OOC Thread

This thread is for Out Of Character discussions.

OK, we filled up the game pretty quickly. Welcome to the Ninth World!

Before I go too far in explaining things, what is everyone's experience level with Numenera/Cypher? Are you very experienced? Only heard about it? Read the books? etc?

Are you experienced?

I have next to zero experience. Read the book, generated a character. That's pretty much it. Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here!

Thanks, Qralloq, for putting Numenéra: STRAND on my radar!

I've played in long campaigns in Numenera and The Strange F2F. Online I've jumped onto games on here as well as Cypher and Gods of the Fall.

I backed the Kickstarter. Have read through the books. Have started on a couple games on G+... to no avail. I've never actually played the game. VERY excited at the prospect of this FINALLY happening.

That said, I'm not 100% certain that I've properly crafter my character. Not sure what weapons/attack attributes to assign.
I like the idea of a Retractable Forearm Blade (+2) and a Quarterstaff (+4)...

Well if it's a light weapon it's 2 damage and you need one step down to land an attack (easier to hit with), if it's a medium weapon you do 4 damage and you have to roll the level of the task to hit. Melee usually uses Might for Effort/Edge and ranged off Speed.

Melee attacks can be either based on either Might or Speed as you could be swinging your 'sword' with either brute force or finesse. As a Glaive, you are practiced in all weapons; you could wield a Heavy Weapon (deals 6 damage) with no penalty to your rolls if you wanted to.

Considering that you took the Quick Draw ability, it'd probably be a good idea if you had some throwable Light weapons. Otherwise, you'd be better off selecting a different ability.

I was thinking the Quick Draw would be the forearm blade(s) that could retract/deploy without having to burn an action to do so...?

I rolled randomly for mine, the other two were an Aggressive Nano who forges a bond and a Mercurial Jack who Defends the Weak.

The Cypher system isn't nearly that granular in regards to what you can do with an action. You'd be able to retract/deploy as part of your normal attack action without having Quick Draw. Quick Draw essentially allows you to make two ranged attacks (if they're Light weapons) on the same turn.

Ah... well, maybe they aren't blades, but discs that shoot out of a forearm mounted chamber? A damned nuisance to recover the discs, but, anything flat can be inserted into the spring-loaded hammer mechanism...

Heya. As to experience, I've played two Numenera games, ran one of The Strange, and played in a Cypher System, all here on GP. I also ran one session of The Strange IRL.

I have read some of the Strange. Have bought Numenera so I'll start reading the character creation tomorrow. Read enough of the Strange so that I think it should go fine. What is everyone else playing?

That works for me. You've essentially described a Buzzer, which can hold five rounds. Takes an action to reload once it's empty. I'd allow you to use the Quick Draw action to fire and reload in a single turn.

The char creation process is pretty much the same. The Types are different, and there will be some variance in the Descriptors and Foci.

So far we have:
Mig Lanten, a Resilient Glaive who Defends the Weak
Crash, a Cruel Jack who Gazes into the Abyss
OOLIN, a Mechanical Jack who Fuses Mind & Machine

I'll be taking a closer look at the character sheets tonight, but here are the starting cyphers/oddities for the chars we have so far:

I'm thinking of playing Ythindra, the Hideous Nano who Works Miracles. I'll upload a character sheet later this evening. (Not certain on the Hideous descriptor at the moment, but like the idea.)

Here are my comments on the character sheets so far:It's not very intuitive, but on the GamersPlane Numenera sheet, the first column next to your skills (labeled Attr) will toggle between (M)ight, (S)peed, and (I)ntellect. I think the idea is that you'd assign the skill to the appropriate Pool to make things easier to understand at a glance.

The second column (labeled Prof?) will toggle between (T)rained or (S)pecialized. I'm going to ping Keleth to see if he could add another option for (I)nability, but for now, if you have an inability, either mark it next the Skill field or leave the Prof? column blank.

It sounds like @SelectiveAmnesia may be drawing up his char tomorrow, and I haven't heard from @WillAdams yet. I'm hoping we'll be able to start the game sometime next week. Let me know if you have any questions about any of this so far.

Have a great weekend!

But I don't have armor training, correct?
Can this area of knowledge be Numenera (thus bringing me up to Specialized)?

I believe Mechanical grants OOLIN 1 additional oddity (Character Options pg.49):

Correct. Wearing it would reduce your Speed Pool by 2 (I'm not going to track the hourly Might cost).
Sure, why not? ;)
Good catch. Here you go:

You also have a small coin pouch that holds twice as much as it appears it should

I'm not sure where to list weapons. In equipment? I mentioned above about the forearm "Buzzer" and Quarterstaff.
Or, does it go under "Attacks"?

I have the "Warding Shield" listed in my equipment, so does that make my "Armor" +1?
Or, was it already +1, and with the Warding Shield, it's now +2?

You can list your weapons under Attacks. Light weapons are recorded with a -1 modifier since they reduce the difficulty of the attacks by one step. Light weapons deal 2 damage, Medium weapons deal 4 and Heavy deal 6. As a glaive, you could wield any type of weapon with no penalty.

Warding Shield is a Special Ability that only gives you +1 Armor if you carry a shield. If you don't carry one, it doesn't do anything. A shield by itself doesn't give you any Armor, but it does provide an Asset on all Speed Defense tasks (making it easier for you to dodge/block the attack).

If you wear Light Armor and carry a shield, your Armor rating would be at 2.

Okay, I think I have it all on there now... thanks!

I think I have a concept in mind now. Zippo is a Graceful Glaive who Wields Two Weapons

Thanks for posting this game & also for accepting me to play
I've just finished GMing my 1st IRL game (Having completed the New GM Month with MCG) but I'm looking forward to trying my hand as a player... & also really wanted to try the Cypher Play games but have no FLGS close enough

Think I have everything right for my character...
I have no need of armour or weapons, can I change them out for extra shins/Equipment?

Great! That's the full lineup then.

You can either pick up two more pieces of equipment or start with an extra 12 shin.

No, it's me, I originally designed him as a Swift Glaive, but then changed to tough... Obviously l forgot to amend the title... Thanx

I've added a first aid kit & flute to me EQ if that's alright?

Now that we have a full compliment of players I'll work out connections etc and load a Back story

My bad. In my calculations, I had marked down you putting more of your stat points into Might, which threw off everything else. You're good to go.

Yep, that's fine with me. You can choose one more Fighting Move for Zandoran. As a Glaive, you pick two, but I'm only seeing one on your sheet (No Need For Weapons). Considering your other selections, 'Trained Without Armor' might be a natural choice, but you can take your pick from any of the Tier 1 moves (remember there are additional moves listed in Character Options).

Strange, I'm sure I had Trained Without Armour on the sheet... Musta skipped it by accident..

Also I see Tough is supposed to give me an extra light weapon, can I'll keep it as a family heirloom in my back story

So, backstories and player connections....below is the character lineup. Do you want to assign your Character Connections (as outlined in each of your Foci) or decide them randomly?

Mig Lanten, a Resilient Glaive who Defends the Weak
OOLIN, a Mechanical Jack who Fuses Mind & Machine
Ythindra, a Hideous Nano who Works Miracles
Crash, a Cruel Jack who Gazes into the Abyss
Zippo, a Graceful Glaive who Wields Two Weapons at Once
Zandoran, a Tough Glaive who Needs No Weapons


As far as your backstory goes, I'll give you plenty of leeway to define yourselves with, but here's the starting point of the adventure:
So whatever your origin story is, thats's where it needs to end up. Whether you want to be from a distant city and relocated to Thaemor or grew up there or woke up one morning to find yourself in completely new surroundings, I'll be fine with pretty much whatever. I'd recommend not painting with too fine a brush though, as you'll be able to spend 2XP to retroactively define a piece of your background which will translate to in-game benefits.

This is my first Numenera game. To be more accurate: someone started a game here some time ago which I joined but it hardly got off the ground before it died.

I fell in love with the setting when I read the rulebook! I love the idea of the numenera themselves - the detritus of past civilizations rising and falling. So I wanted a character whose story revolved around that. I almost built a Nano but ended up with OOLIN, the Mechanical Jack who Fuses Mind and Machine.



OOLIN remembers little from her past. She knows that she is on the run from the shady organization that gave her her cybernetic implants. She has no idea for what purpose they 'built' her but she knows that for some reason they tried to destroy her. The organization attempted to destroy her remotely but all that accomplished was severing what control, communications and tracking link they still had on her. So she's in the wind, and trying to build a life of her own. Are they still looking for her? Who knows?

She has never had a name, only an alphanumeric designation/callsign. From what little she remembers from her time in the laboratories of the organization that made her what she is, they've only ever addressed her this way: N1700. It is etched onto the sole of her right foot. After she escaped, lost and alone, she has on occasion had to give her name to people she's met. "OOLIN". (which is N1700 read upside-down, of course!)

OOLIN wants to learn all she can about the numenera. She collects cyphers and implants - particularly those that augment her mind, though in order to survive in the world she's not above acquiring those that enhance her physically as well.

As for connections, if OOLIN met one of the glaives (on first glance, Mig or Zippo, maybe) on the road then she would definitely stick to them for safety.

One of the suggested connections ftom the book is [insert name here] knows a few things that can help when OOLIN's implants malfunction. That sounds to me like Ythindra, maybe?

I haven't had the time to write out a full background yet, but I'm thinking Zippo was/is a caravan guard, so he's well traveled.

My suggested connection is: Pick one other PC. You have trained with this character so much that if the two of you stand back to back in a fight, you both gain a +1 bonus to Speed defense tasks.

Zippo grew up in a martial family. His whole family were members of the same mercenary company, and growing up he got training from the best fighters, grooming him for command.

It was when he got older that he realized that the jobs they were taking were for really bad men, doing horrible things. One day, he got the order to kill a baker's son to send a message. When he refused, he had to kill his companions in self defense. He gave all his money to the baker so he could get his family to safety.

Having nowhere else to turn, Zippo took work as a caravan guard. Each job taking him further away from his family and the mercenary company.

This is where he first met [OTHER PC], and the two trained together on their travels.

"Birds of a feather..." :)

Zandoran was left at the doors of the Temple of Eternal Dawn when he was but a small child. The Monks there took him in and raised him as one of their own. Training focused on the synergy of three components to create a TRUE WARRIOR; Combat Skill, Strong Spirit and Healthy Body. The body has to be free of tension, filled with endurance, flexibility, effortless movement and explosive potential.
Zandoran trained hard and prised quickly through the ranks. One day, soon after the 15th anniversary of his arrival at the temple a fellow Monk returned from a sojourn with a package addressed to Zandoran. The package contained a Katar emblazoned with a Coat of Arms but nothing else. When Zandoran questioned his friend he was told that the package had been in the Monks room one evening with no clue as to how it got there…
Curiosity got the better of him and so Zandoran approached the head of his order and asked permission to travel the world and seek the owner of the blade…

Needing some shins to fund his expedition he hired himself out as a body guard to [Ythindra??]
Zandoran feels that Zippo probably looks down on him for not using "real" weapons in a fight

Works for me, I'll use her for one of the people that know the benefits of Crash hunting and eating an animal of some sort every few days to calm him down. Cool?

Also if someone thinks their character would be freaked out by Crash he does have a connection of giving the key to his manacles to someone so if they're freaked out he'll put on his manacles and they might feel safe since they have the key.

I can imagine that Zandoran, having lived such a sheltered life in the monastery, would be a little freaked out by Crash, at least at the beginning

Works for me.

Just a heads up, I came down with a bad headcold and probably won't be up to posting the next couple of days.

But keep up the discussions - I'm seeing some great connections being made!

Urg colds are the pits... Take care of yourself

While the GM has his own Intrusion has everyone got their connections down? I still need one more person for one of the connections.

While the GM has his own Intrusion has everyone got their connections down? I still need one more person for one of the connections.

Which connection is missing? So far, I only have one with 00LIN.

I went with two, one of them is a three person (one being me) connection. 'It's a good idea to let Crash occasionally catch an animal and eat it'

Mig could be your Menacler. He definitely likes things orderly, and understands that this doesn't always benefit everyone.

Need to find someone I've trained with. When fighting back to back we get +1 Speed Defense tasks

I need to "Pick a PC. They think you may be a messiah or supernatural being. You may or may not be aware of this."

Unless someone wants to voluntarily revere my character?

WillAdams already volunteered for that one. You up for the other side of things with the other connection? Qralloq's PC is one of them.

I would volunteer for the other connections but I figure we wanted to spread things around (I think I have one of your Qralloq already)

As long as Ythindra and Zippo are ok with me choosing them for my connections I'm good. Cos then with them and holding Crash's key I'm connected to 3 PCs

I went with three PCs off two connections as well. Just need one more person though that doesn't mind helping me hunt versus 'oh look a villager out by themselves and no one else around...'.

OOLIN can think of you as supernatural. Works well with
"Ythindra knows a few things that can help when OOLIN's implants malfunction."

Yeah, that's awesome, having Zan as a bodyguard of sorts. She channels, he meditates, together they fight crime.

Demons are supernatural, right? :-D

I think it's possible that Mig could have been at some sort of martial training with you, when he was going through the Numenera equivalent of the police academy... which I'm guessing would be more like an informal arrangement with some martial master to train a few young people who have been hired to protect their sponsors...

I'm good :)

Connections if I recapped correctly I think:

Mig Lanten, Bodyguard for OOLIN, Zippo and Mig have practiced group tactics (speed defense bonus)
OOLIN, Charge of Bodyguard Mig, Looks at Ythindra as supernatural (Demon?), Ythindra can help when OOLIN's implants malfunctions
Ythindra, Charge of Bodyguard Zandoran, Kindered spirit in Crash, Opts to help Crash hunt versus the alternative, knows how to help when OOLIN's implants malfunction
Crash, Lets Zandoran hold his manacle key, Ythindra helps him hunt versus the alternative
Zippo, Think's Zandoran should use real weapons, Zippo and Mig have practiced group tactics (speed defense bonus)
Zandoran, Bodyguard of Ythindra, keyholder of Crash's manacles, thinks Zippo thinks he should use actual weapons

@Remnant Thanks, I was starting to do the same thing. I was getting weary of scrolling back and forth across four pages of posts to figure that all out!

Quite a diverse set of people/connections. I'm curious to see what objective/mission/task has us all "joined together."

Hopefully when njohn858 gets back he could add a party thread so we can post our backgrounds and connections there so we don't have to dig through the ooc

Me too

That's great Remnant! Let's pin that bad boy

Please add to the summary of connections:

YTHINDRA knows a few things that can help when OOLIN's implants malfunction.

What a week. Glad it's over, and glad I'm feeling better again.

@remnant, thanks for the connection summary post. That's very helpful.

@godric, good idea on setting up a character thread. I can get that taken care of. I had refrained from doing so earlier as in the other games I've played/ran here it seems that once the game actually gets started, that type of thread doesn't get used. But you're right; at the very least, it's a place to reference the characters without having to sift through all the pages.

New thread created and I filled in everyone's connections in a (hopefully) easy to read/understand format. If you don't mind copy/pasting your post about your character backstory into that thread, that'd be great. Thanks!

I re-edited OOLIN's story as written in the Character Repository. I had edited it earlier to include the connection with Mig, but I had misunderstood and thought he was the one who broke her out of the unnamed organization that built her. Now having re-read Godric's post I see that the story is very different: during her wanderings (some time after escaping from her makers) she found herself in Fasten, accused of a crime she didn't commit. Mig made a huge sacrifice and freed OOLIN under cover of night, choosing to be banished forever with her, but choosing Truth.

Damn, that is some connection! I'll try my best to play OOLIN accordingly.

What crime was OOLIN accused of? Was Zippo involved at all in this? Did he and Mig meet and train together before or after these events?

I figure Mig had worked as hired "security" while living in Fasten, and had accompanied Zippo a few times during that time.
When 00LIN stumbled in to town, the authorities were already on the hunt for a culprit. Mig, making it his business to know people and foster relationships, had his finger on the pulse of Fasten. So he knew 00LIN's appearance came after the crime (whatever it was) and knew that when she was blamed, it was likely a convenient solution to something more sinister going on.
He freed her, and left a place he now knew to be corrupt.

@godric, @qralloq in the character repository, you both have a double profile pic that includes your pc's picture... How do you do this?

It took me a minute to find the Change Avatar on the Character Sheet—since it doesn't actually display there... it's hard to know what that is all about.

It's been requested to display avatars on character sheets. It's on our very hard-working admin's long to-do list.

Dumb question, did everyone get their Cypher and oddities rolled up already? If so I may have missed that posting.

Cyphers and oddities were handed out here.

EDIT: Oops, sorry, linked to the wrong post. This is the correct link.

Thanks!

Seeing as we have a few new players, I wanted to explain how task resolution works in the Cypher System (which is what Numenera uses). It's pretty straightforward and simple: the GM decides how difficult the task is (on a scale of 0-10), and the player rolls a d20. If the roll is equal to or higher than 3 times the difficulty, the player succeeds. For example, if I said the difficulty of climbing a wall is a 4, you'd have to roll a 12 or higher to successfully climb the wall.

That being said, there are three ways for you to reduce the difficulty: Skills, Effort, Assets

Skills: if you are Trained in a skill, you reduce the difficulty of the task by 1. If you are Specialized, you reduce it by 2. If you have an Inability, it's increased by 1. In the example of climbing the wall, if you were Trained in climbing, it would reduce the difficulty to 3, and you'd need to roll a 9 or higher.

Effort: You can put more effort into accomplishing the task, which is largely equivalent to you trying extra hard to do it. But putting more effort into it, trying harder, etc comes with a cost. You can reduce the difficulty of a task by however much your Effort rating is (at Tier 1, it's 1) and by spending points out of the appropriate pool. It costs 3 points for the first level of Effort and 2 points for every level after that. This cost can be mitigated by your Edge rating, but I'll explain that in a minute. So if you were Trained in Climbing and you put 1 Effort into it, it'd only be a Difficulty 2 task, and you'd need to roll a 6 or higher.

In combat, you can also apply Effort to increase the damage done by your attack by 3pts. If you have more than 1 Effort, you can split its usage (reduce difficulty AND increase damage), but you can't spend more Effort than what your rating is.

Assets: These are external things that make it easier for you to accomplish your task. It could be someone (who's knowledgeable in what you're doing) helping you, a book, a tool, a nearby piece of the landscape, etc. Each Asset that helps you in a different way reduces the difficulty by 1 (max of 2). So if you had Training, Effort, and some rope, you'd have reduced the Difficulty of climbing the wall to 1, and you'd have to roll a 3 or higher to successfully make your way to the top.


It is entirely possible to reduce the difficulty to 0, in which case you don't have to roll to succeed. You're just that good. ;)


A word on Edge. This reduces the cost of the action by whatever the value is. As Tier 1 characters, you all have an Edge of 1 in at least one Pool. That means that if you have to spend points out of that pool to do something, you reduce that cost by 1. If a Nano wants to use Onslaught, it's going to cost 1 Intellect point. But if they want to also use Effort to reduce the difficulty (or increase damage), it would cost them 4 Intellect points. With an Edge of 1, they only strike 3 from their pool.

How does the Note post function work?

Yes, it's a secret note sent to a fellow player, or to several players, or to the GM, or aby combination. The GM sees all notes, even if he/she is not a recipient.

It's a way to have a private conversation in the thread....akin to passing a note at the table if you're playing in RL. If you specify a username(s) in the Note="" section, only that user(s) will be able to read it....and the GM. :)

How does that work, are you supposed to put the name of the recipient in to the pop-up window?

Yep, or you can add it to the code afterward. I believe you can send it to multiple people if you separate the usernames by commas.

Ahh... cool. I was wondering about how to do address another player without everyone else being able to read it... Is it usually for OOC content, or side-conversations, or?

Some ways that I've seen it be used is if a player is wanting to perform an action without anyone else knowing about it or what the results of that action are. I've also seen it to be a way for the GM to indicate that one player is aware of something that the others aren't (eg they are able to understand a language that no one else can). At that point, it's in the player's hands whether or not to share that information with the others....and how much to share. In that regard, it's a good way to help separate character knowledge from player knowledge.

Personally, I like playing with an open hand, so I'm more likely to put things like that in a Spoiler instead of a Note. But if you initiate something with a Note, I'll respect that and respond similarly.

Good call on the spoiler. Will do it that way moving forward.

Another way I've used it is writing a secret note to myself (visible to the GM of course) containing tracking info (current hp, spell slots remaining, etc) that would otherwise clutter the post. Also useful for tracking characters or NPC's in a game that you run.

Would OOLIN (still by the cart) have heard the conversation with the stranger? I think she might be able to mend the wheel with Hedge Magic but if she didn't hear then she doesn't know.

You can hear voices but not you're not close enough to make out the conversation

So this is how I'm imagining OOLIN's Hedge "Magic": it's her cybernetics, which she doesn't exactly understand how they work. They just DO THINGS, sometimes without her full control.

So how does this work? Do I spend 1 point from my Intellect pool?

As I understand the rules, you don't spend the Int point because you have an edge of 1.

Oh that's right. Thanks!

This is something that's still unclear to me: the dice pool is an exhaustible resource (that can be partially replenished with recoveries) but you can stave off the stat point cost if you have an edge in the stat. Is the edge also an exhaustible resource? Do you always spend less of that particular stat pool owing to your Edge, or is Edge merely a buffer that gets spent the first time you use it and so is no longer there when another challenge comes along?

Does my question make sense?

Makes perfect sense. Edge isn't exhausted. Let's say, for example, you had gone for a more combat oriented build and chosen "Thrust" as one of OOLIN's Tricks as well as having chosen to put your edge into might ... In a fight you decide to use thrust in the 1st round... Doesn't cost you a might point due to edge... But you miss, so next round you decide to apply a level of effort as well as using thrust. You can't apply edge to both Thrust and Effort, so the action would cost you 3 might points (1 for thrust, plus 3 for short, minus 1 for edge)

Does that make sense?

Yeah I think I get it... thanks! I will be asking many more questions and making mistakes for sure as we go along, so I apologize in advance! :-)

Agreed, Edge/Effort is the most confusing aspect of Cypher. I don't quite get it either.

Don't apologise, we're all learning together

I look at the pools as how much stamina you have at the type of task.

A Might Pool of 10 abstractly you can spend X hours lugging sacks of grain per 2 points out of the pool. (Work doing manual labor)

Might Edge would be how skilled you are at doing something physical so you can move more bags faster. (Burlier worker doing manual labor)

Effort would be an exertion when you want more of an effect but don't have the time. (You're done for the day after these last 4 sacks are moved so you go in one go.

Does that help or confuse you more.

Ha! I was following you up until you said, "look".... JK

I get the stat pools are a Resource/Reserve of a certain type of energy.
I get that you can spend those pools as Effort to reduce the goal.
I get that Edge enters in to the equation somehow, but I get lost in the factoring... eyes roll back in head...

1st effort cost 3, 2nd and all other efforts exerted after that cost 2. So to get a free effort with an edge of two you need to spend 2 effort (3+2) which still cost 3 plus if there's a cost for the action taken or ability used.

Edge I guess can be looked at mechanically as a discount for tasks involving that kind of edge. Have a task that cost 1 in a pool and you have 1 edge? It's Free. Have 3 edge and you attack using that pool? It's free effort (if you state in advance you're applying effort). Can you literally knock yourself unconscious attempting something with effort? Yes... *looks at former GM* yes yes you can... stop smiling Joe it's not funny. T_T

Might Task Difficulty = 4 (roll a 12 or better to succeed)

Might Stat = 10
To reduce task difficulty by 1, spend 3 Might (spending points thusly is called Effort, right?)
To reduce task difficulty by 2, spend 5 Might.

Might Stat = 10, Edge = 1
To reduce task difficulty by 1, spend 2 Might. Yes?
To reduce task difficulty by 2, spend 4 Might.


Might Stat = 10, Edge = 2
To reduce task difficulty by 1, spend 1 Might. Yes?
To reduce task difficulty by 2, spend 3 Might.


Might Stat = 10, Edge = 3
To reduce task difficulty by 1, spend 0 Might. Yes?
To reduce task difficulty by 2, spend 2 Might...?

Yep, to have 2 effort we've been given at least 5 xp though and you spent it on upgrading your Max level of effort that can be used per task.

Might task could be also lowered in difficulty by an asset (GM approved), a skill being trained, lowered twice if specialized skill can be applied.

Currently at our level if things were aligned you could have an asset to do the task (piece of gear), be specialized in a skill that would apply, and use effort to lower it to a Level 0 Task at the cost of 3 - edge in that pool.

Not sure I follow you here... which made me look back at the character sheet, and I noticed that there is actually an Effort pool... so, my previous example now doesn't quite account for everything.

I currently have Effort = 1.
Does that mean:
a) I can spend 1 Effort per action? Or,
b) I get to spend 1 Effort, one time, and then it's gone?

Scenario:
I have Might = 10, Effort = 1, Might Edge = 1

Might Task Difficulty = 4
a) To reduce the difficulty to 3, I can spend 1 Effort, which means I only need to spend 2 Might to reduce difficulty to 3. Or,
b) To reduce the difficulty to 3, I can spend 1 Effort. And now I'm out of Effort. Or,
c) something else...?

Effort isn't a pool. Like Edge, it is a stat. Effort means you can only spend 1 Effort on any one task.

Effort of one means you can only apply one level of effort (First one which cost 3) currently. So 'a'

scenario:
a: yes, it would cost 3 for the first effort -1 for the one might edge
b: you still have 1 effort but you've already used it on this task. You can use effort on a different task (might based you get to use edge, other pool with no edge it will cost 3).

To apply two levels of Effort you'd need a 2 in effort which is one of the things you'll need to do to level up. It will cost 4 or 5 XP I'm unsure now, it might be four and Savage Worlds is 5 for an advancement.

Ahhhhhh... so Effort = the number of reductions in difficulty you can apply to a task? It's more of a 'limiter' than it is a 'quantity'?

So, EFFORT doesn't effect the COST of reducing the difficulty, but the number of times difficulty may be reduced.
Whereas EDGE directly reduces the COST of reducing the difficulty.

Yes?

You got it!

Both Effort (to reduce difficulty or increase damage) and Edge (to reduce cost) can be applied to each action, though your Edge only applies to the corresponding Pool you're spending points out of (eg, you can't use a Might Edge to reduce the cost of an Intellect action). You can use both Effort and Edge for every single action if you want to.

Your Effort and Edge will increase as your character advances.



PSA - I had a family emergency come up over the weekend (my dad had a heart attack and is having surgery tomorrow), and I thought I was going to be able to stay on top of posting this week, but I realized this morning that I need to step back from things until we get past this. As such, I'm not planning on posting anything story-wise until at least this weekend. Thanks for understanding.

That's brutal, njohn, hope he's doing better soon. My father had a heart attack 8 years ago (on Christmas Eve), and recovered quickly; hopefully you'll be able to say the same.

Hey I'm really sorry to hear about your dad, and wish him all the best tomorrow! Don't worry about us, family is more important.

Take your time man life comes first. We can shoot around questions and stuff about the system or come up with some nuggets of background RP while you're out. I.e. Who's the best cook in the party? I imagine no one wants Crash to cook since he likes his food 'gamey' and still blinking... X3....

Ditto! Family is infinitely higher priority than a play-by-post with strangers!
:)

Praying for a speedy recovery.

Hectic boet. Take as much time as you need, family always comes first! Praying for you and yours

Yeah. Family trumps online. We'll be here when you're ready to resume. Well wishes :)

Thank you, all!

Another hectic weekend at work + I'm coming down with something. Probably won't be hearing from me til Sunday.

Tis the Season!
My family was sick, starting on Christmas Eve, through the first week of February. If you get the flu/cold/chest/cough/bronchitis/walking pneumonia thing that's been going around this year... don't wait it out, visit your doctor!

Well, Keleth had reached out to MCG about running the Cypher OP here and received word that it's intended use is exclusively for being run in person at local gaming stores. They denied permission to run it as a PbP. So I'm going to have to pull the plug on this OP game.

(See this thread)

If you all want to continue playing, I can adjust the storyline away from the OP materials. But if you'd rather not, I'll understand.

I'm up for still playing if you can convert things over to something that won't get a CaD order slapped on us.

Had a funny feeling that might happen :(

I'm keen to keep on playing though if you can rework the game

That's for their Cypher Play seasons/sessions. That doesn't affect us does it? Or, is that the material we're playing through?

This is my PRIMARY complaint against MCG. They are extremely myopic about the context in which people play and access material. I ran in to several issues with their "stinginess" over on G+ community for No Thank You Evil. They don't want fans to create and share stuff over PDF or editable doc formats... "but if you want to build a website, go for it."

Well, let's rename our stuff, I'm still game.

Yeah, that's unfortunate. When I ran a game of The Strange here, I posted a rules synopsis but emailed them a copy of what I was planning. They never responded, but I always thought they might ask me to take it down.

It's up to you. It's a lot of unintended work to switch this to a homebrew, when you were expecting to MAINLY explore the OP.

That's what I'm talking about! Why would you have to send them anything?

MCG, who by all appearances would oppose any Big Brother behaviors by governments and corporations, etc., is doing exactly that. And to whom? To their FAN BASE. This will be the fourth MCG game that has been halted as a result of their stinginess in handling fan enthusiasm for their system—either by direct request to cease-and-desist, or by the fear of the CaD. /rant

Very disappointing. I understand that reworking the adventure could be a lot of heavy lifting, so—if GM feels like closing down this game, I totally understand.

And I was just about to roll Initiative for the first time ever in a Numenera game!

I would like to continue, through a different storyline if that's what needs to happen. But as Qralloq said, it's really up to you, njohn858. I understand switching to homebrew will entail a fair amount of work that you may not have the free time for, so wouldn't begrudge it if you would rather pull the plug.

Thanks all - I had opted to run this pre-made adventure precisely because I didn't have the margin to run a home-brew. I'll dig through some of the other published stuff I have and see if there's a good one that I can naturally inject into what has transpired so far. And if not, we may just have to handwave everyone to a new starting point.

That being said, we can at the very least finish out this combat scene. @Jabes, you may roll your first Numenera initiative!

Dream sequence in Numenera? *facts check out that's thing*

I'm having a good time and would love to continue.

I've been doing a fair amount of skimming these past several days and have found something that should work for this group and where in the Ninth World you're currently at. So I'm planning on keeping this going.


And I'll just put this out there because I know it can be an awkward thing - if at any point, you need to back out of the game for whatever reason, whether it be a temporary or permanent thing, just shoot me a PM letting me know. There won't be any sort of hard feelings. When I had been running this as an OP, I had planned on having a brief break between each 'Session' to facilitate a natural period for players to swap out if they needed/wanted to, but since that's changed, I just want to keep an open dialog about it.

Sounds great, njohn858. 'Preciate your efforts.

thumbs up

I'm glad this is continuing! Thanks, njohn858!

Fantastic news. Really enjoying the group, so glad we don't have to stop

Sorry for the delayed posting everyone. I'm at the tail-end of a project at work that has unexpectedly eaten up a lot of my off-time. But I'm making a break for it this weekend and will be taking a short vacation to try to recoup. I'll be offline until 4/18.

go get em

Enjoy the long weekend Boet

As posted in the Absences thread:

Hi everyone! Sorry for the extended absence. That was my first vacation in years! I'm back now, and looking forward to slowly getting caught up with all my games. Cheers!

LOL you guys! :-)))

D'oh, I totally missed it - awesome

As posted in the Absences thread:

Sorry for my absence here the past week or so - I started supervising an intern at work and it's taken more time out of my days than I had anticipated. Also, I'm headed out on vacation for a week and won't be back until after Memorial Day (May 29). Hopefully you all won't lose interest in the meantime, and we can build up some momentum again when I return. :D

Have a great vacation!

I'll sharpen my tools, oil whatever leather stuff I have, eat some food, heal up while we wait.

I'll likely use my action and 10 minute healup roll once we're back in the thick of it, search the body look to see if anyone's looking... *nibbles*

Are Ythindra & I going to need to make tracking rolls to get back to the group, or is our flight path fairly obvious??

I figure the trail blazer made a beeline away from fire powered by 'Nope'.

No rolls needed. I imagine the path would be fairly obvious and there'd likely be the remnants of smoke lingering in the area to provide additional guidance.

Thanx

Ugh what a crappy roll!

During the fight OOLIN activated one of hers, a pair of boots:
Has the hour passed? What happens to expended cyphers? Are they utterly useless and you just throw them away?

@jabes.plays.rpgs - It hasn't quite been an hour, but it's getting very close. The effect will wear off in the next couple of rounds. When that happens, the cypher simply becomes inert. If it were a wearable device (eg a pair of boots), you could continue to wear it if you desired to.

However, I'll remind you that you had opted to replace the flavor of the cypher as it having a body-altering effect, which is what granted you levitation:
So with that context, I'd either have the wings be reabsorbed by your body or fall off. Do you have a pref?

Thanks for reminding me about the reflavoring! I don't really have a strong preference, but reabsorbed sounds cool! :-)

Thanks!

Does OOLIN hear Mig's call for help? Because if she does, then she goes to his aid.

Give me a listening skill check. The difficulty is reduced by any appropriate skills or abilities.

Nope. :-) OOLIN is to preoccupied with her exploration of the synth.

I'll be away from civilization today through Wed. I'm hoping to get back to posting on Thurs, but it may not be until next weekend (I have a RL game to run Thursday night, and we're getting a puppy upon our return that we'll need to adjust to).

Just a heads up I'll be out of state from the 20th to the 23rd in Chicago, IL so I'll likely won't be posting.

+2 for new puppy! What breed?

@Remnant, thanks for the heads up.
@everyone, I'm traveling for work 7/14-7/18 and won't be available for posting
@Godric, it's a border collie/peekapoo mix. As far as training goes, she's doing pretty well. Last night was the first night she slept through the (albeit short) night.

Oh boy! An ankle-biter. Awesome.
Super smart breed too. Do you have kids she can play with? (If not, your furniture is going to get some serious wear and tear! :)

I've got two kids (3yo and 5yo) who are completely enthralled by her. And we've busted out the cayenne pepper in several areas already to curb her chewing, and are trying to keep her gnawing on all the 'appropriate' stuff. I have hopes (false though they may be) that this chewing on everything is just a phase. ;)

Yeah, it only last for ONE AND A HALF YEARS with our dog. It ends... unless they get bored. Then... they can't. be. stopped.

I'm going to be at a work conference tomorrow through next Tues (14-18). I'm hoping to have enough time between sessions to stay on top of posting, but if things get quiet on my end, you know why.

On another note, I missed my window of opportunity to switch things over into Session 2. I've asked Keleth to move the appropriate posts over into the new thread, and once that happens, I'll lock the Session 1 thread. Until that happens, just keep posting in the Session 1 thread. I promise to handle this better next time. ;)

At the time that we were between Sessions, I was also going to thank you for playing in the Cypher OP (yes, we're back to that since I got approval from MCG to run it as a PbP). As a 'reward' for playing, you can download the copy of Session 1 here. Each session will be made available to you like this, so if you play through the end of the adventure (six sessions), you'll have a complete copy of it!

Also, this would be a natural point for you to drop out of the game if you wanted/needed to. I'm enjoying everyone playing, and would not complain in the least if everyone continues on. But I know how life can get and I want to keep the awkward factor as low as possible. If that's something you want to do, just let me know. Thanks!

Thanks njohn858. I think that I'll take the opportunity to drop out. Life is surging and I'm finding it hard to keep up. Thanks for having me.

Not a problem. Thanks for letting me know, and more importantly, thanks for playing! I hope you had fun in this little foray into Numenera!

Thanks njohn858, I saw that MCG approved which really surprised me. I'm happy to continue and grateful for the game.
Qralloq, best of luck!

Sorry to see you go, Qralloq!

I'm glad to continue as well. :-)

I didn't know MCG had approved us continuing... That's awesome news. Thanx for the DL njohn858

Thanx for playing with us Qralloq, sorry to see you go

As posted in the Absences thread:

Having a great time and would love to continue.

I regret needing to do this, but life isn't getting any less crazy, and with school starting next week, I can only expect it to get worse. I'm pulling the plug on this game. It's not fair to you great players to have a GM who's not posting regularly. Know that I have thoroughly enjoyed running this and introducing you to the Numenera system, and I hope to see you in future games!

No worries man life comes first. I enjoyed playing my randomly generated character that was similar to Blanka from SF.

No worries. Best of luck!

Won't lie and say I'm not disappointed, cos I am. Was really enjoying the game but I TOTALLY understand that life comes first. Good luck in the future njohn858 hope to see you again some time

Actually, just had a thought, I've got time... & would be willing to run the game... Could you possibly send me the material & I'll drop my character & take over as GM

I'm disappointed too. But that's life sometimes.

If you want to keep running the game, I'd be happy to send you the resources! PM headed your way soon! :D

I echo everyone's sentiments: It's disappointing, but tha's life. Thank you for running this, @njohn858! I wish you well!

@WillAdams, if you're taking over, awesome!

I'm still here if Will's picking up the torch!

If we're losing one character then it might be a good idea to invite this new member looking for a Numenera game. :-)

fine by me

Excellent. I now have all the material from njohn858, so we can continue. I'm happy to invite practicing_human to the group, but unfortunately njohn858 is unable to transfer the GM mantel to me. I'm going to do Keleth a line and see if he can help...

I would love to continue. I've had fun so far, and just starting to really grasp the system so it would have been a shame to quit now.

Thanks for starting it up njohn858. Real life comes first, and good luck with school.

Greetings, everyone, and thanks for having me! I'm looking forward to hopping into this game. I'll post my character info once I get the last pieces in place, such as how he gets folded into the mix, connection to existing characters, etc.

Just checking in to see if the majority of players are still interested in continuing this game...

Yeah I'm still here. :-)

I here but I figured we were looking for more time to get things sorted. Don't know if it's a continuation or a reboot also.

That's great to hear!

So I'll go ahead and share my character bio. I came up with him before joining this game, so there's some great role play opportunities in light of OOLIN. I thought maybe he could take the place of helping repair her mechanical parts since the character that originally served in this capacity has left.

If 00LIN has left the game, I have an open connection. She was one of mine, I was her self-appointed defender...
It could make sense (if we're continuing the story) that after she entered the tech labyrinth under the hill and is gone for some time, my character goes in to find her. At GM's direction, Mig could "loose" "say goodbye" etc. to 00LIN and also meet/greet/welcome Guddus into the group.

Godric, did you play Ythindra? Will you continue playing her in this game?

00LIN has not left the game. :-)

He is suggesting that Guddus be the one who knows how to help fix her implants. That used to be Ythindra, who was played by Qralloq.

The other character leaving is Zippo, played by Selective Amnesia. Godric plays Mig.

Oh, okay, I thought that sounded incorrect. 00LIN LIVES! Zippo was my other connection. However, now I only see my character Mig pop up on the Characters tab. Where is everyone else's characters?

I figure once we're sorted out new GM reapproves maybe?

Since WillAdams is going to GM did we also lose Zandoran or will he be an NPC, if anyone knows?

I went to the Game Details link at the bottom an I was able to see the cast.

Game Details still shows Zippo as in play.
The Character Tab would allow us to see each others Character Sheet. I know that you have to enable this visibility for others in the settings somewhere. Maybe I haven't enabled mine... can you see Mig Lanten in your Characters Tab?

This is a bug that was reported before. Normally you would see everyone's characters listed there. Even NPC's if the GM created a sheet for them.

Eish, sorry I've been so scarce...

I've just dropped Selective Amnesia a PM because their last post was that they were willing to continue... If not how do you guys want to continue? there are 4 of you (Zandoran would head off with Ythindra) which makes a pretty descent group...

Since I'm the new guy it's really up to you where I drop into the story. I still need to hammer out another character connection too.

Yeah, still around. Had some real life stuff the last couple of weeks, but it seems we were on a break so I didn't miss anything.

If you @willadams have the GM stuff... we can pick up at the hill. The thing 00LIN walked in to could be her "long list ship" and she could just teleport away... leaving us all standing around wondering what to do next. Then we discover Guddus has also been left behind. Maybe he was also exploring the ship when he saw us approach and hid to see what we did...

For character connections: Guddus can easily fill the gap left by Ythindra, being able to fix 00LIN's mechanical parts. It works well with his focus. I did say "easily", didn't I?
Perhaps this could be Mig, since he lost Zippo as his other connection?

As posted in the Absences thread:

I'm afraid I don't think I'm going to be able to GM this game, sorry to have lead you all on for so long, but I just can't find the time to dedicate to the game & I feel it would be unfair to all of you to run a sub standard game

Once again my appologies

No worries. Thanks everyone! See you all in the funny pages! :)

Totally understandable. Thanks for being kind enough to invite me into it nonetheless.

No worries, @WillAdams!

Those of you still looking, I think someone set up a new Numenera game a few days ago. You can try there. Link on the home page. Devil's Spine.

Afraid that ones my friend, he's going to be GMing a game over Skype. I suggested he Set up a game here as it's a good way to keep track of character sheets