EDIT: Really more wordplay than pun. That's what I get for rushing it.
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Age of Strife
EDIT: Really more wordplay than pun. That's what I get for rushing it.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That was...well, I mostly agree with Alratan here. Incredibly OOC and there's no reasonable way this isn't a bad end. It isn't, of course, but that's because the QM's not going to just write a 'gets taken down by the mods' scene of her body lying there being tortured and then murdered while she's unconscious, which is what would actually happen because anyone watching this would be damned if they wanted to give her even a .0001 percent chance of resisting while awake.
Or they do it anyways and thus they torture us and AN has to censor literally horrific violation with a high chance of us dying.
I have no idea what I'd do as an update to this, were I QM. I'd sorta stare at the page for a while and then start looking up the logistics of going back to Dia. Or use the magic of retcon.
I suppose he could hand all of Mirande's enemies the same ball he handed her and that'd give her a very high chance of getting away.
Like, I dunno, the captor turns out to be a brother of one of the mutants and so even though he has the Coward Trait and a very low Martial and etc, he decides to fight her one-on-one solo in order to prove/redeem his brother?
Or they do it anyways and thus they torture us and AN has to censor literally horrific violation with a high chance of us dying.
I have no idea what I'd do as an update to this, were I QM. I'd sorta stare at the page for a while and then start looking up the logistics of going back to Dia. Or use the magic of retcon.
I suppose he could hand all of Mirande's enemies the same ball he handed her and that'd give her a very high chance of getting away.
Like, I dunno, the captor turns out to be a brother of one of the mutants and so even though he has the Coward Trait and a very low Martial and etc, he decides to fight her one-on-one solo in order to prove/redeem his brother?
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I'm not actually sure that the bad end is 100% guaranteed in this scenario, no. We're unusual enough that we might be taken for interrogation at the hands of one of the leadership types. And to get answers they need us conscious. And if they make the mistake of thinking we're just some local mutant warrior whatever... well, there's a chance we'll get a window. WH40K has a lot of different media and a lot of different narrative conventions. A James Bond moment isn't out of the question.
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- They/Them
They just watched us solo three mutants. And we look nothing like a mutant warrior particularly. I'm saying that yes, if you go with stupid James Bond conventions and hand everyone idiot balls, then yes, there's a chance we could survive.
I'm saying that realistically, no there isn't. They'd kill us and take our sword as a trophy.
The fact that you call it a "James Bond moment" is telling, considering one of the narrative conventions of James Bond movies is that the villains are IDIOTS when it comes to dealing with the hero. IRL, someone would just shoot Bond in the back of the head, and that would be the end of, like, the first movie. Instead there are silly-elaborate death-traps.
So that falls under my, "Well, she could be challenged to a one-on-one fight by her cowardly captor and he could be all 'come at me sis'" level of 'I'm just reaching and making up something that works'
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It was also noted that the supervisor is relatively uncompromised by the biomancer. He might decide to jump ship or something.
They just watched us solo three mutants. And we look nothing like a mutant warrior particularly. I'm saying that yes, if you go with stupid James Bond conventions and hand everyone idiot balls, then yes, there's a chance we could survive.
I'm saying that realistically, no there isn't. They'd kill us and take our sword as a trophy.
The fact that you call it a "James Bond moment" is telling, considering one of the narrative conventions of James Bond movies is that the villains are IDIOTS when it comes to dealing with the hero. IRL, someone would just shoot Bond in the back of the head, and that would be the end of, like, the first movie. Instead there are silly-elaborate death-traps.
So that falls under my, "Well, she could be challenged to a one-on-one fight by her cowardly captor and he could be all 'come at me sis'" level of 'I'm just reaching and making up something that works'
I mean Mirande did something that doesn't make 100% sense, and these guys aren't the most sane themselves. I don't see it as being so far out of the blue to destroy suspension of disbelief. That's just me. Please don't make statements as if they apply to everyone's threshold for narrative rigor.
There is at very least really important information to be gleaned from her while they have her captive. They presumably have no idea where she came from, if there are more like her... and she VISIBLY had a mutation. They'll want answers to these questions. If they think that she's been sufficiently injured and restrained, I don't see where the value is for them in killing her outright. If they decide to cut off a leg or something, that'll suck but it's something we can likely overcome with a medical car, for example.
Once we are immobilized the enemy should feel pretty comfortable and we could spawn some psy mindwar if only we had any kind of psy offensive ability, which we do not. Or Sorcercy and summon fucking daemons.
Of course i we had two soldiers, one specialized in infiltration as well.
Yes I will not stop berating people for their stupidity in wanting to pick 'guides'.
Of course i we had two soldiers, one specialized in infiltration as well.
Yes I will not stop berating people for their stupidity in wanting to pick 'guides'.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
What if it's worse(better) than all of you are thinking? What if, because this biomancer is the Deldar's pet, and these guys are probably with him, they go for the Darth Vader route of attempting to corrupt Mirande rather than have her killed. It's more fun for the Deldar, potentially grants Slaanesh a monstrous psyker, and still ultimately allows the crazed mutant ritualists to do at least some of their crazy torture, so all of them are happy. Because it's hard to mentally corrupt someone who's not currently conscious, they kind of have to wake her up, which is the only way we can get out of it.
And while I agree that everyone made a really poor decision not taking Sam, we do still have Angie, the gun-happy assault specialist, and we aren't maintaining radio contact. That's likely enough to get her rolling on trying to make a personal mission out of finding us, and opens up plenty more points of GM fuckery like 'she left the train and the experts couldn't defend it' or 'she got to us but what she saw on the way fucked her up pretty good and she needs our help as much as we need hers to get out'.
There's plenty of ways to make this not a bad end without destroying SoD, and even without outright killing Mirande for what amounted to a series of unbelievably poor die rolls(though I do think AN has every right to kill her, because it was a player voted decision to only have one competent infiltrator and then go with infiltration options).
And while I agree that everyone made a really poor decision not taking Sam, we do still have Angie, the gun-happy assault specialist, and we aren't maintaining radio contact. That's likely enough to get her rolling on trying to make a personal mission out of finding us, and opens up plenty more points of GM fuckery like 'she left the train and the experts couldn't defend it' or 'she got to us but what she saw on the way fucked her up pretty good and she needs our help as much as we need hers to get out'.
There's plenty of ways to make this not a bad end without destroying SoD, and even without outright killing Mirande for what amounted to a series of unbelievably poor die rolls(though I do think AN has every right to kill her, because it was a player voted decision to only have one competent infiltrator and then go with infiltration options).
The only way we get out of this in one piece and unmarked is by trying to summon a Bloodletter somehow while being tied up.
We can play a bit on Khornes honor and have it kill our captors or they did not defeat us but scavenged on the victors of a battlefield.
It may be a bit of a stretch but true.
It will also end it pretty fast.
We can play a bit on Khornes honor and have it kill our captors or they did not defeat us but scavenged on the victors of a battlefield.
It may be a bit of a stretch but true.
It will also end it pretty fast.
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The dice rolls weren't unbelievably poor. This wasn't that unlikely to happen, frankly. Our enemies critting is a relatively predictable thing that will happen. We make lots of opposed rolls, and some of them they're going to roll a hundred for.
On any particular roll it's unlikely, but over time it approaches certainly that it will.
On any particular roll it's unlikely, but over time it approaches certainly that it will.
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I was surprised we did not stay conscious. Above 60 should have been enough.
And would have solved all problems the Academia said to have now.
But then I would not be feeling this joyously vindicated in a most spiteful and full of hatred way.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
we had to roll two consecutive failures, one of which had critically enhanced effectiveness, to even bring out the pass out roll on us. If it was two significant failures, we could have gotten out fine, and two significant failures isn't even that unbelievable, but we had a significant failure, and a massive critical-powered failure.
Considering we had an approx. 0.6 chance to at least hit on both failures, the chances of what happened to us were in the realm of less than 10%, and that's of course, assuming that the 'massive failure' wasn't empowered on damage by being a natural 100. If we also factor in that, were the second failure not a natural 100, we wouldn't have passed out with our roll, then there is less than a 1% chance that we should have went down here.
That is proof enough that our dice were total crap.
Considering we had an approx. 0.6 chance to at least hit on both failures, the chances of what happened to us were in the realm of less than 10%, and that's of course, assuming that the 'massive failure' wasn't empowered on damage by being a natural 100. If we also factor in that, were the second failure not a natural 100, we wouldn't have passed out with our roll, then there is less than a 1% chance that we should have went down here.
That is proof enough that our dice were total crap.
Enough dice are rolled that eventually this is going to happen. It's inevitable if we take risks like this.
If we keep doing things that have a 1% chance of catastrophe, then over time it becomes very likely that you'll fail one. In this update the chance of the enemy getting a crit was significantly higher than that, something like 5%.
That's the thing about repeated trials. The chance of catastrophic failure needs to be very low for it not to become a virtual certainty.
If we keep doing things that have a 1% chance of catastrophe, then over time it becomes very likely that you'll fail one. In this update the chance of the enemy getting a crit was significantly higher than that, something like 5%.
That's the thing about repeated trials. The chance of catastrophic failure needs to be very low for it not to become a virtual certainty.
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Hm. Would shooting 2 and stabbing the 3rd with our sword have been okay in terms of info-gaining?
The one thing I do not understand is why Mutant 3 gets a +62 bonus on the second pass?
He looses it afterwards.
And without it the 100 looses a bit of the bite considering that it becomes a two point difference in the end result, making it a bare failure instead of a massive failure.
He looses it afterwards.
And without it the 100 looses a bit of the bite considering that it becomes a two point difference in the end result, making it a bare failure instead of a massive failure.
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The second die from the critical.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
Now you're making no sense whatsoever. We have to roll dice every single turn anyway. Of course we're going to hit a statistical low point eventually, even if we never take a risk once during the entire quest. Your argument literally means nothing.
Grapple bonus. He's likely better designed for it than we are by nature of his mutations.
It was the supervisor we wanted to keep alive, not any of the mutants. For some reason Mirande thought he'd be certain of getting away if she sniped the mutants.
Wish our Precog could have pinged us for "Yo, this fight would go real badly". 
Oh well, shit happens.
Oh well, shit happens.Um. To clarify, is your argument here "he's not going to write a bad-end because a bad-end is too horrific to fly on SV's board rules"? Because the solution to that is simple; he doesn't write out gratuitously horrible things and just leaves it to the imagination or whatever?
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- He/Him
We would still have had to make a martial roll if we engaged by shooting them.
No, it's an argument that you avoid situations where the consequences of failure are as catacylsmically bad as this.
Yes, you'll roll badly one day, but if we'd, for example, been sniping them from a mile away the consequences of failing would be wasting a couple of rounds of ammo, not being captured by people who are fond of inflicting a fate very much worse than death.
Not all failures are created equal. The context they happen in matters
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Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
You're still not making a good argument. You cannot possibly avoid every bad situation, and by avoiding danger here, we risked adding danger later when a stronger enemy could have gotten the drop on us. This would not be a quest that required any sort of decision making if we could actually choose the easy option 100% of the time without getting punished for it.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Wish our Precog could have pinged us for "Yo, this fight would go real badly".
Um. To clarify, is your argument here "he's not going to write a bad-end because a bad-end is too horrific to fly on SV's board rules"? Because the solution to that is simple; he doesn't write out gratuitously horrible things and just leaves it to the imagination or whatever?
No, my argument is more that narratively that sort of thing wouldn't fly. And it also would be horrific, pointless, and he'd have to do imagination-leaving. But that it's mostly narratively.
Except we didn't actually make an option. Instead Mirande looked at her Pistol (which she had in addition to the sword so she totally could have at least taken a few potshots from a distance before going at them with her sword), and was like, "Shotting stuff's fer sissies, praise Khorne!"
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We don't have to avoid every bad situation, we can't. What we can do is avoid doing things where if it doesn't work out the consequences are quite so utterly horrific.
We didn't need to get this guys' information like this. We could simply have been patient and tracked them back to the rest of their group after calling for backup. Whatever would have happened, in pretty much the best case our cover would have been blown, as the Biomancer would have eventually noticed that some of his forces didn't come back.
There's also a false dichotomy being created. This was an unnecessary fight in the first place that we took on solo for no good reason. We voted against going in loud. Instead we decided to be subtle and infiltrate and gather information the quiet way. Instead we pulled a Leroy Jenkins on a superior number of superhuman opponents. There's always danger in entering melee. We know that. We made a greater daemon of Khorne learn that fact the hard way.
She could also have found a roof that overlooked them, shot the supervisor in the foot with her pistol, then started shooting the mutants with the AM Rifle.
Even with high quality modern day pistols, there are shooting competitions with up to 1000 yard ranges, and we have a future tech super-pistol and precognition.
Why she didn't start shooting at the mutants the second she came around the corner I don't know.
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