DICE PACKS BUNDLE
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  1. #11
    SirGraystone's Avatar
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    This all seem very interesing but at what time and date do you play in which time zone?

  2. #12
    And most important do you will made a stream for it?
    say yes say yes!

  3. #13

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    The time frame in which this is being played is 9 PM Eastern Standard time, which I believe is 2 AM Greenwich Mean time. As for Streaming it? We're playing via chat only - as I am hard of hearing and that could present an issue if this were being played over Skype. So - the best I could do is largely dust off my creative writing skills and try to novelize the sessions. Since my creative writing skills are a bit atrophied over time, I'd not subject anyone to the horrible prose I'd write.

    Oh, almost forgot...

    Games are run Friday Nights, roughly every 2 weeks, for approximately 4 hours per session. Each time we meet, the next session is agreed upon before we finalize the game outright. As it is, I have a tendency to forget to award character points after the end of each game run and try to get that out to the players.

    One rule that I use in my games is what I call the "learning moments" - where any critical success or failure can contribute to raising a skill on the spot. Skills must be less than 15 for them to take effect (ie once you hit 15, you can't benefit from it). I also use the house rule that On the Job Training can not increase any skill past 14. Other than that, it is largely rules as written.

    But, the whole reason I placed this here is for people who feel inclined to say "hey Hal, the clues you're leaving do not really make sense" or "Hey Hal, if I were playing in your campaign, I'd want to know what Tolliver's Disease has to do with all of this (that's the Retorvirus that I spoke of earlier). Or perhaps someone might point out "Hey, why do we have two murders going on here - what could possibly be the motivation?" Technically, although Fiona Hayes survived her attempted assassination, her camera man died in the blast, making it the second fatality involved.

    At first, I was thinking I should insure that the one player I know frequents this forum not read this - but then I got to thinking. The Continental Investigations Agency is comprised of multiple people. William Green has a woman he's pursuing as a potential love interest (she runs Bogie's Bar - a local Cop hangout) The place is a themed bar in which Humphrey Bogart in all of his "Detective Glory" smacks of the 1930's and 1940's era memorabilia - sort of gives the off duty police a place to enjoy and call their own. Anthony Reeves (NPC) is William's buddy and served in the US military with him on various missions even though not within the same command structure. At present, he works for Continental Investigations Agency in order that he might put his varied skills learned in the Military to good use. Sean McGuiness, also former military, served in the Night City's Finest (Police force) for a time - but grew jaded at how little real justice was being served. He is making the jump into Continental's ranks with the expectation that he might do more with his time than he did as a police officer.

    So, with Anthony being involved with a high society type girlfriend, William pursuing a potential relationship, and Sean getting himself established as the Lead detective on the case to find out who Killed Felix Mason (well respected and liked Continental Investigations Agency employee!) - the whole thing becomes a contest between the "Shadow Villain(s)" and what ever it is that involved Felix that led to his death.

    So why did a flashy "team" try to assassinate Fiona Hayes, whose only link to Felix Mason was that she hired him to investigate what he was investigating when he died. Why did the first assassination use quiet methods while the second assassination used "Flashy" high public profile methods (can't get any higher than the use of a LAW rocket on American Soil!) - and who benefits from all of this?

    For those who own NIGHT CITY from of Cyberpunk 2020 fame, Fiona Hayes is an investigative reporter who works freelance. If she's investigating someone, her intent is to create an expose that will cause many a criminal some major embarrassment, if not outright exposure as a criminal to be prosecuted by the Law. So, she already has a bounty on her head. But why now? Why was she targeted for extermination by a professional hit team that is comprised of a Hacker who uses the Cell Phone technology like a spider web with him as the spider, and a man trained to use military weapons - with little or no qualms about committing an act of terrorism?

    If this were a criminal investigation, and someone were to set up a white board and list all of the clues and then try to figure out a pattern, certain "things" should emerge. I guess that is why I'm worried that my clues may be TOO cryptic and not sufficiently accessible for someone who would want to solve the mystery.

    I must say, I was impressed with the player running Sean McGuiness when he whispered in text to me "We're about to be Swatted aren't we" before the police began to hunt the player characters. He's got an eye for detail and tactical situations for sure! After they've seen just how effective the Trauma Team can be in making saves for those customers who end up dead or dying, the two players now want that service for themselves. The one player is making a "Struggling" income at the moment and can not sustain himself on his current wages. Having to pay medical insurance costs (ie CIA is willing to front him half the monthly cost of Trauma Team contract - but he has to pay the other half) is hurting him badly. So, he may have to turn to gambling just to make ends meet, or perhaps take on "missions' in a Cyberpunk world...
    Last edited by HalC; December 13th, 2018 at 17:07.

  4. #14
    You can stream and use chat, this is different I know, but the different is good

  5. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by yako2020 View Post
    You can stream and use chat, this is different I know, but the different is good
    So, what "Streaming" software is anyone using? I'm not aware of such software out there...

  6. #16
    SirGraystone's Avatar
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    Saddly I'm DM of campaign on friday night :-(

  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by SirGraystone View Post
    Saddly I'm DM of campaign on friday night :-(
    Sadly? Hardly! There are some guys out there who are VERY happy you GM on that night. *teasing grin*

    That having been said? Feel free to kibbitz here, ask questions, etc. The way I figure it? If people want to take a stab at trying to figure out what is happening and why, who the players are, etc. - all the better. If someone says "Hey Hal, your clues are too cryptic, they can't get anywhere with this!" then that is a valid criticism and I should take heed of it. If on the other hand, someone here says "Mr. Plum, In the Library, with the Wrench" (so to speak) - and that someone happens to be right, then I will know that if you can do it, the players should also be able to do it. And, if someone here figures it out, they should say "Hey Hal, if I were the drinking buddy for one of the guys at the Detective Agency, who in turn talks to the player characters, I might ask "hey, did you check the cell phone call records for Felix Mason?" Then someone else might say "Hey, remember, TheRatPack hacker has infiltrated the cell phone telecoms to where he can modify, erase, or set triggers for anyone accessing the data - is this really the way to go?" But then someone might point out that backups stored offsite are supposed to be immune to that level of tampering.

    In short? Have fun with the mystery if that would make your day.

  8. #18
    I use obs studio HalC

  9. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by yako2020 View Post
    I use obs studio HalC
    Thank you! I'll give that a look see.

    Right now, I'm talking to the one player in the game - with two weeks down time between adventures (it mirrors the down time in real life). William Green is smitten with a Bar owner and he is texting her via his phone and calling her on a regular basis. I sent him a message "Make an IQ-5 roll" to which he failed.

    What he should have remembered is that TheRatPack can do nasty stuff with cell phones, and he's professing his interest in a woman via text? This is going to bite him in the buttocks eventually - as TheRatPack is going to want insurance coming up...

    The Odd couple didn't have on any armor of any kind when they went to ambush the "snoopers'. This time, TheRatPack won't make that mistake...

  10. #20

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    Some days, things just don't go to plan...

    It all started that day, with a meeting to share information on what the investigations from various people discovered. Matsuda Aeronautical Incorporated, along with an individual by the name of Don Cassidy was discovered and after some other discussion about trying to scope out the actual crime scene in which Felix was murdered, our intrepid investigators looked like they were back on track to investigating the key to everything. Why was Felix murdered? That's when they discovered that Matsuda Aeronautical owns a warehouse on the docks - coincidentally adjacent to the warehouse that the vaccines were being sent prior to being shipped to Africa. Why 500 or 1000 vaccines could not be sent via Air (would have been quicker) was something that the investigators never sought answers to, and for now, that lingering question will have to remain in the background.

    So, the investigators discovered more clues. Amongst the clues discovered was the fact that like many of the investigators at Continental Investigations, Felix kept an online site at a data haven - containing all of the information of his prior investigations in the event that he should die on the job. Using a variation of the trick of hiding things on the underside of a drawer - Felix had carefully hidden an envelope not on the underside of a drawer - but on the underside of the TOP of the desk itself for the top most drawer. In other words, the one place almost NO one would ever look. Taped there, was a single slip of paper that contained a URL along with a 24 character long string of seemingly random generation. Talk about being anal retentive where it came to password generation! In any event, finding this clue gave the players a vital clue as to what Felix was looking to find - and why he had his camera at the ready the night he died. It all had to do with the the Autonomous Driving Delivery system used by the Logistics company. So now, they had a direction to investigate...

    Probably the best way to describe the Autonomous driving system was that it allowed for vehicles to drive without a driver. Problem is - if there is no driver, how does one give the truck a package, and how does one get it back out when at the delivery site? The answer was to reuse old technology of sorts. It has often been said that these trucks are simply moving vending machines, and there might be some truth to that statement. By law, these trucks may not connect to the internet in order to avoid the possibility of hackers tampering with the on board computer system. Some states require that the programming for the on board computer be hard wired into the driving system so as to avoid having the vehicle become a lethal weapon of a hacker. In South California, the laws are less strict - but that's a story for another day. What is important to this discussion is that in order to get a package scheduled for pickup or a series of packages - the logistics company gets a call. The truck arrives at its scheduled time, and picks up the package - in a sense. That is when the Vending Machine technology comes into play. The shipper enters into the vehicle's computer, the assigned shipping code obtained when they make their call. They then have their package scanned in via both a scanner. All of this activity is recorded on a camera. They are asked for a pass code for the shipment. This code is required to be entered by the receiver at the package destination. So, the receiving mechanism takes the package, and stores it within the cargo bay of the vehicle. Upon request by the receiver, who punches in both the shipment code (identifying what) and the pass code, he now gets his package. No driver required to handle the package, no driver required to drive the vehicle, and one more person on welfare who can't work at a traditional job.

    In any event, Felix had a theory that somehow, the shipment was being intercepted in a way that would not show up as the Autonomous truck being off its assigned route necessary to deliver the goods. What he wondered was - could someone be getting their hands on the shipment package information, pulling up the shipment, swapping the original vaccine shipment with a doctored vaccine - with no one being the wiser? Unfortunately, that last bit wasn't in his final report, and he died before he could get the final key piece of evidence. Little did he or anyone else know, Matsuda was key.

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