CH 1.1-b: OOC Shank's Pre-Owned

Post any OOC you need pertaining to Shank's Pre-Owned here.

Before leaving shanks pre-owned Krosus would like to give the clerk a try and see if we could gain some respirators and and the part we need or who might have it. Will have the actual post up in a couple of hours

Dramasailor (and everyone should take note here), this post has you writing Lexi into the past by leaving while Krosus is talking to the shopkeeper ("Noticing him focus on her shipmate"). That's pretty much always a no go, as you're writing yourself out of time. We're doing things the same way we would at a gaming table: essentially, by not posting for a day & then posting after CCL on the next day, you sat there quietly at the table, listening, observing, and letting other players take actions. In this situation, Hawke has left, CCL has already had Krosus 'storm off' and you can't simply write that you left while the shopkeeper was focused on Krosus (that moment has passed as Krosus has already stormed off).

INITIATIVE

As FFG Star Wars uses an initiative wherein the PC's can exchange initiative slots across the group after the initiative roll, we'll use a modified version of it (as pretty much all PbP games use modified initiative rules to help speed up combat so you're not all waiting on each other, potentially for an entire day).

Basically, your rolls will determine where the PC slots are, using rules as written. However, rather than taking entire posts to exchange slots, or waiting half or whole days for another player, initiative slots for PC's will be first come, first serve, reflecting the group sharing them without taking the time to exchange/assign them. This will still allow for much smoother combat for PbP. And yes, this means you could have the best roll and go last in the round, depending on the situation. As a side note, PC and NPC slots will stay consistent throughout combat, but will remain first come first serve. An example below.

Let's say that out of the four of you (the PC's), three of you roll the top 3 initiatives, your enemies (NPC's) roll and are assigned the next 3 slots, and one of you rolls poorly enough to come in last. The initiative order would look like this:

PC-1
PC-2
PC -3
NPC
NPC
NPC
PC-4

In this situation, I'm waiting for the first three PC's to take their turns (first come, first serve, even if you rolled the initiative slot for PC-4). After that, I'll control all of the NPC's turns. After that, whoever hasn't gone for the PC's goes next. Then we repeat.

This will lead to us occasionally waiting on one another. What I would suggest (and will be doing myself) is that you check more frequently during combat, giving yourself more chance to post and keep the game going. This will also be a lot easier to do during combat as posts will typically be more mechanically oriented, requiring less investment of your time for the most part.

Well, you can count on it being brutal in a realistic way. I'm not going to go out of my way to run you guys through hoops. In simpler words, you're not playing on 'Insane' mode or anything like that. The difficulty of our game will come from the fact that your success really will depend on you, and I'll try to make the challenge believable (of course, from a SW sense).

I won't make anybody stay out that long, and how we brought characters back in would require some flexibility, to be sure. You could definitely roll up a new character immediately, and we would find a way to work it back into the game. Depending on the situation, this might put limitations on character creation. E.g., if you die now, it wouldn't make any sense to bring you back in with a Sith character from Akrultos. I wouldn't want to bend the game world that much to accommodate it. Now, let's say a year from now your character dies at the hands of a Sith Lord as punishment for disobedience or some such, while your at a Sith base of operations, say on Bonadan, we could work in an Akrultos Sith.

Ultimately, depending on the situation, we'd have to come up with something appropriate and cross that bridge if we come to it (I say if because I'm not 'out to get you').

What I'll add to your question is this: In all the game's I GM, both table top and PbP, I try to encourage smart play as part of a believable game. By believable, I mean that Bob the bounty hunter doesn't just run into the Imperial base guns blazing, expecting success. So, to encourage players to shoot for longevity, I reward not dying. The way I do this is simple: when rolling a new character, it will be of lower level/less powerful than those who are already in the group.

In the past I've done things like adding up the current group members XP total, dividing it by [group size +1], and giving them that much XP to create a new character with. This brings them close(ish) to the group's level, but tips the hat to those who've been around, and appropriately so.

Example:

Let's say out of the five of you, one of you dies. I add up the remaining 4 group member's XP and get a total of 1600 (each of those four averaging 400 XP). Now, to take into account the new addition to the group, I take the 1600 XP and divide it by 5 (living group +1). Doing the math, we get an answer of 320, which is how much XP the new character would start with.

Now, elaborating on the group's future from there, let's say the five of you continue on and earn another 80 XP on average, members would have: 480, 480, 480, 480, 400. And, let's say that two of the 480 characters die in the same battle. Now, we add up (480+480+400) and get 1360. Since there are three remaining characters, we would divide that number by 4 (still living group +1, even though we're adding two new characters). That would give us a total of 340 starting XP for new characters. After new characters are added to the group, the XP levels for the members would be: 480, 480, 400, 340, 340. As you can see, the continued success of the group is of value to keeping character levels higher as well (meaning, letting someone die is bad business for everyone).

I've also been known to do something far simpler, wherein I simply average the 'living' group members' XP and give the new characters that minus about 20-30%, depending. Typically, when new characters need to be made, I examine both options and decide which one feels right

Ultimately, the idea is to reward smart play, so that characters who do become more powerful have earned it, and rightfully possess the status to reflect it.

For your combat tracker addition, you can also just quote Ezeriah's post and copy it directly from there. I keep a google doc for my various character's combat blocks so I can easily grab them and drop them in each time.

An even better idea. Easy button.

Hey Ezeriah, while I was rereading the game thread today, and I noticed what I think is a mistake in how one of our enemies spent his dice pool against us.
The Rodian who attacked Tajanna should have only had 1 Advantage to spend against her, because of the Threat generated by Tajanna's Defence Rating roll.

You're absolutely right. I must have forgotten to change it after adding the boost for Tajanna's defense. Nice save.

Yay, no setback die for me!

Meribson, I just fixed it in the XP tracker (even though I'm sure it's too late now anyway), but from now on let's try to avoid giving things away to other players when the group is split.

I thought of that when I was writing the post, but figured that since Hawke sent a message to the rest of the group that they were under attack it didn't matter in this case.

You assume it got through.

I updated Hawke's post from this morning, I hadn't realized that the droids were blocking the route to the rodians.

In addition, I had been under the impression that the combat values were supposed to be in the first combat post only, which for Hawke was sending a message out and drawing his lightsaber.

Add an updated one with all combat info to the bottom of each new post in combat (whether anything has changed or not). This makes it so I can easily know and access what is current info.

I really need to get Lexi more force rating. Grr.

My vote is that we stabilize the surviving rodian, toss him into the back of our transport along with any salvage. I'm going to have Hawke take the rodian's arm with them.

Then when it's time to start questioning the victim any slaps to keep him on topic can be done with his own arm.

A) I agree with the idea.
B) I love using his own arm as an "encouragement: implement

Sadistic psychopaths, the lot of you. ;)

And we should probably check in with Lissi as soon as possible. It's quite possible that she was ambushed as well.

Yeah... trying to use force powers with one dice is tough. If you think about it, one force dice is still operating at initiate/apprentice/padawan level.

Yeah. I need to figure out if I'm going to have to retool my thinking away from "force user" as an initial reaction or if I want to save up the XP to try improving her force capacity.

Yeah, it is a crossroads of sorts for Lexi. She's got remarkable talent with saber and piloting already. I mean, you could definitely add some touches to that skill set, but it's also a point where you could start to take a turn, diversifying with force powers or something else. You could even continue saber mastery via stepping into another tree at some point, as by no means should you feel limited to the 'Agility' form, Ataru. True saber mastery would be integrating the styles, utilizing them to maximize your potential.

By no means am I dropping hints or nudging, but Lexi is at one of those ideal 'branching' points, to be sure.

Got it. The results are the same in this case, as it only increases successes, and doesn't add any advantage to interpret. Typically, additional successes are only useful with Simple (no difficulty checks) to gauge the degree of success.

As some of you were interested in the breath masks (aka respirators) and heavy blaster pistols, to be clear, there were two of each. Based on what I read from your posts, Krosus and Tajanna each grabbed a heavy blaster pistol and a breath mask.

CCL: It's Discipline or Cool to recover strain after combat. Seeing as your Discipline is better (2 yellow, 2 green) feel free to reroll and add a new combat info on your next post. Otherwise we can keep what you already rolled with the 4 green.

Just to remind you guys, when you lie, I do roll a secret check for your Deception... and, when you're lied to, I roll your character's Discipline to see if you can spot the lie.

In either case, the Deception/Discipline rolls oppose one another, and provide the difficulty level. So, it's just a reminder, given that we're all still working the kinks out. Those of you with mediocre or low cunning, well, you're just no good at lying. You'd do well to avoid it, if at all possible.

I'm not nudging you in any direction, or suggesting that there are any good/bad ideas in the current scene at the cantina. Just making sure you're aware of the mechanics around social interactions. Deception is a secret check. So, be careful when you type. Nobody likes being lied to.

Well played Lexi-- your tale to the droid bartender bordered on a lie, subtly misleading, but was the truth.

That was my hope, and intent. Tell JUST enough of the truth to not have to try deceiving someone/thing but not be like "Hey all, I'm a sith from offworld that's here to take over your planet, mmmmkay?"

To be clear, for those less experienced or who simply don't remember, Deception seems like it might be on the horizon. Given what I said about Lexi's use of walking the fine line of truth yesterday, I know this might seem obvious, but just in case:

Don't expect to buy a drink, sit in a booth, and, if questioned, say this, expecting it to work: "I'm just having a drink." That isn't the same. That would be a lie. Deception can be complicated. Lexi was telling the droid a true version of her story, minus many details. Pretending you're at the bar for drinks will be Deception, even if your words are true.

In sum, Lexi wasn't hiding anything from the bartender, she just didn't share everything. Sitting in a booth as your cover, questioned by Espos, you will most definitely be hiding something.

As always, I'm being informative. The Espos might not even come into the cantina. There are many possibilities. However, I want to do my best to ensure you grasp the mechanics before making your move.

Anyone have any ideas how we should proceed? I for one believe that the guards will investigate this place and the bar tender will point us out.

A reminder, as CCL uses Seek: whenever you use Force Powers, there are attached Skill checks. Check the Library. Also, when you use Force Powers, you need to dictate what you will use your force points for.

In Krosus' case, he only met the basic requirement to use Seek, the two force points, so this is plainly obvious (and would have been obvious with a 3rd point as well, given his only upgrade). However, I won't make assumptions, and when you do have options using the force, specify how to use them. The more powerful and versatile your force powers become, the more important this will be.

The merciless side of me will be inclined to assume your character wasn't focused, rather than decide for you or hold up the game waiting for you to elaborate and clarify.

CCL, you needed another force point there to use that magnitude rank you purchased for Seek, in case you were wondering (as the base cost of Seek is 2 force points).

Keep in mind that some of your characters' Knowledge checks will be more difficult than usual, given their background. I will allow them, considering that your characters, to varying degrees, might have learned about the galaxy beyond the Veil via holos, data records, etc. They will, for the most part, be difficult checks to succeed at, rather than just waving my hand and saying "you guys are ignorant of the galaxy, due to your isolation on Akrultos." The difficulty will represent the extreme unlikelihood of your character happening to have stumbled upon the Knowledge you seek (e.g., in this situation, the chances would be very slim that Tajanna would know much about Espos).

In simpler terms, you characters' Knowledge bases have far less depth than your average individual, and you are less likely to recall info, depending. However, the longer you are in the civilized galaxy, I will allow that this might improve, via knowledge learned outside the narrative scenes of our game.

I don't think anybody has actually said out loud that they think Lissewa is a traitor. Feel free to edit that post Drama. I'll be making this game public eventually, and that might just confuse anyone reading.

You know, you're right. I thought I had read it in speech somewhere that it was mentioned, but reading back through it was all just internal stuff where the term was kicked around.

I tweaked it around a bit to more closely adhere to what Lexi has actually heard.

A destiny point can be used to upgrade a single dice when rolling, but must be decided before making the roll. Given that, going along similar logic, I'd allow you to re-roll one dice by flipping a destiny point. Clearly useless in this situation, but worth mentioning for future checks.

Tefmon, that was a great roll, btw.

I pride myself on my excellent virtual die rolling skills.

Right, but I was providing the reasoning he would take out the lightsaber for light. Nobody brought any light sources as they're all stored on the ECUL or the Spear of Akrulta. It just seemed you might have missed that based on your post where Lexi was wondering why he would turn on his saber.

Would a datapad not be usable as a makeshift flashlight? Modern smartphones and tablets almost universally have flashlight functionality, but Star Wars technology can be kind of weird and anachronistic compared to modern tech.

Yeah, but the flashlight function on a phone is garbage compared to the real deal. At the same time, you don't even need the flashlight feature to get some light out of a smartphone and see a few feet.

For our game, let's go with weird and anachronistic on that and say the Star Wars universe datapad 'doesn't have an app for that.' I'd like things like glow rods to have value, and I want to make sure this feels more like Star Wars than Sith running around with smart phones. About the only illumination I'll grant a datapad is less than a foot, which has extremely limited uses as I'm sure you can imagine.

If I was playing a Light Side Force user, I'd be the luckiest Force die roller out there.

You sure would be.

I tried to encourage you guys to get more force points during character creation, I really did, as I saw this coming. The thing is, it's a 50% chance to for you to roll dark side points with one dice. Heck, two dice only brings it around 67%. Three dice is when your power become fairly reliable at around 77%. Imo, 5 dice is the ideal for reliability. Right now, however, you're operating at around the level of a novice Sith apprentice.

I have to say, however, looking at your stealth roll... the dice hate you lately. Three blanks again? Nice.

Ezeriah rigged the dice confirmed.

I'm working my way to 2 Force dice with our monthly EXP grants; I should get there in a few more months.

Ugh. Hang in there.

I only need 90 XP ("only"), and I have 10 currently unspent. So I'll have FR 2 in 3 months, as long as I don't spend XP on anything else, and Tajanna's XP per month stays roughly the same (me missing a single daily post between now and then could add an entire month to that).

That's not so bad. I'm playing a game where I've gotten 30 XP since the start of November. Of course, the posting and the pace of the game is extremely sporadic and sluggish, so it's to be expected. If we were going at that pace, you guys would still be in the spaceport, talking to Zhaff...

Eh, or maybe driving to the Espos Tower through the riots and looting. Somewhere in there.

So... Dramasailor got the right idea there with the Note. My fault though, I really should have said something. In the future, when the group splits like that short term, send Notes to the appropriate players. Address it to their user name, not their character's name. If addressing multiple players, separate the user names with commas. E.g, when I sent a note to the three of you, it was addressed: cclrbrts30, Meribson, Tefmon.

Not a big deal here, but could be immersion breaking or game busting down the road, giving you insights that would undoubtedly spoil some of the fun and/or break the challenge level intended.

Now I feel silly. I saw you and Drama passing notes, and I thought: Yeah, Lexi isn't with our characters, we shouldn't know what she's up to, that makes sense, and then that's where my thought process ended.

Oh no, not again.

Personal Transponder [Ankleband] (Finding exact location within close planetary range requires an Average Computers Check. Increase difficulty by two for each additional planetary range band, up to extreme.)

I think we may have forgotten something that would help in locating Lissewa...

What kind of a terminal do we need to be able to search for transponders?

The sourcebook it's from (Keeping the Peace, pg. 51) mentions that it can be searched for with just a basic hand scanner, assuming the transponder's frequency is known (I don't think it was ever explicitly stated that Lissi gave us the frequency, but her transponder wold be pretty useless if she's the only one who knows it). If none of us have a hand scanner, the ECUL's vehicle sensors might also be able to do the job, but that would ultimately be at GM discretion.

Personal transponders have to be activated by the wearer; by default they are not activated as a means of ensuring privacy. Worst case scenario, imagine a bounty hunter learns your personal transponders number, and you don't even know you're being hunted. You are now screwed.

Of course, Lissewa may have activated hers. I guess you'd have to find out.

And we'll assume frequencies were exchanged as a precaution (I believe this was even discussed somewhere during character creation's 423 posts).

A scanner with basic functionality would do, including the ECUL's, although it would be limited by the range of the scanner itself. If you're going to do a broad search, your best bet is a ship scanner or something similar.

About Krosus' Charm attempt on Lissewa (from the Library, under Rules on Social Interactions:

The Charm attempt could still be relevant if there are any NPCs listening in on Lissi's side, or if in fact if Lissi's voice is being entirely simulated by an imposter.

Well, the Charm attempt has to be directed, and doesn't work like area of effect 'whoever is listening'. The player has to choose who is being Charmed.

If it was an impostor, you would be correct, although I don't think CCL was going for anything like that. However, that would be something to keep in mind for the future. Shadow. Looks like the right player is playing the right kind of character, really considering the potential mind games and espionage there!