2e PL 8 "the rookies" OOC.

[Poodle]

All good. You have as much in game time as you need to spend your pp.

[mrdent12]

For Conner, I am going to

+2 Sense Motive, +2 Acrobatics. 1pp
+1 Animal Control 1pp

[kenseido]

I just realized I calculated my Toughness wrong, so I think I am going to have an extra PP or two from that. I will look at the numbers again after work tonight and post the changes here.

[pathfinderq1]

missed the bonding time invite- I'll add something relevant later tonight (after dinner)

>Okay, edit added to my previous IC post

[mrdent12]

Conner was getting a bit dull trying to go by the book cop like for my tastes, so I am going to start mixing in more animal influenced behaviour.

[Poodle]

Cool. That would be awesome.

[pathfinderq1]

Moved from IC, for discussion:

Danni. Good work out there. You are now team leader. I don't care if you want to be or not.

Did you mean Douglas, who actually acted "leader-y" and has the skills to do that?

If you did, in fact, actually mean Danni who doesn't have the skills or inclination to be leader-

Can we please please please NOT do that? As a Player, I do NOT have anything resembling the bandwidth needed to even try to handle that.

[kenseido]

Yeah I suspect his orders are the ones most under question. Staying in the building, ordering us to leave the guy there. Danni is probably closest there is to a leader besides Douglas, from a police standpoint.

[mrdent12]

While in real life it might play out like the sergeant said with Danni being promoted, in games its usually best to have players inclined to play that role do it. Even in real world someone thrust into leadership without desire or skill is a recipe for disaster.

[kenseido]

While in real life it might play out like the sergeant said with Danni being promoted, in games its usually best to have players inclined to play that role do it. Even in real world someone thrust into leadership without desire or skill is a recipe for disaster.

Yep, this is definitely an area where RPG has to differ from RL.

[kenseido]

As I mentioned previously, I overbought Brandon's TOU and after readjusting it, I had 1pp extra.

So after adding Air Control as an AP to his Sorcery array, I am left with 2xp. I really can't think of what to do with them right now, so I will bank them.

[Poodle]

Ok. Danni can be leader in name only..
She is more photogenic maybe. My phone is about to run out of charge. I will do a fuller response later.

[Poodle]

Now I admit I struggle to understand how you guys think sometimes. You all seem to be going off on the captain for being an arsehole or at least your characters are. I get that nuance is tricky but from where he is standing he gave you as a fresh unit a lot of leeway.

In return you 1. Handcuffed a hispanic man inside a building that was on fire. Can you imagine the fall out if that happened in real life. 2.You also failed to secure any evidence to indicate why you arrested him. 3. You trapped people in a room briefly while an active fire alert was going on. Another set of lawsuits and complaints.
4. You failed to prevent a stabbing. 5. You discharged automatic weapons using lethal ammo on a busy downtown street despite having the option for non-lethal ammo. 5. You unleashed magic on civilians probably causing physical harm as well as property damage. More complaints, lawsuits or worse negative media attention.
6. You barely prevented someone from stealing your swat van.

On the plus side you did save from crooked cops from getting whacked (although no-one likes crooked cops). You did neutralise a bomb threat.

Instead of kicking you out of the force, or any other disciplinary action he just tells you to 'do better.'

Meh...pbp is what it is. You can think what you like about the captain but surely you can see why Douglas can't be the face of the unit for a while. You may all treat him as the leader but officially he isn't. Danni, you can do as much or as little in that role as you like but you will be the one the media talks to when they want a soundbite from the unit.

[mrdent12]

One of the things I've found is a face type character that fields external questions ic much like other roles can't be just given ic. Players come into games with how they want to play their PC much like GMs start games with how they view the game to go. Telling a player they are now the face of the team to ic media or chain of command just doesn't work in pbp. It makes the player play a role they didn't want to play. Over a table top or chat, the GM can talk to the player to sort out the arc roughly. I can't presume to say pathfinder isn't ok with being the face, but based on the previous post I got that impression.

I get the pcs made mistakes with how they did what they did. Most games have that sort of thing with the players playing roles they don't usually do in their life. So, there needs to be some slack and suspension of actual repercussions even in the most realistic of games . In this instance, bringing up lawsuits, civil complaints, etc would certainly happen as you noted. Going from being chewed out to saying you did a good job in some other areas now do better sends mixed messages. Are the PC's going to get shite assignments, a chance to make it better, or something? For Conners response, he's coming from his perspective of still being hyped up even after a week plus add in the more animalistic type responses, he was going to bark back. OOC, I have no qualms other than from a story perspective the chew out could have been followed with here is what is going to happen to make it a little better or open the floor to the PC's to give ideas.

[kenseido]

The captain attacked us with the worst possible interpretation of the events without even trying to get our side of the story. Yes, Brandon blocked the door. But he was also alone in the courtroom and the prisoners were trying to exit with the rest of the crowd. He also knew there was magical scrying going on. And it was maybe a minute that they were blocked. The fire was clearly a diversion to get the prisoners out in the open. That is just one example.

Yes, the captain is probably under a lot of pressure that we can't see. That's part of the job. Leaders will get in trouble for the actions of their underlings. Leaders will also get credit for their successes. I know the whole "captain chews out the heroes" is a trope, but not everything that works in movies or comics also works in rp games. I think if you had wanted to do it, you might have been better to keep it as narrative rather than actual dialogue.

I have no doubt there are a lot of legit officers on the force that wouldn't mind seeing the crooked cops just get offed, rather than get off by giving evidence of other criminals. And maybe that's why the captain glossed over the fact that we were given one primary assignment and everything we did was to ensure that was successful. But it was my intention to mention a conversation between Brandon and Edwin to that even the good police wouldn't mind seeing them die.

Brandon may not have experience as a police officer, but he has dealt with bad things and evil in the past. Real proper monsters and villains. He was essentially a magical version of Robin to his dad's Batman. So, he does know about fighting evil and how it's never straight forward. And he knows about being unpopular and criticized by people he saved.