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 “The Spike, or the New Detroit Financial Center.” “The largest non-cyberspace hub of commerce between the Sprawl and CANASTA. Every company worth a dime operates something there. More money flows through that place every second than the likes of you will see in three lifetimes. Perhaps even more than you’d want to have.” “The icon of the post-Restitution city. The symbol of its inspiring success. The fourth most important trade and services hub in the continental United States.” “We want to watch it scream. And that’s where you come in.” Welcome to Out With the New, a PBP game of The Sprawl for four or five people. What is The Sprawl? The Sprawl is a cyberpunk hack of Apocalypse World. It involves a lot of cyberpunk stuff, and allows you to pull off a lot of cyberpunk-style tricks. Basically what I’m saying is there will be evil megacorps and brave protagonists filled with electronics. The Sprawl is still in its early stages of development, which means there are a lot of blanks. That’s okay, we’ll fill them in somehow. And some mechanics are not perfect yet, so if you feel that’s the case, don’t hesitate to point it out and suggest something else. The game is definitely playable, though. The rules are here, but some of the basic moves were recently revised by the author, so we’ll use their fixed version, which you can find here. Didn’t you admit to knowing jack poo poo about GMing Apocalypse World in the AW thread a few days ago? Yes, I did. They told me to roll with it anyway, so here I am. I’ve read whatever I could find to read, and I want to do this because no-one else is doing this, dammit! I like to think I’ve got more than enough enthusiasm to cover for my lack of experience. Alright then, whom can I play? The playbooks right now are: The DRIVER, who may or may not carry a gun, but has a car that can do a lot more. The FIXER, for when you need that precious go-to on your precious. The HACKER, the console cowboy, the deck jockey, the cyberspace wizard. The HUNTER, a specialist in finding people and things that don’t want to be found. The INFILTRATOR, a master of getting into places where he shouldn’t be seen. The KILLER, for whom technology is a tool of murder. The PUSHER, who wants to remake the world in his own design, one heart and mind at a time. The REPORTER, spreader of lies and herald of truth. The SOLDIER, who plans and fights the battles they get paid for. The TECH, who makes and breaks hi-tech gear as if it were a bunch of Legos.  What exactly are we gonna do? You’re going to be hired to do a job. Not exactly an easy one, but simple in principle: start a riot in America’s latest success story: the reborn city of Detroit. Then steer the crowd into ruining its most representative building. Oh, and try to keep the casualties to a minimum. See? Simple. That doesn’t sound like a job for nice people. Nobody said it would be. What should I put in my character submission? - Your character sheet. Follow the instructions (page 17 onwards), then post it. - Some sort of a summary of your character as a person.Make it as brief or as developed as you like. - You can add a picture, but it’s not mandatory. - Define a corporation, government or crime syndicate that forms a part of the game world, as outlined in Step 0 (page 18). - Say a few words about your cybernetic augmentations. How did you get them? What do they look like? What do you use them for? - Answer the following questions: • How exactly did you come to be who you are now? At which moment did you stop being an upstanding citizen, and what drove you to slip down into the underworld? • This is top secret corporate grey ops. Or maybe black ops. I hear the US Government doesn’t do black ops anymore, they’ve switched to orange, har har. Sprawl joke, that one. No wonder you don’t get it. Or maybe you do? Have you seen much of the world? What do you make of it? Interested in the latest news, trying to guess where it’s all going? • Back to the point, however, people don’t sign up for stuff like this by reading newspaper ads. How did you learn about it? Did they come to you? Or did you come to them? In either case, why? • How is life right now? Got an apartment? Any loved ones, friends, hobbies? A day job? I promise I won’t tell the megacorps. • This job calls for a different skillset than your usual corporate shootout. What do you have that makes you an asset in this mission? I'm waiting for any submissions, suggestions and advice you may want to heap on me. We definitely won't start before July 1, so that's an absolutely shortest deadline you may have to deal with. We'll probably wait longer still. Looking forward to hearing from you.
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Jun 27, 2014 17:55
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I'm totally going to make a Face for this when I get home!
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Jun 27, 2014 19:11
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My Face is going to be beautiful when I get done putting it on.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:59
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I forgot to say that with Links we're naturally going to wait until I'm done selecting the characters to take part in the session. You don't need to bother yourselves with them right away.
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Jun 27, 2014 20:18
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Interesting...what's the intended mood for the characters and game? Reading over the rules it looks pretty old-style cyberpunk, but would the more outlandish anime cyberpunk be alright for a chara? For some reason all the ideas in my head have long pink braided tails.
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Jun 27, 2014 20:38
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I'm a Gibsonian through and through, though. This Tuesday I'm literally defending my B.A. thesis on Neuromancer. But all things considered this is cyberpunk, and style trumps the essence. If you honestly think you can pull it off, you're welcome to try, I won't reject you on principle or anything.
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Jun 27, 2014 21:08
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Creative Solutions “We make your problems go away” Creative Solutions is a new corporate power, built to serve the needs of other corporations. They aren’t a household name, but they’re well known and well liked in the upper echelons of power. They’re temp contractors, troubleshooters, repairmen, and assassins. They have a very simple ethos: describe your problem, pay what they ask, and the problem disappears. The problem could be anything from leaky plumbing to rebel attacks interfering with diamond shipments in central Africa. They’ll tell you how they did it, if you want. But it’s usually better if you don’t know.  Mr. Gray “I do the job. I do what I’m told. I don’t ask questions. I don’t gently caress with anything I’m not told to gently caress with. That’s how I survive. I’ve done some poo poo. You got a problem with it, bring it to the assholes up top. I was just doing my job.” Mr. Gray is a private contractor with Creative Solutions. He doesn’t talk about his past, his ambitions, his hopes, no one cares. They only care about the job. If you really look into it, you’ll find that he was born into a lovely life in a lovely place. He stole to live until he was caught, restrained, tortured, cut up, and retrained to serve corporate interests, then traded like livestock from one enormous monolithic world-controlling entity to another. He’s learned to enjoy his work, and he lives a modestly luxurious life thanks to his corporate masters. He doesn’t like them. No one does. But he’s learned to accept that there’s no such thing as freedom. If you look deeper, like real deep, like hacking into corporate records deep, you’ll find that John Gray isn’t his real name, and that he has surviving family. An older brother in the prison industrial complex, and a little sister in the scholastic industrial complex. He’s keeping tabs on them. So is the corp, in case pressure needs to be applied. I was assigned to this crew by my corporate overlords. They no doubt were hired by another corporation to do the job. Who knows what problem this is supposed to solve. Maybe someone wants a new security contract in Detroit. Maybe they want to make a profit on rebuilding again. Maybe they want to put the screws to a rival. I was just told to do the job. They’ve got me with a new crew, independents. Sometimes they do that, if they don’t want it traced. Technically I’m independent too. But we both know who owns me. My contribution to the team is simple. I'm an expert on stealth and hardline hacking. For a riot to get off the ground, security needs to be doing a real lovely job. Detroit is on lockdown against that kinda poo poo. If everything is functioning normally, riot cops will swoop in to crack heads before the first window is broken. Communications need to be disrupted. Manpower needs to be misallocated. You can't hack the cops from outside. Too vital a system, it's all cut off. Can't even do it from the cops on the ground. Everything is built so commands flow one way: from HQ. I'll have to breach City Sec HQ and confound the police to give our uprising the time it needs to become uncontrollable. Name: Mr. Gray Playbook: Infiltrator Look Dark Eyes Nondescript Face Slim Body Corporate Style Stats Style -1 Edge 0 Cool 0 Mind 1 Meat 1 Synth 2 Cyberware (Owned by Creative Solutions) Data storage & interface (High Speed) Synthetic nerves Moves Cat Burglar Chromed Jack In Equipment Silenced SMG (2-harm close autofire) Silenced semi-auto pistol (2-harm close quick) Monofilament whip (4-harm hand messy area dangerous) Cyberdeck: Processor 4 Lockdown, Defend, Manipulate, Eject Directives: Network Directive (Creative Solutions), Behavior Directive (Just do the job, no questions, no distractions)
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Jun 27, 2014 23:37
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 A telecomm company forged in the wreckage of a severe corporate flop. The man behind the name is a former sergeant who found his calling developing radio tech for the good of the American Dream. His encryption methods and audio quality helped him get in with a no-name Kansas City comm business, which he soon overtook with help from social media sabotage and a classic shareholder gambit. Opinions are still mixed about the changing of the guard. Quality-wise, Cyrus is near the top, though competitors tend to disappear, either absorbed into the company or bled dry from the sheer weight of Cyrus coming down on them. The advances of cybertech haven't slowed their momentum, though Sgt. Patrick Cyrus himself is wheelchair-bound, and his second wife Darla and her son Stuart are preparing themselves for his retirement. Darla herself has already directed and starred in a few ads, but the outtakes have been getting more hits. Contents include a minor wardrobe malfunction leading to a vulgar thrashing, from which the internet instantly popularized Demon Darla as a trending meme. Cyrus' PR department has since doubled in size. Samhain the Tech  Summary: A self-esteemed gentleman with a stovepipe hat hoping to clean up his image with a dapper flair and old-fashioned taste. His specialty is making smoke and mirrors out of fire and brimstone, an art that has risen in sophistication with the advent of spray explosives. To an anarchist, there's an unsurpassed precision in Samhain's work, the kind that gets the underground buzzing. On the eve of Sam's first paying gig, a home-brewed gas grenade prematurely detonated in his hand. Now his right arm is completely chromed along with some synth-skin along the abdomen and face. He (left-)handed his doc a bundle of Cred and specified that the arm should serve three functions: keep Sam safe, keep the chemical intact, and look sharp as hell. A series of internal gyroscopes keeps the hand steady as it grips vials, pins, wire-cutters and the like, but that kind of tech could be found in an icebox nowadays. How exactly did you come to be who you are now? At which moment did you stop being an upstanding citizen, and what drove you to slip down into the underworld? "Story time, then? Right. The short and long of it is my family was gypped by Cyrus. Intercom, rather. My pa, rest his soul, was a programmer here in Detroit for a new codec in some crazy encryption method that sought to keep sounds where they rightly belong, none of that Cyrus garbage. Well the wanker wouldn't have that, would he? He hired Pa under a false pretense and--this is insane--hired a hacker to fry his deck, blow it out of his home office . Never saw it coming... Then my ma was likewise left with nothing on her plate from my father's passing, since they didn't ever file him as an employee, instead opting to keep him as a second-party contractor. I'll have that in my ring! I put a pipe in their mailslot not three days later and that's where I stand now." This is top secret corporate grey ops. Or maybe black ops. I hear the US Government doesn't do black ops anymore, they've switched to orange, har har. Sprawl joke, that one. No wonder you don't get it. Or maybe you do? Have you seen much of the world? What do you make of it? Interested in the latest news, trying to guess where it's all going? "Orange is the color of fire, so I suppose that's my business here. I've been everywhere in this damnable country, and of course the home in Dublin. Don't believe I've seen the Pacific coast, though. Really, I'm up to my trap in work calls. It's all I know outside my workshop, just who wants whose head ate." Back to the point, however, people don't sign up for stuff like this by reading newspaper ads. How did you learn about it? Did they come to you? Or did you come to them? In either case, why? "I'll come right out: I want to see that whole fecking Spike come down. Been my dream since I started mixing dynamite some few months ago. Received a parcel that wasn't ticking for a change, last week. Had a piddly deck, no service, just a video explaining the nixer. About drat time, too. Needed a new display anyway. How is life right now? Got an apartment? Any loved ones, friends, hobbies? A day job? I promise I won't tell the megacorps. "In my spare time I'm a deck repairman. Been home-brewing a deck to put in my cap and goggles, but jobs keep taking my time on that. Ma is still living with me, or the other way around. After what happened to Pa, didn't feel right letting her live on her lonesome. Our apartment's only room for one so I sleep in the storage unit a few blocks down, where I keep my nitro. Keeps me closer to the local boozer as well." This job calls for a different skillset than your usual corporate shootout. What do you have that makes you an asset in this mission? "To be frank, I've got class. Most demolition techs, they do it quick and dirty-like, blow the joint and forget the cleanup. Not me. I learned to make a sound amount of plastic, place them where they ought to be--out of sight, close to the supports--and get gone without a suspicious glance. Nobody expects a dapper man like me to turn their building arseways, let alone leave a burning deuce saluting the remains in the next building over." pre:Look Focused Eyes Expressive Face Compact Body Corporate Style Stats Style +1 Edge +0 Cool +2 Mind +1 Meat -1 Synth +0 Gear Storage unit filled with chemicals and circuits Cyberarm (prosthetic +substandard) Plastic explosives and toolkit (3-use, +1-forward each use) Goggles (+magnification +flare compensation) Shannah the White Van (Power+2 Looks+1, 1-Armour, Weakness+1) - Workhorse, vintage, slow - Grenade launchers (4-harm close area messy) Armoured jacket (1-armour) Assault rifle (3-harm near/far loud autofire) Frag grenades (4-harm hand area reload messy) Gas grenades (s-harm hand area reload gas) - Implant Tools: When you have time and space to interface with a device you are attempting to fix or tamper with, take +1 forward. Expert: Choose one area of expertise: - Chemistry and Explosives: Ignore the dangerous tag for explosives. At the start of each mission, roll+Mind. On a 10+ hold three +gear relevant to your chosen area(s) of expertise. On a 7-9 hold one +gear relevant to your chosen area(s) of expertise. Customiser: You can identify and examine new or complicated technology related to your area of expertise, and modify technology which with you are familiar. When you try to modify a piece of tech, tell the MC what you want to do and discuss what tags or game effect that modification will have. The MC will tell you the requirements in terms of: time; tools; parts; help from contacts; more research On It: When you help a teammate, roll+Cool instead of +Links. If your areas of expertise were central to the help you gave, mark experience. Directives Protective: To keep Ma warm and fed in Pa's absence. Ideological: To make the job look undoubtedly classy. Double May Care fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 23:52
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Nice, this is really nice. Mr. Gray: you don't look back on your jobs, and I respect that. In fact, some people will even become fans of an attitude such as yours. But sometimes, the job catches up to you. Like that time in Memphis, three years ago, with the two Russians. What exactly happened? Samhain: Who paid for your arm, exactly? Can't find it in the records. (I think you might have missed Step 4, Page 19 in the character creation part of the rulebook.) Besides, how do you deal with disappointments? Say, a bait and switch, or when the job does not meet your expectations. Maybe you're asked to do something a bit different from what you've expected. Maybe someone just fucks up and all your planning goes away in the blaze of ignominy. How do you handle that?
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Jun 28, 2014 07:46
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Okay, I've come up with something that's less anime, but still...kinda anime. Work in progress. Also, are cybercoms like those Ghost in the Shell type things where people talk to each other with their minds, especially if I take "+relay"? Or is "+relay" supposed to be "+satellite relay"? Cadala ExIm Bank Cadala Bank started its existence as an export credit agency, a joint effort by many Asian nations to help pull themselves out of economic slump. (Its name, the first letters of Cai Shen, Daikoku-ten, and Lakshmi, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian patron divinities of wealth and plenty, is a reflection of this mission.) Its job was to finance the sort of big ticket items that countries or corporations could purchase years in advance for ridiculous sums, like SSTO liners, fighter swarm drones, 3D nanite printers, and the like. No small businesses here, even from day zero. It declared independence from these nation states about two decades ago, and now serves as a semi-neutral financial intermediary and risk buffer between megacorps. Most of its public wealth comes from the commissions it makes off of contract negotiations and bond dealings, as well as various mutual funds, trade law offices, personal banks, that sort of thing; its private wealth comes from the information it has to gather to make those deals properly... Adrien Fitzjovan the Fixer aka a "bastard Mr. Johnson"  "Look, I don't know what kinda idyllic island you grew up in; around here we're closer than ever, literally. And I figure I got an obligation as one of those humans to help out guys who I'm standing cheek to cheek with. Figuratively. I'm not exploiting anybody! I'm getting kids off of the street and into some decent rooms! Half of these guys, used to be they walked by my storefront, no parents, no roof, no food, no nothing, they just pressed their faces and hands against the window to warm up from the heat of the lights inside, that's how bad off they were..." --Mr. Fitzjovan, on accusations of circumventing child labor laws From Old Detroit's Main Street, take the 3rd exit, head south along the old alley, and turn left into the maze. Get lucky and you'll come across a building that's a bit less run down than the ones around it. It's got lights in the front window and a little sign that says "Random Access Memories--Sundries and Curios". Feel free to walk on in; the place is warmly lit and the neon in the door says "welcome". If you mean well, great! Buy yourself something nice, maybe that little carving on the window shelf; the shopkeep will throw on a SoySnak bar for free, give you proper directions so you can find the place again, bag it up and wave goodbye. If you mean ill, you're a dead man. If you escape the proprietor pulling a gun and shooting at you; if you escape the sweeper and duster shooting at you; if you escape the people from the upper floors trying to pop the windows and shoot at you, you've only bought yourself a few hours before the shopkeep calls his friend and gets that guy to hunt you down and kill you. And if you mean business? Well, the shopkeep will call someone down from upstairs; tell him to watch the register while he does deals. He'll invite you deeper into the back room, along with the sweeper and duster from before. And once you're inside, the sweeper and duster will suddenly shift demeanor and turn into bodyguards that any corporate scion will recognize, and the shopkeep will get a twinkle in his eye as he asks just what sort of "special order" you want to put in--information? Data chips? A little art piece? The location of some poor soul?--and when you want to pick it up. He'll smile and grin and sketch out plans and offers on the table, while silently chatting up his contacts in the back of his mind regarding the how and the who. Then he'll escort you out, throw on that free SoySnak bar, and send you on your merry way. Welcome to the world of Adrien Fitzjovan. - How exactly did you come to be who you are now? At which moment did you stop being an upstanding citizen, and what drove you to slip down into the underworld? All I wanted to do was run a shop for old things, you know? A place where people could come in, look at real wood and listen to real old tunes, reconnect with their pasts, yeah? Not a lot of people want to do that. My shop was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and I was this close to having to close it down and take all the kids back out onto the street with me. And then...somebody offered me money. A lot of money. And all I had to do was give up any pretense of running a pure and normal business and turn it into a front for a corporate spy ring. They even wanted the kids to play along. Well, I twisted and "negotiated" and stood my ground and got some concessions, but...well, at least the shop actually sees some business now. Even if it's just Cadala low-levels looking for a "fancy" bauble to spruce up their desk and keep the cover going. And the kids are learning things...maybe things they shouldn't have to, but this spy ring at least can declare itself a foster family on the forms. - This is top secret corporate grey ops. Or maybe black ops. I hear the US Government doesn't do black ops anymore, they've switched to orange, har har. Sprawl joke, that one. No wonder you don't get it. Or maybe you do? Have you seen much of the world? What do you make of it? Interested in the latest news, trying to guess where it's all going? It's going to pot, that's where it's going. The world and the old part of the city. I've heard the news--got a tinny old hyper-radio in the upstairs. But I don't even need to HEAR it to KNOW it--all the kids I take in is proof enough of the decline. Bog, God, whoever, they aren't coming to help. We probably drowned them in yennies or data or pollutants or acid rain or whatever. I'm doing what I can, sure, but a LITTLE BIT of assistance would sure be frickin' nice! - Back to the point, however, people don't sign up for stuff like this by reading newspaper ads. How did you learn about it? Did they come to you? Or did you come to them? In either case, why? Funny story about that, actually. One day I actually had a limo pull up in front of the shop. A frickin' limo. Driver, bodyguards, dark windows, the works. The kids pressed their noses up against the windows to see that thing. Anyway, the driver got out, opened the backdoor for a big old Cadala exec. He walked in, we spent a few minutes chatting about a nice little shogi set I had, and then he got down to business. See, Cadala ExIm doesn't actually do very much through the Spike. Most of their stock trading stuff is much more...distributed, I suppose, in Mumbai, in Kyoto, Hong Kong, Seoul, Chiba, places on the other side of the world. A lot of their competitors, on the other hand, practically do everything through the spike. So it's simple corporate sabotage, really--any damage that happens to the Spike hurts other banks and such, and Cadala gets a chance to do hostile takeovers and...whatever it is banks do to other banks. Oh, yes, he also agreed that I'd get a cut of any cash moolah that I could get out of the place--I could launder it through any wholly owned Cadala subsidiary, they'd take it and dole it out, and I'd get point oh one as a "finder's fee". And even .01%, hell, even a millionth of that much money would be...it'd be...Bog and God it'd be a lot. - How is life right now? Got an apartment? Any loved ones, friends, hobbies? A day job? I promise I won't tell the megacorps. It's not like they don't already know, but my "day job" entails selling "curios and sundries" out of a little shop in old Detroit. I wanted to call it an "antique" store, but that word's regulated. Also don't bother searching police records for stolen goods tags, I'm serious, there's nothing there! Business at ground level, bed and kitchen and bathroom and stuff on the upper level, just like the Hong Kong or Kowloon of old times. What? I got old maps in the place, okay? Anyway, most of my blood family moved out for greener pastures a long time ago, but that doesn't mean I don't have loved ones right here. It's kinda tight, but it's also kinda nice, too; the younger kids actually help out in the shop, while the older ones don their overcoats and help acquire the merchandise...not in the way you're thinking, I'm sure! - This job calls for a different skillset than your usual corporate shootout. What do you have that makes you an asset in this mission? I have eight armed and dangerous young men who are personally loyal to me and whom I can summon at any time. I can tell you who provided the food and security to the last Spike Christmas Party (Aramea Catering and G&A Sec Associates), and call up the VIP guest lists from security records. Give me fifteen minutes and I can get you a laid-off day trader looking for revenge, an architectural engineer with a side order of anarchism, and a contracted janitor who just wants money with explosively erased data trails. I have ears in the air and on the ground, and a letter of marque from one of the biggest financial institutions in the world. You bring someone else, you get a gun. You bring me, you get the guns, knowledge, access, and money of everybody I can get on the hook. And that's a lot of people. quote:Looks Davin Valkri fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 08:05
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Davin Valkri posted:Also, are cybercoms like those Ghost in the Shell type things where people talk to each other with their minds, especially if I take "+relay"? Or is "+relay" supposed to be "+satellite relay"? The way I see it, cybercoms are an implant that allows you to communicate with others who have some sort of a sending or receiving device. This means those things go from a mobile phone for your head, through Molly Millions-style text based comms implanted into some optic chip, all the way to something resembling a Metal Gear Solid Codec. You have a bit of liberty with it. And yes, I'm fairly sure +relay is the same thing as +satellite relay.
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Jun 28, 2014 08:31
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Tevery Best posted:The way I see it, cybercoms are an implant that allows you to communicate with others who have some sort of a sending or receiving device. This means those things go from a mobile phone for your head, through Molly Millions-style text based comms implanted into some optic chip, all the way to something resembling a Metal Gear Solid Codec. You have a bit of liberty with it. Thanks. Yeah, I plan to roll with the MGS codec/GitS brain-talk option, so I guess I'm switching +relay for +encrypted.
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Jun 28, 2014 08:33
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Remember that the guys on the other end still need some way to communicate with you. If they don't have it implanted, they'll need some piece of electronics, maybe a hand-held smartphone-like device, maybe something bigger and more secure. If you had +relay, they would be able to access it via a cyberspace link.
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Jun 28, 2014 08:39
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So I made a cyberpunk who hates cyber and despises punks.quote:
Steven Crowford, Surveillance Expert formerly known as Arthur "Tailor" Bronham  The last known photo of Arthur Bronham, Munich 2043 Among the rowdy punk hotshots that fill the underworld, ex-spooks are something of an aristocracy. Reliable, consummate, meticulous and with enough fashion sense to easily blend into the corporate territory. Few men embody this as well as Steven Crowford, who's been in the trade ever since cyberware was the domain of Delta Force and circus freaks. Crowford spent most of his career as a FEMA operative - and if I was allowed to say what sort of emergencies the agency usually tackles, you'd understand why they send interns to deal with hurricanes. Crowford did not really seek the thrills of espionage underworld. A MIT alumnus, he was recruited as a surveillance engineer - the pay was good, job interesting and back in the day governmental agencies still mattered. But the truth of the matter was, Bonds and Bournes rarely could handle something more complex than a button cam. If one wanted to have three directional microphones filtered and mixed in real-time, one had to get his own hands dirty, with proper workshop work regularly pushed out into benzedrine-fueled overtime. But Crowford didn't mind, enjoyig the thrill of conning one's way into secure facilities just as much as puzzling out the best tools for the job. But then, Steven grew old. Slow. Sloppy. Asking questions. He got this really dumb idea of doing the right thing for once. And the agency had to do what it always had done with people it chewed up and spat out. It killed him. How exactly did you come to be who you are now? At which moment did you stop being an upstanding citizen, and what drove you to slip down into the underworld? As it turns out, it's not exactly easy to hold an honest job when you're dead. Besides, Crowford had expenses and rather urgent ones at that. Hospitalisation, papillary and dental makeover, DNA refit. The only way he saw out of his predicament was either robbing a bank or trading favors with a corp. He chose poorly. Still, with the days of madcap rooftop chases in Marrakesh long gone, he caved in and got a control system installed - as per wishes of his newfound Maarloewe friends - despite his dislike of cyberware, harkening back to the grotesque first-generation days. This is top secret corporate grey ops. Or maybe black ops. I hear the US Government doesn’t do black ops anymore, they’ve switched to orange, har har. Sprawl joke, that one. No wonder you don’t get it. Or maybe you do? Have you seen much of the world? What do you make of it? Interested in the latest news, trying to guess where it’s all going? God, that joke was already old back when moustaches were still fashionable. Crowford is a bonafide vet, the kind who took time to train instead of popping skillwires, learnt languages (semi-fluent in five) and understands that at their core, computers are electric current and lines of code, rather than a silly 3D game. He's an impressively experienced operative, but a one that's rapidly becoming obsolete. His relationship with the modern tradecraft is rather schizophrenic: he follows the news like a hawk, striving to stay at the top of the game, while at the same time dismissing most innovation in a desperate attempt to prove the usefulness of his old ways. Back to the point, however, people don’t sign up for stuff like this by reading newspaper ads. How did you learn about it? Did they come to you? Or did you come to them? In either case, why? Maarloewe guys said a friend of a friend needed a hand and so Crowford had little say in the matter. The hell it has to do with lunar helium-3 extraction, I don't have a faintest idea, but a debt is a debt. How is life right now? Got an apartment? Any loved ones, friends, hobbies? A day job? I promise I won’t tell the megacorps. There isn't much left of his old life and there never really was that much to begin with. Crowford is a bit lost at how to go about his new life: he's not hip enough to hang out with the younger crowd and the taxpayers his age are terminally boring. This job calls for a different skillset than your usual corporate shootout. What do you have that makes you an asset in this mission? Frankly, his skillset isn't precisely suited to the job at hand. It rarely ever is nowadays. Still, he has an impressive pedigree - if FEMA didn't know a thing or two about false-flag operations, France would still be a country. Crowford is no stranger to disinformation, fieldcraft, countersurveillance, working as a coherent team - and if the chaos slips out of control, he'll be able to carry on armed only with his wits. If there's somebody out there to stop the team, he'll know exactly how they work. Finally, he's also not really getting paid, so why not bring him along? quote:Playbook: The Tech A lil' bullshit I did was to give myself gear from another specialisation than chosen. I was going for an 'oldschool' vibe, busting and bypassing electronic systems directly while not really engaging in fancy-shmancy hacking kids do these days. A way to envision it is like playing Deus Ex and ignoring computers in favor of putting points in electronics. Some utility drones fit what I'm going for, while I'm not really interested in building flying tanks or whatnot myself later on. I hope this makes sense and is fine by you.
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Jun 28, 2014 11:22
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Tevery Best posted:Samhain: Who paid for your arm, exactly? Can't find it in the records. Tevery Best posted:Besides, how do you deal with disappointments? Say, a bait and switch, or when the job does not meet your expectations. Maybe you're asked to do something a bit different from what you've expected. Maybe someone just fucks up and all your planning goes away in the blaze of ignominy. How do you handle that? I don't question my orders like maybe I ought to. If I can't do what I'm told to do, I do the next best thing instead. Can't get to the President's convoy? Vice President's just come into view. Can't set all my charges in time? I always try to have a pipe bomb handy. I'll tell you though, no one makes me play the fool. I'll take any job, big or small, but nothing doing if it's someone's home. I may be a lawless bomber, but if they make me take someone's pa like they took mine, they have another thing coming. Course, if I make a mistake I have to answer to the client. I always meet them face-to-face when I can; it's the gentlemanly thing to do. I calmly explain the situation as it happened, marking where I may have went thick. Acting responsible usually gets me brownie points. If the client's not having it, I get my Irish up, blather on about causes and how none of them can be directed at me. If I get told to leave I mention my reputation in the grey and start humping off. One of the perks of being a folk hero is holding it over people's heads, so I'm not surprised anymore when the client shouts for me to stay. If they don't want me back, they were probably a tool anyway, so gently caress'em. If I really wind up in flitters, I'll find the local and invest in a few pints of the black stuff. Clear my mind, shag a hoor, forget I hosed up for a few hours. It's why I live in my unit; don't have to drive home after feeling knackered, since my pub's just round the bend. Sometimes, though, I gotta take it out on something what don't deserve it. That's where the Samhain Special comes in. I drive around in Shannah until I find a back alley drug deal, kick open the door and fill them full of holes. My rifle has a grenade launcher under-slung and Shannah has her own diddies if I feel like toasting marshmallows once I'm done. Destruction gets my engine kicking again, makes up for having done a bags for my client, at least in my head. Word of advice, though: choose one or the other. Can't aim for shite when you're all gee-eyed. Leave the liquor for softening you up after the fact.
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Jun 28, 2014 23:37
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Tevery Best posted:
Not everyone subscribes to my level of professionalism, and in the modern world blame can be a very difficult thing to trace. Some folks just give up on proper revenge and decide shooting the messenger is good enough. Short answer is I got blamed for doing my job, and I had to take the heat for poo poo instead of my boss. So I had to do something I really hate: violent extracurricular activity. Long answer? If we're going to talk about Memphis, we gotta talk about Russia. Corps are corps because they have global influence. You can go anywhere in the world, and the corp still has flex. But the amount of flex varies from place to place. In Russia, the Families still rule. The Families, they're more traditional, more local, more intimate than your standard mega corporation. They still think in terms of people, and respect, and territory. Sometimes the two different ethos come into conflict. When a megacorp does something based on a cold profit equation, another megacorp responds in kind. Buildings might blow up, people might die, countries might be destabalized, but there's no hard feelings. They could be bitter enemies one second, and best friends the next. They could be both at the same time, so long as the numbers turn up black. That's how corps are. But when a corp does something based on a cold profit equation in Russia, it may result in some kind of "blood feud" and an exchange of "messages". It's all miscommunication really, the Family just fails to understand that Corps speak in numbers, not lives. So, anyway, I was told to place a certain substance (I did not question what it was) in a certain location (I promptly forgot the specifics) and this may or may not have resulted in some loss of life and increase in profits through various mechanisms I was not privy too, and it just so happened that certain ranking members of a the Black Hand were killed. I did my job, and I was sent over to Memphis for some delicate work: a kind of data extraction. But the Black Hand was offended, and they decided they had to show the world that anyone who kills a member of their family will die themselves. Stupid. So loving stupid. Even if they murdered the loving CEO the Corp wouldn't give a poo poo. But, whatever, they sent two assassins, their best killers in an organization known for its killing. Cyborgs stuffed full of black market parts. Those two hunted me down, hit me at the worst possible time, right in the middle of my job. I had to pull out, go into hiding, and hunt my hunters. I failed my job, which had... consequences. And it took months out of my busy schedule. AND the Black Hand is still pissed because a corporate stooge took on their best guys and now they have something to prove.
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Jun 29, 2014 01:57
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Imani "Points" Ng, Soldier of the Infowar Concept: Spergy Tactical Sherlock Corporation: pre:Cortexium Pharmaceuticals is a cutting edge producer of neuroaugmentation; neurochem implants, neuroideomatic conditioning, retroviral augmentation, chemical neuroinhibiters, the works. Basically, if you can stick it into your brain and make yourself smarter, faster, or colder, they will sell it to you. Cortexium operates multiple subsidiaries, each specializing in different forms of mental augmentation; InfiniCor, which offers custom personality reconditioning to celebrities and corporate elites, Grey Matter International, which sells military grade neurochem enhancements, and Nepenthe (ltd), a pharmaceutical company which supplies both customized rehabilitative therapies for rich addicts and also, secretly, supplies those same drugs to the street that created the addiction in the first place. Cortexium is currently under litigation in over 90 countries. Where I grew up wasn’t a slum, but it was slum-adjacent. Mural Alley was an immigrant corridor between the rotten blocks next to the harbor and the Hosaka tech-mills. There was an artist's enclave there at one point, and they tagged all the buildings with chicano street art. There were worse places to live, before the spill. I was 4 years old when the spill happened. Micro-meteor impact brought down a Cortexium low orbit cargo-zep, right on top of the Sprawl. My oldest memory was watching night turn into day while a billion billion shreds of micrometer-thick polysilk blanketed the streets like quicksilver snow. Then the canisters went off and the streets filled with fog, and Mural Alley got gassed with a melange of tens of millions of dollars worth of advanced aerosol neuropharmaceuticals. After that, they called it Little Bedlam, or just Crazytown. I was lucky. They diagnosed me with Acute Integrative Hypergnosia. That means that I’m hyper-aware of patterns and organizing principles, even where intentional patterns don’t exist. That makes me really good at putting two and two together, even if it sometimes means I can’t tell crazy conspiracies from regular insights. My two year old brother Marcus was unlucky; he got full expression psychopathic tendencies. My infant sister Anna was even worse; her place on the autistic spectrum is so complicated that they had to invent new terms for it. I’m not sure what my parents got, but since they died, it was probably pretty loving bad. As part of the lawsuit settlement, Cortexium promised to “take care” of the residents of Mural Alley, but for most of the residents that meant doping them up so hard they couldn’t remember who they were; a really good way to silence the witnesses. They gave me augmentative cortical implants to take the knife’s edge off the paranoia, but the surgery came with so many legal strings that it became illegal for me to even sneeze in the direction of Cortexium, let alone go public with the story. Let me tell you how my crazy works: I see connections. I read situations like other people read the web. I see the patterns that human intention builds between people and things. Sometimes, I can see an ambush coming in the texture of a man's suit, or the way a woman holds her coffee. The part of my brain that feels empathy doesn't work so well, but I get by on being able to deduce how people will react based on subtle contextual clues. It made me really good at causative perception, but not so good at small talk. I see the world like a videogame, and I hold some of the cheat codes. That's literally how I lived at first, too; I was a professional AR video sports entertainment team in the professional gamer circuit. I led the Worldsat Philadelphia Killweasels to the National Battleball league playoffs. When the league went bankrupt, I found that running semi-legal jobs was more interesting, and paid better anyway. And I definitely need the money, to keep Anna in meds. So I went offgrid and became a professional merc. pre:Playbook: Soldier Searching eyes, decorated face, wiry body, casual style. Stats: +2 Edge, +1 Mind, +1 Style, +0 Cool, +0 Meat, -1 Synth Cyberware: Skillwires (firefight combat, planning and logistics) +Genetics +Hunted by Cortexium Pharmaceuticals Personal Directives: Compassionate Directive (Resolve a situation while helping the weak and powerless) Protective Directive (Put your family ahead of the mission) Moves: Here’s the plan: When you plan a Mission, everyone to whom you assign a task takes +1 ongoing while they act on that task according to the plan. Anyone who rolls a miss or goes off the plan loses their bonus for that mission. If you get paid, mark experience. I love it when a plan comes together: At the start of a mission, roll+Edge. 10+ hold 3, 7-9 hold 1. During the mission, spend hold 1 for 1 for the following effects: • You have that piece of gear that you need, right now. • You appear in a scene where you are needed, right now. On a miss, hold 1 anyway, but your opponent has predicted your every move. The MC will hold this over your head until the worst possible moment. Hands-on Management: When you mix it up while directing a mission from the front, roll+Mind instead of +Meat. Links: +1 Tristam, +2 Crowford, +2 Adrien Gear: Old Kentucky Shark fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Jul 11, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 03:30
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Tristran Bantam, the Killer Raised in the poorer parts of Dallas, Tristan was never one for books. So when it came time to get a job, he joined up with the US Military to avoid working retail or working for the local criminal influence. He moved up fast and ended up working as a Scout Sniper in the Marines. After three tours, his contract was up, and before he could sign a new one there were other people offering him jobs: people like Edison Machasky, corporate headhunter for STI Consolidated. So Tristan left the service and joined the ranks of corporate wetwork. STI showed him the world, or at least the darker parts. Tristan learned topple nations with a few well-placed rounds and a good escape plan, and he worked for STI for the better part of a decade. They even replaced his spine when he lost his in Bolivia. The doctors said he'd never be able to walk again, and then STI flew him to a small clinic in Germany where some of the world's best surgeons reconstructed his nerves, lacing in enough metal to make him faster than before. He even met a woman, someone in his line of work, a heavy hitter named Janet. That was all before Morocco, two years ago. It was supposed to be a cushy assignment on the CFO's megayacht, watching for possible random-pirates while the CFO wined and dined international investors. Right up until he wandered into the wrong room and watched STI's VP of Distribution murder its CEO with Tristan's gun. And it was clear what the next step was going to be, so Tristan ran. Tristan's brother George got him back into the states, into a small apartment in Detroit, and got him enough fake paperwork to cover his rear end. The setup was good, almost perfect, and Tristan's name---his real one, not 'Tristan Bantam'---showed up in all the papers as the murderer. In the two years since then, Tristan's made some money and reputation working off-the-books security for questionable jobs, the kinds that get outsourced, mostly for protection and when people need muscle. The only kind of stuff he was ever good at. But STI's a big, powerful company, so it's only a matter of time until they find him in Detroit. But that's a problem to deal with when the time comes... How exactly did you come to be who you are now? At which moment did you stop being an upstanding citizen, and what drove you to slip down into the underworld? I never really was. I came up poor in Dallas, joined up with the military there to get out. They taught me how to kill for a paycheck, taking orders without asking for why. When my contract was up, I found another one, and one after that. Before I knew it, I was working in the underworld, pulling jobs off the books for companies too big to have anyone looking. Or maybe you do? Have you seen much of the world? What do you make of it? Interested in the latest news, trying to guess where it’s all going? I've seen slivers and glimpses, like so many little shards of a broken wine glass. I've never sat at a cafe in Italy or eaten sushi in Japan. But I've seen Nepal, but only by starlight. I've marched through the unbearable heat of the Sudan, more concerned about my principal being seen than about finding water. I was in two gunfires in Bolivia, and I lost half of my original spinal nerves in the second. I've seen the world, but only the underside. The latest news is that the world's going to Hell. But it's always going to Hell, isn't it? The world is hard. It doesn't care about you, so don't bother caring about it. And those beautiful faces on the news, revealing secrets like they will change the world? They don't change anything. A few bullets will revolutionize the world far faster than a few hundred thousand words, so why bother listening? Back to the point, however, people don’t sign up for stuff like this by reading newspaper ads. How did you learn about it? Did they come to you? Or did you come to them? In either case, why? They came to me. Knew where to find me, I guess. I have a few friends a few places, and they pass work like this my way sometimes. A phone call, a diner address and a time, the promise of payment. And all they want is for me to keep some people whole in Detroit. I've done this before, pulled a whole family out of a shootout in Germany once. Three years ago I took three bullets for a pair of Swiss bankers in Taiwan. So maybe my reputation proceeds me. Or maybe I was just the first person who answered their phone. Protection jobs are nice: harder than my normal work, but they cost less of my soul. How is life right now? Got an apartment? Any loved ones, friends, hobbies? A day job? I promise I won’t tell the megacorps. Life's good. Quiet. I haven't had a job in a few weeks, so I've been spending my days down at the park, playing dominoes with the old men. I have an apartment near there, a bit run-down. It's not great, but it's low-key with quiet neighbors. I could afford a better one, but that's not really something people do in my line of work. I have a nice bike, though, and sometimes I just go riding, watching twilight creep over Detroit. I've got an older brother, George, a smuggler who mostly works down south near Mexico. Lots of drugs, but sometimes other stuff. I've gone with him a few times, to make sure he's alive for the next Christmas. And there's Janet. She works for Tobin-Hochstadt Multinational, doing what I do, but they own her. She's in town maybe three times a month. We go get wine and pizza, maybe catch a movie. I'd say she was my girlfriend, but we aren't that exclusive and she'd probably cut it off it she thought it might be that serious. This job calls for a different skillset than your usual corporate shootout. What do you have that makes you an asset in this mission? I keep people alive, I make people dead, and I've got a lot of experience doing both of those things quietly and quickly. I don't get jobs to get into a gunfight in the street, I get jobs to put a sudden hole in someone and vanish before they knew I was there. Or to stop other people from doing the same. Look. Eyes: Hard Face: Weathered Body: Wiry Wear: Military Stats. Style: +0 Edge: +0 Cool: +1 Mind: -1 Meat: +1 Synth: +2 Cyberware. (Hunted by STI Consolidated) Synthetic Nerves: Use roll+Synth for Act Under Pressure, Mix It Up, and Maneuver. when you Maneuver in combat, add: Someone without Synthetic Nerves dies. You choose. Targeting Suite: Add Synth to inflicting harm with a linked weapon. Also use +Synth instead of +Meat for Mix It Up. Moves. Chromed: Targeting Suite Custom Weapon: "Tandra", Hi-Powered, Silenced Rifle (4 Damage, Near/Far/Ex) Ice Cold: roll+Synth when you Play Hardball. Gear. Tandra, Hi-Powered, Silenced Rifle (4 Damage, Near/Far/Ex)  Silence Machine pistol (2-harm close autofire) Armored Jacket (1 Armor) Powerful Motorcycle: Recreational, Aggressive, Sleek, Sloppy  (It's unclear how I should've statted the motorcycle, so I did what it said, picked a Frame, Design, Strength, Look, and Weakness.) Links. I've heard a story about Points, full or professionalism and poise. People bring me in to make sure their plans run smooth, but she's the kind of person who makes that smooth loving plan. I heard about this one time, in the Sprawl, when she hit the J. Carthy building... I've worked with Crowford before. Contract job through STI. He was running tech for the extraction, the kind that get your extractee killed if you aren't careful, and we had a few arguments about I got uppity about it. The extraction went bad because of a leak somewhere, but Crowford's brilliant gadgets kept our skeleton group alive long enough to pull out safe. The extractee died, of course, and Crowford got a little squeamish when I emptied a handgun into the traitor. Even so, he's got enough professionalism that I know he's got the technology end of this thing covered. I worked against Adrien one time. He had arranged to rip off a deal I was tasked with overwatch on. It was a good plan, too, until my sniper rifle starting taking off people's limbs. And that was a great plan, until his little mob of hood rats pinned me down. I had to blow a whole cover identity on that job, and I'm pretty sure the cops ended up with the cash and the goods. Directives. The Deceptive Directive: Sometimes your entire life is a lie. When you pass yourself off as someone or something you’re not in a high pressure situation, mark experience. The Violent Directive: You enjoy overpowering others in combat. When you choose to use violence to overcome a problem, mark experience. The Corporation.  You haven't heard of STI Consolidated? Did you know that the official incorporation papers don't give definitions for the S, T, or I? But before history forgets those old, crotchety men, they stand for Siegel, Tresler, and Ingersleben. At the turn of the last century, Siegel Inc., made vacuum cleanersm Tresler LLC was a day-trading firm in New York City, and Ingersleben was the first part of Ingersleben, Schultz, and Fianacco, Attorneys at Law. But now STI has headquarters in twelve different nations across the world, and they're one of the world's larger manufacturers of consumer goods, everything from the airbags in your car to the glasses in your cabinet. I bet you didn't know that. And I bet you don't know they own more soy farms and soy processing facilities than any other company in the world. If you start looking, though, you'll find all of the geoscuplting projects they've done in Africa, reshaping the Ivory Coast and Liberia into acres and acres of soy farmland. They still stamp their names on their vacuum cleaners and glassware, but they don't want you to realize they also move 30 percent of the entire world's supply of nutrisoy. But we're getting off-topic. STI controls several of the food markets, but they also throw their weight around in the North American and European investment firms, and they own a few of the players in the automotive game. That's what the word 'Consolidated' means: it means they have their hand in every last pie, and they've get a slice of each one, big or small. It would be hard to list everything they did without a look at their internal books, though, and there are probably fewer than ten people in the whole world that have permission to see them all. Well, I guess nine now, after Lydia Siegel was murdered last year in Morocco. QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 05:21
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Adrien Fitzjovan: the kids grow so fast these days. One day, there out there, hat in hand, begging for your aid. Fast forward a few years, and they're rolling round the block with guns, bikes, cybernetic implants, all that stuff. Don't they get rebellious sometimes? Maybe want a little more freedom to shape their own futures, maybe they actually want to come at you? Or maybe not? Why? Tell us about that. And add a few words about the one time one of those kids saved your life, or your business, or both. Steven Crowford: You mentioned that your previous life was over after you had opted to do the right thing for once. How did that happen? Did you succeed in the end? Is the agency still hunting you, or did they perhaps believe the rumours of your death? Or maybe they've just let it go after some time... or so you'd think? I'd also really, really want to hear some juicy details of a job that involved you, eight microphones, a wiretap and a top brass military officer. Tristran Bantam: as much as most others seem focused on the part of description of this job that involves wanton destruction, you seem to talk more about keeping people safe. I'd say it's somewhat unexpected from a man with a rifle as big as my ex-girlfriend's smart car. Not to mention the ammo for that thing is as big as my thumb. Why do you think your perspective is different in that regard? Also, please put that drat thing away where did you even get it from And all Marines are brothers, forever, as I know since Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann wouldn't have lied to me. Tell us about one of your old brothers in arms, the one you're still in touch with.
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Jun 29, 2014 13:00
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Tevery Best posted:Steven Crowford: You mentioned that your previous life was over after you had opted to do the right thing for once. How did that happen? Did you succeed in the end? Is the agency still hunting you, or did they perhaps believe the rumours of your death? Or maybe they've just let it go after some time... or so you'd think? Christ. It was part of that whole French-Yemeni mess. Last throes of it, really. FEMA business there was already over, but our cell still hanged out in Calais, just to keep tabs on things. Still, one of the higher-ups - Paige Riley, if you really need to know - decided we might as well earn our pay and ride the wave for a little bit. That wasn't a bad idea in and of itself, but we ran into some bad luck and the whole thing went south. See, the problem with operating globally is that no matter how hard you try, with certain size comes certain inertia. I had some, uh, creative differences with our handler. So I decided to took matters in my own hands and get our boys out in one piece. I was the man responsible for communications - countersurveillance reasons - and took some liberties when passing the orders to salvage the whole mess. It was a matter beyond the loyalty to the agency - our real assignment was aleady finished two months earlier, for Christ's sake - but Riley was furious she lost her chance to snatch another medal for her collection and just couldn't see thing like I did. And so, she decided it's about time to cut the old fart loose. I don't really know if FEMA knows about me and I think it's just a bit too dangerous to try and find out. Frankly, I've assumed that by this time they know and are content to allow me to kill myself in some forgettable corporate war as long as I'm quiet and deniable. But then again they might have not even bothered to look for me. You see, I wasn't that important in the grand scheme of things. A burn notice was issued and measures had to be taken before anyone really had time to think about it. Still, I'd rather not test their patience - and more importantly not give any funny ideas to the Chinese or MI6. Was I successful? I like to think so. If we proceeded as ordered, most of our European presence would be compromised - and that's the best case sceario. Still, we hardly got a happy ending. Odysseus took the bomb intended for me - dumb luck, but still. Jackdaw and Whizzard got demoted. Echo fell off the grid. Carpenter is still detained, to the best of my knowledge. quote:I'd also really, really want to hear some juicy details of a job that involved you, eight microphones, a wiretap and a top brass military officer. Imagine this: we need a recording of vice-governor cutting deals, but he only discusses them on his yacht. The boat is checked each time by professionals, there's nobody on board except the two men in question. They sail on the open sea and clam up if they see anyone on the horizon. I still did it. But no-one ever asks about that, it's always about the Higgins case, is it? So, yeah. There was this general by the name of Higgins who had an idea of fighting terrorism with his own semi-legal death squads. Eventually the rest of the brass suppressed the whole project before the Congress caught a whiff of it. Obviously, Higgins got pissed and we put a wiretap on him in case he's about to arrange an accident so that his boys could step in and save the day. Long story short, we found a chance to catch the man red-handed, but our sources got mistaken concerning the locale. Suddenly, I have to tap a Nissan-Astoria penthouse party, in progress, without arousing suspicion, 200 miles away. And as you very well know if you requested that story, I chose to go undercover as a high-class escort. The name was Taylor. I thought it'll be a simple case of bugging some secure room fit for conversation, but there really wasn't any. Higgins, he just could not sit in one place and scrambled around in warp speed, after some industrial cocaine intake. The man was down to his swimming shorts, so no tapping the clothes either. Precision was required, as we could not compromise some particular partygoers, so the whole thing escalated to this madcap scramble with eight microphones I had to constantly move around anyway. But back to the point, Carpenter, who mixed the tapes later on, had made a ringtone out of my remark that Higgins' circumsision ruined a perfect solution. Apparently this was very funny and all sorts of mythology sprung up around it in the agency. So yeah, there really weren't any juicy details you hoped for.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:56
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Tevery Best posted:I'm a Gibsonian through and through, though. This Tuesday I'm literally defending my B.A. thesis on Neuromancer. But all things considered this is cyberpunk, and style trumps the essence. If you honestly think you can pull it off, you're welcome to try, I won't reject you on principle or anything. I dont think I have time to submit a character, but I would love to read that thesis. What specifically were you writing about?
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Jun 29, 2014 23:41
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quote:• How exactly did you come to be who you are now? At which moment did you stop being an upstanding citizen, and what drove you to slip down into the underworld? quote:• This is top secret corporate grey ops. Or maybe black ops. I hear the US Government doesn’t do black ops anymore, they’ve switched to orange, har har. Sprawl joke, that one. No wonder you don’t get it. Or maybe you do? Have you seen much of the world? What do you make of it? Interested in the latest news, trying to guess where it’s all going? quote:• Back to the point, however, people don’t sign up for stuff like this by reading newspaper ads. How did you learn about it? Did they come to you? Or did you come to them? In either case, why? quote:• How is life right now? Got an apartment? Any loved ones, friends, hobbies? A day job? I promise I won’t tell the megacorps. quote:• This job calls for a different skillset than your usual corporate shootout. What do you have that makes you an asset in this mission?
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Jun 30, 2014 03:30
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Sorry for the delay. I had a long day, but I'll post an answer to the follow-up questions tomorrow.
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Jun 30, 2014 04:12
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Tevery Best posted:Adrien Fitzjovan: the kids grow so fast these days. One day, there out there, hat in hand, begging for your aid. Fast forward a few years, and they're rolling round the block with guns, bikes, cybernetic implants, all that stuff. Don't they get rebellious sometimes? Maybe want a little more freedom to shape their own futures, maybe they actually want to come at you? Or maybe not? Why? Tell us about that. Hah! Good one! You need to have a hat first before you can have it in your hand! But to answer your question... ...his name was Crispin. Okay, when he first came in he didn't have a name, but he liked playing with this snowglobe thing he had, and I had to give a name to the private police when they came by, so I let him pick that. Crispin Fitzjovan. Happens with a distressing number of kids that come in--usually they just have one name or some gang sign and I need to make up a full name out of whole cloth. Anyways, Crispin was one of the first kids I ever picked up off the street, and that means that he was one of the first kids who volunteered to get the full Cadala-Ownership treatment after they made their deal. Cybernetics, a subsidized motorcycle for small transport work, the whole lot. And he was really good at it. Like, you hear talk on the hyperradio about gangs of killers running around shooting places up like it's nothing? Crispin could make them look like corporate children on training wheels if he wanted to. And sometimes he did; sometime's they'd try to attack the same places we were trying to turn over for little things, and we'd beat them back. Ah, memories... Ahem, right, where was I. About six months ago he came up to me on a slow day in Random Access Memories. Said he was tired of running jobs for Cadala and co., wanted to take his skills and make his own way. I think he was expecting a long drawn out argument with me over the merits of cutting loose. And what I did surprised him--I told him if he wanted to try his own hand, well, everybody has to fly the coop sometime. I just asked him to keep in touch, stay on my "web", wherever he went. He looked at me like I was crazy, muttered his thanks, and left. And that's what he did--changed his name to Crispin Winters, got together a couple of like-minded and like-skilled twenty-somethings, started a "Chill Couriers" group. And, like I said, he stayed on the web--if we ever needed to move something bigger, we'd call on them for assistance. Favors for favors and all. And then the story gets sad. A month ago, we had a mission like any other, and the Chill guys and me met up to transfer the package over to Memories. RIGHT as the package changed hands, a bunch of real corporate Special Operations types came out of the shadows and shot up the alley we're dealing in! I got out intact...I wish I could say the same for them. Crispin was the only survivor on the Chill side. I did my homework when I got back to the shop, called in some friends, and I found out that the goons that had shot at me had, through a bunch of shell companies and dummies, actually been paid for by a Cadala branch! Apparently it took them a while to notice one of their investments giving his two-weeks leave...although it didn't hurt my search that the next Cadala rep who came in gave me an apologies card for catching me in the crossfire. Crispin figured it out too. He gave me an angry call in my head, screamed betrayal at me, said it was my fault that his friends had been killed and that I'd set them up out of...jealousy, anger, sellout corporate loyalty, a bunch of things. Then he cut the line. That was...two weeks ago. He's fallen off the web. I keep trying to call him, try to explain that it wasn't like that, but he never answers. I think he's cut ties with Memories entirely. I'm hoping we get a chance to meet and make up soon...but secretly? I'm worried that the next time we meet, he'll shoot me. Tevery Best posted:And add a few words about the one time one of those kids saved your life, or your business, or both. Wow, just one? I can think of a dozen times easy my adopted family pulled my bacon out of the fire. Give me a minute to think of one... Well, let's go with the earliest one. The few people I knew then told me "Adrien, don't do this to yourself. Don't weaken yourself by bringing in these kids. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, no one can trust anybody and you can't afford to extend your hand like this. All it takes is one person to take advantage of your kindness, and then you'll be dead." But as a fixer, I make my living based on trust. Even if it comes up with "betrayals" and poo poo, on some level I have to trust that my contacts come through when I need them. Otherwise I'd be bad at my job. Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked... About a week after Cadala made their deal, I was coming back to the store and coming down from all those anti-rejection drugs they gave me for my shiny new chrome neck. Let me tell you, those cheap things have side effects out the wazoo. Like random headaches and neckaches. Anyway, I'm out of the recovery tank and coming back when I see a bunch of toughs all gathered around Memories. Some have chains, some have firebottles, one of them is taking a sledgehammer to the picture window! And then they turn to me, and their bossman says they represent someone called Big Ford, who I'm guessing is named after the old Detroit guy. He says I have lots of nice stuff and they hate corporate stoolies, so they're going to kill me and take all my stuff. Quite the confident bastard he was, until one of my own decided that now was a good time to take his head off. Henry Jr. is the head of my Stock Boys, and he used to run with the Fords. Which, come to think of it, probably explains the name. He said they treated him like poo poo, and when he ran into my store I treated him really nicely, so he knew which side he wanted to be on. He comes in down one of the alleys and starts swinging the old chain they gave him over his head--on a motorcycle, it took what I'm guessing was his old boss' head right off. By the time the rest of the gangers had figured out what was happening, my headache had calmed down enough for me to aim my gun, and...well, they ran off after three or four of them fell down and stopped breathing. I talked the private police into keeping the paperwork down for all parties and just calling it a gang initiation gone horribly wrong. We still deal with Big Ford deciding he wants some of my poo poo, although a lot less often than usual now. Henry Jr. sees to that. Oh, TB, I should ask, do you use IRC? A channel might be handy for, like, questions you need immediate answers to or something. Rather Watch Them and Old Kentucky Shark and I are in #redhandofdoom in SynIRC, but you can set up your own channel if you want. And if you want me to change any of these answers, I can. Davin Valkri fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jul 2, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 06:48
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bunnielab posted:I dont think I have time to submit a character, but I would love to read that thesis. What specifically were you writing about? Neologisms. How they function, how they're translated, where they come from, what happened to them later. This kind of stuff. quote:Oh, TB, I should ask, do you use IRC? A channel might be handy for, like, questions you need immediate answers to or something. Rather Watch Them and Old Kentucky Shark and I are in #redhandofdoom in SynIRC, but you can set up your own channel if you want. I'll try to be there, but I'm in GMT+1 and usually only available a few hours a day, which might be problematic.
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Jun 30, 2014 14:00
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Tevery Best posted:Neologisms. How they function, how they're translated, where they come from, what happened to them later. This kind of stuff. Ooh. So your work is on, like, how the word "cyberdeck" or "cyberpunk" translates across time and national borders? (How do you say "cyberpunk" in Polish, anyways? Or do you just say "cyberpunk"?)
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Jun 30, 2014 15:11
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Davin Valkri posted:Ooh. So your work is on, like, how the word "cyberdeck" or "cyberpunk" translates across time and national borders? Also their influence on the English language, particular linguistic processes that made them, origins, translation challenges they pose and so on. And yes, it's "cyberpunk", but the pronunciation is different. Points: Cortexium gave you the surgery to keep you silent, and you can't touch them lest they rain hell on you, completely legally. Yet they're still after you, you're still hunted. Why? And tell us of a plan you made that went too good for its own benefit.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:25
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Tevery Best posted:Tristran Bantam: as much as most others seem focused on the part of description of this job that involves wanton destruction, you seem to talk more about keeping people safe. I'd say it's somewhat unexpected from a man with a rifle as big as my ex-girlfriend's smart car. Not to mention the ammo for that thing is as big as my thumb. Why do you think your perspective is different in that regard? It's like this: when you go freelance, you have two types of jobs. You find a lot of people with expensive suits and big cigars looking to put holes in their competition, trash like that, and a nicer class of customers looking for someone to stand between bullets and small-time celebrities. I decided both of those sounded like poo poo, so I've been cultivating this customer base as a guardian angel. That's an old Marine phrase, but it basically means I'm in a spot with a rifle that means you're walking away safe. I do work with a lot of bad people, but I'm the contingency plan for when someone isn't on the level. Go ask Jimmy Qui, who managed to keep his money and his life when that drug deal when sideways last month. So when I get a job like this, I figure they don't need me on the front lines, leading the riot on foot. When I play hardball, people do what I want. So they want me standing in the back of the meeting, eyes open, so that things go smoothly. My time is Detroit has been spent making sure things go smoothly, regardless of what those things are. Tevery Best posted:Also, please put that drat thing away where did you even get it from Rifles like this aren't acquired, they're made. It's not a quick process, either. I've spent half of a decade putting this rifle together. The lower was the first part. It was a job in Japan where I was handed a Remington XM202, told I could keep it. The stock was a present from Janet the next year. I got the custom barrel in Russia three years ago, off of a sniper who didn't need his any more if you catch my drift. The scope---look, I'm sure you're starting to get the point. I've been collecting this thing the way you could a set of rare records, pulling each piece as I find the perfect one. I've literally scoured the world finding the parts, and I'm sure more there are a number of people that would be upset if they saw it, recognized some part of it. I know there are some Armenians that would be very upset if they saw the custom work on the bolt assembly. It's the only part of my old life I've got, the only thing that came with me out of Morocco. Tevery Best posted:And all Marines are brothers, forever, as I know since Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann wouldn't have lied to me. Tell us about one of your old brothers in arms, the one you're still in touch with. Oh, you mean Carlos. Carlos is good people. Mendoza was my spotter back in the Okhotsk Sea conflict. Oh, I guess you didn't know there were marines on the ground there. It's hard to say who had saved who more often there, but he was the one who defused that claymore before it took my leg off. It's weird, sometimes, how life works out, like how he showed up to play dominoes in the park one morning, a decade since I last saw him, in good spirits. He got a good discharge, honorable I think, works as a CPA uptown somewhere. He's helped me out a lot, loaned me money a few times for things. I think he might feel sorry for me, but all he sees is an old military wash-out with a rundown apartment who spends his time playing games in a city park. He's got two kids, daughters, Sarah and Nicole or something, and we still get together to barbecue or play darts and drink beer once a month or so. We even went to the range together back in August, and he's still got that touch. He doesn't know what I do for income, but I think he knows better than to ask. I'd be hard-pressed to ask him for real help, though, because I know he'd say yes. Let's hope I never have to ask him out of retirement.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:43
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I'm back and now officially a recipient of tertiary education. From my now extremely high horse, I'd like to announce that if anyone still wants to sign up, I'll be accepting new submissions until the last person with outstanding follow-up questions replies to them. Currently the only such person is Old Kentucky Shark.
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Jul 1, 2014 20:33
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Aah, I'm not done yet, hang on! 
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Jul 1, 2014 20:37
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Sorry for the delays, I've been in Hell Week at work this week.Tevery Best posted:Points: Cortexium gave you the surgery to keep you silent, and you can't touch them lest they rain hell on you, completely legally. Yet they're still after you, you're still hunted. Why? quote:And tell us of a plan you made that went too good for its own benefit. I cut communications, set fire to the safehouse we were using as a staging operation, and was on a boat bound for Singapore when I heard news of the Chinese Air Force "mishap" that ended with the "accidental" firing of two Chang-Feng-6 missiles into the Foshan technology development zone. And that's why I avoid land wars in Asia.
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Jul 2, 2014 02:40
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OK then, given that I have more or less everything now, let's see who made it. The characters I picked for the game are, in order of appearance: - Adrien Fitzjovan, the Fixer, - Steven Crowford, the Tech, - Imani "Points" Ng, the Soldier, - Tristran Bantam, the Killer. Mr. Prokosch and Rather Watch Them have also submitted great characters, but they would either have less fun than others, or would have to act out of character, or would have little chance to use their skill set given what I want and don't want to do with the session. Sorry! I'm looking forward to playing with you in the future, though. Those of you who did get in, it's time to determine the Links between characters.
Remember, the Corps you've described before have been involved in at least one of those jobs in some way or another. Also, I'd like you to look into your gear and place brand names on things you find the most important. Remember, it's not a pistol, it's a Mitsubishi-HK Modular Dragoon 9mm Mark 7. Finally, there's one more Megacorp you should probably know about :  (The dark spots are not intended, they just popped up when I made the logo smaller, so I'll try and fix them later.) Based in Omsk, SHCHIT is the world's premier Private Military Contractor following the collapse of Blackwater successor firms after a series of congressional inquiries some two decades ago. They offer both brute force and advanced technology to governments, corporations or "individuals" that need them. Their rules of business are very simple: stay away from war crimes, minimise civilian casualties, avoid collateral damage. That way whenever they actually get caught doing something "morally dubious", they can always count on their army of paid media stooges to point out that at least they're not JJC, or Whitewater, or whoever else's CEO is now doing time in The Hague. Recently, they've been licensed to operate in the United States, causing a huge backlash amongst the conservative media, accusing the government of letting "poorly concealed Russian government operatives" work in the country. SHCHIT disavows any and all connections to the Russian Federation's state institutions. Tevery Best fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jul 2, 2014 |
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Jul 2, 2014 08:38
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Oh, cool. My slightly post-cyberpunk fixer got in. Sweet! Or choice! Or ichiban, whichever! So, any volunteers for links to Adrien? I figure he and Steven might know each other well due to a bit of old fashioned thinking in them both, but besides that, I'm not sure how we want to do this.
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Jul 3, 2014 07:06
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The last time this was ran we simply up and did it, I don't think there's been any arrangements prior. You absolutely can choose either to take some suggestions from others, or you may present them with a fait accompli and watch them react to it. Come up with a story, see what happens. You can modify it later, if they ask.
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Jul 3, 2014 07:33
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I'll probably do my links this evening, as I'l only have time online by then, but I cooked up a little story about Steven unknowingly hitting Adrien's shop for some god-forsaken type of chip (shenanigans ensue). For further reference, I also planned on having been on a few jobs with Ng, trying to play mentor (so that she doesn't get too cocky spergin'), with little success, and having had Tristran bust in with guns on my carefully prepared set-up.
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Jul 3, 2014 08:02
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Lichtenstein posted:I'll probably do my links this evening, as I'l only have time online by then, but I cooked up a little story about Steven unknowingly hitting Adrien's shop for some god-forsaken type of chip (shenanigans ensue). For further reference, I also planned on having been on a few jobs with Ng, trying to play mentor (so that she doesn't get too cocky spergin'), with little success, and having had Tristran bust in with guns on my carefully prepared set-up. My only request is that Tristan put bullets through a wall murdering dudes instead of doing something so passe as to kick in a door with an automatic. Edit: I'll write my bonds tonight or tomorrow, a soon as I can stop flipping out about this paper deadline. It's due on the 8th, though, so I should be attentive for the game itself. Edit #2: Here were my ideas for links: I've heard a story about Points, full or professionalism and poise. People bring me in to make sure their plans run smooth, but she's the kind of person who makes that smooth loving plan. I heard about this one time, in the Sprawl, when she hit the J. Carthy building... I've worked with Crowford before. Contract job through STI. He was running tech for the extraction, the kind that get your extractee killed if you aren't careful, and we had a few arguments about I got uppity about it. The extraction went bad because of a leak somewhere, but Crowford's brilliant gadgets kept our skeleton group alive long enough to pull out safe. The extractee died, of course, and Crowford got a little squeamish when I emptied a handgun into the traitor. Even so, he's got enough professionalism that I know he's got the technology end of this thing covered. I worked against Adrien one time. He had arranged to rip off a deal I was tasked with overwatch on. It was a good plan, too, until my sniper rifle starting taking off people's limbs. And that was a great plan, until his little mob of hood rats pinned me down. I had to blow a whole cover identity on that job, and I'm pretty sure the cops ended up with the cash and the goods. QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 14:37
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Nice, very nice. Everyone, remember you can either make those stories a little longer so that you can fit in more cool stuff, or a little shorter, so that you can banter about them later when we'll hit a slower, more laid-back moment between action scenes. Both approaches are fine.
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Jul 3, 2014 22:18
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One of them, you've heard about : Adrien is an area fixture; I've not been in Detroit that long, but even I've heard of him. When I heard about his "gang of kids," I made a point of doing a meta-analysis on his business, both the above board and below board parts. He came up clean, relatively, which is good for him. Considering what Anna and I went through, I cannot abide the exploitation of children. One of them, you've worked with, or for, or had them work under you: Crowford and I were part of a job a few years ago, pulling the same Overwatch duties for a standard corporate extraction job. Old, and set in his ways, but experienced. I found it very easy to intuit what his reactions would be, which made it pleasantly easy to slot him into the parameters of my designs. That didn't sound like praise, did it? Well, it was meant to be. Excellent technical skills as well. I love working with a man who makes competent use of drones. One of them, you've worked against. The one calling himself Tristam Bantam, although that was not then his name, attempted to kill me in an underground techno club in Atlanta, Georgia four years ago, but I do not hold a grudge for that. It was business, the street value of the Cortexium brand Klein Blue protease inhibitors was covered by my client's insurance, and I eventually regained full use of that leg.
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Jul 7, 2014 03:54
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Sorry this took so long. Hang on... One of them, you've heard about : Who hasn't heard of Crowford? Every node on my web is all abuzz about the true blue old school professional, burned by the agency he worked for, right out of the hyperradio dramas and superscreen flicks. At least that's the short form of the information I've gotten. I think a lot of what I've heard is...exaggerated. To hear them say it, he sounds more like a superscreen ninja than an old intelligence agent. One of them, you've worked with, or for, or had them work under you: Points, Points...oh, you mean Imani! Yeah, I remember her. Sort of a "friend of a friend of a friend" thing, she actually came into my shop to ask about a heist thing. She was one of the few people who didn't bat an eyelash when she saw my kids and my Stock Boys. drat strange. Anyway, she needed a bunch of motorcycle runners to run interference to draw off security "in a predictable manner" while she infiltrated the target building. Good for her...but I don't think she told us QUITE how much security we were drawing off! Who uses a milsurp BMP-2 in Detroit?! Tore up the roads something fierce--I think we both thought that they'd be insane to use that thing in the narrows, but, well! One of them, you've worked against: Yeah, Tristran probably already told you that story. For what its worth, my little friends was just supposed to be there for recon and surveillance; they were supposed to leave the actual shooting to dedicated counter-snipers from another group. Them doing their utmost to drive you off was their own initiative. No hard feelings, although I'd appreciate you never calling my Stock Boys "hood rats" again. Davin Valkri fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 23:31
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Adrien Fitzjovan I haven't as much heard of him, as I've met him myself. Not really professional business, but then again not casual matters either. I was on a job in Detroit - around when last Restitution embezzling* was wrapping up. I had a burnt chip to replace - old Akamatsu, one of the SCC series I think. These little chaps were quite non-standard, which meant you could do some clever fine-tuning if you knew what you're doing, but on the other hand they were hard to replace without rebuiling half of your rig. Nowadays, when production ceases, it's nigh-impossible to find a thing after just few years. So I was left stranded in a city I didn't really know, frantically searching second-hand sources to cannibalise some old box. I ended up at Adrien's place and seeing the man was both pleasant and in the know, we began to talk shop. In most unprofessional fashion I let it slip I was about to bust a child prostitution ring and the man apparently thought I was sent there to play some weird mind games with him. Ironically, him sending men to keep tabs on what we were actually doing alerted my handler, who launched his counter-investigation. Thankfully, the situation was defused before anyone had a chance to do something stupid. Except perhaps those child labor charges that we couldn't really take back. During our few stints together Imani proved to be a truly brilliant young woman. Perhaps too brilliant for her own good. I tried to teach her a few things from my experience, explain how easy it is to see patterns where there reallly are none, show that sometimes all you need is get a feel of a person and go with your gut - but to no avail. Can't blame her, as it's difficult to see one's mistakes when you're winning. Therefore, I decided to arrange my own little lesson. I invited the girl to a friendly game of poker after the job. She hesistated initially, but as they say - once a gamer, always a gamer. We spent a rather pleasant evening with the game, talking about odds and strategies and behavioral patterns. What Imani didn't know is that she was up against a quite skillful cellar man. I've amassed quite a stack before she caught wind of my misdemeanor. I laughed it off, bought her a drink and asked what did she learn that day. "What I have learned today," she replied, "is that you're a goddamn scrub." Frankly, I've completely forgotten about it, but I bugged Tristran himself once. Not really sure why, it was a mercenarial gig. Perhaps his employer didn't trust him, perhaps he was set up for a frame job. Maybe someone entirely different got an idea to use him as his deniable pair of eyes. Still, I don't think he neither knows or cares about that and he's got no proof since his old car got blown up anyway. * Tevery once asked me 'why the gently caress are your RPGs always about tax frauds' and I think it's about time to acknowledge I do have a problem.
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Jul 9, 2014 14:41
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