Aberrant: War Journal - War Journal OOC

[Heritage]

Okay - this is very likely me just me being dim here, but I'm really unsure about what equipment Rex is meant to have with him. Did the whole big-ass gun thing ever get sorted out? Did he get an NBC suit, or was it decided that he didn't need one? What else would be standard-issue? How many condoms did he pack? These are things we need to know...

Rex carries one of those standard 30mm Cannons from the core book. At least that is what I understood. As for the rest, ask Heritage for that standard "Starter Pack" for Cobras. Everything else depends on Heritage. Refering to those NBC-Suits, Rex needs at least one of these Gas-Masks (and formate it to himself to have it fit over his nonstandard  human face ) . If I got it right he doesn´t need the suit, but ask heritage for to be sure.

Yeah, as I recall, you decided Rex was better of with the 30mm cannon - lighter, easier to aim, and does nice damage. Grizz and CD sent me lots of variant designs on the Bulldog/UMG, which I put up in this thread ages ago, but I think you still liked the cannon best.

I can resend you the standard Cobra gear list, and you can decide how much of that you want to bring with you. With your Armor, you should be fine as long as you get cleaned up by Decon before you eat or drink anything, but the gas mask is still a good idea unless Rex has Adaptation and/or Mega-Stam of say 3 or higher (don't have your sheets on this PC ::angry) Decon can reconfigure the gas mask to fit your face in a jiffy, so no worries there.

And I always just assume that Rex has condoms with him, though bumping uglies in a radioactive hellhole might not be such a good idea... ::sly

[ProfPotts]

... though bumping uglies in a radioactive hellhole might not be such a good idea... 

Isn't that where baby aberrants come from? ::devil ::squid

As for the rest - fine & dandy: big machinegun & a gas mask it is. ::m60

[Heritage]

I just want to apologize for more or less dissappearing of the face of the Earth recently, especially in WJ - I've been insanely busy recently working two jobs, and I can't seem to get the time to sit down and work on the sizable post that is required for the next phase of both missions... ::sad

Or maybe I'm making this too hard for myself - would a short, succinct post or two get things back on track? Maybe I can restart things without doing lots of extraneous detail work ::tongue I might be able to come up with something in the next day or two - cross your fingers!

[Bahamut810]

Just whatever works. I would apologise for RL getting in the way of gaming (hereforth known as the 'important stuff') but we seem to do that a lot here, so I wont.

Just do what you can when you can, its all you can do.

[Grizzly]

Hello anybody out here? ::sleeping ::sleeping ::devilangel

As for the formations and such, I hope everybody has understood it. I tried to make those orders sounding like standard military orders. If there are questions, please ask. And before you ask, the "pigman" is the nickname for the man with the heavy weapons in a team. ::tongue ::biggrin

BTW if Griffin wouldn´t be the designated leader of this team he would have taken the point himself, because he could do the job and know the turf. ::smokin ´

[Alex Green]

Who are we waiting on? I suspect everyone walked through the gates.

[Bahamut810]

Except Damien ::wink

But I do believe we are waiting on our esteemed ST

[Grizzly]

Who are we waiting on? I suspect everyone walked through the gates

For Heritage! ::devilangel ::devilangel

[Heritage]

Okay, this is a continuation of something I started over in the NG OOC thread, so here we go:

1. I'm going to end New Guardians, practically before it started. I hate doing this, but the campaign world is still extremely rough and needs several more months of development before you guys can get to the 'good stuff', and I have more time and creative energy commitments on the horizon than I can sanely deal with right now.

2. I'm planning on splitting War Journal into two linked games, much like QZ and QZ:E, with characters being able to crossover between them, as well as adding a third game to the WJ 'imprint'. I'm having a hard time keeping the two missions straight, and it occurred to me that starting two separate threads would be a possible solution with interesting opportunities:

A. A stealth game, focused on infiltration, subversion and intrigue, much wider in scope than the local action we're seeing now.

B. A combat game, focused on direct engagements with the enemy throughout the world of War Journal.

C. An exploration game, focused on exploring a heretofore unseen part of Green operations - interdimensional travel. Yup, you read right, this is going on as we speak! I was planning on springing this on you guys a few years down the line (taking into consideration our posting rate ::biggrin), but I think it might offer opportunities for people who are less interested in other parts of the WJ setting.

3. As I wrote in NG OOC, I'm offering first dibs on expansion slots to folks left in the lurch by ending that campaign, people who put a lot of work into characters that I just made homeless by pulling the plug. Folks who already have characters in WJ can, if they choose, submit characters for the other two games if they plan on being true WJ compleatists ::tongue and if slots are available, but they have the same shot as folks who have no characters in either WJ or NG at this time. This is also a way for any current players who are for any reason unhappy with their PC's lot to try something new.

4. The two missions currently running will run in parallel, one per thread, until they finish, after which new characters will be added. No one has to stay locked in a thread - if Rex is feeling stealthy, he can ask to go on a stealth mission, jump threads and do so. I only ask that no one jump threads in the middle of a mission, leaving the rest of his buddies in the lurch just because the other team's mission 'looks cooler.'

5. The exploration game will take a few weeks of prep, but the ground work is all there - I'll need to make a few NPCs and finish a map or two, but this was always meant to be part of this campaign, so I'm not gonna flake on you and cancel it.

6. Dunno how many slots we're talking - the trans-dimensional game would start with my usual six, I suppose, but I'm not sure how to swing it with the two 'existing' threads - let's hear from you!

I know this all seems rather drastic, but it occurred to me in the shower (where I do my best thinking ::wink) that this is the best way that I can think of to insure the viability of the War Journal setting for years to come. If you think this is really stupid, please feel free to let me know, and we'll all discuss it and make the best possible game(s) between us.

Thank you, and good night.

p.s. Any suggestions for new thread sub-headings?

[Bahamut810]

Thats kool. I like the idea of an interdimentional game. I may move damien to there (considering his powers, im sure he would at least be asked).

But that would mean that the combat game would be one down...Hmmm...I may try to make another character for that then...

I love the WJ setting, but I dont need to be in all three games ::laugh ::wink

[ConcreteDragon]

I'm easy--

tell me where you need me (in terms of slots), and I'll make one up ::bigsmile ::biggrin

BTW-congrats on "Second City Theater" ::thumbsup

[Asbjørn]

I haven't been a regular WJ reader, so am not completely up to speed since the PCs all tried to kill each other early on. Could you possibly list what kind of characters you already have in these games (attitudes, themes, so on), and maybe a little more about the exploration storyline? Interdimensional exploration sounds cool, but doesn't really say much...

[Heritage]

Interdimensional exploration sounds cool, but doesn't really say much...

Okay, as much as I like playing my cards a little close to my chest, it's only right that I give a little background on this new concept.

War Journal: Trans-D (or whatever I call it ::tongue) will focus on the Greens attempt to find a new cohabitationist 'homeworld' where novas and humans can co-exist. There is a secret base in Washington State where they have begun to tentatively explore alternate Earths where history has gone a little differently. Technically it's Crosstime Travel, but they're not going to Earths where the Roman Empire never fell and people are still in togas - these Alt-Earths are all in the same timeframe (2056 AD/CE) but the Trinty timeline went down radically different paths.

Vague enough for you? ::sly And I will post more stuff about all three concepts soon! And the missions will both continue to play out as we discuss all this.

[Grizzly]

OK! I am in, just not sure about which one. ::devilangel ::thumbsup

[ProfPotts]

I'm always interested in new games, although I don't have any ideas for characters leaping out at me just yet.

Of course, having said that, I've immediately come up with a character-creation related question: can characters from the 'cross-D' game be native to a different dimension than the War Journal one? You know - guys that the War Journal-based characters encounter along the way who join them or something?

Generally speaking, from my point of view, I don't, at the moment, see the need to split the 'combat' & 'stealth' games into two: both 'teams' are based at the same location, & both are meant to be interchangable - i.e. they're all part of the same unit. You mention that characters can 'jump threads', but it would seem to me that pre-defining each thread as either a 'combat' or a 'stealth' mission somehow limits the options for both you, as ST, & the characters.

Of course my POV is limited - only you know what you're planning for the future of the games - but by splitting the missions into two threads you're gonna' (potentially) double the number of characters available to the unit as a whole. Unless you're willing to enforce limits with a mighty ST hand, or are planning on changing the actual established set-up of the in-game unit, there's likely to be a time when the PCs don't choose to be neatly split into two equally balanced mission-teams. I.e. you could end up with twelve characters heading off on one mission, & none on the other. Even if things never get that extreme some imbalance is gonna' happen. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it can be somewhat of a headache to run - in my limited experience. You're also allowing the PCs as a whole access to a much larger pool of Nova resources - double the number of characters &, potentially, double the number & variety of quantum powers. That means there's gonna' be a lot fewer situations which the PCs can't handle easily by simple application of the relevant power - which, again, makes the job of the ST in finding challanging, but fair, scenarios that much harder.

Having said all that there's no limit (as far as I'm aware) on the number of threads we can have running at once - so no reason to not run seperate missions in seperate threads. I'm just highlighting potential issues that allowing an extra six characters into the game may bring up (which, I realise, is a touch ironic coming from a guy who, until recently, couldn't bring himself to say 'no' to any requests to join a game... ::tongue ).

The trans-D game sound cool (in fact I've got a few ideas along that path myself which may well crop-up in the QZ world... ::devil ). For other War Journal spin-offs I'd actually be very interested in either an all-baseline game (real 'grunts' in a world of godlike-warfare), a game from the point of view of one of the other factions (play the guys fighting against the 'evil' Greens), or some sort of combination of the two. For example: playing the guys who's friends & family were slaughtered in the gimp's 'ambush' would be a great way to bring a few home truths about war into the game ::sly .

[ezekiel]

::smiley4

But my sanity thanks the one less game...I still feel bad about not posting in IPWeT for so long ('course my being compless didn't help) I'm sure your sanity does too, I definitely understand.

Generally speaking, from my point of view, I don't, at the moment, see the need to split the 'combat' & 'stealth' games into two: both 'teams' are based at the same location, & both are meant to be interchangable - i.e. they're all part of the same unit. You mention that characters can 'jump threads', but it would seem to me that pre-defining each thread as either a 'combat' or a 'stealth' mission somehow limits the options for both you, as ST, & the characters.

Ditto

The trans-D game sound cool (in fact I've got a few ideas along that path myself which may well crop-up in the QZ world...  ).

::tongue

I can definitely see Terry being whisked away to some Egyptianish world after finding some odd Pyramid in the middle of nowhere... ::wink

[Heritage]

Many good points are being brought up here, including the realization that splitting the current group in two might not be the best idea ::rolleyes I was starting to think that, too; Trans-D is a go fer sure, but here's some other ideas:

1. A new group somewhere else in 'Greenland', like up in Colville.

2. Workin' for the Man, aka the DAD (Directive, American Division), baselines with pumped-up tech.

3. Project Pandora, psychomorphs working in secret to handle rogue Aberrants more discretely, using the Trinity rules option from APG.

4. Evil, hate-filled Blues - yee-ha!

5. As Potts suggested, signing up with the Army

6. Fun on the moon/space with the Space Brigade and/or Daedalus

7. Making snowmen down in Antacrtica with them weird guys.

8. Two words: European vacation!

Now some of these would take, like, a while to work up, but I am a fairly flexible guy. So whatcu think?

[ProfPotts]

My thoughts would be that it's best to set-up one game at a time. After all, the set-up tends to (again in my limited experience) be the most effort-intensive part of the process: if nothing else, just think of all the PMs you'll be getting about characters, then all the replies, then all the replies to your replies, etc., etc... ::rolleyes

BTW - any thoughts on that 'characters from other dimensions' question? Could make for some interesting backgrounds... ::halo

[Asbjørn]

War Journal: Trans-D (or whatever I call it ::tongue) will focus on the Greens attempt to find a new cohabitationist 'homeworld' where novas and humans can co-exist. There is a secret base in Washington State where they have begun to tentatively explore alternate Earths where history has gone a little differently. Technically it's Crosstime Travel, but they're not going to Earths where the Roman Empire never fell and people are still in togas - these Alt-Earths are all in the same timeframe (2056 AD/CE) but the Trinty timeline went down radically different paths.

Sounds like Stargate... ::wink

Vague enough for you? ::sly And I will post more stuff about all three concepts soon! And the missions will both continue to play out as we discuss all this.

Sounds like there's a few Player's Guide powers I don't know about. 'Crosstime travel?' ::confused

Is there a short-version list of powers and skills somewhere? Feel like I'd be going into an exam without knowing the required reading...

[Bahamut810]

Cross-time travel boils down to that you can travel to another dimention with a general thing changed (the more succeses you have the more details you can change).

Ill PM a bit more about it to make sure this isent too vague

[ezekiel]

BTW - any thoughts on that 'characters from other dimensions' question? Could make for some interesting backgrounds...

Yeah, I liked that question too.. ::smile

Not that I'm thinking of making another character. Why not just let those from the Trinity game join WJ and leave it at that? Let the game evolve on its own. The way I see it your creating another game would just suck as much time as you're trying to free up...or does it being set in the WJ world really make things that much easier for you?

[Asbjørn]

BTW - any thoughts on that 'characters from other dimensions' question? Could make for some interesting backgrounds...

Yeah, I liked that question too.. ::smile ?

Likewise. And I am thinking of making a character. I think I'm going to steal that idea... ::sly

[Bahamut810]

Im going to stick to the combat camp, and (if I can) get in the Trans-d game. (I call dibbs, dernet! DIBBS!!)

Once we get a bit more along, I will PM you about everything Heritage. Or I can start now to get stuff out of the way if you want ::biggrin ::sly ::wink

Whichever

[ezekiel]

Do you think there's a dimension where all novas are toons? ::wink

[Bahamut810]

Now *that* would be great. Mabey Ernold can mess with the controls for a few minutes and we can see...

[Heritage]

At this point the concept from Trans-D is that the Greens have a nova (possibly the only nova, but who knows?) who has the Crosstime Travel power, and the Engineers deep below WS Bravo have successfully duplicated it with Wacky-Tech™. At this point. six alternate Earths have been discovered (AE1 through AE6), but only a few have been physically explored, some with just probe droids. On some of the worlds, quantum powers don't seem to work, or are greatly reduced. One is a taint-ridden hellhole with insanely mutated plants and animals, and no apparent human life. One is a world more or less run by Project Utopia as a utopia/dystopia, depending on who you ask. AE6 is considered the most promising at this point, though certain major challenges still remain... ::devil

As far as playing folks from one of the AEs, it really hadn't occured to me, but I guess we could.....major rethinking would be required, though. Hmmmmm...

Sounds like Stargate.. ::wink

Actually there's a role-playing game that came out in 1982 that sounds suspiciously like Stargate: Fringeworthy. Humans discover alien relics in the shape of portal rings, use them do explore other worlds, yadda yadda yadda. The game's creator thinks they might have stollen ideas somehow, but I don't know if he ever tried anything legal - it might be a coincidence. (shrug)

Anywho, I always wanted to play Fringeworthy (I own it), but the rules suck and figured everyone would say, "Hey, Stargate!" So this was my little plan to sort of run Fringeworthy in the Trinityverse. I'm not using the 'one in 100, 000' concept, but I love the feel of the setting, and I'm going to try to lift that somehow.

BTW, Toonworld? Very scary thought! ::crazy

Not that I'm thinking of making another character. Why not just let those from the Trinity game join WJ and leave it at that? Let the game evolve on its own.

I think we won't be splitting up the original game, but I don't want to just add more folks into it either, since I find keeping track of everything and everyone difficult now ::tongue

The way I see it your creating another game would just suck as much time as you're trying to free up...or does it being set in the WJ world really make things that much easier for you?

The main thing is that the social construction of WJ is already finished and humming along nicely, and much of this background stuff already exisits; I have folders in my computer marked 'Project Pandora' and 'Cold Earth' (AE6) that have lots of stuff in them that I was wondering when I'd get to, if ever, and now we might be able to explore these other areas.

Any thoughts on some of my other game ideas listed above?

[ConcreteDragon]

I like ::biggrin the "Fringeworthy" idea..

but if a player from the other WJ wants to trade-out, I might be willing to make a ::devilangel deal ::wink

[Bahamut810]

It would be hard for Fringeworthy to steal from stargate if it was made in '82. Stargate came out in '94. There was an atari game before that called stargate, but there wasent any plot to it that I know of.

Stargate, though, probably did steal from Fringeworthy.

On another note...

On some of the worlds, quantum powers don't seem to work, or are greatly reduced.

How does the Adaptability enhancement fit into this? ::sly

[Heritage]

Stargate, though, probably did steal from Fringeworthy.

Um, that's what I meant. "Me am Bizarro!" ::tongue

(i.e. bad grammar is my middle name, not 'Charles', as is popularly believed)

[Heritage]

A couple of quick questions for all of us relating to the two ongoing missions:

Recon

So what are we doing here again? Everyone but Mike's dormed down, he's gonna warp somewhere within range of the Aberrant Detection Electronics (ADE) as a distraction so Epstein, Emma and Ernold (the three Es) can go into Rimrock for a closer look, right? Or is that after one of the telepaths scans a passing patrol for passwords and such?

Badlands

The plan is to track the first team, right? So who's using tracking-type skills, or should we assume we're all doing them? ::smile

I'm gonna start a new thread for discussing War Journal Expansion Teams, to keep this thread clear for discussing the 'classic game' ::wink

[tooho]

Recon Plans

As far as I understand it, we were planning to go in, leave the immediate area of the warp to avoid an actual fight, but stay in the area 'in the shadow' to catch a patrol. After we get the codes and an idea of the security layout from a guard, we would fully dorm down, and the three E's would head in to intrude on the base as quietly as possible to catch on to troop movements and enemy intelligence. If a quiet escape isn't possible, or we don't make it back by a certain time, Mike would cause a taint light show on their sensors with warps and get us out of there hopefully after we had exited the base so they wouldn't know we had a chance to make our foray into their base.

If we fail, that leaves Jennings to make another attempt. ::cool Either way, the point is to avoid all confrontation if possible.

[Grizzly]

The Badlands

As far as I remember we go over to the place where the other patrol got lost and start searching for any kind of tracks and follow them. Because of the size of that area everybody should take a look for tracks. On the other hand, I think that Mike and Griffin have some good tracking abilities (M-Perc. etc)

[Alex Green]

Mike doesn't have Mega-Perception (or any mega-stats for that matter). What with his powers I didn't have the points. He does have very good stats and appropriate skills (Survival, Navigation, Aware, etc), but they are all high baseline.

[Grizzly]

Better than nothing. If Griffin wouldn´t be the leader on this tour, he would have taken the point. But in the Badlands every eye more is positive though.

[ezekiel]

As far as I understand it, we were planning to go in, leave the immediate area of the warp to avoid an actual fight, but stay in the area 'in the shadow' to catch a patrol. After we get the codes and an idea of the security layout from a guard, we would fully dorm down, and the three E's would head in to intrude on the base as quietly as possible to catch on to troop movements and enemy intelligence. If a quiet escape isn't possible, or we don't make it back by a certain time, Mike would cause a taint light show on their sensors with warps and get us out of there hopefully after we had exited the base so they wouldn't know we had a chance to make our foray into their base.

Did anyone take a Path radio or are we relying on Emma to contact Mike if something happens?

[Bahamut810]

oh, oh! I have a path radio!! Wait...im not there...

[Alex Green]

Mike doesn't have Mega-Perception (or any mega-stats for that matter).  What with his powers I didn't have the points.  He does have very good stats and appropriate skills (Survival, Navigation, Aware, etc), but they are all high baseline.

I misspoke. I meant Mike doesn't have any REAL megas. His Mega-Appearence is unlikely to help us track them.

[ProfPotts]

Just turn on the ol' Mega-Appearance & have them all come to you... ::biggrin

[Grizzly]

Lol! ::laugh ::laugh ::laugh ::laugh ::thumbsup

[ProfPotts]

The plan is to track the first team, right? So who's using tracking-type skills, or should we assume we're all doing them?

Just in case anyone's waiting for me on this one: Rex is (as per post) keeping an eye out at the back of the group. He's not really in a position to be tracking anything, as such, but he's keeping his eyes & ears open in any case (watching the team's back) - so I presume he'd report anything unusual he spots.