Welcome everyone! I am excited to be running this MCB game for such great people. A couple things before we get started. Please create an alias for your character, if you have not already, and put the crunch and your background and morning routine in it. It doesn't need to be elaborate, just legible.
Next, since we have 5 players, the total build points you can spend on investigative abilities drops to 21. So, those that built their investigative abilities already will need to take away 7 points worth.
I'll be taking a look at each of your investigative abilities to see if there's any holes that need filling. In general, throughout the party you want a good spread of abilities to handle most situations.
And lastly, I expect the first post to go up this Sunday.
Any questions, let me know. And have fun!
The mysteries await!
Buford posting here. I'll adjust my investigative abilities before we start.
And I should be all adjusted. 21 points (excluding the freebie 2 in Cop talk)
DeAndre checking in. I've got every thing adjusted (and accounting for 2 ranks of cop talk). I'll have to put my background and routine up tomorrow, as I am about to go to work.
Hey, this is Alfrazar's character. Finally was able to decide on a name. I put in the investigative abilities.
All updated and ready to go!
FYI, I am at a convention right now. I will post any holes that I see in abilities this afternoon before kicking things off.
Okay! Back from the con and have looked over everyone's investigative abilities. Here are the ones that no one has as of yet:
Anthropology
Architecture
Art History
Textual Analysis
Influence Detection
Chemistry
Cryptography
Forensic Anthropology
Not sure about our 5th member, so everyone can increase their investigative ability point pool to 24 total (+3 points to your existing list). I would highly suggest trying to cover all these bases so at the minimum you can get all the core clues.
I will post up the first gameplay post tomorrow morning, and we'll get this thing underway!
I would pick back up the two points I had in Forensic Anthropology and probably 1 point in Anthropology.
I can grab Art History, Architecture and Chemistry, all at 1 point
sorry That was my GM Alias.
All updated with the Above considerations!
Gameplay post is up! To track your investigative spends used, put them in the class line of your profile like this:
Spends Used: Anamorphology 1, Anthropology 1
*
I got Cryptography and Textual analysis.
Not sure how to measure my total pool of spends for any given ability. is that just the rating?
I'll put up what I believe is correct in the meantime.
Yeah, the rating is your pool. You can go to zero in an investigative ability, but that doesn't mean you won't get any clues relating to that ability (as you just can't forget forensic psychology by being a little tired), but you just can't make any spends that enhances the clues. You won't get that super tiny detail with evidence collection or miss an ancillary tic with influence detection. Vital clues will still be supplied as long as you your rating is 1 in a particular ability. So, in essence, your rating stays the same in an ability, your pool changes depending on your spends.
Ok!
Also, do I need to burn a cognition point to do that detailed review in my head?
Explanation of thought process:
I figure 3+ detectives and likely 2-3 paramedics in the room is a few too many for a crime scene. DeAndre has all the details in his mind's eye, and the paramedics being outside the tape until the Coroner gets there to relieve them would be best for all of us and the integrity of the crime scene.
Cause of death is fairly obvious, and if it's not that simple, Vincent and Buford are in there to grab any details I couldn't see from a standing observation. The Coroner would be able to suggest cause of death, but without autopsy, we'll get about as close a Vincent from the guy/girl.
Loreta is looking for/at the surveillance, and if she finds it, she knows that I've got the data extraction power, and data retrieval skill, if she needs me.
And I figure since people handling is more up Jeremy's alley then anyone else's, he'd either be keeping Lou distracted with questions while I snoop a bit, or he'd be talking to the Paramedics to get as much information as possible.
I want to see the rest of the place and potentially get eyes on the employee/members files for a good list of potential suspects and confirm what powers we've got floating around the gym. Meantime, calming the owner and extracting what I can from him seems like an opportunity I can't miss on my way to those files.
I agree with you, the amount of cops we got on this means that we can split up and do what we gotta do to figure it out.
Personally I plan on joining Jeremy in the office in a bit with a bit of good cop, bad cop. Nothing like a little intimidate from time to time.
Hence the reexamination of the scene in my mind while on the walk. Get some leverage (even if its not related to this crime). Plus, buudying up with a cigarette to leave him disoriented when/if I start to hammer him (just in case I was alone in the effort).
It wouldn't be a bad idea for the two of you to grill the guy while I'm looking around and memorizing everything I can.
That sounds good by me. I tried to grab some points in more of the interpersonal stuff to be more of a talking guy, and make it seem like Jeremy is on the person's side and make them feel safe.
Glad you went that direction as Vincent is more the guy to make you feel like you are gonna regret it if he has to come pick you up again and ask the same question twice.
Recycling my spends for Architecture and Evidence Collection, unless there are particular benefits to using them at this point.
Big storms here in Texas knocked me out for a bit. I will have answers and posts in the morning.
Yup yup! It was about that way in Colorado last night.
You wouldn’t really need to spend a point of Cognition to remember evidence collected, but you’d still have to collect the evidence first, and have the skills necessary to collect that evidence. Such as, you can remember all the details, but things out of sight, such as internal machinery and such will be out your memory’s purview. But remember, cognition doesn’t allow you to automatically gain any clue without still having the investigative ability/abilities associated with it/them. Cognition means you’re a genius at putting the clues together, and once you feel you have enough of the picture, you can spend points and propose a theory or theories to me and I will tell you if you’re hot, cold, or if you simply don’t have enough pieces of the puzzle yet.
Precision memory will allow you to turn the crime scene over in your mind again and again, and essentially allow you the information you remember, but it also depends on how long you take in a given scene. Anything obvious you can remember at a cursory glance, but in depth research will require actually doing the research.
Hmm... I'm not looking to solve this crime with this combo just yet, more looking for things I might be able to throw in his face to catch him off guard.
---edit---
Damn this not being able to choose specific aliases for specific boards!
Hmm. I suppose I could see this many detectives assigned a major case, but it could get a little cumbersome in play.
Should we designate someone to be the 'Lead Detective', to at least make it look we part of a coordinated team?
Got a surprise call to cover a shift at work tonight. I'll be posting, but it will be later tonight.
If it comes to npcing my character, I'm searching for every possible suspect, and trying to memorize all the personal information I can about each potential suspect.
Hmm. I suppose I could see this many detectives assigned a major case, but it could get a little cumbersome in play.
Should we designate someone to be the 'Lead Detective', to at least make it look we part of a coordinated team?
Normally highly specialized teams like SVU and the HCIU work in teams for more involved cases. Most of the time the detectives partner up and work different angles. You can do this if you want or if you want to have a lead detective, that's fine too. Whatever works for you guys.
For you to consider. It reminds me of a modern-noir cop show. lol!
Just going to chill till Buford pops in, and lets me know if he wants to tag along.
Still holding action.
Anyone know what the desired posting schedule would be? Once a day, twice a day, weekends in/off?
Sorry I didn't check in yesterday, it was hell at work, and my brain completely shut off after all of that.
Personally I prefer once a day and at least once a weekend but I was having a hard time with my convention going this last weekend so I don't know if I made that happen. I'm still a little groggy after doubling the amount of sleep I had gotten in the last five days last night.
Yeah ideally I would prefer once a day and once over the weekend. I try and post once a day, but I got rain in my house from the storms in Texas last week and had to deal with that this weekend. Sorry if I haven't been as responsive. But I'm all good now.
Ok.
Any one seen buford? I'm stuck waiting on him to complete my next action.
Buford posted yesterday
apparently, my computer didn't want to register those posts as posted. I just saw them now, sorry about the mix up.
I am so sorry for not posting in awhile. I have had some trouble with getting to posting in a lot of my games. Real life stuff has been getting in the way, but I should be able to post more starting tomorrow.
Somehow I did not get posting notifications from this one. I shall join in shortly.
Hmm, to be honest I am running on fumes as to what else to ask. If given the list I would then go on to try and find out some background info on those people. Even ask that I take a trial membership under another name and chat up the people of the gym.
Would any of that be alright?
I'm going to want to go over the fire investigation report, and the Collin's autopsy.
An info dump, and a listing of all our 'suspects', and what we know about so far about them would be useful.
I would agree probably a meet up and compile of data would be a good idea.
Lou Hutkins, club owner.
Randall Hofstadter, victim.
Eric Rowan, gym physician.
Skip Adams, mechanic, built gym equipment.
Henry York, 'fire control' apparently been absent for some time.
Duke?
Marsha Collins. Died in earlier fire.
Ahhh. Duke and Marsha had a son, Alan.
I must have missed it when 'Duke' got introduced.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's wondering how a woman who was basically a human fire-truck got burnt alive.
Lou Hutkins, club owner.
Randall Hofstadter, victim.
Eric Rowan, gym physician.
Skip Adams, mechanic, built gym equipment.
Henry York, 'fire control' apparently been absent for some time.
Duke?
Marsha Collins. Died in earlier fire.
Ahhh. Duke and Marsha had a son, Alan.I must have missed it when 'Duke' got introduced.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's wondering how a woman who was basically a human fire-truck got burnt alive.
This is accurate. You have Skip's address, which Detectives Adams and Devereaux are at now, and you also have Eric Rowan's address, and Hofstadter's. Marsha Collins died 9 years ago in the fire at Southside Boxing.
Herp derp!
I accidentally posted my gameplay in the discussion thread.
Does Hofstadter have relations in the city? Doesn't it fall on us to do the notification?
That would fall on the first officer on the scene (Dependent on regulations of the precinct, it could be transferred to us because it's our murder investigation), but we can't release that information until after the Coroner's office officially reported to our office that the victim was/is indeed dead. This process involves the Coroner finding official "cause of death"... In this case, while it might seem obvious to the layman (Us), they'd have to check for any other potential causes, which includes, but is not limited to a Toxicology report and a Full-body examination to find any other abnormalities. The full body exam can take only a few hours, but the toxicology can take anywhere from 12-48 hours. The final report usually takes 2-4 hours to write up after the Tox-screen comes back, then however long it takes to get from the Coroner's office to the HCIU (Maybe a few more hours?)
We've likely got between 16 and 72 hours to sit a drink before one of us gets to do the grim job of notifying family of the Victim's demise. In this case, we don't need to have anyone Identify the remains (Which would expedite the process) because he had his ID on him (required for Machine use) and his face was intact... not to mention the positive ID given by Lou at the scene.
Hey all!
I'm heading up to the mountains for camping for the next 24-48 hours. I won't be able to play again till done time on Saturday. Please GMPC me as needed.
Due to issues with my ISP I've been offline for most of this week.