A Splinter in Your Mind - Matrix Quest

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◉ CODA ◉​

Alice Lovelace
​
Resolve
3/3​
Detachment
2​
Skill
6​
Gear
6/10​

Paths​
Path of Resistance
Level 1
When you Fight.exe.
When you gratuitously blow something up as an act of resistance.
The first time in a session you tell an authority to go fuck itself.
XP: ◉◉◉◉◎
You may spend Resistance XP to add or subtract Harm you give or take, 1-1.​
Path of Truth
Level 1
When you Prompt.exe.
When you follow your curiosity in a way that doesn't advance the mission.
The first time in a session you discover something new about the Matrix.
XP: ◉◉◉◎◎
You may spend Truth XP to reroll dice when you Charge or Refresh, 1-1d6.​
Path of Enlightenment
Level 1
When you Disconnect.exe.
When you refuse to back down or run away from impossible odds.
The first time you run out of Resolve in a session.
XP: ◉◉◎◎◎
You may spend Enlightenment XP as if they were Detachment, 1-1.​
Moves
Beginning to Believe: You gain +1 Detachment the first time you Charge.
Stop Trying to Hit Me: You take -1 Harm when on the Defensive in Fights.
Mine Now: Spend a Full Hit in Fight to disarm an enemy of their weapon. If you then shoot them with it, take +1.
Try Again: When you attempt a Disconnect you failed before and have not yet succeeded at, you may input one 6 as a True Hit.
Bit of Help: When you spend Detachment on any move other than Disconnect, you get two +1s. They can be applied to the same die or different ones.

Stunts
Jump Impossible Distances Lvl 2*
Hit with Implausible Force Lvl 1
Dodge Implausible Ways Lvl 1
Act with Implausible Slight of Hand Lvl 1

​


CW: Very 90s.

Also, this is going to be a seriously fucked up quest. I'm going to be doing my damndest to channel an appropriately edgy, teen-rage vibe. Expect violence, drugs, sex, etc.

There's also going to be some Pretty Uncomfortable Dysphoria-ing, trans readers be warned.​
 
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open_sketch said:
1. No. if you fail to put up any defense, even a weak one, you opponent punches your torso off.
2. Yep! In fact it's a very good idea. Healing comes quick and easy.
3. Yes. there might be abilities that let you put in more you can unlock.
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Gotcha, ty. Why do we have to spend a 6 in defence, though? If we're dealing with 2 threats, couldn't we, for instance, input our two 3s +Twitch and make that two partial successes, which would block one threat each?
 
antigravitas said:
Gotcha, ty. Why do we have to spend a 6 in defence, though? If we're dealing with 2 threats, couldn't we, for instance, input our two 3s +Twitch and make that two partial successes, which would block one threat each?
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you can, that example was for if you wanna use your cool ability with excess blocks!
 
open_sketch said:
you can, that example was for if you wanna use your cool ability with excess blocks!
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If we used our 3, 3, and 4 on the defence, wouldn't that also give us one excess Block?

Then we'd have a 6 left to spend on the roll for actually shooting them with their own weapon, which we will need to even get a partial.

(We could also throw our 1 into the offence, just to get rid of it - there is no cost to doing so and we don't want it sitting around.)
 
Admiral Skippy said:
If we used our 3, 3, and 4 on the defence, wouldn't that also give us one excess Block?

Then we'd have a 6 left to spend on the roll for actually shooting them with their own weapon, which we will need to even get a partial.

(We could also throw our 1 into the offence, just to get rid of it - there is no cost to doing so and we don't want it sitting around.)
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You know what, I hadn't originally thought you should be able to spend more dice in blocks then Threat, but actually that's way better yes!
 
[X] Use our 3, 3, and 4 for three blocks, spend the excess block to activate Mine Now and steal their bears, then the 6 and 1 on the counter-attack and a failed attack respectively.
 
Cool!

[X] Continue suckering them in by throwing some very weak jabs. (Spend our 1 on Offence.)
-[X] Keep playing for distance and parrying, leading them on. (Spend our 3, 4, and 4 on Defence.)
-[X] Activate Quick Turnabout with our excess block, take their weapon, and spend our 6 on using it on them with a +1 bonus.
-[X] Charge.
 
open_sketch said:
you can, that example was for if you wanna use your cool ability with excess blocks!
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Understood. In that case, since it seems this lupine lady has no weapon we can steal:

[X] Spend both threes +Twitch to block her attacks; then hit her with the four and get rid of a one to knock her back with 1 Harm and get her on the defence; THEN spend the six to whip out a sawn-off shotgun (2 Gear), activate TROUBLESHOOT.exe, and blast her with 5 goddamn Harm, which in theory should kill her.
Then make a quip (idk what, open to suggestions). Then auto-refresh. Then get upstairs.

(Is this allowed? Hope I'm getting the interplay between Fight and Troubleshoot right!)

EDIT: If spending the one as an offensive miss would compromise our ability to get her on the back foot and create space to shoot her, we could just keep that and manually refresh the other five dice!
 
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[X] Continue suckering them in by throwing some very weak jabs. (Spend our 1 on Offence.)
-[X] Keep playing for distance and parrying, leading them on. (Spend our 3, 4, and 4 on Defence.)
-[X] Activate Quick Turnabout with our excess block, take their weapon, and spend our 6 on using it on them with a +1 bonus.
-[X] Charge.
 
antigravitas said:
[X] Spend both threes +Twitch to block her attacks; then hit her with the four and get rid of a one to knock her back with 1 Harm and get her on the defence; THEN spend the six to whip out a sawn-off shotgun (2 Gear) and blast her with 5 goddamn Harm, which in theory should kill her.
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I think this should work. Because of the -1 to our attacks, the 6 gives us a partial success on attack for +1 Harm, and the sawn-off gives +5 Harm on top of that. So that should be a total of +6 Harm... I can't find where it says how much Harm enemies (or Alice) can take. But that's probably more than enough.

That said, the 4 and the 1 are both going to be failures on attack, but we want to use up all our dice anyways so we gain an Advancement. Also, the way the vote tally works is it picks up only stuff on the line with the brackets [] so your last line wouldn't get counted. I think maybe the following works?

[X] Spend both threes to block her attacks; then try to hit her with the four and the one to get her on the defence; THEN spend the six to whip out a sawn-off shotgun (2 Gear) and blast her with 6 goddamn Harm, which in theory should kill her. Try to say a cool quip, fail, then refresh and get yourself and Lexi upstairs.
 
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Derpmind said:
So that should be a total of +6 Harm... I can't find where it says how much Harm enemies (or Alice) can take. But that's probably more than enough.
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Worth clarifying, I am getting "six harm" from the Artificial World RPG book, which says most programs as well as redpill player characters die at 6 harm. It's possible that is outdated or not applicable in this quest thread!
 
antigravitas said:
Worth clarifying, I am getting "six harm" from the Artificial World RPG book, which says most programs as well as redpill player characters die at 6 harm. It's possible that is outdated or not applicable in this quest thread!
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2017, huh. Thanks for linking that, I'll have to look at that later I guess. Uh, I edited my previous post like six times trying to get it right, if you missed any of that.
 
I like it.

[X] Spend both threes +Twitch to block her attacks; then hit her with the four and get rid of a one to knock her back with 1 Harm and get her on the defence; THEN spend the six to whip out a sawn-off shotgun (2 Gear) and blast her with 5 goddamn Harm, which in theory should kill her.
 
antigravitas said:
Worth clarifying, I am getting "six harm" from the Artificial World RPG book, which says most programs as well as redpill player characters die at 6 harm. It's possible that is outdated or not applicable in this quest thread!
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Yep, this is still in effect, with the caveat that most people don't usually fight to the death if they are losing.
 
[X] Use our 3, 3, and 4 for three blocks, spend the excess block to activate Mine Now and steal their bears, then the 6 and 1 on the counter-attack and a failed attack respectively.
I hadn't considered that all our attacks are at -1, that's rough
Also not that it matters here but I'm assuming the +1 from Mine Now is on top of the -1 from Cool?
 
Actually, could we use a 1 and the 3s on defense, taking 1 Harm and having an "excess" block for our ability?
I know the 4 doesn't do damage here but to my understanding it would cause the aim I of our attack dice to be greater, stopping the enemy from seizing initiative
 
Oh wait, shit, I forgot our -1 is to Cool, not Force! So that six isn't actually a full success in Troubleshoot, which makes the value of spending 2 Gear on it potentially dubious.
I thought it would be good to get her out of the way fast and get her upstairs, but if it won't actually take her out, I wonder if that's wise...

(Also, wasn't "steal their bears" just a joke? Unless I'm missing something, I can't see that wulfgirl has any weapons we can do Mine Now with)
 
antigravitas said:
(Also, wasn't "steal their bears" just a joke? Unless I'm missing something, I can't see that wulfgirl has any weapons we can do Mine Now with)
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While we probably can't rip her arms off if we pretzel her up in such a way that she ends up clawing herself we do still at least get some damage out of it, and I'm hoping that's a tolerable bend of the ability
 
I feel like we're perhaps making this more complicated than it needs to be.

Tetra said:
I hadn't considered that all our attacks are at -1, that's rough
Also not that it matters here but I'm assuming the +1 from Mine Now is on top of the -1 from Cool?
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The +1 from Mine Now cancels out our -1 to Cool, by my reading, so our six is still a six and should generate a full success. (What that means in this context is up for debate, but presumably something good.)
 
antigravitas said:
Oh wait, shit, I forgot our -1 is to Cool, not Force! So that six isn't actually a full success in Troubleshoot, which makes the value of spending 2 Gear on it potentially dubious.
I thought it would be good to get her out of the way fast and get her upstairs, but if it won't actually take her out, I wonder if that's wise...

(Also, wasn't "steal their bears" just a joke? Unless I'm missing something, I can't see that wulfgirl has any weapons we can do Mine Now with)
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A partial hit still does damage. I'm not sure how that interacts with firearms, but I'm hoping it's a stacking total? +1 Harm from that partial hit and +5 from the sawn-off?

Also, I was joking with the earlier vote. If our opponent doesn't have a weapon, I don't see how we're able to use the move.
open_sketch said:
Offensive partials inflict 1 Harm, Fulls inflict 2 Harm.
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