Anybody in the circle can ask questions and you can still talk to the people outside the circle as well. Sorry about that not being clear.

FYI - Chapter 1 is being closed this afternoon - all members of the group gain 5 more exp. Chapter 2 will start soon.

... Chapter 2 is set to begin as soon as I hear back from Marion and Mia regarding the PMs I sent them...

Chapter 2 is up, enjoy!

Also I wanted to direct you toward THIS once more as you may find the ability quite useful moving forward (and indeed prior).

hey all, just wanna remind you folks to vote on the poll if you haven;t before tomorrow noon

Well since there was a tie among the votes Marion and Daphne will split the +2 exp bonus to +1 each ...

Actually, I forgot to vote, and I was gonna vote Daphne.

So she should get it. If I hadn't been a goof, she woulda.

Aww... that's ok! I voted for you, so I'm happy my 'candidate' won.

I gotta admit, I'm kinda embarrassed now my dream is out there. Ben didn't even put up a fight (then again, Ben didn't even know he was lucid dreaming. He didn't even know the dream would do anything outside the dream...)

Warning! Rules content below!

Doing Research

Any PC can do research so long as they can either read the languages in the books they are using or speak the language of the contacts they use. Research in it pure form uses the Investigation skill cross matched to intelligence. Bonuses will be applied for appropriate contacts, allies, skills (rating 3+), and the like. A roll will be made for each increment of time spent researching with a difficulty equal to the Cipher rating of the target person or information.

When a PC wants to research something please tell me (either via, PM, table talk post, or preferably an OOC note in your post). Tell me how long (in hours or days as appropriate) you will research the target and what, if any, special contacts you feel you can apply to the task and wish to do so with. Remember that contacts will want something in return and that allies will likely ask for a favor in return someday. Lastly players may spend an inspiration to add their Reflective Facet Score to the effort as automatic Successes.

Additional Researchers
Having people to run and get books, pre-read materials, and the like can often help significantly when researching. For each additional person you may add 1 Die to your pool, a further dice can be added if that person has Investigation 3+ and/or Intelligence 3+. You can benefit from a maximum number of research assistants equal to your Reflective Facet +1 (minimum 1 even if you have a Reflective score of 0)

I'll decide what the interval is and the Cipher rating and make the required rolls. Successes will be cumulative toward the total information gathered. Information will be sent to the player or players via PM (most of the time) or in a direct post.

I'm sorry for my absence the last two days. I had some rough RL-Issues which kept me from posting or even check the forums. I'm catching up with you folks tomorrow - sorry for the delay!

Postings been slow are you folks done with the scene?

I'm just biding time until research scene, honestly. I think I've done all I need in this scene.

Ditto.

Did Catori just ask for a spanking?

... on a side note, I need to know how much time you folks are putting into your searches. If you are going after more than one thing (like Janos and Mia appear to be) please tell me how you split the time. The more specific you are the more I can be.

Thanks

poke ...

I guess I'll forge ahead to the evening. Assume that for general knowledge on Rasputin you can pretty much learn anything appropriate from HERE

Beyond that I'm still not clear on what the others were planning to do so I'll try and wing it as appropriate, expect something no later than Friday

PMs going out shortly.

I had this as the breakdown:
- Mia, Arch, Janos - Rasptuin info
- Marion, Catori, Daphne - Heart of Darkness
- Ben - deciphering the box

Hey guys,

I'm trolling for feedback. Posting has been slow, and at this stage I've been looking for you folks to direct your PCs forward but that seems to have stalled out. I was wondering if there was something you were expecting from me that you didn't get or if this is merely a product of busy lives? I can't improve the game without your feedback so please don't feel shy.

I'll update to New York soon, if not today then Friday (I'm out tomorrow)

jameson

I'm good to go with you moving us forward to New York.

I'm good with New York too.

Part of the reason I've slowed down a little is mostly because with everyone in the one place, I haven't wanted to be constantly posting, and I've been trying to let everyone have their say before I start posting.

Also, to be honest, the last couple of scenes have basically been exposition, and once the information is out there, well, there's not a lot left for the scene to do, and the scene previous had a bunch of stuff which left this scene a little more subdued. I'm quite ready to head out to New York and go out and do stuff, personally.

ok then, I figured you all would be discussing more or creating a plan but that's fine.

open scene, if you want to skip straight away to the next day just tell me who is doing what and I'll update. Otherwise have fun with X-mas

All seems quiet. Perhaps a fast-forward would be a good idea?

Aye, looks like I need to, though I was really looking for the PCs to drive their investigation forward rather than waiting on me. I'll try and get something out next week, my time has been limited due to work being busy.

Doh! Sorry. I lost track of where we were for a bit there.

To sum up:

We're in New York, meaning to track down the local cult of Rasputin and seek answers about Rasputin, and what they know of the Heart of Darkness.

We also just got a letter (to Janos, possibly from his sister) warning us that the the cult was also seeking US out.

That's an accurate summation, I just need to know what you want to do and how you plan to go about doing it.

Failing that I'll advance the plot in someway ...

I should note that the letter is not signed, Janos was able to discern the writer (the purported writer) by the content alone ...

Does it have a return address?

my post about the note was accurate, I gave you guys all the
information that could be gleaned from the envelope and letter without a skill or power roll

As a note: My style of GMing games is to not hide the stuff that should be obvious. When a PC receives a letter the to, From, and similar would be something they would read. Don't take that to mean that your PCs will automatically note the license of every car they see and the like, just that things that should be readily seen/observed will be.

Also note: Part of how I run games does require a little more "self starting" on the part of the PCs than you all may be used to. Sometimes I'll drop obvious clues that will lead you to go to location X or do action Y but others (such as now) I take my cues from you folks and then mould my story to fit.

In the case of the story at the moment, I know you want to investigate the Grigori cult but I'm waiting for you to tell me HOW you are going to do that. If you feel that your PC would know how but you the player do not you might consider trying to use a skill to gain a hint. I.e. An Investigation success might cause me to give you a hint on how to find them ...

Taking roll call: Who is still around and planning to continue forward, please reply.

Arch is here and quite ready to beat up some baddies!

Well, the first part of how is that we came to New York.

Now we are discussing what to do next. So we'll let you know as soon as we've haggled that out.

At this point, having a couple of characters chronically missing is slowing that process.

I'm thinking that roll-calling now might unintentionally exclude them even if they do want to keep playing.

I'm not planning to punt anybody but I don't want to sit around waiting to hear from a PC who's player may be on a vacation or some other break

There's 7 of you, if at least 5 aren't ready to go right now I can take more time to figure out how to fix this ...

Okay, that's fair then.

Before you start fixing, lets be sure we agree on what the problem is though. Otherwise we might get that thing where you fix the wobbly table by sawing the other legs shorter...then the first leg is too long, so you cut it...

And so on.

I'll just remove all 4 legs then