ZOGZY.

Oooh, oooh, can they form a squad if they call themselves the Flipmode Squad?!?

How much ‘rope’ is there?

Yeah, sorry. Today has been a BEATING.

Groovy. At least I got to hurt you a little!

Oh!

Gottit.

Sure.

So you want to spend a style die and have a woman be present for you to be impressing while kids throw rocks at you and use that to reroll?

No, at this point you just need to take 3 Wound ranks. :P

Generally speaking, you need pad your roll BEFORE you find out the result.

Besides, if you wanted there to be a female present for you to look good for, you’d need to spend a style die. ;)

Hrm. Sure, I guess you were doing exactly that. So make it 3 Wound Ranks rather than 4!

Hey, Ethan and Neko, don’t forget that you’ve now taken Wounds for the first time in a Scene, which means you need to give me a plot hook for whichever forte you put the first Wound Rank into.

I fell like a cross between a pin cushion and a crash test dummy.

Is he at least getting training points for this? ;)

OK, so you’re still in the soup, all three of you. Before going down, Azog indicated her direction, but nothing more. Jamison effectively found the end of the hallway and is navigating it by hand, trying to find wherever it is that the witch is, but it’ll take a bit for him to make that kind of progress – definitely long enough for Mugsy to take another action or two.

This just keeps getting better and better.

Does the pudding of evil stop anyone from talking, breathing or smelling? I’m trying to get a feel for what’s going on.

But Azog will hand it over if you’d rather carry it. Not sure which is better.

Mugsy should probably draw his gun, consider his 1911 drawn.

I got a bad feeling about this, guys.

The order of the scenes doesn’t matter to me. Esther then Motor pool is fine.

Those two are going to reprise roles done by Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando? Good luck.

We need an official vehicle. Scifi pointed out that it might not be Federal but local. Shall we just call it the PA Motor Pool?

Magic isn’t my sphere of influence, so I’ll let you guys drive.

Yes let’s go back. If an explanation is required we can offer it.

Hard to communicate the fullness of a concept in-character without belaboring the point. So let me make a few references. I’m thinking much more “Machine Gun Preacher”, and much less religious militarism, or the justification of wanton violence by the misrepresentation of Scripture.

What we’re looking at here is an interesting quandary. How do the teachings of Christianity apply within the bounds of a corrupt government? While admittedly the actions of Nazi Germany were extreme in comparison to the corruption within Chicago during the 20s, I think of the life and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, among other things, was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

Not trying to take you guys down a conversational trail you don’t want to follow – just sharing some of my thoughts as I’ve pondered how this all plays out.

I must confess that I’ve not seen Pulp Fiction, so I don’t get the reference.

Any chance you could repost LF with the bottom lines trimmed? Copy/paste?

Go ahead, but I suspect that your character would be too cool to attend.

The GM very generously let me take back a move, and to interpret a roll of snake-eyes on fast-talk as Azog being struck dumb by his religious experience. He will be unable to talk Mary (or anyone) into doing anything.

This should go a looooong way towards making the party chemistry more entertaining, that’s for sure.

Upshot: Azog stays in the game.

First off, thanks to the GM for taking a moment out of his day to roll real dice with me over Skype. That was fun!

Azog rolled 2d6+2 for his flashy challenge:3+4+2=9. The preacher rolled 3d6 for his (rather than 2d+some fixed forte). His total was 12. Azog burned his only style die to reroll the 3, result 6. New total 6+4+2=12, tying the preacher. GM ruled that Azog has a conversion experience, but does not quit the party.

Son of a bitch.

OK, kids, Azog has a dice roll coming, so don’t move us past the end of the sermon until he makes said roll. But feel free to contribute otherwise.

Port Authority might be Federal, State, or independent like the PA of NY&NJ. Let’s just find a motorpool and bribe a guy.

I was just thinking that somewhere in the near past it was mentioned that at the end of the third ambassador hotel part that’d be a scene shift.

Are we in a different scene? Do we get style dice and heal wound ranks?

OK, so it looks like you guys are going to pile into a cab over to Salvation Army, drop off Maeve, then head off to get a Federal Vehicle.

The cab ride will be uneventful, Neko, if you’ll start a new Adventure log, give us a good description of the Salvation Army and of you guys pulling up, and we’ll go from there. I’m letting you give the initial descrip since it’s a location that’s rather central to your character.

That’s up to the GM, of course.

Might be better to simply pay a visit to some of the workers of said union/agency we are impersonating and then hijack, bribe or outright swipe an official vehicle.

LiaoFan: here’s a lil’ trick to help you with the date thing:

Any time you’re about to make a historical reference in a post, do the following:

• STOP
• Go to www.wikipedia.org
• Search the historical incident in question
• If it happened AFTER 1926, DON’ MAKE THE REFERENCE!

Gottit? ;)

Well, they have a weight-room downstairs. I imagine that Jamison could teach you a few things about throwing blows.

As for Maeve’s kids, yeah, we need to put in some work. But that’s tricky. Does Boots know she got raided on? If so, how will she explain how she got out? Will he take action against her, or her kids? Where are they? What failsafes does he have in place?

I can’t imagine he’s waiting for people to raid him for her kids. They’re just leverage, so I don’t think they’ll be more guarded than we can get around. But, remember,we’re out of here before 2pm, so…

What’s home base?

Maybe Ruby’s? We’ve armed the Dinge crews, and they owe us. Ruby is poor, so a few spiffs to her joint should speed things our way. Further, the top floors are mostly empty space.

Maybe. Did you see Donnie Darko?

Rolled 2d6=3+3, regain 6 wound ranks.

Ok, guys, let’s try to keep OOC stuff to the comments thread. :)

For one style die, anyone can have Smitty show up.
For Black Bag to know a guy in the area who can help Mugsy, LF will need to burn 3 style dice: 1 to know a guy in the area, 1 to give him the appropriate forte, and 1 to have him be available at his place of business at this hour.
Alternatively, there’s bound to be a hospital.

To clarify distance, you guys are 45 minutes by car from your hotel.

Well, nobody has written a wiki article on Doc Wagons, so I’m assuming they don’t exist. :)

Besides, Doc Wagons are primarily a function of technology, so it’d be a bit of a job to re-work them to fit this universe. However, if you want to try your hand at it, feel free. Then you’ve got to figure out how to hail one, seeing as nobody has a Doc Wagon subscription at this point.

No reason he still can’t.

Have we decided whether this world has DocWagons?

It seriously was. He rolled boxcars, and I had to give him SOMETHING for the crit success.

1) Woah. This Carlyle cat is Rough Business.

2) Dude, if we let the G-mages run a brain-train on her, Boots is done. That’s what Mugs is after, right? It’s not like we put the kids in hoc, that’s all on Boots.

3) Whaddya do? Anything we do to bust Mugsy is almost certainly gonna be assault on an officer of the Law, unless…

“Well, that escalated quickly!”

Just a note of explanation about just what happened:

1. Ethan has established for the entire campaign that Mugsy is a ladies man of some prowess.
2. None of us wants to actually roleplay through all the small talk and posturing that goes into romancing a lady.
3. None of us wants to roleplay romancing a lady, especially knowing that it’s a dude on the other end of the computer. None of us wants our wives to read that stuff over our shoulder either.
4. Ethan is getting MAD bonuses for being Templeton Peck. Sorry guys, that’s just how it is.

Neko, I’ll see your article on armored cars and raise you a similar one even more relevant to our campaign.

That’ll be a recent development, and it’ll be contested, too. The First Nations, for instance, probably take umbrage with the idea that the USA owns the Ether.

Now, Germany is in no place to contest said rights, so they’re not going to beef over it. And the USA is occupying most of France. But there are still other world powers to be spoken with. Probably better to just understand that the USA controls the ether in the same way that the World Series Championship is only played between teams from the USA.

I’ve updated the historical timeline up through the end of WWI. It’s some pretty bad stuff. Not a lot of the Ork Factory stuff will be known to the population, but news reports in 1923 would have definitely painted a clear picture of half a million Ork-Stemwinders appearing, seemingly, out of nowhere.

Additionally, the United States military still garrisons Fortress France at this time.

Sorry for my sloth on the opening scene. I didn’t think Mugsy would actually be involved. He would tip the front desk lady and ask that all inquiries about them be filtered through the room first. He would also proceed to find out who she was, when she got off and secure a date for the evening. All pending GM approval.

Definitely roleplay your character. If you feel that Mugsy wouldn’t have been very involved, don’t get involved, I’m cool with that.

Now, if you want to have Mugsy go back down and flirt with the attendant, I’m cool with that too.

My goals are accomplished. We could stop this campaign now and it would be the greatest one ever. We’re not going to do that. We’re gonna make it a full episode. I just wanted you guys to know that.

Well, we already killed off George Peppard, but I definitely see a Face, B.A. and possibly a Hannibal.

Neko asked, so today’s date in-game is November 14, 1926.

OK, between the two of you, you’re able to find some suitcases that are high enough quality so as not to draw undue attention, but cheap enough that you don’t put a major dent in your warchest. Let’s say you spend $20. For it you get 3 appropriately sized suitcases, and a new hat for Jamison. Oh, and the suitcases are already full!

Thanks! :)

Bear in mind, Ethan has created the character and established what sort of character she is, so you guys don’t need to spend style dice to give her fortes, I’ll do that behind the curtain. You only need to spend style dice on that stuff if there’s something in specific you want to make sure she has, etc.

More likely than not, whenever you create an NPC with style dice, but without paying for specific fortes, I’ll just use a very generic Forte with a very broad penumbra at Average ability. (though, you never know, I might go higher, and add other fortes if it suits my purpose) For example, in the case of Esther, I could just give her the forte: Witch (+2)

I was also thinking since I had spent the style die, Mugsy would already be known to Esther perhaps having dealt with her before, or even had her hire him at one point.

Issue 1: let the GM rule!

Issue 2: she is orc, the family is orcish and the family members are orcs. Right?

I checked the rules and you (or other players) can add fortes after creation, or bone up existing fortes by spending dice.

I’ve been spelling it “ork.” I think there might be a disagreement between Tolkien and TSR on spelling. I notice that Tolkien’s idiosyncratic “dwarves” has replaced dwarfs even in such august publications as The Economist.

I like the staff. She can keep it in her broom closet when she’s doing other things.

I’m bolding key words so I can skim and find them in the thread later. And sometimes I go over-long, so other players can skim what I write.

I’m going to go ahead and chip in a style die to give Brunhilda a forte. Maybe we could contribute a die each to beefing her up?

More magic, huh? Hmmm. Hard to box a lightning bolt.

Additionally, if you have a technique that can be used with the Forte, you can use it to either add a +1 or reroll a die.

If you look on your character under the Characters tab, there will be a link to the PDQ Master Chart, which will show you (on the right hand side) the kinds of difficulties which correlate to your results.

OK, so in this game system, almost everything is simply 2d6 plus the relevant bonus. Generally speaking it’s up to you to justify the use of a specific Forte (in this case Law Enforcment) through roleplay. Then you just roll 2d6 and add your bonus to it. Let me know what the roll was.

In this case, there won’t be an immediate result, only that I’ll know how thoroughly you set up the scene, so as to know how to gauge the response of anyone who investigates it (by now you would probably assume it’d be Trask).

So just post 2d6+bonus, using Law Enforcement to determine your bonus.

Ethan has the right of it. Using one of the clockwork guns will cout as untrained (-2) until you take a forte that relates. That’s about as technical as we’ll get.

Re: trolls and guns, again we’ll just finesse that.

Addendum to the previous: Allistaire is not being pushy with his knowledge, but your characters would both notice that he constantly behaves in a manner that reinforces the idea that he is in control here, not you. It’s obvious to you that he is used to that position, and believes it to be at least somewhat true at this point.

The rest of the Metas are various people who “crossed the line” with Big Boots. Some of them are people who owed and couldn’t pay up, others are people who made life difficult for him in one way or another. Allistaire hasn’t bothered to ask most of them their stories, and of the ones alive, he recognizes none of them. For their parts, they’re not talkative – still enthralled by the Mind Control spell.

Ethan raises a good question – what are the rules for foes disengaging from a melee in the midst of a melee? I was operating under the assumption that I could pull the extra ghouls out on account of the fact that there’s still one ghoul tying up Azog.

Meanwhile, Mugsy wants to bypass the ghoul attacking him to go protect the meta-sheep. But he doesn’t have anyone else in melee with him on his side to keep said ghoul occupied.

Here’s a suggested solution:

1. Azog can choose not to defend himself from the Ghoul attacking him in exchange for attacking one of the other two ghouls – thereby keeping them from getting to their destination. If he succeeds in his attack on either one, that Ghoul will be stuck in the melee with him.
2. Similarly, Mugsy can disengage from the Ghoul attacking him by choosing not to defend against it.

I’m not sure how else to ajudicate it, so if you guys have other ideas, throw them out there!

Is there any problem with Elf Magicians being more potent than other kinds? I guess not. Yeah, if we’re voting I approve. Let’s get some new players in and see if they manage to abuse things. This whole game is nothing but a giant beta test, right?

I’m thinking of cases like the following:

I have a Magic forte and cast a spell. But I’m coming up short, so I use my Nautical forte and cast a water spell. Just threw that together, but do you catch me? I mean, having more fortes is useful because they cover more situations. If they also overlap a lot, you get some of the benefits of having higher ranks in a forte.

It was a pretty haphazard piece of work, that’s true. I’ll read tonight after sundown.

In-game: Azog knows he was very lucky to hit that first ghoul and hopes Mugsy will bring his gun to bear. He’s a natural gambler, and knows that 2d6+2 is much, much better than 2d6-2, even if he’s never heard the term “standard error of the mean.”

If Mugsy runs out of bullets and there are still ghouls coming, he’ll hand over his Thompson and defend Mugsy hand-to-hand.

I’ll at least finish the scene, but I’d like you to recruit a replacement. I feel that three is a better number than two PCs.

OK, what is happening here? Clearly something.

Re: Neko’s Muppet Comment – A lot of delicious irony there, because last night SFTG PMed me on Facebook to let me know that he was really frustrated with the “dungeon crawl” and would really like for us to get back to the plot. I think I probably irritated him a bit with my nonchallance in reply. :P

He did bring up a good point that merits a clarification by me:

Play by Post RPing is already slow enough just because it’s PBP.

In tabletop RPGs there are often “random encounters” designed to give extra texture to the world and to break up the plot with opportunities for the Players to kill stuff.

In PBP, unnecessary random encounters only serve to bog the game down. And in PDQ#, you don’t get XP for killing stuff, you get XP whenever you fail at something. So there’s no need whatsoever for random encounters.

Also, keep in mind that there is not just one plot going on here. Yes, Mugsy’s mission to get even with O’Hanlon is the most overt plotline going on – primarily because it was his character’s impetus that brought this trio together – but there is also Azog’s quest for redemption and love, and Lovecraft’s search for deeper/darker/more powerful knowledge….those three at the very least.

To put a finer point on it, when you stood in the room and decided to take the tunnel instead of crossing the landing and going up the ladder, it was not needless wandering – it was essentially a question of which plot point you would next advance. Again with the decision of whether or not to stay in the depths, or to find a tunnel up and out. I had substantive plot points prepared for either eventuality.

So I just want you to be aware, there may be some journey between points from time to time (and I will expedite that as much as I can), but I also won’t lead you into needless random encounters.

Seylah.

A few things I’d point out here:

1. This is a very short term summoning. Lovecraft expended his magical power to allow Fergus to exist in the Human realm of existence for a short period of time, but did not actually perform any rituals. So it’ll be somewhat similar to a summoning in DnD that has a duration measured in rounds. In this case, maybe a few minutes, max.

1. This is the Awakened World. While Lovecraft may be one of the few to access a Byhakee in particular, summoning as a concept is not uncommon. Consider the Daemon in HPL’s phone, for instance. So there is probably an element of magical protection and even insurance already in effect.

1. Fergus is not going to bring down the entire structure. By GM Fiat, this Byhakee is about the size of a horse. I’m not sure if that’s fitting with Lovecraftian lore, but that is the case in this instance. Now, he is a very powerful creature indeed, and a master of bad-assery, but due to his stature and the limited time he has on this plane, the most he will accomplish is a lot of chunky salsa.

just a word of clarification after a brief chat with Edward:

Right now I’m letting you guys drive the plot. Our cast includes one character who began the game on a mission (Mugsy), and who has encountered our other two players specifically within the context of that mission. Azog has joined up out of a sense of do-goodery, encouraged a bit by Schmitty, and Lovecraft has joined after some encouragement from Azog.

The result is that the plot is currently being driven by the players. I’m not just going to hand you a piece of paper in-game that says “Go here, do this.” It’s a roleplaying game. Roleplay your characters.

Ethan, your character wants to find out what’s up with The Labrador and to get revenge on O’Hanlon, use your character to get the other two to help you do this.

Neko, your character wants to do good and impress a certain Salvation Army Lass. Mugsy has given you an opportunity, as well as an opportunity to do some digging into why O’Hanlon wants your butt in a sling. Use your character to make this happen.

Edward, your character got sucked into this more out happenstance than by any personal mission. However, Lovecraft’s ability and talent has been called into question, and he needs a new source of income, it appears. Use your character to demonstrate that he does in fact kick arcane ass, and find a way to manipulate Mugsy’s situation to Lovecraft’s benefit – both financial and arcane. If there’s a mage about, there’s probably arcane artifacts to be purloined.

In other words, guys, look to your character’s motivation. It will steer you.

My apologies. Thus far I have been, for the most part, reacting to your characters. Neko wanted Philies’ Diner, so it happened, I had no plans for that scene other than to let you guys meet/moot.

As far as the Labrador, it is the sore soot in Mugsy’s life, built on the location of his mom’s grocery after the fire. I had thought I’d made that clear to you, Ethan. Again, I apologize.

I’ve been training an employee this week, so have not been as able to respond as quickly. Again, my apologies.

OK kids, I’ve updated all of your Character Sheets to add a chart for tracking damage. You’ll notice it’s basically just a chart that illustrates your Fortes. As you take Wound Ranks or Failure Ranks, go in and edit your Character Sheet to replace the “X” with either “W” or “F”, that way you can track what you get back automatically, and what you have to heal back.

I’ve added some pertinent Game Rules to Smitty’s Character page. Please have a looksee!

Is the first description essentially what we’ve been doing anyway? That seemed fine to me. A few days ago I added some fluff to make duels of mages vs. non-mages seem more plausible.

The second system might make sense for a magic-using “boss” character. I’m fine with it so long as you handle it. I think we three players are all PDQ novices and calculating 3d6’s with modifiers is plenty for my taste.

You didn’t ask, but I like the lethality of Thompsons and BARs. But two of our characters are pistol-users. Could those be handled as ordinary duels? Defense could just mean ducking behind cover and suppression fire.

The real thing is how to handle the lethality of firearms. Consensus in oyher PDQ resources is that you treat a weapon as a temporary and expendable forte. My plan has been to use that method, but only add the forte’s bonus if you’ve already achieved success.

So if I’ve got a guy fighting with MOBSTER (Good 2) and a Thompson rated at +6, he just rolls 2d62 to shoot you. But if he succeeds in hitting you, he adds the +6 to damage.

As far as spending Style Dice to heal, check P.13 of PDQ. You can spend a style die to heal, roll it, and recover that many ranks.

Incidentally, I told you incorrectly regarding healing after a scene: you get to roll 2d6. So go ahead and roll another d6 and heal that many more wound ranks.

Well, since it’s a Flashy Challenge, it’s 2d6. Normally you won’t have the benefit of knowing what I roll when you decide your actions. However, if you’d like to just hurl yourself out of the window and onto the ground below, simply consider it a challenge and look at the PDQ Master Chart I’d say it probably counts as a Complex/Challenging Task to throw yourself out of the train. Take it up to Hard for Untrained Person if you want to stay in contact with the train and climb up top.

OK, since we’re just getting started with this, and since we’re about to have our first duel, I thought I’d pull back the curtain a bit and show how we’re going to walk through it.

First, let me say that it completely caught me by surprise – well done Neko. And totally in character. Kudos.

Now then, when we handle a duel or a challenge, you’re going to be rolling your own dice. There’s as much fun to storytelling in failure as success, so I’m trusting you to be honorable. If it’s just a challenge (your character trying to use his abilities in his environment) I will trust you to determine the difficulty and roleplay through your success or failure – just to keep the game from bogging down.

In a Duel, you’re going to need to send me a private message so we can work out the deets before you post the outcomes.

In a duel – each party gets 3d6 to apportion to attack and defense, and will add his appropriate Forte bonus to the mix. In this case, Azog is using Hand Fighting (Good +2). He’s also definitely using his Technique of Surprise Attack. This grants him either a +1 or a reroll of one die, his choice.

Thus far, Neko has PMed me to tell me that he’s going full attack (3d6), but not how he plans to spend his Technique. He also PMed me that he rolled a 5,6,1 – so normally he’d use his Technique for a reroll of the 1, since the benefit could be pretty big. For the sake of illustration, I’ll do that now: re-roll is a 6.

Meanwhile, Rose will be countering with her Ethermancy (Expert 4). Given that she’s taken by surprise, she’ll spend it all on defense. She rolls a 1,6,2 which grants her a total of 13 (16+2+4). She’ll use her Technique: Restraint to reroll the 1 and gets a 3. New total of 15.

Azog , however, rolled a 19 (5+6+5+2) on attack, so he’ll succeed and give her 4 Wound Ranks.

Neko should now post in the thread, describing what his success looks like. After that will be the Volte-face which pits Rose’s base +4 against Azog’s base +2 (seeing as Azog kept no dice for defense, and Rose kept no dice for attack.) However, Rose will employ her Technique of Mental Anguish to add one point to her roll: The total sum will be that Rose inflicts 3 Wound Ranks on Azog.

Since there’s nothing left to determine the outcome of that round of Combat, we’ll pause here and let Neko post, roleplaying the outcome of his attack. But he needs to leave the door open for me to roleplay Rose’s attack. Or, since we’ve already determined the outcome, I’m fine with him roleplaying that part too – as the tingling down his arm suddenly appears to burst into flame in his mind – charring his flesh and withering the arm (not for real, yo – it’s a phantasm, but it hurts all the same).

Neko will then need to decide where to apply the wound ranks. He can downgrade three separate fortes, or just dump the damage all into one. It’s his choice which, but it’s generally advisable not to dump wound ranks into your combat fortes during combat.

Additionally, since Neko is now taking Azog’s first wound ranks in this combat, he’ll need to come up with a Plot hook that relates to that forte, then post it in the Plot Hooks wiki.

OK, so when you take wounds, the way you track it is by reducing the levels of your fortes until you get to -1. So if you take 1 wound rank, and you’re an Average (+0) Schmuck, you first downgrade to being a Poor (-2) Schmuck. THEN, if this is the first time you’ve taken a wound rank in this Scene, you need to create a plot hook. The plot hook needs to have SOMETHING to do with you being a Schmuck – but it’s sort of an opportunity for you to stir the pot off-camera. Maybe because you’re a Schmuck you forgot your anniversary and your wife went on a rampage at the shopping mall. Voila – Plot Hook.

Then it’s my job as the GM to activate Plot Hooks (at which point you get a Style Die) when I feel that it helps the game.

Does that help?