THIS QUEST IS NEWBIE FRIENDLY

Reading this plot summary:

>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/Plot_Summary

Will give you all the information you need to play the game. That wiki also has some other cool pages you should probably check out, but it has so many now that linking the important ones individually is starting to clutter things up. Just take a look through it if you're new, it's got less than 20 pages.

Anyways.

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 6 (8)
Power: 7 (21)

Athletics: 7
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 4

Powers: Super Strength, Super Speed, Peak Durability, AI, SynthSkin, Model T, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer, Deathless

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/jgDrRens

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 0/3
Rica Rivera: 0/2

Resources: 12
XP: 0

1st week of May final action, go.

We should probably get Julio out of lockup. Tell him we looked over the glass knife, and its total nonsense. Plus, we are going to need the actions next week. In the meantime, tell Kestral that we are going to smoke out her dad, because however good the safeguards are on his power core are, they won't do much good if Chimera gets the power core. Also, we ned to call the Damio about the whole artificial supers thing. Oh, and is red death hanging around Julio on the grounds that Deadeye will probably show up again?

File: 1350756293960.jpg-(1.45 MB, 1600x1162, Villain Quest Gang Map 3.jpg)

Oh, also, have a map.

I recall we took over a company last time right? Can you elaborate a little about that?

>>21207971

Red Death's been lurking about, yes. Daimyo has the money to pay for one artificial super up front right now (fun fact: with the Goblins gone and the Family pacified, the turf wars have died down in the north a lot and people's pockets are getting heavy).

Is smoking out Dandurand and Span your final action for the week, then?

>>21208004

It was mainly a component of a greater plan to get Span and Dandurand out of the way without upsetting your fragile relationship with Kestrel. It doesn't act as a corporation as per the corporation rules, in narrative because it's too small and in mechanics because I gave it to you for an action and some die rolls, but it still gives you a plus that can hire Span and Dandurand once they get driven out of their latest hidey-hole.

>>21208030
Yeah, just have the mechs march up and raid the place. See if we can't steal the swordsman suit. 6 damper, 2 blitz to hackers. Make sure to leave at least one escape route open.

>>21208105
Of course kestral agreed to help us deceive team blue so we can conquer the city.

You send off your mechs to flush out the doctors (again) before Chimera's underground patrols can stumble across this lab. The mechs blithely ignore the alarms on the way in, tearing through the weak and half-built defenses, being as thorough as possible so as to give the doctors plenty of time to evacuate. The last thing you need is one of them grabbing a Photon gun and deciding to make a suicide charge on a mech or something.

And that's when everything goes black. The uplink to your Terminator OS (which is kind of an outdated term now, but it's not like you're making a new program just to run the mechs), all cameras and microphones, all feedback from all mechs, suddenly goes black. Everything else is functioning just fine, though. Looks like it's a problem on the mechs' end.

>>21208242
Did they hack them? They shouldn't be that good especially considering the suicide charges we install standard, get a ghost over there asap. Also, move into position personally, my money is on EMP.

File: 1350758503108.gif-(498 KB, 500x205, Iron Master Suit Up.gif)

>>21208287

The time has come: You strap on your suit and head out personally, instructing a ghost spy to contact you via ghost-phone after he checks the area out. As you get near, your suspicions are confirmed. The lights are out in buildings directly above the lab, and cars have suddenly halted, causing several accidents. Looks like an EMP. Good thing it wasn't built below a major road or there'd be a pileup by now.

File: 1350758806512.png-(22 KB, 577x445, Shy Boo.png)

Your ghost informs you of the situation down below. The entire lab has gone dead, and no sign of the good doctors, but it would seem that they are not the ones who set off the EMP. A squad of Chimera grunts is stripping the place for parts.

>>21208441
"hello gentlemen, I believe you are looting my property. I'm willing to bet you didn't expect to see me here though." (Just to confirm, we are using Agies and Photon right?)

>>21208500

You are, yes. So are they.

"We didn't ask you to show up," one of the Chimera men says, "back off now and we'll leave your mechs alone. Otherwise I'm sure command will help itself to all your tech once we pry it from whatever's left of Palos Verdes after we finish with it."

>>21208561
"Didn't work out so great for you the last time you tried that. Also, you should be happy I did show up because using EMP around that reactor is incredibly stupid of you." (It is incredibly stupid of them right? Also, is the swordsman suit still around?)

Hey OP, 2 days ago I decided to read your quest after seeing it so many times on /tg/ and I must say that it is really entertaining.

I like your narrative and the flair you tend to give to many of the action, the character interactions were golden too, I loved all those tid-bits between Kestrel and Steve and the way you used SCIENCE! the first time we got necromantic ability Deathless. Though in the latest threads you are focusing more on the numbers and less narrative, which is fucking sad. I was disappointing that there was no description when IG got super-strength and down-right disgruntled when the same thing happened whit Deathless and jacking Swordmans body.

One thing that I felt prevalent through the quest is that the system constrains the narrative and verisimilitude. Lot of the things just make no sense to me. Like murderbots being just slightly more stronger than average cop and weaker than SWAT. I know it is for balance reasons but a robot specialized for combat will ALWAYS be better in ever possible regard than a peak mundane human. Imagine how the Terminator movies would have been if Arnie could have been brought down by regular cops.

Same thing when you said in the beginning that we cannot manufacture our own guns but can shit out bidepal, autonomous robots that are identical to humans for free and at will. Guns are relatively simple devices, you can make one in your garage and depending on your skill, it will be high quality. Same thing with armor.
[cont]

>>21208931
Again, I understand that it is for balance reasons but the robots and mechs feel more like being made out of cardboard than steel. Speaking of mechs, apparently there is no difference between 8 feet one and 40 feet one? And the design of the robots don't play any part either, humanoid shape for a robot designed to kill is inefficient, human body is not designed to kill. Some kind of a disk-shaped combat droid would be far more deadly than a humanoid one even if their software and armaments are the same.

Another thing, we are a gadget-hero with super-intellect but I don't see us making any gadgets and devices ever. We're not using our vast intellect and technological marvels to easily outfit our gang or somehow improve city-facilities. We have all the data on swordman-project, but we can't just make them in our workshop and strap it on for huge combat boost or give it to our henchmen without expending EXP. We can't just go and build a tank or VTOL-aircraft even though I'm sure we have the knowledge and facilities for that. Again, I know it is for balance reasons and constraints of the system but still....

[cont]

>>21208936
Also, I disappointed in players. After making very smart, low-profile villain whose main goal is apparently betterment of mankind and trying to be seen like a "good" bad guy, they decided to give focus on hookers and drugs? Hookers and drugs?! Really?! And you want to look like a anti-villain after destroying neighborhoods and turning locals into junkies and prostitutes? What the fuck?
You should have gone for robbery and extortion and not turning streets of LA in bloodbath every other week. You had such an amazing opportunity to subvert the police by working together with that piss-poor commissioner which you got in the beginning and you fucking blew it by turning the city into a God damn warzone.
I am certain that OP had to bend Kestrel's character so that she doesn't just say "fuck you" to MC after all the shit we pulled. I mean, Iron Master kills like a dozen law-enforcers every week on average.
I mean, fuck, either play a full-evil, sociopath villain with no regard to human life or play one that actually lives up to his "good" image he is trying to build. Not some imbecile in between trying to juggle both at the same time. Iron Master is the most hypocritical douche in LA and I'm surprised no one called him out on that.

Legitimate businesses should have been introduced in the beginning not just now. I know OP didn't anticipate it but I don't understand why it took so long for the players to try it.

>>21208931
>>21208936
>>21208947

Sorry for huge post/rant, but I spent entire day reading the whole thing so I just wanted to share my thoughts.

>>21208653

Their only response is to open fire. Despite your advantage in strength and speed, their overwhelming numbers soon begin burning through your health, their Photon weaponry occasionally finding their mark on your armor while the lab is filled with bolts of plasma, machinery sheared apart by the firefight.

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 6 (6/8)
Power: 7 (15/21)

>>21208561

We should have had Rica come with us for back-up, IMO.

I do not think we will be able to talk them out of this. They do not expect us to be a powerful super, probably think of us like a weak nerd or something. So just attack them.

>>21208947
That's not even accurate. We've fought with law enforcement people twice. One of those time's we used mostly nonlethal weaponry, the other time Kestral got killed by her own team.

>>21208992
>>21208998

Fuck, I knew it.
Why do players always go for the most illogical approach?
>Have the advantage of knowing the position and numbers of our enemies beforehand and being able to get a drop on them
>Announce our presence

Also, why aren't our mechs EMP shielded in the first place?

>>21209019
Dunno, it feels like we kill a lot of cops, guards, SWAT either way.

>>21208992
Have Mask come as backup. How many are there, and how many did we kill?
Let me run some numbers:
US:
A13 three attacks per round, they have to beat our highest roll by at least 3 to do damage. They should be around A5-6 (swat is 5). So they need to get (13-6) 7 + one success for 10 higher than us. I'm not sure how they are managing that.

>>21209096
TDLR: they assuming an Athletics score of 6, an individual Chimera grunt has a 1/1679616 chance of actually hurting us.

>>21209096

There's two dozen of them and you had a really bad set of rolls in one of the rounds (I think the highest you got was a 5).

You steadily whittle the Chimera agents down, slowly gunning them down through the Aegis armor. "Come on, pencilneck," one says firing off a shot from behind the reactor, and you turn to retaliate, blasting his head off while dodging the blasts of the others, plasma warming the air. The Chimera numbers are beginning to dwindle.

>>21209308
Keep shooting.
Running more numbers: 13+5+3(one to get +1 dmg) = 21
21 - 12 = 9
They have 9 athletics?

>>21209410
oh, and bring in Rica and some local boys. She has meta speed, she should get her quick.

Rica is driving towards downtown; it's handy that you're on good terms with the Daimyo, because it'd be a lot more troublesome getting to the docs' lab under Vermont Square through the tunnels. You can't fit a car down there, or at least, not consistently.

She's less than halfway there when a blinding white light shoots out of the ground in the distance. Cars around her swerve slightly and there's a half-dozen minor collisions as everyone tries to avert their eyes from the horizon. Rica's own eyes widen for a moment as she realizes exactly what's happening: The reactor's detonating.

>>21209576

>Reactor detonates
>We are right there

I FUCKING KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

If we survive this I hope no one suggests that we go in person again.

>>21209576
fuck

try to stop the detonation somehow. We're a tech build, so we should be able to do something.

Rica spins the car around and is getting ready to floor it in the opposite direction when the light begins to fade. Fortunately for her, it would appear as though the worst case scenario wasn't quite accurate. The entire neighborhood of Vermont Square above the reactor has been vaporized, but the rest of the city appears to be in one piece.

Fortunately for you, specifically, you're immortal. Your disembodied soul floats up above the massive crater in the ground, raging fires starting up at the edge. In retrospect, starting up a plasma fight with two dozen paramilitary troopers in a room containing a reactor that runs on science you don't understand may not have been the best idea.

It's anyone's guess whether or not the doctors were out of range when a stray plasma bolt hit something important on that reactor.

>>21209620
But we are going to survive.

Deathless, remember?
We'll just lose Swordman's body.

>>21209631
>>21209633

wut

I must have missed it. How long have we been deathless?

>>21209576
"Shit, I told you it was incredibly stupid to use EMP around this reactor. Get out of here now, I'll see what I can do."
TECH ROLES TECH ROLES NOW!
Thank god for super speed giving us the chance to roll lots of times, and the fact that we already stole the design.

>>21209663
It didn't get its narration so it was easy to miss. It just went "you use some exp and now you're deathless"

I think since the last thread.

>>21209682

So our secret identity is gone right?

I don't know about you guys, but I think becoming inmortal is worthy of narration.

>>21209576
good thing we can't die but fuck I liked this body :(

lets try and stop the reactor no use in half the city dying

>>21209706
>I don't know about you guys, but I think becoming inmortal is worthy of narration.

Yeah, me too. Like I said it in my rant which OP seems to have ignored completely.

Quest players don't really care about system, they like good story and narration. Don't turn this into numbers game, OP

>>21209682

It just didn't seem like a major milestone to me. You'd done the same thing twice already.

Rolled 59

>>21209750
but this time its important its US
also unfreeze the swordsman corps we need a new meat suite

>>21209750

Both Rica and Kestrel got their narrations, so I'd assume having the protagonist become deathless is very important.

Anyway, Have Rica scout the zone.

>>21209750
But this time we were doing it to ourself. And we used also got into swordmans body.
Big thing, imo

>>21209767
Weren't we already in the swordman's body?

>>21209631
Er... we didn't start a fight, we specifically told them not to screw with the reactor. They then opened fire.

Do we still have our original body somewhere? we can use it in our hideou since it's safe.

>>21209631
Also, you never said we were in the same room as the reactor until we started shooting. You just said we were in the lab, which presumably had multiple rooms. You really should point things like that out.

>>21209840

It occurred to me that it might not have been clear that the fight was going on in the reactor room. So I had Chimera grunts explicitly take cover behind it. And then you said to keep shooting. In as many words.

>>21209802

I'm assuming so just because the quest would become unplayable without it. Tracking down someone with a Power score to possess would be a chore.

>>21209777

Emergency response teams are moving in, and there's an incredible, messy panic in nearby areas. Scouting is nigh-unto impossible without ditching her body, which would be unwise in the current chaos. It might not be there when she gets back. You, on the other hand, are a disembodied spirit already, but everything is so confused as to make it impossible to really observe anything specific beyond the fact that things in nearby neighborhoods are on fire and guys in yellow coats are fighting said fires.

>>21209921
Still pretty unforgiving, especially a game with such a changing audience, and given tg's welll known propensity to shoot anyone who tries to threaten us. Next time I would reccomend showing the reactor start to fail or get damaged, not simply have it blow up in an instant.

>>21210081
>>21209921

I thought reactor was off-line. It was the last time. So breaking it shouldn't have blown it up.
Shit like this needs to be specified imo

>>21210133
That too, after all we triggered the alarms that would shut off the reactor before Chimera used the EMP, so the damn thing should have been safe.

Rolled 6

>>21209921
so moving on I suggest we set up a net work of c-4 rats to patrol the underground. so this doesn't happen again

Your old body has a comforting familiarity to it, but it feels so...Weak. Also cold. Well, the bulk of that can be solved with a quick serum injection, anyway. You'll have your super powers back in about twelve hours.

Unfortunately it's only about thirty seconds later that Kestrel comes through the door. It's supposed to be locked, but apparently the hinges aren't super-proof. You make a mental note to fix that while Kestrel grabs you by the collar and lifts you up off the ground. "Where the fuck is my dad?!" she demands, her eyes watery, "what did you do down there?"

"Kes," you can hear Steve before you can see him come running after her, "Chimera started that fight, Kes, don't do something stupid."

"Fuck you, this whole mess is his fault," she spits out back at Steve.

"What, Chimera maybe killed your dad so now you'll kill mine just to vent?" Steve says.

"I..." Kestrel hesitates a moment.

"If I could just cut in," you say, "I have a phone that only works on dead people. If your father doesn't pick up, we know he's fine."

Slowly, she places you back on the floor and you straighten out your shirt while she backs away, breathing heavily. "Okay, let's go," she says, "where is it?"

You pull out your phone and flip open the ghost-phone app. Holding it in one palm, you close your eyes and concentrate on her father's name and face, forcing away as always the thought of how irritating it is that you still don't how a bunch of geometric shapes on a screen can somehow know who you're thinking about.

The screen is still for a moment, and then a window pops up to inform you that the person you are looking for could not be contacted. You hand the phone off to Kestrel. "Are you sure? What if it just can't find him, what if he's already moved on?" Kestrel asks.

"No ghost moves on that fast, and we can find every spirit within a hundred miles of here. He's alive, Sofia, I'm positive of that much," you say.

Kestrel slumps to the ground, and Steve goes to comfort her. You, meanwhile, decide you'd better get yourself back up to full powers before another super tries to twist your head off. You're running out of bodies.

The clock turns on. The city goes berserk over the detonation, which claims over fifty thousand lives, including three elementary schools. The media flies into a frenzy to discover who is responsible. Due to the blinding white light involved and its detonating in the middle of territory controlled by the Ronin, bitter arch-rivals of the Santos Espada, Asrael has become the prime suspect for the attack. The Ronin themselves spend the week trying to recover from the loss, but really there's not much you can do when one of your territories is just gone. Chimera stares at the crater, mouth agape, and quietly tables their plans to invade Compton.

>>21210463
>>21210507

How does she even know we were involved?

>>21210609

Not only is it really easy to figure out, you have a policy of keeping her informed at the moment.

>>21210625

Well, to clarify, really easy to figure out from her perspective, since you've been asking her to help you plan this thing for a while. That the neighborhood directly above the lab blew up the day you planned to storm the lab is a bit much for coincidence.

Okay, that cost us about a dozen XP worth of ACTIONS. Fortunately, we have his DNA on file and we need to develop cloning anyway for project Asgard. (we SCIENCED him a while back)

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 4 (12)

Athletics: 2
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: Super Strength, Super Speed, AI, SynthSkin, Model T, Mobile Dolls, Ghost

Whisperer, Deathless

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/jgDrRens

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 0/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2

Resources: 33
XP: 0

2nd week of May, go

>>21210742
Ghost Locate Bouncer.

>>21210742
Commence cloning research!

Rolled 25

>>21210742
have Julio make us money
and Rica scout the bouncers turf and look for were our favorite sewer dwelling scientists

OP, you shouldn't ignore the concerns of your players >>21210081 >>21210133 >>21210164

You have to keep in mind that while we are playing the character of Iron Master, we are not the Iron Master. I do not have the super-intelligence and the knowledge of physics, AI, robotics, engineering. If there was a chance for the reactor to blow up it should have been clearly defined in the narrative because our character KNOWS this and not just off-handily say that a minion is shooting from behind the reactor. I honestly didn't even notice that (though I didn't suggest shooting).

And like one of the guys said, each time different people are playing. Characters personality shouldn't be so easily made to take a U-turn after many thread just because some new guy got here first while others were gone. Not saying that this happened here, just that MC is also slightly NPC with some personality, established goals and allies and more importantly, he has own thoughts. A highly intelligent scientist shooting at a reactor that can blow up without any restraint or reason is plain idiotic.

Just keep this in mind for future and make sure to give better information about the environment and threats.

>>21210903

I listen to these things, but more and more I'm trying to avoid answering them directly because it usually ends up heading in the direction of an argument that derails the thread.

>>21210976
I see. Cool.
It felt like they were being ignored.

Hey guys whats going on?
>Our good bodies been nuked
>A whole neibourhood destroyed
>3 Elementary Schools obliterated
>Chimera could think we are dead
I smell an opprotunity

>>21210742
OP, where can I see the prosperity of the regions?
I want us to branch out to Legimate Business everywhere and completely stop with drugs and hookers, even if it is costly.

>>21210812

Bouncer is not hard to find. He's tooling around in Compton with the Hounds, fighting the Stalkers and being happily immune to basically everything but assault rifles.

>>21210849

Rica can scout Compton fine, but how's she supposed to find Span and Dandurand?

>>21211083
wasn't Bouncer in prison?

>>21211040

I should probably add a wiki page listing what sort of neighborhood each region is, since that's the sort of information that anyone could know.

Fortunately, my notes just so happen to have a list of the original distribution of different kinds of neighborhood throughout the city that I used to get an idea of where to put the gangs and how viable specializing in each crime would be. This is the original state so it's not perfectly accurate anymore, but other than Palos Verdes it's still mostly the same. If someone was wrecking (or jumpstarting) the economy of this or that region, it'd be in the news.

Hollywood (Drugs, Hookers, Extortion, Robbery, Robbery)
Santa Monica (Drugs, Drugs, Hookers, Extortion, Extortion, Robbery)
Downtown (Drugs, Hookers, Hookers, Extortion, Robbery, Robbery)
Eastside (Drugs, Drugs, Arms, Hookers, Extortion, Extortion)
Compton (Drugs, Drugs, Hookers, Hookers, Arms, Arms, Arms)
Long Beach (Drugs, Arms, Extortion, Robbery, Robbery, Robbery)
Palos Verdes (Drugs, Drugs, Hookers, Extortion, Robbery, Robbery)
Catalina Island (Drugs, Extortion)

Also, the IM is supposed to have 2/2 AP, I just forgot to refill them this turn. Oops.

>>21211106

He broke out last thread and started stirring up shit in Compton. There's rumors circulating that someone helped him escape, but no one's quite sure who.

>>21211209
Thanks.

But that still doesn't tell me how much it would cost to start a business in a neighborhood.

>>21211034
doubt it, they almost certainly killed their own communication equipment with that EMP blast. Chimera probably thinks they pushed a wrong button or something. Okay, pick a hooker neighborhood in palos verdes. Have Rica buy a business there and have Julio improve it. Then have Rica bribe the last Stalker over to our side.

>>21211298
actually, make sure we've eliminated the police precinct first.

>>21211255

Oh, that. I can give you that too.

Arms: 0
Drugs/Hookers: 2
Extortion: 8
Robbery: 32

How much XP do we need to get cloning and will it let us clone Swordman to get his body again?

>>21211339
I don't think there is a cloning power. I always figured the OP would eventually give us the ability to acquire it for storyline purposes.

>>21211373

Yeah, it's not a power on its own so it's going to be something that happens arbitrarily for storyline purposes, probably sometime in Act III when the Asgard thing gets rolling.

>>21211337

so let me get this straight.
We have a business in Playa Del Ray, which is Hookers neighborhood, right? And that means it just breaks even and doesn't give us any profit, right? So we need to improve the neighborhood for it to be profitable.

Lets do that then, improve this neighborhood.

Would this somehow mess up our criminal income in this neighborhood or will it stay the same?

>>21211298

The only place with Hookers and no police precinct is Westchester, which has a specialist set camping on it. Rica puts down a franchise of Droids Do and Julio manages to get it up to Extortion, but no luck for getting it any higher.

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 0/3
Rica Rivera: 1/2

Resources: 31
XP: 0

>>21211448
And start businesses in Carson and Lakewood since they should be free. Have Iron Master do this.

>>21211448

Playa Del Ray was upgraded to Robbery a while ago. Your sets are specialized in Hookers, Robbery is only their secondary source of income, which means that you'll be pulling in slightly less criminal income from a Robbery neighborhood than a Hookers neighborhood. Worse, the intermediate stage, when it's Extortion, is something your sets are pretty bad at.

>>21211498

Why would they be free? Carson and Lakewood are Hookers/Drugs, not Arms. The Arms neighborhoods are deeper in Compton.

>>21211502
Can we change our specialization?

>>21211516
Oh, I didn't fully understand how properly to read the neighborhoods in wiki http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/The_Iron_Guard

I see it now. Thanks.

>>21211472
Have Rica Bribe the last Stalker set over to our side. Then have the IM try to bring up the neighborhood to robbery. Use a robot body with super senses. (for I5)

When we chose our specilization, there were no companies, so there was no real reason to chose Robery as it helped the cops and there was more competition than from hookers.

>>21211612
And have Kestral Beat the crap out of Bouncer. It should bee child's play to convince Behemoth to go after him with her.

>>21211639
I see.
Hmm, but still the reason to take robbery and extortion over others would have been that we would keep the neighborhoods cleaner and thus police heat should be lower. At least that's how I see it.

>>21211612
We can do that? I mean using robots to improve/ruin neighborhoods? If so, then seconding this action.

>>21211673
I'm not really sure. We've used terminators for all sorts of crimes before, and we've used a mech to break someone out of the towers. But OP said somewhere that he doesn't like the idea of letting us auto succeed on all crimes. Personally, I vote we just let Steve do the neighborhood improvement. That way it's not ludicrously min-maxed.

>>21211673

Sort of; you can possess a robot body which will send your Athletics and Stealth skyrocketing, and can grant you powers you wouldn't otherwise have access to. It can't increase your Cunning and Insight directly because those stats stick with your spirit, but the Super Senses boost sure doesn't hurt.

Concerning the crime specializations, yes, it was a simpler game when the choice was made. I actually came out and said that Robbery, being a fairly rare neighborhood and beneficial to the city, was basically just not a good choice. Although I hadn't considered the fact that nobody was ever going to crack down on you for improving neighborhoods a lot.

Rica bribes over the second-to-last set (Stalkers have four), and it takes both actions (Cunning rolls still aren't guaranteed) but the Iron Master gets Westchester up to Robbery.

>>21211838
You know, it would be cool to give Steve full AI and independence so that he can have true free will.
That would be kinda cool if slightly dangerous.

>>21211870
>Concerning the crime specializations, yes, it was a simpler game when the choice was made.

Hmm, there should be an option to change specialization. Perhaps expending a lot of resources because that would mean overhauling entire organization, and the bigger the gang the more resources it costs.

>>21211870
Okay, can we have Kestral convince Behomoth to take down Bouncer? On the grounds that unlike Asreal, Bouncer is easy to find.

>>21211922
You mean make him a genuine henchman?

Does it cost XP or resources to build swordman suit?

>>21211997
Would that turn him into one? I just wanted him to be a full-blown, separate sentient being.
Speaking of which, we really should get some new henchmen.

Over the course of the week, you get a text from Whisper that just says "Message from Mesmer: contact in person ASAP" with an address attached.

Bouncer and the Lunatic Hounds hit the Outlaw Stalkers hard, collapsing the set and finishing off the Stalkers once and for all. The city doesn't know yet, though, they still think the bribed Stalkers are part of the rest of the gang, so the South Street Hounds hit the Twenty-Ninth Street Stalkers until they collapse, while the Rim Street Hounds try to hit the East Fifty-Second, but don't end up doing much more than getting a few of themselves shot, dumb bastards.

Dead Eye slips into your territory while Julio is out improving Westchester. His rifle is trained on him when he notices movement behind him. Sighing in irritation, he turns to confront the white-garbed interloper, wondering how many he has to shoot before they'll give up, and then the Red Death shoves him off the edge of the building. He's having exactly as much trouble as you are parsing exactly what happened there as he tumbles through the sky. Naturally, a passing garbage truck full of soft, mushy waste material catches him, but he'll need more luck than just that to get away.

>>21211922

I've been turning over ideas for re-speccing for a while now. I'll add it into the rules in v.0.6 which will roll out with Act III (which, for the curious, will trigger on the completion of Red And White).

>>21212023

Individual suits cost nothing. Developing the suit costs XP by way of paying for powers, but they can be replaced for free. Basically, power armor is just fluff on the powers you buy.

>>21212112
So can we throw together a new swordsman suit then?

>>21212112
>Individual suits cost nothing. Developing the suit costs XP by way of paying for powers, but they can be replaced for free. Basically, power armor is just fluff on the powers you buy.

Oh, I was asking to know what it would cost to get one for our henchmen since Julio could use one, he could also use super-strength serum. I doubt it would be free to do that.

We should develop these thing in such a way that we can easily turn them off in case we are betrayed. In case of the suit, it is easy, just put some kill-switches in it. But in case of serum... I think we need to have our doctors to develop some kind of gas which can undo the powers we give through our serums.

>>21212129

Not completely; you still don't have the Meta Durability power or any of the Energy Powers that were built into the full Swordsman suit. But you can replace the suit you had before. It's kind of weird since Swordsman's body was what gave you the Peak Strength power that you upgraded into Super Strength, but if you downgrade to Meta Strength you're actually losing twice as much XP as if you just lost Peak Strength so...Fuck it, you can just keep the Super Strength power, you paid for most of it anyway.

>>21212074
send out blitz mechs. Although frankly, I don't want to end the act yet. I would much rather have it end when we complete Arrows of Artemis. Still, I won't try to stall like that.

>>21212158
Groovy.

Cloning program?

>>21212112
just wondering what kind of stats would a Mechagodzilla have and what kind of reaction from team blue, red and the government would we expect.

>>21212155

No, you have to pay for the powers individually. They're at half price for henchmen, though.

>>21212222
XP or resources? Couse I'm sure as hell not spending our own exp for that.
iirc, we could grant super-powers through serum by using resources, right?

>>21212162

Arrows of Bellerophon is actually one of a few possible end points for Act III. It wouldn't really be wise to pick a fight with Chimera before you have the bulk of the city under your control; they have tricks you haven't seen yet.

>>21212212

Its stats would be ridiculous in a lot of ways; double-digit health and Athletics, Stealth in the negatives. The reactions would be roughly "oh, shit," "fuck yes," and "liberate the shit out of it," respectively.

>>21212258

Only the Super Human Abilities powers and only if you've unlocked them for yourself, but yes.

>>21212074
>Over the course of the week, you get a text from Whisper that just says "Message from Mesmer: contact in person ASAP" with an address attached.

Okay, lets do this first then.
Make sure we have backup available in short notice. Rica in battle-doll and mechs since mesmer can't read their minds and know they are there. They should keep distance so that they aren't seen of course.

>>21212074

Can we send backup for Red Death?

>>21212285

When he says "in person" does he mean that we go with our body?

Send a bot like usual, we are not risking someone reading our minds.

>>21212162

The blitz mechs head out for Dead Eye, who leaps out of the dump truck and heads towards an entrance to the tunnels. Of course, the tunnels is how you get your mechs around town in the first place, so joke's on him.

Red Death isn't about to let him go so easily, though, gliding through the air on wings that he's apparently had rigged up just for this purpose and throwing a flashbang grenade towards Dead Eye, which explodes, momentarily stunning him. So apparently the Red Death's answer to Dead Eye's luck powers was to become Batman.

The Red Death's first hidden blade fails to deploy, but that's expected by now, so he pulls out a plain old switchblade instead and stabs it into Dead Eye, who doubles over, but the wound is light and Dead Eye regains his senses, clocking the Red Death over the head with his rifle. The two struggle for a moment before Dead Eye shoves Red Death away and fires a bullet through his leg, Red Death groaning in pain as the bullet pierces him.

And then Dead Eye escapes to the tunnels, staggering slightly from the wound. He's prepared a motorbike down there, knowing he'd likely have to make a quick retreat and conserve his luck while he did so, but now it seems his luck has run out; your mechs are already there, and what random stroke of luck could possibly take out two packs of three mechs approaching from different sides?

Well, it turns out that despite his reputation for impulsiveness (the result of being able to rely on luck all the time, mostly), Dead Eye's invested in the preparation department lately. Also in whatever department sells C4.

>>21212419
fuck it I say we go in person take a briefcase with duel plasma pistols for him as a gift, we have worked with him before and he seams like a pretty chill dude
just play multiple games of chess in our head as we talk to him so its harder to read our mind

The blast doesn't destroy your mechs, but it does bring down enough rubble to cut off the pursuit of one group, and Dead Eye kicks the bike into gear, racing down the corridor and around a corner before setting off another blast to block the corridor behind him, trapping the second set of mechs on the wrong side of the rubble.

"Can you catch him?" Red Death asks over comms, putting pressure on the wound.

"He's very well prepared, I don't think I'll be able to get around the blockage in time," you say, "this is so unlike his history."

"I know...Someone else is pulling his strings. Chimera must have given him this plan, he wouldn't have thought of it on his own," Red Death says, "no worries, though...I put a tracker on him during the fight. It'll probably be hours before the reckless bastard notices it."

Meanwhile, your bot is just arriving at the upclass highrise apartment Mesmer left you.

>>21212609

Or maybe you go literally in person? Not sure now.

>>21212609

No, we have to keep our important secrets, none but Kestrel knows we can talk to ghosts, for example.

By the way, try to keep Kestrel away for Mesmer too.

>>21212587
Impressive, he must be very good at hiding those things

>>21212639
don't go in person. Last time we did that be blew up a big chunk of the city.

Rolled 1

I'm just going to roll odds and evens, here. Odds you go in person, evens as a bot.

>>21212726

We're fucked, enjoy having Mesmer selling the secrets of the Iron Master.

Dammit.

>>21212706
But he asked to come in person. Wouldn't that be insulting or something?
Anyway, we have been with him in person, the last meeting with Team Red where we got an offer from Ronin leader to form an alliance, remember?

>>21212740

That was a bot too, this is the first time we meet another villain in person.

>>21212757
Really? I thought OP said we were in person then.
Hmm... then we shouldn't come in person, me thinks.

Or we should develop a tinfoil helmet with the power of SCIENCE!

>>21212726
please dear god don't go in person. Especially to the telepath.

>>21212787

That time Mesmer had tell us a message in person instead of with his mind because we were using the bot.

Also, kinda late to prepare, odds were rolled.

>>21212787
I'm pretty sure a tinfoil had wouldn't actually work.

You don't notice anything odd about the building from the outside, but you can feel the breeze as soon as you enter. And the first thought through your mind is "fuck, I knew I should've sent a bot." Peering around, however, you determine that the room is empty. There's signs of a struggle, and also the wall is missing, which is where that breeze is coming from. In the center of the living room is a coffee table of shifting psychokinetic metal. It must have cost a fortune; only supers can produce this sort of metal, which can be shifted into different shapes easily by those with telepathic powers (even if they're not telekinetic). It's in a complicated series of orbs and rings which you think is probably an overly stylized representation of the solar system when you arrive, but as you draw near, its shape shifts into two simple words: Beruhre mich. Pulling out your smart phone for google translate, you quickly discover that it's German for "touch me."

>wat do?

>>21212806

To be honest I mostly just wanted to get it out of the way, since Mesmer is not actually there and thus it doesn't make a huge difference.

>>21212817
touch.

>>21212817

touch it

>>21212827

I honestly hope so, OP.

Well, I don't know what to do now, those struggle signs make me suspicious

Scan the area.

File: 1350779292347.png-(702 KB, 768x576, mysterybox.png)

>>21212817
TOUCH IT!

When you touch the metal, a jumble of confused thoughts floods your mind. You get the feeling that it would make a lot more sense if you were either telepathic or Prothean, but as it is what you're able to sort out is some form of coercion, a bunch of white fire, someone important to Mesmer in danger, and a burning soul that's like staring directly at a bright light bulb; after ten or twenty seconds it hurts too much and you have to look away, leaving you dizzy and your vision spotted.

>>21212930
So Asrael attacked Mesmer, I think.
It is possible that he managed to kill his body and Mesmer transported his consciousness into this weird thing.

In case Mesmer is dead, lets use our Ghost Whisperer app on our phone and try to contact him. If we fail, that means he is still alive.

>>21212977

A quick check shows that he is indeed alive. Or at least, not reachable by ghost phone.

>>21212930
I wonder who's an important person to Mesmer.
Perhaps Whisper knows? Cal him and ask.

>>21213008
The only things I can think to do is try ghosts, or call Cronos, because he had a thing with mesmer right?

>>21213044

You place a call to Whisper, but get sent to messages. This happens occasionally, usually because he's speaking with another villain at the moment. You suppose he probably also has to sleep at some point. Either way, no response right now. Maybe you should call back later.

>>21213052

Kronos is known to have some sort of history with Memser, but the details aren't known. If you want to go with ghosts, what exactly do you want them to look for?

>>21213145
Grab the orb in a cloth and bug the fuck out alternate dimensional Jesse Pinkman.

>>21213145
... Starting to wonder if whisper is in fact Asreal. I suppose they could look for mesmer. In the meantime, new turn?

>>21213145
Well, whatever we do, we should not leave that psychokinetic metal thing behind.

Can we even get in contact with Kronos? Wasn't he a superhero?
If we can, lets do it.

Can we try touching it again actually? It doesn't hurt us, right, just gives headaches? Let try again.

>>21213211

The psychokinetic metal thing is rather large. It'll be quite a chore getting it down the stairs.

It's more than just headaches. Your brain isn't built to receive these types of messages. You can try touching it again, but you're risking some kind of serious damage every time you do it, and the odds get worse each time.

>>21213290
We have Mechs. Have them carry it.

Will it be safe to touch it again next turn?
Anyway, lets contact Kronos then. And later on Whisper again.

>>21213318

Since someone asked, yes, we're on new turn now, 3rd week of May. But also, what did you plan on telling Kronos once (if) you got in contact with him?

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2

Resources: 47
XP: 0

>>21213427
Since they had some history with each other we could ask him who was an important person for Mesmer. Our vision told us something about him or her being in danger.


iirc, the doctors had 2 labs underground. What is the status of the second one?

>>21213496

Well, the second one was vaporized. The first one you seized way back in March and you've still got control of it. It is also underneath Downtown, Ronin territory (though there's basically no gangs except you and Chimera that move around the underground much).

>>21213517
Is the neighborhood unavailable now? Will it get rebuilt?

Do we have full surveillance of the first lab? If someone were to snoop around there, we would know, right?

Plan for the Turn:
We bribe the set that Bouncer is with Julio, then swordbreaker mechs beat him up and drop him off at the nearest police station. Then we have our two elite sets led by Rica target the remaining two stalker sets. Then us and Julio put down sets.

>>21213565
I say we buy Julio some superpowers and build him swordman suit first. He runs into risk of being killed every turn.

Of course, make sure that we can take those powers away in case of betrayal. Like I said before, the suit is easy to build kill-switches into but we need to develop some kind of a gas against our own serums. Have the doctors work on it.

>>21213556

The neighborhood will be rebuilt eventually, but it's going to take several months at least. The place was completely vaporized by comic book science wackyon particles, there's no trace of the buildings left in most of the area.

You have pretty much constant surveillance of all the old lairs, like the Cancer nest, the Omnus lab, the Carmille manor, etc. etc. The tunnels in between you're patrolling in general, but it's much easier to slip past you just because you can't possibly cover them all 24/7. There's a lot of tunnel in Ironverse LA.

>>21213565

I assume you mean the remaining two Hound sets, since the Stalkers have actually collapsed.

>>21213649
Oh, yeah. I get those two gangs confused sometimes. I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one to do so, in universe or out.

>>21213649
Can we help rebuild the neighborhood?
It will help with PR and we are pretty much guaranteed to have control of it once it is done. We might be even able to immediately have it on Robbery. We could have our robots help along with some resource investment. Maybe one Command Mech with worker robots working 24/7

>>21213649
Yes.

Although, Bouncer would be easier to recruit rather then turn into the police again. Nothing like a humbling Brutal Beating. As before, stealth attacks worked rediculously well against Behemoth, and Bouncer is a slightly lesser version of him. We strike sudden and fast and Bouncer (known to cruise about his turf since he belives hardly anything can harm him) sets himself up as a lovely target. (Could it be too easy?)

Also, Where is Dead Eye's Location? What did the tracker tell us?

>>21213715
Also send Rica just in case.


I just had a thought. Wouldn't the doctors have been kidnapped by Chimera? I mean, their goons were there so it is safe to assume that Chimera took them and then came back to loot the place.

>>21213715
>>21213756
We don't want to send Rica for a couple of reasons.
1. It costs an action, and we don't have an unlimited supply of those.
2. We didn't even have to roll for beating Behemoth in this fashion, and somehow I doubt Bouncer is more insightful then Behemoth.
Also about recruiting, he's as dumb as a rock.

>>21213815
The Perfect Minion!
They dont need to be smart, we do their thinking for them, and make them think they had a hand in thinking it themselves. His delusions of grandeur can be played on, since we've already taken over a large portion of the city. Get on the winning team and reap the benefits, or take what scraps you've left and leave. That is the options he must see, without our saying it. Make him want to ask to serve us, because he needs to.

>>21213815
Well, in any case, lets try to get a sample of his DNA. If we ever get to cloning and bio-engeneering, we could either make his body or combine what samples we have and make some ridiculously powerful body.

Even if he is dumb, he is a good bruiser.

>>21213704

That's a cool idea, but it'd be really resource-intensive. Pragmatically speaking, it costs way more to build a new franchise in a Robbery neighborhood than to build a Robbery neighborhood, and street control of one new neighborhood isn't likely to make up for that. I'll think about it for a bit, though.

>>21213715

Dead Eye hikes it to Downtown before popping out and heading towards Compton. This is kind of tricky since that's outside your territory, so your mechs have to take the roundabout route through the tunnels while Red Death pursues alone...And unfortunately, the tracker bounces off before you can catch up with him. Looks like Dead Eye once again has just barely too much luck, not to mention some advance preparation and awesome stealth skills.

After the latest failure, Red Death proposes a new approach: Convince Cat to help and fight fire with fire.

>>21213861
Fair enough, I'm trying to think of what we can promise her though. Maybe meta speed?

>>21213861
doesnt she still owe us from the whole behomoth thing or did we spend that favor already?

Well, this thread has generally worked a lot better than the last ones, and I've archived it here:

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/21207917/

Because I just checked the clock and realized I have a thing to do. So we're missing about an hour of Iron Master today, but it'll be back on at 14:00 server time tomorrow, when hopefully shit will stay gotten together.

>>21213861
>Pragmatically speaking, it costs way more to build a new franchise in a Robbery neighborhood than to build a Robbery neighborhood
Yeah, I know that. My reasoning was that if we help to rebuild from ground up, we can establish a franchise before neighborhood goes back on-line, so to speak.
And since we would have a lot of hand in reconstruction, we could design any advantages we can think of. Making easily defendable or something

Oh, and if you aren't aware of the twitter, the username is IronMaster and the tag is @MCJohnnyQuest, I make a post whenever the thread starts, since I often end up making a late start or have to miss the thread and don't know until like eight hours in advance.

>>21213977
Yeah she still owes us.