character-management Be At Ease Campaign Arcs

[Durzan Malakim]

From my reading of the Here There be Monster's Mystic Wards & Circles skill, creating a basic Ward in a two meter area requires 5-15 minutes and imposes a -1 to the skill roll. The ward lasts for 3-6 months or longer with additional degree of success. To receive extra time bonuses, we'd start at the 20 minute time interval, and get bonuses for 1 hour, 6 hours, 1 day, and so on of extra time. Since the degree of success boosts both the duration and effectiveness of wards, there's every reason to take extra time with their creation. Warding our home base could therefore take weeks to months of time even if I do a rush job rather than careful work. Murgatroyd could easily spend all day every day just making wards, but I suspect he'll limit himself to one 6-hour roll so he has some time to do other things in a day.

 

Murgatroyd has these priorities for our home defenses.

1. Mystic wards to provide protection against scrying.
2. Hermetic wards to provide supernatural resistance.

Jack can add necromantic wards to provide protection against undead as he is able. Again this is potentially weeks to months of work so perhaps something done in "down time."

[Killer Shrike]

2 hours ago, Durzan Malakim said:

From my reading of the Here There be Monster's Mystic Wards & Circles skill, creating a basic Ward in a two meter area requires 5-15 minutes and imposes a -1 to the skill roll. The ward lasts for 3-6 months or longer with additional degree of success. To receive extra time bonuses, we'd start at the 20 minute time interval, and get bonuses for 1 hour, 6 hours, 1 day, and so on of extra time. Since the degree of success boosts both the duration and effectiveness of wards, there's every reason to take extra time with their creation.

 

Yep. This is a deliberate design choice. Given plenty of time, a practitioner can lay down some serious wards, but you get _most_ of the benefits up front. So it's a trade off.

 

Also, for customers, you can find a sweet spot between "lasts long enough that we don't have to keep coming back every month" but not so long that "we got little to no return business because we did too good of a job".

 

2 hours ago, Durzan Malakim said:

Warding our home base could therefore take weeks to months of time even if I do a rush job rather than careful work. Murgatroyd could easily spend all day every day just making wards, but I suspect he'll limit himself to one 6-hour roll so he has some time to do other things in a day.

 

Murgatroyd has these priorities for our home defenses.

1. Mystic wards to provide protection against scrying.
2. Hermetic wards to provide supernatural resistance.

Jack can add necromantic wards to provide protection against undead as he is able. Again this is potentially weeks to months of work so perhaps something done in "down time."

 

You can also lay down an initial set of wards quickly, and then improve the wards as time allows, so that you get the initial benefits up front.

 

 

[King Red]

Killroy will buy some land carefully for the teleportation network. He would hunt for distressed commercial real estate, to get a bargain, and use front companies to buy the land, so our vampire friends won't easily give us a surprise.

[Killer Shrike]

 

9 hours ago, King Red said:

Killroy will buy some land carefully for the teleportation network. He would hunt for distressed commercial real estate, to get a bargain, and use front companies to buy the land, so our vampire friends won't easily give us a surprise.

 

Good stuff.

 

Ok, it's Lets Make A Deal time:

 

Your firm has enough operating capital to afford a 1-year lease on a decent 5 office, 1 large conf, 1 small conf room, 2x 3-way desks in an open workspace arrangement, a lobby, and basic small office IT set up in a 2nd tier city of your choice (not NYC, SF, LA, Chicago)...presumably in Boston but I don't care...ya'll decide. I'll throw in temp worker reception service for this main office for free. If you opt for this I will reduce your company's Wealth by 1  and increase its Holdings by 1. You wont get your Wealth back once the lease runs out.

 

You also have enough to afford 1-year leases on 4 run down / "distressed" properties (think old warehouses, old walkups, rinky dink industrial park offices, etc) with a fair amount of floorspace but no furnishings to speak of and poor frontage anywhere in the US....OR  2 modest but respectable properties that are smaller but have decent rented office furniture and set up to run a small satellite office out of in 2nd tier cities of your choice. Or some mix there of...on a 2:1 ratio.  If you opt for this I will reduce your company's Wealth by 1  and increase its Holdings by 1. You wont get your Wealth back once the leases run out.

 

If you grow your company over time, you can expand this further.

 

@Durzan Malakim @King Red

[Steve]

Speaking as someone who works in the commercial real estate industry, that seems like a pretty fair deal.

 

Here are some real world numbers to consider.

 

$100k cash outlay will pay for a one-year lease in Boston in a Class B building for about 3,300 or so rentable square feet ($30/sf annually or $99,000). There's about 20 million square feet currently vacant in that city, so even a Class A space can probably be found for that rate in a lower occupancy building, given Killroy's knowledge of real estate.

 

In comparison, here in suburban San Diego county, you can pay about the same price for office space in a Class A building. Location will really determine things.

 

Warehouse rental rates in the US are averaging about a quarter of the rate that Class B office space goes for in Boston, or about $7 per square foot.

 

There are also dying strip malls where space can be had for real cheap nowadays, especially in less popular areas.

 

[Durzan Malakim]

Murgatroyd would prefer to live in Boston for role-playing reasons since it's where he's most familiar (although his player has never been there). Unless someone strongly objects, assume we have corporate headquarters with a teleportation circle in Boston and a satellite office in San Diego with another teleportation circle. I suspect Murgatroyd will live in the Boston office if it's an option, which may technically be living above it or next door as appropriate. If we cannot afford the teleportation circles at the moment, they can be what Murgatroyd purchases with his next batch of XP. I would encourage someone to live in or near the San Diego satellite office. To any nosey neighbors that ask it's a corporate rental or an "Air BnB". Given the potential traffic in and out of these offices, we may want garages nearby so we're not forced to rely on ride sharing apps, but I leave that up to you fine folks.

 

To use the teleportation circles, Murgatroyd can cast this Teleportation spell and grant you a teleportation token focus. You'll still have to concentrate, gesture, and speak incantations, but that's a small price to pay for teleporting up to 5000 Kilometers. The roleplaying SFX are you hold the teleportation token in hand, visualize the teleportation circle you want to travel to, and speak the magic words, "Cognito Ergo Eo" (I think therefore I go).

Teleportation Tokens: Teleportation 5m, Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Usable By Other (+1/2), Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted, MegaScale (1m = 1,000 km; +1 3/4) (17 Active Points); 2 Charges (-1 1/2), Can Only Teleport To  Fixed Locations (Teleportation Circles; -1), Concentration (0 DCV; -1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), IIF (Hermetic Token Per Recipient; -1/4), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)

 

This costs me 3 real points from my VPP, leaving me 47 Points left to fix all your problems with magic.

 

[Killer Shrike]

 

5 hours ago, Durzan Malakim said:

Teleportation Tokens: Teleportation 5m, Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Usable By Other (+1/2), Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted, MegaScale (1m = 1,000 km; +1 3/4) (17 Active Points); 2 Charges (-1 1/2), Can Only Teleport To  Fixed Locations (Teleportation Circles; -1), Concentration (0 DCV; -1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), IIF (Hermetic Token Per Recipient; -1/4), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)

 

Actually, while that was a good whack at the problem, I want to go a similar but different direction...one which doesn't cost Murgy points and instead costs those who carry the tokens points from their Equipment Pools. 

 

It's a trivial work of Artificium to create tokens that teleport to your own specially prepared t-port circles. Murgy can pay 1 point to learn the Recipe for how to make such items. Each one has some number of daily charges. Hunters that want to use them can carry them in their Equipment Pool.

 

This is mechanically the same as Alchemy, but using 'trinkets' or 'tokens' as a SFX instead of potions / elixirs / etc. Murgy would use KS: Hermetic Lore to create the items.

 

Also, I don't feel any particular need to get overly pedantic about the exact build of the t-port circles. We all know how they've been established to work, and we know Murgy has the capability to make them given enough time and somewhere to maintain them. People with a token can teleport _to_ one of the circles within ~1000 miles, or from one of the circles to one of the other circles regardless of distance...this uses a charge.  It is always a safe t-port from  circle to circle or when using a token. Anything that fits in the circle gets teleported. No free Nynaeve t-port kills...anything partially out of the t-port circle doesn't get teleported.

 

Without a token, Murgy can use his VPP to cast a t-port on the fly and then the power build matters.

 

[Steve]

17 hours ago, Durzan Malakim said:

Murgatroyd would prefer to live in Boston for role-playing reasons since it's where he's most familiar (although his player has never been there). Unless someone strongly objects, assume we have corporate headquarters with a teleportation circle in Boston and a satellite office in San Diego with another teleportation circle. I suspect Murgatroyd will live in the Boston office if it's an option, which may technically be living above it or next door as appropriate. If we cannot afford the teleportation circles at the moment, they can be what Murgatroyd purchases with his next batch of XP. I would encourage someone to live in or near the San Diego satellite office. To any nosey neighbors that ask it's a corporate rental or an "Air BnB". Given the potential traffic in and out of these offices, we may want garages nearby so we're not forced to rely on ride sharing apps, but I leave that up to you fine folks.

 

While Boston is fine with me for a home base area, we do need to think about where we should set up remote staging bases. I have a few suggestions, in no particular order.

 

1) Ann Arbor, MI: It's about 45 minutes away from Detroit and is also the current HQ location of the Pinkerton agency. It would be cool if the Pinkertons were involved in supernatural stuff, given their Deadlands lore.

2) New Orleans, LA: This place has got to be a hot spot for supernatural activity, right?

3) Orlando, FL: Disneyworld must have some spooky happenings going on from time to time. Maybe that's why it's so successful. What dark things might go on in the tunnels underneath the parks?

4) Las Vegas, NV: We already know some weird stuff is going on here. There could be much more than we've seen so far. The desert around the city also hides many secrets.

5) San Francisco, CA: Chinatown. What more need be said?

6) San Antonio, TX: It's got a lot of history, what with the Alamo and all.

7) Portland, OR: It's got it's share of supernatural weirdness from all accounts.

8 ) New York City, NY: I wonder if there are any abandoned fire stations we could procure?

9) Honolulu, HI: If nothing else, it would make for a great rest stop area.

10) San Diego, CA: It's where we game in real life, so seems a waste to not use it.

 

 

 

[King Red]

Much of Horton Plaza is closed, so that is a possible site.

[Scything]

I'd say New Orleans, Ann Arbor or Las Vegas would be convenient. I would also suggest St.Louis, Memphis, or Milwaukee due to these cites crime rates in the real world.

 

Also we could have a location in all four directions. We already have a east and a west location, so all we would have to do is get a north and south location, and possibly a middle of America location like a St.Louis. If we were  to do that, which I believe we should, then here are my recommendations for the locations...

 

1. East- Boston- Due to the CEO being most familiar with the area

2. West- San Diego-San Diego is where all the players lives so every player would be familiar in the area

3. North- Milwaukee or Detroit- High Crime rate and Milwaukee, Detroit are pretty close to each other-Grand Rapids wouldn't be a bad choice either because it's in between both

4. South- New Orleans- Basically what Steve said 

5. Central (Optional/Not Mandatory)- St.Louis- Highest crime rate in America, close to Kansas City, and is pretty much in the center of America (8 hour drive non-stop from St Louis to the center of the U.S)

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

Just confirming that we're gaming today Saturday August 24th at 5pm in the back room of At Ease Games.

 

[L0rd_Magg0t]

i'll be there

 

[Scything]

I will be there as well

[Durzan Malakim]

Your not-so-humble servant Murgatroyd shall attend this game as well, despite his player insisting on stopping for Indian food for dinner prior.

[Durzan Malakim]

13 hours ago, Scything said:

I'd say New Orleans, Ann Arbor or Las Vegas would be convenient. I would also suggest St.Louis, Memphis, or Milwaukee due to these cites crime rates in the real world.

 

Also we could have a location in all four directions. We already have a east and a west location, so all we would have to do is get a north and south location, and possibly a middle of America location like a St.Louis. If we were  to do that, which I believe we should, then here are my recommendations for the locations...

 

1. East- Boston- Due to the CEO being most familiar with the area

2. West- San Diego-San Diego is where all the players lives so every player would be familiar in the area

3. North- Milwaukee or Detroit- High Crime rate and Milwaukee, Detroit are pretty close to each other-Grand Rapids wouldn't be a bad choice either because it's in between both

4. South- New Orleans- Basically what Steve said 

5. Central (Optional/Not Mandatory)- St.Louis- Highest crime rate in America, close to Kansas City, and is pretty much in the center of America (8 hour drive non-stop from St Louis to the center of the U.S)

 

 

I'm curious if any of the other PCs have in-character connections to any of these cities. Anyone have or want a backstory in the heart land of America? Where was Beretta's first final girl experience? Where did Jack get recruited into the Ordo? Have Drew and Joey always been southern California boys? Where did Kilroy make his real estate empire?

 

Given that we've only had two months of in-game down-time to setup our business and acquire real estate, I suspect we currently only have one or two properties, unless people are willing to help buy them with XP.

[Scything]

Joey has always lived in southern California, (at least he thinks that), but there is a possibility that Joey was indeed scoping out the Texas A&M area because he was planning on going there if he got a scholarship. Texas A&M however is pretty much in the middle of the main cities of Texas and is close to New Orleans.

[Durzan Malakim]

8 minutes ago, Scything said:

Joey has always lived in southern California, (at least he thinks that), but there is a possibility that Joey was indeed scoping out the Texas A&M college area because he was planning on going there if he got a scholarship. Texas A&M is pretty much in the middle of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin area.

 

Having grown up in Texas, the idea of Joey the Aggie amuses me.

[Scything]

When I was coming with the backstory and what he was doing before he was introduced into Arc 1. I said that Joey and his tech partner Teja were in a battle bots program and we won a national competition,and Joey was hoping to get a scholarship from Texas A&M because he knew he couldn't get into M.I.T.

[Killer Shrike]

Actually, @Durzan Malakim is correct. Despite the names, between those two schools Texas A&M has a more regarded / recognized tech curriculum. 

 

Also, College Station, TX (where Texas A&M is at) is basically smack in the middle of the major Texas cities.

 

[Scything]

@Killer Shrike just showed me that Texas A&M has a better tech program than Texas Tech, so Joey actually was planning on going to Texas A&M from the start.

[Durzan Malakim]

@Scything Just remember to act like the Aggie Bonfire's heat affects Joey even though it doesn't.  

[Scything]

I had a fun time last night, my favorite moment was when 4 different were talking to Mr. Murgatroyd, but he kept his cool, told Joey to shut up, and told Jack to take initiative because vampires are his thing. Also, congrats to @L0rd_Magg0t for getting his first MVP, Jack got to shine where he does best, and he also took Drew's decision making role in a way, which I thought was good on Jacks part. Lastly, because Jack got his first MVP this means that everyone has got an MVP, so hopefully our continuing success will keep us going for many sessions and arcs to come.

[Scything]

If you scroll all the way up on this page, on the far right side on the page under the leave club option, there is a following option and if you press that then you get notifications for all things about the club.

[Durzan Malakim]

An Unconventional Solutions Interlude

Or Murgatroyd get Mega Trolled

 

Murgatroyd: "I have been reading those four em sites you suggested, and I think I've found us some new hunters to recruit."

Joey: "Forums, Mr. Murgatroyd. They're called forums."

Murgatroyd: "Four ems. That's what I said."

Joey: "Never mind, Mr. Murgatroyd. Who did you find?"

Murgatroyd: "Sam and Dean Winchester. They're prolific hunters who've faced angels, demons, vampires, and werewolves..."

Joey: "How did you find them, Mr. Murgatroyd?"

Murgatroyd: "I did just what you told me to, Joey. I went to the four ems, typed in "Supernatural hunters", and found pages and pages about them. It was surprisingly easy."

Joey: <Fist pumps the air> "Yes! Yes! Awesome! Thank you, Mr. Murgatroyd." <Does a victory dance>

Murgatroyd: <Confused by Joey's display> "Thank you for what?"

Joey: "Oh, ah, for finding such awesome recruits." <heads out into the hall> "I'm gonna tell Mr. Altman about them."

Murgatroyd: <Calling into the hall> "But I haven't finished telling you about them..." <Rolls his eyes> "Kids today. They're so impatient." <Goes back to reading about the Winchester brothers>

Joey: <From further down the hall> "I win! I win! I win! You owe me."

Drew: <From his office down the hall> "Enjoy the twenty bucks, kid."

Joey: "Yes!"

Drew: "Now enjoy telling him why we can't recruit them."

Joey: "What? Why me?"

Drew: "Because that's what I just paid you to do. Have fun, kid. Best twenty bucks I ever spent." <The sound of a door closing>

Murgatroyd: <Calling down the hall> "I think Jack will really like these guys. They have a cool black car."

Joey: "Shit."

[Killer Shrike]

@Steve wrote up everyone's favorite executive assistant Laverne...

 

Laverne

(click picture)