Proton Packs are big. So’s the Impala’s trunk. But it’s not all that big… I’d say, max, it can hold 3 proton packs as well as an assortment of other equipment.
Let’s put three ghost traps in there as well. Other small items can be included, or carried in your pockets, but not a whole lot. Juuuuust enough to equip each character.
There are four characters active, including the NPC. Each character can carry (and fight with) no more than three items.
Kristopher has established the following kit: One Proton Pack. One Ghost Trap. One PKE meter. If he wishes to change this, let me know please.
Louis may choose his own items from those available; view the Roll20 app to pick three cards. Please let me know in this or the IC thread which three you choose.
Gerald will use whatever is leftover to equip himself; I will ‘direct’ his character in a functional but minimal manner… if your characters wish to ‘suggest’ actions for him, tell him so In-Character please.
J.T. Roth will not be active in this endeavor, although he will be present. He may be able to prevent complete disaster, if a TPKsituation cannot be avoided, and is always available to talk to.
The IC thread will be re-activated by your In-Character posts!
To clarify: The Ghost Die is one specific die, the last one rolled. This is why it’s important to use the dieroller in your JOURNAL as opposed to any other roller; this differentiates this die from the others to avoid arguments. If this particular die rolls a 6, it counts as zero, and means something bad is going to happen. How bad depends on circumstances and how I feel at the time. And yes, I know probability means that the ghost die can come up many times in a given turn, but generally speaking I’ll stop accepting them after two or three come up. But not always.
Incidentally, this is also (kinda) the reason for making you roll BROWNIE POINTS first… not only does the very last die indicate the ghost die, but it’s not possible to sit there and say “Hmm, an 18, I’ll add another brownie point. 19? Another brownie point!” and so on.
:::Phnord cracks his knuckles and massages his fingers:::
Lotta typing, that was a FUN turn!
Just wanted to drop a note about the midnight deadline and my posts thereafter…
Because it’s Ghostbusters, Midnight seemed like the best time to put the cutoff point. Anything posted before midnight is included in that day’s “Turn”.
At midnight, I officially begin deciding what has happened. I’ve actually spent much of the day thinking this over, but until midnight, I haven’t come to any hard-and-fast decisions. This is because, until midnight, players still have the opportunity to post and change the situation. So, as close to midnight as I can, I open up the thread, give it a read-through, and then get down to work.
Like I said, I spend the day considering the possibilities, but until I start posting nothing is set in stone. So, I start writing… and when there’s a lot going on, this can take a while. I still have to think carefully about everything, and make sure I’m not leaving anything out. Technically, 11:59 is the cut-off point, but if someone makes a post at 12:02 or something I’ll generally consider including it; usually, however, even if they post before I do, if they’ve posted after midnight it’s part of the NEXT day’s turn.
Tonight’s turn took nearly two hours to write up, due to all the activity. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with Kris’ speechifying until I started writing. His actual words, and the ghost roll, helped me to decide.
Also, I stopped and had a midnight snack somewhere in there. Which was nice.
PS: I’m having an absolute blast here; this is great fun, thank you all for playing with me! Can’t wait to see what you do next!
I just noticed this as I switched over from the In-Character thread to post this…
Yes, you can save them, if you want. The roll itself, or just the points; you may choose.
The expected value of a d6 is 3.5… you got 7, perfectly average. Rerolling may get you more or less, your choice.
Now, what I was saying:
WARNING!
The GM Rambles A Lot About Brownie Points
Go get a snack or a drink before reading!
Heh…
Thanks Brian, but what are the brownie dice for? You’re already at 1 turn terrorized; you can’t reduce that any further. Good description tho; gonna let that stand for your turn!
To clarify:
Louis is frightened for 1 turn, regardless of anything else. 1 turn is the minimum for this attack, if the character fails to avoid it. No ghost was rolled, so he feels no other effect.
Kristopher is frightened for 3 turns. He can reduce this to the minimum, 1 turn, by spending two brownie points (no roll needed). He could choose to spend only 1 point and be frightened for 2 turns, or choose to spend none and experience the entire 3 turns frightened. Also, a ghost die was rolled, meaning something bad will happen. He chose to crap his pants (we happened to meet in Roll20 and he made me laugh when he suggested that!) so, that’s what happened.
Brian is frightened for 1 turn, regardless of anything else. Ghost die was rolled, meaning something bad will happen. He has nothing on which to use brownie points until his next action, which will be the turn after this one. I suppose if you really, really, really want to put on an Oscar-worthy performance of sitting by the toilet, alone in a darkened bathroom, freaking out because you just saw a ghost, you could spend a brownie point on that… which would earn you a roleplaying award, for good in-character actions, of let’s say one brownie point per brownie point spent.
Gerald used brownie points before his roll, and because of that, succeeded in NOT being terrorized at all. Hence, he loses no turns. He paid 3 brownie points to help guarantee this, and did so before his turn, completely avoiding any penalty he might have taken by failing his COOL roll. You might think of this as buying bad-thing-happening insurance; you have to sign up before the bad thing happens!
A careful observer will have noticed that JT Roth’s brownie points (health bar) were lower than 100%… this is because he’d previously been fighting the phantasm alone, in the time before the game started. This is another use of brownie points, as hit points, in the case of physical damage such as being pegged in the nuts by a flying gas cap.
Brownie Points work exactly like your standard Hit Points in this way; the worse the physical damage, the more Brownie Points you lose for it. A punch with a fist might do only one point of damage; it might even do less, depending on the circumstances. A whack on the noggin with a baseball bat could do 2-3 points of damage; a gunshot could do 5 or more! Falling off things, having things fall on you, combat, accidents, whatever, it’s all counted in Brownie Points.
Occasionally, you may have the option to take damage in another way. For example, if you are kicked in the shin by a small child, you may be given the option to have your MOVES Trait reduced by 1 (to indicate a limp) for a period of time, rather than lose valuable Brownie Points for the damage. Or the aforementioned baseball bat might reduce your BRAINS Trait, or what have you. I don’t particularly like this option but I will offer it when the circumstances seem to make sense.
If your character ever runs out of Brownie Points, and still takes an injury, they don’t die… they’re simply put out of action for a time while they heal.
Since it’s no fun to have a character die, and nobody important dies in the movies anyway (Shut up, Joss Whedon. And you too George RR Martin; this is a movie not a book!) you don’t have to worry about this in Ghostbusters, the RPG. The worst that could happen would your character would end up in the Hospital and out of action for a while.
For example: a nuclear missile, in some small secret base in Russia, is possessed by the ghost of Rasputin, and launches itself at New York city. Through an incredible streak of bad luck, your Ghostbusters are unable to stop it, and it detonates in Times Square, just as you’re arriving. BOOM! Everyone’s dead…
…except, they’re not. Blackened with soot, smouldering hair, torn or destroyed clothing, etc. But not dead. They will be spending quite a lot of time in the hospital burn ward, however! :::ouch!:::
Lesser wounds are just ‘healed’. Cuts are bandaged, broken bones heal, even a severed limb can be stapled back on, if you manage to pack it in ice quickly.
“Gol-Darnit!” bellows J.T. Roth, glaring at his robotic prosthesis. “Why in tarnation didn’t anyone tell ME about this?”
“Shut up, J.T. This is the Out of Character thread; you’re not allowed in here!”
Ahem. Anyway.
Each character starts with 20 Brownie Points.
Additional Brownie Points are earned in-game for whatever I want to award them for, generally extra-special examples of In-Character actions.
At the end of a Story, Brownie Points are awarded to all participating characters. An encounter where the ghost gets away or the party is otherwise defeated might result in only a few points being awarded.
A successful encounter, where the 'Busters achieve all their objectives, while causing minimum mayhem, generally earns the characters an amount equal to whatever they spent during that story.
This sentence is a hidden messsage to anyone who actually reads this entire post: prove it by sending me a private messge with the name of the nuclear missile’s ghost and you’ll earn one brownie point. Don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.
A particularly well-played campaign, where the players were in-character, and their actions carried the story along in a fun manner, and introduced twists that the GM wasn’t expecting, earns the characters all the points they spent in the story, and a substantial bonus (up to as much as 5 or more points!)
If a character should ever run out of Brownie Points, they have the option to purchase more by reducing a TRAIT. One point off any TRAIT purchases 20 Brownie Points. This means basic traits, Brains Muscles Moves or Cool, which will in turn also reduce the related TALENT.
If a character should accumulate enough Brownie Points, they have the option to spend them to IMPROVE a TRAIT (and the associated TALENT with it, of course.) This costs 30 brownie points, which are gone forever; you don’t get these back for a successful campaign! Wise players will ensure their character has enough remaining for the next adventure, before doing this!
And, of course, the best use of brownie points is to ensure success in an upcoming dieroll contest.
There is no limit to the amount of Brownie Points used this way.
Except, of course, you can’t spend more than you have.
I know of a game in which, facing an Unstoppable Demon From Hell, one member of the party chose to use 20 (twenty!) Brownie Points to punch it in the face!
It worked. Didn’t kill the thing, but it was still quite a punch!
And that’s basically everything I can say about Brownie Points.
Anybody still awake out there? Heh. Didn’t think so.. sleep well!
Yeah I read Kris’s roll where he wanted to reduce the terror penalty and assumed it applied to all of us, but then read up after I rolled. I’ll read more thoroughly next time!
Thanks for the Brownie point explanation. I’ll save the brownie points then, thanks.
Bored, so here’s a few things I specifically mentioned that didn’t get followed up on:
Old papers and stuff in the receptionists’ offices. There’s two offices, see, and only one really got searched, and that only semi-thoroughly. The appointment book was found, and read, but only the last month, and only looking for the name “Ralph”. Once the spirit’s name was discovered, and the date of the accident, the appointment for “Marie Peterson” could have been found, adding detail to her injuries and possibly cause of death, and providing a telephone number and address showing her to be a visitor from out of town… in the countryside.
In addition, a high difficulty search roll (20+) would have turned up a piece of paper that had fallen down behind a desk. This paper was a release form, allowing Marie’s comatose body to be transferred to another facility more equipped for her care. Somehow this got lost before being signed by the Doctor in charge. He never knew it was an issue, nobody else knew he didn’t know about it… so Marie stayed there, receiving basic care but not enough to help her, and she eventually died.
Ralph is mentioned several times as ‘causing a disturbance’… this could have been followed up on in a few ways, including asking Alice (from the newspaper; J.T. met her) who said that she remembered the events. Two interesting things about this: Ralph was fighting to have her released, causing trouble, which was why he was banned, which is why he caused trouble, which is why he was banned, and so on. And, when Marie first went into the coma, strange things would happen whenever Ralph was allowed to visit: telephones would ring, lights would turn on and off, items would be knocked off shelves, etc. Your standard poltergeist activity, all caused by a comatose Marie’s latent telekinesis.
There was also a lot of opportunity for research that could have gone anywhere; ad-libbed conversations with various people around town or whatever that could have helped the characters tie these clues together.
And the big one. The clue that repeated itself over and over and nobody caught on to it. I mean, I’ve just mentioned it twice in this very post! Anybody know what it is yet? Catching this clue would have shown you the solution I was hoping for, for the Big Brownie Point Prize! I mean, the fight’s over, ya won, but still… would be fun to see someone figure it out!
I will mention, and this isn’t anyone’s fault in particular; not even a fault at all, really… the whole point of this adventure was for everyone to learn how to play, after all. But I would have liked to see a lot more conversation between the characters, talking things over and planning out strategies. Hopefully now that we’ve got a larger team and you’ve all gotten in a little practice, this will improve.
Please don’t take any of this as anything but constructive; I had an absolute blast doing this, and y’all made me laugh a lot and do a lot of thinking and planning and trying to figure out what YOU are thinking and planning, which is the best part of being a GM! And, the story didn’t end up going the way I thought it would, which is the other best part of being a GM!
If anything, I should have been more explicit in letting y’all know what was a clue. I’ll try to be more helpful in that matter in the future.
Just… be aware that Kindergarten is over, kiddies. The next mission will be substantially more difficult; nobody got hurt at all, so far, have they? :eek:mwaahhaaahaaahaaaaa!
So far the only thing that comes to mind is that if we had found the release papers, we could convince her that the doctors were releasing her, allowing her to move on.
