What? No Mask!?--Jorsalfar's Q&A

[Jorsalfar]

Ask 'em if you got 'em. Jorsalfar's arc is pretty well wrapped, so there are no plans for a reprise (though circumstances may change), and therefore no secrets to be kept.

[Isis Marlowe]

FORM QUESTIONS INBOUND!

1. Biggest curveball the game threw you?

2. Biggest curveball Jor threw you?

3. Any character who didn't drop you wish you'd interacted with more?

4. Biggest missed opportunity?

5. Any background details that never came up that you wouldn't mind sharing?

6. How satisfied is Jor with his time at the Crystal Palace?

[Jorsalfar]

1. Bathroom. Grenade.

More seriously, I think I (foolishly; I ought to know better) half-expected Jorsalfar to be given a little slack from the "I don't trust the corpos" angle because he was a PC. Again, I don't know why I made that assumption, but I did, and I think I ended up leaning more on Birb for time as a result.

2. The character didn't get away from me too much, this time. For example, I knew he had to make the job offer to Rat before I set the thread up. But I do think he could make changes in his personality depending on his situation, and that was not my original intent. I was drawing on the acting skill, but that plus his environment led to interesting moments.

3. Alrik. I kinda wanted to set something up to compare notes on Ryuuji, but part of being the exec was I felt I needed to insulate him from danger. And also, Jor did not know who Alrik was, other than a guy talking to Ryuuji at the auction. It seemed like a hornet's nest.

4. I blew the lowest TN rolls to analyze the camera data Showtime brought me on the Collector and Ryuuji, and I only had time to get back to trying again after the Auction. This is the day that Jor met Isis and Angel got discombobulated. I could have nixed the drugging of Angel, paid off Valentina for her time, and then conspired with Angel to take out Ryuuji, but I did not have the information at the right time. Instead, Jor had to compartmentalize a whole ton. Still, made for some excitement.

5. The "I'm wanted in Norway" from Future Perfect was because his family is all in corp jail, and have been for most of his life. He got smuggled out of prison and into London by a 'Runner that goes by Bad Ole as a last favor sort of thing for his father. He made a lot of "do this or die" type decisions on his way to where he was, some of which made him really distrustful of cybernetic implants, not least because the guy who'd been his sugar daddy and got him to Singapore had nearly killed him during a bout of Cyberpsychosis. Of course, the question with Jor is whether he has a personality disorder in spite of not having a bunch of implants, or if he's just a person in a job that makes you do bad things and her happens to be good at it.

6. Net positive. Things turned out pretty great for him if the job offer in Future Perfect is real, which I think it is. The only thing that could reasonably jack it up is if Yorinobu Arasaka wants and is able to hunt him down and kill him. Claus died, which really sucked, but life is a long chain of suck for Jorsalfar, so he was able to put it into context and out of his mind much more quickly than, say, I was.

[Valentina]

Valentina was miffed at the lack of further work after the one job she took. She did it not to make money as much as to make contact, so when Jorsalfar was "whoa, too much heat on you now, let's not talk again!" she was like "urgh, why did I bother?" OOC learning that that also miffed Isis... gyegh! Those are the breaks sometimes I guess. She never knew Claus worked for him either.

What was the OOC background to Jors and his corp and their angle on the items? Was he told to just go ham and get as many as he could?

I was impressed Jorsalfar grabbed and saved his henchman. Makes him a better corpo than most!

[Jorsalfar]

I might have hired you again, but I only had the one other job to do, and you were already committed to the heist that I was using to provide operational cover. If I had had the guts to go after Arasaka, then it probably would have been an everybody thing. Also, I desperately needed Angel not to know that I was the one that had her drugged so that Jorsalfar could stay in cahoots with Jack. What was more disappointing to me was that OOC me had no way to tell Jorsalfar that he was dealing not with a slightly disaffected exec in Ryuuji (just like him), but a supremely dangerous terrorist. I'd still have paid you for your time and would certainly have kept you on file. Which, indeed, he would still--off station.

Kiroshi apparently spies on everyone through their cybernetic eyes, and all employees have them. They're not Arasaka-villainous, but they're definitely villains. They wanted the Coprocessor because it would help them analyze all that data more efficiently. And they need to analyze more efficiently because they need to kick their blackmail and corporate espionage revenue streams into high gear now that they have other corps (Zetatech especially) thinking about a hostile takeover. To Jorsalfar, Kiroshi was just the entity that made sure he didn't go hungry, and he was absolutely never going to go hungry again after living on the streets of London during his teens.

I went in all the auctions in order to obfuscate what he really needed from the other execs, and also because I had a decent score for the skill in the first one and it was shiny. Around the other execs, I tried to play him as a little bit of a mooncalf, capable of insights, but detached and dreamy, quoting old folksongs and such. Sort of like Isis, I wanted to take the exact opposite approach of the book: don't go big, go totally harmless and let people underestimate you, which, it turns out, Ryuuji did (though only to a point).

You don't not save Lonnie. I'm not sure space could kill him, and he'd find a way to hurt you. I kinda wanna play just him but with character levels next game.

[Valentina]

That was really interesting - thank you.

I think your final idea is terrifying however. You absolutely shouldn't do that! (Go in, it'd be fantastic!)

[Showtime(Andre Gold)]

Why did you decide to have Jors go after Mooncat on his own?

[Jorsalfar]

I needed to beat Arasaka to them, and figured I didn't have two days to play with. Everyone else was busy and his goal was to destroy the notes without anyone reading them (except maybe himself with the scrambler on; I hadn't completely decided yet). No one else could be trusted not to try to take or scan the notes in the process. Plus the heist made for good cover.

I also fundamentally did not understand the combat rules, and thought my 3 guys with guns would easily outclass 1 guy with computer programs. That is not what happened, so I learned a lot.

[Sal]

No questions, just wow! You had a thrilling saga. Bravo sir!

[Jorsalfar]

Thank you! I had a very nice time.