Bounty hunters of the apocalypse discussion

@Nman: That's a fair point, but the rail lines are a double sided blade for them for a lot of the same reasons it is for you. They probably still see some use but not a lot, since to really get the most out of rail lines you need a working communications grid, (To make sure two trains don't run headlong into each other.) which they don't entirely have anymore.

That and, "royally fuck up"? What, you expect them to just suddenly bomb you out of nowhere or something? That would involve blowing up the train tracks too, which they would be a lot better off not having to fix.

@Fantasy: Radio yes, hoses yes but it has no water, the sirens are broken, and I don't know what ramming pads are. It does not have any spare axes, helmets, or firefighter suits.

I got it from wikiepedia's page on fire trucks. Some trucks are issued them. Here's their definition of it.

• Ramming pads — These rubberized pads are fitted to the chassis of the appliance, to allow the vehicle to be used as a battering ram, or to push other vehicles off the road in an emergency. One of the uses of ramming pads is to remove a parked car illegally blocking a fire hydrant that is needed by fire crews responding to an emergency.

Blow up? Nah. More like a helicopter with a bunch of dudes with guns. With how important rail travel would be in this situation, it's not too difficult to imagine that they came up with a situation that involved laying down landlines and operating them otherwise "radio-free". Remember, rail travel was already used extensively by the time of the Civil War and the late nineteeth century, with tens of thousands of trains operating with just the limited telecommunications of that time.

So that's why I had Max asking roundaboutly asking Garnet if there were any abandoned lines (He's not a... trainologist) that might be unused or underused for whatever reason, because otherwise we're likely to ram into stuff on the first day.

edited 17th Apr '14 8:03:43 PM by nman

@Fantasy: Ah. Well given the intro sequence for the truck into the RP, it probably doesn't then, since those would have helped a lot against that walker Max ran into.

Also, neither myself nor Nman seem to be able to find the exact image of the truck that he'd settled on, but I found one that seems about identical to what I remember him picking: See here.◊

It's a little hard for me to estimate here, but I'd say you could probably fit six people in there; eight if you cram. I'd allow you to have around... I'd say five-seven people on top of it, again so long as you drive carefully and a bit slow.

So that's 11-15 people or so. Assuming every Player Character is planning to come along, that's 8, plus Thor would need to ride inside, so that's 9. The dire wolves would be fine running alongside instead so long as you stop for a bit every few hours or so; if you don't want to do that you could fit them on top of the truck but with their large size the two of them would take up the space of 3 people.

Unless any of you are planning to drop characters, that means you're going to have room for between 2-6 NPCs, depending on exactly how you want to handle it. (Actually 0-6 when counting putting the dire wolves up on the roof as a possibility.)

Now if you guys would like, I could mock up some small sheets for each of the NPCs that have volunteered to go along, detailing things like what they are currently armed with and what they can do. But I don't think I would have that done until tomorrow at least.

And of course, this is all if you take the truck instead of the train.

There's also riding on the sides like you sometimes see firemen do. Also, when the NPC's come along, you're still controlling them, right? And yes, sheets would be cool but I'd be more partial to just a list of everybody who's agreed to go with a brief description. That way, when we pick who's going, you can just make sheets for those who are going and not have to do any unnecessary ones.

edited 17th Apr '14 9:38:23 PM by FantasyLiver

If I remember correctly, the jeep had its engine done get wrecked, but both axles are fine, right? We could see about towing it.

And hey, the fire truck doesn't have water, but there's a few abandoned gas stations hanging around, right?

I agree. Name, guns, stuff, and skills is all we'd really need to know, full sheets would be a waste of time if they don't come along. (I'm thinking you might have meant that, since you specifically pointed those out, but I'm not entirely sure if you meant you'd only include that, so in case you didn't, I'm just saying it now. And if you did, just ignore this, I guess.)

edited 17th Apr '14 9:46:37 PM by nman

The problem with hanging on the side is length of the trip you guys are potentially going on. Nobody would be able to hang onto the sides for too long.

Also here, realizing the potential confusion of the math of my last post, let me throw out some simplified numbers:

• If you guys want to have the truck as un-burdened as possible so you can drive a bit faster and make better turns, and want to have the dire wolves on the truck so you don't have to stop every few hours, you can fit 0 NPCs.

• If you guys want the have the truck as un-burdened as possible so you can drive a bit faster and make better turns, and want to have the dire wolves off the truck so you can fit more people, you can fit 2 NPCs.

• If you guys want to cram as many people as you can on the truck, and want to have the dire wolves on the truck so you don't have to stop every few hours, you can fit 3 NPCs.

• If you guys want to cram as many people as you can on the truck, and want to have the dire wolves off the truck so you can fit more people, you can fit 6 NPCs.

Yes, my plan is to still control the NPCs, and a quick list does sound like a good idea. Here's the NPCs that are volunteering to come along:

• Garnet
• Coline
• Officer Clark
• Arthur
• Counter (Nickname for the twin revolvers caravan guard.)
• Flyer (it just hasn't come up in game yet that he might want to come too)

Other NPCs might be convinced to come, but you'd have to do said convincing.

@Nman: Guns, stuff, and skills was exactly what I meant, not full character sheets. Hence them being mock-up small sheets.

Towing the jeep is a decent idea, though that will make the handling for the firetruck that much worse; but that way you could bring 6-12 more people. (Un-cramped to fully cramped, respectively.)

edited 19th Apr '14 9:14:17 PM by FirockFinion

Decisions, decisions! I am surprised Emerson wouldn't volunteer. He seems to want to protect the "big folk lass", as he calls Garnett.

Oh, Emerson will try to come along even if you don't want him to.

I didn't count him though because he's six inches tall, so he doesn't exactly exclude someone else from coming in his place.

EDIT: Oh, and to be clear, Lisa's vote will be either of the options that have the dire wolves riding on the truck; she doesn't want to be stopping every few hours when every moment counts.

edited 17th Apr '14 10:04:50 PM by FirockFinion

We need the Mongolian dude to come along, otherwise we'll starve! And then when we get to the end of the game and everyone's almost dead and Mephisto is inches away from activating Stonehenge, he transforms into his TRUE FORM and saves us all.

edited 17th Apr '14 10:10:52 PM by nman

Convincing, eh?

Red: You're coming with us! <holds his axe up to their face>

I think you mean...

Red: <Takes off shirt> You're coming with us! <holds his axe up to their face>

I kinda think the train might be better, as we don't really have to worry about the wheels getting popped on rough terrain, or really major ambushes by Bandits...What kind of Train are we talking?

Probably werebears? Which animal's the other competitor since I'm not exactly fond of bears?

Although I've decided to go for a werefalcon or wereeagle.

And has nobody thought about how exactly we're supposed to get to England?

@Troy: You don't know yet, but probably not a real old style of train. It will likely be a modern style train, if possibly a bit dated.

@Tricksen: You mean out of character? Well yeah, because I'm the GM. In character the answer is "we'll figure it out as we go, but right now we need to head East for starters."

The answer was probably werebears because the answer changes depending on where you're asking the question. Also, werefalcon or wereeagle? Possible, but those would be pretty rare; this character would be under a lot of scrutiny unless you put him in the same "can't fully control themself while transformed" category that Molly/Anarchy is now in. As for which of the two would be more common, simply ask: Which of the real animal counterparts is more common in the area the character got turned into a lycan in?

Anyway, was just checking in one last time before I go for the night. Since I've got work tomorrow, I probably won't be making a main post until fairly late, and I may not even get a discussion post up until then either.

edited 18th Apr '14 3:19:04 AM by FirockFinion

Added in something in Recon's personality after watching him play for a few months.

Hey guys - I have a bit of a head's up to give you. Namely, I just got a virus that makes my computer play random audio commercials in the background. Unfortuantely, I typically work on a school laptop, which means I can't take it into the help desk till Monday. Hopefully, playing annoying audio bits is all it does (haven't seen anything suspiscious yet) but if you don't hear from me for awhile, it's probably because my computer crashed or something similar.

That's a weird virus. You're sure it's not just random audio ads on certain websites? I recall even TV Tropes used to have those for a while.

They still do.

Oh, really?

I wouldn't know because I'm running adblock plus. I'd love to make an exception for TV Tropes and let them earn revenue money from me, (Though I recall being told that adblock plus has some nifty loophole thing where I still count for that even without seeing the ads.) but after getting a virus from one of the ads here that was so bad my comp had to be kill-disked to get rid of it?

Yeah, not happening. No freaking way I'm willing to risk that kind of crap happening again.

Wait...guys, why don't we just summon a bigger fish to deal with Mephisto? we just have two major armies smash into each other and team up with Unam to kill whichever one isn't dead.

Hey Firock, Recon's team has ways to get over the Atlantic, considering he's, you know, in Green Fields. How many of the hunters do you think they could take?

edited 18th Apr '14 10:13:29 PM by gameknight102xx

@Troy: Lisa already explained why Mephisto trying to overthrow Lucifer is a ridiculous idea because the true demons are actually very loyal to each other. What makes you think summoning another big demon would help you?

@Gameknight: I would assume that he got passage over to the US via GPS, and would be surprised at the notion of the little mercenary band having their own way across the ocean.

So, none.

EDIT: Or you mean, how many seats could they pay for for them? I'd have to think about that, and it depends.

edited 18th Apr '14 10:41:25 PM by FirockFinion

I'm thinking to myself right now how important it is for Recon's group to be a PMC and not just nine mercenaries.

I never intended for them to be just a small band of nine. These are big-time players. As U.N.A.M apparently doesn't have much jurisdiction in their region, them and other large groups like them are the ones keeping order in Africa (at least, until the borders of Egypt).

If I take away the hundreds of thousands of dollars and the soldiers I planned for them to have (even if that factor would likely never appear in the actual RP unless the group decides to go to Africa, aside from transportation like helicopters and unarmed jets they could send out. Even then Recon would have to pull some big favors to do so), then their front-line experience and any actual impact they have disappears with it.

Recon has worked with U.N.A.M. He mentioned that way back during the coversation with Doc about how he fought alongside them in Egypt. I wrote this assuming his mercenary band was big and strong enough for U.N.A.M to even consider hiring.

So if I change this because of a misunderstanding, it really messes up the thread that connects these mercenaries and forces me to rewrite the whole thing.

The GPS thing is good though. Makes a lot more sense than sending over a plane for one guy.

edited 18th Apr '14 11:46:28 PM by gameknight102xx

IT WORKED IN...SOME SERIES THAT I CANNOT REMEMBER!