Interface Zero: Upgrade in Progress

[God45]

Sundays work for me

1. How gritty or epic do you want the game to be?

I don't want to have to count ammo. I don't want it to be difficult or expensive to get ammo for weapons. I want signature and rare weapons to be if not the norm then at least common for the player characters. I want the police to respond if we start a shootout at some restaurant and I want fuck ups involvong the cops, corps and others to have long lasting and dire consecvenses. I do not want to have to worry about being charged with murder because I left a shell casing at the floor. I want to have a set amount of money we have to pay each month for housing, food and so on. But I mostly want to spend my cash on gear, guns and bioware/cyberware.

2. Which genre do you want to play?

I want us to be an elite team with different areas of expertise. Basicly the A-team. Where each member is a specialist on what they do. I want us to perform ops and missions. I don't really care if we are freelance or are working for someone but I want no betreyals! No mr.Johnson screws us over please.

3. Is there a specific theme you want the campaign to explore?

I want us to play professionals who might have our own side plots and stuff but that is keept seperate from the missions. Other than that I want the feel of the world, I want it to feel like our characters actually lives there. Small details like dress and pop culture and such.

I also want blood and gore and splatter when the fighting starts. Heads cut off, robots burnt to scrap and hackers having their heads blown up like in scanners after a lost cyber combat.

4. Is there something else, not mentioned above, that you think is important to discuss to get a really great campaign going?

I want us to cast our characters, either with actors or with cyberpunk pictures. The visual referense helps me picture the game.

I also like theme songs but that is less important

[nDervish]

Now I see why you needed to take a day before responding. Thanks - it's great stuff!

So far we've spoken about how gritty or epic we want the story to be. Sebastian wants his story epic where his character mows down squads of mooks with a casual flick of the wrist (he mentioned the lobby scene from Matrix wich is a good concrete example).

And, as an example of these words meaning different things to different people, when I hear "epic", my first thought isn't "massive body counts", but rather "world-changing events on a grand scale".

I said I wanted it more gritty and I guess a decent example of this would be the same scene from Matrix only that going in like that would get a large portion of our group killed... There's a bunch of Savage Worlds mechanics and edges that can help adjust the game to become more or less epic or gritty.

On that topic, I'll interject that IZ falls pretty far to the "gritty" end of that scale. Default setting rules as given in the IZ1.0 core book (p.33) state that there are no Soak rolls and that you can be Incapacitated by any wounding hit (any time you take a Wound, make a Vigor roll including the just-received Wound penalties and you're Incapacitated if you fail), so don't go casually wandering into firefights.

1. How gritty or epic do you want the game to be?

I tend to prefer the grittier end. Deadly combat, some resource management (mostly outside of combat), and the need for tactics beyond "kick in the door and rush them with guns blazing".

2. Which genre do you want to play?

No strong preferences on the type of group or jobs, other than that it should be something that will still feel the effects of martial law in the city. Civilian police are fine, but any type of military group would need to be something so secret that you can't simply reveal your affiliation to the police or soldiers on the street whenever you want to pass a security checkpoint.

3. Is there a specific theme you want the campaign to explore?

Nothing comes to mind.

4. Is there something else, not mentioned above, that you think is important to discuss to get a really great campaign going?

Although it's tangential to the kind of discussion you focused on, Björn, we may also want to talk about how detailed or abstract of rules we want to use. At the moment, I'm feeling that the best approach is to abstractly track everything possible, but if there's someone who would, e.g., prefer to use precise grid maps or purely-narrative combat positioning instead of the abstract movement rules I posted earlier, or to track every gram carried or ignore carrying limits entirely instead of using the simplified encumbrance system from Savage Marches, then that would be good to talk about, too.

I want the game to be gritty but not overly so. I want to there to be a chance to run out of ammo in the middle of combat but I don't want to have to count each bullet I keep at my place.

What do you think of these Modern Weapon Abstract Ammunition rules? They allow for your guns to run dry while avoiding any need to count bullets and they come straight from Clint, so they're as official as anything not in a published book can be.

I don't want it to be difficult or expensive to get ammo for normal weapons. I do want it to be a bit more problematic to get very specialised or heavy weapons and ammo. I want the police to respond if we start a shootout at some restaurant. I do not want to have to worry about being charged with murder because I left a shell casing at the floor (unless my character becomes a mass murderer). I want to have to pay rent and insurances but I do not want it to be difficult unless I spend all my money on cyber or weapons.

That all falls within my baseline assumptions for cyberpunk games, so full agreement on all points, aside from the minor detail that, in Boston, it might be the military responding to that restaurant shootout rather than the police.

On the paying rent and insurance point, IZ's default is for you to have regular income for your occupation, and I plan to use the optional "Cost of Living" rules from IZ1.0 p.199, with the income and expenses accounted per game month rather than each Advance (for income) and each game session (for living expenses). There are also plenty of other monthly lifestyle expenses available in the Gear sections of the various books, ranging from online game subscriptions to high-risk medical insurance. In order to keep all of these things relevant (and because people said earlier that they would prefer to have downtime between adventures), I figure an average of one run per in-game month seems appropriate.

Apart from everything above I've got some bad news. My kids have started with Tae Kwondo on tuesdays and thursdays. I can still play next tuesday the 17th and expect to be able to play the occasional tuesday but I do not want to miss their Tae Kwondo trainings. It seems that tuesdays work really well for everyone else and I know that having three kids and working odd hours makes it difficult to meet up for gaming nights. If it proves difficult to find other times (weekends, especially sundays work better for me since mondays, wednesdays and thursdays are already out) I do not mind to bow out and completely understand. There will be other games.

Ah, bummer... I can do pretty much any time evenings/weekends, so hopefully there will be something that works for everyone.

[nDervish]

No mr.Johnson screws us over please.

I've always thought it was stupid of Shadowrun to make that practically the default. My view of Johnsons is that they're professional negotiators (usually freelance, occasionally corporate-owned) with reputations of their own to protect, so they'd be cutting their own throats if they started screwing operatives over without a good reason.

Of course, give them a reason and they'll hang you out to dry as soon as they realize you're making them look bad by hiring you.

Does that work for you?

I want us to play professionals who might have our own side plots and stuff but that is keept seperate from the missions.

Can you give some examples of what you mean and how it would work out in actual play sessions? I don't think I quite followed you.

[God45]

I've always thought it was stupid of Shadowrun to make that practically the default. My view of Johnsons is that they're professional negotiators (usually freelance, occasionally corporate-owned) with reputations of their own to protect, so they'd be cutting their own throats if they started screwing operatives over without a good reason.

Of course, give them a reason and they'll hang you out to dry as soon as they realize you're making them look bad by hiring you.

Does that work for you?

This sounds good

Can you give some examples of what you mean and how it would work out in actual play sessions? I don't think I quite followed you.

Let`s say that character A have a bar that he is running while not working with the group. And there is problems with keeping the bar running, the mob are squeezing him for money and this one corrupt health inspector is pestering him. Meanwhile Player B:s character is religious and is helping out people at his church.

I want those things to be dealt with between missions on the downtime with everybody having their own little supporting cast. Up until one of the players goes to the rest of the group and says "I need your help dealing with this! We need to kill this health inspector/scare off the mob/collect money for the churches orphanage".

So the characters aren't all spending all their time together like a D&D party but have their own sub-plots. Does that make sense?

[nDervish]

I want those things to be dealt with between missions on the downtime with everybody having their own little supporting cast. Up until one of the players goes to the rest of the group and says "I need your help dealing with this! We need to kill this health inspector/scare off the mob/collect money for the churches orphanage".

So the characters aren't all spending all their time together like a D&D party but have their own sub-plots. Does that make sense?

I definitely see what you're getting at and agree with it, but I'm still not entirely clear on you want the "dealing with them between missions in downtime" part to play out. Is it purely player narrative? ("Since the last session, a trio of mob enforcers came by my bar and roughed the place up. It wasn't anything too bad, but they said they'd be back unless I start paying protection money.") Should everyone make up minor NPCs for each others' supporting casts and we occasionally take a session off from the main group to play out the side plots (or do a short segment of side-plot play at the start of each session before switching to the main team)? Use some sort of light mechanics for a side game of "roll a couple times to see how the situation developed"? Etc.

Possibly relevant to this, Shane Hensley has been messing with ideas the last several days for a "Day In The Life" system for handling what characters have been doing since the previous session. He just published a first draft this morning. I haven't had a chance to read through it myself yet, but it sounds like it might something similar.

[God45]

I was thinking about just playing it out, but streamlining and narrating bits of it is fine to. I read the Day in the life and I am not fond of it, it seems to be a lot of dice rolling on charts and that really isn`t what I was after. I don`t really think the downtime thing will require more than maybe a couple of rolls while playing it out, and if you get to the point where you have real problems it is time to get the team together.


Oh, and another thing. I would love it if we at some point in the campaign will be forced to rob a McDonalds or something in order to pay our rents after the other jobs have gone to hell. I am just throwing it out there

EDIT: Is there McDonalds in the future? Or is all restaurants Taco Bell?

[nDervish]

This just in from Kickstarter:

I hope this update find you and your families well. Things are coming along great, and I'm pleased to say that we're on track to deliver the PDF to you by the end of October.

Full post at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/821 ... f=activity but I'm not sure whether it's public or backer-only.

[God45]

This just in from Kickstarter:

I hope this update find you and your families well. Things are coming along great, and I'm pleased to say that we're on track to deliver the PDF to you by the end of October.

Full post at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/821 ... f=activity but I'm not sure whether it's public or backer-only.

It seems to be backers only.

[Willard]

Geez, I guess I just lost another really long post. Need to make a point of copying the whole thing before I send it.

It's backer only, but that's good news. I say we blaze on regardless.

Sundays should work for me for the most part. I far prefer the evening, from around five or six.

1. I basically agree with all of Dave's points and rules pointers here. I'd prefer the grand scheme of things to struggling to pay rent and robbing McDonald's/TacoBell (sorry).

2. Starting as cops á la "Darker Than Black" (which we discussed on the walk home after last game) could be fun, though my first thoughts were more along the freelancing lines. A mob/syndicate game doesn't really appeal to me. However we start I, too, would like us to get dragged into the international power struggle.

3. I could go for a "price of freedom/security" theme. It seems appropriate.

4. I understand what Sebastian is after with the sub-plots, that kind of thing is ideal for when we're missing a player or two. The rest can do something fun and meaningful, without the absentees falling behind in the main plot. It's also a great way to tie back to and develop the character backgrounds, a lot like what happens in television series from time to time. How often that happens remains to be seen, of course.

I'm all for using pictures; theme songs, not so much. Continuing with the "feel" of the world, the language of the fluff really rubs me the wrong way. I'm not saying it's impossible to do it in a cool way, just that it's very easy to fall into the ridiculous, and that's not good. The "Day in the life" stuff could perhaps go some way in this direction, rather than the sub-plot one. I'm more optimistic to that set of rules, but I expect it will take too much time and effort to be worthwhile in a regular fashion.

[nDervish]

It seems to be backers only.

Ah, yes, I missed the "For backers only" at the top of the page...

The only other thing of particular significance was a link to an unformatted PDF of the final hacking rules. 18 pages which I haven't read fully yet, but a quick skim shows that programs are now being called "engrams" and there are no hypergloves.

[nDervish]

Public version of yesterday's kickstarter update, including the link to final hacking rules:

https://plus.google.com/105973495535280 ... zn7oUyuEm1

[bladerunner_35]

So far we've spoken about how gritty or epic we want the story to be. Sebastian wants his story epic where his character mows down squads of mooks with a casual flick of the wrist (he mentioned the lobby scene from Matrix wich is a good concrete example).

And, as an example of these words meaning different things to different people, when I hear "epic", my first thought isn't "massive body counts", but rather "world-changing events on a grand scale".

Sure, that's another common meaning of epic and in all honesty, I think that "massive body counts" and "world-changing events on a grand scale" are two sides of the same coin....

I said I wanted it more gritty and I guess a decent example of this would be the same scene from Matrix only that going in like that would get a large portion of our group killed... There's a bunch of Savage Worlds mechanics and edges that can help adjust the game to become more or less epic or gritty.

On that topic, I'll interject that IZ falls pretty far to the "gritty" end of that scale. Default setting rules as given in the IZ1.0 core book (p.33) state that there are no Soak rolls and that you can be Incapacitated by any wounding hit (any time you take a Wound, make a Vigor roll including the just-received Wound penalties and you're Incapacitated if you fail), so don't go casually wandering into firefights.

This more than anything else will set the mood of the campaign I think and it is something we need to discuss and decide upon. While I do not want to wade in the blood of my enemeis and hear the lamentations of their women I am thinking that we may have to adjust those setting rules. Or at least talk about it.

Dave, what rules do you see there are that we could use to more or less easily adjust the grittines of the campaign? Using or not using soak rolls is the most obvious I think, that Vigor roll another - how integrated is it into the setting rules? Will things become unbalanced if we would hypothetically remove them? Adjusting the difficulty of the final "death roll" is another way of making things more or less gritty.

4. Is there something else, not mentioned above, that you think is important to discuss to get a really great campaign going?

Although it's tangential to the kind of discussion you focused on, Björn, we may also want to talk about how detailed or abstract of rules we want to use. At the moment, I'm feeling that the best approach is to abstractly track everything possible, but if there's someone who would, e.g., prefer to use precise grid maps or purely-narrative combat positioning instead of the abstract movement rules I posted earlier, or to track every gram carried or ignore carrying limits entirely instead of using the simplified encumbrance system from Savage Marches, then that would be good to talk about, too.

Abstract works for me. An encumbrance system working around significant items is great. We just need to pay special attention to cyber enhanced strength so they scale satisfactory.

I want the game to be gritty but not overly so. I want to there to be a chance to run out of ammo in the middle of combat but I don't want to have to count each bullet I keep at my place.

What do you think of these Modern Weapon Abstract Ammunition rules? They allow for your guns to run dry while avoiding any need to count bullets and they come straight from Clint, so they're as official as anything not in a published book can be.

I really like those rules! Especially that a skilled fighter naturally conserves ammo. My only reflection is that they seem to be a little “epic”, meaning I get the feeling we will run out of ammo only rarely. I guess that depends on the ammunition level of our weapons.

2. Which genre do you want to play?

No strong preferences on the type of group or jobs, other than that it should be something that will still feel the effects of martial law in the city. Civilian police are fine, but any type of military group would need to be something so secret that you can't simply reveal your affiliation to the police or soldiers on the street whenever you want to pass a security checkpoint.

2. Starting as cops á la "Darker Than Black" (which we discussed on the walk home after last game) could be fun, though my first thoughts were more along the freelancing lines. A mob/syndicate game doesn't really appeal to me. However we start I, too, would like us to get dragged into the international power struggle.

3. I could go for a "price of freedom/security" theme. It seems appropriate.

I want us to be an elite team with different areas of expertise. Basicly the A-team. Where each member is a specialist on what they do. I want us to perform ops and missions. I don't really care if we are freelance or are working for someone but I want no betreyals! No mr.Johnson screws us over please.

I have never seen Darker Than. Is it this anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darker_than_Black ) I am not overly interested in the paranormal, mysticism or psychics.

In any case I think we’ve got something workable here.

How about we play a low level team of agents working for the North American Coalition? We would be a team of specialists, not knowing each other from the start and recruited by some shady government handler. That will give each player a lot of leeway when designing their character as long as the character has a role to fill in the team. If Sebastian wants to play a tricked out cyber warrior with a mechanized armour and minigun (as a fall back plan…) at home that would work. A trippy corp exec drone jockey would also work…and I guess a fire man could squeeze himself in there as well.

It will be easy for Dave to give us specific missions as well as us to take initiative and do our own thing when that time comes.

We have infiltrated Boston and our job is to destabilize the city and ferment rebellion. We work undercover and know we’re one cell of many and very expendable. Unless we survive long enough to really prove our worth and rise to the ranks of agents and assassins.

The theme would be “What is the real price for freedom and security”. We would all start out pretty loyal to NAC, if only for the salary, but as the campaign moves forward we would have to face moral questions and perhaps realize that the world is far from black and white. As the campaign progresses so too does the power-level and we are slowly dragged into “the international power struggle”.

I want us to play professionals who might have our own side plots and stuff but that is keept seperate from the missions. Other than that I want the feel of the world, I want it to feel like our characters actually lives there. Small details like dress and pop culture and such.

4. I understand what Sebastian is after with the sub-plots, that kind of thing is ideal for when we're missing a player or two. The rest can do something fun and meaningful, without the absentees falling behind in the main plot. It's also a great way to tie back to and develop the character backgrounds, a lot like what happens in television series from time to time. How often that happens remains to be seen, of course.

This idea is great! Let’s do it! Perhaps each character should have a “side-plot” hook that Dave can work into the story along the way?

[God45]

How about we play a low level team of agents working for the North American Coalition? We would be a team of specialists, not knowing each other from the start and recruited by some shady government handler. That will give each player a lot of leeway when designing their character as long as the character has a role to fill in the team. If Sebastian wants to play a tricked out cyber warrior with a mechanized armour and minigun (as a fall back plan…) at home that would work. A trippy corp exec drone jockey would also work…and I guess a fire man could squeeze himself in there as well.

It will be easy for Dave to give us specific missions as well as us to take initiative and do our own thing when that time comes.

We have infiltrated Boston and our job is to destabilize the city and ferment rebellion. We work undercover and know we’re one cell of many and very expendable. Unless we survive long enough to really prove our worth and rise to the ranks of agents and assassins.

The theme would be “What is the real price for freedom and security”. We would all start out pretty loyal to NAC, if only for the salary, but as the campaign moves forward we would have to face moral questions and perhaps realize that the world is far from black and white. As the campaign progresses so too does the power-level and we are slowly dragged into “the international power struggle”.

This sounds awsome!


By the way, I a role player that I know have seen the tread and is interested in joining the game but he have no DMF forum account so he asked me to ask you Dave if there is room for another player?

[bladerunner_35]

This sounds awsome!

Glad you like it! Something I really like about the setup is, I guess you could call it another theme, is that we (the players) do not know (yet) if we're the bad guys or the good guys or if there are no good guys at all...

What is the moral justification for NAC to use force to rule North America?

What actions will China and Brazil take against this play for power?

Stay tuned for more!

[nDervish]

Dave, what rules do you see there are that we could use to more or less easily adjust the grittines of the campaign? Using or not using soak rolls is the most obvious I think, that Vigor roll another - how integrated is it into the setting rules? Will things become unbalanced if we would hypothetically remove them? Adjusting the difficulty of the final "death roll" is another way of making things more or less gritty.

Soak rolls: They make a very big difference to the lethality of Savage Worlds, as I'm sure you can appreciate after seeing me spend a few bennies for opponents to soak. While Jarvis hasn't published anything yet about IZ2.0 setting rules, I did notice that soaking is mentioned several times in the final hacking rules, but it's unclear whether the IZ2.0 default will be to allow soaking in general or only to allow it for virtual damage.

Vigor rolls: That system is referred to in the IZ1.0 rules as "gritty damage" and Jarvis acknowledges them as coming from a Pinnacle product. The SWD core contains a different setting rule named "gritty damage" on p. 94. Given that SWD core is published by Pinnacle, it seems fair to assume that SWD's "gritty damage" rule is an evolution of the other one. The final hacking rules mention "gritty damage", so it appears that IZ2.0 will use some form of it, probably the version in SWD core.

The IZ1.0 version is a "save or go down" (incap isn't necessarily death, especially if you have the Hard to Kill edge) each time you're wounded. The SWD version is an automatic roll on the Injury table each time you're wounded (unless it's from multiple shakens). IZ1.0 takes you out of the fight immediately if you blow the Vigor roll, but you always have a better-than-50% chance (even with d4 Vigor) to make the roll and can spend bennies to reroll if you fail. SWD lets you automatically keep fighting until you hit 4 Wounds, but you can rack up multiple injuries before you get there and there are no saves. Although I can see where you might disagree, I think the SWD version is harsher than the IZ1.0 version.

Balance: Obviously, anything that reduces the odds of a wild card being taken out of a fight will tilt balance in the PCs' favor, since they're all wild cards, while the enemies will be mostly extras. Whether it will tilt it far enough to be a problem is hard to say, since IZ weaponry and armor will interact in a completely different way than what we've seen in the previous fantasy games.

My personal preference here is to have no soaking and one "gritty damage" rule or the other because I don't want anyone to be able to walk into a shootout knowing that they're going to come out of it unscathed. But that's just my preference, not a ruling from on high.

I'm also hoping that we'll have time to run a couple test combats on Tuesday after creating characters. I would suggest that, at least for the first test combat, we try it with no soaking and gritty damage as written (whichever version) to see how brutal that actually is, then adjust from there.

I really like those rules! Especially that a skilled fighter naturally conserves ammo. My only reflection is that they seem to be a little “epic”, meaning I get the feeling we will run out of ammo only rarely. I guess that depends on the ammunition level of our weapons.

Well, throwing a little math at it, with d8 Shooting (d6 is theoretically "average", but I figure d8 is a more likely average for PCs) and taking single shots only, you'll need to reload after an average of 16 shots, which is comparable to the magazine size of most modern 9mm handguns; assault rifles tend to run about twice that. Double taps will cut that in half, either by the abstract system or if you count every bullet.

And then there's the full-auto weapons. I went through the Equipment Chapter playtest document last night and there are machine pistols getting up to ROF 6 - run one of those bad boys flat out and you've got even odds to run dry in a single burst even if you start at Very High ammo and have Shooting d12 (6d12 and lose an ammo level for each die that's 6 or less). A standard assault rifle (High ammo, ROF 3) with Shooting d8 will lose an average of 1.12 ammo levels per full-auto burst, so you'll get an average of 1.78 bursts per magazine (or 2.67 if you get an extended magazine with Very High ammo). For full auto, this actually has you running out of ammo sooner than you would under RAW count-each-bullet rules. (The machine pistol holds 100 rounds and uses 36 per burst, while a typical assault rifle holds 30 and uses 9 per burst.)

That said, there are many cases in the Equipment Chapter where ammo capacity is one of the distinguishing factors between broadly-similar weapons. I don't know how big of a deal it is, but reducing everything to just Very High/High/Low ammo levels does take away somewhat from being able to distinguish weapons on ammo capacity.

In any case I think we’ve got something workable here.

Agreed.

How about we play a low level team of agents working for the North American Coalition? We would be a team of specialists, not knowing each other from the start and recruited by some shady government handler.

Any thoughts/preferences on how often you'd want to be doing jobs for the NAC vs. freelance work?

By the way, I a role player that I know have seen the tread and is interested in joining the game but he have no DMF forum account so he asked me to ask you Dave if there is room for another player?

Always!

[Willard]

I'm actually in favor of the whole gritty damage rules, I think that goes a long way towards creating the kind of game you (Björn) first described. We'll need to really do our homework and be prepared before battle, not just go in hoping for the best. Of course we'd need to get some mechanical advantages for actually preparing, otherwise we're just reducing the life expectancy for no good reason.

From the little fiction I read I always figured we'd work for Atlantica against the encroaching NAC, but I suppose the other way around works too. What was your thinking on this?

Regarding the theme, you usually achieve security by giving up freedom or vice versa. The price of the whole package is a little more complicated, probably beyond the scope of a campaign like this.

And when do we meet next? We were just talking about Sundays, should we start this one, the 15th?

[bladerunner_35]

I'm actually in favor of the whole gritty damage rules, I think that goes a long way towards creating the kind of game you (Björn) first described. We'll need to really do our homework and be prepared before battle, not just go in hoping for the best. Of course we'd need to get some mechanical advantages for actually preparing, otherwise we're just reducing the life expectancy for no good reason.

My personal preference here is to have no soaking and one "gritty damage" rule or the other because I don't want anyone to be able to walk into a shootout knowing that they're going to come out of it unscathed. But that's just my preference, not a ruling from on high.

That sounds perfectly fine for me. I am just a little worried for Sebastian but I guess he'll have to get some subdermal armour. Personally though, making sure we only fight on our own terms will go a lot longer to make me feel we're part of an elite team than any cool backstory or fancy weapons ever will.

From the little fiction I read I always figured we'd work for Atlantica against the encroaching NAC, but I suppose the other way around works too. What was your thinking on this?

Regarding the theme, you usually achieve security by giving up freedom or vice versa. The price of the whole package is a little more complicated, probably beyond the scope of a campaign like this.

And when do we meet next? We were just talking about Sundays, should we start this one, the 15th?

Regarding NAC I felt it would be more interesting if we worked for the "big bad". Usually it is the other way around, as you point out. It could also be fresh to be the infiltrating agents stirring shit up, as opposed to the heroes trying to hunt them down. Not that NAC needsto be evil or anything.

About security versus freedom you are right, and again it was the twist that I liked. I don't mind scaling it back or changing it. Perhaps simply "Can the cost of freedom be to high?" Meaning the cost for the innocent, the world and ourselves.

Sunday the 15th starting 17ish or so would be better for me.

[God45]

That sounds perfectly fine for me. I am just a little worried for Sebastian but I guess he'll have to get some subdermal armour. Personally though, making sure we only fight on our own terms will go a lot longer to make me feel we're part of an elite team than any cool backstory or fancy weapons ever will.

I am going to min/max my character into having a toughness of 19 and then laugh at small arms fire. Anything less than an rocket propelled grenade really

[God45]

Regarding NAC I felt it would be more interesting if we worked for the "big bad". Usually it is the other way around, as you point out. It could also be fresh to be the infiltrating agents stirring shit up, as opposed to the heroes trying to hunt them down. Not that NAC needsto be evil or anything.

About security versus freedom you are right, and again it was the twist that I liked. I don't mind scaling it back or changing it. Perhaps simply "Can the cost of freedom be to high?" Meaning the cost for the innocent, the world and ourselves.

I am totally fine with playing terrorists

Sunday the 15th starting 17ish or so would be better for me.

Works for me but I will have to tell the new guy as soon as possible then as I have already told him that it is tuesday that is the day.

[nDervish]

Sure, Sunday should be fine here, assuming the door's not locked.

Can you make it earlier than 17? If so, I figure it might be preferable to have more time to work with, at least this time when we're working out details, making characters, etc.