I’ve never been so wrong. :smack: Actually, I’ve been at least that wrong, many times in my life… but this turned out to be much more of a pain in the ass than I was expecting. Imagination is your friend; use it on these crappy line-drawing maps that came with the game!
I’ll try to do better in the future, in games that I write myself.
The basement map is now posted for your perusal; turns will continue tonight at midnight, as usual.
See y’all then!
For our home viewers: 66666 Flatbush Avenue: Basement
Color Code because it’s hard to read:
Brian
Gerald
Kristopher
Louis
Brian leads the way, pke meter activated. He heads downstairs, scanning along the way. Takes a quickj scan of the furnace and other appliances.
He then moves to the storage, scanning each door and the pile of junk dumped uncerimoniously in the hall.
Another weak roll! 8 + 5 no ghost = 13
Chapter 2: The Basement
10:15 am
The basement, as you might expect, is large, dark, dank, and filled with decades of clutter and debris. Generations of rats and cockroaches have made this place their home, and signs of their presence are everywhere. A huge, ancient hot-water heater and accompanying storage tank take up much of the primary area; to the south, an ancient gas furnace sits quietly, waiting for the weather to change, its pilot light gamely lit. Near it is the main fusebox for the building, rusted shut. Mounds of discarded items fill all corners of this area, leaving only narrow corridors and pathways between them, barely large enough for you to pick your careful way through. Two obvious entry paths can be seen; the staircase leading up into the interior of the apartment building, and an old rusty steel door which leads to the back alley.
The cleanest section belongs to Don Davidson, clean here being a relative term. It is filled with discarded furniture, piles of old clothing and garbage, and numerous pieces of electronics in various stages of disassembly. Old toasters, broken VCRs, radios, televisions, CBs, anything you can think of that uses electricity probably has a presence here. It’s immediately obvious that, while Mr. Davidson enjoys his hobby of electronics, it will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future: Just a hobby. Kristopher takes one glance at the debris here and decides that it would best be taken to a landfill; anything that may once have been fixed has been irrevocably destroyed by Don’s inept handling.
The area belonging to the Pogoni family is easily recognizable by the broken or outgrown toys, clothing, furniture, and other items once beloved by the Pogoni children, now left down here to rot. Old mattresses, piles of clothing, broken toys, and the like lay scattered about this area.
A third area contains a variety of items, similar to the rest of the contents of the basement, although showing signs of a slightly higher… or at least, more developed… sense of taste. Nothing here is particularly valuable, except perhaps for a discarded dinette set which still looks serviceable, although one chair is missing. A cardboard box contains 11 empty mayonnaise jars; another one holds a set of Encyclopedia dated from the early 1970s. A third box lays open, turned on its side, and its contents spilled onto the floor: four wigs of varying color, four pair of white vinyl high-heeled go-go boots, four white vinyl mini-skirts, and a change-maker.
The fourth area contains bag upon bag of dirt; some of which is labeled potting soil, in unopened plastic bags… most, however, is old burlap sacks and sandbags, torn and spilling onto the floor. Also in this area are numerous old shovels, picks, rakes, hoes, and a substantial supply of lumber… wooden boards, planks, plywood, and such, most of which show signs of being taken piecemeal from various construction sites, as they lay scattered about in various levels of useability. Like the rest of the basement, of course, this area too holds numerous other broken or discarded items, none of which are interesting in the least.
Professor Jenkins carefully picks his way through the debris, PKE meter in hand, as he and the other Ghostbusters search through the filth and garbage for anything that might seem interesting or important.
Brian rolls 13, no ghost, in his BRAINS check to use the PKE meter.
The entire basement has unusually high levels of psychokinetic energy traces; there is clearly a spirit or ghost somewhere in this building, and judging by the readings, this area is haunted quite frequently. The Professor gets high readings from a variety of objects, but is unable to pin down any particular location as being favored by the phantom.
So far, so good. What’s next on the agenda? Let me know when you’re ready to move on to the next floor and I’ll put up that map.
PS: Mahaloth, I saw a BRAINS roll there; I took it to be a simple observation check, and it has been taken into account if not specifically noted; see paragraph 2 above.
“Curious” Brian observes, " I wonder what our 4th floor tenant needs with landscaping supplies? Private garden on the roof?
And what’s with all the junk in the hall? Last tenant failed to remove their stuff, I guess.
Well, looks like time to go chat with Don again, unless you guys see anything more to examine."
Gerald shakes his head.
“This is useless. The area’s been haunted so heavily that we’re unlikely to pinpoint any particular objects of interest, even if there are any. We’ll have to search for clues elsewhere and maybe come back if we have a reason to scrutinize any specific pieces more closely.”
OK I’d like to approach this scientifically once we go up there. I’ll set up the camera with a good view of the cord, and then we’ll try the following in order:
Unplug Don’s TV
Unplug and block the outlet
Change channels. Maybe the ghost has a favourite channel?
remove a component of the TV
and finally cut the cord.
What do you guys think?
We should also ask Don and the other tenant if there have been physical manifestations or other signs of ghostly activity besides the TV plugging itself back in.
“Yeah, let’s go ahead and look up one floor. I guess we could break open the fuse box and pull all the fuses if we really wanted to see if the ghost can control electricity on its own. Anyway, we’ll come back later.”
If there are any particularly dark areas of the basement, Kris will really quickly put on his ecto-visor and check them out.
Kris rolls a 16+3(no ghost) for a 19 for equipment.
On the way back up the stairs, Louis turns off the lights long enough for he and Kristopher to scan the basement with their Ecto-Visor, but neither of them see anything unusual.
You will arrive in Don’s apartment tonight at midnight.
Don Davidson is a bachelor, and it shows. His flat is messy; clothes, electronics junk, rude posters and suggestive magazines litter the floor. He offers you seats in the living room, but first he has to shovel piles of old newspapers and dirty socks from the furniture, adding to the large pile covering the floor.
The bedroom is unkempt, and furnished only by a mattress and a few cardboard boxes.
His laboratory slash repair shop is stacked high with ancient chassis and boxes of knobs, handles, circuit boards, power supplies, etc.
Fried chicken take-out cartons litter the kitchen, which is otherwise unused.
Don stands close by whichever 'Buster is using the most technological equipment, getting in your way asking questions about how it works and trying to see readings.
You know what to do!
Brian switches on the PKE Meter and begins to scan. He starts by scanning the TV, sharing the results with Kris, then moves on to the electronics lab, scanning each piece as much as possible.
Moving to the kitches he does a quick scan of the appliances, opening the fridge to check for interdimensional portals. (Ya never know!)
Finally he scans the bathroom and bedroom.
He answers Don’s questions in short, but not rude, sentences, shooing him away from the PKE meter.
Brains roll 23, no Ghost
Is there no television in this apartment? If there is, is it on full blast right now?
Brian asks Don:
Are any other electronics on, appliances, radio etc or is it only the TV that the ghost is controlling?
Has there been any physical manifestations of this ghost? Has anyone seen it?
While looking around a bit, Kris asks Don, “So, I noticed this building was built in 1947, or at least that is what it says outside on the cornerstone. Do you own it now? And how long have you been the super? Do you know much about it before you took over?”
There is a television in Don’s apartment: A portable B&W television with a coathanger antenna. In 1986, ‘portable’ meant ‘technically, you could pick it up if you really wanted to’… it’s about a 12" screen, and clearly a replacement for a previous set. It rests upon a wobbly pile of milk crates in a corner of the living room; the carpet beneath is cleaner than that in the rest of the apartment; clearly, something much larger used to rest here. Next to it, an old hockey stick rests leaning against the wall. As you would expect, this small television set is tuned to WBOR, currently blasting out an old rerun of Gilligan’s Island… the episode where they almost get off the island, but don’t.
Scattered about on the carpet here are many shards of thick glass, with a strange coating on one side.
The Professor scans the apartment with his PKE meter, with Don nosily tagging along as he does so. The entire apartment is highly (for certain values of high) charged with residual PKE energy; this area (with the television) is giving off higher readings than most.
None of the other electronic devices are acting unusually, although PKE readings are higher than normal in Don’s electronics ‘lab’.
“No, I don’t own this building,” explains Don. “I just work here. I send the rent to Grasp Properties once a month; they send me a paycheck almost as often. My job is just to keep the place running and collect people’s rent, and like I said earlier I’ve only been doing it for the last two years, since I moved in. Didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself into!”
“Oh, the broken glass?” continues Don, when you ask. “Yeah… that’s from an old console television I found down in the basement a while back. I dragged it up here, and fixed it up, was watching it for a while… but then the thing started turning itself on, like all the others, and I got mad and smashed the screen in with a hockey stick! Dragged it back down to the basement, it’s down there somewhere; you probably saw it when you were down there. Then I changed my mind, and got this portable one… I thought I couldn’t live without television! But now I’m about this close to smashing it too! Any of y’all wanna buy a TV? I’ll give you a real good price!”
“I haven’t personally seen any ghost, but every night I get the strangest feeling that I’m being watched. Usually happens somewhere around 8:00 pm. It’s spooky, like there’s someone else in the room with me, but I look around and there’s nobody there.”
Lou says, “Ah guess we need ta come on back down here den* fo’ a look.”
*around 8:00 pm.
Yes, and what’s on TV at 8:00 PM around here?
Brian gets a plastic bag and slides a piece of the broken glass into it, pocketing it for later analysis.
Brian addresses the rest of the Ghost Busters: “Should we move on to the next floor? Don, who lives on the second floor?”
Disregard my suggestion to move on. I forgot we were going to experiment with the TV. heh
“It should be that LeCoque lady we’re going to next, but let’s mess with the TV.”
Kris goes and unplugs the television. “Don, do you have any kind of duct tape or other stuff that can block the outlets?”
