OOC and Questions

Anything goes here, but we should first talk about safety tools. I promise no torture (including to animals) or child harming to be directly described. Any sexuality will occur through veils, implied but not explicit. Any other touch points let me know.

That covers most all of my squicks. Maybe add in no excessive animal cruelty? Figured that would be covered under torture, but just as a heads up.

The woman in the sack has a glowing golden question mark above her head, hahaha.

I assume we can skip to Areen knowing the basics, no need to see us explaining in character and type all that again. :)

I left it up to Data to decide which jobs they do and which they leave for Camus, so you two want to have a private chat on your way here, that works out.

Does Adil need to do anything about the shouty Dante above? If not I am waiting for Camus and for the destination.

As Adil suggested, if we can stop off someplace (an island?) soon, we can pretend to pick up the passenger there, and avoid having the whole 'why did the captain not tell us' debacle with everyone else.

In case people are waiting for me. Adil does not want to be in charge (the other characters will have to force/persuade them), so they would not leave what they are doing to go up and argue with Dante absent an obvious danger.

Adil is waiting for Camus to return with what we need to disguise Ceebee and to know where we are going. Their plan is to appear to 'pick Ceebee up at our next stop' (island), as though it was normal business and planned.

I assume "more than a week ago" means 'more than a week away'?

Has Ceebee told us where she is needing to go? Has she told us what her timeframe is?

So Dante is ignoring the course set by the navigator? Do the rest of the crew know that? Do we think they would care about not going to the 'the captain's grave'? Was our planned course compatible with Ceebee's destination?

Does Dante's plan-of-action prevent us from 'picking up a passenger along the way'? If we then say she is offering payment (even in the form of 'valuables we can scrounge'), would Dante oppose that?

Adil would have a better idea about the answers to these questions than I do.

Also, just to be clear: Are we assuming (OOC) that we are going to help Ceebee? Is this decided and we are just getting the PCs to the point of accepting it, or is it still possible we might not agree to take on her mission?

I assume we are taking the mission and it is just the PCs who need to decide.

If other players feel differently that is an OOC discussion not a thing we can work out in character.

Data: Does any of the captain's history on my sheet help? You all should be able to see it. (Though, I can not see any of your sheets).

You are welcome to have Cordell know any of the bits that are not common knowledge if need be. Does Cordell's bond with the captain extend to Adil? Would you be happy to have Cordell trust Adil enough to go along with this mission (if they decide it is 'right', or 'what the captain wanted')?

I would just drop the quest (kick her out or take her to trial, or whatever) rather than replace the Cordell if things don't fit.

Agreed.

Adil is more interested in the prospect of profit than in a weapon. I assume we are 'for profit' ship, that we take on jobs for pay, so this should not be very different to that and should not be something we find distasteful. If this is not why we sail then why do we?

If we don't agree to take on Ceebee's job (for the payment not because we agree with her mission) then we need to get done with her and move on to hook number two. But the GM will need to know what sort of hooks we will take. I just assumed we would want to take the offers we are given (for the game's sake), but don't have any strong feelings about it.

Data: We spoke near the beginning of character creation [ref ref] about Corell and Adil having a closish relationship, is that still a thing or did you transfer that to the late captain?

The way I see it is we don't know what we don't know because the captain didn't tell us. So the info we have is just what Celia told us.

My character made his choice known but he won't buck the majority. I think part of the fun and tension is not knowing the details. Poor timing for the captain to die on us!

True. We don't have any way of knowing what the captain planned, that is part of the situation.
With regard to 'what Celia told us': Did we get answers to my questions and I missed it? Not sure what our next step is without knowing.
Did you? Could you reiterate them here for us? It was the question in your post that prompted the OOC question of if we were taking the job.

Resalon initially stated:
"I trust...trusted the captain implicitly. That's the difference between you and me I guess."

But he also will go with the majority opinion having stated his own. So when he says this: "Are we just going to stand around and let Dante control the ship and us?" Glancing at Celia he adds, "And then there's the matter of Celia. We should arrive at some kind of decision already. Do we trust her or not? And if so, the ship is going in the wrong direction."... He is summarizing and hoping for some action regardless of his opinion even though he trusts what the captain wanted.

Correct.
She has not been asked this yet.
Neither Dante nor the crew have been questioned by any of you at this point.
The captain's grave site was something you picked, so I'm not sure that crew would necessarily care that that decision has been countermanded.
You don't know.
You would need to ask Dante. You don't know why he changed course, and his reason might have some bearing on the passenger question.

Sorta has: [ref] [ref] [ref] [ref] [ref]
My character (all of them really, but especially Adil, given their build) would have a much better understanding about these things than I do. Hence I am asking.

I don't know if this is indicative of a problem that has to be dealt with before dealing with Ceebee.

I can't be proactive without knowing this sort of thing, so the GM will have to provide more actionable information or drive the story forward for us. I am stalemated.
And the course the navigator already laid in before this started? Do the crew not care about the captain's funeral? Again, Adil would know, but that seems strange to me OOC if they don't. Are we the only ones that cared for the captain?

Would the crew happily follow Dante? If so we have an impasse, since Adil does not want to lead and will need to pressured into it. If things will work out without them, then they would, logically, leave rather than cause problems for the crew, but that breaks the game unless we all leave the ship, which wastes all its potential.

OK, that I can work with.
Until she trusts us enough to tell us where she is going, we can only proceed with finding a way to get her onto the ship without raising questions, or getting her off the ship.
Unless we have a good reason to reject the plot hooks the GM gives us, I say we accept her and more forward.
Do they not already have a course given to them by Areen, who might have as good a claim to leadership?

Do they know that her course is for the 'captain's grave' and his funeral?

I assumed Areen had done that before coming down. If not then cool. I see not problem heading to town, if nothing about the suggest problems to my character.
Is the 'chain of command' a thing they would adhere to? If so, having Dante tell them he is now in change --without hearing from Adil-- is not really following it.
OOC I am happy to be the captain, but I was very clear that Adil does not want that, you all would need to talk them into it. This means you all would need to oppose Dante and put them forward as the only choice. There was hesitancy about this 'starting with conflict', maybe we need to take it as read that we have dealt with the issue, or retcon the situation?

Adil is not going to fight Dante if the crew accepts him. But I thought we were not going to have that happen and played according to that understanding. If no one else if going to object: how do we proceed?

Adil has been with the captain since the beginning, everyone who knew the captain knows he trusted Adil. Should they not have a stronger bond between the PCs (and the crew)? Adil is the social one, maybe we should not treat them as though they are a stranger?

If we say the PCs trust Adil that will solve a lot of this, no?

You are right, in that Dante asked you, you said no, so he's acting like it is a done deal. Eventually, you'll need to talk to the crew, but in the aftermath of emergency, they're following orders given to them even if most of them think Dante is a bit of a weasel.

Adil will be confident that if they say they are captain, the rest of the crew will follow. The only reason they will accept Dante is if Adil turns it down. I would go so far as that Adil knows that the crew knows Adil enough that the crew might likely expect them to turn it down. This isn't a surprise. On a meta level, certain members of the crew might approach Ail later and ask them to reconsider, but we haven't gotten that far yet. This is why I state that the window for assuming command is diminishing, but not closed. The longer Dante goes unchallenged, then the more tactic approval they will read from Adil.

So that's where we're at. Dante has just claimed leadership, but only he and Alvar were there when you said you didn't want it. Changing course is simply a matter of Dante exercising his new powers.

The last thing I will say is that since you picked up that crate at a prior port, Lauchmair was cagey about your destination, saying things like, "we'll talk about that later". You have now found out why. He didn't actually know.

I wasn’t even aware there was an "out of the Empire" - are there other unoccupied countries? How far away are they? Are they hostile? My understanding was that she was going to wherever we laid in course for previously (by the Captain) before we got set off course by the Cragworm.

If we only know exactly what she’s told us of where she’s going, how would our characters know Dante is putting them in the wrong direction? It seems like she needs to trust us enough to put in a direction, and I thought she’d have done as much considering she offered to be clapped in irons until they arrived? She asked us when we would be arriving in the first place, which presumes we knew our previous heading?
Well, it’s only been a few minutes since the captain died, so not having a meeting makes sense. Previously (before Dante spoke to them) Adil had the crew continue to take the ship to safety - has the ship gotten to safety?

Before the Cragworm we still had to have a destination - you can’t really leave port without one. I think that’s what vaugeGM means - Dante is redirecting the ship without the the input of the navigator, which sounds dangerous — quartermasters are typically in charge of supplies, does Dante have any navigation experience?

Why didn’t he look for/ask Adeer to put in the new course?
Would the crew take Dante (+ Avlar’s) word for it that Adil passed the captain role to Dante? Dante didn’t tell all of the crew he’s captain because he didn’t tell Cordell - is he going to have a meeting with the crew or is he still just going to go to everyone individually? If it’s individual, is there a reason he didn’t speak to any of the PCs except Adil yet?
I think they always claimed Adil was going to be a reluctant leader that needs to have power thrust upon them - it makes sense for this first part of the campaign to be them finding that they really need to take on the leadership role - but, that is going to need a stronger impetus to get it to work.

I think right now we might be at an impasse because our characters don’t have a sense of "we need to do something Right Now". Dante doesn’t seem evil, so him taking power is more like the office worker you didn’t like getting a promotion they didn’t deserve - it sucks, but no one is really going to do anything about it until he actually runs this thing into the ground.

Likewise, CB hasn’t given any indication that she finds her mission is pressing. She’s remarkably chill for a wanted deserter who was frozen in time only to be woken up before reaching her destination by people who she doesn’t recognize - which I’m assuming is an act to protect herself (makes sense), but it’s not particularly convincing on the PC side. I would think she’d be more proactive in trying to salvage the situation she’s in, because currently she’s the only one with a current character mission - so currently OOC I’m guessing she’s going to try to jump ship in the night anyway, unless she wants to make her appeal to Dante.

I don’t mind abandoning ship altogether with just the 4 PCs if it’s something they all believe strongly in - I kind of doubt Dante will accept take backs easily either way. I think they just need something they can agree on.

Technically, to a void a fight (the weak, social character, cornered, outnumbered, and confronted by physical ones) they repeated their own 'no quarrel' words back to them and said 'if you do take charge, you would try to do a good job'. But that subtlety would have been lost on Dante. :)
Following orders is good. We all know it is a way to avoid getting beaten by Dante.
But Adil is not going to say that. Someone else will have to.
That is probably best. We can assume Dante takes over now --Adil does not want to dishonour the captain's memory with power squabbles at a time like this.

When it becomes a problem (or becomes clear it is a problem) people can decide they want Adil in charge and I can take over.
I have no problem with the change in course. If someone else does, they can speak up, but I don't see it as a thing we need to worry about if it is seems safe.
Delaying the captain's funeral is obviously a bit rude, but we also sorta expect that from Dante?
How long ago was that?
I am not a fan of private notes. Does anyone object to these being revealed so we are all on the same page?

The 'notes' did not make it clear that Adil knew that Tyde was a double agent.

We can always come back to the ship later.

I find myself worrying it may be more of an anchor around our necks and we will have to leave it at some point anyway.

(sorry I missed this) Ah, I wasn't sure if you meant that as background or something that the characters could bond over during the RP. If you'd like them to have a close relationship prior, I'd prefer to talk that out in more detail. Cordell respects Adil and will definitely have helped them with their enhancements, but I don't know enough about Adil to infer how they would have interacted on a personal level. I think it sounds like an interesting dynamic to explore, but I was expecting to do that during the campaign, since I don't know enough about Adil's character as-is to intuit what they like about each other.

If you'd like to work together to come up with particular backstory elements for them, I'm fine with that!
That's what it's looking like. I think Dante will likely take over as is, then when it becomes a problem that PCs can act on it.
Is Adil usually social as in friendly and talkative, or simply more diplomatic? So far they've been very focused on keeping things functional and keeping the crew from falling into conflict/hanging back than necessarily addressing the emotional/personal situation. If Adil is usually very social and chatty, then Cordell would notice right away that they're not currently acting like normal and have a better reason to try to address it himself - but, my impression of Adil was that they're typically more reserved? They seem more like a peacekeeper than someone everyone was necessarily buddies with?
I was concerned for that as well. It might be more burdensome to have a whole crew (in a game sense).

My current problem is that is is seeming like we are only meeting now, for the fist time, like we have no history. I would like to assume we have more that we have not seen in the story.
We don't have to know the details of that history as we start, just knowing that they trust each other is enough to get us going.

I am also happy to chat about this in as much detail as you need. But the character is still new, so there is a lot even I don't know about them yet. What is on the sheet is all that is concrete.

We can nail down more details, or have the reasons for the trust come out in play. If you think you need Cordell to know secrets about Adil's (and the captain's) history we can make some of them up, but if you are happy with that being a thing we learn as it comes up we can keep our discussions what we have experienced together since you joined the crew.

We can assume you know about my 'medical' difficulties. The numenera implanted in my body have resulted in my moving like the old person I am while looking like a young one (low Might and Speed). You could be providing boosters for me to offset this (in the fiction) and when leveling happens you will be intimately involved, lessening the troubles.

Let's say that we have not yet had an opportunity for you to upgrade me, but you know that it is needed when we can find the spare parts (i.e. when XP permits). That will be a big milestone in our relationship.
I think you have described them pretty well. They can be as social as they need to be when it is called for, and are easy to be around, but I think their past, and worries about what their powers can do and how they can influence people, makes Adil try to avoid such influences when they can. This is part of the reason they don't want to be captain.
I think that, much of the time, we might be an 'away team' consisting of the PCs. So, even if we stick with the ship as a central part of the tale, we don't need to have scenes happen on it or with the NPCs, all the time.

Hey everyone, I am going to bow out of the game. I'm more of a free-flowing player not given to analyzing so much in OOC, so it's not really turning out as I had hoped.

Thank you Qralloq for running it.

I am struggling with it too, and have been considering dropping out. For similar reasons, my biggest struggle was not getting answers to what started as simple questions, so I could not flow-freely within the fiction.

I would hate for my questions (and resulting analysis) to result in your dropping out, Windyridge, only to have me drop out as well when you could have stayed.

Hi everyone. It seems that I ridiculously mishandled the opening to this game. Given where it has lead to, and seeing no way forward that I'm interested in, I am going to shut it down.

Thanks for giving me your time, and sorry for letting you down.

Thank you for running it for us.

You didn't let us down Qralloq - thank you for running it for us! I'm sorry we fell apart on you.