[ZeroSum]

Knockout blow is pretty significant, I definitely agree there. For a team focused on hooding more than straight up killing, that makes a lot of sense.

And just so you won't have to spend too much time on redoing the character, I'd personally be OK with allowing Sum-to-10. It's not like you're gaining some massive advantage or anything.

[Aria]

Sum 10 is fine providing, as you pointed out, max 1 ‘A’ choice. I’d like to believe the priority table was karma balanced but I suspect it’s not

[ZeroSum]

Sum 10 is fine providing, as you pointed out, max 1 ‘A’ choice. I’d like to believe the priority table was karma balanced but I suspect it’s not

Oh boy is it not

But Beta's character is no more or less unbalanced from having three C choices as opposed to a B, C, and a D in my opinion.

[Beta]

It depends on how you use attribute points and skill points of course, but in very coarse terms priorities B-D are reasonably linear, with a bigger jump from B to A and E to D (except metatype, where oddly the biggest jump is is D to C).  I went C-C-C because to stretch him to a dual role I needed those extra adjustment points from C, while resources C seemed to be the sweet spot for having enough 'ware for the concept without hitting diminishing returns.

[Aria]

IC is up for you to start intro posts, Feather will contact each of you in my next post

[gwilym]

Oops forgot the extra contacts. I'll sort to night and te pistol mismatch

[ZeroSum]

IC is up for you to start intro posts, Feather will contact each of you in my next post

Nice! Posted.

Does the number 1 at the end of your post have some significance? Should we be doing the same to count our own posts?

Also, just FYI, 0day will pretty much always do basic Matrix searches on people he work for and with, so if you have anything on Feather that he would find through the Matrix I can add that to my post when 0day eventually makes his way from Auburn to Redmond.

[Aria]

I track my post count because it’s part of the reward system and as far as I know there’s no automated way to count them (unlike Dumpshock)!

There’s a brief write up on Feather on OP. Watcher too when you meet him...

[Beta]

Contacts questions for Aria and for the other players

Background:
I'm working on contacts ... a LOT of contacts.  Between six charisma and the bonus 40 points that is 76 points worth of contacts, and with the Networker quality knocking 1 off of the cost of each of them that is a bare minimum of 13, and given that Candle in the Darkness adds +2 loyalty while he is following his Code of Honor, it is also not crazy to buy a fair number at less than max combined connection and loyalty so it is probably even more. 

Players:
What I'm getting at, is that if any of you have a contact type that you couldn't fit in that you'd like to see covered, let me know.  I can probably justify most contact types (he's ex-corp gone to the barrens, and interacted with law enforcement some).

@Aria, would you accept Kalanyr (the Glow City dragon) as a Connection 6 / Loyalty 1 contact?  (Tipperman has been living/hooding around there for a while now, I thought maybe he'd encountered the lord of the domain).  I doubt it would ever come into play, but it seemed fun to have it at the top of the contacts list -- but I'm entirely willing to skip it if it doesn't sit right with you.

ETA: Also working on a background write-up, but some main bones:

- Born to humans in the 2020s (late UGE baby)

- He worked corporate security (and 'security') for various combination of Fuchi / Neurosys / Neonet over the years, picking up augments over the years (most of which aren't getting the maintenance that they need anymore due to lack of replacement parts, manuals, etc -- why they are rated as 'used' now)

- He rose to run teams and operations.  He had a reputation as a straight shooter, and worked well with local law enforcement to minimize friction.

- He eventually took a brain injury, changing his behavior.  Maybe if it wasn't during the CFD scare, and if NeoNet hadn't been collapsing he would have gotten better care.  As it was he tried to carry on in his job, but couldn't, and was fired.

- The company may have fired him, but that didn't stop him from helping old friends inside.  Despite his new eccentricities he helped a number of people get through the gutting of Neonet.  Combine that with people he did favors for, if not outright saved, over the years and there are a number of ex-Neonet types who still look out for him, and other old professional contacts who have called up from time to time.

- Aside from helping old friends, he felt like a discarded piece of trash, cut loose and missing some of his old skills and clarity of thought.  He somewhat deliberately chose Glow City as a place where he wouldn't have to live for another hundred plus years in this state, and where he wouldn't be as likely to have to kill people just to have a squat.

- Somehow this all gelled in his mind as a hatred for waste, and the disposable culture in general. His ranting about how we just tip everything into the rubbish earned him the nickname Tipperman.

- He started working to save garbage in Glow City.  He did some cleaning up, he did some scavenging, and he helped some of the other residents.  Altruism is rare enough there that many think he is completely crazy, but a few became fairly loyal to him.

- He recently found a definitely-not-from-the-barrens young woman on the banks of Beaver Lake, having apparently managed to pull herself out of the water before drowning or getting an immediately lethal radiation dosage.  She's had some crude surgery that might have been to cut out some 'ware.  Once she regained consciousness she turned out to be a complete amnesiac, aside from nightmares about situations that range from unlikely to impossible.  Some of the removed 'ware was in her head, and he hopes the damage is not permanent

- Tipperman is trying to help her (with little success so far), and is now looking to make enough money to hire some more professional help for her.  He is probably somewhere between fellow-feeling for brain injuries, feeling adoptive-paternal, and hidden deep-down maybe a bit in love with this foundling (this is his dependent quality).

[ZeroSum]

I track my post count because it’s part of the reward system and as far as I know there’s no automated way to count them (unlike Dumpshock)!

Ah, good idea. Will steal.

There’s a brief write up on Feather on OP. Watcher too when you meet him...

Thanks! Had to look around bit, but found it in the end. https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.com/wikis/contacts

For my own benefit and to get familiar with Engineering rules...
Let's say I actually wanted to roll to repair my cyberdeck as per the IC post. In this case it wasn't Matrix damage that did it in, it needed to be physically put together.
This would definitely be an Extended test with a basic threshold of 3, +2 for being a Cyberdeck. Let's say the damage was complicated for a x2 interval of 2 hours.

In other words, Engineering (Electronics) 2 + Logic 7 (5, 2 hours), with a +1 for the Engineering Tool Shop at his apartment for a total dice pool of 12.
Engineering + Logic (5, 2 hours): 12d6t5 3
Engineering + Logic (5, 2 hours): 11d6t5 4

It would have taken me 4 hours to assemble the deck given the above. For future IC posts, do we just post the rolls with a description at the bottom?

I'll post a rules question about how Analytical Mind applies to extended tests; is it one test every time you roll, or just one test with multiple rolls? The former would have meant earning 2 edge for this particular instance.

@Beta
Definitely pick up some fringe contacts if you can; I wanted to add a conspiracy nut but couldn't quite quantify what kind of contact that would be. I debated taking "Fringe Cults & Societies" as a knowledge skill as an alternate solution but didn't have the karma for it.

I have a Trid Pirate contact; maybe your guy knows a Neo-Anarchist journalist who works for the Trid Pirate? That could link our two characters together for sure. Maybe some group contacts if that's allowed? Like, having friends in some of the Barrens gangs could be extremely useful. Other than that I was able to cover the contacts I had thought of ahead of time, so go wild. I personally love the idea of having Kalanyr as a contact, that would be... *sunglasses* ... rad.

[Beta]

Tipperman is finally up on Obsidian Portal.  Almost final, I realized I need to define one more knowledge skill (or else spend 5-6k nuyen).  Now on to writing up contacts!

[Beta]

ZeroSum: nice use of superscripts, what a great way to embed the rolls without breaking flow!

[ZeroSum]

ZeroSum: nice use of superscripts, what a great way to embed the rolls without breaking flow!

Thanks! I thought of it halfway through the response, when I forgot why and when I had made a certain roll in my own writeup...

Also, IC response up. Obviously

Just FYI, I'm rolling a bunch of stuff mostly for my own benefit of trying to learn what I would do in a normal session. Feel free to use those rolls to supplement or just ignore as necessary. I made little annotations in the IC post where the rolls would be relevant, so for example:
¹ Memory Test (Local News): "Watcher": 13d6t5 5
Since I have the Local News knowledge skill, I figured I'd roll to see if I could make a mental connection between the face and/or name provided by Feather to any events that would have been reported on whether through the usual corporate and public news channels, or the pirate trid ones.

Then, on the bus ride to Redmond I'd have run a quick Matrix search:
²Matrix Search: "Watcher", "Fre∑dom tribe", "Seattle University": 15d6t5 5
5 hits is enough for "deep academic familiarity, strong professional knowledge, behind-the-scenes familiarity; with 0day's background, I think it's likely that he would not only have known about the tribe in question, but actively have followed news revolving around hackers. So I included some of the Watcher background data in the post.

³Running Silent: 14d6t5 8
0day will run silently when necessary, and meeting new people is definitely an occasion he would consider as such. 8 hits... man, I am a ninja right now

⁴Matrix Perception: 15d6t5 3
⁵Matrix Perception (Bug Scanner): 17d6t5 4
Similarly, he's inherently curious and would want to know who else is hiding themselves. 4 hits isn't great on 17 dice, but the Bug Scanner means I just have to tie the opposed Matrix Perception test; anyone rolling 4 or less on Willpower + Sleaze, I'll spot, but only within 20 meters.

⁶Perception: 13d6t5 3
And finally just a perception check using the drone's sensor array; I'm not including my vision enhancements in this kind of test, as I feel like using the Sensor would override the ability to see through my own eyes. So this is just Intuition + Clearsight.

And I just realized I may have done that last one wrong; I think when using a sensor you use the Rating of the Sensor, not the Clearsight software. So it should just be 8 dice (Intuition + Sensor Rating instead of Perception skill). I think I'll just handle this differently from now on; I will make a test using my defaulting Intuition + Vision Enhancements, and the drone will use it's Sensor + Clearsight, I'll have drones working in pairs to support each other, so they'll perform a Teamwork test.

0day:
Perception (Defaulting): 6d6t5 1

Drones:
Drone Perception: Teamwork Assist: 7d6t5 3
Drone Perception: Teamwork Leader: 10d6t5 2
Hah, the Teamwork assistant did better than the actual test... Glorious

Assuming our Johnson isn't actively trying to hide from us, I'm guessing I'll be able to spot him in the crowd. I'll still wait for someone else to make the first move, however. Don't want to seem too eager, plus, not Viktor's style to make a ton of small talk.

[Aria]

I don't usually post any IC over the weekends (that's family time) so I'll pick things up next week!

[ZeroSum]

I don't usually post any IC over the weekends (that's family time) so I'll pick things up next week!

Awesome, I can definitely respect that. Thanks for setting the expectation, too.

I'm guessing maybe 1-3 posts a week is common for these kinds of games?

Edit: I just noticed the sigs for Jack Spade and Beta; I like the colour coding, I'll steal that.
Blue for thought, red for spoken words, green for matrix.