Interface Zero: Upgrade in Progress

[God45]

My problem is this. I wouldn`t have any problem with playing a campaign where we live in the gutter, and can be killed on a whim and we slit the throats of little old ladies to steal their jewellery and every decision is supposed to be tactical. That was how we played in the Savage marches campaign.

But this time we made deep and developed characters so when every single decision in this game is tactical and about the money that feels wrong. Not being able to make money feels stupid, then why are our deep and developed characters doing this stuff? Sure, Spellbutcher was a murder-hobo and would do it. But Paladin wouldn`t.

There is no roleplaying, there is only doing math. And when that becomes the whole game it is not fun to lose in the math.

I don`t care about the system. Like at all really. I just want us to do cool stuff and being poor is cool if it is done cinematically. But we are not doing it that way. We do very detailed math about our health insurances! We are not doing character development, we are not being cool and we are not letting the system blend into the background! The rules are becoming the game. We can`t have a cool shoot out because ammo is to expensive. We can`t have a cool scene at a street docs office because it is not economically the smartest thing to do. And if our characters really cared about the money we would be slitting throats and stealing jewellery by now and I don`t want to play that.

So I think that either we can stop worrying about the small stuff or we can get some actual money from doing missions.

[bladerunner_35]

Everything depends on your point of view I guess.

I understand where you're coming from and if the level of grit in the campaign is draining your fun we need to have a serious talk about it.

As far as I see it none of us is a mercenary. We might have a lot of competence in various fields but we have yet to make a name for ourselves. The fact that we're not making any money is because no one is willing to pay a complete stranger a lot of money to do a job they have no idea if the stranger is capable of doing. At least that's a very workable in-game "answer" to our current situation. Now, if that's not what you signed on to do then again, we have a problem. Personally I very much feel that the campaign has yet to find it's feet and that there's a lot of curve balls and things happening on the side line that may or may not add to the campaign.

When we decided to not go with a stronger theme of the campaign I figured that the theme would losely be "a mercenary group that slowly builds rep and then becomes involved in world scale events". At least roughly.

I decided to give it a few more sessions before talking about it but maybe we need to re-evaluate the campaign and if need be fine tune it?

Edit: I made this post while you posted your last post God45. I have to pick up my kids now so don't have time to read your last post and edit this one. I'll read it later tonight.

[God45]

My second post mostly just clarified my first one. I think the best thing is to talk about this at the next session. The forum is great for some things but not for in-depth discussions

[nDervish]

With all due respect Dave, I think this may have more to do with your own playstyle or the playstyle you are used to from groups in your past.

Fair point. If I look at it and I see "there is an obvious optimal course of action", then I do automatically presume that everyone will pursue that optimal course and conclude as a result that there is no meaningful choice involved.

How about we try for the easier and more streamlined option first and then go to safe measures if they are actually needed?

Can you describe "the easier and more streamlined option" in more detail? You did sketch out the beginnings of a list regarding ammo based on lifestyle in one of your earlier posts this morning, but it only touched on three of the six lifestyle levels (Destitute/Poor/Modest/Moderately Well-Off/Wealthy/Filthy Rich).

Again, with respect Dave. I don't think we're all that interested in the formulas. It will be more than fine if you just state "this costs this much". If there's an argument sure, discuss it and break it down but in general I trust you to come up with something balanced.

I appreciate your trust in that area, but I know that, when I see the numbers that result, I usually need to go back and work through a couple of examples to prove to myself that they're not ridiculously overpriced. I would tend to expect others to share that same initial reaction.

If we have become successful enough to all afford a Wealthy life style we've earned the right to not have to worry about ammo.

The real choice will still be about which gear - weapons, ammo and armour to bring to each mission.

I honestly don't think that my issue is with whether you've "earned the right to not have to worry about ammo". If you can afford a Wealthy lifestyle, then I fully expect that you'd be able to also afford as much ammo of whatever type you choose.

But there's that word again. "Choose".

With replenishing tokens, if you want to go out with 10 tokens of Dual Core ammo, you have to make a choice and expend some resources to make those 10 tokens of DC available. With "Wealthy gives you any ammo you want", it's just there for you to take or not take without you needing to do anything to make that happen.

With replenishing tokens, there's a point where you can afford to buy and maintain either 9 tokens of standard ammo, 6 tokens of AP ammo, or 3 tokens of DC ammo, so which one do you choose to use? With "ammo as part of standard lifestyle", you just use standard ammo when you have a Modest lifestyle or below, AP when you're Moderately Well-Off, and DC when you get to Wealthy with no choice in the matter because the upper limit of how expensive your free ammo can be is fixed by your lifestyle.

With replenishing tokens, you can be Poor, living in a second-hand squat and eating reprocessed soy paste so you can afford to dump all your money into maintaining a stash of high-quality ammo without needing to track every round/token consumed. With "ammo by lifestyle", you can't have a replenishing supply of quality ammo without also living in a classy flat and driving a nice car.

I'm not trying to argue that making ammo a part of your basic lifestyle expenses would break the game. I agree with you that it wouldn't (and, if it did, I could just rebalance things by throwing in more/better-armed/better-armored bad guys to compensate). But I also believe that rolling it into basic lifestyle takes away a number of valid choices.

But it makes no sense to go on adventures! I will make more money from doing my day job than from risking getting shot. And even if everything goes right, I am losing money from every mission! It is not fun, it don`t makes us feel like mercenary's, it makes us feel like... I don`t know? We have no reason to do what we do.

You know what's even worse? I'm already multiplying the values from the IZ1 base payouts by 5... The table says, for example, 1,000-1,500 Cr for a Novice-level Kidnapping job. That's the highest-paying entry under Novice. And the surrounding text suggests that it should be 1,000-1,500 total for the entire team, not per-person.

I really have no idea what they had in mind when they chose those values.

The section immediately before it covers in some detail why you don't want to pay the PCs too much and how they're crazy if they think a bunch of n00bs that nobody's heard of before rates 150k each for "snatching some slag from a tyrannical megacorp", but there's a lot of middle ground between "150k for one night's work" and "you'll make more at your day job and lose money on the average run".

I am not asking for an overthrow of the entire camping. I am not asking for all the cool new stuff or even better equipment. I am asking for a chance to actually earn money from missions. To be a little cinematic with ´healing between sessions and not having to balance my characters cheek book! I do not want my character to take a loan. It is not fun.

Can you be more specific about what you want to see (e.g., "get paid X times as much")? That would give us a starting point for seeing who agrees or disagrees with you and discussing what everyone wants in more detail than we did previously.

Personally, I prefer things on the grittier end, where you need to build a name for yourself before you start pulling down serious money, getting shot up hurts (either in hospital bills, lasting injuries, or both), and you hope to all that's holy that your augments don't get fried. I can deal with "cinematic", but I question its staying power when it becomes purely episodic, with the effects of one session not carrying over to the next (e.g., all wounds magically disappear before the next game).

Oh, and on a totally separate point. How do we deal with new characters coming in after an old one have died? We keep our xp and gain new money right?

At this point, I lean towards doing like the SWD core book says: "When a character dies, his new hero begins play with one less Advance than his last." Aside from that, yeah, create them as a new character normally.

Another alternative would be to only apply that rule if your character has a dub and you choose to restore the backup into a new body; if you don't have a dub, start a new character at half the previous XP or at 0 XP. On the one hand, that seems a bit harsh, especially when all it takes is one exploding damage roll and you're ghosted even if you didn't make any mistakes. On the other, it seems like the worst part of being low-XP in the IZ setting is that you don't get paid shit for missions, but, if other players have Seasoned or higher characters, your Novice character would be able to go on the higher-level jobs with them and immediately get the bigger payouts that way.

If anyone wants to go back to 0 XP on character death, we can talk about it and see what the group wants to do. Otherwise, I'm assuming we'll do "lose one Advance".

I understand where you're coming from and if the level of grit in the campaign is draining your fun we need to have a serious talk about it.
...
I decided to give it a few more sessions before talking about it but maybe we need to re-evaluate the campaign and if need be fine tune it?

I think the best thing is to talk about this at the next session. The forum is great for some things but not for in-depth discussions

Agreed and agreed, although I hate that we've arrived here at a time when I won't be able to meet with anyone for another week and it'll probably be a week and a half (Monday the 14th) before it will be possible to get everyone together.

[God45]

Can you be more specific about what you want to see (e.g., "get paid X times as much")? That would give us a starting point for seeing who agrees or disagrees with you and discussing what everyone wants in more detail than we did previously.

To have a modest life style and an ok health insurance costs 3.400 a month. I will every mission spend somewhere around 1.000 credits on stuff and medical bills (this is on an average estimate with the drugs and the medical bills). We will probably have time to do two missions per month (maybe more or less depending on injuries and such).

I would like those costs covered by the mission pay outs. So if we could get payed around 2.200 per person per mission that would be great

Normally I would be fine with more "dirty" jobs paying more but I can`t participate in them with this character so that wouldn`t help me.

Personally, I prefer things on the grittier end, where you need to build a name for yourself before you start pulling down serious money, getting shot up hurts (either in hospital bills, lasting injuries, or both), and you hope to all that's holy that your augments don't get fried. I can deal with "cinematic", but I question its staying power when it becomes purely episodic, with the effects of one session not carrying over to the next (e.g., all wounds magically disappear before the next game).

I just hate dealing with injuries over time... But I am more flexible on this. Although I would rather lose a hand or my eyes and have a big problem now but be able to fix it pretty easy between missions (the future is great! ) Than having a -1 to everything for more than one session.

But this is not at all as important to me as the money thing.

[God45]

I took a look at the Selected Job Listings and all those pay checks looks good if they are per person and not for the entire group.

[Willard]

Wow, what an afternoon

I think a lot of the perceived complexity is because Dave (a computer guy) and I (an engineering student) are discussing the formulas that will lie behind the simple solutions that will be brought to the table. The fact that we're discussing insurance premiums and ways to pay for ammo doesn't have anything to do with the role-play or setting. It's just rules, and the forum IS a far better medium for that kind of discussion than a face to face conversation.

Dave, about the ammo you're right. As I posted I sort of wanted to say that I hadn't done the math, but then there was a lecture and I didn't have time to either edit or actually do it. Over time you're absolutely right and it's a great deal I'm willing to take.

I agree with Björn, however, that these things probably aren't going to be a problem even if there are gaping loop holes. So what if ammo is free and you and carry a ton of it, what are you going to do with it? The same with the encumbrance system, who cares if you bring 5000 grenades in your belt? You won't be able to throw them all, and unless we start building towers with our infinite supplies of ammo it won't make a difference. And this isn't the kind of group that would do that. In my previous group, some 5-10 years ago I might have, but this isn't that sort of crew or game. We're all making a conscious effort to be reasonable and not go over board. That said I don't mind at all if you add that and other costs on top of the costs of life.

But this time we made deep and developed characters so when every single decision in this game is tactical and about the money that feels wrong. Not being able to make money feels stupid, then why are our deep and developed characters doing this stuff? Sure, Spellbutcher was a murder-hobo and would do it. But Paladin wouldn`t.

This is going to sound cliché coming from the arrogant and filthy rich character, but it really isn't about the money. We all have day jobs to pay the bills, and these missions average once a week (or slightly less since we all miss the occasional session). Not everything is about money. Heck, most things aren't.

We all have developed characters with at least three driving motivators each, and almost none of those are money (Almighty and Mal maybe, but still). None of the decisions so far has been about money. We had a helpless woman worth 29k in custody and decided to help her for just 4k.

Björn has a good point about no one trusting us with a lot of money yet, they have no in game reasons to trust us at all as of yet. And even if they did/when they do, what do you want the money for? What do you want to buy that's so much cooler? The game won't be more serious, more fun, or more meaningful because we shoot our enemies with beam weapons instead of assault rifles. That stuff doesn't matter.

We all go on adventures for different reasons. Almighty wants to grow as a person (neatly represented by XP), Ryder wants to stick it to the man (or whatever ), etc. To have fun, become better persons, and to make a world we like a little more.

I like the added pressure that getting wounded will either be expensive (to heal up at a good hospital) or force us to miss missions/money or fight wounded.

I agree with this, and the point that going into debt could be narratively meaningful. And so what if you have a -1 or -2 to your rolls? Roleplay it and try to stay out of combat. It's not the end of the world, and Dave won't go out of his way to wipe us just for laughs.

[Willard]

About the insurance: no one has to buy it. It certainly wasn't there before and the addition of it doesn't make your previous situation any worse.

That said, the most basic one for 100 credits/month is probably a good deal that everyone can afford. Even if doesn't come with an armored VTOL medevac.

[nDervish]

To have a modest life style and an ok health insurance costs 3.400 a month. I will every mission spend somewhere around 1.000 credits on stuff and medical bills (this is on an average estimate with the drugs and the medical bills). We will probably have time to do two missions per month (maybe more or less depending on injuries and such).

I would like those costs covered by the mission pay outs. So if we could get payed around 2.200 per person per mission that would be great

CW and I were talking earlier about spacing missions out at an average of about one per week, so that's around four missions per month rather than two.

Also, when adding this up, I think it's fair to leave base lifestyle cost out of it, since you'd be paying that whether you take any missions or not and it should generally be covered by your escort work (you should average just over 2700/month escort income). So I'll leave that out initially, but also work out a figure which includes it later.

So you've got fixed expenses of 1100/month which are mission-related (1000 for insurance + 100 for a Category 3 weapons permit). Divided by 4 missions/month, that's 275/mission for those expenses. Adding in your estimate of 1000/mission in expendables (ammo, drugs, etc.), we get an estimated cost of 1275/mission. Based on that, how would you feel about an average of 1000-1250 per person per mission? That would still be operating at a small loss, but I figure it should be bearable, since you're building up the rep to take on bigger jobs in the future.

If we include Modest Lifestyle in your fixed expenses, then that adds another 625/mission (again, assuming 4 missions/month) for total expenses of 1900/mission.

I just hate dealing with injuries over time... But I am more flexible on this. Although I would rather lose a hand or my eyes and have a big problem now but be able to fix it pretty easy between missions (the future is great! ) Than having a -1 to everything for more than one session.

You never have to take the -1 for even a single session. Sticky Icky, Euphoria, or Tank-N-Spank will take care of that for you...

(Yes, when I made my initial post about medical care, I came to realize the potential of unhealed wounds for pushing you into questions like "Do I accept the -1 penalty or do I risk getting hooked on combat drugs?" Speaking of which, divide all the IZ1 drug prices by 10. 100/dose for Sticky Icky (basically super-marijuana) is insane, especially if you get hooked on it and have to take a dose every day.)

[nDervish]

I think a lot of the perceived complexity is because Dave (a computer guy) and I (an engineering student) are discussing the formulas that will lie behind the simple solutions that will be brought to the table. The fact that we're discussing insurance premiums and ways to pay for ammo doesn't have anything to do with the role-play or setting.

Very good point, but I get the impression that Björn may have some issues with how he feels the campaign is developing (or not), so that's definitely something to talk about in person.

Dave, about the ammo you're right. As I posted I sort of wanted to say that I hadn't done the math, but then there was a lecture and I didn't have time to either edit or actually do it. Over time you're absolutely right and it's a great deal I'm willing to take.

OK, cool.

(When I first read "but then there was a lecture", I thought you were talking about my response going through the math of it... My apologies to anyone who may have taken any of my recent posts that way!)

[Willard]

OK, cool.

(When I first read "but then there was a lecture", I thought you were talking about my response going through the math of it... My apologies to anyone who may have taken any of my recent posts that way!)

Yeah, sorry about that. I meant an actual lecture at the university

Very good point, but I get the impression that Björn may have some issues with how he feels the campaign is developing (or not), so that's definitely something to talk about in person.

That's a different matter, sure. One that we constantly need to monitor, even if it's hard to draw conclusions from two sessions (and just one for Björn and Sebastian).

[God45]

You never have to take the -1 for even a single session. Sticky Icky, Euphoria, or Tank-N-Spank will take care of that for you...

(Yes, when I made my initial post about medical care, I came to realize the potential of unhealed wounds for pushing you into questions like "Do I accept the -1 penalty or do I risk getting hooked on combat drugs?" Speaking of which, divide all the IZ1 drug prices by 10. 100/dose for Sticky Icky (basically super-marijuana) is insane, especially if you get hooked on it and have to take a dose every day.)

Dave you sweet talking devil you This is so cool! I am so getting hooked on combat drugs!

1000-1250 per person per mission? That would still be operating at a small loss, but I figure it should be bearable, since you're building up the rep to take on bigger jobs in the future.

With 4 missions per month this sounds good


Oh, but my monthly income is:

Bonus Credits: 1,000 credits plus (Persuasion die
type + charisma) x 150 credits at each Advance (this
roll can ace)

Since my persuasion dice is a 10 and my charisma is +8 that is 3700.

And then I get:

Perks: A good escort can count on having faithful
clients—many of whom hope for ‘more’ and will
gift their favored escort with all sorts of flash and
bling: once per Rank, your character receives gifts
valued up to 5,000 credits times your current Rank.
No more than one quarter (¼) of that amount can
be in hard cash or credits.

So that I can get 1250 more cash. But those money I am leaving up to you to give me gifts for Drugs would be nice

[Willard]

Sorry to bring this back to a technical level, but how do we deal with non-standard ammo? For now I'm thinking about poison darts (for the pneumatic dart rifle) and flame thrower fuel (vehicular version). The same ratios: 250% of initial price, divided by 10 for the monthly refill? For fuel that's simple enough, but I'm thinking the darts are probably best tracked individually.

Glad to see you're back to your happy self, Sebastian

[bladerunner_35]

Glad to see you're back to your happy self, Sebastian

All it took was some drugs. Weird how we didn't think of that sooner.

I need to spend some quality time with the family and I find it a bit of a chore to discuss this through a text based medium. I am going to go quiet and let you guys hash it out for a while.

[God45]

Glad to see you're back to your happy self, Sebastian

I am pretty sure that I sound a lot more dramatic in writing and my lack of nuance when writing in a non-native language makes that worse. I just had some concerns but they have more or less been put to rest now

[nDervish]

Dave you sweet talking devil you This is so cool! I am so getting hooked on combat drugs!

Glad to hear it! I actually look forward to it. In all the cyberpunk/cyberpunkish (*cough*Shadowrun*cough*) games I've run or played in, I've never seen a PC dare to take any drugs harder than cigarettes or alcohol.

Oh, but my monthly income is:

Bonus Credits: 1,000 credits plus (Persuasion die
type + charisma) x 150 credits at each Advance (this
roll can ace)

Yeah, that's obviously wrong one way or the other.

Either it's wrong in saying "this roll can ace" (because there's no roll) or it's wrong in saying "Persuasion die type" rather than "Persuasion roll". Between looking at other occupations and just generally liking to make things less-predictable, I concluded that the more likely interpretation was that it's supposed to be a Persuasion roll (which can ace) rather than the die type.

And then I get:

Perks: A good escort can count on having faithful
clients—many of whom hope for ‘more’ and will
gift their favored escort with all sorts of flash and
bling: once per Rank, your character receives gifts
valued up to 5,000 credits times your current Rank.
No more than one quarter (¼) of that amount can
be in hard cash or credits.

I didn't forget that, I deliberately ignored it to avoid unnecessarily complicating my calculations.

So that I can get 1250 more cash. But those money I am leaving up to you to give me gifts for Drugs would be nice

I seem to recall having made a comment at the table last time you played about your clients giving you drugs, yeah. I might need to work up stats for some aphrodisiacs at some point...

Sorry to bring this back to a technical level, but how do we deal with non-standard ammo? For now I'm thinking about poison darts (for the pneumatic dart rifle) and flame thrower fuel (vehicular version). The same ratios: 250% of initial price, divided by 10 for the monthly refill?

For ammunition types which are listed individually (e.g., the darts being "per dose", grenades, etc.), I'm currently thinking that you can choose to either buy individual rounds at the standard cost or buy tokens at 10 times standard cost. (I'm not completely certain that 10 is the right multiplier, but 50 would clearly be much too high.) If you buy them as individual rounds, they're gone for good once you use them. If you buy them as tokens, then you can carry one per token and they can be replenished the same as regular ammo tokens.

For the flamethrower, I guess I'd say the price of 50 shots per token, the same as for regular firearms. The Hades lists 2500 Cr for a tank holding 24 shots, so round that off to 100 Cr/shot and 5k/token (and it holds up to 2 tokens per tank).

In any case, monthly maintenance stays at 1/10 of initial purchase price, regardless of what the initial purchase multiplier might be.

[Willard]

So is there a consensus on what mission we should do next?

I'm certainly up for trying more than one. It helps with the money issue, builds credibility more quickly, and generally makes sense from both an in and out of game perspective. If we try to stay out of the places where people are intent on shooting us, the encounters should be fewer and more quickly resolved. Hopefully without any more dashes to the nearest hospital.

For the wider scope and motivations I think it makes sense to let that grow on an individual and group level, rather than now staking out a grand strategy. Almighty has some ideas brewing, but they need more time in the pot. I'm sure the same is true for your characters.

[Rekreativc]

Haven't looked at the mission list yet, will do that soon. Is the list on obsidian portal, or do I need to find here on the forum?

Have we agreed for the next meeting / session?
May I suggest posting this info somewhere where it can be easily found by those of us who don't read the forum all that thoroughly? Obsidian portal perhaps?

[Willard]

It's on Obsidian portal.

We're hoping for Thursday, but Dave is travelling and won't know for sure until Wednesday. That's probably a good idea.

[jeronimooo]

I would suggest we meet on thursday anyways, regardless of Dave being able to be there or not... even if he isn't, we could help out Tobias in refining his new character (has any1 heard from him?) and refine our own characters and discuss the previous 2-3 pages in this thread... I haven't weighed in much yet, as I share the idea that this is a discussion that is better suited for a face to face meeting rather then on a written medium...