<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=199515.msg9818863#msg9818863">Quote from: SGTDan on 07-04-2014, 20:40:40</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">I just noticed something reading the IC and thinking about my post. I meant to imply that Warner when he grabbed the medkit closed the door, it's SOP not to leave your doors open. Since I didn't outright state it Cold, can I amend the post or do you wish to leave it as is? <br/><br/>It only occurred to me now since you were all talking about taking the vehicle, I mentioned earlier in the OOC that it has locks. Which didn't add up for me so I went back and reread what I posted I suppose I didn't make that clear. I'm okay with both really since either one is terrible enough given that all the supplies are in the bed on the back.<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=199515.msg9820674#msg9820674">Quote from: SGTDan on 08-04-2014, 04:21:00</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">The doors are locked, it takes a special key...which is on Warner or a special tool.<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>Odds on a bunch of road-raiders not having tools made for besting vehicle locks? Odds on Amanuel not being able to just lay his hands on a lock and pop it?<br/><br/>Have they recently stopped setting them up so that the outside lock has to be done via affixing a padlock? Generally you can lock the doors of a HMMWV and similar vehicles from the inside, but not the outside, and 'theft prevention' is by means of a cable-lock that's permanently set up to anchor the steering wheel...And is only a moment's work with bolt cutters. And that's there for when they're deployed in civilian communities, you generally don't want the door to lock behind you (locking you out and requiring you to use a key to get back in) in the middle of a hostile battlefield. I'll leave it to you whether that looked like a battlefield or not. Still don't want to be digging through the dump bag, chucking aside empty magazines, twinkies and cupcakes while you look for the keys as you take incoming fire and the enemy moves on your position. Not a happy scene.<br/><br/>The two big priorities are 'ease of use by soldiers,' and 'can't be screwed up easily by soldiers.' Yeah, the latter is a little rude, but admit it, it's a priority!<br/><br/>Eh, it really doesn't matter at this point. Screw it, we're done with that.<br/><hr/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">What</span> <span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 16pt;"><em>does</em></span> <span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">matter</span> <span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">is</span> what we take from this going<em> forward</em>.</strong>I'm interested in seeing everybody have fun, and if AW is approached with some preconceptions that can be more difficult than with others. Yeah, I'm concerned you may have some of those preconceptions.<br/><br/>I'm going to visually illustrate this with what I consider appropriate imagery because it may take some of the edge off my mood, or off your mood reading this. Whatever. The images are there both to be illustrative and possibly to lend a different perspective. Look, it's a damned kitten.<br/><br/>(http://24.media.tumblr.com/nPv1dWhDWmj1cw5r1tWoslWLo1_500.jpg)<br/><br/>From where I sit, looking back at a long log of PM's and some posts here, you've been tying yourself in knots trying to figure out how to not let the savages get hold of Warner's shiny. You were doing it so consistently and so single-mindedly that the tunnel-vision of 'must not lose Betty' even caused you to offer up "solutions" that would make the problem worse, not better. If the doors were locked, they'd just invite a hell of a lot more crowbarring and bashing...And sooner or later Amanuel would probably pop them in a way that makes all that bashing pointless. If they're unlocked, the vehicle is a lot less likely to be damaged because it's more useful barter intact. And it's so shiny and unusual that I think I can argue that even the stupidest and most short-sighted of Rez's bikers can see where it could be traded in to be worth a lot more to them than keeping it would be. (HMGs and other crewed weapons kill small resistance groups...The ones they get their hands on and decide they can keep. It's a huge propaganda coup to show you've got it, but deploying it in the field is much harder than a bunch of chumps with Kalashnikovs, and trying to get it out of the field when things go sideways is even harder. You can't just dump it like a rifle, because if the local security groups get hold of it, then it's a propaganda coup for them. So you lose valuable people trying to protect this asset that really doesn't help you do what you're presumably trying to do...But I digress.)<br/><br/>I think you need(ed) to move forward to 'where does Warner go from this situation?/how can he rectify it or recover?' If he honestly feels like he'll<em>stop breathing and lose all hope</em>as a character without an APC, then there's something really wrong with how he's associating that equipment with his mission profile. If that's part of his mental troubles, fine. But when it starts affecting what other characters can/can't do with objects in the 'real' world, it stops looking like it's all in his head. But enough of that, let's talk going forward:<br/><br/>I want to talk about how I perceive that you may conceive your character. Some of this is probably going to come across as condescending, because it immediately suggests that there's a right way and a wrong way, that I know the right way, and that<em>you're doing it wrong</em>. Sorry about that. I'm not aiming for 'you're doing it wrong' as much as 'here are some options and viewpoints that might make it more fun in future for you.' Bear in mind that my focus, even if I word things badly, is on trying to present more options to you that move forward from the situation<em>as it is </em>rather than as we might like it to be, just as I have been in PMs. Probably a lot of it can be read as telling you how to play, but I hope you will excuse that, because I want to help you try to find a handle on your character which will keep him playably fun for you. Part of that involves how he interacts with everybody else's perceptions of the apocalypse setting. That's been a thing since the get-go.<br/><br/>But I'm going to start with the basics. Because there are some things that need to be gotten out of the way.<br/><br/><em>Warner is not an M-ATV with a .50 cal mounted on it.</em><br/><br/>(https://31.media.tumblr.com/ccfa620e64fa72e723e9954599e6604b/tumblr_n3okciDFc91r9tnh2o1_500.jpg)<br/><br/>Warner is a man out of time, a Rip Van Winkle, whose mission profile was meant to be accomplished with a very large force coming out of cold-storage to provide him backup and explicit tasking. The loss of the M-ATV does not make his mission<em>any less impossible </em>than it is if he doesn't lose the M-ATV. Warner is not his rifle. He's a Marine, and deprived of his rifle and his vehicle he damned well is capable of finding others. If anything, the M-ATV is a very dangerously high-profile target which invites a lot of unwelcome attention that a man alone would probably be better off avoiding. Hell, Rez has a very nasty, heavily armed gang and she's<em>absolutely certain </em>that she doesn't want the attention the M-ATV will garner. Leaving it in the camoflauged underground bunker garage with an ice-cube on the seat while Warner scouted on foot seems to me like it would've been a more cautiously rational approach to the situation, instead of driving around in front of a bunch of hungry dogs in what amounts to a porkchop on wheels. If I was playing a Q, I think I'd probably have him stow his super-shiny crap and make it a priority to mug somebody unsavory and grab their gear so he blended in better while he tried to figure out what the situation was. You know.<em>Terminator 2</em>. "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle."<br/><br/>(http://i.imgur.com/mAScq.gif)<br/><br/>Seriously man, stop sweating the vehicle. A big part of this game is about dealing with scarcity. Another is about dealing with being fucked over. Rez could lose her gang and her bike. Marco could lose his Hardhold (and his gang and population with it). Amanuel could lose his shop and his tools. Strong could theoretically do something that made his 'family' decide he was a heretic and run him out. These aren't just 'Oh, it could happen.' No, the way AW plays, if we keep going over a long enough time frame, these are things that<em>will </em>happen. Hell, Rez could've lost half her gang in the first five posts. I got ridiculously lucky that I decided she'd have some kind of a semaphore with standard attack patterns that were slightly more organized than just, well "Get'em!"<br/><br/>So all of our characters could lose the crap that seems to be associated heavily with who they are...But if they didn't die in the process, every single one of them would pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and set about starting over (or at least that's how I read the other characters...I know Rez would, definitely, because that's pretty much what her background is) because<em>they are those archetypes</em>. It isn't just what they<em><strong>do</strong></em>, it's<em><strong>who they are</strong></em>. Marco would find a new set of walls to repair and start protecting, and welcome in people who wanted shelter and would help protect it. Amanuel would spot things which were rebuildable that nobody else would even try to salvage. Strong would open his mouth in public and people would be enthralled. And Rez would alternately beat the crap out of people and buy them beer until they decided they preferred beer to beatings and started doing things her way, then she'd start getting them on wheels if they didn't already have them.<br/><br/>Warner is not the M-ATV. The M-ATV is not significant to Warner's archetype. In the game's own terms for PC loot and equipment, it's just crap (admittedly very shiny and nifty crap), and the game literally<em>encourages</em>the GM to fuck with the characters' crap. In this case, another character has done so, but well...It's how the situation unfolded. If you look at the examples of play in the book, you'll see that 90% of the time the conflicts are between characters. So much so that you have to dig around a little in places to find the rules for how stuff affects NPCs. AW sets everybody up with some kind of monkey on their back that makes cooperation with the other characters difficult or even dangerous depending on the circumstances.<br/><br/>So let's talk about these circumstances.<br/><br/>(https://31.media.tumblr.com/aa5efd6d95022ad36a048ea1580db058/tumblr_n3pc6mcQmD1r9tnh2o2_400.jpg)<br/><br/>Once upon a time, there was a guy named Max.<br/><br/>(http://hdwpapers.com/walls/mad_max_mel_gibson_image-wide.jpg)<br/><br/>Now in AW terms, Max is probably the most recognizable prototype of the Driver to ever exist. In fact, Max probably did more to create the image of the end-of-the-world as seen at the late 20th-early 21st century than anybody since the Mayans.<br/><br/>(https://24.media.tumblr.com/835fae92dd8e2b8225ead63dd7263203/tumblr_n3pc6mcQmD1r9tnh2o1_500.jpg)<br/><br/>Max was a driver, but he was<em>constantly</em>losing his vehicles. I would argue that the core of what brings Max into just about every bad situation he gets into is that he has some marvelous vehicle set up the way he wants it, and he loses it or gets it fucked up beyond all repair.<br/><br/>(http://thoughts.zhollis.com/images/planRoadWarrioryoutalktome.jpg)<br/><em>"Two days ago, I saw a vehicle that'd haul that tanker. You want to get out of here? You talk to me."</em><br/><br/>Max loses buddy, gains Interceptor. Loses Interceptor, gets armored truck. Loses truck, scavenges car. Loses car, gains Tina Turner. No, wait, that's not how it happened...<br/><br/>...Well. Kind of.<br/><br/>What I'm getting at here is that what makes Max a driving force is that when he's put on foot, he does not stop. In fact, he consistently makes life hell for the people who did it. Biker gang after biker gang after scavenger army after entire fucking town. No Max on foot? NO STORY.<br/><br/>There are games which are all about how your character keeps getting more and more super powerful, acquiring awesome magic and weapons and all this crap. That's not AW.<br/><br/>In AW, your characters start out with stuff that is a source of power, but EVERY source of power your character starts with is a problem for them. Rez's gang? It's a problem for her. Marco's hardhold? Problem. Truth Strong's cult? Problem. Amanuel's erection?<br/><br/>Okay, I'll get back to you on that...<br/><br/>Anyhow, every single character of the lot here has crap that it's easy for them to lose. If anything, the Quarantine has more stuff to lose, and less ability to protect it. And if he wanders around with it, people are gonna notice and covet it. At least if Rez gets out of her biker pack to take a pee, nobody is gonna drive off with them when she's not looking. Unless they have ice-cream, maybe. We all know that's what Rez saw as the real threat.<br/><br/>(https://31.media.tumblr.com/f318c235ac83a48da293c5a849b57971/tumblr_n3pc6mcQmD1r9tnh2o3_r1_500.jpg)<br/><br/>So the story becomes "Where does your character go when their security (such as it is in this crapsack world) gets taken away from them?" Quarantine has lost his shot at re-establishing the American dream as part of an armed force with a shitload of technology and good comms and equipment and teamwork. That's just not likely to happen, because a lot of that is dead or rusted or will die or explode when exposed to the Maelstrom. Now Warner, in particular, as a Quarantine, decided he was more comfortable putting all his precious things in one spot ("Betty") and driving around with them than hiding them under a rock and sneaking back to them occasionally.<br/><br/>So he's lost his current comfort. But maybe that'll help him get back on track to trying to Rebuild the Dream.<br/><br/>Another issue with playing Quarantine? Quarantine is the character with the least reason to interact with everybody else. He's got a big ol' bunker that's probably proof against direct strikes by 22-key warheads, and it's full of crap that massages his frontal lobes with visions of the glory that was (and should be, damn it, but isn't). He scouts around the edges of the crapsack catastrophe which passes for society in AW. And then what? Sooner or later, he needs to realize that if he's going to pursue his mission, he needs help. If he stays alone forever, sooner or later someone's going to knife him, or punk him with a rifle when he gets out of his armored car to take a dump, or poison his beer, or whatever. His character growth path needs to trend away from isolation. If he tries to be the single guy making the world safe to wake up the rest of his buddies, he'll be at it forever. And he'll be vulnerable forever.<br/><br/>Let's look at the Master Blaster and Max situation again... Max loses vehicle and has to go to town. Once he's in town, he gets pulled into all the conniving and power struggles that the real population of the world are part of. But all he can see is puny dwarf roaming around on his wheels. He asks for justice and gets told he has to make his own...And by the way, the powers that be are going to use his attempt to fuck over some people causing them problems. And stick him with the bill. When it's all said and done, does Max get his car back? No, he doesn't. He ends up with another vehicle, going who knows where...And he suddenly has people who depend on him, who he has to take care of. It's a situation he's been presented with before, though, and time and again he walks off alone into the desert, more comfortable scavenging Yet Another Vehicle than attaching himself to what passes for humanity in this crapsack world.<br/><br/>Let me bring in a character people tend to forget the wisdom of, from the second movie. Good old Pappagallo.<br/>(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dBgfpoztV0I/TqFD9SScJ8I/AAAAAAAAMKk/TrLwYS7Z84c/s1600/RoadWarrior_084Pyxurz.jpg)<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Max: I got all I need here.<br/><br/>Papagallo: You don't have a future. I could offer you that.<br/><br/>Pappagallo: What is it with you, huh? What are you looking for? C'mon, Max, everybody's looking for something. You're happy out there, are you? Eh? Wandering? One day blurring into another? You're a scavenger, Max. You're a maggot. Did you know that? You're living off the corpse of the old world. Tell me your story, Max. C'mon. Tell me your story. What burned you out, huh? Kill one man too many? See too many people die? Lose some family?<br/><br/>[Max turns to Pappagallo and gives him an angry glare]<br/><br/>Pappagallo: Oh, so that's it, you lost your family? That makes you something special, does it?<br/><br/>Pappagallo: Do you think you're the only one that's suffered? We've all been through it in here. But we haven't given up. We're still human beings, with dignity. But you? You're out there with the garbage. You're NOTHING. </blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>This is a classic post-Apoc moment. This is the potential for the big epiphany. This is some attempt at society trying to form, trying to take into itself the strength it needs to survive and to value and maintain that strength rather than letting that strength go alone into the dark and become one of the monsters.<br/><br/>I put it to you that right now Warner has MORE potential motivations and MORE capability to get involved than he did when he was in an armored can tooling around on his lonesome, talking to his radio, and choosing whether or not to get involved based on 'Oh, I recognize those bikers. That's the one with the nice ass. I guess it'd be a bad idea to let her die.'<br/><br/>If your vision of Warner is bound with ironclad chains to the idea of him having lots of badass weaponry from the past, being able to come and go as he pleases and stay above and apart while working on his private, personal crusade to some day fix things well enough to revive some other members of his team, then yeah, I guess that's not going to work. And if that's the case, and your vision of Warner is that inflexibly tied to his toys, then I don't think the way AW tends to go in my experience is going to be fun for you.<br/><br/>(http://www.quickmeme.com/img/ab/abb7e10cdb136b3ec9080348dfb61efa5a6855c52ea057c98b921291e5be7477.jpg)<br/><br/>But if you can ditch the idea that Warner<em>is</em>his toys, and instead see that Warner is<em>a combination of his losses and what he hopes to achieve</em>, I think you have a character which could potentially go very far indeed.