Joe Q. Public

Hey there Combat fans!

I was just wondering how all you happy GMs deal with stress and then eventual insanity when dealing with your hardened crew of edgerunners?

Do you let it build up w/o any player knowledge of it until it expodes?

Do you factor it in with cyberpsychosis and have it drop the humanity?

Do you 'retire player once thier insanity is certain or let them (shutter) play it out?

Just giving a shout out to all the GMs and player and wanted to know your systems, (mine closes resembles the old C o C sanity scale).

Comment, please for the love of Chrome! Comment!

"Thankyou for hearing me out, and maybe we can talk about my proposition more later, but I would be very happy to accept your offer Porter, you have been a kind gentleman. " Smiles kindly to Porter. "it looks to me that I have a bit of adjustment coming in the next few days here in amerika and will need to take a bit of a breather from the harshness of Poland. I am sure it will be refreshing."  settles back into her seat, sets the tumbler into her bag w/ the Kits and takes another drink.

"Have you gentlemen eaten? I hear that the kitchen actually has meat that is soy based instead of yeast! I would gladly pay you later in the ways of my service." (scans both of these new friends for any sign of cyber)

"I am sure that I can make myself useful for your friend, what happened to him?"

Purina Puppy Chow tastes like Post Crackling oat Bran and Triscuits crossed, add a little salt and it actually is not too bad!

It's amazing what you find out ilving at Dischrod House in D.C for a week w/ less than nothing for food cash...

"Wonderful, I don't mean to insult you two w/ the, how did you put it, 'double dog dare' (rolls eyes) but beingk new in town a woman has to know who she is talk to is real and not someone who, oh how should I put it..., use and then shiv in thier sleep for fear of the authorities getting back to you because of sloppy work?" takes a long look at Will.

"What I am purposing is that hear in amerika, there seems to be an excess of marks walking around w/ cyberaugmentation, our lovely w/ the muscle that just passed, for example. And considering that the bulk of them will walk around like a, um how should I put it..., dog that's smileingk from eating ####, and not have a clue to use what they have purchased, I feel that it is my obligation, no duty,(smiles) so 'relieve' them of some of this gear."

"It's a grim time we live in gentlemen, and unfortunately for me, Cleavland is a grimmer place than I saw in the brochures. What I purpose is that if you are interested, I can remove said augmentation from said marks for an equal part of the take and the occasional piece of equiptment that catches my eye. For this i will also provide my expertise in not only surgery, but cybernetic implation and augmentaion, and a living knowledge of how best to use this 'equiptment' to our advantage w/o losing the edge" Motions to Porter for a cigarette.

"Frankly, I am sick of eating this poor Amerikan 'pre-pak' and I know that, from experience in Europe, that this will let me live at the level of, um.. how you say, posh, that I desire."

"What do you think?"

"Vut do you know of the Romanian?-Porter is it? she odviously knows you?...

"You see, I have been workinkt for REO Meatwagon over in Poland during that last few years of the 'problems', and frankly they can all kiss my sveet little ars as far as I'm concerned" Waves up big quotes, "join the second largest medic company, just think of the SECURITY?, security my foodt, they feed ya horrible prepak and expect you to bringk back za deadt!" takes a long drink from her glass. "one think I did get from them is how to spot money on the hoovf, and that my freindks, is what I prepose to you." Gives the look of stone cold soberiety "easy money and unlimited augmentaion,(looks at the gold tumbler VERY carefully) both of which I hadt in Berlin until my market waz diredt up by all the workers opting for bioware and Police got too thick."

"Frankly now if you fellows had the salt, I would be interested in a new partknership, or if that's a bit much to swallow, maybe some commarades in which to work to let a good surgeon like myself get a decent meal and a place to sleep w/o wrapping my hands around a gun all night'd."

Stretching her arms a bit, looks dispondantly at the table,

" or maybe you are not the strong AMERIKAN edgerunners I took you for when you walked in....?"

Looks up to the boys......

"Sure My name is Renata Pavlovich, I have jsut flown in from LEO after spending way too much time in the east block," reaches down to pick up her drink" and I think that you look like just the type of tech support that i could be looking for..."

she then turns to watch the Barbie and the goons get up,"The question for the two of you is, life is full of opportunities, some goodt'- some not so goodt'" and smiling here best 'I'm about to eat the hear t out of everyone in the room grin', she says"are you two able to kick down the door if the opportunities knock? If so, i think i may have a proposition for you..."  

looks to make really sure the the group isn't looking too hard at her and grabs the gold tumbler (what have I got?)

Ooc: my ISP is having a bad habit of being busy, it ought be remedied by the first. Sorry

"Vodka Tonnnnic, neat."  trying to still look coy but making sure that I sit down first w/ choice of the table and seat w/ my bags on either isde of me.

"I was wondering what a woman w/ the gift for grafting chrome could do in this "wonderful" city? You boys know anything a sweet young lady could use to set herself up? The marks in here look like a the moron brigade from the ultrasuede penile poser posse'"

Happy that the chrome girl looks unimpressed, I smile. I measure up her muscle and think about how fast the PD can get to her after I cut her throat and rip that pretty arm off her body and sell it as parts to buy a place to sleep tonight.

Smiling up at Will, I ask "buy a lady a drink, and tell me of your travels hansome?"  turning to the table showing her long chocolate brown hair that is now pulled back in a french braid ending just below her shoulderblades and accenting the smooth musclar small of her back through the black vinyl catsuit and trailing into the red and black paid 'schoolgirl' skirt and black flats that flash the warmness of her light brown tan at her ankles and fire of her piercing green eyes. She sits down on the chair facing the booth w/ the goons and the barbie doll w/ the cyber and the problem making damned sure her muscle looks bored senseless and asks, "you guys from her?" to Will.

(ooc: check to see if she can identify if the girl has got the "shakes" ala drugs or "twitches" ala cyberpsychosis. (and always, identifiying if any of that 'ware looks designer)

Just to increase my chances of making sure these guys see me, I move all 5'6" of my sexy Polish ass up to the that DOESN"T have music screaming in his ears and make sure i see him watch me stretch down to pick up a fork I drop while chasing the back of my leg from the back of my thigh all the way under my naughy little plaid skirt and all the way down my vinly covered leg and then up again just to make sure this boy is FULLY destracted (hey a girl's gotta eat y'know?) Flash him a bit of the piercing green of my eyes and send out the "you wanna buy me a drink" smile.

Zipping up the back of my vinyl catsuit and reaching down to collect my bags I look at the two guys coming in (the shifty one and the guys bopping his head to the music, though I wonder who is going to change the music from this horrible song and get past the street pyscho who's been playing it ALL NIGHT LONG!@!) I collect my bags (being careful to partially unzip the one carrying my piece) and walk up to 4 0'clock of the new guys coming in.  (roll to notice if they are noticeing ME and if I notice HER noticing them), and try to get a seat either by the bar or at an unused table near by...

Just got a book of short stories called Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman age, and it is about 50% really good stuff that great for the advance AI/ advanced 'ware crowd and how it may mess w/ the way things are. If ya read it, let me know what you thought, if not, try it, the story 'Grist' so far has been my favorite.

Formadlehyde + clothing= me as a GM LMFAO!!!

Formadlehyde itches like a bitch in clothing (trust me I worked at a morgue for a while) and that plus a solo holding steady and taking time to aim just cries for me to say 'make a Cool check' for itching.  

I'll live w/ the wrinkles and stay steady on my aim thankyou

The reason that I bring such crazy ass mundane things up is that most of the characters in CP202 seem to be in thier early 20's late teens (not many of y'all like to play a middle aged professional killer/runner/fixer etc) and therefore aren't really hard ass professional killers making sure that they hit the head before going on that run.  That and the fact that if you are able to have all sorts of leisure time sitting around in the various flops and bolt holes sleeping and taking the time to have a relaxing BM, YOUR GM ISN"T TRYING HARD ENOUGH!!!!  

Seriously now, how many jobs are run from the meeting on the street/ establishment of choice and leaves not a hell of a lot of time to use the facilities and have a relaxing meal of kibble?  That's kinda what I thought.....

And for that matter, all you long range super snipers out there, ever sit up in that killing alley for several hours waiting for that corporate mark to come out and go into the city?  Would that be 4 hours? 8hours? maybe even 12hours?  Ever get the need to use the bathroom or munch on a bit of food just as the contract comes into the light?  I thought so..

Plus, having done some real time on the seedy side of Chicago myself, the most interesting stuff happens in the bathroom at clubs and resturants.  People continue thier conversations on the phone w/ thier mistresses, conduct over the phone drug deals, enjoy the pharm of choice etc. all in the can!

What better time to catch that super-chrome jackass thats been: kicking you ass all over the floor and just stole your seat and input just a minute ago, with his armour jacket off and his pants down!  Let's see ya use that Kendachi monokatana w/ your shorts around your knees Mr. SuperSolo!

Thats kind of what I thought...

So rejoice PC and GMs everywhere, there's more to a run than the mission, it's the inbetween that can make your campaigns shine like no other!

I've usually had the PCs do thier characters in advance so I could use a tie in w/ the lifepath experiences doing the work for me as far as " why do I care who this pile of .... is next to me?"  But having run a few games at cons an such it usually has a few either pre gens or, if I happen to have a group of folks who have a character, I do the Usual Suspects kind of thing.  For those of you who haven't seen the movie, please rent it, it's worth the night in.  The premise of the fun people you meet in a police line up for a crime none of ya did can give a lot of scumpunks a reason to tie in some new muscle/ brains into thier group of aquaintences.

Other than that, I've been know to use the universal 'flop house' + 'police raid on planted evidence' gig to put a group of desperados in the same paddy wagon. Other than that I use the desperate fixer on the corner/ random acts of violence routine only as a LAST resort.

Face it, we've all played in the campiagns of GMs that didn't have thier #### together enough to pull off a number of NPCs much less a good story. Letting the characters write the story is fine, but never forget to have a timeline on what else is going on while they are on the run otherwise it soon becomes the 'leading the players by the nose from job to job' game.

The only example of this that has hit my campaigns indirectly was chaos in the net. I played the net in a highly evolved form( anyone familiar w/ Neuropolitan) and it did unfortunately happen that the R'lyeh complex (see and good Cthullupunk GM for the answer to this little nasty) had a bad habit of rending netjockys once in a while (unfortunately for me as a GM I never had a player interested enough in the net to run the Net as a live time deal). It also helped explain some of the progression of corruption in the games I ran.

:DGood story!

One thing to look out for is the relavence of her emoitional scarring and the EMPathy stat, she probly is some pretty cold unemotional young lady right now so keep that in mind when assigning points, other than that, Bravo

Easy Facts boys and girls...

Male cops (here and now) may just run you down and cuff ya into custody, odds are that if you are a serious enough threat to chase after the female cop is gonna shoot ya in the ass.  Don't believe me, just ask any cop in the states...

Fortunately I have only indirectly killed about 4 PC's to date.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, that ws in a cthullu punk campaign, and yeah I know that you all don't believe me but, Most of te PC dead came from either :

A: other PC's (my players were a bunch of bloodthirsty whores)

B: unfortunate KFB (killer F#ing Boom) from a poorly designed player trap going wrong on the amount of explosive calculated (how much does it take to kill a star spawn of Hastur anyway?).

C:Suicide: yeah I know, bad bad GM, well let's just say after seeing a bit too much happen in game that some PCs just missed thier insanity roll(ask me about it, I love GMing Cof C)

D: Screw-ups out of my control. I play a thinking man's game and if ya got the brains and the kutzpah for keeping your butt out of the fire I'll usually let it slide, but just don't look down a psychotic Chaos-boomer and say they shouldn't eat you guts out because they like you, gotta do better than that...

E: Munchkin palying: woll not tolerate it now, didn't tolerate it then.

I know that it seems a bit hard assed in the reasons for death in my campaigns but I can truly swear that while back in Illinois I never ran out of people who wanted into my game, too bad the gaming scene in Portland OR isn't as good...

Whoa!!!!!

STOP THE TRUCK!   Waddaya mean 3-5K for a cyberarm!!??!!

I think the one thing you guys are missing is the whole cost of INSTALLATION!!!!

Let's see, Cyberarm, CRitical surger @avg. $2500, Plus

6 hrs surgical bed (going rate new is around $850-$1500/hr) plus

Surgical Damage 3D6+1 (which will put at the most the character into the Mortal1 catagorie), PLUS

considering that most hospital will not release a patient in less than SERIOUS condition (posible 14 boxes to fill at 2pts/day, at say $500 for a semiprivate room on a ward in TODAY's dollars) PLUS

The price of that wonderful piece of chrome you fashionably decided to replace your meat arm with...

Now, w/ the reality check cashed, does that make the cyber option a dime a dozen?  Of course, as a GM I did not require the monies for the surgery and installation to be taken out of starting cash(that would be cruel and unusual punishment for most players) and waived the 'ware that a PC started w/ but you can bet you sweet ass that if the replacement came in game they paid every last cent and always wanted to pay for the better ripperdocs and prayed as they rolled the die for surgical damage and went out of thier way to carry that Health Insurance policy at $1000 a month, because you never know....

as of the 20th of March I'll be 28. Roleplaying since the tender age of 8 and Punker than F#CK since 1990.

PS I am a Real Medtech now and I was a punk rock Promoter for 6 years until I was 22. So there!

still can out drink, smoke, bang, pop, crap, deal and eat the lot of ya!

sissys......

I'd be delighted if you would let the Joys of Entropy into your game, that and a wicked sense of style would be my contribution....

Let me know.

"you see if you touch here, nothing happens.  But if you kick this little corner of the fender just right (vehicle crumbles) Success!

I'd Love to play.

I;d be up to either a Medctech or a Techie type, but anything but a netrunner would be possible on my end (never too keen on the netrunning).

Email me some specifics and I'd love it if y'd have me.

THankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thumper!

you guys Rock, all I need is MORE CRAPOLA to throw at PC for items!!!

just need to find some lame-o's that still face to face game in Portland.  

Oh... the withdrawl is HELL...

good job guys!

Ugh! Phipps!  Brains!.... (taps Phips on the head- empty sound...)  BRAINS!!! BRRAINSSS! (wanders off to someone who doesn't live on the board....)

cyberpsychotic.... oh yeah... I think Marky will hit 2000 by the end of May, anyone wanna bet some good supplements on it, my selection is good and VERY rare....