- Location
- USA
Ah. I stand corrected.
In that case I still have no idea what Ludivines crit did.
DoofQuest- a Disney Villains Victorious CK2-Style Quest
- Thread starter Made in Heaven
- Start date
- Crossover
In that case I still have no idea what Ludivines crit did.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Or something. The point being, something actually, immediately bad, something with serious impact, not just moderate inconvenience or a minor setback.
So... You're saying that if we just keep trying to stay emotionally invested in a long long streak of bad luck, we'll be reincarnated into a happier quest after some decades pass?
The problem is mainly that we keep getting punched with a new disaster-complication we have to "formulate a plan, make some deals," and generally wrangle with the consequences of so often that the gameplay experience is getting to be dominated by those plans and experiences.
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Looking at the description for fallback actions, it's not supposed to be optional. Additionally, it doesn't look like the outcome for failing the fallback action is supposed to make things worse, it's an attempt to do damage control that at worst turns a normal failure into a crit failure.
Looking at the Flubber technologies, I see that no fallback actions were listed for them, even though the description for fallback actions says there's supposed to be.
I'm pretty sure at this point that this is an oversight by the QMs.
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- Location
- Germany
pretty much this.
right no at least many people are not exactly willing to "think Sisyphus a happy man" feom sheer mental exhaustion.
To be fair, there would be an easy way to avoid: Don't. We don't actually HAVE to bother. We could easily just spend our time taking cautious actions to increase our market share slowly over time and not take risks. But, like...That would be boring, wouldn't it? If you wanted freedom from consequences, try Drossel Quest. No risk means no impact. Except, even then, no, because even she doesn't exist in a vacuum.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Your criticism seems entirely disconnected from what actually happened.
Among other things, under the new rules, not having Ludivine or someone like her means we're extremely restricted in what Learning actions we can take without a marked increase in risk... But having Ludivine meant there was always a 1% risk or something that she'd blow us up with something like this.
This didn't happen because we decided to gamble.
This happened because in the same turn that we first saw Ludivine on the record as saying "Flubber research is a bad idea, why do we even have this option," we forgot to specifically take a "delete all possibility of Flubber research" action, insofar as it was even offered and I don't remember if it was... and then shit went south.
We didn't decide to gamble in any normal sense of the word.
So please don't berate people for being reckless here.
@Arathnorn, could we get confirmation regarding what's up with the apparent lack of fallback action for Ludivine's Flubber mishap?
It was an approved write on. Several plans included in. We just…Didn't.
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
The problem is, this is another goddamn crisis, when we haven't recovered from the last 5. We can't seem to go one Turn without at least two things catching fire, and then we have to run damage control, which puts a serious crimp in our ability to actually do fun things with the Quest. Or do anything, really.
Like, we can't seem to not have something blow up in our face even when actively avoiding anything risky. I'm starting to think we should just cut our losses on Ludivine, kill Flubber permanently(Why exactly do we need an entire Action to cross that off the list? Do we need to cross the nuclear codes off the list too if we bother getting her back? Why didn't Mirage kill it automatically? She's not insane. I regret ever doing that Investigate Flubber Action. We'd at least have some buffer against exactly this situation then.) and then not bother doing anything but full throttle 'Whatever Opinion is, we can't eat it.' Action plans. Sure, having positive Opinion is nice, but clearly it doesn't matter if we make plans with it in mind, because we'll get 3 or 4 bad rolls in a row if that's what the dice need to do to lower it.
How are we supposed to develop characters when we spend all our time having them dealing with the fallout of whatever? Forget prepping for Bill or dealing with the Wasteland, we can barely keep our heads above water here. We aren't scattershot with our Actions because it's a Quest and we're playing Doof these days. We're scattershot because half our Actions are prepping for or dealing with a crisis of some kind(Alan trying to salvage DoofOS files, for example) or spending three Turns having them rearrange pencils for marginal Stat gains. That was literally called out as a thing this very Turn. Six months. +2 Stewardship.
I would be more sympathetic to this point of view if the crises weren't constant. I can't remember the last Turn something didn't go terribly wrong. There's a difference between no risk and 'On a set of 10 rolls, assume at least one will fail or crit fail. No, there's nothing you can do about it, and you'll have to spend at least one Action cleaning up that mess, probably more.' here.
Forget having impact or fun. I just want a Turn to go smoothly. For once. Heck, the last in-game year's set the bar so low I'd probably have fun with that!
It's probably either the crit failure, or yet another downside of Wanderer Actions. Those are supposed to be a net benefit right? Because I remember precisely one time it was.
- Location
- USA
Alright, I don't really remember a major crisis or something going so wrong that makes you think this behavior is appropriate between now and Kataclysm? Like if you're arguing that all of our most recent turns have gone wrong then you're just incorrect.
We've been mostly fine since the Kataclysm up to now.
For example, calling the Mirage Turn a "Crisis" is... just wrong. It may have changed our plans for the turn dramatically, but it was just different, not a crisis. And it worked out very well for us.
Having to think about what actions to take, as we did in the Mirage Turn, is not a "crisis".
Edit: I get that you are overly emotional right now, I just don't like the "the past 5 turns have all been complete wastes!!!" false narrative getting parroted over and over.
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Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Okay. So I argued against putting her on counselor for this very reason; but this actually seems actively unfair given the context and what we knew for sure at the time these decisions were made.
No QM ever came in and said "Yes, that is a definite possibility." When I was making those arguments. When people were saying that no we don't need to worry about it, no QM came in and said "Yes. You do."
We asked very specifically in the discord about this and we got this answer.
That 'might' and 'stay tuned' implies that if it is a risk, that the QMs would tell us. That didn't happen.
We also never actually got that option to remove actions this turn.
To be clear, multiple people checked both the discord and the thread. This was the only word we could find from the QMs on the subject in either of them.
We never actually got the ability this turn to remove Flubber from our list. Last turn we didn't have the council when we voted, so there was no risk of us actually going in and accidentally picking Flubber (Ludivine could wander, but only to actions that were close to the DC of the thing she was put on which is why we were very careful never to put her on things that were within reach of Flubber). This turn would have been the first turn where that risk was real.
This turn we were also told that they were reducing the reliance on write in actions. But we never got the option for that personal this turn. We got it last turn before we had the council and before it was a risk. The danger was never emphasized when we put her on the council. And, we were not told yes or no whether we could add XP to her on her actions in wandering.
This doesn't feel like a risk that we made with full knowledge of the risk. This feels like a risk that the QMs (probably accidentally) hid from us after we explicitly asked about it and now we're being punished for it.
That's not fun. It's also not fair.
Now, I get that the QMs don't want to reroll things even if it's their error. But if they allowed us to put XP on that action when we knew the action was actually occurring? It would have been a regular failure instead of a crit failure which would mitigate a lot of the problems with us not being able to foresee this and not being able to prevent it ahead of the time. We were told that we could put XP on the action, but we were not told we would have to do so before we knew the action would even happen. Having to put XP onto the action as a write-in, when we are told that turn that they are removing the reliance on write-ins? That's not fair.
Also unfair? Having the only way to avoid catastrophic failure being a write-in personal on the turn when we were told they were removing reliance on write-ins.
This doesn't feel like a mistake the players made. It feels like a mistake that the QMs made.
EDIT: Apparently my post was wrong, we were told we could put XP on her action, but the issue is that we thought we would be told whether her action would be happening or not during the XP allocation phase, and then we could add XP to it if we wanted. Having to put XP on an action that may or may not be happening that we don't actually know about also feels distinctly unfair when we aren't explicitly told that that's the process beforehand. I have edited the body of the post to make this clear.
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- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
Just because we expected Evelyn to try and screw up the reinstatement of Supers at the gala doesn't mean it wasn't a crisis. She nearly got away with it. If Hego had failed that early Intrigue roll, or if we'd failed a couple more of those contests... It also explicitly resulted in Winston struggling to keep Olympia from having a succession crisis.
Not to mention Edna's ire getting focused on us. That's a recipe for poisoning Supers against us, even if it hasn't actually erupted. Yet. Oh, and Sinatron getting his body totaled, and us spending an Action fixing it. Sure, we didn't have to do that, but we don't have to try and get Ludivine back either.
The point wasn't that they were complete wastes, the point was that we're struggling to do more than tread water, which isn't fun, or conducive to developing characters. Every tiny bit of progress feels like we're a couple bad rolls away from getting shanked and losing them. Ludivine's recent screwup, for example, destroyed a huge amount of goodwill in total(Feds and general Opinion in totality), gave Doom ammunition for his anti-Toon and anti-Doof campaigns, and it's going to be a minimum of three Actions to fix it(recover Ludivine, recover lost goodwill, recover from the inevitable poke from Doom, which is probably going to be two separate Actions for the Toon and Doof pokes) when we didn't even select this Action in the first place. We just didn't choose to do the Action that was absolutely necessary to get rid of it as a possibility when we must have a dozen other researches Ludivine could have selected, and again, she literally just argued against it in the Council! The Kataclysm undid our Super research, required us to spend significant Funds fixing up the place and spending an Action repairing the PMC, so I feel pretty confident in my '3 minimum' assessment. A few more Turns like this, and all our Actions will be locked up in repairs in one form or another.
That's part of the issue. Other than Flubber deciding to tempt me to ritually sacrifice my copy of the movie, this Turn was pretty alright. Sure, Jumba probably destroyed the strange object, but we've had worse. Relief that nothing went too horribly wrong should not be the general sentiment when a decent Turn happens. Now, this will probably go down as one of the worst Turns in the Quest, and we'll likely be feeling the effects for at least 2 Turns, possibly the whole Quest. One bad roll, and boom, terrible Turn.
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If anything I think we are playing it too safe. I am too getting tired of constant damage control, but I am not convinced that we simply must to play defensively. We can secretly leak info on Havaii to public, blow alien masquerade and rehabilitate Flubber, damn consequences, any alien invasion would be government problem not ours. Or go all in on prison break, rescue multiple characters and form black ops team with them. But no, we only considering cajoling to the government as answer, not surprising that people don't enjoy it.
Mojave
BWAAAH
- Pronouns
- He
I'm also frustrated by the apparent miscommunication that led up to this and would welcome any kind of volatile response to it.
I very much want to get Ludivine back, but yeah next turn were getting rid of all the Flubber Research.
We are so getting rid of all the Flubber Research.
Wait who is getting put on Council to Replace her in the meantime? Alan, Wasabi, or Lizzy (I don't think sticking Technor and Jumba on council is a great idea at this time).
EDIT: Reading through the backlog, Janus swapped to Learning and Wasabi on Stewardship seems good.
We are so getting rid of all the Flubber Research.
Wait who is getting put on Council to Replace her in the meantime? Alan, Wasabi, or Lizzy (I don't think sticking Technor and Jumba on council is a great idea at this time).
EDIT: Reading through the backlog, Janus swapped to Learning and Wasabi on Stewardship seems good.
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Councilors get access to all tier 3 secrets, right? I wonder how much that can affect the decision. In theory it shouldn't be a problem, since the biggest candidates are either trusted or known to be good and honest folks, but still.
I can't deny that I'm inclined to get Alan in learning, if for no other reason than keeping the man away from ever touching dice.
I can't deny that I'm inclined to get Alan in learning, if for no other reason than keeping the man away from ever touching dice.
- Location
- Two hours away
- Pronouns
- He/Him
… I went to bed looking forward to a Goob debate.
Okay. Time for Robot Flubber Island.
Oh shit the Moratorium has opened right?
[X] Have Tobe take him to the time authorities.
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- Location
- Two hours away
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes, but nobody cares anymore.
- Location
- USA
I want to hold off, we had some ideas for write in options that we haven't gotten word back on yet.
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
[X] Let him stay in the boiler room
The man hasn't caused much trouble… yet. No one really likes him, but you can relate to that, and the nemesis thing. Let him stay where he is.
So he's Goofy's replacement as Janitor, I guess?
The man hasn't caused much trouble… yet. No one really likes him, but you can relate to that, and the nemesis thing. Let him stay where he is.
So he's Goofy's replacement as Janitor, I guess?
- Location
- The Hub
[X] Tell Tobe to take him to the time authorities.
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