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Bound to Earth: A CK2 Earthbound Quest in an 8-bit Dystopia

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[X] Criminal
if a corp would just end up selling sporting goods and an archaic whatever would end up weird and obsolete(it's hard to predict, idk), then Criminal seems the way to go because the bulk of options from there seem fun :)

just hopefully we don't need to advertise this to the police and get beaten up, haha
even if it's not *our* best stat I think it'd be cool and successful to have an intrigue focus if we're doing a shadow war? espionage and *counter* espionage focus to weaken/restrict Giygas until we can directly overpower a specific enemy asset we're up against? could be an effective plan of attack so long as events don't force us to take desperate action

shell organisations are also fun! do all of you think it'd be harder for a criminal organisation to have legal assets or a corp to have illegal assets? i'm excited to see what the options for faction building are going to be after this
 
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[X] Criminal
I have seen some very convincing reasons to pick the others but, I'm sorry Criminal is what calls to me. Especially since one of our first set of enemies is The Police
 
griffinlw said:
First LAD/Yakuza game was on the PS2, so it's one generation too new. Which makes me sad. No Kazuma Kiryu for us... Not that he'd be particularly likely to help us out to be honest. He's the kind of person who'd tell us to go home.

Incidentally you have no idea how mad I was when I realized that Sly Cooper wasn't on the table (first game was PS2 era) I might still put The Gang in an Omake because I love them, but they're technically one generation too new

As for structure, personally, I lean toward Criminal just because I think it fits our vibe, and despite the negative starting rep, there's nothing saying we can't build it up later
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Fun fact about that. Yakuza and the Tojo Clan were initially part of the X-Syndicate in earlier versions of 8BDD as the primary Yakuza (the organization, not the series itself) representation in the Syndicate.

They have since been replaced/absorbed into the Rokkaku Group as the primary Yakuza representation, but they are still technically part of the setting in the form of a small reference; the description of the Rokkaku Group specifically mentions the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance as being two of the Yakuza groups that would go on to become integrated within the Rokkaku Group.

While I am on that topic, another potential criminal group we could make is something like the Rudie gangs in Jet Set Radio: Gangs of dissatisfied youth that express themselves through street art and the vandalization of public property. Sounds like something up CD's alley, wonder if she knows how to skate.
 
Brightflame said:
Gangs of dissatisfied youth that express themselves through street art and the vandalization of public property.
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rudie stuff is in-line with what the sharks are doing right now right? that's pretty cool, though i reckon most people interested in doing that would probably already be in that gang, and we don't really have the appeal needed to poach members yet. (do note: this isn't actually a reason to restrict the actions we take because that would be awkward, just want to bring up the current situation of relevant factions in the area and how they'll impact stuff)

the point I actually wanted to make is how i bet there's quite a few normal people who've been harassed by gangs like the sharks who might be amenable to recruitment (and by nature, if they hate the sharks they probably aren't already members). might make diplomacy harder, but could be a good place to look
 
[X] Criminal

I think this fits best not only with C.D's stats,but her personality up to this point. I could be convinced to switch to Archaic,but so far there hasn't really been a strong plan or option for what it would look like under C.D. Maybe if it was something meant to represent the ideals of old earth as a way to incite hope..I don't know.

Corpo is a definite no for me. Not only does it not fit either C.D's personality or her strengths,but I don't care for the uphill battle of having to compete against THREE well established Megacorps. Maybe if we were playing an entire different MC with decent to good diplo and/or stewardship,but we're playing as C.D.
 
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Could it be possible to set up a bogus "youth sports league" as a front organizatIon to justify having young people wielding secretly weaponized sports equipment?
 
I feel like criminal is gonna oblige us to do crimes, and I feel like, honestly, we are too moral to actually do any particularly severe crimes. Like, I don't want to be evil, and I feel like if we went criminal, we'd end up being a completely crime free criminal. Plus, our PR's terrible and I feel like this will make it worse, not better.
[X] Corporate
@Crosswire Actually, question: How much does being a criminal, oblige us to actually, ya know, do crime? Because, to be honest, I feel like most people choosing it are more into the freedom fighter Robin Hood angle then most of what...Ya know, actual crime entials (IE theft, robbery, smuggling, blackmail, racketeering, black marketeering, murder)...
 
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woweed said:
Because, to be honest, I feel like most people choosing it are more into the freedom fighter Robin Hood angle then most of what...Ya know, actual crime entials (IE theft, robbery, smuggling, blackmail, racketeering, black marketeering, murder)...
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I feel obligated to point that like 70% of those are crimes that Robin Hood committed.

Stealing is still legally a crime even if the people you steal from have more money than you will ever see.
 
LunarDreams said:
Archaic,but so far there hasn't really been a strong plan or option for what it would look like under C.D
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seems like the problem with picking an archaic organisation is not being able to anticipate the specifics of how it'd be structured. there's been some ideas but most of them can also fit as a corp or a gang instead, so safer to go with those two?
I don't care for the uphill battle of having to compete against THREE well established Megacorps
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I will say that regardless of whether we build a corp or another faction type the big three are probably going to be the same level of obstacle? it's not like they take up everything in the world, eagle quarter is pretty free of them so probably shouldn't be a major obstacle to founding a corp, and at the same time they won't be ignoring us if we start disrupting their operations so being a different organisation type doesn't mean they're not relevant

OldGlory76 said:
Could it be possible to set up a bogus "youth sports league" as a front organizatIon to justify having young people wielding secretly weaponized sports equipment?
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solid chance that's possible, unsure if it's worth resources or not though. you could also just hide the weapons after all

woweed said:
oblige us to do crimes
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i'm not crosswire so can't say for sure, but iirc organisations that are perfectly moral but don't fit into the status quo already count as criminal orgs so we probably have the option to be them don't worry. that said, we've *already* been doing crimes in-game lol.

woweed said:
Plus, our PR's terrible and I feel like this will make it worse, not better.
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on the topic of our bad rep, it's a pain but this means the problems we have are more centralised and hopefully easier to work around, at least? it shouldn't impact relations with *everyone* we talk to because other criminals and the like hopefully wouldn't care as much, and hopefully people positively impacted by us would acknowledge that?
at the very least if people are spreading negative PR/smear campaigns, we can always try to break their legs (and it might even be effective)
 
OldGlory76 said:
Could it be possible to set up a bogus "youth sports league" as a front organizatIon to justify having young people wielding secretly weaponized sports equipment?
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I believe this was asked a while back, but yes!

woweed said:
Actually, question: How much does being a criminal, oblige us to actually, ya know, do crime?
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'Criminal' Factions cover groups that fall out of the legal and societal norms of The City. They encompass groups from Robinhood-types to, to street gangs, to "CRASHING THIS PLANE WITH NO SURVIVORS" terrorists.

The faction type chosen colors the perception of the group, effects the expectations of those who join up, and other things.

But it doesn't lock you into any specific type of action.

Just because you choose to make a 'Criminal' faction doesn't mean all your choices from now on become "blow crack smoke into babies faces" or "burn down orphanage for insurance fraud".
 
I've slept on it (-ish) and from a Watsonian perspective, corporate is right out. Then Doylist-wise, pretty much the only advantage Archaic has going for it is that it doesn't start with other factions perceiving it as criminal (archaic brings to mind The King That Is Promised and the Mage of Flowers), but -

But I go back to the Watsonian perspective again. Cass is an angry teenager in a world where her authority figures have failed her. So far, only she and her (I hesitate to use the word 'friends') allies have accomplished something, at least in her eyes. And more than that, if someone runs out of money, stealing is a crime. I think that's enough to call our faction 'criminal', that we would do the right thing ethically than legally.

(From a Doylist perspective, this would fit the genre conventions as well.)

Cass has way too many jagged edges to fit into a tidy little box, but 'criminal' is the one where she fits the best. And honestly? I think we definitely need ne'er-do-wells to even get out of the starting town alive.

[X] Criminal
 
True, a Criminal organization might have access to all the cool and flashy crimes that you commit with explosive and a bat, but don't let that fool you! Corporate has it's own cool crimes to boast of. Why, just think of all the tax evasion and wage theft C.D. can engage in once our corp gets big!

... No takers?
 
Omegahugger said:
True, a Criminal organization might have access to all the cool and flashy crimes that you commit with explosive and a bat, but don't let that fool you! Corporate has it's own cool crimes to boast of. Why, just think of all the tax evasion and wage theft C.D. can engage in once our corp gets big!

... No takers?
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Quite a few takers, actually!
Specifically, people interested in taking. From, preferably, the rich. And the hospital we just stole from.
 
You know, I would normally feel bad about stealing from a hospital, but it's a parody of the American medical industry, so I think stealing from it is actually a moral imperative.
 
that hospital robbery was a whole thing and an excuse to analyse it sounds fun :)
responding to the above three messages:
it's kind of an easy hate-sink because not many people like overpriced healthcare. now obviously financial crimes are unethical, but since industries like that are also doing it becomes way less edgy to stoop to their level. saying stuff like this definitely feels like it'd get you put on a watchlist, what it seems like though is there's far less nuance here since it's a simplified fictional scenario? so it's fine, i hope.
regardless, they're an opportune target at this stage in the game and a great opportunity to do fun stuff with, like corp stuff we might otherwise miss

in terms of direct effects of them being robbed:
I think usually stealing from them would typically cause problems, but hopefully they'll have what they need for the bulk of services regardless (this is obviously a good thing so people don't suffer, though if we're competing with them for business it becomes less so :/).

if we stole research-esque equipment then that shouldn't harm them short term and we probably need it more, so probably the only direct harm we can be held morally accountable to is if someone needs a cancer screening or something and we took the only MRI machine (but why would we have taken that? would definitely be a bit out there since they're so huge and probably not useful to us)

in terms of likely consequences of it,
I bet the hospital will end up using the robbery as an excuse to squeeze more money out of people/try and claim kickbacks, which would suck but might make people like them even less? could also lead to a stronger police presence which could cause problems if we want to screw with them more. (in that case actions to force the police to acknowledge shady dealings might help?)

warring against the local hospital industry is something i've been campaigning for for *various* reasons, and hopefully we can keep doing it.
now obviously ESP-based alternatives would be one way of doing this, and while it'd be a pain it'd probably also benefit us in a bunch of ways. something smaller in scale like that could probably be set up as a front-facing asset and due to its lack of size, the instability of needing support-type espers isn't as big of an issue?
 
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One thing to note is that with the start of an Organization, all that Assorted Lab Equipment would definitely kick start our research right off the bat especially if we can find a good Learning Hero that know what to do with it.
 
So, here's a dangerous question: should we see if Porky can develop PSI powers now that we have a potential avenue to do so?

Because yes, Porky is evil, and in canon becomes one of history's greatest monsters.

But. We're not in canon, this is wildly uncharted territory. We need all the help we can get, because we're fighting evil of every stripe.
 
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