ZacksQuest
Indiscriminate Quest Taker
This thread is for the discussion of events and plot points in Infernal Intervention! The IC thread goes up either Monday, January 13th, or Tuesday, January 14th. Talk about your characters and how they will or won't get along, or anything you want to see from an RP where all mythologies and magics are correct.
The IC Rules
Some Really, Really Basic Game MechanicsNow, I have a personal system for seeing how successfully actions teammates take go through, and how successfully actions NPCs go through. However, this system involves a single d20, a notebook filled with incomprehensible scribbles about positive or negative factors, and a bucket of my own tears; so instead of talking about all the nuances that go into seeing how successful you are if you are one fourth orc wearing padded thermal socks trying to sneak in medium-height grass past two fairies on high alert and it's a Tuesday and one of them's recently eaten a bologna sandwich, I'll just lay down some general rules of thumb.
Your actions are more likely to succeed...
but they're less likely to succeed if...
and there's details, nuances, and modifiers for some very specific situations I'm overlooking here, but it's basically a reiteration of what I talked about during the interest check. If you do a lot of smart, makes-sense-in-character decisions, you'll be rewarded, if you don't you won't. The d20 is just when it could go either way or to see how well things succeeded or how much things went belly-up, and then I go from there.
When you encounter an NPC, an enemy or an obstacle, whether the challenge is physical or mental, I will give you a brief blurb of that encounter and I'll always give the following.
Usually things get tense when you see one of those pop up, or it at least means you have a new NPC to interact with.
Quick Tips and Tricks
The Three Starting MissionsAfter a really basic training exercise for the team, Intervention will begin in earnest and the team will go on their first assignment. You have a total of three possibilities for a first mission to go on; this doesn't mean you can't choose to go back and do the other two later, this is just to see what people want to kick off the RP with. Two of these three were missions that were originally going to be in the original version of Intervention but have been altered greatly. The third is new to this iteration. After the first mission is chosen, this section will be used to determine what people want to see more.
If any one of these is your choice for a first mission, please post saying which one you want to do first.
The IC Rules
- Rule 1: I care less about post length and more about whether or not a post pushes the story forward through action, dialogue, or public reaction. As long as it's at least two decent sized paragraphs with decent grammar, we're all good on that front.
- Rule 2: Post order is similarly relaxed, although there is an enforced two-post-per-week minimum to keep the story going strong (if you won't be able to do two posts in one week, please message me!). In quieter moments or between missions, not everyone has to go before you post again; just reasonably space out your posts. When a tense moment begins (combat, stealth, defusing a bomb, whatever) you have to wait after your response post until the GM responds with the effects of your actions, then you can post again to respond then wait etc. etc. until the tense, tactical moment is over and you're back to a relaxed point in the story.
- Rule 3: If you're not going to be able to post for a significant amount of time or you are leaving the RP, let me know in advance. Lack of communication is what kills a significant portion of RPs.
- Rule 4: Godmodding and metagaming are not tolerated. If you are doing an action involving another person's character, an NPC, or an obstacle, have the character begin that action, and if it's part of a larger plan feel free to elaborate on that plan, but do not immediately assume the action goes through. I have a personal system for when things succeed and when they don't.
- Rule 5: Talk to your teammates about things. Talk mission ideas and what you want to see happen with your characters. Talk about inter-character arcs you want to see happen. Ask questions about the setting. Definitely talk strategy- don't let the pointy hats and demons fool you, this is a tactical strategy RP. Talk to me specifically if you have things you can't share with other characters, like a secret your character has but others can't know or if you want an NPC important to you to be introduced.
- Rule 6: I don't ask for a whole lot when it comes to formatting. You can have an IC code if you wish, but it's not a necessity. All I ask for is that you have a little blurb-y section, where you mention the items you have on you, where you are (as specifically as you can go for the environment without bringing up measurements), what you're doing, and who you're doing stuff with. Do something to make dialogue stand out from other text, and underline the important things that happen in your post.
- Rule 7: Don't be jerks to each other. Don't harass anyone. No bigotry OOC (IC, well, deus vult, demon scum). If actions IC or messages make someone uncomfortable OOC, and it hasn't been retracted and apologies haven't been made or accepted by the time I hear about it, Zack will not be one happy Quester.
Some Really, Really Basic Game MechanicsNow, I have a personal system for seeing how successfully actions teammates take go through, and how successfully actions NPCs go through. However, this system involves a single d20, a notebook filled with incomprehensible scribbles about positive or negative factors, and a bucket of my own tears; so instead of talking about all the nuances that go into seeing how successful you are if you are one fourth orc wearing padded thermal socks trying to sneak in medium-height grass past two fairies on high alert and it's a Tuesday and one of them's recently eaten a bologna sandwich, I'll just lay down some general rules of thumb.
Your actions are more likely to succeed...
- if they're part of a team plan, even if it's split up into groups of one or two...
- if it's one of your character's non-magical specialties or part of their build...
- if it's a magical skill that either has a cost or drawback to its use or you haven't done for a while...
- if it makes logical sense based on the environment and your character's skills...
- if it's clever, involving environmental details or taking the way your character is doing something into mind...
- if your opponent is evenly matched or weaker...
- if it would be not just possible, but way cooler if you pulled it off...
- or even if it's not particularly clever or logical, as long it's what your character would do based off of their personality and history then it's okay.
but they're less likely to succeed if...
- if it's a lone wolf plan that few if nobody else on the team is aware of...
- if it's not something your character is specialized in and it particularly requires training to be good at...
- if you've been using a powerful magical skill repeatedly over the course of a mission...
- if it either doesn't make logical sense (or if it does but there's just a lot of environmental factors going against it)...
- if it's a simple course of action without at least a little bit of detail or precautions taken...
- if your opponent is better or particularly skilled at countering what you're trying to pull on them...
- if it would make more sense for it to not pull off or be uncomfortable for everyone if it did...
- or if it's like grossly out of character.
and there's details, nuances, and modifiers for some very specific situations I'm overlooking here, but it's basically a reiteration of what I talked about during the interest check. If you do a lot of smart, makes-sense-in-character decisions, you'll be rewarded, if you don't you won't. The d20 is just when it could go either way or to see how well things succeeded or how much things went belly-up, and then I go from there.
When you encounter an NPC, an enemy or an obstacle, whether the challenge is physical or mental, I will give you a brief blurb of that encounter and I'll always give the following.
- Name: If it has a name or nickname, otherwise it's just a really basic description like "Warded Door" or "Time Bomb" or "Fire Imp".
- Species and Faction: These are only filled in if any of you know either right away.
- Abilities: If it's a lesser creature or cannonfodder, it'll have very little here. If it's a boss or a god or something particularly dangerous, there'll be a lot more here. It's very possible that the enemy will have as many abilities as you have or more, especially when we're talking about higher beings like gods or faction leaders. Sometimes wards, hexes, traps and security measures will have abilities, but sometimes its only ability is getting in your way.
- "Health": Now "health" doesn't mean "how many hits it can take before it dies". It's more "how many successful actions the team has to make against it before you succeed in overcoming it", either by talking it down or beating it unconscious or killing it with hellfire or whatever. So 1 HP is one successful hit and is the HP of like cannonfodder enemies, simple traps, simple wards, easily swayed people, and it goes up the stronger the enemy is, the more complex the trap or ward is, or the more unshakeable a person is. 30-50 HP is what you're going to see as the average for an end-of-mission challenge. Also, you guys should start off deciding what you're going to do between diplomacy or fighting and stick with it. Health you take away from it trying one method adds to its Health if you turn around and try to use the other; someone you smacked the crap out of isn't going to want to be your friend, and someone you've been trying to persuade before resorting to violence is going to be very angry about that.
Usually things get tense when you see one of those pop up, or it at least means you have a new NPC to interact with.
Quick Tips and Tricks
- If the obstacle seems insurmountable, or if the enemy seems OP, use the tried and true method of working as a team to cheese the shit out of that obstacle until it's no longer an issue. Teamwork and tactics are key at every stage of the mission.
- Sometimes you'll need to split your team into different groups and cover more territory or work on separate objectives. This is definitely true if things are time sensitive or someone just can't follow the same sneaky path everyone else is going down.
- There are no wrong answers. There are decisions that can go poorly, but those only pave the way to having an even more interesting or unexpected way of succeeding later.
- You're gonna be given a lot of chances. I kill off nobody unless someone PMs me asking for their character to die. They might get hurt emotionally or physically, they might get knocked out, they might even be maimed, but they're not going to die and nothing is going to put them in a position where they can't fight anymore unless you want it to happen.
- If you can make an argument for why something would have a good chance of succeeding, it will probably sway me to make it more likely.
- Usually, you won't be able to completely fail an assigned mission; personal missions are different and can be succeeded or failed equally, but an assignment or a major plot mission is gonna give you a decent amount of leeway to get to the objectives. However, don't expect to be able to accomplish every objective every time. Sometimes, if all you can do is save hostages, minimize the damage, or prevent the villain from succeeding even if it means a pyrrhic victory or the masterminds of the plot escaping to wring their hands and laugh maniacally another day, then that's what you have to do.
- Intervention's job is to protect the balance. Sometimes you have to stop the greater evil of potential chaos while saving the lesser evil that you need to keep the way of life going smoothly. Just keep an eye on those lesser evils, they'll probably do something to let you be able to punch them in the face eventually.
The Three Starting MissionsAfter a really basic training exercise for the team, Intervention will begin in earnest and the team will go on their first assignment. You have a total of three possibilities for a first mission to go on; this doesn't mean you can't choose to go back and do the other two later, this is just to see what people want to kick off the RP with. Two of these three were missions that were originally going to be in the original version of Intervention but have been altered greatly. The third is new to this iteration. After the first mission is chosen, this section will be used to determine what people want to see more.
If any one of these is your choice for a first mission, please post saying which one you want to do first.
- Mort Sur Lyon: The French city of Lyon is overwhelmed by a swarm of the living dead, kept back by a tight blockade consisting of French ground troops, Elysium Enterprises' EXORCISM Division, and mercenary monster hunters. It's not a zombie plague, most of the undead are ghuls and wights that aren't communicably necrotic, and they seem to be led by a squadron of vampires which means this is the organized work of the Nation of the Damned. Strangely, underground trams still seem to be coming in, and an unmarked helicopter touched down at la Hopital de la Croix-Rousse and then vanished.
- Primary Objective 1: Aid the French ground troops in finding and evacuating survivors, particularly schoolkids from the academy downtown and an outpost of survivors radioing for help at the Galeries Commerces.
- Primary Objective 2: Go to the focal point of the undead activity, the Hopital de la Croix-Rousse, and cut off the mysterious head of this undead insurrection. Reports are varied on whether it is an archvampire or- worse still- a revenant, but either way intel suggests it has more than one high level assistant aiding it in whatever it's doing.
- Secondary Objective 1: Figure out what's going on with the tramway cars and, if it's something the undead army needs, sabotage or dispose of it.
- Secondary Objective 2: There was a bus of French models for the latest haute-couture fashion show inbound to Paris. The bus seemed to be attacked directly. Find out what happened and, if there are any survivors, evac them as well.
- Casino Infernale: This one is a bit less violent, but a lot of infiltration and sleight of hand may be necessary to overcome this mission which may prove too personal to some. Atlantic City, New Jersey, is the base of power for a certain Goetian demon lord, King Belial. From his casino where people gamble their very souls away, he has amassed wealth and Aether for himself over the course of decades. Now, it's said that he has gathered a few contacts, including a representative of Elysium Enterprises. It's important that Intervention knows what's being planned.
- Primary Objective 1: Find out who the conjoined parties are in this private meeting and investigate each one for potential activity against the balance.
- Primary Objective 2: Gather information gleaned from the meeting, especially pertaining to any business between Belial's demon group and Elysium Enterprises. You can either spy on the proceedings, or take dossiers off the contacts.
- Secondary Objective 1: We think Belial may have a few key items that Intervention finds disconcerting; a purported tome of magical experiments in enchantments done by the demon gods Ba'al and Angra Mainu, as well as a cache of 50,000 pure souls stolen from Pahiya's plane of Nirvana. If either of these are true, relieve Belial of these burdens.
- Caution: You could fight Belial in open combat, and you could free every last one of the hundreds of thousands in his Vault of Souls both, but they will come back and bite you in the ass later and at this point in time, you aren't going to likely take Belial down.
- What Measure Is A Monster?: This job is also of a personal nature to at least three of the current team members, and may prove a conflict of interest for at least one of them. The war criminal, Knightly Inquisitor Ampelius, has pleaded guilty to the deaths of tens of thousands of Egyptian mages and demihumans using the power of a djinn to cause sandstorms and irreversible damage from earthquakes. Having been denounced by the Heavenly Host and rescinded of all protections as a Templar, he has been sentenced by the Egyptian pantheon in Cairo to an isolated prison dimension known as The Grey, the entrance of which is in Istanbul. Plane travel is too risky, so the prisoner will be escorted by land. However, we fear he may be planning an escape, or something greater at hand. Not to mention, we've got word that at least three assassins are planning on making their move on the train we're going to set up, to say nothing of the riled up followers of the Du'at and the monster rights activists ready to rip the man apart as a pariah.
- Primary Objective 1: Make sure Inquisitor Ampelius gets to The Grey alive. He must not escape, as it would be a political snafu Intervention and certainly the Heavenly Host would not like coming back to them, but also make sure the mob doesn't stick the guy's head on a pike as even by accident overruling the judgment of the very law-happy Egyptian pantheon could make for rocky communications down the road.
- Primary Objective 2: Take care of the three assassins. The only intel we have is that one is a hired contract killer hailing from the Goetian family of demons. One is apparently of Egyptian origin, possibly one of the rogue Adjudicators or their anointed mummies, and one is a complete mystery but our source said this third assassin could potentially derail the train with their bare hands.
- Secondary Objective: If Inquisitor Ampelius's work was part of a larger agenda, or if he was acting alone. Report whatever the findings are not just to Intervention headquarters but to Archangel Sandalphon and Lady Sekhmet who sit on the council.
- Caution: This may be a difficult thing to ask given the circumstances already there, Saint Jacob may need to keep either a low profile away from the press or a high profile publicly denouncing the Inquisitor's recent actions. Being in-between could prove politically problematic.
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