# ESPION - the game of spies (CLOSED)



## DEFCON 1 (Mar 17, 2005)

ESPION - the game of spies

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Before I start getting inundated with request to play in this new online game... I'd like to make one thing clear right off the bat...

** THIS IS A MECHANICS-FREE GAME!!! **

There will be no RPG rules of any system used in this game.  None for character generation, combat, or anything.  All results of the players actions will be determined by me based on what works best for the story being created.  I'm tired of having to go to random-number generators to determine whether or not players spot the bad guy watching them... when it really should come right down to whether or not it'd be more interesting and exciting for the plot if the players do or do not see him.  Thus, for this game I am removing all dice-rolling and number crunching... this will be a free-form game for descriptive writing roleplayers where I will determine whether or not player's actions succeed or don't succeed based on how they write what they are doing, and what will result in the most interesting story and plot.

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Okay... now that that's been taken care of... HI GUYS AND GIRLS!

This is me recruiting email for a new PbP game I am starting based on the espionage genre.  Spies, agents, and double agents abound!  James Bond / Alias etc. etc.  Only difference is that rather than working for the American C.I.A. or the British M.I.6, the characters work for the intelligence branch of the United Nations.  Now yes, we all know the United Nations has no intelligence branch (that we know of)... but now they do.  Thus characters can be of any nationality, and they can work with and/or against the intelligence branches of all the different individual nations based upon what the United Nations as a whole needs them to do. A whole new department of espionage agents working for the greater good of humanity.

As I said at the top... this game will not be using any of the mechanics from any RPGs out there... not d20 Modern, Spycraft, the James Bond RPG... none of it.  I've played in (and currently GM) enough games to know that the part I find least enjoyable is when I have to look up character and monster information and determine what happens based on random dice and the thousands of RPG rules the games have.  When playing around a table it's okay... since we as players have the books in front of us and the DM can speak and resolve issues with us immediately.  However, when typing posts and stuff over the computer... I don't want to waste the time with all that junk.  I just want the action to resolve quickly and interestingly... and that can't happen if I have to keep referring to character sheets and rules pages elsewhere on the web.

Thus, here's the deal.  For anyone who is curious about my GM style... please check out my current Eberron game I GM called the Knightmares of Khorvaire (link in my Signature).  I'm looking for 3 or 4 players who are very good writers who are interested in a "cooperative" spy-genre writing game... who do not feel they need to use any "game rules" to create interesting characters or actions for their characters to be in, and will be able to act and react accordingly to whatever situations I put their characters in.  The game will basically look and play just like a normal PbP game here on ENWorld... you just won't need to print up or remember numbers, modifiers, or die-rolls.

So if anyone out there might be interested in trying a free-form, no-mechanics online roleplaying game... please respond to this post with links to any current game threads you are playing in, so I can see your writing style and how much detail you put into your posts (and how tied down you are or are not to game mechanics when you roleplay).  This isn't first-come-first-served... I don't even want character concepts at this point... I just want to find a number of quality writers first off who might be interested in trying something like this.  Once I find out if you're RP writing style will fit into my idea of how this game will run (and believe me... I fully understand my own ideosyncracies will preclude 95% of you from wanting to get with 200 yards of me and this game), I'll start giving out what I'm looking for in character creation (which will basically entail appearance, history, and primary strengths and weaknesses of skill and personality).  Once I have my agency of spies lined up, then we'll start writing.

And that's that.  If you're interested as I said... just provide me with links to some of your game threads that best exemplify your written roleplaying style, and I'll start snagging some of you for character concepts.  Thanx much!!!


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## Tor L'Tha (Mar 17, 2005)

Hi DEFCON. Well i did just post in the knightmare tread, and then see this one.
can you email me at simonl@broadpark.no if you think im qualified player?

Seems to me this could be a nice play, jumping all the rule stuff 
Remember that mi first month will be quite slow though. Hearing from you!


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## shadowbloodmoon (Mar 17, 2005)

Now this sounds interesting.... the last diceless game I played was Amber, but we'll leave that alone for now... I absolutely enjoy espionage games and would enjoy playing in this one, if you'll have me. I'll have to make this my last one though, as I am in three already. My sig has the first two games and my third is Watermark12's Sunless Citadel. I'll edit this post for the links when I return from work. Let me know what you think.


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## Bobitron (Mar 17, 2005)

I love the way you are running the Knightmares game, and I would be interested in playing here as well. Sounds like a hoot! I don't consider myself a _great_ writer, but I do love the games I'm in and like being part of a good story.

Some in game threads...

Wing and Sword 

Gloria e Flamae Solei 

Bad Moon over California 

Delta Green: Rebirth (Dead Letter) 

Chronicles of the Witch Hunter

Corvis University Discreet Investigation & Retrieval Union

That should give you an overview. I'm in quite a few games at the moment, and I can think of some people on here I think of as more deserving of the slot than I am, but let me know if you would like to have me onboard.


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## Tonguez (Mar 18, 2005)

I too would love to participate in this endeavour, I'm not one for number crunching either and prefer a freeform style of play. 

Hmm ex-SAS faceman sounds fun


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## taitzu52 (Mar 18, 2005)

Just lurking for now, I'm stretched too thin for another game methinks, but it sounds like a really great idea.
I just wanted to suggest to the players for source material; Delta Green has some awesome departmental resources for creating characters hailing from intel agencies around the world.  Check it.

TZ


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## Vendetta (Mar 24, 2005)

Hey, sounds like an interesting idea.  I'm definately down for this.

Here are some of my sample RPs

Jack Chance post 167.  A Call of Cthulu adventure I started in this adventure later than the rest and my first post in the adventure is #167.  I'm in several other adventures with a similar "once per day" kind of rule and have no problem with that at all. (actually, like it a lot)

Zar-Vroxiar A grumpy sea elf in this D&D adventure in a homebrewed world.  

Aalun, a Gand Jedi Findsman I Started this more past the middle... the group was very large and then sort of disappeared leaving me to a bit of a solo adventure.

Dangerous Legacy is a game that I GM.  I have a couple of NPCs that I RP along with the rest of the group.  This should give you an idea of how I work.


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## Festy_Dog (Mar 24, 2005)

This game looks to have a lot of potential, I'd love to get in on it as I'm a sucker for espionage and a good story (or a combination of the two). 

I've tried to pick out a good bunch of examples:

A Casual Game of D&D This game is up to its 3rd thread, and still going. Great players, very rp orientated.

Detchitoyo High School This game is up to its second thread but I've linked the first one as the second thread has only just started.

Kingdom Lost Died during its second thread, but was pretty good while it lasted.

Days of the Jackal Mechwarrior game which died pretty quickly after it started due to the DM falling ill, but it had a good assembly of players.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 24, 2005)

Thanx for the interest guys!  Having looked over all your other threads, I think I made the right choice in describing my game the way I did, because all you who responded seem to fall into the kind of posters who might make this game work.  Of the six who responded, I'm going to start with just five:

shadowbloodmoon, bobitron, tonguez, vendetta, and festy dog

Tol L'Tha... having heard what you said previously in Knightmares about your computer situation, I'd rather have you just concentrate on that game of mine rather than also trying to get you to do double-duty.  I don't want Zook to suffer over there, so I'm going to greedily hoard you for that game, rather than split you up... my apologies, but I hope you're okay with that.  But thanx for the interest in the second game!  Now get over there and post!    Heh heh.

Okay, now for the other five of you:

I was originally going to have the group work for the United Nations, thinking that as far as I knew it was an organization that didn't have any connection to any spy groups or shows or novels or anything already (trying to avoid the comparisions to MI6 and Bond, or the CIA and Alias etc.).  Of course, no sooner did I put the idea down on this board that I noticed on the main ENWorld page the new listing for "UNION" from Vanishing Goblin - an espionage sourcebook for d20 Modern for the group called the United Nations Intelligence and Operations Network.  So now I'm in a pickle... because I know if I stick with the UN connection with ESPION, I'm going to be constantly making "what if?" comparisions to UNION, because that's the kind of doofus I am (since my idea seemed to exactly match theirs).  I was hoping to have nothing with which connections to be made to, so that I wouldn't tread on any sacred cows or concepts from other sources.

So for the time being... I'm removing ESPION from the connection to the United Nations.  I don't know who/where I'm now going to connect the group to, but that shouldn't restrict character creation in the short term.  Speaking of which... for character creation, I'd like the following info...

your character's name and appearance.

your character's history - where they went to school, did they have any jobs previous to being hired by ESPION, what departments did they advance from before they became field agents, etc.

your character's five "specialties" - it's figured that all field agents have moderate ability in all facets of the spy game, like Bond is.  In other words, I figure all characters have trained to at least drive motorcycles, fly planes, pick locks, mountain climb etc.  However, I'd like you to select five skills that your character is especially good at - preferably worked into the character's past history.  Please remember, that since this is a non-mechanics game, you don't need to worry about trying to "min-max" the character and thus think you all need to select "shooting guns", "acrobatics", and "seduction" as your specialities or else your character will be underpowered compared to your fellow players.  There's no such thing as being "underpowered" here, and it's my job as GM to put your characters into situations where you can show off your abilities.  If you choose "haggling" as a specialty... I'll be damn sure to put the group into a situation where your skill will need to be used.  Basically, all I'm trying to say is to be creative with your concepts and don't feel the need to toe the line with your "typical" Bondian character and select the standard specialities of your typical agent.  You know what the typical spy can do (which is usually a little bit of everything), so you'll always have the bare minimum skill to do the job... thus your specialities can come out creatively from your concept and history and training.

your character's hubris - I'm directly ripping this list off from the 7th Sea roleplaying game (an AWESOME game system if I do say so myself), and I'd like each of you to choose one of the following hubrises that your character suffers from.  All spies tend to be a little "damaged" as it were, so you can use the following to really give color to your characterization.  I don't call them "weaknesses" or "flaws", because there are many times where your hubris will actually help you... but by taking one, it will shade your character and make them a little more human.  And don't worry... these aren't here to dominate your character in-game and make you completely ineffective all the time... but rather it's to make your posts a bit more interesting.  For instance, if you are "hot-headed", your interrogation of a prisoner might play out a bit differently than an agent who is "lazy".  Both players will be able to get what they want... but the writing of how you get there will certainly be different.  And like the specialities above, if you can work your hubris into your character history, it will only make things cooler.  The hubrises are:

Ambitious:  You chase after power even if it’s risky.
Arrogant:  You show contempt or disdain for other people.
Cowardly:  You avoid or escape from doing dangerous things.
Envious:  You covet things belonging to other people.
Greedy:  You try to get as much money as possible.
Hedonistic:  You relax your guard and have a good time.
Hot-headed:  You fly off the handle and lose your temper.
Inattentive:  You do not pay attention to the little things around you.
Indecisive:  You need time to consider things before springing to action.
Judgmental:  You jump to conclusions and form unsubstantiated opinions of people.
Lazy:  You only move to action when you feel like it.
Lecherous:  You give in to temptation.
Loyal:  You go back for a fallen comrade, or avoid leaving their side in the first place.
Misfortunate:  You always seem to have bad luck.
Overconfident:  You don’t have any doubts about your capabilities.
Overzealous:  You strongly defend your opinions and actions, no matter how inappropriate the time and place.
Proud:  You refuse offers of aid.
Rash:  You jump into danger without considering the consequences.
Reckless:  You do not take ample precautions when performing activities.
Righteous:  You don’t have any doubts about the moral justifiability of your actions.
Star-crossed:  You are shot with Cupid’s arrow…again.
Stubborn:  You are prevented from changing your mind.
Trusting:  You lose any doubts about other people.

James Bond would have the hubris "lecherous" for example.  He can't help but try and bed most women he comes across.  It doesn't prevent him from doing his job... but it does color how he interacts with female villains and such.  Your characters will have the same problems.

And that's about it.  Feel free to add anything else you'd like in your history that you feel might be useful for others to know.  If you want to let me know of any "secret" info about your character (info that is buried in your personnel file for example), you can email it to me at FishASE(at)yahoo.com.  Go ahead and start writing up your characters here in this thread, and when we get all of them together and worked out so they all mesh together, I'll create a rogue's gallery thread into which I'll post the characters.  As a final reminder, all of you are mid to upper-level agents of ESPION, but not in the "super-spy" category of Bond.  Also, because you are working as a group, let's try to avoid all of you taking the "watched my mother and father get killed so now I'm a fly-off-the-handle lone wolf" archetype as well, okay?  Very few psychotics with mommy and daddy issues make it through the psychological screening process needed to advance within any job, let alone the espionage game.    Thanx guys! I look forward to seeing what you come up with!


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## shadowbloodmoon (Mar 24, 2005)

*Jason Paquin*

Jason Paquin was born to a family of folks who never wanted for anything. His father was a wealthy banker, or at least that is what they had told him. His father was always too busy to tell Jason much of anything. He was always in meetings or away on business trips. His mother was almost never present either, her vast social empire being the top of her list to take care of. She relied on the family's large amount of money to keep everyone, including Jason, well-taken care of. Unfortunately, it didn't take care of his emotional needs. He his it well, of course, not wanting to disappoint his parents, but their attention was focused more on Mark, who wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, not knowing what he was really getting into. Jason continued distancing himself from the family, but when they were around, he acted as if nothing was wrong, that everything was fine. Thus it came as a surprise the day that Jason came to his father and asked to leave home. All of fourteen years old, Jason had decided he wanted to see the world, travel around, learn new things, meet new people. Something other than be here where no one really cared about him. Jason's father, more interested in Mark's progress than Jason's, allowed him to go, on one condition. It was decided by his father however that he needed a chaperone for these trips, so his father sent hired guns to keep an eye on Jason's activities.

During his travels, Jason picked up numerous languages and cultural skills (Specialty#1, multicultural). He developed an ability to kow how to interact with people all over the world. His travels took him in an almost straight line across the globe. From the United States to Europe to the Russian territories to the Oriental countries, all the way south to Australia, back north to Indonesia and again west through India and the Middle East and then Africa, back to South America and then again to the U.S. Strangely enough, Jason never wanted to visit Canada.

During the first part of his journey, in Europe, he discovered boxing, and soon after, wrestling. Here was a way for Jason to take out his inner aggression and deal with hormones that had started to develop in him. It wasn't until his travel to the Orient that he developed a real fascination with Eastern martial arts. Learning what he could from wherever and whoever he could, Jason gained a smattering of hand to hand combat skills from all over the world (Specialty #2, open hand combat). He trained exclusively with a Chinese Buddhist temple for eight years before continuing the rest of his journey. While with the temple, besides the physical aspect of it, he had learned from the Buddhist philosophy that fighting was not about aggression, but a continuous learning of what mind and body are capable of. This helped him deal with the anger he felt at being left out of the family, but not the jealousy. 

Along with learning how to fight, Jason learned that in order to truly know the real cultures of wherever he went, he would have to avoid his chaperones, thus he picked up a few techniques of evasion, both from his own experience and that of some of the people he met while doing so (Specialty#3, evasion). A few encounters with some shady individuals taught him about disappearing in plain sight and staying out of view, not only from his watchers, but from the law as well. Jason knew that some of the activities he engaged in sometimes skirted and often times literally broke the law, but as far as he was concerned, it was just another learning experience. Because he did not fully understand the Buddhist ways, he felt that in a way, they allowed him to do whatever was necessary to learn new things.

Also on his trips around the world, Jason had met many people, some decent folk, some not so decent folk. While his need to prove himself kept him from making many friends, on both sides of the fence, he could count many as sources of information, strictly in a business sense. He could find just about anything he wanted by talking to the right people in a new place. (Specialty#4, Human Networking).

Eventually, almost two decades had passed and Jason felt he learned what he could and anything else would come from experience. He also found out that his father was dying. Returning home to his father, he found that his father had decided to let Mark, who had been taking care of things for his father all this time, become heir of the Paquin fortune and business. Realizing that his father's business actually had to do more with criminal activities thatn Jason would have liked. Deciding that it was better this way, Jason thanked his father and left for parts unknown.

Unfortunately, as much as Jason tried to hide it, he was still jealous of Mark and how both his father and mother ignored him to groom Mark for position at the head of the family. It wasn't so much that Jason wanted that position, but he did want recognition for his own accomplishments. This feeling would color his interactions with people he would later meet. Since he no longer had the resources to pay for his excursions out into the world, Jason had to find something to make money. His contacts and combat skills earned him a place with another, less covert criminal syndicate. At the time however, Jason was told it was a legitimate business of dealing with imported weapons for the military. Moving up the ranks however taught him the truth. Eventually, Jason wanted out, seeing that eventually he would become exactly what Mark had become. 

Making a deal with the CIA agent that had been assigned to watch this particular group, Jason helped bring the operation down to a halt. The agent was going to offer to help him get a new identity and a new life, but Jason turned it down, saying that he refused to hide from his former life. However Jason's inherent need for recognition (Hubris) kicked in and he decided he wanted to do what the agent did. He struggled however with another deeper reason. He secretly wanted to bring down his own family's operations, however he was unwilling to go against his own family, no matter how angry a part of him still was. The agent agreed that they could use someone with Jason's talents and eventually he was sent to the CIA training farm in Langley, Virginia. During his psych screen, it was determined that Jason's need for recognition went far deeper than his younger brother. Anyone that was better skilled at something than he was, Jason immediately had to strive to be that much better. His superiors decided this could be used to their benefit and kept Jason in training. During the course, Jason discovered that he had a knack for remembering technical details about equipment, and thus was able to identify almost anything from any part of the world (Specialty#5, military equipment identification). He had become in essence, an encyclopedia of that knowledge. 

After his commission into actual field duty, Jason slowly became bored with what he was doing. At the same time, he was becoming frustrated with not being able to surpass the skills of some of the other agents in certain areas, thus causing some trouble within the community. It was also found out that Jason had been making too many contacts within other espionage communities, and he was wavering on a thin line as far as his superiors were concerned. Deciding that he was too valuable to lose, but that the information he had was too dangerous, Jason's superiors recommended him for the ESPION project.



Let me know what you think...  Also, I was thinking that instead of tying ESPION to the UN or any nation for that matter, it could be an upper echelon type thing. A pool of agents who have no true allegiance except to the company and the mission, hired by any and all countries in order to perform activities their own agents do not want to dirty their hands with. Just a thought....


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## Bobitron (Mar 24, 2005)

I'll get something up this weekend. Thanks, DEFCON!


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## Festy_Dog (Mar 25, 2005)

I'll have something put together as soon as possible. Glad to be aboard.


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## Vendetta (Mar 25, 2005)

Ditto
ditto
and double ditto


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## Festy_Dog (Mar 26, 2005)

A tad on the recycled side since I'm borrowing aspects from some other characters of mine, but here it is:

Carl Archer

Appearance: 
Carl isn't an ugly fellow, but he's not exactly notable either. In fact, he's pretty bland, an easily forgetable face. Brown hair, dull blue eyes, coppery facial hair. Aside from that though, when attention is payed to him he appears to be a nice, trustworthy fellow, probably in his early thirties. Carl is of conveniantly average build and height, but has exceptional physical fitness. It's believed he has a number of tattoos but they would appear to be concealed by his (usually quite covering) clothing, save for one which seems to be a single word on the inside of his left wrist. Although he is somewhat average in appearance, he appears to possess a mild streak of vanity, as he always makes an effort to look good.

Description/History: 
Carl's history before ESPION is somewhat hazy. It's known that prior to ESPION he operated mainly in Asia as an operative of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. His work clearly didn't take advantage of his range of skills though, as the nature of that organisation was not quite the same as more well known agencies, being notably less violent. During his time with ASIS he gained his skills in the area of disguise. His forgetability, and fairly non-descript looks, make any changes in appearance more significant and effective. 

Throughout Carl's time with ASIS it is known that he took measures towards resurrecting the old paramilitary aspect of the organisation which had been buried during the eighties. Though he had invested much of his time on home turf during the whole eight years he spent with ASIS into the project it was only ever met with mixed success. He is believed to be one of only perhaps a dozen who ever received the training.

He had an exemplary insight into the function of the human mind prior to his employment in ASIS, and in addition to the normal benefits it would grant to a member of the intelligence industry, it worked very well with the interrogation skills he picked up while on assignment in Asia. Clearly ASIS would not have been the source for what he had learned about interrogation, and the resistance thereof, so the best guess is that he picked them up in China. Of some concern is how he could have learnt the techniques unless he had actually cooperated with foreign intelligence agencies. It is believed ASIS had taken a 'don't ask, don't tell' approach.

Carl is no linguist, in fact he hates having to learn new languages, aside from English he is fluent in Indonesian and Mandarin and has a decent grip of French, Arabic, and a smatter of other asian languages. He doesn't talk about himself, but he does like to talk about movies, or games, or television, or music. A vast range of things which would likely include just about anything, except himself.

The reasons behind his resignation from ASIS are unclear. Though uncoventional, he was one of their best and treated as such, but appears to have been forced out because of internal politics following an incident in China near the end of 2003. The incident never went public, but was thought to be some kind of backlash for an unauthorised paramilitary operation in which Carl was involved (believed to have been one of the decision makers). The local MI6 presence (whose involvement prior to the incident is suspected but unconfirmed) assisted the ASIS task force in cleaning up and getting out, thus avoiding a worst case scenario. The events leading up to the incident only make it confusing, and such details are best left for an official enquiry.

Despite his ambiguous allegiances ESPION took him onboard as one of their operatives only a few days after his resignation from ASIS, which was about a year ago. He passed the psychological testing, and up until the present has done his job impeccably well, so there has been nothing to warrant any doubts about him.

Specialties:
psychology
interrogation
disguise
sincerity
world politics

Hubris:
ambitious


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## Bobitron (Mar 26, 2005)

DEFCON- I hope you don't mind, but I think I would like to use Elzbieta “Elz” Olesia Taszyck, my character from the Delta Green: Rebirth (Dead Letter) game I linked to above. I was really enjoying playing her, and that game seems to have died. I'll get up her info today, and if you have any objections, just let me know.


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## Bobitron (Mar 26, 2005)

Elzbieta “Elz” Olesia Taszyck 
Age: 29
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5’ 6”
Weight: 110
Nationality: Dual citizenship, United States and Poland

Appearance/Personality: 

Attractive and slender, Elz is fit and resilient from years of military service, rarely troubled by illness or fatigue. While she is too slight to have the strength of many of her comrades, she is able to use her fast reflexes to her advantage in combat, surprising her opponents with speed and grace. She was the object of much affection while in school, and still carries herself with the knowledge of what her looks can do to a man. Elz prefers to let others lead if a strong personality is in charge.

History: 

Elzbieta Olesia Taszyck was born in Warsaw in November of 1975, in the midst of the cold war. Elz’s father was a diplomat serving in the communist Polish government, which at that time was dominated by the Soviets. The Polish government was comparatively tolerant and progressive when compared to other satellite states, and the Taszycks enjoyed a good life. Elz studied in one of Warsaw’s finest private schools, and was expected to take a position serving as a liaison between Poland and the Soviets after her graduation. By 1990, the independents had swept the majority of the communist presence from the parliament and presidency, and her father lost his cushy job in the party. Elz joined the Polish military in 1993, hoping to learn a trade as a doctor. She trained in the medical field for nearly a year before being transferred to the recently established GROM (Operational Maneuver Reconnaissance Group). She was intended to serve as a translator and linguist. After 3 years of training, Elz so impressed her officers, she became one of Poland’s first female combat operatives, serving in an assault squad specializing in hostage rescue and counterterrorism. She has been deployed in Bosnia, Haiti, Africa, and most recently, Iraq. She still holds the rank of Porucznik (1st Lieutenant) in GROM. Currently Elz has been assigned to assist a new international covert task group called *insert name here*, organized by the *insert name here* government. Little knowledge has been given to her about the unit or who she will be working with, and she has been given no information about her role in the group. She has been given US citizenship, and has been living in a modest flat in Washington DC until activated. 

Specialties:

Counter-terrorism/Urban Assault- Elz has trained extensively and seen direct action in her deployments, mostly tracking down and taking out terrorist cells around the world.

Medical/First Aid: A year of medical training has given Elz a strong background in First Aid and emergency surgery.

Gunplay: Elz is an expert shot and very capable with small arms, particularly pistols. Her training has been reinforced with plenty of real world experience over the last eight years.

Languages: Elz speaks most common European languages, including Polish, English, French, Spanish, Danish, German, Russian, and Italian, as well as a few rarer ones such as Finnish, Croatian, Lithuanian. She also picked up Arabic in her time in the Middle East, and a bit of the Nilo-Saharan language family.

Contacts- Years of working in the special operations and counter terrorism world has given Elz a network of contacts and acquaintances throughout all the places she has served, including Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East.

Hubris:

Rash/Reckless- Elz often tends to leap into action sooner than her allies expect, and makes snap decisions, especially in combat. She feels the initiative must be taken to succeed, and waiting to react is a sign of weakness.

Righteous: It is a rare moment when Elz looks back on her actions with regret. She acts decisively and without doubt that her decision is the right one, and will defend her choices adamantly as long as the goal was met. 

Common Gear: 

-Twin HK Mk23 SOCOM pistols with integrated laser sights/illuminators, slide locks for silent operation, and detachable Knights Armaments sound suppressors. They are worn under a long jacket in tactical holsters on her thighs.
-Glock 26, worn in a concealed holster in the small of her back.
-2 slim fighting knives
-Passport with Polish and American citizenship
-Concealed/restricted weapons permit
-Washington DC and EU driving license
-PDA with encrypted satellite phone, Bluetooth equipped
-Black ’00 BMW M3 European with DC plates


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## Tonguez (Mar 27, 2005)

Marcus Rewi
Age 38, NZ Maori Ex-Airforce AEOP, Ex-SAS, Ex-Farmer
Height 6'2" Hair Black Eyes Brown

*Appearance*
Marcus is tall man with an athletic build and a big smile. He is reasonably handsome though not outstandingly so and as a New Zealand Maori with a European grandfather he has the complexion and features that could pass for middle eastern, mediteranean, latino or even asian in the right circumstances. Marcus has a keen mind and is friendly but he can be slow to act as he ways up the various possible outcomes that might result from his actions  

*History*
Raised on a dairy farm in the central North Island of New Zealand Marcus Rewi had a happy childhood helping with farm duties, hunting and fishing and all the other activities of a rural childhood. He excelled at school and was a good athlete competing in a number of interschool triathlons and cross country events. Eventually he joined the Royal NZ Air Force initially wanting to be a pilot (doesn't everyone?) but eventually gravitating towards Air Electronics Operator learning advanced radar , computer communications and electronic/acoustic surveilance and tracking.  

As AEOP Marcus was part of a number of relief operations throughout the Pacific and Asia and the occasional Search and Rescue in New Zealand often involving parachute drops into difficult terrain. He soon learnt to break his falls and to land safely despite the terrain difficulties or occasional misjump. 
In these scenarios his rescue training merged well with his childhood hunting experience and his ability in the wilderness was acknowledged with promotion. He was eventually approached to join the NZ Special Air Services (SAS) where he was trained for CSAR missions.

In the SAS he honed his survival talents and further developed skills in camoflage, tracking and stealth sometimes remaining days in the bush undetected. His further ability to be unobtrusive and blend in to the crowd around the world eventually had him sent to China as part of a joint effort with the Australian SIS. 
Here he was teamed with an M16 agent Lydia Hardy and sent to run reconaissance on a military target involved in interrogation in a remote village.   

After tapping into a call to the target that seem to indicate an escalation in events Lydia  pushed for her and Marcus to make a preemptive move. Marcus was relunctant but after further insistance from his partner was persuaded to go into a direct tracking through the market. However Marcus got distracted by a pair of street performers leaving Lydia to forge on ahead of him - he never saw her again. By the time he caught sight of her she had been arrested and was being driven away in a military vehicle, when next he heard of Lydia she was dead a crash during transport.

MArcus was severely reprimanded for this event and after some diplomatic wrangling to get him back to New Zealand he chose to retire from active service. 
He eventually rejoined civilian life as a sales rep working for a Farm Supplies distributor. This allowed him to get back to his rural roots, travel the country and also involve some training in safe handling and dangers of the industrial chemicals the firm imported (he was put into the dangerous chemicals division due to his military background). Most of the training was warnings about the dangers of mixing the wrong combinations of substances, or results from contact with water or air, but it was easy to extrapolate  (especially with help of the internet) how those same chemicals could be used to make acids, poisons and even explosives. 

It was a good break from military service but then one day an old ex-SAS freind told him about contracts being offered for protetion services in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. The money was lucrative and so Marcus signed up initially in a few escort jobs. 
However when he and his client were kidnapped things become more complicated. Marcus found himself in an abandoned warehouse in the custody of terrorist. He was thus able to call upon his knwledge of chemicals stored in the warehouse to create enough sulphide gas and then an explosion to allow himself and his client to escape where they were picked up by Espion agents sent to recover them. After this meeting he became interested in Espion and eventuall joined...

It is from this 'Contract Protection work' (he avoids the word mercenary) that he comes to Espion

*Talents*
*Unobtrusive*: Marcus has a complexion and features that could hail from anywhere in the world and thus whereever he maybe he is able to blend in and not draw attention to himself
*Breakfall* As a parachute specialist Marcus has learnt to control his falls
*Electronic and Acoustic Surveilance* - Skilled in radar, and other electronic and acoustic Surveilance systems
*Survival* - knows how to survive in most environments, including the ability to move undetected and to use his surroundings as camoflage 
*MacGyver* Marcus can identify and safely handle many chemicals (including industrial chemicals). He may even be able to mix chemicals to create acids, smoke fumes and even dangerous explosives!


*Hubris*
Indecisive: Marcus spends too much time considering the possible consequences of his actions and this can keep him from acting quickly, at its worst it manifests as procrastination.


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## Tonguez (Mar 27, 2005)

So Festy Dog anyway Carl and Marcus's histories could be linked?

perhaps that China incident?


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## Festy_Dog (Mar 27, 2005)

Linking them through the China incident looks like a pretty good idea.  

I've got an idea for it already, my email is festy_dog69(at)hotmail(dot)com


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## Vendetta (Mar 27, 2005)

Mine is coming.  I should be here by now but the computer crashed (again... having all kinds of difficulty with the b@stard right now... d@mn Darth Athlon!) and had only saved a little less than half... So I just need to finish it up.

Some quicks about it... she's an model/actress who got wrapped up in the "game" by aiding the FBI on a case that involved some nutjob that was stalking her.  She really impressed the agents on the case with her professionalism and courage.  When the time came a year later for another "hollywood" incident, they came to her again...

that's the quick.  Can't promise it will be done today as it is a holiday and I'll be with my family all day, though


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## Vendetta (Mar 28, 2005)

My computer seems to finally be dead now.
I'm going to be unable to post as regularly as I once had due to this major inconvience.  That PoS computer grrr grrr grrr...

anyway, I will still be running and playing games... just a bit slower is all 
I'm sorry about this.  I hope that in three weeks that I'll get a paycheck that I can devote to buying new computer gear to build a new rig.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, please.

Being as my character was on the computer, I'll have to start it over... sorry for the time delay this might cause


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 28, 2005)

Hey guys... these look great.  You all put a lot of work into them, and it's been a real fun read.  I'm going to go through each character one at a time to try and bring the specialities and hubrises together into a cohesive whole... I'll ask you about tweaking some... emphasizing others... getting more specific on how/why they have certain ones.  Some of the ones I've seen don't seem to make as much sense as they might as they're written now, so I'm hoping by getting specific we can either tweak the specialties to fit the history, or tweak the history to fit the specialities.

Please remember that all your agents are very good at pretty much EVERYTHING.  There's nothing that your characters cannot do (or at the very least improvise and figure out).  So your specialities should be as closely tied in to what your character has done and is VERY INTERESTED IN to put even more time and effort to learning those five things over and above your standard abilities learned as a spy.  If you character is one of the top three best in the entire organization in a particular field or activity... THAT'S what you should select as your speciality.  

If we take Bond for example, I'd say his five specialties are:  Seduction, Gaming, Driving, Connoisseur, and Unflappability.

That list may seem odd (knowing how much he is able to pull off in his movies), but it gives a good example of who he really is, what is REALLY important to him, and how his life has led to those specialities.  Bond is at his very core, a PLAYBOY.  He finds being a spy allows him to live the lifestyle of a gentleman of leisure that he so desperately wants and is interested in.  Thus he is more well-versed in things like wines, casino table games, suits, cars, women, etc. etc. than probably anyone else at MI6.  Is he a great shot with his Walther PPK?  Absolutely.  But has he lived his entire life to be the greatest crackshot that ever lived?  No, not in the slightest.  Scaramanga would have "pistols" as his specialty, but Bond certainly wouldn't.  Does Bond know many different languages?  Absolutely.  Is he so fascinated with liguistics that he is absolutely fluent in dozens of languages, knows gobs of regional dialects and can talk like a native in dozens countries?  Not in the slightest.  He knows enough to get by, but is not a foremost authority on languages in MI6.

It's this kind of character specificity that I'm looking for, because it makes your characters deeper and more three-dimensional.  Plus it will lend credence to why you have one most important and certain hubris over all others (and I'm going to ask you each to narrow your hubris down to just one).  Bond is arrogant, hedonistic, and overconfident... but if you had to choose the one thing that you would suspect would eventually lead to his downfall and death... it's his lechery.  One of these days... a female villain he attempts to bed will eventually be able to withstand his wiles and put a bullet in his head.  THAT'S what having a hubris is all about.  It's the one overriding psychological flaw of your character.

So here we go...

shadowbloodmoon: You wrote that Jason Paquin grew up in an extremely rich family (possibly with criminal connections since he had hired guns following him everywhere).  But also that his hubris was Envious.  So obviously something happened to him growing up that made him feel like he wasn't getting the same benefits from his life that other people (like his brother) were.  You don't leave home at fourteen without having acquired some deep emotional scars.  And the fact that his father LET him leave tells me that there is some distance there between father and son.  To top it off, upon his father's death... EVERYTHING went to Mark... and Jason was left out in the cold.  So I'd like you to go deeper into the character's history if you could. Tell us WHY Jason and his father were disconnected and why Jason had to leave.  Then determine which parts of his travels had the most impact on him (and the specialties will come out of that).

For instance... did Jason find what he was looking for while in (perhaps) a monestary in China?  A place where money, power and influence had no hold over anyone and he could live there as long as he could envy-free?  If so, then his hand-to-hand combat and evasion specialties would fit in perfectly.  And your other specialties could come out of that... in his study and life of eastern philosophy.

Or was the travel ITSELF what he found most interesting?  Did he never want to settle down because he didn't want to get too close to people for fear of becoming jealous of people?  If this is what drove him on (the desire to always see/meet new people/thing), then perhaps some specialties might be Cultural Etiquette (always knowing the proper thing to say/do in any culture), and Direction Sense (being able to find your way around any city / sewer system / area regardless whether you've been there before or not).

In either case, I WOULDN'T say he's "multilingual" because being truly mutlilingual in a "best of the best" sense (like I said above) means countless years of study in linguisitics.  Jason obviously can speak (or can fake) many languages (and it makes sense given how many times he went from country to country), but he probably knows the typical amount for a world traveller (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, perhaps Russian etc.).  To have "multilingual" as a specialty in my mind means you can also read/speak things like Latin, Ancient Greek, many Native American languages, all twelve(?) dialects of Chinese, African tribal languages etc.  You've studied languages HARD.  Secondly... your specialty of "contacts" doesn't seem to jive with your hubris of Envious.  If Jason is truly envious of most people... that doesn't sound like the kind of person who would make friends easily or have them be long-lasting.  Now by all means, Jason KNOWS people all over the world... and he can go into most major cities and have half-a-dozen people he can talk to for information and such (as is typical for most governmental agents)... but he is not preternatually disposed to acquiring oddball contacts that will know the precised person, place or thing you need in any place you happen to go to. 

So shadowbloodmoon... please go back in and narrow down some of your choices if you could.  Figure out how your selection of Envious really, truly, and honestly affected and still affects your character, and how has he grown up through his various espionage duties with that green monster hanging over his head?  It seems like I'm being over-picky... but I really am looking for as much specificity of character as possible because only then can you truly become invested in what the character does.  Cool?  Thanx much!

For the rest of you... posts will be coming forthwith for your characters as well.


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## Bobitron (Mar 28, 2005)

Well, based on your thoughts, I think I need to drop the Medical and Languages specialties from Elz. I'm looking forward to your thoughts, DEFCON. I feel like it's a bit of a lame/overdone concept, but I was having a good time with her in the other game.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 28, 2005)

Festy_Dog... Carl Archer.  Very interesting character (both on the boards and in the email).  And I liked how you tied a number of your specialties into your history, but most importantly how you selected an overall goal for the character.  That helps us, because it gives us an endpoint to move the character towards.  However, I do question a number of the choices you made for the character to reach the goal... because it seems somewhat circuitous in many cases.  So I'd like to streamline the character a bit if I could... and gear everything Carl did towards the achieving of his goal (and how his hubris affected that).  I'll try to be discreet and not reveal too much from the email.  At least nothing of the major specifics.

You said that Carl's ultimate goal was to become one of the greatest spies ever.  That is a an awesome desire to strive for, and it certainly should/will impact how the character lives and interacts with people.  With this desire however, this does change his main hubris though I think.  I would say his primary hubris should/would be Ambitious, and not Vain.  If he was Vain, I would expect his history would all be about how he was completely average growing up but he had an overwhelming desire to be more than what he was... probably first when it came to his looks, then to his stature in the community/world.  The only thing you touched on that had to do with his vanity was that he always made a point to look good (with clothing and such).  But in your case... you wrote that Carl's entire life was to achieve success in his chosen field - espionage.  Everything he did was to prepare himself for that eventuality.  That strikes to me of being Ambitious to a fault.  He wants/needs/HAS to be the best... and will do whatever it takes to get there.

That being said... I really like your choice of Carl getting his degree right out of high school.  That seems like a very intelligent way for Carl to make his first steps towards his goal.  However, what you had next on his history did not strike a chord with me for some reason... you had him go into military service... and not even with his home nation.  This struck me as odd, especially with his going into the Airborne over anything else.  I would question why a person who has just spent six years getting a scientific degree would not go directly into his chosen field?  If he was truly as amibitious as you made him out to be, why did he not try and get work with ASIS straight away?  Or at the very least... if he did go into military service... why did he not select a part of the service where his degreee would actually MEAN something?  The way you wrote it... it seemed like his time in the service was just a way to get the firearms and special ops specialties... and not because they were the next logical steps to becoming a spy.  So I'd ask that you take another look at the history, and plot it out such that EVERY choice he makes is putting him on the fast-track to his ultimate desire... to become a spy, and eventually the greatest there ever was.  I think you'll find that you'll want to change a number of your choices because they end up delaying him on his path, rather than helping him.

After all... there are numerous CIA agents out there in the field that went to college in the Washington DC area straight out of high school... got their degrees and probably interned at CIA headquarters... got jobs there upon graduation... and eventually moved into becoming field agents bright and early in their lives... all without ever serving in the military at all.  If Carl truly wanted to work for ASIS his entire life... THAT seems like the kind of path he would follow to reach his goal... without going off in different directions beforehand.  Now you can still absolutely keep the specialties of Psychology and Interrogation (as they fit in with your history to a T), and most of the history you had about China still works wonderfully... but I would perhaps re-think your specialties of Pistols and Special Ops (which is too broad a category to be a specialty anyway).  As far as Disguise is concerned... if you re-work your history such that the years you spent in the FFL instead became years spent working for ASIS in the relevant department (perhaps in Counter-Intelligence) taking Disguise would fit in better.  Your work as a mole in other governments would lend itself to a number of other specialties that would fill Carl out... like perhaps Voice Mimickry, World Politics, Oration, or Sincerity (to lie with perfection so as to avoid being detected, even with equipment).

So go over some ofthese ideas... figure out what makes the most sense to get Carl to reach his goals with the most chance of success... and some of the remaining specialities will come out of that I think.  Thanx!!!


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## shadowbloodmoon (Mar 28, 2005)

Thanks, DEFCON1. I was starting to see some holes as I reread it. I'll work on it tonight after my XBox Live Eberron game, assuming there's time. If not, I should have it up by tomorrow afternoon.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 28, 2005)

Cool beans, shadowbloodmoon.  Take your time.

Guys, if you haven't already guessed... for me the character creation is going to be just as important as the game itself... since we have no game mechanics to "fall back on".  So hammering things out with what makes the most sense for the characters might take quite a number of drafts over time.  Believe me when I say that it will absolutely help in the long run... as you'll get so deep into your character that you'll know exactly what they do and don't want at any point in time when things come up.

For those of you left who I haven't written my thoughts on yet... I'll hopefully get them down tomorrow.  But if you see things in your own characters already that you want to change... feel free to re-edit them as we go along.  You probably got a sense of what I was looking for with the first two characters, so you'll be able to make some adjustments even before I say anything.  Sweet!  Good work, all of you!


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## Festy_Dog (Mar 29, 2005)

Alrighty then, I'll get to tweaking Carl's details, thanks for the advice. 

Edit: Done, I've edited his character post.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 30, 2005)

Okay Bobitron.. you're up!  

I think Elz can easily fit in to the group, and don't feel it's a lame/overdone concept at all.  The one thing I will say is that she probably could have more details worked into history.  You gave a brife overview of her career, but didn't go into a whole lot of depth on any particular thing.  My advice is to find that one "hook" of the character, and everything will start becoming clearer and clearer and more details will easily be able to be fleshed out.  This usually can come out of the selection of the hubris of the character, because the main character flaw can/will color everything that the character has done and gone through in it's life.

Like for instance as I said above, Jason's hook is that he left home because he had problems with his family and was inherently jealous of other people.  Everything he's done since then can either be about avoiding being close to people (the travelling aspect), or going somewhere where he didn't have to worry about those feelings (the monestary aspect).  And for Carl... with his hook of "wanting to be a spy above all else", everything he's done has put him on that path.

So I'd say the first step is to figure out Elz's "hook". What's her raison d'etre?  Her "reason for existance"?  Her father was a diplomat in the communist regime and got ousted... how did that affect her?  What was her reasoning for joining the Polish military?  If she was Rash (just selecting that hubris for the sake of argument here) did she do it just on a whim?  Because her father was not around to control her, was she a wildchild... just doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, without thinking of the consequences?  Did the Polish government and GROM have a hard time controlling her?  What problems has she run into?

Or if you go with Righteous... perhaps seeing her father lose his job instilled in her the belief that you never know what is going to happen... so you do whatever it takes to make sure you succeed?  Even if that means doing things not-so-by-the-book?  Did the changeover from Poland being a Communist to a non-Communist nation change her outlook on life... seeing her father's world crumble around him?  Was she happy or upset about the change?  If she realizes that change is a part of life... did she join the military in hopes of bringing about change in other areas?  Does she fight for change and use any methods necessary to bring about them?  Or is she hoping to return things to what used to be the status quo, and does whatever she feels is needed to have that happen?

Those are just some ideas you can think about as you fill in the details.  I won't go into your specialties, because none of them really stood out as having more importance to her than the others... since they all were things Elz had acquired through her normal time in her career... but nothing that she really excelled in or was interested in.  So I think in your case... once you figure out her hook and the direction that leads her... specialities will come out of it.

Any questions, feel free to ask... and we'll hammer things home!  Thanx Bobitron!


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## Bobitron (Mar 30, 2005)

Thanks! I think I will have time to do some deeper writing this coming weekend.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 30, 2005)

And now... Tonguez!

Marcus I think is actually in pretty good focus... and the reason I say that is because the character (in this one specific instance) is NOT focused.  With the decision to use the Indecisive hubris... there's a bit of a haphazardness to Marcus's career that works for him.  First wanting to be a pilot, then working in surveillance, then in search and rescue leading to his stealth activities.  I like how he just fell into this pathway because he wasn't the sort of person to say up front "I like this!" but instead just did things as they came along and people would only then realize... "hey, he's good at 'X'!".  The only place where I would wonder if a better selection of skill and career path might be is when you had him get trained as a helicopter PILOT, rather than perhaps parachuting.  My thinking is that once the SAS realized his natural apptitude in the wilderness, that they'd train him on all facets of that, including getting dropped INTO the areas for rescue... as opposed to flying the helicopter that got OTHER people into position for rescue.  It seems like they'd want you in the field at all times... and training you to be a pilot (which takes you out of the field) seems to run counter to what you were best at.  Thus if you went with the paratrooper concept... a possible speciality might be "Breakfall"... where you've learned how to drop (with a parachute or otherwise) from certain heights and avoid injury.  It's not as specific as "parachuting", and thus can be more applicable in many different situations.

Thus taking a look at your specialties... we get this:

Looks like a local.  This is an fine specialty that is passive in nature, rather than active.  At first glance, you look the part wherever you might be.  You don't have the skills to actively PRETEND to be from other countries... (ie you don't have the Disguise ability like Carl does to fool people into thinking you're not who you are), but it's a good speciality that will come in handy for when you need to be unobtrusive... walking down hallways... "hiding in plain sight" as it were.

Camoflauge / Survival.  I was almost tempted to say to put these two together into one specialty... basically having the Rambo skill of being able to hide and survive in the wilderness... but I'm wondering if you were looking for more areas in which your camo ability would work?  If you wanted to keep it just in the wilderness, then I'd say go ahead and combine the two into a single speciality... but if you wanted Camo to also include areas like cities, or dealing with other people... then you'd need them seperate and I'd need a little more history worked in explaining how you were trained to hide and sneak in urban areas as opposed to just rural ones.

Surveillance.  This is cool.  It's a natural extension of your survival search and rescue work.  I get a very clear picture of the character training on all the equipment and electronics... and being the "tech guy" when going out with the group on their search and rescue missions.  And it's only out there in the field that the powers-that-be also realized you had apptitude in hiding out too.  So I could see you spending time getting dropped into areas where you have to sneak in and set up communication or relay stations... and then get out again.  It's a nice flow and juxtoposition of specialties.

This then just leaves the last one... which I'd recommend probably NOT being pilot... because (unless I totally misread the character), I definitely see Marcus as the guy with the glasses in the movie Predator.  The ranger with tech skills.  And he's more of a guy in the field, rather than the pilot.  So Breakfall is one possible option (which makes sense from a parachuting point of view but also will be applicable in situations where you need to drop from heights even outside the perview of the wilderness (leaping from roofs and whatnot).  There are probably other specialities that can come out of this as well (ones that you might have learned within your time in the military, but also apply to situations outside of it as well).  You could also select perhaps some knowledge skills as possible ones... things that weren't directly learned while in the NZ military, but instead acquired just from interest in the subject over Marcus' lifetime.  So think about that.

The only last thing I'd consider doing is fleshing out the time spent after he retire from service.  You summed up his time as a salesman, then a merc, then getting work with an espionage agency in a single paragraph.  You probably have some other interesting things that occurred in there, plus a reason why Marcus decided to become an employee for Espion... let's see some of that.  Thanx!  It looks good!


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## Tonguez (Mar 30, 2005)

Thanks for the comments, they show a great grasp of character which promises to result in a geat game for us all!

I will change to the *Breakfall* speciality. Originally I had infact considered including Parachuting in Marcus' talents but noticed that no one had yet considered aircraft piloting in their selections so opted for it (because being a helicopter pilot is kewl). However you are correct that parachute (and the extension to Breakfall) is a better choice and fits more with the character.  

The Camo was intended to apply to Urban areas as well as wilderness and I thought this would fit in with his CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue) training. So for instance Marcus might be trying to extract hostages from a Factory/Hidden chemical weapon plant on the edge of a small city in Iraq (ie a built up area) or in his 'contract protection' roles he may have had to stand by in a hotel lobby and then suddenly 'disappear' when he spots a known suspect - that sort of thing...

As to knowledge skills I had considered linguistic talent (to tie in with his looks like a local one) ie he knows basic phrases in many different languages in order to better help him blend in (however didn't want to trespass on _Jason Paquin_ multilingual specialty. The possibility of some knowledge of chemicals (ie Farm Supplies + SAS) also presents itself

PS Did Festy Dog cc you about the oposible link between Carl and Marcus? (which I will include in Marcus' history)


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 30, 2005)

Ah, Tonguez... I understand.  Hmm... well, how about this idea.  Why don't we split up your idea for what you wanted Camoflauge to do and put parts of it into Looks Like A Local and Survival?  And we'll change the name of LLAL into "Unobtrusive".  What this is is the ability to meld in the background of populate areas and to not draw attention to yourself.  You don't have the ability of "stealth" per se (where you can move quickly and silently across all manner of ground cover and in all types of shadow), nor do you have the ability to impersonate people should you be confronted (which Carl has with his Disguise specialty)... but like Indiana Jones did in Raiders in the sub, you can knock a guy out, put on his uniform, and walk through an area without immediately being hassled.

For Survival, we can assume that part of the process of the speciality is also being unobtrusive in the wild as well.  Here, however, you WILL have more stealth capabilities (being able to hide and move with little sound, plus avoid leaving tracks) because you are more in tune with the outdoors.

Without a major change to your history and how you were trained... I'm trying to avoid Marcus getting all "ninja" on us... moving from shadow to shadow in all manner of area completely unseen... because that takes mucho training... especially when it applies to all kinds of enviroments (snow, forest, city, interiors, desert etc.)  However, if you are familiar with videogames at all... I'm thinking that while in urban areas, Marcus is like "Hitman" rather than "Thief".  Hope this makes sense and let me know if you're cool with that.


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## Ranger Rick (Mar 30, 2005)

Defcon,
Is it possible to also be considered?  I noticed you had a couple of people drop out.  I would love to give you references, but alas I have none.  Instead, if you do not like my writing style, than treat me like a star trek red shirt and kill me off.  Hopefully an offer like that is a win win situation for you.  You either win by liking my style or you win by having an early death to create a plot hook.

I just found out about this forum today.  As to my game experience, I have only played D&D 1e & 3E, nothing else so I have no bias about other game systems.  I started a d20 modern, but the DM pulled out.  It was done at nothingland, but that place is no more.  I currently live in DC so doing those details is super easy.

Before I build up a big character I have an outling of a male, former/current military, with specialties of explosives, photographic memory, linguistics, TBD & TBD and hubris - reckless.  His hook for being in his his work within the US intelligence community.  Through them he was noticed and picked.

So what say you?


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## shadowbloodmoon (Mar 31, 2005)

Well, I edited a bit, and you'll notice I did change the multilingual to multicultural, kind of a cosmopolitan type thing. Also, seeing where you were headed with the envious thing, I decided to change it to a serious need for recognition. I think that fits a little better with why he would want to learn everything he could. Lemme know what you think.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 31, 2005)

Ranger Rick...

Sorry dude... but because this is a formless game, I really need to check people's previous work to find out if their writing style will fit in with how the game is going to play.  If you haven't done any online-rpging... your best bet is to start with any of the regular games that pop up on occasion.   This Espion thing is really for experienced rp writers who are able to work and create without needing the actual D&D (or any game) rules to serve as a backbone to the story.  Even if you are a really good writer... I still need to check to make sure that your particular STYLE of writing will mesh with both my own picadillos and those of the other players.  Sorry about that... but it's the only way I feel comfortable.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 31, 2005)

Hey shadowbloodmoon...

It's getting there... it's certainly getting there.  I really like many of the aspects you are beginning to play up.. and as you do, I'm finding some of your other choices are slowly falling by the wayside and which we can change in order to create a cohesive whole.  Having read the whole thing now edited... I'm thinking that it could do with a "re-write" as it were, rather than a simple edit.  This way you can recreate the story as a cohesive whole, rather than leaving it a bit disjointed where you added/sbtracted certain areas in certain drafts.  Plus, there's some timeline problems I found in there, which I'm sure you'll want to fix up.  So let's go through the current incarnation step-by-step, shall we?  

I think the new intro to Jason really works.  Having Mark (presumably an older brother) following his father around and learning the family business, while Jason remained at home twiddling his thumbs is a cool concept and it really sets the groundwork for the character.  I'm wondering whether you want to leave it 14 years old that he leaves (with the hired guns following him) because of what you have happening to him later on... but we can figure that out as we go along (another option might be him just running away at like 16 or so with no one following him).

Then he goes on his travels.  Here is where I think you need to go some reconfiguing of your story, because you tried to squeeze both my suggestions into the same character... world traveller PLUS eight years in a Buddhist monestary.  It really needs to be one or the other, because your timeline had him leaving home at 14, he spent 8 years in a monestary learning Buddhist ways, he then spent 12 more years spanning the globe before returning home two decades after leaving, then he spent countless years working criminal activities before taking down his family's syndicate then somehow getting into the CIA.  This would make the character probably upwards of 40 years old... which is not what I think you were going for, if I'm not mistaken.

The problem I think you've run into is that you're trying to keep your five specialities you selected and jury-rig a history to encompass all of them.  And your five specialties are so different from one another, it's not making much character sense to keep them all, and thus is hanstringing your history.

As I've said previously... your characters already know how to do EVERYTHING... and do them all very well.  In D&D terms... every one of your characters have max ranks in all the D&D skills.  You all are master marksmen, you all can fly jets, you can all sneak through darkened areas, you all have contacts around the world, you all can speak multiple languages, you all can influence people.  You have every skill you might need.  All the five specialties are, are those five skills in D&D that you not only have max ranks in, but also have the Skill Focus feat in as well.  You're just that much better at that one particular thing than the agents around you.  But the only way you gain that skill focus is having it be an integrated part of your character's history... something that is very specific and has been an integral part of your character's make-up from the beginning.

So that being said... you need to decide which history you want to go with... world traveller OR Buddhist monk (or some other plot you might come up with). It doesn't matter what.  The important thing though is to create a history outside the perview of "what specialties will I gain by doing this path?"  The specialties are secondary.  They should have no influence on the history you create.  So if we go by the way of "Monk", here's what happens...

"Multicultural" is taken out automatically because it's way too vague a specialty.  You're already a spy... you've spent years studying all the different cultures as part of your espionage training.  Just like every other spy out there.  And there's just way too much culture out there world-wide for anyone to be more "multi"cultural than someone else.  Now if you wanted to selected a SPECIFIC culture and a specific part of that culture... that's more than cool.  Like if you kept your Buddhist monk training part of your history... "Eastern Philosophy" makes terrific sense, and it's a specific specialty that you might have over other spies in the agency.

"Hand-to-hand combat" is fine if you also keep your Buddhist monk part of your history.  No problems there.  However if you go the route of the "world traveller" history... you wouldn't have spent enough time and enough years working at your hand-to-hand to be any more appreciably skilled than any other agent out there.

"Evasion" doesn't really work for this character as written.  Your basis for the skill was avoiding the hired guns that were following you... however, if you stick with the monk history, you said you spent eight years in the monestary, and there's no way in hell the monks would allow two or three guys with guns to hang around watching Jason meditate for years on end.  So there's be no reason for him to know how to evade people (moreso than any other regular spy).  Even with the world traveller option... at some point having chaperones becomes useless because as you yourself said... his father didn't care about Jason at all, so why waste men to follow his galavanting son across the globe (especially after he reaches the age of 18?)  Thus having Evasion as a specific specialty doesn't really work.

"Human Networking"... again, it's too vague a specialty, especially for someone as anti-social as Jason.  Why is Jason better at making friends and contacts across the globe than any other agent?  Just because he's gone to many different places?  Nope... his life would have to have entirely geared towards networking for him to have a specialty above and beyond any regular field agents.  A salesman I could possibly see having "Networking" as a speciality... but even then, the people he networked then probably would do him no good in the spy business.

Finally, "Military weapon identification".  This I'm sort of okay with... because knowledge skills are a lot easier to justify having because it's simply a matter of studying up on the subject... reading hundreds of books on it and so on.  However, I would say that Jason would need to have more interest in that subject and have spent more years learning up on it than just the finally couple of years he spent in the CIA before joining Espion.  You don't become an "absolute expert" on anything unless you have an overwhelming interest in the subject above and beyond the normal person studying up on it.  I like to think I'm an expert on D&D... but you put me in a room with other roleplayers, there's probably hundreds of people who have more rules completely memorized (with page numbers and everything) than I could possibly have.  I would certainly not consider myself to have a speciality in "D&D", even though I've played it for fifteen plus years.  And that's the same way you need to think of the knowledge specialties.

So all in all... I think what you should do to help yourself out is create a timeline for yourself as to when and where did each step of Jason's life take him on his journey towards joining the CIA?  And you don't need to skimp on his history once he joined the CIA either... his work with them would probably have more of an impact on his career in Espion than anything he learned as a teenager jet-setting from place to place.  Once you've got a cohesive history banged out of when he left home... the specific places he went to on his travels... when he returned home... what he did against his brother... how and when he joined the CIA... and what he did in the CIA before moving to Espion... then you'll be able to re-write your history and take out all those extras bits from earlier drafts that don't really have a place in the character as he stands.  And don't worry so much about finding places to put specialties inside the history... we'll be able to find them ourselves after the history is completed.  Cool?  Sweet!

Yes, this is hard damn work and not something any of us could just bang out in twenty minutes... but this is why I said you'd have to get used to me, as I'd get used to all of you.  It's working together to create characters of depth that are half the fun of playing the game in the first place.


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## shadowbloodmoon (Mar 31, 2005)

Hmm... I'll have to think on that a bit. I like the idea of starting out as a world traveller until he reaches the East, there finding something akin to what he was looking for. You're right about the hired guns bit though. Hmm... I wasn't sure about an actual age, but mid-thirties I thought sounded about right for a spy. Let me look at it a bit closer and I'll get something up for you. You sound like an editor I once knew when I was short story writing ages ago....


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## Bobitron (Apr 5, 2005)

Taking me longer to find time for my re-write than expected, DEFCON. I have some free time on Thu-Fri this week, so I'll get some new info up then. Thanks for your patience.


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## Vendetta (Apr 6, 2005)

sorry its taken me so long to write up my first draft.  Computer is still dead so I need to start from scratch... which is something I'm absolutely terrible about.  Wish I had gone ahead and posted some of the partial write up I had originally considered posting but said "Naw... just finish it up then post" ... now what 

Through this weekend still looks bad but next week might be better.


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## Bobitron (Apr 6, 2005)

_OK, Defcon, here's my re-write. I'm still short a specialty, so any insight you might have would be appreciated. I'm sure I made some mistakes or even contradictions in this; I used the original one as a starting point then expanded._ 

*Elzbieta “Elz” Olesia Taszyck  * 
Age: 29
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5’ 6”
Weight: 110
Nationality: Dual citizenship, United States and Poland


*History:* 

Elzbieta Olesia Taszyck was born in Warsaw in November of 1975, in the midst of the cold war. Elz’s father, Artur, was a diplomat serving in the communist Polish government, which at that time was dominated by the Soviets. The Polish government was comparatively tolerant and progressive when compared to other satellite states, and the Taszycks enjoyed a good life. Elz studied in one of Warsaw’s finest private schools, and then attended language courses around Europe; visiting England, France, Russia, Spain, and others in a whirlwind of travel. She had little difficulty with her schooling, proving an excellent student, if a bit unchallenged by the tedium of text learning. Her father trained her even as a child to recognize the small signs that a person was lying; a clenched hand, and sideways glance, or even the blinking of the eyes could clue Elz into a falsehood. He was proud of her progress, and after her graduation, Elz was expected to take a position serving as a liaison between Poland and the Soviets. She secretly held reservations about her father’s choice of a career path for her, but kept silent to please her parents. Elz lacked the patience and calm demeanor that her father possessed. She had an addiction to the excitement of travel and fresh experiences, and knew she would be stifled in the diplomatic corps of Warsaw, a conservative and staid group of old guard conformists.  

By 1990, the independents had swept the majority of the communist presence from the parliament and presidency, and her father lost his cushy job in the party. The Taszycks fell on hard times. Artur Taszyck’s party benefits were stripped away. Elz was pulled out of the expensive Warsaw University, and suddenly the family was destitute. There was little support amongst the new administration for a traditionalist like Artur. He went into an early retirement, living off the scraps of the network of ex-communists scattered throughout the nation. Elz was left to find her own way, and suddenly had the added responsibility of helping provide for her mother and father. 

The new Polish Army was looking for educated young people, and Elz joined in 1993, hoping to learn a trade as a doctor. She trained in the medical field for nearly a year before her skills in language and quick mind were noticed by a superior outside the medical corps. She was quickly transferred to the recently established GROM (Operational Maneuver Reconnaissance Group), intended to serve as a translator and linguist. After 3 years of training, Elz so impressed her officers, she became one of Poland’s first female combat operatives, serving in an assault squad specializing in hostage rescue and counterterrorism. Elz was first deployed in Bosnia, hunting war criminals in during UN peacekeeping operations. She assisted in the capture and interrogation of eight persons eventually convicted of genocide and war crimes, and was unofficially involved in the killings of a few others that never made it to trial. Her expertises was then employed in Algeria, helping the government root out and destroy extremist militias that continue to operate since the Islamic Salvation Army disbanded in 2000. She was then called upon in Morocco, assisting the Moroccan Security Forces in their efforts to crack down on Islamic extremists illegally moving into Europe through Spain. Elz then led a team of assault specialists in Iraq, partaking in direct action against extremists in urban areas and training the new Iraqi Special Forces. When Poland announced was withdrawing its troops from Iraq, Elz was furious at the lack of commitment. She had made many comrades within the US and Iraqi forces, and felt that pulling out was a betrayal of her personal commitment. Her hot temper led to a misplaced argument with GROM’s senior officer in Iraq. Furious at Elzbieta’s lack of restraint, GROM placed her on suspension. Elz pulled all her strings to get a new assignment that would get her back in the field. The Polish government finally assigned her to a new international covert task group known as *insert group name here*, organized by the *insert name here* government. Little information has been given regarding the new assignment, but Elz has been given US citizenship and a sizable allowance to live in Washington DC until her activation. While Elz still holds the rank of Porucznik (1st Lieutenant) in GROM, at this point it is largely a formality.

*Appearance/Personality:* 

Attractive and slender, Elz is fit and resilient from years of military service, rarely troubled by illness or fatigue. While she is too slight to have the strength of many of her comrades, she is able to use her fast reflexes to her advantage in combat, surprising her opponents with speed and grace. She was the object of much affection while in school, and still carries herself with the knowledge of what her stunning looks can do to a man. Elz prefers to let others lead if a strong personality is in charge. She still holds a deep affection for her father, even though he has become withdrawn and insular since his fall from power. On one hand, Elz is grateful that the communist regime was ousted from power. It has given her the opportunity to do the things she truly loves. Adventure, travel, and excitement are part of her daily routine. On the other hand, her father, whom she visits often, has been destroyed by the new world order.

Excitement is the primary motivation for Elz. She despises inaction and gets bored very easily. Her position in GROM ‘saved her soul’, as she puts it. A life of boredom as a low-ranking diplomat or doctor would have slowly drained her spirit, and she relishes every moment of her new life as a soldier. She is still angry with the Polish government and GROM for the lack of commitment in Iraq, but in the back of her mind, she knows her anger is due to the fact that she was to lose her fix for excitement and action, not because of any devotion to the cause.

*Specialties:*

Counter-terrorism/Urban Assault- Elz has trained extensively and seen direct action in her deployments, mostly tracking down and taking out terrorist cells around the world. Elz is widely regarded as Poland’s premier Close Quarters Battle expert.

Gunplay- Elz is an expert shot with small arms, particularly pistols. Her training has been reinforced with plenty of real world experience over the last eight years.

Contacts- Years of working in the special operations and counter terrorism world has given Elz a network of contacts and acquaintances throughout all the places she has served, including Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. This is further reinforced with a list of ex-communist allies scattered throughout the world, mostly friends of her father. Few of them are in positions of true power, but they are always willing to help, and often possess secrets from days long past, including the information about Soviet support of various organizations in the ‘70s and ‘80s. 

Insight- Elz is an expert judge of character, often able to ‘read’ a person and quickly determine their relative experience, expertise, and intent. She has a near supernatural ability of sensing a person’s true motives and whether or not a person is lying. Instilled by her father, a career diplomat, this ability has been honed to a razor’s edge after years of investigation and interrogation.

*Hubris:*

Rash/Reckless- Elz often tends to leap into action sooner than her allies expect, and makes snap decisions, especially in combat. She feels the initiative must be taken to succeed, and waiting to react is a sign of weakness. This has led to conflict within GROM; many of her superiors feel she lacks the respect for the chain of command that makes a good soldier. Her record is full of reprimands and chastisements, but the results speak for themselves, in Elzbieta’s opinion. She gets the job done, often without regard for the consequences of her actions.  

Righteous: It is a rare moment when Elz looks back on her actions with regret. She acts decisively and without doubt that her decision is the right one, and will defend her choices adamantly as long as the goal was met. (DEFCON- I’m going to pick this one as a secondary Hubris. It is of less importance than the ‘Rash’ one, but still could cause serious trouble eventually. Elz has an alarming lack of compassion and empathy for someone with such incredible insight into people, and finds it very easy to dismiss the loss of property and innocent lives if she feels it is needed to complete her goal.) 

*Common Gear:* 

-Twin HK Mk23 SOCOM pistols with integrated laser sights/illuminators, slide locks for silent operation, and detachable Knights Armaments sound suppressors. They are worn under a long jacket in tactical holsters on her thighs.
-Glock 26, worn in a concealed holster in the small of her back.
-2 slim fighting knives
-Passport with Polish and American citizenship
-Concealed/restricted weapons permit
-Washington DC and EU driving license
-PDA with encrypted satellite phone, Bluetooth equipped
-Black ’00 BMW M3 European with DC plates


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## shadowbloodmoon (Apr 7, 2005)

After a complete rewrite and a few changes, I think I have Jason down.... 


Jason Paquin was born to a wealthy family who's money came from importing weapons for the government. Ever competing for attention from his mother and father with his older brother Mark, Jason wanted to study the business so that he could take over for his father instead of Mark, who was being groomed for the part. Because of this fact, Jason was never allowed anywhere near anything that had to do with the business. He was stuck at home, learning from tutors and spending time learning the ins and outs of high society life. 

Being a young ambitious boy, Jason didn't let the rules get in the way of his dream however. He would spend his free time sneaking into his father's office, listening in on telephone conversations and even going so far as to steal his way into warehouses where the weapons were stored. He made it his goal in life to know everything about what his father was doing, even though his father didn't want anything to do with him. He was too busy with business or grooming Mark for the business. 

This piqued an interest in learning about military weapons and technology. On visits to the library, instead of stories, he would check out reference material, up to and including the world famous _Jane's Encyclopedias_, then read them cover to cover. This interest followed him throughout his life. 

It wasn't until Jason was fourteen that he realized that what his father was doing was illegal. He had found out quite accidentally. On one of his forays into a warehouse, a few government agents had showed up. Jason presumed it was to pick up or deliver some weapons. Instead, the agents were investigating his father for international arms smuggling. They were shot dead on the spot. 

Horrified that the father he wanted to be like would deal in such activities, Jason wanted out. All the pent up rage and jealousy of his brother combined with a new confusion and his now raging teenage hormones added together. He managed to keep it under control long enough to devise a way out. Figuring that it would be easier to not let his family know that he knew what was going on, Jason petitioned his mother to be allowed to travel. When asked where, he didn't have a reply. He hadn't thought of that. It was decided that he would simply travel the globe. Given a spending account and a ship ticket, he was on his way. As far his family was concerned, this accident was taken care of. 

Jason's travels started in Europe. Spending a year travelling across that continent, he learned new languages and customs, and even cultivated an interest in boxing when he caught a match on a French wharf. Upon investigating further, he was told that it was actually Savate that they had been practicing. Intrigued, Jason stayed with the group a few months before becoming bored with it and moving on. All the while, he continued to feed his interest in weapons and other military hardware, expanding to include aircraft, ships and 
tanks. 

His travels then took him to the Middle East, mostly Egypt and Syria where he learned that simply being a foreign tourist made you a target for just about any kind of trouble. Staying here for an entire year, Jason had signed on with an archaeological group simply to get free travel across the nations. In Europe he was starting to develop the knowledge that he would need to survive on his own and that the money he was given would eventually run out. In the Middle East he put that knowledge into practice, learning how to get what he needed without expending more of his resources than he had to. 

Eventually growing bored with the Middle East, Jason travelled to India, where he again practiced his getting without giving. It was here in India that Jason had thought he had found something he could live with. Something to help him forget why he was running. He found love. Or at least he thought he did. She came in the form of a princess of the ruling government of India. Jason couldn't tell the difference between love and hormones at the time, and so felt that she was the one for him. Apparently she reciprocated this feeling because their secret affair went on for over a year before it ended rather abruptly. The girl's father would never have approved of the relationship, so she asked Jason to keep it a secret. Their clandestine activities found him evading palace guards, police and even military escort. It was rough going, but Jason felt it was worth it. At least until the girl was married to a military man as was predetermined by her father. Choosing duty over freedom, she cast Jason out, going so far as to tell her father that he was a stalker that had been pestering her for some time. Outcast, broken hearted and in need of a place to hide, Jason was off to a new destination.

His ship brought him to China. He travelled the Chinese countryside via posing as a hired worker with various groups. It had started to become a game to him, seeing how long he could go without being discovered. His pain of rejection, both by his family and the girl he thought loved him, eventually caught up with him. A tavern brawl started with him being insulted by a local and his rage getting the better of him. A passing traveller picked up his broken body and brought him to the local temple to be looked after. 

Having nowhere else to go, the temple helped him heal not only his recent physical wounds, but his emotional ones as well. As time went on, Jason became Wing Shai Lung, Little Lost Dragon. He began to fully embrace the Buddhist teachings at the temple and the physical exercises the monks taught him. He began using his money to donate to the temple, helping to keep it taken care of as well as keep importing books so that his now fetish with military hardware could be satisfied. After eight years, Wing Shai Lung nearly forgot his former life, until he received a letter from his brother Mark. Their father had died and left the business to Mark. The money that Jason had been given was being revoked, with interest. Old wounds being reopened, Jason's new outlook told him that vengeance and anger would only lead to more of the same. Privately grieving for a father he thought he knew, Jason ignored the letter. 

His brother wouldn't let him off that easily however. On a pilgrimage into the city to pick up new books, Jason was attacked by members of a Tong gang that had allied with his family's organization. His exercises with the monks kept him alive and he returned to the temple to tell them he would have to leave for a while. When he returned, the decision had already been made for him. The temple had been reduced to ashes. 

Fury beating down the walls of his Buddhist teachings, Jason used the last of his money to book a flight home. Knowing full well that simply walking up and confronting his brother was out of the question, Jason contacted the FBI. After a battery of questions, they had enough to go in and verify Jason's claims. He also found out that the CIA wanted them for trading in government secrets. When all was said and done, the family enterprise was all but destroyed. Jason's brother however, escaped. Knowing that Mark would seek vengeance after rebuilding, the agent he worked with offered to put Jason in relocation. Deciding that hiding from his past never got him anywhere, Jason instead surprised the agent by telling him he wanted to join them.

After some preliminary tests and other checks as to Jason's history, he was accepted to Langley and began training to be a CIA operative. Jason's inborn hatred for his brother pushed him to exceed expectations and he soon graduated with honors as a field operative. His missions at first were stimulating, exciting, and kept Jason going. However, through the next three years, he eventually returned to his real reason for joining. He wanted to track down his brother. This obsession burned in his mind to the point that his missions were starting to suffer. His superiors noted this and decided it was time for him to move on. Their last assignment was an infiltration one. He was to infiltrate the fractured pieces of his brother's organization, make his way to the top and bring it down from the inside. Permanently.

Creating a new identity and background for him, Jason's superiors arranged for him to start at the bottom of the ladder. He began working in one of his brother's new warehouses. It didn't take him long to work his way to the top of that branch, his knowledge of his work, his skill at evasion both physically and in speaking, as well as his ability to get what he needed through subtle persuasion helping him to succeed. Years later, Jason knew that eventually he would be going through the hardest part. He had to get close to his brother without being recognized and end the illegal arms trade for good. 

As it turned out, Mark had planned for the whole thing. He allowed Jason to get close to him so that he could take out his last remaining competition. In the last accounting, Jason survived the encounter, his brother's dying words cursing him to an early death. Jason promised him that it would ever happen. Returning to the CIA, they deemed Jason too much of a liability now with his closeness to criminal organizations and needed to relieve themselves of him. His superiors recognized his talent however and recommended him for the 
ESPION project. 

Looks and Personality:

Jason is of non-descript height and build, being somewhat average in each. He keeps his hair and face completely shaved. Jason usually wears loose fitting clothes, liking comfort more than anything. He prefers subdued colors, in grays and other darks. Jason has a tattoo of a stylized cobra on the back of his neck, when asked about it, he simply shrugs and says "I don't remember."

Jason is generally a nice person, his Buddhist ways showing in all he does. When asked how he could allow himself to do what he did with his brother or to kill in general, he goes quiet, simply ignoring the questioner. His hubris prevents Jason from getting close to anyone however, so much so that anyone he works with is simply a business opportunity and nothing more. Being practical, he will cut ties with anyone he deems unnecessary. Whether he knows it or not, Jason has been allowing a Taoist philosophy to intersperse with his Buddhism, throwing his beliefs into chaos, sometimes bringing him to indecision. The biggest thing that anyone will notice about Jason is that he trusts no one. He will double check everything to make sure it is right himself before believing anyone. This creates a distance between him and anyone he works with, due mostly to the confusion of how he feels.

Equipment:

Jason was never much for equipment, figuring he knew enough about the hardware he was dealing with to use almost anything. When on team missions, he will take what is assigned to him and nothing more, again prefering to procure what he needs in the field. If choosing is required, Jason prefers light weapons, something easily concealed and preferably quiet. His other equipment should be the same, i.e., no loud or large electronic devices, heavy armor or anything of that nature. If he needs something like that, he will use what he can find on a mission. 

Specialties:

1. Military equipment- Jason knows this stuff inside and out and can identify easily any model weapon, vehicle, ship or aircraft with ease. 

2. Hand to Hand combat- Jason's time in France and China gave him access to numerous combat skills that he relished in learning. His training with the CIA only furthered his already tremendous skills.

3. Evasion- Starting when he was a boy and continuing into adulthood, Jason has always had
to hide from others. This skill is so inborn in him that it's difficult for him to be noticed even when he wants to be.

4. Criminal- Jason's constant exposure to organized crime has given him an indepth knowledge of all things criminal in nature, from structure to actual activity. He could run his own small crime gang if he wanted to. 

5. Procure- Jason has a knack for finding what he needs in any situation. Whether it be a place to stay in a foreign city or simply a new tire in a village, Jason can somehow find it and get it. 

Hubris: Trust- Jason trusts no one, going so far as to rely only on his own senses to tell him what is right or wrong. This can debilitate him on a team mission when he wants to check on his teammates' work to make sure it is right. It has led his superiors to not let him know when they are including backup, further deepening his mistrust.


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## Festy_Dog (Apr 8, 2005)

I'm curious to know if everyone else has elements of their characters which they are keeping hidden from everyone else. If not, I'd be inclined to post Carl's background in its entirety.


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## Bobitron (Apr 8, 2005)

Elz is pretty open, so if she has been with the rest of you folks for while, you would know all there is to know.


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## Festy_Dog (Apr 11, 2005)

Well, since Defcon's been silent for a while, and since it looks like nobody is withholding any info about their chars OOC, I guess it'd be alright to post Carl's history in its entirety. This could be a long post.

Whole History/Description: 
Carl Archer knew what he wanted and devoted his life to achieving his one desired goal: to become a spy, one of the best there ever was. Born to a middle class Australian family and being a relatively bright child, he felt he was special and yet not special in such a way that would make him suitable for espionage. Directly after high school he enrolled in university, and spent six years there getting a masters degree in psychology and learning a few languages on the side. Japanese being the exception as he learned it not through his degree but as a fan of anime. He could have used the degree to get a stable (and better paying) job as a psychologist, but his heart was set on what he wanted. Six years of learning about the human mind had given him what he wanted, an ability to read and manipulate people.

Immediately after graduation Carl sought out employment with ASIS. Throughout his degree he had pondered upon whether he should devote time to getting military experience. It troubled him to enter the intelligence industry without competent martial training, as he felt killing would ultimately play a part in what he wanted to do, and he didn't want to be lacking in the field. What Carl wanted was spec-ops training, and although he would have preferred to serve with the Australian SAS, it would have taken too long to work his way into such an elite force. The French Foreign Legion seemed like an appropriate alternative. They were largely apathetic as to who joined their ranks. There he could perfect his French, perhaps work his way up faster to elite training than at home, and ASIS wouldn't frown upon experience overseas. But on the other hand, an organisation who had discarded their paramilitary aspect may not be interested in someone with military experience, and ASIS may not look kindly upon someone who'd so willingly go into the service of a another country. Carl came to the decision that if he wanted that kind of training he'd have to gain it from within ASIS, and in order to do that he'd have to resurrect the shamed ASIS paramilitary, something he didn't expect to be easy.

ASIS employed him and after his initial training he was placed in Indonesia. Every now and then he would fall off the radar for a couple of months before emerging with what his superiors wanted. This would arouse a mixture suspicion and concern but they came to trust what he was doing, and after a couple of years in Indonesia he was moved about to wherever he was needed for another twelve months. After that he spent two years in North Korea, which was a turbulent experience. After the previous five years of quality work he had easily proven himself. They decided to let him try his luck at working in China. A dangerous ordeal, not unlike Korea, but they felt Carl would perform well. 

After successfully completing his first assignment in Indonesia, he came home and celebrated by buying himself a gun. Carl shows a preference for German firearms, and though it set him back a staggering amount of money, he bought himself a combat model Korth revolver (.357 magnum) with a blue plasma finish, deluxe walnut grips and a number of other fancy (and expensive) extras, including but not limited to the barbed wire motif engravings and plantinum inlays. Although the weapon is of brilliant workmanship he hasn't ever used it in actual service, only on occasion at the firing range. He considers it a practical work of art. Aside from his taste for German workmanship he likes to carry .40 S&W for actual service. This would mean his ideal weapon was a USP40 but he isn't terribly fussy, and in the end he works with what he's given.

Around 2000 Carl was in North Korea. He had inserted himself into the military there in order to assess their capabilities, and determine anything he could about WMD's they may have in the country. While searching one facility though it was hit by a particularly well orchestrated terrorist attack. It was apparently the objective of these terrorists to secure a WMD they suspected would be in there. They were right, the facility did contain WMD's, but at that same time Carl had infiltrated the WMD storage areas to get information on what was stored there exactly. When the terrorists breached the part of the facility Carl was in he realised he had a problem. He would almost certainly be found where he shouldn't be, and that would put his cover at risk. If he wanted a chance he had to take on the terrorists. As one person he couldn't do much, but he slowed them up enough for reinforcements to arrive in time to finish the job.

The reinforcements unfortunately took longer to arrive than he had hoped, but that only helped his cover story in that he had followed the terrorists into that part of the facility to keep them pinned until he had help. There were a few small holes in his story which were thankfully ignored in the wake of the attack. Carl was asked to investigate the attack, as he often took up investigory roles, and came back with his conclusion that someone on the inside had to have helped them. With this news though another investigator was called in, a rookie agent of the Internal Affairs department, who worked with Carl for the remainder of the investigation. The mole was located, but in that time the Internal Affairs agent had gotten a weird feeling about Carl, particularly from his story of the terrorist incident, and had decided to take a closer look. For the remaining year that Carl was in North Korea he and the Internal Affairs operative played a game of cat and mouse. In the end, both of them disappeared. Carl had quickly left the country after he was forced to kill the young Internal Affairs operative, whom he had considered a friend after the investigation. The Internal Affairs operative turned out to be talented enough to almost figure Carl out, which was both too talented and not talented enough for his own good. Carl lamented the loss.

During his time on Australian soil Carl took steps to reestablish the ASIS paramilitary. Naturally he faced a lot of opposition. In some people's minds the training incident at the Hilton was all too recent to consider investing in paramilitary again. This was only just the beginning though, and at every given opportunity Carl worked hard to convince ASIS that paramilitary would be a wise investment. He insisted that ASIS couldn't rely on it's bigger siblings (MI6 and CIA) to do its dirty work for them. In the post-2000 years Carl finally had what he needed to convince ASIS, though by the time his argument had sunk in, he had already had been given enough training by the governments he had infiltrated and seen enough real combat in those countries to not really need the paramilitary training he had argued for.

For a brief period, after his assignment in Korea, he oversaw and took part in paramilitary training in order to determine whether it should be reintroduced as part of ASIS training. It was during this time he earned the nickname amoung his colleagues of 'Ferret', due to his style of combat. Though by this stage he didn't really need the training, he wanted it for his colleagues. After the initial dozen test participants had completed the training it was found that while Carl had been correct in his argument, they simply lacked the funding necessary for such an endeavour.

Over time Carl had accumulated a number of tattoos. He got his first during the ASIS paramilitary training, which was 'Ferret' written across his left wrist (although he is actually right handed) in small text with a bit of space between each letter. The next two tattoos were inspired by his ancestry: a celtic cross on his upper right chest, and an inch thick celtic pattern encirling his upper right arm. On his upper left arm he got a rather elaborate looking yin-yang tattoo, where the symbol was slightly obscured by hanging vines. His final tattoo was a phrase written across his upper back, just behind his shoulders. It reads 'Who watches the watchdogs?'.

Once Carl had set foot in China he could have been considered a virus. His movements were subtle and effective, with the use of an iron clad fake identity he would latch onto officials and they would provide him with everything he needed without them even realising it. Eventually he worked his way into Chinese national security, allowing him to become privvy to Chinese interrogation techniques and ways to also resist them. This had become a strange hobby of his as he travelled about. He would learn the interrogation techniques of a region while he was in it, then intergrate them into his knowledge of psychology and techniques from elsewhere. Having crept his way into national security circles was a golden opportunity, and he was always willing to walk the blurry line between being considered friend and foe. It got to a point where his movements were even more blurred, untrackable, and ambiguous than the norm. Were not still relaying information back to his superiors in ASIS they would have thought he had gone native, and even then they were still iffy. ASIS's niggle of distrust was not what caused the incident though.

Over the course of what was nearly three years now Carl had tied himself into the national security of China. Now an invisible player within the corrupt system, and an invaluable source of information for ASIS. A source whose secrecy they protected fiercly. Carl himself had by now survived a number of attempts by parties within the Chinese government to get rid of him. There were those who couldn't prove he was a spy, but wanted to remove him anyway, and those who just didn't like him or saw him as a political obstacle. Carl would ally himself with his enemy's enemies, protecting himself by plunging deeper into what was soon to become a problem.

Soon enough he had begun to witness a rift developing in the Chinese government. Something which had begun long before he became involved was gathering momentum, but at the same time local MI6 had found themselves a strange key player in the behind the scenes motions of the Chinese government. ASIS had never informed MI6 of Carl's situation and status, so MI6 had no qualms in adding this Australian fellow to their hit list as he was seen as a rather dangerous individual. Meanwhile, with the possibility of civil war, Carl saw an opportunity to tople the old system in the hope of creating a better one. Communism was always good in theory, but was too easily corrupted. ASIS would not endorse one of their own trying to start such a conflict, so in order for Carl to get away with this he needed to sever communications for a short while.

It was not long after Carl broke off contact with ASIS that MI6 came to them with a request for information on Carl. They had gone to the CIA, but their intelligence efforts were focused elsewhere at the time, and anything MI6 could have told them would have been news. Their interest had been piqued by what MI6 had told them had been happening in China, but they weren't in a position to make a move at that time. MI6 systematically went to ASIS seeking an exchange for information. It was this meeting that heralded the beginning. ASIS was concerned about the loss of contact, but when MI6 came to them speaking of what they believed to be a threatening individual they came to the conclusion that he must have finally gone native. ASIS explained Carl's actions in China thus far, up until they had lost contact. Someone that skilled defecting was seen as a serious problem. Plans were laid out for the neutralisation of the rogue agent.

At the same time, Carl was getting close to who he saw as the key government official whose actions he believed had the best odds of starting the war. This critical official was of the kind fueled by greed, and this greed was hopefully enough that if he believed he could gamble what he had on a civil war and come out the better for it he'd gather some allies and give it a try. Obviously Carl had no intention of letting any aspect of the current government benefit from it, but nonetheless he began sowing the poisonous seeds of overconfidence required to get the great wheels of war turning.

MI6 and ASIS sent people in to start trying to get close to Carl in an effort to set up the assassination. They hurried themselves too much though, someone slipped up and ended up being caught. The joint operation was frozen until the situation had been resolved. On the other side of the story, Carl took it upon himself to interrogate the captured MI6 agent. He had established himself as an interrogater that worked alone, so it was not difficult to get unobserved access. He explained to the MI6 agent that he was with ASIS and would make an effort to help her out. The MI6 agent obviously didn't trust him, despite his best reasoning. Carl was getting some strange feelings about the situation, and as much as he didn't want to he felt he had to use his interrogation skills. The MI6 agent was taken unawares by Carl's sudden change in character after a long period of silence. Carl removed a piece of canvas from a bench in the interrogation room, revealing an array of unpleasant devices. He then explained he didn't need them, and that he would get the agent to say everything he wanted to hear without drawing a drop of blood. He put the canvas back over the devices and went to work.

Six hours later the MI6 agent was a sobbing mess in the chair and Carl knew they wanted him dead. He would have time though, as the operation would be put on hold after something like this happened, if not cancelled. He had to make his move. He had the MI6 agent moved to a small government facility in a remote location, although he had everything he needed he wanted the agent left alive, he would return for her later. Carl circulated information that the agent had died in a car crash before talking and resumed his previously planned schedule. With any luck, he believed that ASIS and MI6 would resume their plans as well. Tomorrow evening he had a meeting planned with his critical official. He changed the arranged meeting location to the small government facility he was keeping the agent in, and waited. The bait had been laid.

The following evening the official met Carl, and the two of them strolled through the hallways towards the facility's holding cells. The official was surprised when he found the MI6 agent to be still alive, but he never had opportunity to ask why as when he turned to speak Carl shot him in the face. With that action he had smothered the spark of political change, and what for? He couldn't really be sure, but perhaps the chance of political change was ended when his employer had organised to have him killed. Surely if he was not around to ensure neither side won the civil war then there would be no room for the new and better political regime that would hopefully rise from the ashes. The war was pointless bloodshed without the potential for a change for the better.

Carl wasn't sure whether he'd survive the next few hours, but he took the startled MI6 agent out of her cell and dragged her along with him as he started to move about the small facility. He was intent on making sure she lived at least. At the same time, the joint MI6 and ASIS paramilitary operation started, and they breached the facility easily. The skeleton night crew in the disused facility was unable to muster any resistance. Carl planted explosive charges throughout the building, trying to predict the movements of the paramilitary forces as he went. Once he was outside, he waited with the MI6 agent next to him. When the would-be assassins found him they didn't expect to see the captured agent alive. Carl released the agent into their custody, and gave a brief explanation of what happened before erasing the government facility from the map. 

There was confusion within the Chinese parliament in the wake of the bombing, but without the volatile influence of the greedy politician and the Australian, who were both assumed to have died in the explosion, a civil war never happened. There were many theories circulating for a while, the greedy official and his new Australian friend did not have many friends themselves. The closest theory to the actual truth was made by a perceptive but not very high standing member of parliament. He had theorised that the double assassination was made by ASIS as they had caught on that the Australian was intending to start a civil war by manipulating a critical politician. The Australian government did not want to have anything to do with a civil war in China, and so while cleaning up their own problem they had also killed any decent chance of a civil war happening any time in the near future.

The internal politics within ASIS that followed in the wake of these events resulted in Carl's forced resignation, something which did not come as a surprise for him. He had planned to start working in the private sector but was surprised when ESPION made him an attractive job offer. He eagerly accepted, but after a year in their employment he is still uncertain as to how much they know and their motives for employing him.

Though undoubtedly skilled, Carl is far from perfect. He is ambitious. Carl is willing to set himself high goals when he knows they're within his grasp, even if it may mean taking odd risks and distancing himself from allies. In the end though his loyalty will usually be stronger. Although his goals were in his grasp, he had decided to discard them in favour of his loyalty to his comrades. He didn't know the captured MI6 agent, but he felt a responsibility to help her as a fellow intelligence agent. This loyalty, or comradery, he feels for other members of his occupation is also extended to enemy intelligence agents. This causes him to generally have a friendly demeanour towards them, should there come a mutual recognition of one another's status. So unless they have actually made an attack against him on a personal level, he prefers not to leave even an enemy agent in a bind. Carl believes that just because they're on the other side doesn't make them bad people, he might have to kill them at some point, but it wouldn't be personal. On the other hand, if they ever got into a bad situation Carl would feel obliged to help them, assuming he didn't actually have good reason to want them dead. He's more likely to save someone from extended suffering than to save someone from death. A bullet isn't a bad way to go in his opinion, but getting locked in a cell for a few decades isn't something he would wish upon an honourable foe.


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 13, 2005)

Sorry for the delay, guys!!!  My bad!  I've been waiting for more edits and such... but you know what... I think I might be getting way too anal about all of this stuff in the character generation.  The whole point of me making the game mechanics-free was to make character generation easy... and here I was asking you guys to make edit after edit of your characters.  Stupid me!  Sorry about that!  So right now what you guys have written works for me, including your specialties and such.  We'll go with what's written.

So here's my plan.  I'm going to give you guys till the end of this week to make any final last editing decisions to your characters if you decide you want to.  You don't have to... but if you find anything you do want to edit/fix before I move them over to a Rogue's Gallery thread... you'll have a couple more days.  Then on Friday or Monday, I'll copy them myself over to a Rogue's Gallery thread (I want to post them myself so that I have access to them and can delete any characters alongs the way if any folks have to unfortunately drop out.)

I will also get the first posts up starting off the game giving some background and such.  If any of you feel like posting in that as well just to give some background stuff of your own... that's cool.  The game won't officially "start" till Monday... but fleshing out the game and world is always cool and appreciated.  It'll also give me an idea how many of you are ready to jump in.  Sounds good?  Cool.  Once again, my apologies for slacking off and not giving any update info.  hope it hasn't pissed too many of you off.    Thanx guys!


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## Bobitron (Apr 13, 2005)

No problem, DEFCON!

Anyone have any advice for my last specialty?


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## Festy_Dog (Apr 13, 2005)

Defcon, it's good to hear from you. 

I'm ready for the game whenever.


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## shadowbloodmoon (Apr 13, 2005)

Jason's ready to go... *Bobitron*, your story pretty much covers only the four specialties really.. The only thing I can think of, totally top of my head, may be interrogation, simply because it seems to pop up throughout her history. Just a thought.


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 13, 2005)

Bobitron, don't forget you can also take any number of hobbies or knowledges as specialties as well.  As you wrote, Elz craves excitement... thus she probably has any number of hobbies or activities she does in her "off-time" that she has become exceedingly good at.  Just like Bond would have a specialty in Gaming (since he is frightfully good at most casino games, backgammon, golf and the like), Elz might have something herself she finds excitement in doing.  Skiing, skateboarding or in-line skating, bungy-jumping, BMX biking or 4-wheeling... all kinds of things like that.  You never know when those kind of skills might come up, and having a speciality outside the typical combat and espionage skills could come in handy.


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## Bobitron (Apr 13, 2005)

Hmmm. I'll consider it and let you know. Thanks, guys.


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## Bobitron (Apr 18, 2005)

I still haven't really come up with another specialty I want Elzbieta to take. Can we run this with the ones I have taken?


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## Ranger Rick (Apr 19, 2005)

Bobitron said:
			
		

> I still haven't really come up with another specialty I want Elzbieta to take. Can we run this with the ones I have taken?




Than make it an inane but fun one.  Knowledge of cigars or wine or single malt scotch.  Maybe TV theme songs, radio jingles or Russian 19th century poets or you collect chess sets or even TSR game manuals.


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 19, 2005)

That's fine, Bobitron... we can leave it at four.  The specialties are really for you guys moreso than anything else... so if you're okay with only four, then that's fine.


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 19, 2005)

Hey guys,

I know I said I'd get the game started yesterday... but I'm inching along at work, so I'm a bit behind.  I have put everyone into a Rogue's Gallery though... so that is the first step.  Take a look here:

ESPION Rogue's Gallery

...to see the four characters put up.  If there is any information you want added in the top sections that you haven't decided on yet, let me know and I'll edit them.  First game post will hopefully be tomorrow.  Thanx guys!


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## shadowbloodmoon (Apr 19, 2005)

Looks good.. I would say Jason is mid 30's, has no hair and has blue eyes. Just under 6 feet and 184 lbs.


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## Bobitron (Apr 19, 2005)

Looks great, DEFCON! Glad to be starting. Can you add ESPION into the background on Elz? I had just put a placeholder in when I wrote the history. Also, is there plans to give us more info on the organization?

As for specialites, I'm really pretty happy with what I have. Adding another would feel 'tacked-on' to me at this point.


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## Festy_Dog (Apr 20, 2005)

Rogue's gallery post is pretty good for the most part, Carl's height is about 5'9" and he weighs approx. 160 lb.

Defcon, is it alright to have ambition as his hubris? Like you suggested I found it to fit better than loyalty. That and there's some more ideas for the character taking form in my head, and ambition would make more sense in their case than anything else.


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 20, 2005)

Thanx for the input guys, I'll update the Gallery shortly.

Festy Dog... the only reason I changed the hubris was because as I was copying over that section to the Gallery, what you had written previous was more indicative of Loyal rather than Ambitious.  Cause basically you said that Carl was an ambitious guy who always tried to get ahead EXCEPT when it came to his loyalty towards his fellow agents or even enemies.  When push came to shove... Carl would help his fellow agents even to the detriment of the mission or his own personal safety.  Since a person's Hubris should be the one part of them that'll get the person into more trouble than anything else... it seemed to me that helping his enemies out of jams out of some misguided sense of job loyalty would be the thing that'd eventually bite him on the ass.  

However, I have no problem making it Ambitious if you'd prefer to rewrite or edit your descriptive Hubris section to put more emphasis on his ambition than his loyalty.  In that case... his character should be such that he'll purposely NOT help his fellow agents if his actions without them will garner him more acclaim and career advancement.  That's what an Ambitious hubris is... putting your own self-interest ahead of everyone else.  If you do want to stick with the idea though that he'll help other agents regardless of what kind of trouble it might cause, then Loyal would be the correct description of his Hubris to use.  Your choice.  Write whatever you think makes for the most interesting character and roleplaying choice (since ou'll be the one to have to live with it).  Thanx!

I will say though... from a roleplaying perspective with this group... I think Loyal might give you more interesting character opportunities.  With Elz's Rash hubris making her running off in all different directions... and Marcus's Indecisiveness stopping him from acting at all... playing with Carl's divided Loyalty on who he should be helping at any point in time might be a lot of fun to play.  The Ambitious hubris runs the risk of having Carl forsake the rest of the group if his success ends up being greater without them.  And with Jason's Mistrust hubris already giving us one character at odds with the group... you might find playing Ambitious ends up seperating you from the group too much.  I have no guarentees of this and I'm only speaking from personal experience... but I myself have played an Ambitious character in one of my other games... and I've been forced to occasionally throw my party members to the wolves because it was better for my character's career.  Just a friendly warning.


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 20, 2005)

Okay guys... opening post is up, and the game has begun!  You'll get a small sense of what's going on based on what I wrote... and please feel free to widen and broaden the world that we're creating here.  This is a joint writing project... so whatever you guys create will become part of the lore of the ESPION world.  Try to follow along with precedents that the others set, but add in whatever color you think would work to help enrich the setting and the game.

A couple things so far as posting conventions are concerned:

When writing dialogue, please use a single apostrophe, and choose a color for your dialogue to appear in.  I will be using Sienna for Donovan St. Claire, and random other colors for NPCs.  Please try and make your four colors as distinct from each other and the white regular printed as possible.  An example of dialogue should look like this:

'My name is Donovan St. Claire.  Please sit down, sir.'

Any internal thoughts of your character should appear in _white italics_.

All regular descriptive and narrative writing can remain in standard white text.

Feel free to use the quote boxes if you choose to.  I will also occasionally use spoiler text, identified for each character.

If you have anything you want to say out-of-character, please try to do it at the end of your post, start it with "OOC:" and then write the info out.  If you could also color all OOC information in DimGray, that would be excellent.  Thus it would look like this:

OOC:  This is how out-of-character info should appear in the game thread.  However, feel free to also use the Talking The Talk boards for OOC info as well.

Thanx guys!  Please let me know what color you are selecting for your dialogue, and ask any other questions you might have!


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## Tonguez (Apr 21, 2005)

"Ka pai" Marcus grinned excited at the news that things were about to start "I'll be their with bells on mate, an' me colours wheat"

ooc I hope I don't need a translator!


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## Festy_Dog (Apr 21, 2005)

Alrighty, point taken, loyalty it is then.


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## shadowbloodmoon (Apr 22, 2005)

Unless taken, I prefer Cyan for in character speech...


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 22, 2005)

Okay, so colors are as follows:

Jason is Cyan
Carl is Blue
Marcus is Wheat
and Elz is Yellow Green

Sounds good!


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## Bobitron (Apr 23, 2005)

Oooo, you're good, shadowbloodmoon. Nice post.


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## shadowbloodmoon (Apr 23, 2005)

Thanks Bobitron... I appreciate that.


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## DEFCON 1 (May 9, 2005)

*I'VE HAD TO CLOSE THIS GAME.  MY APOLOGIES TO ALL INVOLVED.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR INTEREST AND ALL YOUR HARD WORK THUS FAR.  I'M SORRY I WAS UNABLE TO CONTINUE IT.*


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## Bobitron (May 9, 2005)

Sorry to hear the game will have to end, I hope all is well. See you around.


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## shadowbloodmoon (May 10, 2005)

I was wondering what had happened. To echo *Bobitron*, I hope all is well. I had fun while it lasted.


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## Tonguez (May 10, 2005)

Yes I was looking forward to working with you Defcon

but if you have no objection - and anyone else is interested - see what I've done in the Playing the Game thread. We have enough basics to continue the game in the absence of Defcon 1 and still have fun. 

Anyone interested in a creative writing exercise?


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## Bobitron (May 10, 2005)

Tonguez said:
			
		

> Anyone interested in a creative writing exercise?




Hmmm... that could be interesting. I don't know what sort of pace I could keep up, but I'd be willing to give it a shot if it's cool with everyone else.


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## DEFCON 1 (May 10, 2005)

You have my blessing to keep playing if you'd like.  I've rewritten the thread title back to how it was originally so you all can access it.  Sorry once again for this, but I hope it remains a good game for you all.  Have fun!


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## Bobitron (May 10, 2005)

I will be out of town until 5/16 with limited internet access. I'll jump in when I get back. In the meantime, maybe you guys could work Elz's absence into the story? Have fun.


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