more end game coordination!

[court]

Hello, guys! This is a post directed to those of you who are still interested in trying to play out the ending to Damned as far as we can. I realize that I've dropped the ball on this lately, which I apologize for! I'm going to use this post to set out the information we have and make sure that everyone is on the same page.

So, the important event that's taken place is that L and Lana managed to disable the security system. This means that the entire building is now vulernable to damage, and it won't just rebuild itself. That means that characters can knock down walls and all sorts of other things, and do some real damage!

On the other hand, there are safety measures for if the security system is shut down, which means that monsters will now be streaming out in droves to try and put down the threat. It should be fine for people to NPC their own monsters in their posts -- at this point, it's up to you what happens to your character!

It might be kind of hard to do this without their full powers back, though, so after talking to a few people I thought that it might be best if we assume that Guy, Claude, and Anise passed the device the rebels gave them that can disable Landel onto someone else. (Or if a group is going to head up that way, maybe they pass it to them on the way there?)

For the sake of making things easier, the device could have a certain range in which it works, which means that the patients wouldn't have to actually find Landel for it to work. They might want to try and track him down after that, though, since they'll have all their powers back and Landel will be vulernable.

The other thought was that the military could get involved at this point, but since there are so few of us left, I wasn't sure if we wanted to do that.

As things are, I think the best thing to do would be to figure out who's actually going to obtain the device and use it, and then who will be fighting off the monsters vs. who will be tracking down Landel. After Landel has been killed and the fighting has died down, then decisions can be made about who wants to go home and who wants to stay, etc.

So if we could have everyone who's still interested check in here with some idea of what their character will be doing in the next phase of this, that would be great and it would also give me a better idea of how things should be structured. Thank you!

Comments

[ryuuzaki]

I'm really not sure what L would do! He and Lana are pretty free, but they're not physically strong and need to face up to somewhat less danger than some other characters would be able to handle. I know that Lana's ring will move them back to her room, so that would get them to the room blocks easily, but it might be better for the team that's in the ballroom (?) to swing by and get the item that depowers Landel if they want to.

How will the monster swarms be affecting people who are on the third floor, but in closed areas rather than hallways or easily accessible rooms? (i.e. people who have been using the transporter pads and are in rooms that are otherwise locked and clear of monsters?)

(Also, I'm assuming they'll be swarming, but at the same time, I'm assuming they won't necessarily all be able to accurately hone in on people's locations, so even if one or two monsters find you, that doesn't mean twenty will.)

What's next in the room chain? It seems reasonable to assume that there could be monsters in the rooms that haven't been visited yet, but nobody who's not a mod knows what the rest of the path is.

If you need me to make a path (presumably Landel's office is the last thing on it), I can do that in like two minutes. I printed the map out when we started on the third floor and have been tracking what areas have already been used.

Also a reminder to other players that they can basically skip most of the third floor (including the trap in the labs and testing chambers on the far left side of the map) if they skip straight to the server room that, iirc, is down the hall from the archive. L posted a map of this here, so most characters could probably handwave being aware of the shortcut: http://damned-bulletin.dreamwidth.org/937724.html

If relatively fast taggers who are behind L and Lana in the room chain (Cas, Lloyd, etc?) want to join up in a group (or if one of those people needs to stay behind because the player isn't going to tag anymore, and the other player wants to move forward and needs a group), that might be a good idea, especially if the characters hypothetically joining L and Lana have powers. I will probably be the slowest tagger in this kind of recombined group, but I'll try to hit it within a day or so if it's my turn unless I'm sick, in which case I'll try to keep in touch with you or let you skip me.

That's all I can think of for the moment!

[redcladidealist]

Reconfirming what I said in plurk: I'm up for joining forces with L and Lana. That would give us a pretty well-rounded team, in terms of fighting anything. Two heavy-hitters, two strategist/long range types (?) that could take advantage of the distraction Lloyd and Castiel could provide. Seems like it'd be a shame to put that to waste~ Good team to take on Landel? Unless there's another team that wants to take him down, in which case I'd be cool with just fighting monsters or any other ideas. o/

[court]

I'm totally up for them going after Landel, if that's what we wanna do. Maybe another group disables him, and then these four track him down?

[court]

Yeah, I'm also thinking that the group in the ballroom might be the best bet for getting the device, but I guess we'll see what those three have to say!

People in enclosed rooms will probably have monsters eventually trying to ram down the doors and get to them, but yes, it would take longer for them to get there.

I can probably just give you guys the rest of the room chain for reference at this point -- I have it all recorded already, so don't worry about that!

I'm totally up for Cas and Lloyd joining with L and Lana, and I don't mind the slowness -- we can take all the time that we want to, really.

[ryuuzaki]

OK, cool on the room chain! I think the last time I asked about it, nobody who was still involved in the game actually knew for sure yet.

One way to handle this would be to have all the groups eventually go for it, as you suggested to Nivi above, and to be mid-confronting Landel when the Sphinx bursts in?

That would be a very big thread, but I definitely know all L would do is hold Landel at gunpoint (which might not be hugely effective) and try to keep anyone else from killing him until they get some answers. I've always written that he really didn't think that Landel would come out of this alive, if the patients ever got the upper hand, even though he had no intention of trying to kill Landel personally. I know there will be one faction along those lines, the people who would love to see him locked up but wouldn't actually kill him themselves, but I also think that they have enough idea of the way this world is now that they might no longer assume that any judicial way of addressing the situation is possible.

I also think that once you do whatever Institute-wide post you're about to do shortly (the environmental effects of security going down), it would be helpful if we (anyone still playing) went for some radio conversations. The channel Lana opened is still open, for one thing, but we can use the radios to have characters confirm what's happening with each other. That might help characters who are on the third floor deal with the situation before The Device makes it up there, so that they and the people in the ballroom have some idea of what's going on on the other end.

[court]

I think we'll need to see which groups get their fastest, etc. but I'm fine with a lot of people being present for that final confrontation. It seems only fair since there are so few of us left.

I agree about the radio conversations! If you want, I can post any relevant stuff up on the damnedmods plurk so that people are aware of it. I can even have Guy speak with the ballroom group to set up the ground work for that handwaving.

[ryuuzaki]

Yeah, I have nooooo idea of what kind of pacing to anticipate, since the people whose characters are upstairs will basically need to mark time and write monsters until the basement group (who would logically have a lot more to fight through?) picks up the device and gets it upstairs. Technically this new quad would be in the lead on the room chain, and Link and Sora would be right behind them, but they really can't do much for the time being except cool their heels, go ahead by a couple more rooms, and try not to die.

As to the radios -- I don't know how the passing off of the device is going to be handled, but it might help if we could talk to Guy on the radio. Or it might not be necessary, IDK... mostly I'm thinking of confirmation. The next tag I was planning to write was going to be L reacting to whatever happens building-wide (IRIS WAKE UP :( DON'T JUST LIE THERE) and then saying pretty tersely over the radio that they really need to hear from everyone else because they haven't gotten much feedback on anyone else's progress.

Our question related to whether or not Sphinxes can use escalators will finally be answered, though. Worth at least the price of admission plus several buckets of popcorn and soda.

[court]

Yeah, we will kind of be waiting on the other group to get the device up there, buuut I think that since they can pretty much activate it right as they reach the third floor, it shouldn't be too bad? We can start them moving toward Landel's office, at least.

I think I could definitely have Guy send out a radio message to at least have that setup, even if it's not actually threaded out!

LMAO YES, yes it will be. 8)

[antimony]

I'm good with Cas/Lloyd/L/Lana as a group.

The ballroom group chatted on plurk, and while handwaved conversations with dropped player groups are fine, we don't want to make that thread any bigger. ICly, Sechs and Taura really, really want to go after Landel, so if they get the device they're going to head straight for him. Obviously, they don't have to succeed, and if all the groups end up in one big fight scene briefly, I'm sure we'll figure out a way to communicate. Just thought I'd point out that's ICly what they're going to be trying to do.

Taura knows where Landel's office is on a map that doesn't show the teleport chain; she hasn't done any of the teleporting, though.

[sixth_attack]

Yeah, I'm ok with Sechs/Taura/Aigis getting the device as well. However, if there's a plan for Landel to be killed or ultimately stopped in some way, I feel that having an NPC character do the honors would be better than a regular player's character doing it.

I like the idea of there being one final fight scene. But as much as Sechs would love to do the killing, I think it would be fairer for everyone if the final act against Landel was done by a mod or NPC or whatever surprise force is out there. xD

Also, I'm up to having Sechs fight the military if they do show up in the end. Long as a good chunk of his powers are restored though.

Just my two cents out there for now. =)

[court]

It sounds like the sphinx is going to end up being the one to get the killing blow! Everyone has decided that would be the most appropriate way for it to happen.

Once the device is used, people's powers will be completely returned to them! So there's that.

[court]

I think they might be the best candidates to get the device at this point, since they need to head up from the basement! And yes, it would be handwaved that they got in contact with Claude and Guy and then they handed it over, so they can head upstairs from there.

It sounds like one big fight scene might end up happening, depending on how this all goes and who gets there first. We'll have to play that by ear, I think.