Those Halcyon Days of Youth (Inactive)

Game Master Stalwart

Lurkin a bit on roll20.

How blocked is Psyche while she's in the waiting room?

You're pretty sure that you could punch through it. The trick would be not frying the equipment. Unleash?

Oh - sure. Psyche generally assumes she can bust through most countermeasures until definitively proven otherwise. I meant does she have any pickup without potentially troublesome flexing.

Hope everyone’s had a good holiday weekend (if you celebrate it).

On roll20 if anyone’s around.

I want to touch base with Stalwart before I hop into the baseball game - just to find out what she's being quiet about lol.

Hmm, still need to decide on an advancement. To take a new move? New powers? Which ones if so? Decisions decisions...

Hey gang, with great sadness, I'm going to have to leave this campaign.

I'm bummed because this is an AWESOME game...but it's just not one I'm able to keep up with. I'm just finding I can never catch up for more than a few hours.

I think it's the combo of how RP-rich it is (which is cool) and that we have an 8-player party with lots of great activity (which is rare, and awesome). The combo of them though means I can't imagine keeping up.

It's especially true because Gallowglass is someone who, really, should be in the thick of the downtime conversations: she's gregarious, a good listener, meant to be some of the social glue. Instead she's turning out to mostly hide in her room (or sit quietly in the corner) since I can't keep up. :(

NOTE, you all (Stalwart as DM and the rest of yall as players) have been great with me: I've never felt external pressure, and in fact several of you've tried ways to work me in later...but I think that my level of involvement in this game just won't be satisfying.

So...WHAT'S NEXT? Once we decide what's next for her, I'm happy to help RP the transition. I've been thinking about this. Some options:

a) She gets an offer to partner up with an established hero she's really into, and so continues to be a hero in Halcyon City...but as an NPC, and not as a Sentinel.

b) She gets killed in the line of duty (hopefully while making a successful dramatic sacrifice). This gives a darker RP opportunity to the party.

I'd rather not have her decide she's not up for it and retire on her own...that's just not who she is.

Thoughts? Other suggestions?

The become a sidekick is an obvious route, but I think a PC death would be a real RP atom bomb on the team that might make up for your absence in a way. But it’s your character, your call in my opinion.

Sad to see ya go, but I understand.

so, there was a art where Holy was advised to team up wih Gallow or "one of the fire/ice kids", teammates that won't show her up... If that team up wnet wrong...

but I'll be honest, I kinda don't want to kill Gallow. I mean, your character, your choice, but, those are my feelings on the matter

I want to be true to her, which means she doesn't just give up or develop other interests.

I'm 100% fine with her becoming an NPC on a different team. I'm also 100% fine with her dying heroically.

Hmm... I think my preference is for GG to get an offer she can't refuse. We just had the (multiple) drama bombs of the vacation, so I kind of want to see us function in our new normal for an issue or two before there's a total sea change.

An alternative take to dying in battle or ending up a sidekick, I was thinking maybe Gallowglass can pull a Barbara Gordon. Something causes her permanent, retiring from crime fighting damage. As someone without powers it's not unheard of for that to happen. But then perhaps despite her new handicap, she tries to work to help the rest of the group, perhaps apprenticing as an equipment maker (She did make her trick arrows, I'm sure it's in her wheelhouse.)

Other than that, I think perhaps getting an offer from a well established European hero she might have met on their trip there fighting her nemesis Crime Hawk would give her the best low drama out of the group.

Personally, sad to see you go. I understand it being hard to keep up with the pace some of us set, and hope that if you ever get more free time, you'll think about taking Gallowglass out of retiremwnt.

Really sad to see you go, but totally understand how hard it is to keep up with everything going on in this game - I certainly wouldn't have been able to manage it a couple of months ago. Also, just want to say thanks for letting us know - all too often people just go dark.

I quite like both of Shin's suggestions - it'd be nice to have Gallowglass still be around in some capacity. Another option would be joining Aegis - although i'm not sure that Gallowglass is temperamentally suited to that. Although the drama of a team death has a lot of RP potential to be mined, I agree with Psyche that we probably need things to stabilise a little before throwing another bomb into the group dynamic.

Thanks for all the kinds words.

...And it sounds like Gallowglass will live!

Stalwart, what do you think about her becoming a Halcyon City NPC, presumably in partnership with at least one other hero? Any suggestions as to who?

(And yeah, I hate seeing folks fade away. Even if I have to exit a campaign, I like to exit well.)

Lurking tonight

Yes, definitely sad to see Gallowglass go. I really do feel like there's something about the hero with no powers on the team with some real heavyweights -- and this team sure has some potent powers.

That's another reason I'm not fond of having Gallowglass die. That would rather prove that she didn't belong here unless it's for a major sacrifice. Something like that would take a while to set up, even if I had something in mind right off the bat.

A couple possibilities that I thought of:

1. Gallowglass moves to another city with a hero presence -- New York, Chicago, Atlanta, LA, San Fran... there's a lot of options. Perhaps her parents move, or there's something else that draws her there.

2. Gallowglass gets her wish and is time-warped back to ancient Scotland.

3. If she stays in Halcyon, maybe she goes deep undercover with her job with InfiniCorp, to the point where she can't risk doing any costumed heroics for a time. She could still be considered part of the team, just 'inactive.'

4. As already suggested, she teams up with another solo hero or two. Actually, the Heralds are more of a loose collection of solo heroes who pull together on a semi-regular basis. I could see her and Half-Pipe as a pretty effective team-up.

Oooh - I think Deep Cover is my favorite so far.

Deep cover definitely opens up more possibilities than anything else!

Really sorry everyone; I had real hopes of getting some things posted this week, but a combination of serious fatigue and some crazy catching up after last week's holiday means I don't think I'll get to post any updates until early next week.

Hmm... if the stakeout's heading towards what looks like an awfully real encounter, I should make sure to hook Psyche back into a scene of her own!

So right now:
She sort of likes the idea of being some hard-to-handle bait, figuring that she can probably bust out of captivity if she gets nabbed, but she knows everyone else will hate that plan.

She wants to sit down and have a nice long look inside Mattie's brain to suss out what's going on with the link between her and Kayla (which I'm envisioning with Scorch serving as the local expert on the inside of her head)

She's definitely afraid to give the inside of Shin's head an in depth look. She's not at all ready for what she might find there.

Any other thoughts from folk?

Also pffft low earth orbit's totally in Psyche's range - especially if she established the link in advance.

If they weren't already linked, finding Shin up there would be weird because she doesn't normally scan in that direction though...

Isaiah would strongly recommend that when we do our Apotheosis-baiting, we do it as a full team... And he's volunteering himself as a replacement for Psyche, as they will be much less well prepared for him.

Can't say much about poking around in people's heads. Unless Psyche decides to talk with Isaiah some about how she can't really understand what's in his head. There is some possibilities for interesting relationships there, simply because Isaiah is the one member of the team Psyche knows for sure she isn't subconsciously influencing. Or if she just wants to know more about some of the things he mentioned to her earlier.

I'm thinking of gaining a couple new powers with my advancement. 'Gadgetry and Hacking' is a shoe-in, but not sure what to take for the other one. Can I save it for a dramatically appropriate moment? Perhaps sometime after Isaiah comes into possession of some super-science gizmos he could analyze to gain another new ability?

Isaiah, I'm really not in favor of a "power to be named later" advancement. I'm going to have to insist that you choose both your new abilities if you take that advancement.

Besides, there's always the Beacon Move No powers and not nearly enough training that you could pick up, which lets you co-opt a nifty piece of tech that you might come across.

Frostbite & Mosaic:

Given that they're handing out the gear as they go, perhaps we should attack ASAP... it'd be best if we could avoid anyone getting away so maybe 1 each of us at each of the 3 entrances. Highest priority is probably the Van with the gear on it and then the Scrappers? (I've already had a go at Assessing, maybe you guys should too to determine the greatest threats etc?).

Scorch is probably the least well suited for stopping the van getting away (though the best if it does get away since she can fly) - Maybe Rory takes out the van, then we demand surrender with Mosaic and Scorch at the other entrances to stop anyone getting away (Mosaic will be better at this than Scorch), ready to head in when they (inevitably) resist?

Thoughts?

So,,... this is probably relevant to Isaiah as well as me. When the advancement says

Gain two new abilities from any playbook

Choose two new abilities from any playbook as you come into your own

Do the two new abilities have to be from the same playbook? (I'd say yes, but thought I'd check)

Abilities include superpowers and skills. These advances tell you what abilities to choose from—if they tell you to choose from any playbook, then select any abilities listed in the other playbooks.

It looks to me that you can mix and match, but it's not super clear.

Excellent,... If allowed I will be taking 'power mimicry' from the protege playbook (if i can skin it as a mirror effect e.g., fire vs. ice) and a second power which I will PM you, which will become apparent over time...

Happily lurking and reading by the way :-)

I figure Kylie's up to something really mundane. So if things go bad, and either team calls for backup I'll post what random stuff she's up to when she gets the call, but otherwise I'm a happy reader.

Hmmm, what does Isaiah know of this GSF? Or is this quarantine ship even more lost than I'm already thinking it is?

Stakeout team! If you insist on rolling like that you need to use the Team Pool more lol

We probably should... But Mosaic isn't a great team player...

/me sits here, feeling bad that the Great Team Player is fading away.

I feel bad, Gallowglass! Maybe you could make a surprise entrance?? Doing a little solo hero work on the side, and it's a big coincidence? Or you had managed to listen in on Holly's invitation?

hopping on r20...

Ummm… Isaiah didn't fail that Assess check at all. He got a 9, which while it may be less than 10, is still a success. So he should get at least one question answered, correct?

I explained in my later post. I wasn't paying attention and typed Isaiah when I meant to type Shin or Horizon. My bad.

This was the answer to your Assess:

Given the fact that Praetoria is on the bridge, Isaiah believes that she's in the best position to take control and force the ship back through the time breach. Otherwise, the Tirpitz II would have to be pulled all the way through, and then dealt with.

Ah, alright. I just got a little mixed up by the mix-up.

Seems like this is a new scene, so I'll clear my Burn and Insecure.

How are you clearing Insecure?

Racing off to confront Apotheosis without so much as contacting her own team.

That would work, except you marked Insecure during the scene. I can't agree that you get to clear a condition retroactively. It's like clearing Angry for something you destroyed before you became Angry. It doesn't work that way.

Hmm. My understanding had been that it was more of an end of scene check to see if any of those conditions had been resolved, but if that's the ruling it's all good :-)

I’ll be hanging on roll20 a bit this evening.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Merry Christmas all!

Indeed, merry Christmas all! Still a bit distracted, but will try to pay attention again soon.

Sorry - heaps of family Christmas stuff stopping me getting online.

Intermittently on Roll20 today