OOC and MIA

[Shrike]

Hey checking in because I'm without power, low phone battery, and dealing with my second bout of malaria (it's ok, there are some very good antimalarials available nowadays at $4.50 a course!).
I can toss in 40000cr on the renovations, as for spreadsheet skills I can send them over to Leitz or he can take a look at my private sheet? I don't have anything on there to hide. I'll try to get a post out tonight if power comes back because I slept most of the day anyhow.
e: nm just got the link

I can take care of Skip, if you like. Get well!

I got it in, thank you

[Tiglath]

You should have a link to it from a couple of days ago. I just added Caxton-Dubs, and Able-Charlie. Wasn't sure what to do with the B-Wing.

I haven't found a link - quite possibly due to error and/or incompetence...

Could you try again please?

Ah "B Wing" having pulled off "irregular recon" scuttled back to the depths of Collace's underhive where they live.

Stop Press: Get well soon Shrike!

[Leitz]

I haven't found a link - quite possibly due to error and/or incompetence...

Could you try again please?

Check yer PM box.

[Tiglath]

Yes found it now. Overlooked in the to and fro!

[Tiglath]

Another random thought on skills:

Jess should probably have FA Gunnery 0 for being familiar with turreted AFV main armament.

or

Trade up Fwd Obs for FA Gunner 1?

[Shrike]

Power's back!

[Leitz]

Okay, truth in advertising; I'm a proponent of Josh Kaufman's "The First 20 Hours" and Benny Lewis "Fluent in three months". So, when we talk learning skills in a high tech environment, I would tend to think we can learn the basics quickly. Even if that means just a 0. or 0.5 skill, for many things that's a big start. The Mercenary book says "6 weeks", and given life that can make sense, too.

So, I see the skills matrix not as a barrier, but as a clarification of our target list. The more important thing is "where are we going"; once we have that, the path becomes much easier to figure out. Are we a regular infantry unit, heavy police, commandos, or what? I care less about what it is, as long as it's fun. But we need to agree on where were going if we're going to get anywhere.

[Tiglath]

Info on potential "tickets" is coming in an IC post or two's time.

[The Bindoner]

I'm mostly offline Thursday/Friday, got this window, back tomorrrow night.

I agree, we ought to spend the 40k, and invest in medical facilities. The workshop seems like a good thing to have too.

We still had the original 40k, and 10k left of the new take.

Jess has pretty much spent out. Got 500Cr to chip in.

We could have only 3 advanced medkits, for strike team PC only. They cannot be replaced by a base hospital or a field casualty-clearing station – they are for stabilising a critically injured PC so they can reach a medic.

The BAP would be nice, for the income it generates. Perhaps that's our first upgrade once we score another payday.

[shaidar]

Good point, get the bap later and the cheaper medical facility now. So we'd need 110k, voss/frank/skip gives us 80 so we need to source 30k from either cash we have or free some up by dropping a CA purchase or something like that. If we did that it means we could keep the advanced med kits.

[Leitz]

Good point, get the bap later and the cheaper medical facility now. So we'd need 110k, voss/frank/skip gives us 80 so we need to source 30k from either cash we have or free some up by dropping a CA purchase or something like that. If we did that it means we could keep the advanced med kits.

Jakob has some cash. The player is still kinda iffy on the whole unit ambiguity though. A military unit is based on lack of ambiguity up front; once the characters are in contact things will go sideways enough. Starting that way means success become much more dependent on the DM being nice, and not the military skills of the unit.

What sort of game do you want? There's a "superhero" genre, where you make things up as you go. Those are fun, and if we're not using the Traveller "one bad roll and you're dead-dead-dead" paradigm then the game can go forward for a long time. Or there's the "plan things out" option, where a lot of the game is preparing for what might happen. That can be suspenseful and interesting in it's own, but not as "wham bam" and glorius.

As the new guy, you already have a game style, but I'm not dialed in. What's the game?

[Shrike]

Traveller "one bad roll and you're dead-dead-dead" paradigm

Yeah I'll be totally honest this is what keeps bringing me back to CT

[Leitz]

Traveller "one bad roll and you're dead-dead-dead" paradigm

Yeah I'll be totally honest this is what keeps bringing me back to CT

Do you prefer that paradigm?

One of my favorites came from '7th Sea'; the player and DM talked about how the character would die before the game began. Until that circumstance was met, the PC wouldn't die. This sort of agreement between the player and the DM built room for a very cinematic game. For me, knowing that my PC will likely not die unless I make him do something totally stupid gives a lot of freedom to build a story. There's the expectation that we'll all have stories, and see how they end out.

There have been a few times that I've had my character do something that would likely kill them outright. For example, in the Three Kingdoms game, my character's lord was consumed by rage and about to draw his sword and kill an Imperial emissary. My character moved between the two, and did not defend himself. Better to let the lord lose a general than his own life. Fortunately for me, the lord was shocked enough by the characters actions that he didn't kill the PC.

[Shrike]

Traveller "one bad roll and you're dead-dead-dead" paradigm

Yeah I'll be totally honest this is what keeps bringing me back to CT

Do you prefer that paradigm?

One of my favorites came from '7th Sea'; the player and DM talked about how the character would die before the game began. Until that circumstance was met, the PC wouldn't die. This sort of agreement between the player and the DM built room for a very cinematic game. For me, knowing that my PC will likely not die unless I make him do something totally stupid gives a lot of freedom to build a story. There's the expectation that we'll all have stories, and see how they end out.

There have been a few times that I've had my character do something that would likely kill them outright. For example, in the Three Kingdoms game, my character's lord was consumed by rage and about to draw his sword and kill an Imperial emissary. My character moved between the two, and did not defend himself. Better to let the lord lose a general than his own life. Fortunately for me, the lord was shocked enough by the characters actions that he didn't kill the PC.

I've only ever played Traveller PbP on another website awhile ago, probably around 8 years. Someone who went on to GM the Kinunir had initially started by just rolling characters for posters, asking them what tables they wanted to roll on, what to enlist in, etc, and would write out fluff for it. The spectacular deaths attracted me and a few other players and we started a game we never ended up finishing (actually a couple), but I was enthralled by the idea that you could die in character creation, you could die by making poor tactical choices, you could die by the proverbial bad roll, and there was no resurrection/get out of jail free card. Coming from a DnD 3.5 background it was amazing, all my friends into tabletop just want to do 3.5 until they die, and 3.5 is probably one of the lowest stakes games out there. My first character had pretty bad stat rolls, something like 384943, but rolled very strongly on the psionics tables and got pretty messed up by a grenade in our second combat. Not fun for everybody but fun for me.

I think it makes choices matter more, I think it makes more impact to the story, it makes characters more memorable. For example, one of my favorite parts of reading this game was Prerna getting shot in the head very early on (Close second was Frank almost committing war crimes, thank you for leaving that initial post up). Before reading the outcome of the rolls it was a real "Oh shit!" moment. I think the only drawback is if you rejoin the game with a new character, you have to come in pretending you don't know anything about what happened but that shock is usually brief.

So I suppose I do prefer that paradigm, that being said I am just glad to be playing CT again and being the new player at the table you are free to discard my opinion on it as I would prefer what the veteran players and GM want for this game.

[Leitz]

So I suppose I do prefer that paradigm, that being said I am just glad to be playing CT again and being the new player at the table you are free to discard my opinion on it as I would prefer what the veteran players and GM want for this game.

That's what makes gaming different than reading a book; giving everyone as much of what they are looking for as possible.

[Shrike]

Slightly off topic, but trying to take my mind off being sick and started rolling a character out of Merchant Prince. Really good stats AA99B5 in Education, EDU kicked up to a G by the college roll, graduated with honors. Realistically what would a character like this pursue outside of the Merchant tables in CT with ridiculous education but low social?
edit: also do stats stop at G?

[shaidar]

Tiglath has made it quite clear that if we do something stupid we'll end up dead and that the best fight is the one avoided!

Yeah, we do need to sort out the unit. We've only just got to the point we have the resources to start planning that. We made a start in OOC but got a bit distracted and fell behind what's going on in IC. It might be worth pausing IC until we've had the discussions and know where things are going.

As for Frank and his war crimes. He's been a very angry man for the past four years while he's been searching for answers as to who killed the 1188th, and done a few things he's not proud of. The murder of the troopers in the mess hall almost put him over the edge, hence him considering just killing the purge prisoners, they were scum for the things they did. But I didn't want that to have group repercussions, so I thought it only far to back off when Joe asked. After the revelations of the last few days, the fact that the 1188th is (mostly) alive, the mass murder of the troopers, his almost decimation on the prisoners, he's had a bit of an epiphany and made a conscious decision that he won't let the anger control him, but he'll try and focus it and use it. In defeating the 1188th he's now determined not to become them. Although that doesn't mean he's a boy scout, he still plans to deliver justice to those responsible for the what happened to the 1188th, and he still may have times when his anger gets the best of him. Still waters run deep and he likes to put on a professional amiability.

[joertexas]

Tiglath has made it quite clear that if we do something stupid we'll end up dead and that the best fight is the one avoided!

Yeah, we do need to sort out the unit. We've only just got to the point we have the resources to start planning that. We made a start in OOC but got a bit distracted and fell behind what's going on in IC. It might be worth pausing IC until we've had the discussions and know where things are going.

As for Frank and his war crimes. He's been a very angry man for the past four years while he's been searching for answers as to who killed the 1188th, and done a few things he's not proud of. The murder of the troopers in the mess hall almost put him over the edge, hence him considering just killing the purge prisoners, they were scum for the things they did. But I didn't want that to have group repercussions, so I thought it only far to back off when Joe asked. After the revelations of the last few days, the fact that the 1188th is (mostly) alive, the mass murder of the troopers, his almost decimation on the prisoners, he's had a bit of an epiphany and made a conscious decision that he won't let the anger control him, but he'll try and focus it and use it. In defeating the 1188th he's now determined not to become them. Although that doesn't mean he's a boy scout, he still plans to deliver justice to those responsible for the what happened to the 1188th, and he still may have times when his anger gets the best of him. Still waters run deep and he likes to put on a professional amiability.

Are you okay with him taking tactical command of our unit?

[shaidar]

Well, based on the other characters I'm not sure there is any other option.

I would have suggested Prerna, but she doesn't want the job. (which is fine)

But as I've already said I'll/He'll need the support of players/characters and will want their input. As a character his one glaring gap is no tactics skill! He would have got that at his next promotion, but he failed his renewal roll.

As a player I am a little nervous because I don't have much experience in this area and was hoping to learn though this game. I'm fine as long as you guys tell me if I'm doing something stupid. I just don't want to get your characters killed!

[joertexas]

Well, based on the other characters I'm not sure there is any other option.

I would have suggested Prerna, but she doesn't want the job. (which is fine)

But as I've already said I'll/He'll need the support of players/characters and will want their input. As a character his one glaring gap is no tactics skill! He would have got that at his next promotion, but he failed his renewal roll.

As a player I am a little nervous because I don't have much experience in this area and was hoping to learn though this game. I'm fine as long as you guys tell me if I'm doing something stupid. I just don't want to get your characters killed!

Every good officer relies on their staff, and Frank should be no exception. He says "go", and the staff figures out how to go without getting them all killed. Prerna is quite willing to bestow the rank of Colonel on Frank, and then back him to the hilt.