Character Creation Discussion

[Rejakor]

16 hours ago, Cairo said:

This all sounds reasonable, and makes me lean towards something else / a random roll. I'll give it a bit more thought. Thanks!

Looking at the skills, the most PI one that jumps out at me is Notice. 'Spotting anomalies' is the big thing i'd assume a PI wants. Wisdom to spot emotional anomalies, intelligence to spot objects (or data lines) out of place, and charisma to notice social anomalies and you've got a great spread of ways to uncover clues. The other one, weirdly, is Connect. PIs are always going to specialists for more info, or to hack stuff, or even to sneak into places on their behalf. Connect lets you do basically a bunch of other skills if you've got the time to go find a person.

 

[Cairo]

1 hour ago, Rejakor said:

Looking at the skills, the most PI one that jumps out at me is Notice. 'Spotting anomalies' is the big thing i'd assume a PI wants. Wisdom to spot emotional anomalies, intelligence to spot objects (or data lines) out of place, and charisma to notice social anomalies and you've got a great spread of ways to uncover clues. The other one, weirdly, is Connect. PIs are always going to specialists for more info, or to hack stuff, or even to sneak into places on their behalf. Connect lets you do basically a bunch of other skills if you've got the time to go find a person.

Very good points, all, and they click with where my head's at. Something I'm being mindful of is that he's first and foremost a "reality TV" investigator. He didn't need to be a real-life Columbo to land that gig - he just needed to stand out and not be a total wipeout in the investigative department.

So: able to act the part in an entertaining way (Performance-0), able to convince people A) that he's an investigator and B) of the facts as he sees them - or as I imagine was more common in the series, to talk a hysterical / paranoid person from doing something really bad (Talk-1), able to fight his way in or out when that didn't work (Stab-0, Shoot-0), able to move about quietly (Sneak-0), and knowledgeable about the jargon and what goes into being a PI (Work-0 / PI).

While Admin would make perfect sense for the head of a real PI agency, I don't think Harry needed to concern himself with that stuff. The producer or someone else took care of it. If he had to address something admin-y on-camera he was probably fed the right lines to say. Similarly he didn't really need Lead because he was working with friends, they were cast to fill predefined roles, and they were given ideas of where an episode might go to extract maximum entertainment (and revenue). Think reality TV now and add 40 years of a downward dystopian spiral.

But Connect and Notice would definitely fit that mold.

[Rejakor]

I don't think administration has much to do with being a PI. It's for actual organization management and data crunching.

That said if he's a Love Island of PI's then it's just Performance + whatever minigames the PI-contestants have to do that the show makers think of. Actual PI work is probably nowhere to be seen.

[Cairo]

This goes into rules interpretation territory so take this simply as mine: in this instance Admin would be less about PI business specifically, and more about simply running a business. There's no "Small Biz" skill in the default skill list so I take Admin to cover the operation / administration of a business of any size (either as a person on the inside doing the thing, or someone observing how businesses operate from the outside). For example a legit private investigations agency set up and run by one person, employing three others. The Work skill would then handle knowledge of whatever it is that business does.

And not necessarily a Love Island of PIs, more a genre of reality TV where they ostensibly follow both the private and professional life of someone (truck driver, big game hunter, house flipper, etc). There's a certain level of expertise (and possibly licenses) required for that person to pass for an actual representative of their purported industry, but they don't necessarily need to be the best at that job. Especially in a cheap dystopian version of that format.

[Rejakor]

all of that said imagine a gritty noir love island of PIs

[Arcticus]

Yeah Administration primarily is for running an organization, but the description also includes analyzing records which I would assume includes spotting inconsistencies and anomalies in data and the like. Notice, from my reading, is more focused on physical/social situational awareness

[Landid]

If we have 4-5 weeks of time before the job would I be able to come up with 4-5 more contacts from my Face edge before things get under way?

[Cairo]

2 hours ago, Arcticus said:

Notice, from my reading, is more focused on physical/social situational awareness

That's my read of it also. I figured that was more up Harry's alley so I went for it.

On an unrelated note, what's our SIN situation? Do we have them, not have them, choose wether we have them, or do we ignore SINs?

[Cairo]

1 hour ago, Landid said:

If we have 4-5 weeks of time before the job would I be able to come up with 4-5 more contacts from my Face edge before things get under way?

Arcticus might have a different take on this, but as I understand it the Face edge allows you to have one bonus contact on your list at a time:

1) You use the edge to add a new acquaintance contact, give them a name and other details, etc

2) They work just like any other acquaintance while on your list

3) When you use the edge to add a new acquaintance contact (1+ weeks later) the previous one still exists in the world but you can't get a hold of them until you use the Face edge (again 1+ weeks later, earliest) to re-establish contact

[Rejakor]

hm I just made a bunch of people. I should probably decide which if any of those are actual Contact contacts

[Arcticus]

11 hours ago, Cairo said:

That's my read of it also. I figured that was more up Harry's alley so I went for it.

On an unrelated note, what's our SIN situation? Do we have them, not have them, choose wether we have them, or do we ignore SINs?

Following SR's expectations that everyone has a SIN registered at birth. If you want to not have a SIN, there's the Unregistered foci you could take that would allow you to not have a SIN.

12 hours ago, Landid said:

If we have 4-5 weeks of time before the job would I be able to come up with 4-5 more contacts from my Face edge before things get under way?

11 hours ago, Cairo said:

Arcticus might have a different take on this, but as I understand it the Face edge allows you to have one bonus contact on your list at a time:

1) You use the edge to add a new acquaintance contact, give them a name and other details, etc

2) They work just like any other acquaintance while on your list

3) When you use the edge to add a new acquaintance contact (1+ weeks later) the previous one still exists in the world but you can't get a hold of them until you use the Face edge (again 1+ weeks later, earliest) to re-establish contact

Mostly my interpretation @Landid, with the addition that you are allowed to just keep the same person as the temporary contact each week if you so choose. It also does say you can cement the relationship by payment or favors which to me sounds like you can make them permanent contacts. That, however, would need to be resolved in game.

[Landid]

4 hours ago, Arcticus said:

Following SR's expectations that everyone has a SIN registered at birth. If you want to not have a SIN, there's the Unregistered foci you could take that would allow you to not have a SIN.

Mostly my interpretation @Landid, with the addition that you are allowed to just keep the same person as the temporary contact each week if you so choose. It also does say you can cement the relationship by payment or favors which to me sounds like you can make them permanent contacts. That, however, would need to be resolved in game.

My bad I should have explained a bit better. I understand they don't become permanent contacts without effort, instead I was looking at the line where I could reconnect with any contact that I previously had. Basically just a list of people that I could potentially reconnect with, or not at all if someone else is deemed necessary.

[Arcticus]

On 9/19/2023 at 4:00 AM, Landid said:

My bad I should have explained a bit better. I understand they don't become permanent contacts without effort, instead I was looking at the line where I could reconnect with any contact that I previously had. Basically just a list of people that I could potentially reconnect with, or not at all if someone else is deemed necessary.

Ah sorry Landid, missed this. Having a list of contacts is fine. You've got your 2 permanent contacts always and then the list of people you sometimes deal with on a semi-regular basis. Mechanically I think specifying which of those temp contacts you want to reconnect with and make a "permanent" contact will lock you into them for a week. Once that week is up, you can choose to stay connected with them or connect with someone else

[Cairo]

I was adding the readied / stowed information to my character's gear list while waiting for character review, when I realized I'm not sure how encumbrance works in this game.

Page 48:

"A PC can carry up to half of their Strength score in Ready items, rounded down ... In addition, a PC can carry additional Stowed items up to their full Strength score."

For Harry that'd be 4 readied + 8 stowed. But is it 4/8 items, or items worth 4/8 encumbrance? On one hand the text keeps referring to items (throughout the book, not just on this page), but on the other that would make the encumbrance values kind of meaningless (like 0 vs. 3 enc armor).

And either way, does the magazine loaded into a weapon count towards readied or stowed encumbrance limits?

[Arcticus]

2 hours ago, Cairo said:

I was adding the readied / stowed information to my character's gear list while waiting for character review, when I realized I'm not sure how encumbrance works in this game.

Page 48:

"A PC can carry up to half of their Strength score in Ready items, rounded down ... In addition, a PC can carry additional Stowed items up to their full Strength score."

For Harry that'd be 4 readied + 8 stowed. But is it 4/8 items, or items worth 4/8 encumbrance? On one hand the text keeps referring to items (throughout the book, not just on this page), but on the other that would make the encumbrance values kind of meaningless (like 0 vs. 3 enc armor).

And either way, does the magazine loaded into a weapon count towards readied or stowed encumbrance limits?

I'll be reviewing character mechanics over the next few days.

As to the Encumbrance rules. You effectively get 12 Encumbrance. 4 Readied + 8 Stowed. The maximum number of items you can carry is the same as your strength score, unless you have an item (like a backpack) or something else that says otherwise. You can always have a number of readied items equal to half your strength score. Readied items you use as part of an action, Stowed items require use of a Main Action produce from your backpack/pockets/knapsack/cyberstorage compartment/etc... Armor when worn is considered Readied. I wouldn't consider a magazine loaded into the gun as extra encumbrance, it would just be subsumed by the weapons encumbrance. However if you have 3 extra magazines ready to go (for instance, if your character had mag pouches lined up on their front like on modern body armor), that would count as 3 encumbrance under Readied. If didn't want them immediately available, but still on your person, you might put them in your backpack or a similar storage device, at which point it'd be 3 encumbrance under Stowed and would require a Main action per item to retrieve.