Dieter, if you must kamikaze your character, have the good sense to blow yourself up before the Imperium can capture you. Make sure the blast gets the Toughbook, too. If they get the Earth codes you specifically mention you have, it's the end of the line for the folks back home.

e of pi wrote:

Dieter, if you must kamikaze your character, have the good sense to blow yourself up before the Imperium can capture you. Make sure the blast gets the Toughbook, too. If they get the Earth codes you specifically mention you have, it's the end of the line for the folks back home.

You forget that Max is wearing a Khiraba suit, fluent in the native language, and has a Turai IFF jammer at his disposal. If all goes well, I'll be back on Earth in time for happy hour at Hooters.

EDIT: Ignore this space. There was something here, but I wanted to rephrase it on second thought. The original version was nothing more than flamebait.

EDIT II: Alright. Let me try to get the crux of my first post across without the screed. Simply put, what does you (and only you) going home now, alone, without the rest of the team or any of the rebels gain for the party? How is this a beneficial choice?

What does it matter? He made a choice, and we're going to have to deal with it. His choices and his character's choices are theirs to come up with. At this point in time, either he gets killed, or he makes it back and then Hugh kills him. I'd give him a 80% chance of failure at the moment, but that's just because Max has shown all the tactical awareness and tradecraft of a six-year old up to this point in time. If they go for his disguise, he could actually make it.

Oh, it wouldn't be fair to kill Max if he actually does pull that off. A haymaker and plasticuffs seem warranted, though. If not for what he did (which, for all I know, might turn out to help us a lot), then for going at it rogue-style. Again.

Gatac

CrazyIvan wrote:

Lats come out and Angel finds that even the ungainly Knutt is a quick learner when cash is on the line.

He motions for Semo to sit down, and then looks up at the changing guard.

"He did what!? That ungrateful fucking...that's the last time I drag his ass through the forest." He gives a broad and expansive gesture to both the rebels and Semo.

"To civilians, and the misadventure they bring. Without them, it would be too easy."

Back the truck up. You have no idea that Max "stole" the warsled. As far as anyone knows, he's still doing a test drive. He could be lost or dead. You haven't even tried radioing him or anything.

And as for everyone else, I've grown bored of the endless bureaucracy and powerbrokering that the Punkey/Gatac Show has produced over the last few threads. It's become more like LOST than Stargate and that is not what I signed up for.

Not to be overly negative, but you don't really think anyone's going to assume this is a test drive, especially when you haven't told anyone about it? It is jumping to conclusions, no doubt, but not unreasonably so.

As for your lack of enjoyment, maybe you should bring that up here in OOC and then we can discuss it. I, for one, am holding a sneaky/scheme-y course because I get the impression that the Imperial forces can crush us in an open fight, and that overrides my Big Damn Hero impulse. Sure, I - as a player - would prefer some hot action where we rain destruction on the Emperor, but as a tactician character I recognize that that isn't the way you win a war.

I mean, it's not like we're paralyzed by the enormity of a "can't win this" mission. It's tough, sure, which is why we're trying to play it smart, but I wouldn't mistake our carefulness for rolling over and letting them win.

Gatac

Gatac wrote:

I mean, it's not like we're paralyzed by the enormity of a "can't win this" mission. It's tough, sure, which is why we're trying to play it smart, but I wouldn't mistake our carefulness for rolling over and letting them win.
Gatac

I'm more of the opinion of we've painted ourselves into a dangerous corner and the only real way out is the Big Damn Hero route. I like the BDH route and it has proved quite successful thusfar. Over the past several threads, Max usefulness has become less-so mostly due to decisions beyond his control and/or the fact he isn't quite as handy in a firefight as Semo or Angel. At that rate, the game was getting stale and I needed to do something that kept my interest in the game.

Regarding your "haymaker and plasticuffs" line...See, that's exactly why I didn't ask or mention this to anyone else. That is classic LOST scripting in the vein of "When in doubt or opposition, tie up the guy with the different opinion."

Hey, if you want to do something that helps us and come back in one piece, I'm cool with that. But in character, Hugh needs to exercise some authority and Max is way past his "Bad Action Scientist don't run off on your own" allowance. As we've seen with the whole bomb scare thing, he's not above rescinding that when the situation calls for it; all I'm saying is that going against his orders must have consequences, even if I'll be cheering you on OOC.

Gatac

Dieter wrote:

Back the truck up. You have no idea that Max "stole" the warsled. As far as anyone knows, he's still doing a test drive. He could be lost or dead. You haven't even tried radioing him or anything.

And as for everyone else, I've grown bored of the endless bureaucracy and powerbrokering that the Punkey/Gatac Show has produced over the last few threads. It's become more like LOST than Stargate and that is not what I signed up for.

Nope, nor does my post expressly mention an assumption that he stole it.

What I *do* know is that "Dr. Max" and as mentioned, only Dr. Max, left on the sled. As far as Angel is concerned, in hostile country we just played hide-and-go-seek in, without escort, on a battle damaged air scooter, Max leaving without escort is on the harder side of stupid.

Grand Theft Airsled doesn't even factor into it. But considering the last time Max wandered off on his own, Angel got shot at, got in an aerial chase, got in a crash, killed a squad of Imperial police, sat through a massive bombardment, got to hike through scenic countryside while being chased by drones, killed three hunters and got stabbed in the ribs for his trouble...

Angel reserves the right to be a little miffed.

Personally, I don't care. If you get captured, crash etc. I get to maraud around the woods some more. If you don't, we get off this godforsaken planet a little sooner.

This seems to come up every now and then. Jess and the Truck Cab Headshot Party, Carter Jennings Hates Helicopters, Davis' Headshot Party, Max Likes Bombs, Davis Likes Grenades...

Hrm. OK, I grant you it has been happening more often as of late.

Quote:

He made a choice, and we're going to have to deal with it. His choices and his character's choices are theirs to come up with.

Punkey is absolutely right here, I supported him (I like to think, anyway) when he's gone against the group and I support Dave's freedom to post his actions how he wants.

I consider the GTA of the sled as the "Burke moment" in Aliens. I have no problem with it from a GM standpoint. Does not having the sled screw you guys? Not that much, not when you have two ships now. Does not having a computer guy screw you? Moreso than the loss of the sled - Luis needs to step it up to compensate, but he's CAPABLE of rolling the same numbers as Max, he just doesn't have the specializations.

And Max might make it, he might get killed, or he might get captured, which is great for me. Hell, I might try to bribe him with XP or Wild Dice if he'll go for that.

Quote:

As for your lack of enjoyment, maybe you should bring that up here in OOC and then we can discuss it.

I feel this is the crux of the problem. I think we need to address what people want to get from the game as it stands now.

As stated, Dave wants the Big Damn Hero route. It seems that Gatac wouldn't MIND some more action. Perhaps I have erred too far in making the Turai and the Imperium a nasty foe. I DO want it to be a tough mission. I DO want there to be consequences for blowing your cover in a crowded marketplace or for being hunted by bounty hunters or not keeping one step ahead of the bad guys.

I want Gordon and Ivan to get some enjoyment out of the game too, and they're playing Killface Fightgar characters without anyone to go Killface on.

I have villains worked up, actual named bad guys that I can't run with because they can't friggin' FIND you guys and I don't want to fiat them into finding you just to promote conflict. I don't want to waste this effort you've taken at hiding yourselves, your ship, and your scheming.

Part of it I think IS the division both in-character between Hugh's chain of command and Max/Davis' very much NOT being in that chain, as well as your guys' desires conflicting. What I should've done was have an NPC commanding officer, have everybody equal rank, and then kill the CO right off the bat.

Don't be afraid to speak your OOC wants. Hugh might be in command, but Gatac is your equal and if, say, Davis wants to take some of the NPCs and whoever else and do his own thing, we will work out a way to get that done IC. Or if Semo really would just like to take his 25mm cannon and blow shit up, we will work something out.

This shit doesn't turn up in tabletop because it's so much easier to work it out before it turns ugly.

Last words for now: I think Max stealing the sled is an awesome source of IC conflict. I am sorry it has caused OOC conflict. I would be willing to dial down the Imperium's panoptic networked surveillance that seems to be the primary IC problem in getting shit done if that would increase the enjoyment of the game. In the end, you guys are saving the Earth from an Evil Alien Empire. It's Clancyesque SCAR-Hs and XM-25s and particle cannons instead of .45s and ray guns but the idea is the same, at least for me it is.

admiralducksauce wrote:

Part of it I think IS the division both in-character between Hugh's chain of command and Max/Davis' very much NOT being in that chain, as well as your guys' desires conflicting. What I should've done was have an NPC commanding officer, have everybody equal rank, and then kill the CO right off the bat.

Yeah, that basically set the tone of everything that was done from the get-go. It's hard to have equality among players when you have ranks and shit to worry about.

admiralducksauce wrote:

Last words for now: I think Max stealing the sled is an awesome source of IC conflict. I am sorry it has caused OOC conflict. I would be willing to dial down the Imperium's panoptic networked surveillance that seems to be the primary IC problem in getting shit done if that would increase the enjoyment of the game. In the end, you guys are saving the Earth from an Evil Alien Empire. It's Clancyesque SCAR-Hs and XM-25s and particle cannons instead of .45s and ray guns but the idea is the same, at least for me it is.

The panoptic networked surveillance has been a crippling blow to any sort of advance or progress. I think we've played enough games to know that it's hard for even BDHs to win against an overwhelming threat. We did march right into this situation and completely deserved Big Brother bringing down the hammer on us.

You know what ol' Jack Burton says at a time like this?

Yes, yes I do. I only drive as fast as I can see and besides...it's all in the reflexes. I plan on walking in/out of Gran's Hope like the wind.

Yessir, the check is in the mail.

First off, I believe you forgot the Storm Drain Shooting Gallery back in Spycraft, ADS. One of my proudest moments.

Secondly, although I've already stated my support for what Dieter's doing, I think it's worth repeating. I'm not going to change how Davis behaves in this game, he's just not a Big Damn Heroes kind of guy unless he really has to be, and I don't entirely get the Lost connection, I kind of think it's more like Alias if we have to pick an overly-elaborate ABC TV show, but I like how he's dealing with it. Don't like what's going on? Fine, then do something about it, and he has, and in a really cool way. Given my positions in the past, I can't entirely come out and advocate talking things out in OOC, but since this is concerning questions of the tone of the game and not just tactical decisions, it might have been a better idea, but that's neither here nor there now. It doesn't completely screw us over if he blows it and it makes for one Hell of an IC situation in the game (the timing in particular really sticks it in and breaks it off) either way, so I think that this is a big net positive for the game. He might even make it, as my rosy prediction above indicates.

Although, even though this is totally badass and awesome for the game, this pretty much isn't going to end well for Max no matter what happens. If he gets killed, well, he's dead. Captured, he'll be tortured and dead, or turned (and won't that be fun?). And if he makes it, he'll have to deal with the rest of the team being pissed at him for doing something massively bone-headed that put everyone else at risk. It's not because we're trying to stifle competing opinions, it's because what Max just did was really fucking stupid, and if you thought that we'd be totally down with the guy who usually only makes things worse when he goes off on his own stealing our only covert method of transport and running off on his own, then you might have wanted to think about this plan a little harder. All the military people on the team are already suspicious of anything either Max or Davis do, and Davis figured out a while back that Max is a bit on the impulsive side, so it shouldn't be surprising that those who've heard what went down immediately got suspicious. If ADS is going to adjust the sliding scale of difficulty on the game, his chances go way up, but as the game stands right now, it doesn't have much tolerance for wandering off all by yourself without a plan or backup (as the alley back at Gran's Hope will attest to). We'll just have to see how things go down.

I will say that Max's latest stunt surprised the hell out of me, even though it seems rather in-character. Dave certainly has the right to play his character any way he sees fit, just as Punkey does - and I see Davis as every bit as problematic as Max.

I'm not sure exactly when the game jumped the rails, but I think it happened fairly soon after leaving Earth. Our only real hope of succeeding in a mission like this was to stay under the radar, something we have failed to do in a big way. At this point, I suspect we'll be lucky to survive long enough to get back to Earth.

And I agree that the super-security makes it damn hard to accomplish much of anything. It's probably realistic for any paranoid, high-tech, sci-fi empire, but it sure makes life a bitch - right up until you die.

All that said, the lack of big action lately has fit well with my overwhelming lack of time for posting. With several weeks of crazyness at work, combined with looking for a new job (I have a 9-hour interview tomorrow!), time has been in really short supply.

I have to say I'm completely fine with the game setting as-is; I'm enjoying playing the longer subtle game. If I want hack-and-slash, well, that's why I'm running a D&D group on the side with some friends from school. I like Head-On-A-Stick specifically because the forum nature means there's the ability to look things over and think about things more than just "who do I kill next?" As a result, the basic character of the game is just fine, as far as I am concerned. The overwhelming level of paranoid survielance is a hinderance, for sure, but not entirely unrealistic. Maybe a bit of a tone-down would be good, but too much and it loses some verisimilitude and one of the most obvious reminders of the nature of the Imperium.

On an OOC level, I respect Dieter's (Dave's?) ability to play his character however he wants, and I will say that this action is pretty well in-line with Max's established character, even if they are really agrivating. I think there's probably some good points about the chain of comand issue, and maybe that could have been handled better from the start. On the whole though, I'm satisfied with the status quo here.

fanchergw wrote:

All that said, the lack of big action lately has fit well with my overwhelming lack of time for posting. With several weeks of crazyness at work, combined with looking for a new job (I have a 9-hour interview tomorrow!), time has been in really short supply.

9 hours! I hope there is some sort of Senate confirmation involved...at the very least, breakfast tacos.

Good luck, Gordon.

fanchergw wrote:

I'm not sure exactly when the game jumped the rails, but I think it happened fairly soon after leaving Earth. Our only real hope of succeeding in a mission like this was to stay under the radar, something we have failed to do in a big way. At this point, I suspect we'll be lucky to survive long enough to get back to Earth.

That's what I'm seeing too. While the escape and evasion stuff in the last thread worked okay, generically I'd have to say we're losing, and losing badly. The way Imperium security has been playing out, its gotten to the point that I just assume sometime shortly after we land our cover is blown and we're on the run. Gates don't help either - they're freaking cool, but there's no way to shut down the engines, turn off anything that makes heat and coast your way to the next system.

I think you get the same kind of ennui, game wise, that we got in the end stage stuff in Russia during SnS, an overwhelming sense of 'We're just fucked, aren't we?'.

Honestly, the rank thing doesn't bother me a bit - I think its being compounded by civilian tendencies to act without group consultation that's manifesting itself as "going to have to drag you back to the party, we all have X in common, you don't, get in line". For example, it didn't occur at all during the Earth-based stuff. I don't think it's any more problematic than having player classes in a D&D game - even if you got rid of them, if the rogue kept killing every damned NPC he saw, the party will still try and find a way to get him to tow the line.

But if you're going to play with that kind of party dynamic (which is a choice I respect), you have to allow the other players to respond in character as well. In Angel's case, declaring Max book smart, but dumber than a rock.

e of pi wrote:

On an OOC level, I respect Dieter's (Dave's?) ability to play his character however he wants, and I will say that this action is pretty well in-line with Max's established character, even if they are really agrivating. I think there's probably some good points about the chain of comand issue, and maybe that could have been handled better from the start. On the whole though, I'm satisfied with the status quo here.

It's in my nature of playing RPGs. Don't put a big, red shiny button in front of me and expect me not to press it.

That said, if there isn't a BRSB nearby...I'll go looking for one.

It's what Adam and I would call "This week on: The Hulk Investigates.."

If I may make a suggestion that needs to stay completely seperated from IC knowledge, if we had a way to delete our pictures from the big fat "WANTED" category and Max was heading out to do it, that would not only put us back on the track to being able to kick some ass without constantly looking over our shoulders for the big hammer, but it would also give me a way to tone down the harshness on Max's return. Even Hugh can't argue with results.

I don't think the panoptican efficiency of the Imperium is necessarily unfairly hard on us, since we play smart, too, but we do need a method to at least disrupt it. Because as it stands right now, I see the warrants biting us in the ass again and again, even if we get off the planet. Besides, as I believe Punkey mentioned at some point, all those criminals and rebels need to move, too - how do they do it? I refuse to believe that they're there just because the Imperium hasn't gotten around to killing them yet. Maybe they can hack the files, maybe they use camera-jamming equipment, I don't know, but clearly there's something we haven't seen yet and this is a good moment to bring it into play.

Gatac

That was on the list of topics to be covered at the meeting, but that's now in serious jeopardy, thanks to Max's little road trip. I doubt they're going to talk to us if we can't keep our own men under control, and after this we were going to get the fuck out of here in the way that gets us the least fucked down the line and bug out for Earth. If ADS gives us a method of getting into the ROBS that needs a distraction (very likely, I think), then I had a very large space for Blowing Stuff Up in that particular Master Plan. I'm not saying anything about what should be done IC, but if it's blowing stuff up you want, there already are plans afoot to make that happen, and if you hang on a little longer, it will be happening shortly. As for getting out of here, I've thrown a few quick and dirty ways to get us off-world before, but there wasn't anything I could do about any of them until this meeting, which I've already pointed out is majorly screwed up by this. That said, Gatty has a good point about getting us wiped from the Most Wanted list, so like I said, it's totally up to you. I'm just throwing stuff out there. I don't want to be screwing up the game for anyone else, and like I said, there should be more action coming.