After Arundel (OOC)

Yeah, you know that this is tricky. You are, again, trying to Figure her Out, though with the knowledge of how it went last time.

I am not quite seeing it, but it may be possible to Persuade her to be more receptive? You would need to do it in the fiction, though, so we can work out how to trigger that Move if you can see a way to go that route.

You know she has never spoken about that stuff —no one in the group has any ideas— so, without something to induce her to open up, you won't get any answers.

So probably the worst roll ever! xD

No kidding! :)

How do you feel about violating the sanctity (if you will allow such a word to be used) and the security of your Establishment? I am thinking about 'permanently' linking this portal directly into you 'Secure Venue', bypassing your 'Wards' and such. This would be (eventually) solvable, but also is not a immediate threat, given that this place is —so far as you can tell— 'empty'. It might be, mainly, a psychological price.

I like it. After all, that roll is a big fumble, so it feels right that there should be a long-term complication, tied to one of the core attributes of the character.

Hi there,

I am very sorry to say this, but I think I have to back out from the game.

Since start of the new year, there have been quite significant changes at work, and over the next 2-3 months I expect that I will travel more and more, and the workload will also increase... so I don't think I can honestly commit to a decent posting rate. As I said, this started January 1st, and I was postponing the decision in the hope that I could make it work, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the case. :-/

Thank you very much for your time, it has been a fun ride with vagueGM and oopsylon for... wait, 9 months?! Wow, time flies when you're enjoying yourself. And Delirium was just the best replacement we could have got. :)

Sorry for leaving you with one less player, and I hope we can play together again sometime in the future!

Best of luck to you with the new work situation. It was a joy playing with you, too. Thank you.

You are welcome to return when things settle down.

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Maybe it is a pity we brought Jacob back though the portal. :) Do you think he goes back to try find Crowley? If so we can close the portal trap him over there, but that leave a mystery that the other two would want to solve, and does not make a good, clean exit.

Do you let Benji (and by extension) Emma know what is going on, and then leave? Going back to search for Crowley appears, at first blush, to be an option, but that also takes Crowley and Hali out of the picture for the others, and they may want to pursue what was happening there.

Maybe your place is just not safe till you can work out how to close the portal? And you have to leave town?

We don't need to go into details about why, we can leave it open or we can make it final. Up to you.

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If you don't think you will be bringing Jacob back, maybe we can look at your End Move?
Benji has been helping out with your Scheme, can he finish it for you? Only a few of the Payouts make sense for another character (but then this is a once-only-ever thing). A +1 to the Statues Circle makes sense if he deals with them more to finish it, but you could always pick an Arsenal or Underlings if you think they will be needed in the times to come.

This is an End Move, meant for when you die (but a permanent exit could also trigger it), so, if you think you might come back as this character, maybe we should not do this.

Well, you never know, but I don't see I can return in the short term, so I'm fine triggering the End Move, and let Benji reap the benefits.

I would just rewind and let Jacob trapped in the other dimension as a "permanent exit". And who knows, that may leave the door open in case things change in Real Life™️

OK. You choose the Payout (though you can talk to the other players, of course). What does he get? We will play out the resolution with the player.
My concern is that that leaves us with Benji wanting to discover what happened to his friend. It is not a very clean exit since we can't easily resolve it for the other characters without involving Jacob more. We can do that, but we will need to get answers about what happened, and that answer will need to be what takes the character out (terminally?).

A message from the character saying they need to leave town is the neatest if we want to leave things open.

But this does assume Benji wants to keep going. If we are not keeping the game going we can do a more dramatic exit that does not clean itself up.

I will take the 'continuing' question to the General Chat.

@Delirium, which two of the questions are you seeking to answer? You can deal with them one at a time and base second question on the answer to the first, play it out.

On an 8 [ref] he gets an answer from you too, but we will deal with what that is based on what you do next.

 • who's pulling your character's strings?
 • what's your character's beef with ˍˍˍˍˍ?
 • what's your character hoping to get from ˍˍˍˍˍ?
 • what does your character worry is going to happen?
 • how could I get your character to ˍˍˍˍˍ?
 • how could I put your character in my Debt?

Henry is not in the Mortalis Circle, he is mortal, part of your mortal life. So you don't get to ask an extra question.

The first is easy, we will answer that once we have resolved the questions the other brings.

The second has complications. Remember that a valid answer can be 'that is not possible, there is no way to do that', and that is valuable information (and is different to 'that is not something you can learn here', which is not a valid question and forces you to ask another). But that is often not as satisfying.

In this case you can wriggle out of having him more involved by involving interested parties. The devil you don't rather than the devil you know? But remember that he is always going to be involved, he is a part of your life (and you sheet) till you cut him off.

Shall we deal with the first question and then see if you want to keep that second question?

Sorry to hear that, @gnomius! I’ve had a great time playing with you. Thank you for everything and I hope we get to play together again one day! :)

I sorta forgot about that, given his character. :)

The only one that really makes any sense is:
• what's your character hoping to get from ... meeting these guys?

But I don't think it fits for Henry to wonder about that and try to get that as an answer. Do you? Maybe you (accidentally?) drop some hints that he can pick up on? But maybe only later? Maybe when they question him after the fact? That way he does not change his mind now, and has to choose whether to support you or his business interests?

These hints could come any time, even during the meeting. Figure Someone Out last the whole duration of the 'interaction' and this one just happens to happens in two or more separate scenes. If we can't come up with a way to see you drop hints, we would need the (truthful) answer OOC and can then shape his story around that truth.

Henry is not equipped to understand any of that. But we can work that into the scene with the new guys.

Do you have any ideas about who these new guys might be? Anything you want to see? Any preferred Circle?