Killer Shrike

14 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I asked Steve Long about grabbing an opponent and throwing him against another. That is illegal by Grab/Throw maneuver but as a MultiAttack, I believe it’s legal.

6Ev2 p62

GRAB
This Maneuver allows a character to get a hold
on another character or object.

Making A Grab
To Grab an opponent, a character must make
an Attack Roll with appropriate modifiers. If
successful, he has Grabbed his opponent. (As
described below under Escaping From Grabs, the
victim immediately gets a Casual STR roll to break
free, if desired.)

SQUEEZING, SLAMMING, AND THROWING
In many cases, a character Grabs his enemy
just to hold onto him or prevent him from doing
something, but sometimes the Grabber wants
to hurt the target at the same time. A character
who has Grabbed someone can do either of the
following:

Squeeze him. This does regular STR damage
(STR/5 in d6 of Normal Damage) to the victim;
the character retains his hold on the victim.
Slam him against something (such as the
ground or a wall). This does regular STR
damage (STR/5 in d6 of Normal Damage) to
the victim; the character retains his hold on the
victim.

Throw him, using the Throw Combat
Maneuver (6E2 80), which requires him to let
go of the victim.

If the Grabber chooses to Squeeze, Slam,
or Throw the Grabbed character in the same
Segment in which he (the Grabber) successfully
Grabbed him, the Squeeze, Slam, or Throw
does not require an Attack Roll (it automatically
succeeds) and takes no time. A character cannot
Hold this “free” action; he must use it in that same
Segment. If the Grabber wants to Squeeze, Slam,
or Throw his victim in a later Phase, doing so is an
Attack Action (it doesn’t automatically succeed,
requires an Attack Roll, and so forth). Assume any
Grab-and-Throw is a Standing Throw, unless the
Grabber begins a Phase with a Grabbed victim
and the GM lets him move before making the
Throw. If the Attack Roll for a Squeeze or Slam
fails, the victim takes no damage but remains
Grabbed.

After performing a Grab, in that same Segment
a character can only Squeeze, Slam, or Throw
the target as an immediate attack. He can’t use
any other maneuvers or attacks (unless the GM
so permits, and even in that case, using another
attack should mean releasing the Grab in most
circumstances). In later Phases he can use any
attacks he wants (provided he has the free limbs or
other means to do so).

If a Grab-based Maneuver (such as Martial
Grab) provides a STR bonus, that bonus applies
solely for the purposes of holding on to the target.
It doesn’t increase the damage done by Squeezing,
Slamming, or Throwing the target, increase the
distance a target can be thrown, or have any
other effect. Similarly, characters can use Combat
Skill Levels to increase their OCV or DCV when
Grabbing, but not the damage done by Squeezing,
Slamming, or Throwing.

A character cannot use his Hand-To-Hand
Attack to improve the damage done by Squeezing,
Slamming, or Throwing a Grabbed character. Nor
can characters Haymaker Squeeze, Slam, or Throw
damage. Grab-and-Throw damage doesn’t get a
bonus from the velocity of the Grabbed character
the way a Martial Throw does.

-----------------------

Later in the book 6e adds a lot of extra complexity for the specific case of a character throwing another character at a third (or more) character(s), with a special subsystem on 6Ev2 p124 (disconnected from both the rules for Grabs and Throws) that basically ignores the general rules for throwing and asserts a different model entirely.

Characters As Weapons
Characters often like to pick up an opponent
and use him as an impromptu club or missile with
which to attack another foe. This has the benefit of
hurting both enemies.

Before a character can use another character
as a club/missile, he must Grab the club/missile. If
the club/missile is conscious (even Stunned), this
requires the normal Attack Roll and imposes the
normal penalties to the character’s OCV and DCV.
If he’s unconscious, the character still has to make
a Grab, but suffers only the standard -1 OCV
and -2 DCV penalties (he doesn’t have the usual
halved DCV in general, and halved OCV against
other targets, if his Grab succeeds).

Once the character has successfully Grabbed
the club/missile, he may use the victim as a club
against any target in HTH Combat range, or as
a missile against any target within range of his
Throw (see Throw, 6E2 80). To do this, he must
make a separate Attack Roll against that target.
Unless the GM rules otherwise, this is a separate
Attack Action, so it cannot be performed in the
same Phase when the character performs his Grab.
The standard CV modifiers for Grab apply, and
the GM may impose other modifiers to reflect
the circumstances. If the attack succeeds, both
the club/missile and the target take the character’s
STR damage. (See 6E2 82 for rules regarding
missed Throws.)

Using another character as a club entails a
weapon Size/Shape penalty of -2 OCV (if the
“club” is unconscious) or -4 OCV (if he’s awake). A
character used as a missile is neither balanced nor
aerodynamic (minimum of -4 OCV). These penalties
are in addition to any the character suffers for
performing a Grab.

-------------------------------

So basically, in the case of throwing a character at another character, 6e wants you to wait until the next phase and make a separate attack roll, and applies a -4 OCV (if the thrown character is conscious) on top of any other penalties, etc. This is, to me, a very inconsistent special casing / blatant nerfing.

I really do not like the 6e special casing for this fundamentally true-to-fiction move; having grabbed and thrown people in real life...including into other people...I can tell you that it generally did not require me to latch on, wait 3-4 seconds, and then throw them. Rather, it happens as a single continuous flow of grab, pivot, and release in a direction determined by body mechanics and momentum, and the thrown person collides with whatever happens to be in the space their body is propelled into whether that be one or more objects, or one or more other people, a wall, or the floor. Same thing with a shove or a redirection.

Witcher 3 is on my short list of contenders for GOAT (greatest of all time) video games. I also read the first book and half of the second but it wasn't compelling enough for me to continue thru the entire series at the time...though to be fair I was very busy and might have more patience for it during a less hectic stretch of existence. 

I watched the show to completion over the last few days, and overall I found it worth the time. However, for me, the series was carried by some really good episodes that made up for slower / duller episodes. When the show decides to give us some action it's generally does a really good job, but it's a bit on the talky side overall.

A big plus for me and the thing that kept me engaged was the portrayal of Geralt was really good in my opinion.

The show has a lot of small touches here and there that help with the world building and overall presentation. For instance, I thought it was neat that the opening sequence of each episode had a cool icon effect specific to the episode and there is a lot of canonical references and name drops which grants a certain amount of referential integrity to the source material. Also, the monsters shown were usually recognizable to me from having played the games. Someone on the show was paying close attention to the details in this area and it does a lot to buoy the series.

A few critiques:

First off, there is a lot of nudity. I'm not a prude, and I like verisimilitude, so tasteful and appropriate use of nudity for the sake of "realism" is fine for me, but a lot of the nudity in this show just seems gratuitous to me. Some of it is organic and serves the story / makes sense in the context of the scene, but a lot of it just seems like cringey fan service in my opinion.

Second, for me some of the episodes were as soggy as the Sodden after a heavy rain and could have used some action or been a little shorter. I found myself fast forwarding thru some of the slower scenes where status quo was being maintained. 

Third, the show is depicting multiple timelines but it is not immediately obvious that this is what is happening. Almost no visual queues (many of the characters are long lived unchanging mages who look the same in scenes that are happening decades apart) or heads up title cards with a year indicator or something are offered. If I was unfamiliar with the lore and lacked some sense of timeline for the setting, I'm pretty sure it would have just been extremely confusing to me. As it was I think I didn't really realize that multiple timelines were being shown until some point in the 3rd episode. On the one hand, I like shows that don't over explain things and assume the watcher has at least a room temperature IQ, on the other hand I think this show goes too far and assumes that the watcher is already a fan and can figure it out from the knowledge they bring with them which is not very accessible to people new to the material. 

Fourth, while I think they got Geralt right, and though Yennefer is a little different from how I remember her from the games it's close enough to work, Jaskier / Dandelion did not work for me, and Triss was unrecognizable. There are also some missing characters, such as Shani, Philippa Eilhart or Dorregaray, which was a bit odd to me. 

Fifth, the depictions of other races is of uneven quality. The elves shown come off as just people with pointy ears...no actual difference to humans beyond that. They did an ok job with dwarves, but gnomes seem to be erased as a separate concept. The dryads just looked like humans. Similarly, the cultural differences between different groups of humans were only somewhat shown...while the Nilfgaardians are distinct in their look, there didn't seem to be any visual difference between the humans of Skellige and the humans of the Northern Kingdoms, or differences between the various Northern Kingdoms...they were all just garbed in generic "fantasy" clothing. A better job could have been done in costuming, basically.

So, overall, while it's watchable and worth a second season IMO, I would hesitate to recommend it to someone who isn't already familiar with the material.

11 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

What harm can it do really??

It is a mechanic that encourages "Alpha Strikes" which are usually unhealthy in the long term. It synergizes with AoE's as they are substantially less impacted by taking a OCV penalty. It adds variance to combat calculus, making it more difficult as the GM to gauge likely outcomes and balance encounters. And so on.

But, you know, nothing preventing you from trying it out.

1. the "power" of the player characters is relative to the norms of the setting and opposition...starting with more or less points doesn't really mean anything without anything external to compare it to. In this context, while players may start w/ more points going by the suggested values, so do the opposition. So, in the end, status quo.

2. "individual characteristics are often cheaper but without figured characteristics many builds need to spend more points": if you are intent on inflating stats to the absurd levels typical in previous editions published material, sure. But if you take a beat and realize that getting rid of figureds was intended to remove the inflation that was caused by people buying up primary's to take advantage of point recursions, and just buy primary and secondary characteristics to reasonable levels that are appropriate to describe the character I think you'll find that you'll spend about the same or less points on characteristics overall. 

3. I haven't found character progression to be slower in 6e, relative to 5e or 4e, to the point that I would consider it a problem. However, I have a bias...relative to other games I find Hero System progression to be slow in general and I prefer this, personally. I don't like games where characters "level up" fast as it destroys the ability to tell a consistent narrative in long play mode which is my preferred approach. Gross power ups...zero to hero...is fine for movies, short novels, board games, etc...but unsatisfying (to me) for more weighty formats. I prefer a more natural feeling character progression where characters get better (and worse) in ways that make sense to the events of the story / the things they've been through. 6e is no better or worse in this regard in my experience than 5e or 4e. 

3 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I am considering allowing my players to rush an action.

 

This is allowing them to voluntarily lower their OCV to improve their chance of going first in a segment.  ordinarily if players are acting on the same segment on the same phase then it is a DEX countdown.  I was thinking of improving DEX (for the purposed of going first) by 2 for every 1 OCV foregone (though I think it should be -1 to whatever roll for success you are rushing).

 

I do not see this being used regularly but it is something that might be useful in mixing up combat a bit if someone might take advantage of being able to go first in a phase (at the cost of being less able to accomplish what you want to do).

 

Doc

Ya, I've considered variations on this idea in the past. A few considerations:

My great concern for schemes such as this is that I think it will slow down combat resolution by adding an additional decision making step to each segment. Players are not always the most decisive people, but even if you have players who make snap decisions it could also cause an escalation round...in what order do characters decide...can a player / GM change their bid in response to someone else raising their effective DEX? You'd probably want to resolve each character in _reverse_ DEX order such that the lowest DEX has to commit to rushing before asking the next higher DEX, with no takebacks. I could talk about the game theory of such a rushing mini-game at length, but generally speaking my goal as the GM is to speed up the mechanical aspect of combat so as to leave more room for roleplaying and narrative, not slow it down further.

If you are going to allow rushing as you describe it, then for symmetry you should probably allow for the opposite...going down in the DEX order to get a bonus. We have something similar for skills as it is. If it makes sense to take a -1 penalty to get +2 DEX, does it also make sense to take -2 DEX for a +1 bonus? If that makes sense, what kind of bonus should I get for rolling over into my next phase? That starts to fall apart conceptually pretty quickly. 

Same idea in reverse, if I can take a penalty to raise my DEX in my phase, why can't I take a penalty to "rush" my action into the segment before my phase? 

Quote

We are reimagining the players' characters in Hero so I'm not looking for conversions like what's on Killer Shrike's site, I'm more curious about maintaining a similar feel in terms of power level as well as manageable combat times.

Just to clarify, the fantasy content on my site is not _just_ conversions. In fact, the conversion content is a small fraction of the material. And, even within the area of conversions, there is more than one way to "convert" from one game system to another, including a full reboot...which I talked about in this document:

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/SystemConversionStyles.aspx

The "Reboot conversion", which sounds like the approach you are taking, says this:

So, to be clear, it isn't a big deal to me either way if you are uninterested in using the material, but if you are passing on it due to an incorrect preconception of what the material is then you might be excluding some resources that could help you.

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At level 12, the characters already feel like fantasy super heroes. If I go with the 400 pt superheroic option...

I provided some content for "campaign paradigms" for fantasy...the root document is here:

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/campaignParadigms.aspx

One of the types I covered was "Super Fantasy", aka "Capes & Plate". The main takeaway is mechanically it's the same as running a Champions game, the only difference is setting and SFX.

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/Paradigms/SuperFantasy.aspx

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how long should I expect combat to take with 4 players and appropriate opposition?

I wrote up a document for GM's coming from a class & level type of game into the Hero System on differences in how to present opposition to characters in a points based game. It's here:

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Conversion3e/Conversion3eOpposition.aspx

The main takeaway I have for you is to stop thinking about "appropriate opposition" or similar "level based encounter" meta considerations. Instead, populate the scenario with things that make sense per internal consistency, and pay attention to action economy, relative combat values, total DC in attacks, and average defenses. 

Having said that, Hero System combats tend to take a while. The combat system is very granular and tactically oriented. If you are running 2.5 hour long sessions and expect to have four "encounters" or lets say story beats to put a little distance away from D&D semantics...including at least one combat, then you are going to be challenged to use the Hero System. 

You could speed that up by just keeping opposing forces defenses a bit subpar and various GMing techniques, but all in all be aware that a decent Hero System combat between four PC's and evenly matched opponents can easily take 2.5 hours or more all by itself.

Quote

Alternatively, if I choose the heroic option, will the characters feel "fragile", always close to dying? 

Depends on how "heroic" vs "realistic" you go. If you go whole hog, with all or many of the lethality and injury options toggled on, then yeah the PC's will be in constant danger of getting killed or maimed. If you stick to straight heroic with maybe Hit Locations and Encumbrance turned on, then the PC's are not particularly fragile but can unexpectedly die to a head or vitals shot. Personally, I prefer to run the Hero System at the "cinematic" heroic level, particularly under 6e rules. I'm currently running a face to face heroic urban fantasy campaign, discussed in the open on this forum under the "clubs" section. You can check out the PC's and a lot of the enemies they have faced thus far here if you are interested. Though it is set in a modern setting, it is an urban fantasy and is only superficially different from a fantasy game...imagine swords and bows and chainmail instead of guns and kevlar and its the same thing.

https://www.herogames.com/forums/forum/89-topics/

I want everyone at the table for this session; so we'll postpone until January. I hope everyone enjoys their holidays.

4 hours ago, Tywyll said:

...one of them has PSLs versus Sweep and if I tell him, oh no, in this edition you can't do that any more, it's going to be a hard sell...possibly impossible as he's not HERO's greatest fan as it is. 

{shrug} If you aren't concerned about the potential opportunity for game imbalance, let people buy PSL's vs Multiple Attack penalties. Worst case scenario, if the character ends up being too good at killing off multiple targets and is sucking the challenge out of encounters, just add more goons to soak up their attacks. 

3 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Steve Long isn't in the habit of coming to people's houses and telling them they're Having Fun Wrong. 

More's the pity. Personally I'd invite him in and try to cajole him into running a session for us.

Up front, Doc Democracy is correct.

I find it convenient to think about PSL's in this way: they can be applied to external situational penalties, not intrinsic penalties. 6e says this on the subject (v1 p84):

A character cannot use OPSLs to increase
OCV generally, to increase the damage an attack
does, or to increase DCV. He can only use them
to reduce or counteract a specific type of negative
OCV modifier. A character cannot buy “generic”
OPSLs that apply to more than one negative OCV
modifier; he must specify which penalty a OPSL
applies against when he buys it. Nor can he buy
OPSLs to counteract the standard OCV penalty
imposed by a Combat Maneuver (such as the -3
OCV for a Grab By), or to counteract the Unfamiliar
Weapon penalty (6E2 51).

And that checks out against the provided examples...range, hit loc, and throwing penalties are all ambient external modifiers that apply across the board to all characters and attacks by default. On the other hand the -3 OCV penalty for Grab By is intrinsic to the Maneuver, and the Unfamiliar Weapon penalty is intrinsic to the character themselves. 

Multiple Attack might initially seem weird because the Maneuver's OCV penalty is variable, dependent on the total number of attacks and thus it might seem more like a situational penalty than something intrinsic. However Multiple Attack is technically a Maneuver and while its OCV penalty is variable in the abstract, once it has been calculated for a specific usage it is no different than the -3 OCV for Grab By. For a similar case of a Maneuver with a variable penalty, see Move Thru.

---

The distinction between what PSL's can and cannot be applied to does seem arbitrary and unnecessary to me in principle, however from an accounting perspective it does make sense that it should never be possible to buy PSL's to offset a penalty for less cost than paying for an ability that would allow you to not take the penalty in the first place. 

The reality is, PSL's could be eliminated entirely from the system, and could be replaced as a limitation taken on Skill levels and Combat Skill Levels..."Only to Offset Penalties". The value of that lim is debatable, but I'll just swag a -1/2 as a placeholder. 

He died as he lived...questionably.

Marcus

Marcus is an elder vampire with powerful stealth abilities. Fast, silent, and deadly, he nevertheless prefers to deal with things indirectly, avoiding open conflict. He is neither cowardly nor brave...he is at essense "pragmatic"; he does what makes the most sense in the moment. He will not risk his immortal existence when a plan starts to unravel, believing that the smart play is to regroup and come back with a better plan when least expected. He serves ably as a trusted trouble shooter and lieutenant for the area's master vampire, possessing intelligence and discretion.

Julian and Julietta

A brother and sister Vampire duo of a `bloodline` typified by incredible superhuman strength and durability but also suffering from monstrous looking features when their superhuman abilities are in use. Though far more potent than the average vampire, they are both simple soldiers by intellect and inclination, operating as effective heavies for the area's master vampire.

Slip

Slip is a powerful vampire with a bit too much ego than is healthy, suffering from delusions of grandeur. He is hungry for power and recognition, and has openly begun to make a play to either carve out his own territory to lord over or to perhaps even overthrow the areas reigning master. He can be quite dangerous to a group of Hunters...particularly if they are not prepared for a vampire fight. However, his desire for stature makes him more of threat to his own kind than to Hunters, as his sloppiness in making new vampires in a bid at empire building and not carefully controlling their early excesses has opened the door for another vampire purge to descend upon the area.

Slip's signature abilities take the form of subtly affecting the emotions and minds of others, particularly via social interactions. His personality seems larger than life, and he can sway a crowd just as easily as terrify them, with nothing more than sheer presence. He also of course has all the standard Vampire abilities (such as Vampire Boost, fangs, etc) and weaknesses.

3 hours ago, C-Note said:

I just wonder why I'm still classified as a "New Member" after being here for 16 years.  Babies born when I joined the board are driving now!  🙂

Probably your low post count. But under Account Settings -> Edit Profile -> Basic Info you should be able to change your title to whatever you want. I just changed mine to "Beetlejuice" for no reason whatsoever to demonstrate.

We will not be running a session on November 30 due to holiday obligations across the group.

We will be meeting on Dec 14th to finish out Act II of Arc 4.

We will not be playing on Dec 28th, again due to the holidays.

We will resume normal every two week operations on Jan 11th. 

8 hours ago, Durzan Malakim said:

Was the brutal death at least cinematic? Did we just have our Agent Coulson dies in the Avengers moment? Did Kilroy "permanently retire" so @King Red could bring in his next character? I'm looking forward to reading the game summary. Well, I suppose technically you didn't have a TPK without me, but you did have a K. If it *was* Kilroy you had a TKK - a Total Kilroy Kill.

No, it was rather desultory and ignominious. Drew burned through all of his extreme luck keeping Jack (who started the session with only 3 BODY remaining) alive, and without any remaining to modify the bad guys rolls he got hit and staggered. Without his Combat Luck to save him Drew was then easily ripped apart before he could recover by the trio of tentacled nascent shoggoths played by Steve, Scything, and King Red. Looks like Unconventional Solutions needs a new ops chief.

In death, members of Unconventional Solutions have a name...his name was Drew "Reckless seems like a sensible Complication to me" Altman.

Later in the evening Killroy had a classic Jason Bourne / Jack Bauer-esque solo adventure, successfully (and rather easily) reclaiming from a drug gang's crack house a mystery loot box of unmentionables stolen from the Societatis ex Monstrum Interfectorum. He even resisted to urge to look in the box, which he had been forbidden from doing by his handler. Having established his trustworthiness and reliability, Killroy has been accepted as a member of the Societatis...secretly of course. Killroy never even pulled a gun; he roughed up and intimidated his way through the gang members. It was pretty epic.

Lethality Options

Ok, I'm planning to run the session at 5pm tomorrow 11/16 @ At Ease Games. I'm going to do a push on the main encounter until Murgy is present, so instead we are going to focus on A) Jack & Drew's daring duo escape, B ) Killroy's mysterious Big Solo Adventure, and C) I still have 33 hours to figure out something fun for Beretta and Joey back in Quantico and a plausible reason for Murgy to be unavailable. 

Given that the party managed to get split 3 ways, I'll be handing out some NPC sheets to players to play for certain scenes to keep you engaged...for instance during Jack & Drew's escape, the rest of you will have some bad guys to play to complicate their escape, etc. 

The goal is simple: even though this will technically be a filler episode due to real life scheduling conflicts, we are going to endeavor to make it so packed with interesting character focusing bits and hijinks that it does not feel like a filler episode. 

The 23rd is probably off the table for me, but I'll try to get more data before giving a hard no.

Many years ago, one of my one-off adventures was printed in Digital Hero #29; Project: PREDATOR...before that it was a Haymaker Fanzine submission.

It is a 5th edition adventure with pre-gen amnesiac mutants who must escape from a remote underground government facility, and evade recapture. I ran it a few times in real life with different groups of people. There are some things I would tweak were I to run it again (I am much older and hopefully have learned a few things over the years), but it was serviceable and people liked it.

It might be of use to you, or not. You might use it as a one off to learn / get people used to the rules. It could also be part of a shared origin story...you as the GM engineer it so that the PC's escape and evade. The characters have been mindwiped and must learn how to re-acclimate to the rest of the world which would provide you with some cover for not really having your campaign world fully fleshed out yet...you can fill in the world over the course of the campaign beneath the shade of the PC's amnesia. I actually did do that very thing for the campaign of what would become my MetaCyber setting, heavily cannibalizing and recasting this very adventure for the bones of the first session of what turned into a successful campaign.

It looks like the pdf is available in the store on this site. I don't make a dime if you buy the pdf, so there is no conflict of interest in shilling it to you. Note that the cover is for one of the other items in the pdf; Project: PREDATOR itself has a darker / edgier tone and I used some DCUA templates for the interior art for the piece (which definitely looks dated now, but not too embarrassing).

...here's the link to the item in the store:

True Story: I only realized I had borked the acronym in the graphic when I received the complimentary copy of the published pdf. Derp.

So...I'm not an expert by any means but I do happen to have some actual experience in this area. I grew up in southern Florida on the water, learned to swim before I could walk, and spent a lot of time swimming in my youth. While in the Marines, I easily passed swim qual one (which is the top standard qual level) with no effort at all and was invited to an advanced course. So, take this with a grain of salt, but this is what I remember...

It isn't the lack of oxygen that is your initial problem, it's carbon dioxide build up. Most people with a sedentary life style have a surprisingly low tolerance for it and will suffer from this before running out of oxygen. So, if an average non-athletic person with "meh" cardio gets in the water and tries to hold their breath even without swimming...just go under and hold...they might have trouble holding their breath for even a full minute. There is also a psychological aspect...people who haven't made a habit of pushing their body to its limits often think they are capable of less than they are...so our example average breath holder might come up for air before they strictly speaking need to because holding your breath is both uncomfortable and because they are worried they are going to drown...which would tend to push the time lower.

But personally I would expect a healthy athletic person with good cardio...a runner, jogger, athlete, etc...to last between a minute and a half to two minutes while swimming underwater, and I would expect an active swimmer who has made a practice of extending their ability to stay under to last longer. 

YMMV

Hrm...that presents some difficulties...the story hook was intended to be anchored around Murgy and establishing both a personal nemesis for him and furthering his seeking immortality arc, wrapping up act 2 of the arc...and more talky and plot revealing and less shooty. But, family first, these things happen.

Before I start juggling story elements to work around this I would like some visibility into the future. Can and will everyone be present on Nov 30th? @King Red @Steve @Durzan Malakim @WilyQ @L0rd_Magg0t @Scything

Her name was Devorah Levine, though she went by Debbie in mixed company. Raven haired and nontraditionally beautiful, daughter of a successful small business owner with a chain of Buick dealerships across the New England seaboard. Funny, with a piercing observational wit, and a wry sense of humor that bordered on scandalous at times. The young wizard had met her at the bowling alley the fourth night of slipping away from the extremely vexing puzzle box, which he had begun to realize was even more complex than originally understood, capable of subtle mutations according to some scheme or stimuli that was not yet clear.

He had been minding his own business bowling alone on the far lane up against the back wall of the bowling alley, when Debbie had separated herself from her pack of girlfriends and come over under the pretense of giving him some bowling tips. It soon turned out that she was definitely a better bowler than he, but her true interest was in something other than bowling. 

Unaccustomed to female proximity, having lived a somewhat cloistered life, the young wizard was entirely unprepared for such a bold show of interest and similarly ill prepared for flirting, but luckily for him good breeding and manners prevented him from making a fool of himself and Devorah seemed to find his refined behavior charming. Without him really knowing how it happened, the young wizard eventually realized that he had somehow become committed to taking Debbie on a date the upcoming Friday night. She eventually departed with her friends to return to their sorority house in time for curfew, leaving a bemused and slightly befuddled young man in her wake. 

It would be charitable to say the young wizard continued dutifully in his attempts to unravel the secrets of the puzzle box over the next few days, but it would require a certain stretching of the truth to do so. He could barely hold focus for more than half an hour at a time before his mind would inevitably stray to thoughts of what Friday night might entail, followed by a subsequent inattentive mistake which would reset the box. He returned to the bowling alley each night hoping to encounter her again, but to no avail. Friday night rolled around with agonizing slowness, and after much perseverating over what to wear and fussing over coiffure and accouterments he set out on his first date ever in his father's sleek black 1950 Cadillac Sixty Special. 

The puzzle box, left to its own devices on the side table in the study, continued to slowly permutate in his absence.

3 hours ago, Usagi said:

I'm pretty sure if you're making players pay more than 5 points for a dumb flashlight, then you're a jerk. 

I don't care one way or the other how you do it, as the opening sentence's "That works if you choose to allow it as the GM," would seem to indicate. I was just pointing out the rule. Welcome to the boards, and have a nice day.