Sal wrote: ↑Wed Feb 15, 2023 3:28 am
About the thought bubbles - God I feel that. I feel that so much. I've been trying so hard to learn how to write expressions, subtle moves, and gestures that convey emotion without giving away thoughts. It's hard!
The struggle is real!
As Isis started taking shape did she surprise you? If so in what way?
I knew going in that I was bad at the setting lore, and utterly rejected the vibe the book encourages ("GOO FULL-ON GONZO CRAZY! IT'S CYBERPUNK!").
So her sedate build was no shocker, and her total lack of cyberware was kind of leaning into a certain mindset. No surprises, then. Likewise, her being essentially anti-corp while not waving a flag around about it was all according to plan- and the cold way she greeted just about every come-on sent her way wasn't a surprise based on her backstory. (Ironically, of the people who hit on her, Sal might have had the best chance because he was so businesslike about it, and she appreciated that). She's... a product of her upbringing, that's for sure.
But man, at first I thought she just didn't like chrome rock, but it turns out, she just doesn't give a damn about music one way or the other- and this in a setting where musical taste can be such a neat character beat! But she just didn't care about it
Which meant until the heist came along, she had almost zero reason to interact with
any of our rockerboys, which kinda put her into a silo away from some of what was going on. It's informed by her backstory, but yeah... the fact that we had nightly concerts and Isis gave
zero fucks about music was... a bit of a surprise.
Did she accomplish everything she wanted to accomplish? Is she leaving with any regrets?
She NAILED her goals.
Alt Cunningham and Rache Bartmoss (although she hasn't actually pieced
that part out- she just knows he's a major player who enjoys fucking with people, but sees little point in digging further) both seem reasonably pleased to know her, which are WAY bigger names than she really set out to have as contacts.
She made no deals with corpo types beyond working for station security- and she found a way to lie to them to let Miriam escape the station while still getting paid.
She also got Rat a ticket off of the station, and will have his services to call on if anyone needs a tech.
She earned over ten times as much cash as she arrived on the station with despite not being all that greedy (she took NO money from the Collector for herself at any stage).
So if anything, she overachieved in the areas she cares about.
Regrets? This may sound harsh, but it's all purely IC- she regrets that she worked with Showtime and Valentina at all. In fact, were it not for the fact that they were the only medtech and netrunner in the game, respectively, she probably would have pointedly left them out of the heist. (Which is a nice IC reason for me to OOC let the players who I have nothing but fondness for in on the game's big event/payoff)
So, to explain that particular body blow
Valentina is on her shitlist for dosing Alt (something Isis pieced together through the magic of her Deduction skill), who, after all, was the paymaster for the big gig and also someone Isis genuinely liked a lot. Since "Angel" was the only non-Corpo bidder Isis was aware of, taking her out clearly seemed to be doing a company job against, again, someone she actually gave a shit about. Isis' emotions here are a mixture of simple anger and disappointment- because she and Val worked well together looking for Miriam. But between Val tagging Alt and getting ever-closer with Showtime, Isis has basically washed her hands of her. She never fully trusted Val, and from where she stands, the distrust got validated as things moved on.
And Showtime... hoo. They were
never really on the same page- she never liked him, and every time he opened his mouth, her dislike intensified, mostly because he kept saying and doing things that struck her as insanely sloppy, loose-lipped, and unprofessional. For example, when he insulted her at the after-party? She didn't give a shit what he thought of her (her opinion of him was so low at that stage that what he thought of her didn't matter in the slightest) but she was
furious that he talked about the specifics of a prior job out loud in public. Had he jumped up on the table and said, "you are literally the worst fixer ever to draw breath!" and said nothing else, she would have shrugged it off, maybe thought something about "if you find someone else who drops an 8k job in your lap despite knowing you less than a week, let me know, I'd like to compare notes." But by outing details of a job that was between him, her, Val, and the Collector, he crossed a line.
(That said, in defense of Showtime's anger with her, she
did deliberately sling a lowball offer the Collector's way, because while Showtime and Val didn't know it, she'd contracted to work with him some time before getting approached with the job, and she wasn't about to tell
anyone about that because it's the kind of info that could get her strongarmed into doing shit she didn't want to do)
Will she return if there's a sequel?
I'm honestly not sure! For a couple of reasons.
1. She basically "won," to the point where, yeah, it's cyberpunk, and anyone can get dragged back in and brought down, but she really feels like she's going to turn into more of an NPC type- serving as a human agent for Rache Bartmoss whenever he sends a job her way, trusted by Alt Cunningham and ready to take on any crew-gathering or investigative job Alt sends her way... like, I just don't know where she goes from here that's much fun from a PC's point of view. She's got tons of weaknesses (especially on a physical front) but she's got a proven track record for getting together what's needed- and, as part of her backstory, the current leader of the Valentinos likes her, so she has a pretty big gang on reasonably good terms with her. If the next game takes place in Night City, she's on her home turf, with ready access to dangerous allies, an established power base- oh yeah, and Bartmoss owes her a hack. She's kinda scary.
2. She's a Fixer. Yeah, yeah, there are PC Fixers as an established part of the whole deal, but if you look at the role, and how it's set up, it's very much a support role, someone meant to haggle for team pay, make bulk gear purchases, and so on. For a PC who kept every other PC firmly at arm's distance throughout the course of the game, it's a very limiting role. She's not the designated fixer for a close-knit group of running buddies, so unless multiple people wanted to run people who work with her on a regular basis, she's kinda stuck being a middle-man for NPCs.
3. Her best friends (as far as it goes) coming out of this are NPCs, and she regards the two PCs she worked with the most unfavorably. This is not someone who forged a lot of links that leave fun unfinished baggage- this is someone who is at best, professionally cordial and reasonably friendly, not a ride or die buddy to anyone in the game.
), his one interaction with her was trying to set up a meeting with Angel... who Isis could reach, and who did trust her, sure, but she couldn't just snap her fingers and make the meeting happen.Especially not for a Company man 
Isis would benefit from giving trust to earn it. Tina ended up trusting Showtime more and he lived up to his promises. She also found out a lot more knowing him than knowing Isis, as he was forthcoming, and he helped her out and so she helped him out. It was a good business relationship. Just a shame that he's not as level headed as Isis, which is what appealed to Tina initially.
Isis heard nothing about her involvement in the hack until then.
