<pooryoric> "why did you ask if I knew who I am?"
<Gerald> "It's either Yoric Elroy or D-1347. The first thing you lose as D-Class is your identity."
<O5-6> "Alex, we just lost O5's 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, and 13."
Active Duty was the official roleplay for the (SCP Foundation). It was created to replace the now-defunct Fieldwork roleplay, which everyone can safely say was a good switch.
Taking place at Site 23, buried in the Australian outback, Active Duty (unlike its... "looser" predecessor) emphasized horror, realism, permadeath, and the sheer powerlessness of humans trying to cope with the unknown. Players could explore the constantly changing Tamlin House, contain dangerous outbreaks, or get their character executed for treason.
When that fails, there's always drama!
Active Duty provides examples of:
- Accidental Pervert: Kat accidently copped a feel off a slime zom- dead Chilean woman. There were laughs, before Akane slapped her shit for it.
- Alternate Self: Alternate-Light is the original O5-2, Alternate-Mann is probably running around killing people, and in an unrelated incident, we have no idea what happened to Alternate-Yoric or if he exists.
- And Zoidberg: Paraphrased, for space:
- Author Avatar: That weird bearded guy in room 93. Rumor has it that it's Bright, the real Bright.
- Bad Future: A possible future experienced through the 307 Ale showed a Site infested with 173s. Everyone died. Jason wrote "I LOVE DICKS" on one of their faces. Then he died.
- Berserk Button:
- Staff Sergeant Blevins's wife spends a lot of time with some "Roy" fellow, her "stylist". Several PCs introduced the possibility that she might be cheating. He took it out on the HR department. In the words of Jason Dodridge, "[the] Watercooler breached containment. He terminated it."
- Do not invade Williamson's mind. As one particularly twisted reality warper found out, it's a sure fire way to end up tortured to death (or til he gets bored) with a pair of pliers. In fact, not only will he lose his shit, but John will remember you if you somehow escape. And take your scalp as a trophy.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Chad, a mild-mannered, good-natured Foundation motivational speaker and seminar leader, apparently plots the murders of the Omega-23 personnel that constantly make shams of his seminars.
- Director Alice Erdritch, relatively mild-mannered and described as "a bundle of nerves" can outshoot a Marine MP sharpshooter.
- Beyond the Impossible: Director Tamlin has the entire Tamlin House tattooed onto his body. Both the inside and out.
- Big Labyrinthine Building: People have been known to get lost in the Tamlin House and die.
- Boom, Headshot!: Director Dodridge clipped Agent Foley in the head to stop his SCP-029-induced murder spree; justified, as he was using Agent Martin as a human shield.
- Drama Bomb:
- Half of O-23 gets the shit tore out of them, then Alice has Travis, inducing so much drama that time itself got warped for a second.
- Jason gets demoted, Akane promoted, and there's a confrontation on the roof. Akane ends up brainless and John finally snaps. The drama was delicious.
- Priscilla gets reality bent into someone else. Jason and Alice, tired of their bosses being stupid, quit the Foundation.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Agent Jack Harker's death. Finally driven insane, he punched out a dragon before suicide bombing the Eldritch Abomination Mann by jumping into his mouth. All while Mann was erasing him from existence.
- The Engineer: John Williamson. Combat engineer to a T, with a little bit of Demoman thrown in for good measure.
- Fate Worse than Death: Chandra Markov was turned to stone, but is fully conscious and will technically live forever.
- Flock of Wolves: Janus's dinner party, which was filled to the brim with people with conflicting loyalties. Turns out that every director at the site was either an infiltrator, or with their own hidden agenda.
- Friend in the Black Market: This is "Mac" Guffin's hat, since he has all sorts of schemes, scams, and such running in the background.
- Fun with Acronyms:
- Site Human Intensive Training - mandatory for insensitive personnel in the workplace. Which is most of the PCs.
- IC and OOC speculation on what the new powered armor should be named. Finally settled on Titanium Reinforced Armed Vanguard Infantry Suite, or TRAVIS.
- Gargle Blaster: Linda Aniston and Jake Wilson ordered actual Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters in a room in Tamlin House. It gave them an alcoholic PTSD.
- Hates Being Touched: Akane, due to spending much of her early teenage years 'working' in a brothel.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Jason Dodridge was boasting about how he could have kicked a Tamlin entity's ass. O5-6 came in right at that time and invited Jason to partake in a friendly scuffle.
- Hurricane of Puns: After the electric sheep broke containment, everybody was making sheep-related puns, in-character and out.
- Idiot Ball: John Williamson fired a grenade into a train full of civilians, in an effort to stop an aggressive D-Class affected by SCP-342
.
- Mad Bomber: Agent Jack was discharged from the US Army for causing extensive destruction and casualties thanks to psychological trauma. He's mostly over it.
- No-Sell:
- In a mission near the end of a raid into a compromised site, a Terminator-like robot barges into a room with all the agents in it and trashes all but one (but then proceeds to beat him up anyway). Instead of shooting at it like everybody else, Makoto lunges at robot (and getting in harm's way) to stab it repeatedly (and failing to do any damage).< Makoto> 2d6 BANZAI MOTHERFUCKER!
< Makoto> Makoto launches himself at the robot, trying to stab it
< Makoto> 2d6 BACKSTAB LIKE A SPY
< Makoto> "MOTHERFUCKER *SHOT* ME!"
< Jillian> "It shot me too Makoto, but I didn't try to stab it"
< Makoto> "You don't have a knife!"
- In a mission near the end of a raid into a compromised site, a Terminator-like robot barges into a room with all the agents in it and trashes all but one (but then proceeds to beat him up anyway). Instead of shooting at it like everybody else, Makoto lunges at robot (and getting in harm's way) to stab it repeatedly (and failing to do any damage).
- Nuclear Option:
- Jason Dodridge's simulacrum deployed a nuclear grenade in Site Beta. Everything died.
- John Williamson repairing and arming a Mk54 SADM during an incident with 610. Unfortunately, nobody told him that it was put in the wrong spot(not that it mattered). He spent the rest of the night after returning to Site-23 staring wistfully out the window like a lovesick schoolboy.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted with Jack Bright and Jack Harker in the same room. Yes, it is as confusing as it sounds.
- Powered Armor: Jason Dodridge has a suit of powered combat armor, custom-manufactured by John Williamson and finished up by Doctor Alice Dodridge.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Vance Goddamn Harding managed to kill a vampire epically while having operational control on a mission.
- Ret-Gone: Agent Jack Harker died while fighting "Bad" Mann. Bad Mann would strike the Task Force through time itself, and his final strike on Harker reached through his life and killed him in his own crib. Jack's final action before being erased from history was to dodge a ton of created monsters and jump down Bad Mann's throat, igniting a charge of C4.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
- Stuff tends to die when Jason sees Alice get hurt.
- Hurting Akane physically is a good way to incite one of these. Just ask Ward's sister.
- Sarcastic Confession: Remember when Akane was all "I killed my Mom, because she was a huge bitch"? And everybody laughed? Well...
- Semper Fi: A number of combat-oriented agents and researchers are old Marine hands, to include Shane Hayes, Brad Gibson, Jason Dodridge, and most recently Kathrine Smith.
- Slasher Smile: John Williamson. During an incident inside a 'haunted' fun house being controlled by a sociopathic ten year old, he adopted one in an attempt to out-mind-game her. The attempt failed, but it, and his threats during the battle did unsettle those who were on the op with him, despite his claims that it was just an act.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Katherine Smith now uses an M82 Barrett. Alice Dodridge has on occasion fired guns that were as big as her.
- Space Whale Aesop: "Don't screw three interns on a desk or you'll be killed by attack helicopter." from Sensitivity Training.
- Supreme Chef: MacKay has been known to, and is willing to, cook anything for just about anyone.
- That Came Out Wrong:<Brad> "I'll cross swords with you, if you know what I—oh god no!" Brad desperately claws at his eyes.
<Aniston> "Brad, I think you'll want to look elsewhere for /that/ sort of fun." - They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Jack Harker prefers to be referred to as Agent Jack.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Alice Dodridge is nine months pregnant after two months time.
- Too Dumb to Live: Katherine Smith. She pressed the button that ends the world. As it turns out, apocalypses are a very personal thing.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Sort of...<pooryoric> ONE LENGTHY STOMACH PUMPING LATER
- Visual Pun: Berk coming out of the Noodle Room wearing a wedding dress and with a sweet new Church of the Broken God tattoo. He's married to the Church, get it.
- Walking Armory:
- Director Dodridge carries a combat knife, a handgun, a shotgun, a battle rifle with a grenade launcher, and a heavy machine gun everywhere he goes. While in his Powered Armor, anyway. Elsewhere, it's just a baton, tazer, another knife, another handgun, and another rifle.
- John Williamson carries an M240G, .22 caliber PDW with 40mm grenade launcher, a martini-Henry rifle chopped down into a pistol and enough explosives to kill just about anything everywhere he goes. On certain missions, add an anti-tank rifle.
- Wild Mass Guessing: In-universe. Who the fuck is Coyote? Is he/it an actual god, a reality bender, or a rogue facet of Jager?
