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Tarak Tales -- Round Two -- OOC Thread

Into The Unknown is the second Tarak adventure, this one being somewhat more involved, plot-wise, and rather more character-driven in some areas. Yes, we're starting with Cersei, and sticking with her for the first few exchanges, so that we can get her character arc rolling. When the time is appropriate, she will recruit the others. But here is where we can talk OOC about all this kind of stuff. As per usual.

Oh, right, I was gonna get into the habit of posting some standard opening material. Here goes:

Most of you know the deal, but I'll reiterate it, just to be certain. This game is taking place in the world of Tarak, the Tower City, and all of you are residents of the city. It's a huge metropolis, but it's all fairly tightly packed inside this big mesa.

Nearly everyone in the world is pretty much average; they may get skilled, they may have heroism in them, but they're basically just normal folks. Some few are born to be heroes, though, or villains. In Tarak, that includes you people. That's why you have a lot of extra attribute dice, to start with. Now, there aren't such things as professional adventurers in this world; if there were, you'd be some. But every community has people that can be called upon to help out with unusual situations. For Tarak, that small group includes you.

You're part of a small group of movers and shakers; basically, you're the adventurers of the city, so whenever there''s a big job that has to be done, the people in the know can call upon you and your friends. It's a big town, but the group of people qualified to handle unusual situations is generally quite small, so you all know each other and have a working relationship; most of the time you have full-on friendships. Not every member of this group is available every time something comes up, but there's enough folks around, a mission group can usually be rounded up for any given task.

In game terms, the fact that you are PCs gives you an automatic advantage, and in this sort of relatively insular community, that advantage has not gone unnoticed. You're already experienced at working together and at dealing with unusual situations, so that's why you start off with an extra 10D in starting skill dice from the usual, and have gear and such that you likely wouldn't otherwise possess, given your day jobs. Further, although I like to keep my groups pretty small online, there is room for people to drop in and out as the situation warrants (between adventures, at least, or during stopping points within adventures if we have to). New PCs are just members of the group that haven't been called upon yet, "on camera" so to speak, so existing PCs have an excuse to treat the newcomers as friendly and trusted. I don't know if we'll get far enough for that to matter, but if we do, the dynamic is already in place to account for it.

This is the second OOC thread, and the second adventure. We've already had something of a "shake down" in general, so it's only a matter of bringing the new people up to speed (and they can accelerate the process by looking through the first adventure on their own, as well as the first OOC thread).

I do want to reiterate my comment about actions here and now: you can tell from the Example of Play I posted that certain things I let pass with description, but major activities require die rolls, particularly when the time is short and the consequences are potentially grievous. One of the things we'll be working on is all of us getting used to what is what and how to handle it in the text-only format. It would be a lot easier to figure that in face-to-face tabletop play, but the tendency in text is to describe a long thing, all your actions, and that gets tricky when I'm not able to interrupt to ask for a die roll or something. But not EVERYTHING is going to call for dice; when there's no consequence to trying again, and there's no effective time limit, we can assume some things are just attempted until they succeed, if it's possible for them to succeed at all. This should have the net result of saving time.

Suffice to say, I imagine we ought to be prepared to edit ourselves, when necessary. I have learned that lesson myself in other RPs, and this should be no exception. We can work out things here or in PMs if there's a conflict, and then edit as need be.

Oh, and post length is: whatever's required for the moment. If it's action, for example, doesn't have to be long: describe what you're doing, and maybe the intent behind it, if you're planning something or setting something up. But I'd rather not deal with extraneous padding if we don't have to, that just slows things down.

Also: pick a color and font that's comparatively easy to read. :lol: That's just a request from a guy with old eyes.

Other than that, thread is now open. Have at thee.
 
Some notes on recruitment:

Cersei wasn't actually under a geas not to talk about the earlier encounter so much as she was asked not to for the good of the Guild, and that was good enough. This means that when Lucca is brought in, she can be brought up to speed. Out of character, she can just skim through the previous adventure, so we don't have to spend a lot of in-character time explaining it. Koh can't talk about what he saw directly, except in the vaguest of terms, but he's capable of talking about his own reactions and thoughts, so he can still contribute.

A lot of basic gear is being provided, such as horses or a raft (or both), camp materials, etc. Assume travel and residential materials are provided as needed, and you've got personal gear and clothing. We can mention making preparations, but in terms of character sheets, ordering mundane stuff, let's hand-wave it and assume all reasonable preparations are being made. Just mention specific things that are unusual.

I'll leave it up to Cersei how she's framing the mission, though; we players all know what she's been told, but it's up to her to choose what to tell her fellow characters.
 
This next question will kinda' shape how Kohdeki gets along with Lucca.

Is Lucca an assassin of sorts?
 
Oh, I can answer this one. And Koh would know, because they run in the same circles.

There's not enough business in Tarak to support a professional assassin. So she's more of a mercenary, hired to do violence of all sorts. Murder is on her menu of services, though, albeit she reserves the right to refuse service. Basically, I'm justifying her willingness to kill with the idea that she's picky as to who she takes out. If she feels they morally deserve it, she's got no problems with it. But she won't go willy nilly, just killing anyone she's paid to. She's got standards; it's up to the player how loose her standards are, but for the moment, I'm still counting her as on the side of the angels, albeit a bloody one.
 
Ah. okay. I guess if she has a standard by which she kills, Kohdeki wouldn't have too much of a problem with her; he might even commend her if he thought they deserved it, but he puts high value on life, due to his, y'know, 'past'. >.>
 
I'm just pleased I'm running a situation where I can say "no, you can't be an assassin" and actually have a good reason for it. ^^ Why does everyone want to be an assassin? You're supposed to be a good guy, after all, usually. It's not like there's not enough violence to go around on all sides...

I personally would sometimes enjoy going, like, "Well, he was a brewer's assistant, but he had to take up adventuring when his town decided to enact Prohibition, so he's basically just trying to make enough money to open up a distillery in the next province..."
 
I used to be one of those people that wanted to be able to one-shot everything with a dagger, but now, I just prefer trickery and style over everything else.

Also, a brewer as a PC? that sounds epic!
I did know of a character that was a fat dwarf that wore a chef's hat all the time and made excellent food.
 
I do admit, I do like to be effective as a character, and it's very useful if you're charging in directly to be able to say yes, this guy's a soldier, or yes, this girl's a pilot, or yes, this guy is a con artist.

But I also have a great deal of fun with characters who are not temperamentally suited to the role they're in. Like that brewer? Might be a really good adventurer. But it's not what he wants to do, and he doesn't necessarily think like an adventurer. I love that kind of character. Or the ones that kind of stumble into it accidentally. Those are fun.

If nothing else, you gotta give your character a hobby. Like that mage I had, I kept pouring XP into his Guitar skill. Always tried to find an excuse to use it. Goddamn GM.
 
You should've had a guitar battle with a god, or something.

I remember when I was playing a catboy assassin who was being pursued by his murderous amazoness ex-girlfriend.

This is in a Resis campaign, mind you.

Anyway, my character stumbled upon a break-dance-off between a group of zombies and a group of skeletons.

Let's just say THEY GOT SERVED. By me. And my group.
 
It's not a huge deal to Kohdeki. I would've added the fluff where he was spending most of his days at the Blue Boggan because he was mourning the fact that he no longer had a decent drinking partner, namely Cersei, but I didn't want to make two posts.

I wish I had a laptop now... TT__TT
 
I see.

Also, we're totally waiting on you!

No pressure though.
 
Lulu probably doesn't get called up on to many missions for the Council, out of the circle of talented friends; for official business, the friends in the Guard are more likely candidates. So she probably doesn't realize the Council does reward for service, even secret service. Koh would be able to tell her, if it comes up: in actuality, the payment is fair, but not as much profit as he would like.

Although it's secretive (which is why Lulu's a good choice), this is in fact a Council job, ultimately, so you'll all get paid for it, is the thought.
 
Do you want I should jump to your exit? Or do you want a last scene with Orino? I believe you're supposed to return to the Guildhouse; he's a busy man, after all, he can spare 10 minutes to meet with you, but not the half-hour/hour to go see you off (you're the one with the more open schedule).

I'm good with whatever; you guys can banter more or we can skip ahead. I'm good either way.
 
It would only take 10 minutes for what he would have to do. The only difference is it would be at the gate rather than the guildhouse. In fact, meeting at the gate would be better since 1: I already mentioned gate at least 5 times in my posts, and 2: it would be more prudent to meet away from the eyes of other guild member.
 
Well, actually, it's not the meeting that takes time, it's the traveling from the surface down the spiral and through the Warrens, a lot of walking through crowded passages. Also, he's a a high-ranking (top-ranked, actually) wizard going to the Farm Gate to give a mid-level criminal wizard and some shady characters some secretive materials, accompanied by a swarm of secretaries and important personages... There's no way his personal appearance would be in any way more efficient or secret.

But you did lock me in to meeting you at the gate. He'll send a representative.

So do you want to go through it, or just have me summarize what he tells you and have you out and about in the world?
 
*storms in and rages all over the place, mostly on the walls, floor, and ceilings... wait, just one ceiling*

about god'damn time i managed to get back on here!

damn higurashi and your awesome insanity...

btw, i'm back. :3 probably won't jump into the rp at all since i've probably missed so much stuff. OAO
 
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