The Old Guard OOC Thread

Sorry, everyone. I posted on the Absences thread, but not in each of my games: I was pretty sick for a week, and have barely made it onto the site. Very sorry to hold things up!

That doesn't bode well! Can the rest of us hear what GB is saying BTW?

I'd been assuming that Pudge is still in contact with Darghibous, but it may be that he hasn't noticed that communication drop.

Yeah that was my assumption: there's been no attempt (at least no successful attempt!) by the embassy's security detail to reverse Pudge's hold on their communication systems. Seems reasonable to say that you can hear each other's conversations, at least until such a time that you choose to turn off your comms.

Darghibous is in a bit of a quandary here. His knee-jerk response to Graves-Burton's offer to escort them off planet so he can open the Vault in peace is No, by the fifteen Hells! but he's trying to figure out a strategy to get out of this situation that doesn't involve physical violence...er, more physical violence. Not that he has any fondness for GB, of course: he just realizes that any situation where he attacks GB will probably result in his death, even with the bag of tricks and his ring of acceleration helping his escape. He'd do it in a second, though, if he was certain that it meant no one opening the Vault...

So...at this moment, he has inhaled and is considering his response. Anyone on the team can talk to him through Pudge if you have any suggestions.

I think we can safely assume that Pudge would have patched the other two into the comm feed. So, Serana and Wilhelm would have been able to hear this conversation and respond directly to Darghibous.

Cool with that, Ed?

Yeah, that's cool.

You could try attacking him and running for it, although I agree it probably wouldn't work. Although maybe Pudge could slow down GB with his newfound horde of roombas.

*motions to officially change the name of the campaign to Exigency: Horde of Roombas.*

It's a Horde of Roombas up until we capture them all and put them in the Vault...

Then it's a Hoard of Roombas.

Eventually they form a committee to manage the running of their society. Board of Roombas

Then democracy breaks down and one takes charge. Lord of Roombas.

When intruders threaten the Vault they stack together to form a barrier against entry. Ward of Roombas.

The intruders successfully breach the vault, capturing the vacuum robots and ending the conflict. The Lord is forced to sign the Accord of Roombas.

Eventually, centuries after the fact, the Roombas degenerate into a medieval society in time for the fantasy reboot. Sword of Roombas.

Ahem. So being a pain but I've been re-reading the story so far and have another mechanics/scale question. Touched on it before but in say D&D terms, what are our stats like? Are we what super hero fans would call street tier or a bit beyond? What does a 'rank' in a talent represent exactly?

Sorry, I hadn't noticed the post somehow! I'm not big on comicbook tiers but a score of 5 is arguably peak human or perhaps slightly beyond, and 10 is out-and-out superhuman. 10 STR is tearing metal with your bare hands, VIT 10 means you can go for days without rest and be immune to disease, and so on.

And a talent isn't quite equivalent to D&D skills (or the old-school proficiencies), although there's obviously some similarity. There are no trained/untrained skills, it's assumed that virtually everyone can try their hand at a task and not be completely incompetent at it even if they have no talent rank. A talent represents some degree of expertise and even a single point is noteworthy. They were actually called "specialities" in earlier versions, but that seemed odd when you consider how many of them PCs end up getting!

I'm not very good at the nitty gritty of D&D scaling, but STR 29 let you lift about 3/4 of a ton I think? Which would be roughly equivalent to a 5 or 6 on Exigency's scale. Yes, Serana really is that strong... and I think I'm okay with Exigency being a little bit silly in terms of power level.

Coming from 3.5 my idea of 'silly' is STR35 centaur-vampire-dragons that can drag half a dungeon along with them when they charge. I think we're grounded by comparison.

All right if everybody that wants to chime in has chimed in, I could screenwipe to the next scene/location if you all have one in mind?

I guess we drive somewhere secluded and interrogate Reave. Maybe we head towards the vault and stop halfway to grill her?