Heist the Colours (OOC)

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I promised to offer you two hackers for your party, but forgot to do so in the RP. It would not have fitted there anyway, not till later.

Two that I have found are:

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Someone provided by Lio's navy. They know the details of what that navy is after with the ship and can ensure it gets there. Their loyalty is to their navy, though, so you can never be sure they are fully on your side. And they, presumably, would --as things stand-- have no reason to say with you after the completion of their mission (which may take a long time, both in game and out).

A local hacker from the planet you start on. They are agoraphobic (not liking large, open spaces) and unfamiliar with space travel (space is a very large, open space). They agree to help because they need to leave the sector. Then they will eventually agree to stay with the ship because it is familiar and enclosed. So far they have no ulterior motive.

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The first is Lio's contact. The second one can be brought into the party by any of you. Ronny implied he could get someone, so that could be the contact point for the second, or someone else could introduce them, decide amongst yourselves.

You are welcome to propose your own people, for this role or for others.

I'm for the local hacker from the planet we start on. I'm ok with Ronny introducing him. My addition to the idea: could it be that the hacker will bring some strange/uncommon animal with him? To bring it on the mission, probably it have to be a small one. Or he can pick up(or force us to pick up) it later - when we will have the ship under our control. I don't know why, but I'm thinking about "hamster"... but could it be "a different kind"? In the end we are in space on different planets. Maybe aliens are not know so far... but animals are surly more or less different. Don't they? Of course I'm open for different species, just my first thought.

:D

Where in time are we starting exactly? Are we on route to the ship? Are we already at the ship or at a meet-up place nearby?

@pedrop are you wanting to get a call from a player? If so, I'm happy to have Ronny call you. If not I'll put him at the same bar as if we planned to meet up there. Let me know what works for you.

My proposition - as I mentioned it in RP thread - is that the start of our adventure could be at just the moment when the military actions are taking their shape. Every one was feeling in their bones that something will happen, but only few knew what really will. I see it that way: we as group could be preparing our heist for the ship for a few weeks now. Maybe some of us(Cat?) knew that the planet/system is on the brink of the war? We were almost ready... but now we have to end our preparations even faster, as we are running out of time. It could haste the time before actual mission at the depot, and allow us with some flashbacks about our preparations during the heist - maybe a little "Blades in the dark" way/style? What you think guys?

So if all would agree that would mean that we all start at the very moment when the fist info about the war starts to propagate in the back streets, and many still don't believe it will really happen. That could provide us with fine opportunity of RPing what we were doing in that very moment - slowly preparing, but still leaving our "ordinary" lives - but now caught a little off guard as the thing we were preparing for... happened a little too soon. Nice way to introduce our characters in my opinion - even before they all will meet at the same physical place... in practice to leave for the mission at hand. What you all think?

Surely strange enough in my book ;-D
Please consider what I have written in my above post, but yes I was hoping for some call from a player. Preferably the one that will know and inform Raf (and maybe others at the bar), that... "IT HAS BEGUN!" - that was my initial vision of this very moment:) But we will see who will call and what will say. Initially I thought that Cat could be the one having such information, but Ronny being a spy - is as good candidate as she is.
To be honest somehow I feel that Ronny would be a good companion for Raf, late at bar, after long week of shady preparations... but I don't want to be accused of telling others what to do... again:) - so just shearing how I started to imagine your character.

So to sum it up: I'm hoping someone will inform Raf about "the revolution" by the call, hopefully there will be other PC with him at the bar, but if not it's not a problem, because the first thing (after getting the info) that Raf will do - will be trying to contact the rest of the team and set up some meeting and put the common plan in motion - unfortunately faster then we thought we would have to...

All of this: if others agree that we should start at the very moment when the war started for real?

In that case I'll leave it to WhtKnt and put Ronny in the bar with you ;)
I already had an idea for that, so works out well.

The local hacker can definitely have a inconvenient pet you have to pick up on the way.

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Pedrop: When you gender the hacker as 'he' is that deliberate, or is that a default, generic gender-neural 'he'?

Do we want the hacker to be male? Everyone should answer.

I tend to think about gender/sex last (if at all), so my NPCs tend to be 'they' till the players start defining them as something else. Feel free to add these sorts of defining details --like physical descriptions, personality quirks, gender, style, ...-- if they don't contradict what we have established.

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It looks like Cat already knows about the deteriorating situation? She can be the one to tell you about the sped-up time-frame.
Or (or and?) the phone call could be from Lio if he has learned about the war and increased urgency from his navy pals?
Or the call could be from the hacker --calling Raf because his contact Ronny is not carrying a trackable phone-- finally agreeing to your deal now that they have learned of the war and their need to get away?

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Pushing you into the action before you are ready is a good way to build some tension and explain random occurrences or weaknesses in the enemies' systems.

I'll work with whatever Pedrop picks

"inconvenient" - that was what I also envisioned:) Glad you see it similar.

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That was gender-neural 'he' for now. Didn't think about gender so far. I have proposed the pet, looking forward what others will add.

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That's what I also was going to write: Lio is as good to make a call as Ronny and Cat, being the one connected with navy. I like it: now the hacker have a good reason to leave with us.

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I see it very similar:)
Let's see if Lio wants to be the one calling or he has some other ideas. If in the end of the day it won't be any of PC calling, probably it will be the hacker guy or gal - to inform us, as he is naturally "closest" to the classified information sources - as VagueGM suggested.

From my perspective, it might be nice to have another female among the crew. It just looks better to the observers. :)

Damnit, lagging behind.
Hope the ship doesn't leave without me !

I'll hop on later today.

Cool. I was hesitant to push for that as I did not know if being the only girl was something you were hoping for.

Do you want the other girl to be the hacker, or someone else? If the (non-navy) hacker, do we want to change any personality quirks?

Let us know if you need us to move on without you. Then we can get busy on some of the tasks that need to be done before we meet up with you, on the way to the Depot.

Do you want the hacker to be your navy pal? [ref] If not, then we can deal with picking them up before getting to you (if we need to).

Oooh, if it's the hacker, can it be an ex-girlfriend of Ronny? Someone who's still on speaking terms with him, but there's some tension still around. Nothing detrimental, though. Could be fun to play out at times.

As a side note, will you play the ship's NPCs, vague, or can anyone add things that they do and say?

Fine by me. More drama. Let's see what the others say.
A combination of both. You guys can decide how much you want to control the NPCs, both in and out of dice rolls. I will pick up the slack.

I have run games where players take on the role of NPCs in scenes they are not directly in. But this is less useful in PbP where people are not sitting around watching others play, in PbP we can more easily run many scenes simultaneously. You are still welcome to stage side-scenes with a PC, and a player playing an NPC (or even with both players playing only NPCs).

We can also make 'sidekick' NPCs that the main character's player would have more control over.

Good for me. The hacker is not Lio's contact. The gender doesn't matter to me. I do find it confusing when 'they' is used. But that's just from a linguistics point of view.

I'm thinking of a way for Lio to know what's going on AND why he would call Raf. That Would imply that the team has been already formed (was it?)

An alternative idea is that Ronny or Raf proposes Lio as an addition to the team to the other. And what do you know, they both know the guy!

But if you want Lio to make the call, that's also fine, just need some more time to think it through.

Does that make sense?