OOC

OOC remains a cryptonym for Operation Ontological Cataclysm.

Hut hut hut!

Chaos, death and destruction... business as usual!

Tiff!

Harrigan!

What kinda time scale for the start are we thinking, I needed to catch up with everything!

I was hoping to see some motion by now, but so it goes. Let's say one week to get everyone's characters imported.

If you're having trouble with GP's interface, at least create a character sheet (using the instructions in the Character Sheet thread) and submit it to the game, so I can help transfer the information.

In the meantime, I've narrowed down the literally dozen or so operation hooks and ideas I have to three promising candidates. To help Harrigan (and any new recruits) focus in on a new character concept, you get to choose what you find the most intriguing, by way of teasers:

Hullo! Didn't realise GP wasn't going to send me email updates. Gonna start onboarding everything now.

GP has that feature, but you have to 'subscribe' to the thread, JS.

Reuban 'the Sandwich' Phelps is good to go. I added his injury, fixed a slight formatting error that gave him 15m long arms, and imported his distinguishing features. Also, because of his Hard Experience background one of his initial three Bonds was reduced to zero (I chose Condel, as I didn't see her on the original sheet), but leave it on the sheet as a reminder of what was lost (and because a broken bond can potentially be repaired).

I'll see about adding a heading to the sheet for background, personality, etc.

Let's talk about what Phelps wants to get up to in his Home Scene. For him, this is going to include rounds of surgery to deal with broken bones, deep bruises, burns, a concussion, getting full hearing replacement aids implanted and many months of physiotherapy and rehabilitation while the other agents are off gallivanting around on their next assignment; plus time for personal and professional development. For the Home Scene, we focus on one of many events over this period and give it a mechanical benefit.

The Need to Know quickstart has some of the Home Scene options; the Briefing Documents player guide has more. I've linked to both of these in the House Rules thread.

I'll explain how I interpret them here:
* Fulfill Responsibilities: Work on cultivating personal or professional Bonds, doing right by them.
* Back to Nature: This obviously sounds like camping, but I've also seen actual plays interpret it as going on holiday, hitting the bars, having casual sexual or romantic relationships, etc. It can be anything that helps you find solace away from your usual friends, family and colleagues.
* Establish a new Bond: Or repair an existing one that's at 0.
* Go to Therapy: No doubt Phelps knows plenty of psychologists and psychiatrists professionally, which may make this both easier and harder.
* Improve Skills or Stats: If he feels he needs training or if the physiotherapy works better than expected.
* Indulge a Personal Motivation: This is a little more low-risk, low-reward than Back to Nature; interestingly, it becomes less of an option as your character suffers more breaks and gains more disorders that replace their motivations.
* Special Training: Gain a special skill. Learning Sign Language would count, for example.
* Stay on the Case: There are a few loose ends from Operation Ashen Window one could pursue if they were so inclined. This could also cross over with Phelps' 'understand Harrison Bridges' motivation if he digs into those cold cases.
* Study the Unnatural: You didn't secure any grimoires or artifacts, so this isn't really an option at present.

Clitso looks good, too. I added lacunar amnesia (that is, loss of memory about a specific event) as a disorder. As far as I'm concerned, Styker, he's your character now; you're free to modify and add details as you see fit (like describing his Bonds, should they come up).

I've decided to treat languages as a special skill instead of a percentile skill (all I care about is whether a character can functionally communicate in it; whether you can speak it 30% or 70% is of such limited use to me that I'd rather not bother). So Clitso's 50% in Navajo can switch to one of the other optional skills for a Federal Agent: Accounting 60%, Comp Sci 50%, Heavy Weapons 50% or Pharmacy 50%. Accounting makes sense to me - he tracked Chamuscar's financial transactions in his intro scene and money is a useful trail in a manhunt.

I wondered why I didn't have a third Bond so I added one real fast! I mean, the obvious absence is Bridges who's still at large so maybe that should be my 0 instead? I didn't really have a specific plan for the former professor.

So do I only have one choice for the home scene? Cos it's going to have to be either picking up American Sign Language or Fluent Lipreading - given he's a therapist lipreading is more appealing - but I can absolutely picture him trying to piece together his now-two paranormal experiences into some kind of insight now that he can't box. That or he just spends his down time high on opiates.

Yeah, Clitso has some surprises (CHA 16? What was that for? Why is he carrying so many guns?) but I want to lean into the fact I didn't build him. And I definitely don't want to end up with a linked-to-the-land Native American cliche. I like that perhaps he's fallen into a forensic accountancy role just cos there was a gap in his office the same way that someone in a small workplace always ends up becoming the default IT person despite little prior interest and minimal skill. Maybe his sister's a full time accountant at a big firm, he helped her study when she was at uni, and picked up just enough by osmosis that he's been able to do a certificate.

Well, Bonds in DG are generally supposed to be important people or groups that help your character retain their grip, their connections to humanity. They're usually positive relationships, but I could see a perverse sort of inverse of that, where Phelps has almost idealised this exemplar of human evil as a yardstick against which he measures cosmic evil. Going with the forensics mentor would be the simpler choice, going with Bridges would be more twisted and complex.
One for the moment. After this next operation, I might allow a second for him, on reflection.
edit: One mechanically significant scene, that is. There's no reason that we can't touch on multiple aspects of the character's personal and professional life.
It's an odd build. I can only imagine the player was optimising for long-term mental survival - high CHA for strong Bonds, high POW for sanity.
It kind of works, though. The Agent's Handbook description of the Marshals Service emphasises how well they work with other LEOs, and are as much street- and face-to-face focused as lab- and procedure-.

Okay basic sheet is done, let me know if I missed anything important.

You'll need to go to the Game Details page (on the red bar at the bottom of the page) and then submit the character to this game (should be a drop down menu on the right of that screen).

Took me far too long to register the red bar as part of the page, but finally managed to get Misty loaded up.

Hoping to get a new PC brewed this week!

Knight
I took the liberty of rolling her skill increases - a lot of 1's, unfortunately. I've also decided to fold the Pilot skill together - it's going to come up so infrequently that knowing the difference between choppers, fixed-wing and drones won't matter enough to detail. So you can take her highest Pilot skill and apply it to all air vehicles, within reason.

That frees up two 50% skill picks. I might suggest Military Science and Heavy Weapons, to reflect her training as a Marine Corps aviator.

You also get the 20 points you spent on Spanish back. Firearms might be a good skill to boost, to bring her up to rifleman standards.

The Pilot profession grants 3 Bonds, minus 1 from Hard Experience, so you're entitled to one more.

I've added a Personality and Background section to the sheets at the end.

Thanks for that boss was on my list once everything was good to go! Swapped around the skills as suggested, as it happens I did have heavy weapons but transcribed it wrong. Still, I figure it won't hurt to have one of us forklift certified! :D