SLA Industries - Sweating Bullets

Post by **Grimmie** » September 21st, 2009, 20:56

Complicated, let me know if anyone needs shooting.
How many are we splitting the video money by?

I'll attend the first day of Carrien hunting, but if it takes any longer than that I'll throw up my hands in despair and go and play some videogames instead.
Short attention span and all that.

The Shutting Downs

Dividing by; Dirk, Grim, Deej, Eraser, Cutter, Spindle and Feebs =7

so thats 67c each with 4c left over (I'd give those to Cutter for his amazing camera presence personally)

Post by **Grimmie** » September 21st, 2009, 21:21

And to cover his ammo bill..
So 367c each, very nice.

Won't be buying back my ammo this time, planning on saving up and using my stock up.
Now I have 77 10mm Std left, and I'm less one hotline bullet.
1298c + 367c = 1665c, I'm now at 9B.5

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » September 21st, 2009, 21:26

deject wrote:That could be fun. I need to get my loan and buy my fancy new armor though. I just need to borrow 2000c.

deject wrote:If the Carrien Hunt is not something like televised or anything then I'll pass. I'm not in need of any SCL boosts or 50c so I'll pass.

Bwuh?

Post by **deject** » September 21st, 2009, 21:27

I thought we implemented a straight up even share deal from the beginning, at least an even share between those involved.

Post by **Grimmie** » September 22nd, 2009, 11:04

Can you split 4c by 7 people? It's not really worth arguing over I think.

Dogpance, post mortem! Raaah!

Post by **Dog Pants** » September 22nd, 2009, 12:12

Patienceses. I'll do it once I'm home, between Sprog and COD.

In the meantime, to clarify what I said earlier, if there's anything anyone wants to do that might be a mini adventure then feel free to say so in the meantime and I can wing/write something.

Also, Dirk got one point of Formulae from the last BPN.

Post by **TezzRexx** » September 22nd, 2009, 12:25

Dog Pants wrote:Glad you liked it. This is more what SLA's about, the horror aspect. Unfortunately to get a decent impact from the horror stuff it has to be rare among the more mundane stuff. At least until you're a higher SCL.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy regular BPN's, it's just I really enjoyed this one due to fear of smiler and the difficulty of the case.

And Deject being stupid/shouting and your bastard move of "well, everyone thought you shouted, therefore...".

Very winsome.

Post by **Grimmie** » September 22nd, 2009, 12:39

Yeah, I think I would've been sort of disappointed if Deej' hadn't attracted a swarm of cannibals our way

Post by **deject** » September 22nd, 2009, 12:49

I totally did not mean to attract everyone's attention, I was just trying to get Smiler's/Havoc's attention. In retrospect, yelling out loud (which I did intend to do) was probably not the best idea. I was genuinely worried for a while there.

As for the remainder of the video footage money, I'm not bothered about who that goes to, whoever wants it can have it.

Post by **Dog Pants** » September 22nd, 2009, 13:50

Well you'll be pleased to hear there's plenty more where that came from. You're actually in the midst of several campaigns at the moment, all of which are horror-ish to some extent, and I've one in the pipeline which should outshine this BPN. Feel free to pull in the direction of stuff that suits you, as SLA can be tailored to many different campaign styles (horror, conspiracy, Cloak Division, Contract Killer, media, big guns). You can see your options branching out with your contacts in Haynes (route to higher things in SLA), Langley (route to Contract Circuit), Dour (route to horror investigation, Murdoch (route to conspiracy), and whoever else you fancy hassling for work. Haynes is just the default.

Post by **Dog Pants** » September 22nd, 2009, 14:27

Okay, early debrief since it's tea break.

The BPN was designed to be a bit of a walkthrough to see how well you responded to a more guided set of clues. You took that in typical 5punky style and went off on several tangents, but there's nothing wrong with that. You were a bit too reluctant to follow the obvious clue to go have a look at the Subterraneans, but again there's nothing wrong with being cautious, especially when I try to emphasise how dangerous wandering about in Lower Downtown is.

The encounter with Havoc was supposed to be kind of open ended for you to see what you could come up with, but I don't think you ever quite grasped what it was he was doing. The best solution would have been to chuck him down the pit, like Dour eventually did, and had you gone down there you'd have found a whole world of nastiness that would have given you a bit of an insight into the Subs. As it was, Havoc was left to die down there alone and was actually mercifully put out of his misery by Eraser's grenade. Had you not have come up with a decent solution, Dour had a very risky plan involving flooding tunnels and lures. Luckily it was the Hotline that did it. Useful things to have.

The combat with the Subs didn't quite go as expected. The speed at which you mowed them down was impressive - about 35 out of 62 dead in 6 seconds. I've never done a combat like that before, so it was interesting to see the auto/support rules in action. I think they need a little revision.

All in all, as the 5 XP reward should indicate, I think you did pretty well. I like both Dour and Havoc as NPCs, and you seemed to interact well with both of them.

Any feedback for me? I'm in a couple of minds what to do next, so your input might influence the direction I take.

Post by **Joose** » September 22nd, 2009, 15:22

Dog Pants wrote:Any feedback for me? I'm in a couple of minds what to do next, so your input might influence the direction I take.

Personally, I liked that one as it had a bit of everything: some investigation, some horror stuff, some shooting with big guns, a bit of intrigue, a bit of sneaking about and a bit of looking good on camera. Obviously, you cant always do that, but it did mean that everyone was involved at some point.

Post by **Grimmie** » September 22nd, 2009, 17:17

I think Grim's veering towards more action roles.

I seem to get the most enjoyment out of things like the BPN where we had to stop the armoured car (shitstorms)
Or the one where we had to evacuate the building of people before all hell was let loose (implied danger)
Or the one where we went to investigate the cult (mortal danger)
Or the one where we fucked the biker gang over (fucking shit up)

They were fun, but probably only because that's what my dude is suited to most.

Liked smiler, wish we could've seen him in action. Looking forward to hearing what he was, how he did it, and what for.
Dour was a welcome addition back to the game, with the lore you've filled us in with on Necanthropes, it was exciting just having him stand there in silence.

I think you got a nice balance of investigation, horror and action with this one though. It was best suited to the squad as a whole.

Post by **deject** » September 22nd, 2009, 17:55

I would love to see some of the conspiracy side of SLA. The BPN where the Thresher hit-and-run occurred in was pretty awesome. I know we're still probably a bit green to get too involved with the likes of Thresher and true Dark Night ops, but I hope that encounters with them are in our futures. I'd also like to have Murdoch in another BPN eventually. He was a cool NPC, and I've been a bit curious as to how he's gotten on after our last encounter.

That said, the horror bits are really good, so I won't mind if we go down that path for a bit.

deej also started out as a heavily action-oriented character, but I've been trying to round out his combat skills with skills that will make him a better scout. For example, I just spent my XP on getting the Navigation skill which this BPN showed how it can be a useful skill. I'll also be more sneaky and able to observe & report because of the gear I'm buying.

Post by **Grimmie** » September 24th, 2009, 15:15

Just re-read the entire BPN. Very slow day at work.

Lingering questions for me..
- What was up with the possessed writing, nobody else seemed to do it
- Why was the body of the girl's victim put in a bed?
- What has become of Murdoch, and can we find him?
- Why was there a 3 year gap in deaths?
- What was Dour's unfavourable plan in the walkways?
- "What if.." Deject didn't shout?
- How did Dirk's brain-conversation pan out?

Fun times, I like a BPN that makes me think hard, like this.

Post by **deject** » September 24th, 2009, 17:23

I think the three year gap might been the time it took for Havok to recover from when the other squad killed his previous host. That is my guess at least.

Post by **Dog Pants** » September 24th, 2009, 18:37

deject wrote:I think the three year gap might been the time it took for Havok to recover from when the other squad killed his previous host. That is my guess at least.

Yep, or at least the amount of time it took him to resurface and carry on where he left off.

The guy he was possessing at the beginning of the BPN was supposed to have been possessed for a lot longer, so he'd gone bonkers and taken on a lot of Havoc's personality. I may have made a mistake in dates though, but I think it was about 3 weeks.

The girl's vicim was the guy who was previously killed by Havoc. She actually got the better of him so Havoc transferred to her instead. Havoc may have let her kill his last host, I never quite decided. She put him in bed as a thank you for being such a nice home for so long, and also as a tribute to the movie the BPN was based on.

Murdoch is kicking around in Downtown. Asking around some old contacts might turn him up.

Dours plan was for the squad to lure him into some large overflow pipes and flood them. They'd have to be timed by squad members in the control room so that the 'bait' members could get out but leave Havoc washed out into the Cannibal Sectors, dead. A lot could have gone wrong, like mis-timing and drowning half the squad, or Havoc deciding to go after the guys in the control room. You really didn't want to be possessed by him.

If Deject didn't shout he'd have come over for a chat...

..In fact he did have a chat anyway, with Dirk. You'll have to ask him about that.

Post by **deject** » September 24th, 2009, 19:56

Actually, I do have a question about that feeling of rage/violence deej got after facing the serial killer. Is that just straight up bloodlust and what not caused by stress/taking damage?

Post by **Dog Pants** » September 24th, 2009, 19:58

Haha, no, that was Dour's Aura.