Boston Theoretical PbP

Game Master Tarren Dei

I’m getting a kick out of Nissa’s disbelief in time travel proving true (so far). She was already there in the first episode, not wanting to believe we traveled back in time.

Traveling into a fiction world is weird, but to her it feels safe. She at least gets that the story goes back to normal in the end.

She does have a concern that she hasn’t brought up, but that’s mostly because my posts are long enough as-are, and it’s a wild guess that’s likely wrong. Nissa has admitted that she is only guessing as what Portly would do with a super-baby. I think I’m at least close. Could be DNA extraction.

The fictional 'pocket dimensions' thing is inspired in part by the comic book Planetary. There's a decent chance you'll meet some other transdimensional travelers who could answer any questions about it. Dr. Moore isn't exactly straightforward in his explanations and you've never used the Sword of Truth on him.

Not yet.

(I might have edited out Nissa’s desire to interrogate Dr. Moore later. There’s a lot going on in her head now, some of which will come out at the Kents’ house.)

@GM, if my post says 15 minutes ago or more, you’ve seen my entire post.

If you read it when it was only 1-14 minutes old, I edited in a couple lines, one in bold text, another in blue.

Another Nissa drawing for the curious.

Fun! :D

Very fun.

I'm enjoying the antics right now. This is the most comic-booky it has ever been. Theo's a clown and Verve made me laugh. Talking to the 4th wall and addressing the reader (Moore). Lots of fun.

Despite what Nissa says about not killing, I just watched Triplets of Belleville last night. I think it has the deadliest car chase ever seen in a cartoon.

I'm not super-fond of the vehicle chase rules. Breaking free is a Piloting check vs DC 5+enemy vehicle's KAC. Why not opposed Piloting checks? I'm sure there's a reason.

I just assumed we were doing opposed rolls all this time. Fine with me if you just want to houserule it. My rolls have been above their take 10, but roughly close to MY take 10, so I probably would easily escape by rolling above a natural 5 due to my better bonus. But you’ve rolled a nat.19 for car 3 and a nat.20 for car 2, which is making for a more exciting chase.

I agree it seems counterintuitive not to have opposed rolls when both opponents are doing the exact same thing. That, plus my roll would always beat all or none if vs a DC.

If I had to guess, it's cause they wanted to cut down on the number of rolls (which is an odd take given the space combat section).

If I had to guess, it's cause they wanted to cut down on the number of rolls (which is an odd take given the space combat section).

I’m pretty sure that’s the reason since PF2 also went in that direction… though it’s again weird. The attacker rolls sometimes, and sometimes the defender rolls, and even for saves the attacker rolls… so when do you roll and when don’t you?

I once GM’d a home brew in which only players rolled, so they rolled defense when I attacked them and rolled to attack me. That wasn’t so much about fairness as it was about me not wanting to roll dice. I just narrated and when players rolled, stuff happened.

You couldn’t do PvP in that home brew though, so the system was tailored to what I wanted out of the campaign. (And what I didn’t want, which was players fighting each other and me rolling… though I did roll for inept NPCs to see if they would run out of HP and die before players could defeat the monsters.)

Oh, cool! Is this PhDestruction then?

That acid should get car #2… and make it hard for the shooter to do his thing, I think.

Can I ram the other vehicle, or must I wait until next round? My pilot check was a move, I think, so a second Pilot roll now would be an attack?

…but if people can stop the shooter, I don’t really need to dent the Kents’ truck.

Can I ram the other vehicle, or must I wait until next round? My pilot check was a move, I think, so a second Pilot roll now would be an attack?

…but if people can stop the shooter, I don’t really need to dent the Kents’ truck.

I think you'd have to wait until the next round.

That’s fine. Can I make a pilot check and Supernova* in the same round? As in, Move + Standard. I’m certain I cannot ram and Supernova.

*(now with Distant Star, so I don’t need to worry bout friendly fire anymore!)

Just read chase rules. Looks like my pilot check is a move action, and I can do a standard action as well which includes shooting or a second pilot check (double maneuver or attack).

But I don’t have my gun out and would rather not ram if Charles and Verve already took care of the current situation. I’ll wait for the GM post, then have Nissa be more aggressive next round!

I think, seeing how Nissa never drew her gun, her only attack is the one she learned at Lv.4. I’ll save it for next round.

Is there stuff in the back of the truck Theo can hurl at the car. The damage to Car 2’s windshield took him outta the chase!

I think, seeing how Nissa never drew her gun, her only attack is the one she learned at Lv.4. I’ll save it for next round.

Is there stuff in the back of the truck Theo can hurl at the car. The damage to Car 2’s windshield took him outta the chase!

There is a pitchfork, for pitching bales of hay onto the truck.

Oh, cool! Yes, throwing stuff that can ignite would be a good thing. I wonder if acid would cause more of the hay to stick to the car.

I’ve ridden my share of pick-up trucks fulla hay bails, and I’m no stranger to throwing the bails. I assume you mean the rectangular kind that weighs ~30 lbs dry, pushing 50 soaking wet.

Definitely an easy feat for Theo.

Am I able to act yet, or are we still holding for other players to act?

Oh, and I love the chariot!

Am I able to act yet, or are we still holding for other players to act?

Oh, and I love the chariot!

We are holding for Verve and I think Charles could act as well. I haven't been calling out the rounds, but I think Charles acid attack was last round.

I'm kind of excited to see what happens next.

There's not much Charles can do at a range here (his acid breath is once per 10-minute rest), so don't wait on me.

That's what I was thinking. I'm looking forward to Verve's action anyhow. Throwing an obstacle into a chase scene is a nice action for a player to be able to have, especially in a superhero RPG. It's actually, also, the kind of thing you would see in a comic book.

The motorcycle could end up as one might expect of an Indiana Jones chase.

Will Nissa be within 40’ of that motorcycle if she comes at it?

You have two+ vehicles heading straight towards each other. It all depends how fast they go. I think, Verve's action finishes this round.

Next round probably finds everyone pretty much on top of each other.

After seeing what Verve does, Nissa, as the Pilot is going to have to decide whether to keep heading straight and possibly crash or dodge the oncoming vehicle while trying not to go off the bridge. The other driver will have the same option, but, they do look kind of nuts. They brought a motorcycle chariot to a car chase. Who knows what they will do!?

Not much if Verve lifts the driver from his chariot! Is that an option?

Still contemplating Nissa’s Distant Star. Would an explosion throw people off course?

An explosion between the two vehicles playing chicken would count as an obstacle for both.

Theo's considering some terribly heroic and stupid: Jump across to the bike chariot when it gets close and wrestle control from it's rider.

I love stupidly terribly heroic!

You have 4 bikes. Odds are you’ll land on one of them?

Hey, in the one vehicle chase my current in person Starfinder character has been in, she jumped from her enercycle through an open car window to take out some of our pursuers. And steal their car because she liked it.

This next round should be pretty crazy...!

This next round should be pretty crazy...!

I thought it would be a little crazier, but the other vehicles made good rolls.

Can I add my own crazy with that ranged-supernova? I want to try and either blast the functioning bikes or the bridge itself.

—AFTER crossing, and obviously only if I make my check.

I assume I need to beat their checks to maintain my lead, and that I don’t have the +2 lead this round since they attacked from both sides.

I would think so, yes, but you can't be racing the way you are, from how I'm reading the rules. You can take your foot off the gas, dodge the obstacle, fire a ranged attack. The vehicle will not slow down too much and you can resume racing next round with no penalty. That's how I read it at least.

That’s worth it. Posting!

Is there still a single functioning bike? I didn’t want to undermine Theo’s plan to dive off the truck and tackle Adonis, or whoever that is. I just couldn’t resist doing something destructive.

Is there still a single functioning bike? I didn’t want to undermine Theo’s plan to dive off the truck and tackle Adonis, or whoever that is. I just couldn’t resist doing something destructive.

Adonisius is on the chariot with the driver. Two of the bikes are still functioning, but they'd have to be detached from the chariot rigging (a sword could do it) before being ridden.

I'm glad Verve took the tiepin.

I was placing it in the story so that later if you saw them tap their tiepin to change out of disguise it would be building on something.

It got used faster than I thought it would.

Verve just did it to be petty, but it's nice when things work out ;D

Here's another one that I don't understand -- disarm in Starfinder. It says you roll against the opponent's KAC +8. What does it matter if he is wearing breast plate when your goal is to take the sword out of his hand?

KAC+8 is the equivalent of CMD in Starfinder, basically. And yeah, it doesn't make sense for a lot of combat maneuvers.

After all that, I thought I should have to roll bluff.

Bluff (confuse the f&&& outta them): 1d20 + 12 + 1d6 ⇒ (19) + 12 + (4) = 35

The real roll’s in-game, but I copy-pasted it because—in addition to being pleasantly surprised by the high roll—I really got a kick out of the random censor characters being a triple-ampersand. For that chatty a bluff, I kinda deserve that.

I know that there's a lot to read today, but it is time for an exposition dump.

You haven't met anyone who both knew anything about other dimensions and was forthcoming about it until now.

I like the exposition! And I’m glad you noticed Nissa was playing to the godlings’ egos (while being egotistical herself), and that it seems to have paid off!

I should pause for Charles and Verve. I think more exposition was needed but this is a good spot to slow down again maybe.

I'm happy with the way things worked out with the cars. Each one had a different TAROT group from a different world. I wasn't sure which one you'd finally meet, but it's kind of fun which ones it ended up being.

Verve is soo done with all this fiction nonsense. I, on the other hand, am enjoying it immensely.

Charles is pretty done with it, too, no matter how amusing it is to me. :D

@Theo,
Within five minutes after posting, I read your post and edited the end of mine accordingly.

LOL! Thanks for that! Hilarious!