1. Plans Within Plans

Yup, the roll looks great. I didn't assign a difficulty in advance, but it would be tough, so Difficulty 3 is reasonable. A natural 1 counts as two successes, and the 17 does not add any more. The Mentat trait reduces the difficulty by 1. This makes it a success.

Not trying to manipulate or do a roll here, just trying to lean into Marya's trait of "charming".

Just to clarify - I don't believe the 'smugglers' are part of this deception or have spies in their midst (though its entirely possible), just the White Ghost's organization. They are different, if I'm understanding correctly.

I think this is the most complicated bit of planning I've done so far in-character via PbP. I'm very aware how much easier/quicker this would be in-person where we could do a bunch of quick check-ins with each other to make sure we understand things the same way and are good with the proposed course of action.

Any tips on how I might play this a bit quicker? Would you PbP veterans do something like just saying "Alright, we're doing it this way" and push forward with actually enacting one of the options, and then leave people to interject if they want it done differently? I've already done a bit of that here, proposing a specific plan and who does what - but I haven't gone and acted on it directly.

Deciding how we play this feels important to our success, and important to have agreement on, but maybe there's more fun in just going with something and seeing how we get on?

Glad to help. To be completely honest, I've spent the last 20+ years playing via email. That tended to be slower than PbP. But I get what you mean by about assessing things live being much easier.

Are we ready to proceed to the Sandstorm Cantina and look for Rook's contact in the White Ghost, Shadran Korr?

Ready!

My understanding is that Rook and Marcus are going to sort out/organise maybe do the meet, while Hural and Marya are going to try and dig up dirt/leverage on Kendon Ordway or some other more behind-the-scenes stuff to support our cause. I'll be posting with that assumption, please jump in if you see things differently.

I can go either way :) Learning more about the man before we leave the city could have its uses - not sure, mechanically or narratively, how a Mentat and a Bene Gesserit would go about that - Q?

Going to seedy establishments and asking around seems like one route, but seems also to be more in Rook's ballpack of skills/contacts.

Perhaps there would be municipal, transportation, or criminal records - that could be a way to go.

Marya has an asset "INFORMANT NETWORK" that might be useful for this.

We could also try and set up some kind of snooping, a spy, an asset with House Bakhtiar? Try and get names or info about possible agents they could have placed within the smugglers?

And indeed maybe this is stuff we can do independently of each other even - you checking out records, me trying to look into possible spy/informant stuff? Marya would go out in "normal" clothes for that - not making an obvious thing of being a BG.

To try and get into the swing of deciding what my character would do and doing it, rather than checking in with you all constantly, I'll have Marya announcing in character that she'll do this last option, and then Hural can interject in-character if he thinks it's a bad idea.