

Hey, folks! I wanted to touch base about the roles I see fighting and mortality playing in this game. The Medicine checks we just did were to bring a Minion back to consciousness so that you could interrogate him about the attack (who ordered it, what the goals were, etc.). Since we're going for a 90s Action Movie / 90s Beat-em-Up Game feel here, the fuller humanity of your enemies isn't really part of the scope as I envisioned it. Rather, Butt-Kicking and Thwarting Bad Guys are.

With that in mind, my intention with having the minion die wasn't to shock anyone or to bring this game out of that Action territory, but rather to give a natural consequence to a pair of failed Medicine checks that generated Threat. If that was a miscalculation, I apologize! (Clearly, one of you may want to invest in Medicine, or you need to make a friend like Nurse Claire from the Marvel Netflix shows!)

With all that in mind, note that if your character(s) are adverse to killing, Brawl checks can always be targeted versus Strain instead of Wounds and therefore be considered non-lethal. With Minions and Rivals, there's little distinction, since these types of enemies don't have a separate Strain Threshold. But for Nemeses, you can always declare that you're targeting Strain and using non-lethal means.

Finally, if a situation ever comes up where you think you'll want to interrogate an enemy after a battle, that's where you Grapplers come in. If you can get an enemy to submit through opposed Grappling checks, you'll avoid the Medicine check altogether. In my mind, an enemy felled by a Striking attack is probably unconscious and will need to be revived.

Let me know if you have different expectations on any of that.

No worries as a player man I was trying to play the scene. Maybe I should put more add some inner monologue.

With the meta, at least to me, Max is probably younger than most since he's a Student (which is why there's a lots of Misters and Ma'am tossed out). So if asked someone died and he couldn't stop it, didn't matter if they did bad or good it was a needless death (Looking at Medicine Ranks and possibly Apothecary if it carries over to try and rectify that). The heavy moment would be he thinks Collisto might have accidentally killed a man out of combat. Should he say something about that? Which leads to where Max's slumped now. No mood brought down for me personally but all the old hats might realize after words younger people look up to them and their actions hold definition and meaning.

Might even lead to Max looking for a custom item 'Smelling Salts' if we don't have something in system/lore to bring someone around 'safely'.

Flip side yall realize Max might have realized he just killed several rope a dope thugs too...

Marv'll stick around to be treated for his concussion and maybe a bit of wound heal if he can get it. He has enough strain that he's not totally against going out again tonight, but he would definitely be stronger with a good night's sleep.

Ditto for Hank.

We've got a few leads:
1. Ivanovich in the Sticks
2. Go to the warehouse district (that may not even help if they're expecting Lance)
3. The map of the drive-in
4. Harry's Holiday Haven (a bit of a weak lead)

I don't see any reason that we'd need to hunt any of them down tonight, other than it being a bit more badass to do so in the middle of the night.

My vote would be the drive-in first, in case there's another attack planned for there that we could prevent. But I'm open to other suggestions as well.

That description makes perfect sense, Remnant. It's like one of those scenes in a martial-arts film where one of the characters realizes the power they wield for the first time and has a reckoning. Glad we cleared all that up.

Regarding leads: There's the partial plate, too.

Appreciate the list, I'm eyeing up the drive-in followed by Ivanovich.

In a game with a lot of delightful posts, this one is probably my favorite.

I like the drive-in as a first point of investigation as well, especially since we don't have a specific warehouse to sneak into and do some poking around. I think going straight to Ivanovich tips our hand a bit early and maybe puts Lance in danger. It might be interesting to find out what our characters know about the drive in, or if we know somebody who knows about the drive in. I don't have any ranks in any knowledge skills but maybe somebody knows a little something about the city?

We could always go buy some Lance masks as Harry's and show up to the warehouse doing our best impersonations (kidding, but would also be hilarious in a comedy-action movie)

My vote is Harry's on the way to the drive in. Marv is a barrel forward kinda guy, but he'd be open to beinv redirected to hit the street a bit. He might even know some folks from his job as a PI

I'm good with that. I like the idea of a "Hit the Streets" montage, with some suitably sweet 80s music, but also ready to get back in the action too. With any luck there'll be other montage opportunities.

Hi all, I'm going to be running a play by post "two-shot" of shadow of the beanstalk using the adventure that was officially run at cons when the setting was first introduced. I'll be running it on a discord server. If any of you are interested, you are very much invited! You can join here: https://discord.gg/UNrwmST. I'm looking for ~4ish players and will be advertising to groups I've had fun playing with before I open up broad advertising. I'm looking for a 3-5x/week posting rate, and am open to running 2 simultaneous games with 2 groups of 4 if I get the interest.

Been having a blast with you guys!

I appreciate the invite, but a couple other pbp games I'm in are starting to ramp up, so don't want to overdo it. Enjoy the game though!

Played in two of them at or after Gen Con. Gotta love the riste.

Happy February! +5 XP to everyone. Feel free to bank it or spend it, but please let me know what you do with it.

Since I'm the smarty and less punchy one of the group one may note my obsessive profiling post earlier I thinking the Knowledge Society for 10 XP is a good use of XP for coverage we plenty of punchy kicky peps, no one with glasses for the Shift and stating 'it's all going according to my plan'.

That said what are the likeliness of being able to port over Apothocary from RoT with Max mixing up concoctions for people to chill around that are burning or have to drink to help with natural healing, medicine would be more expensive XP I figure and more burst (I have to actually roll well for it to work).

I think I'll spend my points on another rank of Brawl (Striking).

Marv is vigilance ygg

I'd say Marv should roll, I only have YG.

Do you mean parallel in your last post or are they about to cross onto the road we're walking on?

If you look at the map, you can see you're walking along a north-south path. They seem to be moving east-west and trying to block off the opening in the trees you just passed through.

Nicely done, Max! This is one of those glorious times when PBP is actually perfect. Combat pauses while everyone waits with bated breath to see what the Pantone Grappler will do...

Worse case scenario Max becomes a mad man and runs behinds Henry, "Put down the weapons or the keys get dropped down the back of his pants! Any sass and it's the front!"

Big sweaty guy like Henry, that's a fate worse than death. Might as well file the insurance claim on the car at that point.

Literally g for negotiation here. I'll let others make the checks unless his inevitable failure would provide comedy for us.

Literally g for negotiation here. I'll let others make the checks unless his inevitable failure would provide comedy for us.

Doesn't have to be Negotiation necessarily. Coercion and Deception are viable, just depends on how you want to spin your approach. Both of those would be Average (PP) with the same boosts and setbacks as Negotiation (or Charm).

Welcome to March! Please take another +5 XP. Feel free to spend it immediately or bank for later use. Just let me know either way.

(We're also nearing the end of a session, which will be worth another +15 XP, if that helps you make a decision on what you'd like to do.)

Wooow. I thought I remembered reading that she'd turned down an offer, then looked back to reference it during a boring work meeting and read a post too far back like 3 times and decided I misremembered. Marv is clearly still recovering from his concussion.

@SavageBob What are your thoughts on allowing the Apothecary Talent from RoT. I'm thinking of taking Rank 1 & 2 as the resident healer of the group if so. Think Herbal Tea supplements and pungent salve rubs to put on the body Max has whipped up from herbs and household products... 'Why does this burn my eyes?' 'It's Ghetto Tigerbalm'.

I'm fine with it. We could also rename it "Physician" if you'd like. It's basically a buff to natural healing for the group, so it could be skinned however makes sense for you in the setting.

Painkiller Specialization is arguably more useful for the immediate benefit it provides, but that's Tier 3.

True I'll put it on the list and see how the story plays out.

Update: Also looking at Animal Companion later on cus every good cop needs a black German Sheperd named Duke...

Catfishing Petrovich is a fun idea that we can pursue. You could even use Lance's computer in his office if that's what you decide on.

Remember, too, that you still haven't established the identity of the masked-attacker group. That may or may not be necessary if you think Petrovich can get you closer to the warehouse, but thought I'd mention it in case that thread was forgotten. (You got a partial on their plate, and you presumably have images of them unmasked after the brawl at the gym.)

Some streetwise in the industrial district may get you closer to the warehouse, too.

My advice: Go with what seems the most fun. ;)

As the beat cop of the group I obvious vote for streetwise in Pillsville since that's where he grew up living out of a van on the street with his fam.

Is it time for a montage?

We could do a streetwise montage (looking for Victor and trying for an ID on the unmasked pictures) and an 80s/90s computer montage. Edited together with a sweet synth soundtrack.

I like a montage idea, cutting between the streets and somebody on a computer working on the catfishing. I was under the impression Petrovich was our lead on the masked group since he was buying the masks, but if you think we could run that partial plate into something bigger, maybe we lean on Max's buddy in the car pool? I'd be happy to perform or assist with a streetwise check (ygg from me) but am worthless on the computer

Well, leads can sometimes be intertwined, so it's possible Petrovich leads to the masked group, or vice-versa depending on how you want to pursue it.

As for the montage, I can see this going two ways:

Option 1) We do a "skill challenge." You all do something related to a single goal, using different skills to do so. You have to accumulate enough uncanceled successes to get the thing to happen. So, in this case, maybe the goal would be to lure Petrovich somewhere you'd have the upper hand over him. But it has to be a common goal.

Option 2) We split up and just run two or three things simultaneously. Catfish Petrovich, run the plates, hit the streets in Pillsville. The goal's not the same, so it would be separate checks, and a bit less montage-y.

What do y'all think?

What about option 2, followed by option 1? We get more info on who we're working with by running the plates and hitting the streets, which may give us boosts or something during our Luring Petrovich montage?

That works, too. Max can even call his buddy on the force to do the plate run for a Story Point.

(I'm wondering if for next session we don't adopt the Favor system from Shadow of the Beanstalk.)

As someone who built a riste with several favor talents favors are awesome but made the GM nervous of meh network.

Favors are only broken if they don't get called in inconveniently. Tbh the rules of it are so loose its barely a system at all once you move past recommended examples and char creation because it's all just narrative and fiat to determine size of favor. It's basically just the concept of owing favors mentioned in a rulebook.

So is it better to just keep it to the level of "I know a guy..." and a Story Point flip?

I dunno, I actually think the ideas of exchanging and owing favors is super cool, I just don't know that you have to invoke a system to use it. I reread thru the section and think maybe the only system specific aspect to use is the string them along mechanic. Unless I'm reading it wrong, there's not really a mechanism to start off with favors owed to the pc, which makes it hard for me to see where the system enables pre existing relationships to solve the issue we already have, I would think we might still need to invoke sp to say we know somebody we could ask a favor of even if we end up owing them one in return (which I think is a cool wrinkle, but is also just a part of general society, not like a specific system thing.)

I'm curious if I'm maybe missing an aspect of the system. I am 1000% on board to bring it in because I like the general idea. I don't really have a gripe beyond calling what is just part of social interaction a setting specific "system," which is honestly more observation than gripe.

To move things forward, who wants to hit the streets with Marv to see if they can do a bit of background work while (presumptively) Max runs the plates? Maybe we could also do the gone in 60 seconds thing where we just pay dmv for a list of plate registration data (if that's even possible)?

Hank's good with hitting the streets.

First, a head's up: Big welcome to nezzeraj, who is brand-new to Gamers Plane and requested to join us. Nezzeraj, please feel free to post here in the OOC thread if you need advice on your character build. We're nearing the end of a session, so I think it makes sense to introduce the new character at the start of Session 2, which I hope should be this week sometime.

So, sounds like Hank and Marv are hitting the streets in Pillsville, while Max will run the plates. (The DMV option sounds fun, too, but since he's a cop, it might just be easier for him to go through his guy or do it on his own and try to keep it quiet.) Is anyone doing the catfish thing? Or should we save that for later? Somebox, what is Red up to?

Hooray, welcome nezzeraj!

Seems like catfishing once we have the results of plates/streets/whatever tricks Red has up her sleeves may be a good start for session 2. Unless Red wants to try it at the same time...

Awesome. I feel like ever since that back alley Hank and Marv are really jiving all the way down to our in action one liners and I'm psyched for it (I think of us like the bash Brothers of our larger mighty ducks family). I have 1 streetwise 3 cunning. Do you beat either of those or should I roll with a boost for our team up hit the streets? (you could also roll with a boost from me if you are ygg as well)

Also let me know what you two are looking for: Information on the masked attackers, or information on warehouses with suspicious activity lately? That's two different checks, and you can try both, depending on results. But which one first?

Agreed! I feel like it's 'cause we're the two sassy old fogeys that we work well together. I've just got 2G, so go ahead and roll it.

My inclination would be to get info on suspicious warehouse activity first, because I think it's less likely to attract unwanted attention. Of course, if it goes poorly and we only get a chance to ask around once, the masked intruders question is more important. So I could go either way.

For either goal, I'd be using my status as a laborer to try to connect with the local staff and commiserate about the BS that comes from the higher-ups ("Now we gotta go out to the boonies to pick up from some warehouse I don't know to get them a higher paycheck!").

Oof for this triumph I have an idea that may be op, very open to other thoughts. Maybe one of these dudes is on the take and makes a break for it if his buddies give us info and we can chase him down and beat/intimidate some info we normally wouldn't have gotten here out of him?

Also, big welcome to nezzeraj! Stoked to have another join our rumble! I'm sure any of us would be happy to help if you have questions as best we can. You stumbled into a pretty fun group imo.

looks like GP doesn't recognize triumph as also success. Is that the way it is in sw rpg?

No, it's a bug in the Gamers Plane dice app. It also doesn't recognize Despair as being worth a Failure in addition to the Despair result. We just have to be vigilant in doing the mental math in such cases.

Also if the Police Captain looks like Jocko Willink that'd be great...

Starting cash

By the way, folks, I wanted to share some sad news: Somebox (and Red) will be exiting the game. She and I have been in communication via PM, and she assures me that her leaving has nothing to do with me or any of you. Rather, when she joined, she thought she'd give a modern-day game a try despite her preference for fantasy and historical stuff. However, she's found it hard to get invested in the contemporary setting after all. I'm sad to see her go, but I'm glad she reached out to me so we can write her out amicably. (Too often in PbP, people just ghost.)

Fortunately, we have nezzaraj waiting in the wings. For now, let's assume Red is still hanging out with Max. As we wind the session down with these last few checks, we can swap out her character for nezzeraj's, probably as we begin Session 2.

Excelsior, somebox!

Sorry to see you leave this game but you're still around in our other games.

It's been a pleasure, somebox! May all your future games be fantastically historical. :)

Been fun to play with you somebox! Sorry that you haven't found a hook into this modern setting. Hope to see you on the sword and sorcery side of things sometime in the future!

Let me know if there's anything else y'all want to try in the warehouse, Eskaton and Kermit.

In the meantime, let's call Session 1 to a soft close here. Everyone gets 20 XP for this session. (Nezzeraj, you've already been awarded this amount.) Feel free to start spending it or banking it as you see fit. This is 5 XP for each encounter: the gym fight, the hair salon, the Pantones, and the precinct/warehouse.

A couple of thoughts regarding character advancement:

1) Skills cost 5 x new skill level to raise for career skills, [5 x new skill level] + 5 for out-of-career skills.

2) Don't overlook the unarmed attacks you can purchase for XP in this setting. A lot of you are relying on Knee over and over, which is fine, but don't forget to check the long-form description of different unarmed attacks, as some of them have benefits that don't translate to the basic weapon stats from the table.

3) By the same token, don't forget to check the Talent Tome (linked in the character-generation thread) for talents you might like that aren't specific to this setting. Toughened, Grit, and Knack for It are all workhorses that fit almost any build. (And I think I've demonstrated that I don't shy away from setbacks, making Knack for It a good buy.)

4) I'm not really sure what to do about money in this game. You've all created solidly middle-class types, so the standard "beat-folks-up-and-take-their-pocket-change" RPG style doesn't feel appropriate. Why don't we say you all have steady income sources and get $200 between sessions? That's enough to either save up for some better equipment you might want, or to restock your stores of hydrade and painkillers.

Apothecary R1&2 as discussed for 15
Jab T2

Cool, can't wait to join in one session 2!

Eskaton, Kermit, any thought on how you're going to spend the XP?

fyi here's my future XP wishlist, just a heads up I'm gonna get a cop dog... XD

Animal Companion 15 (K9 Unit)
Counter Strike 15
Enduring 20
Grit R1 5
Grit R2 10
Defensive Stance R1 10
Defensive Stance R2 15

Knee -5
Power Attack 20
Perception R1 -5xp
Heighten Awareness
Knack for it

I'll need to dig back through the options, but definitely planning on another unarmed attack or two. I'm a bit tired of shoehorning every single attack into a knee.

Ok, I've still got my 5 XP for March, which makes it 25 banked. I opted for the Fancy Footwork talent (15) and the Punch attack (10).

I'll have to take a look at supplies and see what strikes my fancy to spend funds on.

Actually I'm not eligible for Fancy Footwork yet. I opted for Jab instead, and I think I'll just bank the 5 left over for now.

Am I correct in thinking that I can use either Jab or a weapon, but I can't get the damage and accuracy bonus from using Punch while I jab?

No, I think you can use Jab with any unarmed weapon, whether that's a Punch, a Kick, a Takedown, or something else. By activating the talent, you just agree to do half stun damage, but you also impose the two setbacks on the opponent's next check. It's basically a way to disorient them at will.

Ok, so here's how I'll spend, I had 35 exp to spend and spent it on: Parry (5), unarmed parry (5), Berserk (10), Knowledge (Society) (5), Desperate Recovery (5) leaving 5 in the bank that I plan to spend on jab next.

Looks good, Eskaton. Note that the Berserk talent has some interesting synergy with the Mossil-Max pills:

"Taking Mossil-Max Pills as a maneuver gives a char- acter +1 Brawn for the remainder of the encounter. However, the character must upgrade the difficulty of all Cool and Discipline checks once for the remainder of the session. This penalty stacks if Mossil-Max Pills are taken in multiple encounters per session.

"If a character who has taken Mossil-Max Pills uses the Berserk talent they must make a Brawl or Melee check every turn possible, even if it’s against an ally. But they add Success to Brawl and Melee combat checks, in addition to the benefits already granted by the Berserk talent. At the end of the encounter, the character suffers 4 additional strain."

In case Marv wants to 'roid up...

Oh hell yeah. Thanks for pointing that out

Haha I think all of us are scared to be the face. I'm throwing g for presence. Anybody better?

Guy's GGG. Nobody in the group has any points in Leadership or Charm, but you have Story Points if you want to use them. Again, boosts for the badges on Leadership; but regular boosts can apply, too if folks assist narratively.

Jump on in there, Nezzeraj! ;)

Zomg, Guy for president. You are truly our savior.

I did my best lol. Very rarely see a perfectly cancelled roll.

So, that approach is actually Deception. The difficulty is the same, and Guy's GGG in Cunning, too, so we can keep the roll. (But note I added a couple more setbacks due to stranger danger and the fact that one of you is wearing body armor and others are in Gi).

I'll pause in case someone wants to offer a narrative boost. May push the roll into success.

Oh, I added the setback for the body armor already since you mentioned that in a previous post.

Also I'm in a leather jacket, but if Hank is in a GI that's cool

I also only wear my Gi when teaching lessons or in a dojo. Just wearing my Hawaiian shirts and comfy shorts when around on the town.

Yeah, I normally have my heavy jacket, and then take it off and reveal the gi when it's time to GET SERIOUS.

Yeah, it should be 3 setbacks total: 2 for stranger danger (you're a bunch of unknowns to her), and 1 for the body armor. (This isn't to penalize Remnant, but rather seems like a natural consequence of wearing body armor around civilians.) I do the same in my Star Wars games when the players want to walk around with huge vibro-axes or blaster rifles and then talk to old ladies to get information and so on. ;)

Oh yeah, no problem. Just making sure I wasn't being penalized twice lol.

Also remember that the Knack for It talent costs 5 XP for level 1, 10 for level 2. All told, that lets you remove 2 setbacks from 3 non-combat skills of your choosing. ;)

Yeah I'm thinking of becoming for of the "face" character of the group since no one else has any social skills lol. I'll build that up through gameplay.

So far we've been pretty bungling in the social side of things, rofl

It seems I just bungle all rolls lol

If it makes you feel better the rookie cop caused more fatalities then the group will likely see in one action than I would care to admit...

Yeah, really I think we're a charmingly bungling group. I'm expressly built for combat, but did nothing but whiff the last time. It's one of the delightful things about playing Big Damn Heroes when most of the challenges come down to die rolls.

Thought Marv was the only charming person. Oddly enough the rookie cop I think is the natural deceptive one of the group also...

This is a test. It seems like every time I edit a post to add in a boost or a setback, it almost always comes up blank. So let's try a made-up roll...

OK, now adding some boosts and setbacks after the fact...

Meh. Maybe it's my imagination.

Does it still switch out player for ic pc post?

Yeah, if I edit a player's post, the software removes their character avatar and replaces it with the player's avatar. Annoying, but I suspect it's because I don't have authority to post as the character.

The boost was for my Dueling talent that gives me a free boost any time I'm fighting 1v1.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Yeah, that makes sense and won't cost you the 2 strain. Nice talent!

By the way, happy April! +5 XP to all of you. Feel free to bank it, but please let me know what you spend it on if you do.

Banking for the K9 Unit Talent. =d

Saving up for Joint Submission unarmed attack so I'm better at dealing with people after I use Takedown.

Maybe I should get a baton and disorient people for you to speartackle into a submission move, If they run my K9 can chase them down while we drive behind in the car and eat snacks... Thanks for driving Hank.

Also remember that Grappling someone till you have a Superior position over them gives you bonuses to Striking attacks on them. Since Grappling is so much harder (since it's opposed), I'm getting the impression that it's intended to pair with Striking to some extent by making your checks easier once you successfully get someone in your grasp.

I'm kinda torn here. We dragged Bosko into this place, and all he's done so far is try to get away from me. I don't want to let him go and have him attack us, but I also don't want to be a real jerk and beat the crap out of him for no good reason.

But an upgraded attack from superior positioning is very tempting...

LOL. Keep in mind that he's had nothing but trouble from y'all since you met him. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If his pools have been any indication, he has no combat prowess whatsoever. But do what Hank would do. :)

Ha! Fair enough. As much as it's fun to roll a ton of dice, Hank isn't the kind of guy to cram a kid in his locker just because he fits.

Ok I altered my post and added the opposed dice. I don't know what the Ks stand for, as no dice names or colors start with K :-(

K is for black b is for blue, max still has the burner phone btw.

Yeah, sorry -- K = blacK. Problem with two dice that both start with BL. :)

Thanks for the recap! From the IC channel:

OOC:
So, all roads lead to this prison guard. You had all flirted with the idea of catfishing him somehow, so that may be an option. Going through law enforcement is possible (but again, one of the givens of this setting is widespread corruption). You have also learned that he works a regular cleanup detail somewhere in the Sticks. And the kidnapping victims are still out there, just not in the first warehouse.

If we look for his work detail in the sticks or the warehouse, we may have to do more asking around on the streets. Not really sure how we'd find him otherwise.

I still like the idea of catfishing him. Maybe we could get Fatima's number from the Pantones and have "Lance" text her about a potential alliance. If her phone is still on, we could potentially trap Petrovich while he's setting a trap for Lance. Open to whatever, but that's my first thought to make catfishing work.

Well, finding his work detail shouldn't be difficult. Max can just ask around the precinct. My intention was actually to have already given you this information. Didn't the Pantones reveal where Fatima was released from? Jimmy and Lance had to have been let go from somewhere, too.

Finding the warehouse would require some asking around, yes. Streetwise checks, say, now that you know a bit more about the operation.

You also befriended Tasha, the Pantones' second-in-command, so she might be useful in a catfishing scheme, too. Remember that their boss got nabbed because they refused to go along with Petrovich's kidnapping scheme. Maybe Tasha could contact him and say she's willing to play ball.

Just helping spitball ideas. Key clues and connections sometimes get lost in the shuffle in play-by-post!

So, what's the plan, folks? :)

I'm totally lost on most of this since I wasn't around for the first session. I think finding the warehouse would be what my character would do since he doesn't know these other NPCs mentioned.

Realistically, I don't think catfishing is a Hank kind of plan either. I like the idea of luring Petrovich out, hopefully without the whole gang that's holed up at the warehouse.

Last time we went to the warehouse, we ended up just scaring them away. So if that's the plan, we'll need a better approach than "Hey, can we come in?"

Um... because we already tried that.

For the benefit of nezzeraj, the plot as you have uncovered it:

A Russian-sounding prison guard named Petrovich struck a deal with three prisoners: I'll let you go, if you do me a favor down the road. He let them go during work details in the Sticks. When he or his forces followed up later, they told the released convicts to start kidnapping people and bringing them to a warehouse. Two of the three convicts said no (the leader of the Pantones vigilante gang, and the owner of the One-Two Gym, your pal Lance Mikowski). Grinning Jimmy of the Havoc Hounds agreed to play ball. Meanwhile, Petrovich decided to exact payback on the two convicts who turned him down -- the Havoc Hounds, on his orders, nabbed Fatima, leader of the Pantones, and made an attempt on Lance (which the PCs foiled). More recently, he's cut off Jimmy of the Havoc Hounds, too, for their failure to nab Lance.

In uncovering this information, the PCs have befriended the Pantones, who are keen to get their leader, Fatima, back. Meanwhile, Lance has gone into hiding so as not to put you all in undo danger. (You've done that on your own. ;) ) You've found the warehouse, but the bad guys had already abandoned it to find a new one by that point.

We're barreling toward the finale of this "movie," so another way to think about this is where do you want the battlefield to be? The side of the highway in the Sticks? The warehouse? Somewhere else of your choosing, assuming you can lure the foe out?

That was a great summary, thanks! With that info, I think laying an ambush would be cool. Have Jimmy and Lance meet somewhere public, and try to lure out Petrovich. He probably still wants to try to kidnap Lance and get back at Jimmy for his failure, or maybe even get scared that Jimmy has spilled the beans to Lance and now he stands a chance of his plot getting uncovered.

That's a solid plan. I'm a big fan of having player actions bear fruit (or consequences), so also remember that you all have befriended the Pantones, too, and their leader is currently kidnapped.

Y'all let me know what the plan is, and we can montage any preparatory work.

Yeah, I like that. Bringing Lance back in gives him a chance to get payback, and it even gives Jimmy a chance to get his crew back from Petrovich (if we care about that).

How about this: We put the word out on the street that Lance wants to meet with Jimmy to share some information about a mutual friend. That should be ominous enough to make Petrovich want to get involved. We set the meetup for the Old Elektria Factory in Pillsville (https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/14552/...neutral ground, badass place for a final confrontation), and stake it out beforehand so we and the Pantones can be hiding and ready for things to pop off.

I like it

I like it too. Only question in my mind is whether or not Lance is willing to come back and put himself on the line seeing as he skipped town. Hopefully if we get ahold of Petrovich we can help find Tasha, which will give the Pantones a good reason to stay loyal.

OK, so based on this description and the one IC, it seems like the plan has these steps:

1. Spread word that Jimmy is planning to make a move against Petrovich. Maybe the rumor is that he'll be meeting with Lance. Make sure word gets spread to where Petrovich will find out (like the prison).

2. Get the Pantones come along for the ambush.

3. Lure Petrovich somewhere to deal with Jimmy and Lance.

4. Ambush him with aid of Pantones.

That sound right? If so, I'll throw out some difficulties and we can montage things to get us there.

Oh, and Happy May! 5 XP to everyone. Let me know if you spend it; otherwise feel free to bank it.

Yep sounds like the plan I had in mind!

I'll bank. And that is exactly what I was thinking.

I'd like to take Animal Companion but that would require stating a police K-9 Dog or Counterstrike.

We can just use the Dog (Rival) stats from the Expanded Player's Guide:

Brawn 2, Agility 3, Intellect 1, Cunning 3, Willpower 2, Presence 2

Soak 2, Wounds 5, Defense 0

Skills: Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Charm 2, Perception 1, Survival 1, Vigilance 2

Talents: None.

Abilities: Pack Fighter (if this creature makes a successful combat check, the next ally making a combat check against the same target during the same round adds 2 Advantages to the results), Silhouette 0.

Equipment: Bite (Brawl; Damage 4; Critical 3; Range [Engaged]; Knockdown).

Well that was easy looks who's playing Dead to Rights the RPG now.

*Taking Animal Companion*

banking mine for now

LOL. Feel free to customize by moving a point of skills around here or there. I can see trading Charm for Coercion if you wanted, for instance, or lowering Charm to 1 and then taking Coercion 1. Or improving Perception to 2 but lowering something else to 1 to represent a trained drug-sniffing dog.

Agreed, that was my plan as well. And I'll bank for now too.

Actually going to spend my 5 XP on a rank of coercion.

Just wanna run it by the group. Irl I think I'd buy Jimmy some new clothes but I've got 1 green dice for negotiation, and only 2 greens for medicine, which means the odds of failure than the odds of success for both without boosts. I don't want to burn up our failures on long shots. What do you guys think?

Alternative solutions are possible, too. Like with enough advantages, you could revive Jimmy and get him to tell you where he lives to get a change of clothes. Or Coercion on a lacky to give up his pants. Etc. etc.

I like the sound of using negotiation for new clothes. I've got GG, and I'd argue I probably have some changes of clothes and/or connections for getting more from working at One Two doing maintenance and various messy jobs. Would that be worth a boost or two?

I was also thinking of making a leadership roll for recruiting the Pantones, so not sure if I could roll both.

Both of those sound plausible. In this case, Negotiation represents knowing where to get a cheap pair of pants (Negotiation as bargain hunting in this case). If failing the roll is the fear, just say y'all buy him new pants at a big box store for $30 and be done with it. But rolling opens the door for more successes, and possibly advantages. If you opt to roll, Hank can get a boost for familiarity with the big boxes in Drummond.

Leadership is even better than Charm for the Pantones, I think. Feel free to roll that. Let's say Average if it's just on Tasha; Hard (PPP) if you want to try to recruit a few more folks. Same boosts I indicated for Charm.

I think that's an awesome idea for you to roll negotiation. Didn't mean to close you off from other actions, just thought thought I'd drag you along because Marv would definitely want his bud to back him up (and trying to keep the pace up)

Guy will be the one to spread the word. Since he wasn't involved in the kidnapping he is probably unknown to Petrovich and his accomplices so it should increase the believability of the rumors. Just tell me what to roll lol. Also, what's limited posting?

As far as Max's approach, seems like the 2 main gaps we have currently are getting Lance on board, and spreading rumors within the police force. I think Max may be our best party face, so it makes sense for him to try. Maybe go for the cops first?

I'm still planning on rolling for the Pantones in our "round 2" of skill rolls. If we can get them on board, we may have a few potential boosts for Lance: 1) The overall plan and intel on Petrovich, 2) Jimmy and the Pantones cooperating, 3) Lance's speech in session 1 about making Rumble City a safer place. This is his big chance to put his ideals into action. Bringing Lance in is a big win if we can get him, so it'd be worth a story point too.

All that sounds doable. Let's give Remnant till midday tomorrow; if he's still out, I'll ask one of you to roll for him and the rumors among the police force.

I'm rolling 2 green for any charm rolls didn't know that was the best we got, I'm more likely to hunt down Lance to get buyin from him truth if we still with the story so far about police involvement.

Guy is actually your best charmer with a GGG pool. Same for Leadership.

Nice work, guys! I think we've also got 2 floating boosts from my next success for the next check we make.

I'll let Guy roll since it was his idea first, just wanted to assist where able!

That works. Guy's only got GGG, but with Marv or Hank providing skilled assistance, that goes up to YGG. BB from the other two PCs lending a hand, and BB more from remaining boosts.

YGGBBBB + RPP.

I don't have Streetwise. I just give off that vibe.

I'll get the setup post for the final showdown up later today. Sorry for the delay!

Hey, folks,

I wanted to take a quick check of the temperature of the room. The idea for this final encounter was for you to face off with Petrovich and a bunch of his crooked-cop friends. (Whether that would be a physical altercation or something else is still up in the air.) However, I have to admit to some personal unease with this scenario given recent events in the U.S.

How do y'all feel about this? Police corruption is one of the premises of this setting, but if that's something that you feel is in poor taste (for whatever reason) given current events, we can certainly play down that aspect to make it more of a background element.

So, how do you all feel? Big battles with crooked cops are fair game? Play it down? The game can proceed either way.

Good call pausing here. Definitely unfortunate timing.

I'm personally fine proceeding as normal, but totally understand if anyone wants to play it down. I don't think we need to view the logical climax of this game as a larger statement on anything, but I realize that may be easier said than done.

I'll defer and see what others think.

I agree with Kermit here. Police corruption is a real thing that was a theme in this game long before current events. I haven't gotten the sense that anybody here is bringing RL stuff into the game thus far, and doubt they would going forward. I have been having a ton of fun and think that people can take the costume the in-game conflict is wearing for what it is, but am happy to also recognize if it makes people uncomfortable that's a valid feeling and happy to respect that.

Life imitates art which imitates life. I'm for keeping it going as usual.

I'm okay this is fiction. I'm literally playing a rookie Asian cop that's walking the line of legality that was homeless as a kid.

That said real life situations with Law Enforcement and what's in the headlines have technically been going on before the site was around honestly (several decades). It's "quieter" outside due to COVID19 and technology has also elevated light on situations people wouldn't know about due to situational timing or regional/local footprint. Its just more public and kicking a hornets nests when the hornets are already suffering from cabin fever.

Meta: I was under the impression this was crooked cops linked to a Russian bratva that are legally cops but not doing things legally.

OK, thanks for weighing in, everyone. We'll continue with the police angle, but in a way that doesn't directly reference current events.

Meta reply: You know there is some sort of Russian/Eastern European connection, but not quite what it is yet. You also know that Petrovich works as a prison guard, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's a cop per se.

Meta meta: June 1 has come and gone. Everyone gets 5 XP to spend or bank as they please!

Spending 10xp for rank 1 Charm.

Hey, folks; sorry for the delay. Things got busy over the weekend, and I'm trying to catch up. I should have an update tomorrow!

Dumb question: The picture is different from the original one for Mr P. Is this purposely or it's actually the same guy? Just curious. And yeah... dealing with RL crap plus dentist visit. Mental note via inspired by the dentist recently the smell of burning bone is going into my next horror game...

Yikes. Glad that's over for you! They should figure out a way to inoculate patients from the smell of drilling. The feeling and sound of it are bad enough.

So, I created Victor Petrovich's character sheet before I introduced him into the narrative, so chalk the discrepancy up to GM error. It's supposed to be the same guy. Is this the original image?

I believe that's right.

If I'm driving this hero bus, I think I might just switch over to combat. Hank isn't built for social encounters, and I think dragging it out will just hit us with a lot more strain.

I'll pause for tonight in case anyone else wants to jump in, but if nobody wants to help with the parley by tomorrow morning, I'll figure out some in-character way to make the shift.

Adjusts glasses that's technically the right thing to do... Pet does not have jurisdiction in the matter any more. And in truth I'm pretty sure he wouldn't want a full blown investigation from an outside source.

Good call. Since this is a social combat, I'm guessing I can't aid, but if I can, I could jump in to add a boost or something.

That's always possible. It just means you don't get to make your own individual "attack" until they get another go. But for a non-social character, that's often a valid strategy.

I guess if you're not doing social combat member on of the two flunkies had a bum arm that you can dislocate... XD Preparation for devastation. Que the wrestling music here.

Happy July! Let's do 10 XP this month, but with the caveat that you have to spend it on social skills. Maybe that will help in situations like this, when you don't want to make the first move. Let me know how you spend it!

Spending mine on R2 of Coercion

I'll do the same

Sorry been moving the past two days. I should be able to post something tonight.

Great, hope the move's gone well. I HATE moving.

For whoever makes the next post...nobody mentioned Fatima except Vic, so pointing that out may help us out... Also, I don't think we mentioned the mask receipt carried by the attackers, or the eye-witness testimonies.

Yeah it went well enough. Our new place is slightly bigger, but less storage, so we are still trying to organize and fit everything, bags lying all over the place lol. I am also starting a new job, but have to attend training seminars on the weekends, so I'll be working the next 15 days or so straight without a day off. I'll try to post when I'm conscious lol.

Wow, big stuff! Congratulations on the move and new job!

Thanks! New place is about 90% organized now. Still have 3 more weekend days I have to work but everything should settle down soon!

Taking Grit R1 for 5 and using July XP for Knack for It Rank 2 Deception and Streetwise. Does that work?

Yeah, that's fine.

Hey, folks! Just a head's up that I'll be on vacation this coming week (Saturday to Saturday). I'm not sure what the Internet situation is going to be yet, so my posting may be reduced.

We're still waiting on Marv and Max to take actions, so y'all go ahead and do what you're gonna do!

Enjoy!

How do I stop grappling? I'd planned on just breaking out of the grapple, but gained a neutral position instead. Can I choose to make a different attack, either while we're grappling or after escaping?

The Ready... Fight rules say another opposed Brawl (Grappling) check is needed to do so. But I think that sounds like overkill. From a neutral position, I don't see why you can't just declare that you're disengaging, spend a maneuver, and disengage.

By the way, can we call the Pantones in? We didn't really cover that, but I'd guess they'd have either planned to come when the cops swarmed, or we'd set up a signal or something. Does someone need to spend a maneuver or story point to send the signal?

Yeah, I'd say calling them up is going to take a maneuver to take your phone out, and a second to place the call. Same for a text. But note that they're far enough away that they likely wouldn't arrive until several minutes had passed.

Y'all, I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but this is feeling like a losing battle.

Well, you'd assume it's going to be a bit harder to breath soon, at least. The fight's not meant to be unwinnable, but I do think you'll need to think about strategy when next round is likely to see some pepper balls enter the fray.

It'll take a while to type up but Max adjusts glasses.

By the way, can somebody get to the rope to set off the weight trap now that cops are at the back door? Hank's got his hands full at the moment. :)

That was training for the next time the Mayor has a press conference and people attack the gym in the efforts to cause mayhem or kidnap the mayor... Maybe I can get a workshop with Homeland Security in what to do when someone is trying to kidnap the mayor and make a guide... *adjust glasses*

Before we progress any further, I wanted to reiterate a core premise of this game: The cops are corrupt, and many of them are bad guys.

I bring this up, because I think Max's approach makes sense from a character angle, but it's going to be very, very difficult for him to convince the six SWAT cops to back down, or to convince Lance or Jimmy to just surrender. Ultimately, I suspect that this experience may be a huge wake-up call to Max that he's one of a select few clean cops in this town.

I also bring this up to make sure you're on the same page, Remnant. I don't want to step on you trying to play this as a police procedural. If there's a fundamental disconnect in our assumptions, I wanted to make mine clear. My inspiration here includes some action cops flick, but it's more The Warriors than anything else.

Agree the heavies came loaded for bear, but what's that saying...? Cut off the head of the snake and... The body consumes the head to avoid accountability?

I mean on the meta it makes sense but ICly Max has no reason to know which cops or penial system employees are on the take unless it's blatant. If I get black balled even by my captain for the Meta I just Karen my way out of it don't I? Submit my complaint to my Captain and the Mayor. Dime them out to media. Go knock on the US Marshals' door or make it a Federal case possibly both maybe put in an application. Procedurally I'm saying lets handle this the right way. If they say no and I get a fat lip I did my due diligence.

Eventually Max will put himself behind the Justicemobile with authority to start running over bad cops and associates I figure it just may not be in this gym. XD

Also it's blatant and suspect if someone states the right thing to do and you show up with shovels and body bags with your safety off on firearms. You can't 'mistakingly' do things like shot them. Plus yeah how else to you fight your way through armed full battle rattle swat cops that throw down more bullets then paperwork.

Yeah, that all makes sense. I just wanted to make sure it was a PC disconnect, and not a player one. We'll resolve Max's cop-ese in the IC.

In the meantime, happy August! Everyone gets +5 XP that you are welcome to spend or bank. Let me know if you buy something with it.

I'll let someone else go first. If Max or Marv isn't grappled/engaged and can get to the rope, I think it'd be good to spring the trap and hit the cops at the back door. Of course, Jimmy is there too, but maybe he's better able to dodge since he's off the soapy ground now?

And for the record, Hank is still hanging on surprisingly well for the moment, but not sure if Marv would know that.

So, do I take this silence as an indication that you're all frustrated with this combat or tired of this game? I was hemming and hawing about wrapping up the game as a one-shot after we ended this fight and found the warehouse, but I wasn't sure yet.

I think maybe I dragged the adventure out one encounter too long perhaps, so my apologies. But I also have some thoughts on the Ready... Fight! rules that I'd change if I were to run another game with that ruleset.*

On the other hand, if you're all just busy with RL, no worries. We can finish out the combat and resolve the adventure at the very least.

* (Basically, I think Grappling is broken. Genesys combat is meant to be fast, with most combats over in about 4 rounds. That's why the average combat check is versus Average (PP) difficulty. But with Grappling as an opposed check each time, it just causes too much back-and-forth with no one doing any damage to anyone else. If I were to do this again, I'd give would-be grapplers a few talents to choose from to give them additional abilities beyond the default, which is striking. In Star Wars, for instance, there's the Grapple talent that makes an enemy have to spend two maneuvers to escape Engaged range with you. Maybe Grapple (Improved) turns that into a check versus your Athletics, but that only applies to advanced Grapplers. And all damage is dealt with normal Brawl.)

Sorry Guy's the last PC to go since we all went I thought that's what we were waiting on.

I think half the group went Grappling since it is good for crowd control but we just haven't really had a lot of times (at least for me) it's overly useful especially since most actions for grappling when using strong moves will tire you out rapidly. More so for finishers I guess when people have high soak.

Yeah, I've been struggling with the utility of grappling, so I ended up veering more into striking. I'm happy to finish out this adventure, but I recently started running a Zoom game that's been taking up most of my game-brain space. Sorry for dropping off a bit in my responses.

Either way we go, I do want to say thanks to Bob for running this game and the rest of you for playing it. It's my first PBP, and I've had a lot of fun. I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy it, but I'm glad I played. On the whole I think PBP is a bit slow for my gaming appetite, but that's more just the medium than a criticism of this game.

Personally, I like your setting and the system, but I find the latter doesn't translate well to PbP. The narrative dice system requires so much adjudication, player input, multiple ways to spend dice results, raising and lowering checks, etc., that it slows games waaaay down in this format. Some rolls can take up to half a dozen posts just to resolve a single outcome. I would definitely play this game in person, I am not so interested in continuing this beyond a one-shot.

FWIW, I tried to deconstruct what Grappling is supposed to do and see how to represent it in a way that you could use in any setting without messing with the rules so much.

What does Brawl (Grappling) do? It lets you get certain bonuses versus an opponent depending on who has the upper hand at the moment: Neutral position (no bonuses), Advantageous position (+2 boosts on Brawl checks), Superior position (automatic upgrade on Brawl checks).

It lets you access the tables 3-2 and 3-3 for spending symbols on Grappling checks and takedown attempts. Of these, the most useful mimic options already on the standard table like this in the core rulebook (adding temporary Melee Defense, knocking the opponent prone, temporarily reducing the opponent's Melee Defense). The exception is ensnaring them, but that can be kept if you're still keeping the Unarmed Weapons list.

To that end, the Grappling unarmed weapons can be left largely as-is, but the concept of banking advantage for specific effects is kind of clunky and adds unnecessary bookkeeping. Those elements might be represented with a talent. To that end, I would try these:


TALENTS

Superior Positioning

Tier: 1
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: Yes
When your character activates the Ensnare or Knockdown quality after making a successful Brawl check against an enemy, add +Success +Advantage per level of this talent to any further Brawl checks against the same target (in addition to gaining the standard benefits of attacking a prone target) as long as the target remains prone or under the effects of the Ensnare quality.

Grapple (from Realms of Terrinoth)

Tier: 2
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: No
Your character may suffer 2 strain to use this talent. Until the start of your character's next turn, enemies must spend two maneuvers to disengage from your character.

Grapple (Improved)

Tier: 3
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: No
Your character must have purchased the Grapple talent to benefit from this talent. Your character may suffer 2 strain to use this talent. Until the start of your character's next turn, enemies must spend two maneuvers and make an opposed Athletics versus Brawl check targeting your character before they can disengage from your character. Likewise, if your character activates the Ensnare quality on a Brawl weapon, the enemy affected must make an opposed Athletics versus Brawl check targeting your character to escape the immobilized condition unless the standard difficulty is higher. In this latter case, your character does not need to suffer 2 strain to use this talent.

Awesome, Kermit! Glad you've got a good game going via Zoom. I haven't waded into that realm yet, but maybe I should. I love running games, and I miss actual voice play.

It's interesting to hear both of you essentially say that PbP is too slow for you. Was it the stay-at-home quarantines that compelled you to give it a shot?

But I feel like I've failed at my duty to the art form by not making things fast-paced enough! :) Again, I think part of that is due to Grappling being broken. Like I said, Genesys combats shouldn't last past the fourth round in most cases. But with Grappling, you can easily go two or three rounds with no one doing any damage at all since it's an opposed check with large dice pools.

Second, I may not have been proactive enough in asking players to spend their own symbols. This addresses Nezzeraj's point that it takes multiple rounds of back and forth to resolve dice rolls in Genesys. As I think about it, though, I think y'all have been pretty good about proactively spending your symbols. The problem, I think, comes in when an enemy rolls threats or despairs. I've been pausing to let y'all propose results, but in retrospect, maybe that stalled things out too much at the expense of giving you all more narrative input? Maybe it'd be useful if I run something new in Genesys (or Star Wars) to have a house rule that when an enemy rolls negative symbols, they don't get spent until another PC takes a turn? I'm thinking of situations where the initiative order features multiple NPCs in a row before the next PC slot.

Tl;dr, yes this system requires more back and forth than other ones, and I'd love more input on how to speed things up.

Regarding ending the game, why don't we just narrate it out? Maybe throw in some die rolls where it seems appropriate. Check the IC.

For me, yes quarantine was a major reason. But I also wanted to try it out as a new experience. I don't think PbP is too slow in general, I think it's just exacerbated by this particular system. I love the narrative dice system in person, but it requires a lot of arbitration and improv that occurs between players and GM organically in person, but doesn't translate as well in written format. Another thing I love about PbP is you can get more in character and develop characters more without hogging the spotlight that happens in tabletop games. But I feel that so many posts are taken up by combat, every time I check in on the thread, it's like 5 posts of dice rolls and only one post of actual plot/character relevant details. It makes reading posts feel unrewarding since the ratio of pertinent information to me is so low. I don't think this has anything to do with you as a GM or even the campaign, I think combat in general doesn't translate the action and excitement into PbP very well, and specifically with this system it seems really unsuited. I feel more character-driven or investigative systems like CoC translate much better to PbP than Genesys.

It's less this game, actually. I started playing in another PBP game after this one, and it's significantly slower. You both make good points about the system, but I think think it's mostly the fact that I go a day or two outside of the game headspace and then have to bring myself back into it.

Been offline for 3 days hope everyone's good.

Glad you're back! Hope all's well. We're trying to slip into the warehouse unseen. Hank's slinking underneath to cut their Internet cable.

Nezzeraj is right: It's September! +5 XP to everyone. Please let me know if you spend it. (And since we're wrapping up soon, you probably should!)

Huzzah! Any idea how much we should have total? I think I've spent my XP up to this month, but not positive.

Including the +15 I gave you at character creation, this should make 85 earned XP.

Thanks! I just saw you'd been tracking that in the Player Resource thread. And then we had 100 at character creation, right? So 185 including that?

I think I confused myself. For some reason I have my XP total at 130, which is way off whether I'm high or low. I'll go back through and figure out what I'm missing.

Edit:
Going back through, I think I've got a total of 30 to spend including this month. I see 55 points spent on non-creation stuff, and I see 30 points worth that I didn't say what I was spending them on in this thread. I have no clue where that 130 came from... apparently I'm not very consistent at documentation... :)

I ended up spending them on a 3rd rank of Brawl (Striking) and a Hook Punch attack.

FYI, I'll be off the grid this coming week. We're renting a cabin in the woods, so probably won't be able to post till next weekend.

Have fun! This is the final fight, so we can hold tight till once Hank's turn comes back around.

Uh oh, cabin in the woods movies never turn out well...please don't unleash any demons or anything lol.

Just a heads up: We're still winding this game down, but I wanted to go out with a bang with a big warehouse fight. Let's get creative; there might be all sorts of gadgets and bricks and barrels lying around to use for wanton mayhem. And Story Points: Last chance to use 'em!

Also, to keep things faster-paced, I'm going to ignore the special Grappling rules. If you want to make an attack with Brawl (Grappling), just roll the normal melee difficulty (PP). If you have any special grappling talents, let me know, and we can interpret them to give you some bang for that buck.

Now get to bashing heads!

Sorry for missing the month! +5 XP all around for October. As we're nearing the end of the adventure, you should spend it up. No need banking, so grab a lever of Grit, or Knack for It, or whatever else you can.

I'll update the main thread soon. Deadlines are a pain right now.

No special hurry, but looks like the Talent Tome from the Player Resource thread has been deleted.

Should be fixed! Seems it was because the document got updated, and the link changed accordingly. Shortcut.

Guess I'm taking Surgeon Rank 1 & 2 _-_

I took Duelist:

Duelist
Tier: 1
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Your character adds a boost to their melee combat checks while engaged with a single opponent. Your character adds a setback to their melee combat checks while engaged with three or more opponents.

Hey, folks! I've got a writing deadline this Monday, along with a bunch of job applications due then. I want to give you all a satisfactory wrap up, but it may have to wait until Tuesday. We'll see how things go. Sorry!

No problem! Life comes first!

Agreed, no worries at all. Good luck!

Curtain! Credits! The end!

Thanks to all of you for a fun game! It was great to test out the Ready...Fight! rules and play around in our little 80s-action-flick-inspired universe. You three all really brought your A games to PbP. Aside from the somewhat clunky grappling rules, I hope you enjoyed the experience.

If we had continued playing, I was planning to have the next adventure be about uncovering the pill-manufacturing part of the plot. Then the third movie would have been stopping the cross-Great Lakes smuggling part of it. But since we decided to end after the first movie, it made sense to just have all that come out with Mahoney's thumb drive.

Happy to post-mortem with y'all for a bit, to take constructive criticism, or just to shoot the shit. I also invite you all to join my next game, which I'm planning to solicit players for sometime later this week. (But no pressure to join it either.) I want to do a hardboiled detective game, but set in the Star Wars universe. So I'm thinking the FFG Star Wars system, with the PCs working for a private detective agency. Remnant's in something similar for fantasy, but I think it'll be an even more natural fit for Star Wars. (Also, Nezzeraj's Burning Wheel Star Wars game sounds awesome. Wish I had the time to learn a new system.)

Cue Peter Cetera!

Yeah, this was a lot of fun! Thanks for putting it together! You're right, we never really got the hang of grappling, but I loved playing with the action movie themes.

I tried to run Age of Rebellion a few years ago in my home game, but it fizzled. I was glad to try it in more of an extended way. One thing I struggled with, and I'm not sure if you guys have had any better luck... I feel like finding creative ways to use advantages/threats/etc is always challenging. I saw it in my home game, and felt it here as well (though it's definitely easier when you have more time to think about your turn).

I don't think I'm ready to sign up for another game just yet, but I'd definitely play with y'all in the future. I've got a new job starting in a couple weeks and I have no idea how much mental bandwidth or time I'll have.

By the way, Bob, one thing I loved was the use of in-game tunes. It did a lot to set the theme and the scene (along with the art).

Thanks for running the game! This was the very first PbP game I ever played so it was a great new experience and I'm glad it actually came to a conclusion rather than just dying lol.

I had a lot of fun despite some of the personal issues I had. I think my joining late and being unfamiliar with some of the rules made it a little rough for me at the beginning. I'll echo Kermit in that I had a lot of problems with the combat through PbP, usually with spending advantages and whatnot. I mostly play from my phone at work, and since both Genesys and Ready Fight had different tables for spending advantages and triumphs and such I would have to flip through 2 pdfs on my phone every time. I think you making suggestions was a great help for me haha.

Also, I'm probably just a dumb-dumb, but when I was creating my character, I thought the story was actually taking place in the 80s, not just an 80s inspired modern day setting. I didn't even realizer my mistake until after a long time when people used cell phones and such that I was like "Uh oh, I totally misunderstood a major premise of this game." Haha.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun! I would totally be down for your SW game! I even have a character concept in mind of a droid who is trying to catch his master's killer...

Thanks for the kind words about my game! I wish more people were knowledgeable about BW, and I would normally be down for teaching people, but teaching over forum posts is very difficult and time consuming, especially with a hack that changes some of the basic rules. It's like trying to teach two systems almost. I might have to do a BW tutorial one-shot in the future just to do my part and introduce more people to the game...

Yes thanks for running, we went through some cast members but it was fun.

Regarding the tunes, that's always been one of my favorite parts of in-person GMing: curating a playlist appropriate to the game and its tone. I really wish GP would incorporate a way to let players stream the tracks while reading the board, rather than having to click away or open the links in another tab.

Regarding bringing new players in when others drop out: That's useful feedback that it was a bit hard to get a handle on the plot as a newcomer. I'll have to be more cognizant of that in the future, since player attrition is an unfortunate reality for PbP. My PbP GMing imperative is to try to keep the action moving forward (to avoid that attrition as much as possible), but I possibly dropped the ball on getting you up to speed as much as I should have, Nez.

Regarding the era: I think this was something we all kind of discovered as we went along. I originally conceived of this story taking place in the current day, but the fictional clichés we were working with were very much from the 80s and 90s action flicks of Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, and so on. Plus my tunes were decidedly 80s to reinforce that feel.

Keep an eye on the main forums for an announcement about Hardboiled Star Wars or whatever I end up calling it. I've been watching a lot of film noir and reading a lot of classic detective fiction, so it'll be a classic Sam Spade-type caper. Probably with some hacks, like using a streamlined version of the Obligation rules that operate more like Favors from Shadows of the Beanstalk. A droid out to avenge its master is a perfect concept for this sort of thing. Details TBD. Hopefully announced soon.