Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Asael]

...? It's math. You don't need to "trust" someone to do better math. Unless you're in elementary/middle school (or just really hate math) you can just do it yourself. None of these equations are difficult (unlike the combat algorithm, that thing was complicated) Credentials shouldn't matter, only results.

Elder Haman is hunting with 0.5 less veterans and researching with 1 less veteran. This allows him to keep Pack Hunting training. He is also pursuing a different research topic and buying 1 more bike than me (though the bike count could easily be modified, it's not really a crucial part of either of our plans)

If you're worried about group cohesion do a group sports day action. That explicitly raises group cohesion and morale.

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Ok, Firstly.

It's math. You don't need to "trust" someone to do better math. Unless you're in elementary/middle school (or just really hate math) you can just do it yourself. None of these equations are difficult (unlike the combat algorithm, that thing was complicated) Credentials shouldn't matter, only results.

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If your going to be a dick about it, I'm not seeing a reason to change anything. This is not how you persuade someone to change their actions.

Also, I will admit my vote was actually pretty arbitrary.

Elder Haman is hunting with 0.5 less veterans and researching with 1 less veteran. This allows him to keep Pack Hunting training. He is also pursuing a different research topic and buying 1 more bike than me (though the bike count could easily be modified, it's not really a crucial part of either of our plans)
If you're worried about group cohesion do a group sports day action. That explicitly raises group cohesion and morale

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Honestly, I'm not seeing a big enough difference between your votes to care.

That is, in fact, one of the three reasons I had wanted to abstain. Considering how few people participate in this game a deadlock would have to be resolved by the QM... eventually.

Frankly, I just listed arbitrary reason and went with whatever- given how the actuall decision was made it could have just as easily fell with you instead of haman.

Well, not so much after this.

 

[FixerUpper]

Apologies to add a "Queue", per se, but if it's alright with you FixerUpper I'd like you to write out Taya and Mami's reactions at some point to the letter. I'm also going to start trying to try and figure out how to write out the original writer of the letter as a character.

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Ah, I missed this, no, that's fine. I'd be more comfortable with having more fleshed out characters before I did so though. Half of it will be reacting to everyone else's reactions to it, and atm I honestly don't know what it (the general consensus) would be. o3o;;

 

[inverted_helix]

Ah, that's why it was Part 1/2. I edited and added the demon slaying scene - and oops, attack of the muse, she needed to be injured. This was an appropriately dramatic stopping point, I guess. I'll polish off part 2 when I have more time, haha.

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Much better with the addition. Also I find it terribly ironic that you write these to build up their characters and make them less likely to die, but you wrote her getting stabbed through the gut.

The wooden sword is her actual 'magical girl weapon' (I made it more obvious with the edit). In my head her wish was kind of moronic - she needed to get to an aikido competition, but had run into traffic was really late so wished to get there instantly and poof she can now teleport and has an aikido theme.

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It makes a lot more sense with the sword being her unique weapon. That is a pretty sad wish though, just the sort of thing Kyuubey would exult in though.

Ok

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I doubt he meant it like that. He's just trying to persuade you like any plan writer will. There's no reason to take it personally.

I do appreciate you avoiding a deadlock.

 

[FixerUpper]

Much better with the addition. Also I find it terribly ironic that you write these to build up their characters and make them less likely to die, but you wrote her getting stabbed through the gut.
It makes a lot more sense with the sword being her unique weapon. That is a pretty sad wish though, just the sort of thing Kyuubey would exult in though.

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She will survive though! That's the important part! Pain and trauma have been really popular as of late - see Harry Dresden, Temeraire, Hunger Games, to take a pretty broad spread of popular books - but they always bounce back. Eventually.

Plus, some people seem to be forgetting that it's not just sugar and rainbows and hugs. Personally I do not trust the RNG. They are fickle creatures, prone to malice and amusement. I shall subtly campaign for more calls towards safety. >:E

 

[inverted_helix]

She will survive though! That's the important part! Pain and trauma have been really popular as of late - see Harry Dresden, Temeraire, Hunger Games, to take a pretty broad spread of popular books - but they always bounce back. Eventually.

Plus, some people seem to be forgetting that it's not just sugar and rainbows and hugs. Personally I do not trust the RNG. They are fickle creatures, prone to malice and amusement. I shall subtly campaign for more calls towards safety. >:E

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Oh I don't doubt that it's not all sugar and rainbows and hugs. I just find it surprising you would injure her yourself given your stated goals.

Though incidentally just rolled the hunting dice for this turn. Very conveniently 1 moderate injury. (No deaths) Poor Shinobu.

 

[notgreat]

I doubt he meant it like that. He's just trying to persuade you like any plan writer will. There's no reason to take it personally.

I do appreciate you avoiding a deadlock.

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Eh, originally it was, but now that he's admitted that he really doesn't care about the differences I don't care about his vote. At this point convincing @Elder Haman that my plan is better seems to be the best route. My abrasive personality combined with a player base that cares more for the person than the plan means that convincing the plan-maker is more probable than convincing the players. (This happens in any quest with reasonably meaningful decisions that doesn't explicitly bill itself towards those who like making/analyzing complex decisions)

His updated plan is already nearly identical to mine, though I really don't see the point in keeping the pack hunting training. Even in the worst-case scenario of turning it on again next turn we lose a grand total of 1.5 meguca-months (we gain 1.5 this turn and would lose 3 next turn if we turn it back on)

 

[FixerUpper]

Though incidentally just rolled the hunting dice for this turn. Very conveniently 1 moderate injury. (No deaths) Poor Shinobu.

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D:

Oh noooo. I am sorry for picking you Shinobu. OTL

 

[inverted_helix]

@Carinthium: Did you want to apply your +10% to a diplomacy action this turn or keep it banked?

His updated plan is already nearly identical to mine, though I really don't see the point in keeping the pack hunting training. Even in the worst-case scenario of turning it on again next turn we lose a grand total of 1.5 meguca-months (we gain 1.5 this turn and would lose 3 next turn if we turn it back on)

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Technically speaking this was one of the points where my system had a breakdown between what I had wanted to do and what I'd thought you'd survive. Originally startup cost was going to be 4x the maintenance cost. However I just didn't think you'd have been able to afford to dedicate 20% of your meguca to a task like that for quite some time. So I ended up just doing 2x the maintenance cost. Where it breaks down though is it means that even in a scenario where you don't go pack hunting for one month, it's okay to stop the upkeep. You save 1.5 meguca the first turn and then pay it back the next by spending 3 that turn instead of 1.5, essentially borrowing 1.5 meguca from next turn for this turn. It's kind of troubling point for me.

Also, yay you rolled bad on random event roll.

 

[Carinthium]

I'll use my +10% on the diplomacy action to try and gain a new territory. It makes sense given what it was gotten from.

EDIT: Fixer_Upper, I would flesh out the characters more myself but worry because I'd do an inferior job to you at it. I suggest that I flesh out one character- the original writer of the controversy. The fic will be canon if we can get GM approval for it.

But if you like, I'll also do more fleshing out work before you do yours.

 

[Asael]

I doubt he meant it like that. He's just trying to persuade you like any plan writer will. There's no reason to take it personally.

I do appreciate you avoiding a deadlock.

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Eh, originally it was, but now that he's admitted that he really doesn't care about the differences I don't care about his vote. At this point convincing @Elder Haman that my plan is better seems to be the best route. My abrasive personality combined with a player base that cares more for the person than the plan means that convincing the plan-maker is more probable than convincing the players. (This happens in any quest with reasonably meaningful decisions that doesn't explicitly bill itself towards those who like making/analyzing complex decisions)

His updated plan is already nearly identical to mine, though I really don't see the point in keeping the pack hunting training. Even in the worst-case scenario of turning it on again next turn we lose a grand total of 1.5 meguca-months (we gain 1.5 this turn and would lose 3 next turn if we turn it back on)

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Sometimes I hate the internet. Mostly because text is a very limited way to express oneself.


Let's be clear. I am not so thin skinned as to take up a vendetta because someone was rude on the internet.

However, when placed into a situation where there are two choices that weight about equal in my estimation, I am not going to side with someone who is consistently rude and condescending.

Edit: Basically, the person behind the vote isn't a major factor for me- I would be lying if I said it didn't factor in at all however.

 

[Carinthium]

In case people get mad at me for behaviour in another thread, I'm going to note that in this thread it was my intention before this happened to only focus on Omakes rather than Tactics because I found the story interesting but not the tactics of it all. Therefore nothing like that will happen here.

 

[FixerUpper]

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about Car, but please, welcome to the Omake writing club!

Does anyone want to write up character profiles? I dunno how canonical they'd be, but they'd certainly make writing omakes easier where I tend to just wing it. I've done Sora's as an example. (this is also helpful in deciding what most characters are like *_* )

Name: Sora
Type: Stealth
Experience: Green (joined on T6)
Age: 13
Weapon: Sickle
Uniform: Red riding hood cloak, Primary Colors: Red and Black

Combat Style: Her magic makes her more difficult to notice. Because this holds true for both foes and allies, including her in a group hunt is a tricky affair. Her combat magic isn't very potent, but she's gotten quite good at physical enhancement magic, making her strong enough to injure most demons. She's a great scout, and would be a very good assassin, but she's only a moderately useful against actual demons. Mami has informed her its only a matter of time before she can turn her blade to better use, so for now she hangs around the periphery of battles, making sure to grab the wounded and get them off the battlefield. She's gleaned some first aid off the internet, is trying to teach it to others even though grief cubes usually make that sort of thing irrelevant.

History: Unable to get over the death of her younger twin brother, Sora wished to forget him altogether in order to make the pain go away. Now, when he's referenced, she hears white noise, when she sees family photos his face is blurred out. At first people were happy - then they became concerned, then angry over her sudden indifference towards her younger brother's death. Combined with the stress of having to hunt demons on her own, she nearly had another breakdown. Fortunately, Kyuubey came back to see her before she could psyche herself up to go on her first solo hunt, and introduced her to Mami's group where she happily stays. She still misses her family though, and sometimes drops by, using her magic to catch a nap in her own bed, eat from the fridge, and puzzle over the photo albums and the blurry person. It's never for very long though as these visits tend to leave her more depressed. In what she is thinking of her past life, she was an average student whose dreams mostly revolved around singing. She knows a lot of songs meant for duet, but doesn't know why she knows them.

 

[Carinthium]

I'll have to check with our GM before it becomes Canon, but I know what I want to do with Toshiko well enough I can put it down.

After I've fleshed out Toshiko a bit more, I'm willing to help you a bit with fleshing out as necessary to make the 'Reactions' story happen, or at least a writing of Mami's in-character reaction, because I want this to play out realistically but don't know these characters too well yet. How much do I need to do for you to be able to write the key one?

 

[Crow]

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about Car, but please, welcome to the Omake writing club!

Does anyone want to write up character profiles? I dunno how canonical they'd be, but they'd certainly make writing omakes easier where I tend to just wing it. I've done Sora's as an example. (this is also helpful in deciding what most characters are like *_* )

Name: Sora
Type: Stealth
Experience: Green (joined on T6)
Age: 13
Weapon: Sickle
Uniform: Red riding hood cloak, Primary Colors: Red and Black

Combat Style: Her magic makes her more difficult to notice. Because this holds true for both foes and allies, including her in a group hunt is a tricky affair. Her combat magic isn't very potent, but she's gotten quite good at physical enhancement magic, making her strong enough to injure most demons. She's a great scout, and would be a very good assassin, but she's only a moderately useful against actual demons. Mami has informed her its only a matter of time before she can turn her blade to better use, so for now she hangs around the periphery of battles, making sure to grab the wounded and get them off the battlefield. She's gleaned some first aid off the internet, is trying to teach it to others even though grief cubes usually make that sort of thing irrelevant.

History: Unable to get over the death of her younger twin brother, Sora wished to forget him altogether in order to make the pain go away. Now, when he's referenced, she hears white noise, when she sees family photos his face is blurred out. At first people were happy - then they became concerned, then angry over her sudden indifference towards her younger brother's death. Combined with the stress of having to hunt demons on her own, she nearly had another breakdown. Fortunately, Kyuubey came back to see her before she could psyche herself up to go on her first solo hunt, and introduced her to Mami's group where she happily stays. She still misses her family though, and sometimes drops by, using her magic to catch a nap in her own bed, eat from the fridge, and puzzle over the photo albums and the blurry person. It's never for very long though as these visits tend to leave her more depressed. In what she is thinking of her past life, she was an average student whose dreams mostly revolved around singing. She knows a lot of songs meant for duet, but doesn't know why she knows them.

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Great idea!

Name: Miki Sayaka
Type: FOR GREAT JUSTI- er Melee Combat/ Healer.
Experience: ????
Age: 14
Weapon: Stabby instruments of death AKA Swords.
Uniform:

Spoiler: RULES OF NATURE!

Combat Style: Does it moves? not anymore......
Theme Song:

Spoiler: The Only Thing....

History:TBD


..........Im having way too much fun with this, Work in progress!

 

[FixerUpper]

I'll have to check with our GM before it becomes Canon, but I know what I want to do with Toshiko well enough I can put it down.

After I've fleshed out Toshiko a bit more, I'm willing to help you a bit with fleshing out as necessary to make the 'Reactions' story happen, or at least a writing of Mami's in-character reaction, because I want this to play out realistically but don't know these characters too well yet. How much do I need to do for you to be able to write the key one?

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That's not an easy question to answer - I'll know when I can picture the general mood.

I think I'll leave it for when Inverted_Helix has settled on the team leaders. This seems to be an issue that Mami would ask for advice on, having them in her apartment as she frets over people using 'Mother Mami' to make her seem like some sort of storybook hero when she feels she's not worthy of that regard. She would get anxious about something like this since it hits her heroism button - she's not doing enough, she needs to do more, this is what she's dedicated her life to doing, but can she risk the lives of the people under her care? She won't carelessly spend lives, but she does want to reach out to other people, maybe especially Kyouko.

I'd also like to know what groups have formed, and who tends to be friends with who. For example, I think Sayaka would probably be friendly enough to hang around the kids on general principle, and pester Shinobu who actually learned martial arts to a level that took her to the prefectural stage.

Edit: Then there are the original veterans that most people look up to, the girls that took up jobs nearly from the beginning, the ones that fought with Keiko and saw her die in combat, the newcomers...

Man, I should start organizing a chart.

 

[Elder Haman]

So far all of them seem like they can reasonably fit into the canon. Though I could be missing something about them.

The title doesn't seem to quite go with it. Though I'm a little confused as to the context here. She's using a wooden sword but feeling miasma. Is she practicing or entering an actual fight?

So Elder Haman's plan has a ton of edits to it and the notes on it are little confusing, it appears to be (and I'll include the stunting when I'm writing it up, this is just for clarity):
[] Upkeep: 11 Veterans, 4 Greens
[] Dispersed Hunting:
-5 Veterans, 1 Mami
[] Additional Housing: House
[] Purchase Bicycles:
-Buy 7
[] Increased Stipend
[] Expand territory 6, by diplomacy:
-[] Addon, Bribery
[] Internet translator job
[] Research Magical Enhancements on normal human

Is this correct?

Also I'm quite curious in the research action you said Mami canonically did these things to a normal human, I don't remember that.

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That is correct.

Sorry if it's confusing.

The item I was referring to as canonical was this specific sentence: "Can we create an enchantment that a normal human can use?" Because Mami enchanted Sayaka's bat before she contracted, and Sayaka actually used it in battle against a witch.

 

[Elder Haman]

Eh, originally it was, but now that he's admitted that he really doesn't care about the differences I don't care about his vote. At this point convincing @Elder Haman that my plan is better seems to be the best route. My abrasive personality combined with a player base that cares more for the person than the plan means that convincing the plan-maker is more probable than convincing the players. (This happens in any quest with reasonably meaningful decisions that doesn't explicitly bill itself towards those who like making/analyzing complex decisions)

His updated plan is already nearly identical to mine, though I really don't see the point in keeping the pack hunting training. Even in the worst-case scenario of turning it on again next turn we lose a grand total of 1.5 meguca-months (we gain 1.5 this turn and would lose 3 next turn if we turn it back on)

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It makes sense if I want to go back to Pack Hunting next month, as it's basically a "cash flow" smoother by keeping it up now. If I was willing to Solo Hunt for several turns (as you want to do) then it would of course make sense to drop it. It's just a minor difference in the plan for this month driven by the more fundamental differences between our long term plans.

Also, I'd like to add that I much appreciate the plans that you post and that you are representing a different position them me. I perfer quests that have a bunch of people voting with different plans. Doesn't mean I might not get intense or passionate about my specific plan or against something I think is a big mistake, but it is much more fun then a quest where I post a plan and everyone always agrees with it. (Not that I'm not flattered by a turn or two like that, but I enjoy having other points of view represented occasionally).

I mean, your comments actually made me adjust my plan quite a bit, and thus we ended up closer together this month.

EDIT: To all those asking if omakes are canonical or not...

Well I've seen different QM use different ways of handling them, but the most common was for the QM to leave the omake as semi-canonical (assuming it doesn't contradict anything) and then depending on how events play out either incorporate the omake as canonical or rule it as non-canonical.

Basically I think of Omakes as a resource for the QM to pull from if it fits in with what the QM wants to do, but that the QM is also free to ignore all or parts of it if it conflict with what the QM want to do.

 

[FixerUpper]

In preparation for writing Mami's reaction to Car's earlier omake, I've been doing some research on Japan homeless youth, and apparently there is a dirt cheap option for those who are homeless but still want a roof over their heads and relative safety:

Internet cafés. Apparently the cost can go as little as 10$ a night. Edit: It's not comfortable though.

Is there some sort of... puella guidebook that we can write up and ask Kyuubey to distribute to people in need, or new magical girls? In the long run, that might actually save much more people than we can affect by simply absorbing them into our organization. Plus, free advertising, possible bonus good will from greens outside of our jurisdiction. Of course, it also means that a lot more magical girls will become aware of us, and it allows inverted_helix to justify all sorts of other shenanigans from foreign parties.

We'd need a way to pitch it to the little cat bastard though.

Worse comes to worse and we could just publish it on the web. It'd mostly be seen as harmless fiction, but there are an admittedly ridiculous number of people who would go to google for answers about their newest dilemma. We even have a translator who could write it up in multiple languages. We might be able to have puella join simply from word of mouth and interest generated on the internet.

Kyuubey might not like the idea though. :/

Edit: The more I think about this, the better I like the idea. We have a lot of bitterly won knowledge that is extremely valuable. We could horde it, but it'd be better to disseminate it. Even preparing a booklet for puella to look over if we fail at negotiations the first time around might make them more amenable.

e.g.:
-Carrying Capacity
-Combat Tactics
-Magic Experimentation
-etc.

 

[Elder Haman]

In preparation for writing Mami's reaction to Car's earlier omake, I've been doing some research on Japan homeless youth, and apparently there is a dirt cheap option for those who are homeless but still want a roof over their heads and relative safety:

Internet cafés. Apparently the cost can go as little as 10$ a night. Edit: It's not comfortable though.

Is there some sort of... puella guidebook that we can write up and ask Kyuubey to distribute to people in need, or new magical girls? In the long run, that might actually save much more people than we can affect by simply absorbing them into our organization. Plus, free advertising, possible bonus good will from greens outside of our jurisdiction. Of course, it also means that a lot more magical girls will become aware of us, and it allows inverted_helix to justify all sorts of other shenanigans from foreign parties.

We'd need a way to pitch it to the little cat bastard though.

Worse comes to worse and we could just publish it on the web. It'd mostly be seen as harmless fiction, but there are an admittedly ridiculous number of people who would go to google for answers about their newest dilemma. We even have a translator who could write it up in multiple languages. We might be able to have puella join simply from word of mouth and interest generated on the internet.

Kyuubey might not like the idea though. :/

Edit: The more I think about this, the better I like the idea. We have a lot of bitterly won knowledge that is extremely valuable. We could horde it, but it'd be better to disseminate it. Even preparing a booklet for puella to look over if we fail at negotiations the first time around might make them more amenable.

e.g.:
-Carrying Capacity
-Combat Tactics
-Magic Experimentation
-etc.

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I like this idea... Maybe after we get Kasimono integrated...

 

[notgreat]

It makes sense if I want to go back to Pack Hunting next month, as it's basically a "cash flow" smoother by keeping it up now. If I was willing to Solo Hunt for several turns (as you want to do) then it would of course make sense to drop it. It's just a minor difference in the plan for this month driven by the more fundamental differences between our long term plans.

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I just really don't see why you want to do pack hunting so much. I could see it for next turn, because we still do have a casualty rate even if it is pretty low, but three turns out the casualty rates for both should be 0%. Pack hunting uses a lot of meguca-hours for the same end result.
When pack hunting each meguca requires ~0.5 people working on cube-related activities (hunting/dispatch/training/etc), whereas pack hunting requires ~0.3. That is a huge difference in terms of how many people we have available.

Assuming we don't drop any upkeep actions those will take 15 people (I'm assuming we want to keep our 3k/month worker, we'd rather drop one of our 1k/month workers if we had to) and it'll take ~11 people hunting. That's 26/28 people used.

 

[inverted_helix]

Edit: The more I think about this, the better I like the idea. We have a lot of bitterly won knowledge that is extremely valuable. We could horde it, but it'd be better to disseminate it. Even preparing a booklet for puella to look over if we fail at negotiations the first time around might make them more amenable.

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It's actually an interesting idea, though I would point out a few problems I see with it, but where would be the evil GM antics in that.

Assuming we don't drop any upkeep actions those will take 15 people (I'm assuming we want to keep our 3k/month worker, we'd rather drop one of our 1k/month workers if we had to) and it'll take ~11 people hunting. That's 26/28 people used.

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I should point out that your upkeep actions aren't exactly worthless, 9-10 of those are your income sources. Also I should point out though I think people realize it, that you can cancel any upkeep cost at any time, though it will usually be more difficult to restart it.

Also partway through writing this update, but the only difference between your plans is negligible from my writeup standpoint so you can still feel free to change up until I post it, probably another couple hours.

You rolled very poorly on the random event roll, so expect some turbulence to your future turn plans..

 

[Crow]

Damn tsun tsun dice......

 

[Diomedea]

You rolled very poorly on the random event roll, so expect some turbulence to your future turn plans.

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What? Did I hear the sound of fun?

 

[notgreat]

I'm all for getting out some knowledge. Heck, I'm an advocate for trying to set up a grief cube marketplace. As a courier business we have a website, just hide the info behind a link with no text/button so that only those that read the source code (usually search engines/other bots, but a few other people) will find it. Provide a phone number that they can call us at.

Seriously, being able to set up a cubes->cash or cash->cubes market would be extremely useful for us and a lot of other meguca. It'd really help us get our strength down if we need it and prevent us from ever randomly dying from running out of grief cubes (due to hilariously bad luck from spirals or someone stealing our supplies, etc)

Still not seeing the point in keeping the pack hunting training, how much would it cost to re-do the general combat training (to eliminate its decay)?

 

[FixerUpper]

It's actually an interesting idea, though I would point out a few problems I see with it, but where would be the evil GM antics in that.

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o3o;;;

Edit: I vaguely recall seeing some numbers as to how many puella still live at home, and how many live with us. Can I get confirmation for any of that?