- Location
- OK
Keep in mind folks, the [Home] Options represent Taylor escalating far more than she normally would out of fear. None of these are without downsides like a defensive [project] action might be.
Combinatorial Explosion (Worm/Original)
- Thread starter Shadestyle
- Start date
- Pronouns
- He
Hmmm...Fear can be a powerful motivator, but maybe we should step back and calm down.
They wont attack again so soon, and we can be a bit more subtle with camera placement and defenses if we aren't having a freakout
They wont attack again so soon, and we can be a bit more subtle with camera placement and defenses if we aren't having a freakout
- Location
- Internet, The
Okay, Taylor's identity has already been leaked to at least two groups we know of. I think we may want to revise our stance on the PRT. If everyone and their grandma can just know Taylor is a parahuman and what she does there's no point in keeping it a secret from the government. Might at least get some money out of it…
Also, I doubt we will be able to legally sell any parahuman-made substances without PRT oversight anyway.
Regarding home protection: We need some way to include Danny in whatever magical protections we apply. Otherwise Taylor will come home one day to find him stung up by her own plants or something like that.
Also, I doubt we will be able to legally sell any parahuman-made substances without PRT oversight anyway.
Regarding home protection: We need some way to include Danny in whatever magical protections we apply. Otherwise Taylor will come home one day to find him stung up by her own plants or something like that.
I'm just reading this quest as fanfiction but pls don't shoot people's house with beams! I know Taylor doesn't know the "Unwritten Rules"™ IC but we as readers do know them OOC!
Even if you want to, at least don't trust Taylor's aim and dice rolls
[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
Even if you want to, at least don't trust Taylor's aim and dice rolls
[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
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[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
[X][Revenge] Before I leave, I fire a bolt of magic through her house, aiming it to pass her by. I can make threats too. (Void Spark)
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
As an aside, the constantly failing rolls are actually getting a bot stressful.
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
As an aside, the constantly failing rolls are actually getting a bot stressful.
[X][Revenge] Before I leave, I fire a bolt of magic through her house, aiming it to pass her by. I can make threats too. (Void Spark)
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
Time to fortify, you can't expect a rabid animal to act as a sensible person. Well, you can, but you really shouldn't.
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
Time to fortify, you can't expect a rabid animal to act as a sensible person. Well, you can, but you really shouldn't.
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- Location
- Milky Way
[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
[X][Revenge] Before I leave, I fire a bolt of magic through her house, aiming it to pass her by. I can make threats too. (Illusion Mimic)
[X][Home] No. You're safe. They know better than to attack you. You've made sure of it. (Requires [Revenge] Option A)
-[X][Home] Tell Dad what you did, as soon as you can. (Lower Trust now. Higher Trust Later)
[X][Revenge] Before I leave, I fire a bolt of magic through her house, aiming it to pass her by. I can make threats too. (Illusion Mimic)
[X][Home] No. You're safe. They know better than to attack you. You've made sure of it. (Requires [Revenge] Option A)
-[X][Home] Tell Dad what you did, as soon as you can. (Lower Trust now. Higher Trust Later)
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The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
Void Spark doesn't just cause fear guys, it opens a rift in space.
@Shadestyle, what does the world look like through the various "interprets [element]" manas?
Void Spark doesn't just cause fear guys, it opens a rift in space.
@Shadestyle, what does the world look like through the various "interprets [element]" manas?
[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
Bruh Cancer Magic. Just fire beams at people and tell them they now have cancer, that would be horrifyingly hilarious.
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
Bruh Cancer Magic. Just fire beams at people and tell them they now have cancer, that would be horrifyingly hilarious.
Dang, my ideas with phenoms and silicon both didn't pay off. Guess the best idea for working with phenoms is to have Taylor experiment if we want something specific, and the likely way to replicate materials like gold might be transmutation.
[X][Revenge] Before I leave, I fire a bolt of magic through her house, aiming it to pass her by. I can make threats too. (Illusion Mimic)
[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
Either try something harmless that won't kill someone if it misses (my idea is an image of waving our finger) or don't do anything yet. We will probably confront them in school anyways. Void spark might just make them escalate in return.
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
[X][Home] No. You're safe. They know better than to attack you. You've made sure of it. (Requires [Revenge] Option A)
-[X][Home] Tell Dad what you did, as soon as you can. (Lower Trust now. Higher Trust Later)
Whether we make defenses or not (and especially if we do), we should let Danny know.
[X][Revenge] Before I leave, I fire a bolt of magic through her house, aiming it to pass her by. I can make threats too. (Illusion Mimic)
[X][Revenge] I lower my hand, turn around, and walk home.
Either try something harmless that won't kill someone if it misses (my idea is an image of waving our finger) or don't do anything yet. We will probably confront them in school anyways. Void spark might just make them escalate in return.
[X][Home] Plant Magic: Thorns, Brambles, Thick wood and magical plants. Eyeball Plants with stronger enchantments as well. Wherever you can hide plants, you will. (Fortify your house with the magic at your disposal)
[X][Home] No. You're safe. They know better than to attack you. You've made sure of it. (Requires [Revenge] Option A)
-[X][Home] Tell Dad what you did, as soon as you can. (Lower Trust now. Higher Trust Later)
Whether we make defenses or not (and especially if we do), we should let Danny know.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
There are two possible probabilities, as I'm not sure whether it's that Taylor wins or loses ties. If she loses, it's a 19/40 chance of a good outcome each time. If she wins, it's a 21/40 chance of a good outcome. Either way, it's pretty close to a straight coin toss, with a little bit of protagonist favor for luck (I'm pretty sure she wins ties).
Sucks, but a bad run of luck happens sometimes. I recall it was much better not so long ago.
- Pronouns
- He
Question.
Can anyone think of something we really want to make out of steel?
Because I can think of an easy way to get lots of rust for Whiteforge.
We go to a scrapyard, and be like.
"Hey how much would you charge for all the rust and metal oxides here?"
What are they going to do with rust after all?
So they are like "sure" or "Eh, not much"
And we just sweep the whole junkyard with Stainless Steel mana, and then draw all the rust to us once its been stripped off.
At that point we could shove rust into a mass of whiteforge mana that we shape into whatever we want to make.
Can anyone think of something we really want to make out of steel?
Because I can think of an easy way to get lots of rust for Whiteforge.
We go to a scrapyard, and be like.
"Hey how much would you charge for all the rust and metal oxides here?"
What are they going to do with rust after all?
So they are like "sure" or "Eh, not much"
And we just sweep the whole junkyard with Stainless Steel mana, and then draw all the rust to us once its been stripped off.
At that point we could shove rust into a mass of whiteforge mana that we shape into whatever we want to make.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
I think there are degrees of success so ties probably result in net neutral outcomes and context matters. Based on Shade's previous games, for example, the "opponent" rolling high is good for crafting since your roll is skill and the opposing roll is the material, so, as long as you roll higher than it, higher material rolls means a better final product.
- Location
- OK
You're basically correct, with one key thing worth considering, which is that there are unspoken bonuses being added to Taylor's roll and opposing rolls.
The example I give in my other games is that, if you are a godlike mage, if you fail a roll to kill a peasant with a fireball, you "merely" eradicate 200 miles of land with your nuke spell, instead of obliterating the full 1000 miles.
An example relevant to this game, if Taylor tried to make a spear out of solid magic, and failed, she wouldn't fail to create a solid magic spear, it would just be a shitty mana spear.
Thus, the dice system could be described as "How well do do from "your logical worst" to "your logical best", vs the opposition's worst or best."
Like Froggy said, this technically means that during crafting, a higher opposition roll means that the material is "fighting back", and thus, will give more of a challenge and a more stunning end result on success.
The upsides of this system is that it minimizes complex mechanics and gives me more control to interpret dice results in a way that doesn't result in a worse story or gameplay. (I don't have to pass through a dumb action as a success, or a smart action as a total failure, if the context demands a worse "best possible result".
The downside of this system is that I have more control over how certain things shake out, since I'm ultimately using dice to help interpret results, rather than using dice as a hard arbiter on whether something succeeds or fails. (Players could be displeased with the results if the dice appear to support actions I don't think should shake out as-written.)
Voting is now closed! Beginning update.
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Chapter 9.3
- Location
- OK
Emma laughs at something funny she sees on the internet trawling around with something to do.
"Ahh, cats. What would the internet do without you?" she muses to herself.
An eyebrow rises when she notices a notification for her instant-messenger program.
"This late? Geeze," she mutters, opening up the program and seeing what the deal was.
As she read the message that was sent to her by "PlausibleDeniabolical", she feels a bit of a chill in the room.
"Don't go to school tomorrow. The bitch was outside your house. Started towards mine before I took a potshot. Aimed at your room but got spooked and fled."
Emma knew the handle all too well, it was the one she and Sophia had come up with for when she was talking about stuff in-costume.
"What did you do," she sent back, waiting for an answer. When Sophia said she would "take care of it", Emma was concerned a bit, considering her friend's hastiness when it came to her cape activities.
"Not here. In person." Sophia sent back in lieu of an answer.
It must have been bad if she wasn't even willing to elaborate vaguely on it. Emma wasn't really concerned about Taylor, though. She was far too pitiful to actually go through with anything, even if she did have powers.
"Tonight?" Emma responded.
"Tomorrow," Sophia responded. That must have been why Emma was warned not to go to school.
Emma let out a disappointed sigh. Sophia was strong, there was no doubt about that, but she was just so damn hasty. It was a good part of why their dynamic worked so well in the first place, and Sophia knew it. Emma was the closest thing she had to a planner, someone who could keep her from going out half-cocked.
It was Emma who suggested zipties, for example, since Sophia had been spending too much money on bolts and just using those to pin gangsters down. A total waste of ammo considering how many she went through in a night.
'Hopefully, she didn't screw the pooch too badly with putting Taylor back in her place,' Emma thought, deleting all the messages from "PlausibleDeniabolical"
Dad looked upset. Really really upset.
"Taylor, why didn't you tell me instead of," he trailed off, gesturing to the basement. The walls were completely covered with an unbroken layer of cacti, blood-red thorns and little eyes poking out all over them. I had grown the plants up and over the walls and the ceiling, mutating them so that they could attack anyone I deemed a threat, collapsing the ceiling inwards with some subtle magics.
I based them on something I had read about called a "Teddy-bear cactus", one whose thorny fruits could explode off of their parent plant, sticking to things with incredibly painful barbs.
The rest of the house was little better. I had covered all the wooden surfaces in the house with tiny holes, thin enough to be almost unnoticable, but also filled with the same blood-red thorns, and in various places, I had hidden more of my eyeball fruits, these ones more advanced as I had combined cactus plants and pieces of paper with some chrome flakes.
The result were halfway decent cameras, the cacti swirling visual mana inside itself and pumping that mana into the paper to record on it. When the paper ran out of room on the spool, the feed would reverse, using chrome magic to scour the paper clean and reapply it.
I had also taken the time to add some of those eyebulbs around the outside of the house as well. They wouldn't record anything, but I had used thin vines to wire them to my room. A little music box on my nightstand would begin chiming when any movement was detected anywhere outside of my house. Not loudly, but enough to wake me up if anyone or anything came near the place.
With merely the slightest intention on my part, nearly anything in my home could erupt with barbed, bloodthirsty thorns, and with utter ease, I could track things happening in and around it.
If anyone broke into my lab again, I could crush them to death with a gesture.
Dad was unhappy with what I had done in secret. But that was nothing compared to how he reacted when I told him about the picture I had found, and what I had done, going out at night.
He looked pale when I told him about the crossbow I had nearly been shot with.
"Taylor. I want all of this stuff gone. You know better than this. I know you have powers now, and I know you were afraid, I am too, but this?" he gestures around the house, which I had taken the time to fortify.
"I can't even think of how many laws this breaks, much less what it would mean if that photograph was released. If you had actually done anything... All they would have needed to do was turn that photo into the police. Even if they lied about you doing anything, if they did investigate our home, and found out you had covered it with all of these traps, heaven-forbid if any of them had actually gone off," he says.
He grabs me in a hug. "I can't lose you, Taylor. You need to know that, I-" he trails off, swallowing heavily.
I wanted to object, object at how unfair it was, at how much danger we were in. We needed this stuff, needed to keep ourselves safe!
"After you've gotten rid of everything, we're going to the police, or the PRT, or wherever we need to go to report this, Taylor," he says, letting me go and looking me in the eyes with ironclad resolve. I didn't think I could get out of this, but before I could even try, he continues.
"We could go in costume or disguise, or whatever you think needs to happen, but what happened isn't something we can take care of. You were threatened and attacked by a parahuman, in your own home no less. If we brought that to the authorities, told them that you believed these bullies of yours were responsible, and told them about how you knew, then they could do something about it."
"Even I know that what happened to you simply isn't done," he says, confusing me.
He gives me a look, seemingly noticing my reaction. "I'm not completely ignorant, Taylor. If someone threatened a cape's identity, heads could literally roll for it. Nobody wants to see what someone like Kaiser would do if he thought he had no other option."
Something enters his expression that looks downright malicious. "What do you think the authorities would do to someone who threatened the safety of a person with powers like yours?" he asks.
"Who were they? If you don't want to go, I will. I'll explain enough to get an investigation opened," he offers.
I shook myself out of my stupor, trying to take back control of the conversation. How did he know so much about capes? Even I hadn't gotten around to researching the sort of things he was talking about. I had no clue what he meant about the authorities caring about my identity being preserved, I thought, at most, maybe they could be charged with breaking and entering, or something like that.
If they even did get charged. I had no proof. Just like always, stupid Taylor didn't bother to get any. I even destroyed the picture. I was just so angry, I blasted it without a second thought.
It would just be my word against theirs again, but this time, it would bleed into my new life as a cape too.
[][Concessions] No, I refuse to remove the fortifications on the house. We aren't safe without them.
[][Concessions] I'm not bringing this to the PRT, I don't want to reveal my powers to them.
[][Concessions] I can't tell you who they are. Please don't make me.
[][Concessions] All of the above. I won't remove the fortifications. I'm not going to have anything to do with the PRT. I'm not telling you who the bullies are. I'll take care of this.
[][Concessions] Write-in.
"Ahh, cats. What would the internet do without you?" she muses to herself.
An eyebrow rises when she notices a notification for her instant-messenger program.
"This late? Geeze," she mutters, opening up the program and seeing what the deal was.
As she read the message that was sent to her by "PlausibleDeniabolical", she feels a bit of a chill in the room.
"Don't go to school tomorrow. The bitch was outside your house. Started towards mine before I took a potshot. Aimed at your room but got spooked and fled."
Emma knew the handle all too well, it was the one she and Sophia had come up with for when she was talking about stuff in-costume.
"What did you do," she sent back, waiting for an answer. When Sophia said she would "take care of it", Emma was concerned a bit, considering her friend's hastiness when it came to her cape activities.
"Not here. In person." Sophia sent back in lieu of an answer.
It must have been bad if she wasn't even willing to elaborate vaguely on it. Emma wasn't really concerned about Taylor, though. She was far too pitiful to actually go through with anything, even if she did have powers.
"Tonight?" Emma responded.
"Tomorrow," Sophia responded. That must have been why Emma was warned not to go to school.
Emma let out a disappointed sigh. Sophia was strong, there was no doubt about that, but she was just so damn hasty. It was a good part of why their dynamic worked so well in the first place, and Sophia knew it. Emma was the closest thing she had to a planner, someone who could keep her from going out half-cocked.
It was Emma who suggested zipties, for example, since Sophia had been spending too much money on bolts and just using those to pin gangsters down. A total waste of ammo considering how many she went through in a night.
'Hopefully, she didn't screw the pooch too badly with putting Taylor back in her place,' Emma thought, deleting all the messages from "PlausibleDeniabolical"
Dad looked upset. Really really upset.
"Taylor, why didn't you tell me instead of," he trailed off, gesturing to the basement. The walls were completely covered with an unbroken layer of cacti, blood-red thorns and little eyes poking out all over them. I had grown the plants up and over the walls and the ceiling, mutating them so that they could attack anyone I deemed a threat, collapsing the ceiling inwards with some subtle magics.
I based them on something I had read about called a "Teddy-bear cactus", one whose thorny fruits could explode off of their parent plant, sticking to things with incredibly painful barbs.
The rest of the house was little better. I had covered all the wooden surfaces in the house with tiny holes, thin enough to be almost unnoticable, but also filled with the same blood-red thorns, and in various places, I had hidden more of my eyeball fruits, these ones more advanced as I had combined cactus plants and pieces of paper with some chrome flakes.
The result were halfway decent cameras, the cacti swirling visual mana inside itself and pumping that mana into the paper to record on it. When the paper ran out of room on the spool, the feed would reverse, using chrome magic to scour the paper clean and reapply it.
I had also taken the time to add some of those eyebulbs around the outside of the house as well. They wouldn't record anything, but I had used thin vines to wire them to my room. A little music box on my nightstand would begin chiming when any movement was detected anywhere outside of my house. Not loudly, but enough to wake me up if anyone or anything came near the place.
With merely the slightest intention on my part, nearly anything in my home could erupt with barbed, bloodthirsty thorns, and with utter ease, I could track things happening in and around it.
If anyone broke into my lab again, I could crush them to death with a gesture.
Dad was unhappy with what I had done in secret. But that was nothing compared to how he reacted when I told him about the picture I had found, and what I had done, going out at night.
He looked pale when I told him about the crossbow I had nearly been shot with.
"Taylor. I want all of this stuff gone. You know better than this. I know you have powers now, and I know you were afraid, I am too, but this?" he gestures around the house, which I had taken the time to fortify.
"I can't even think of how many laws this breaks, much less what it would mean if that photograph was released. If you had actually done anything... All they would have needed to do was turn that photo into the police. Even if they lied about you doing anything, if they did investigate our home, and found out you had covered it with all of these traps, heaven-forbid if any of them had actually gone off," he says.
He grabs me in a hug. "I can't lose you, Taylor. You need to know that, I-" he trails off, swallowing heavily.
I wanted to object, object at how unfair it was, at how much danger we were in. We needed this stuff, needed to keep ourselves safe!
"After you've gotten rid of everything, we're going to the police, or the PRT, or wherever we need to go to report this, Taylor," he says, letting me go and looking me in the eyes with ironclad resolve. I didn't think I could get out of this, but before I could even try, he continues.
"We could go in costume or disguise, or whatever you think needs to happen, but what happened isn't something we can take care of. You were threatened and attacked by a parahuman, in your own home no less. If we brought that to the authorities, told them that you believed these bullies of yours were responsible, and told them about how you knew, then they could do something about it."
"Even I know that what happened to you simply isn't done," he says, confusing me.
He gives me a look, seemingly noticing my reaction. "I'm not completely ignorant, Taylor. If someone threatened a cape's identity, heads could literally roll for it. Nobody wants to see what someone like Kaiser would do if he thought he had no other option."
Something enters his expression that looks downright malicious. "What do you think the authorities would do to someone who threatened the safety of a person with powers like yours?" he asks.
"Who were they? If you don't want to go, I will. I'll explain enough to get an investigation opened," he offers.
I shook myself out of my stupor, trying to take back control of the conversation. How did he know so much about capes? Even I hadn't gotten around to researching the sort of things he was talking about. I had no clue what he meant about the authorities caring about my identity being preserved, I thought, at most, maybe they could be charged with breaking and entering, or something like that.
If they even did get charged. I had no proof. Just like always, stupid Taylor didn't bother to get any. I even destroyed the picture. I was just so angry, I blasted it without a second thought.
It would just be my word against theirs again, but this time, it would bleed into my new life as a cape too.
[][Concessions] No, I refuse to remove the fortifications on the house. We aren't safe without them.
[][Concessions] I'm not bringing this to the PRT, I don't want to reveal my powers to them.
[][Concessions] I can't tell you who they are. Please don't make me.
[][Concessions] All of the above. I won't remove the fortifications. I'm not going to have anything to do with the PRT. I'm not telling you who the bullies are. I'll take care of this.
[][Concessions] Write-in.
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The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
[X][Concessions] I can't tell you who they are. Please don't make me.
The option she's most emotionally invested in and, OOC, it's not like Danny won't be able to figure it out if Alan tells him that Emma got arrested.
The option she's most emotionally invested in and, OOC, it's not like Danny won't be able to figure it out if Alan tells him that Emma got arrested.
[X][Concessions] No, I refuse to remove the fortifications on the house. We aren't safe without them.
I mean, I agree that Taylor is emotionally invested in keeping the bullying secret from her dad, but it being unfeasible to keep away from him in the long-run is the exact reason we have to tell him.
I mean, I agree that Taylor is emotionally invested in keeping the bullying secret from her dad, but it being unfeasible to keep away from him in the long-run is the exact reason we have to tell him.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Yeah but her thinking short term is in character and I'd rather not accuse anyone of crimes while we're committing crimes.
[X][Concessions] All of the above. I won't remove the fortifications. I'm not going to have anything to do with the PRT. I'm not telling you who the bullies are. I'll take care of this.
GTFO Danny, stop making stuff worse.
GTFO Danny, stop making stuff worse.
[X][Concessions] No, I refuse to remove the fortifications on the house. We aren't safe without them.