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Disjunction (PMMM/Ignition)

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I'm just rather annoyed that the low potential MtG one won. I really have no interest in being the non-MG in PMMM, and the fact that that one pretty much precludes this one, which is already that (much to my annoyance, I wanted to wish damnit), well... Not satisfied in the least.
 
LostDeviljho said:
I'm just rather annoyed that the low potential MtG one won. I really have no interest in being the non-MG in PMMM, and the fact that that one pretty much precludes this one, which is already that (much to my annoyance, I wanted to wish damnit), well... Not satisfied in the least.
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Maybe you're just hanging around the wrong fanbase?
 
Alivaril said:
Nah, I just didn't really want people voting for a given option based on how good one individuals life was compared to the other. :V
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Your quests are the only PMMM quests- or fiction, for that matter- that I have ever seen which directly links high potential to a miserable life. Or at least, does so blatantly enough that's it's really noticeable. More common is for the cause of high potential to be unexplained, or related to a girl's future impact on the fate of the world, or influence on others, something like that. Why did you decide to implement that relationship? It doesn't seem like it did anything positive for the game at all.
 
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Alright, first post is done. Should I put it up now or wait for about twelve hours? It wouldn't affect when the voting for initial chargen would end.
 
DarkLight140 said:
Why did you decide to implement that relationship? It doesn't seem like it did anything positive for the game at all.
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Multiple reasons, but the foremost is my "screw destiny" stance. I want to give players the chance to gain happiness after becoming MGs, instead of the whole "the balance of hope and despair always balances out to zero" thing. The latter kinda throws a wrench into the concept of free will, y'know?

As such, the latter was still implemented, but (mostly) only for those who wish beyond their potential. It seems like most PMMM quests ignore it anyway, they just don't admit it.
 
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DarkLight140 said:
Your quests are the only PMMM quests- or fiction, for that matter- that I have ever seen which directly links high potential to a miserable life. Or at least, does so blatantly enough that's it's really noticeable. More common is for the cause of high potential to be unexplained, or related to a girl's future impact on the fate of the world, or influence on others, something like that. Why did you decide to implement that relationship? It doesn't seem like it did anything positive for the game at all.
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I assume because of Kyubey's line about Potential being equal to the amount of despair they're destined to suffer.
 
In future quests it might help to tone down the manipulative dickness of Kyubey. While it is true to his character it is emotionally exhausting to deal with on a regular basis. In Ignition we got away from him before it became too depressing but in a quest where he is going to be around for a while he gets grating.
 
cyberswordsmen said:
In future quests it might help to tone down the manipulative dickness of Kyubey. While it is true to his character it is emotionally exhausting to deal with on a regular basis. In Ignition we got away from him before it became too depressing but in a quest where he is going to be around for a while he gets grating.
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I do feel like a lot of the successful PMMM quests either don't see Kyubey that much or have QMs with "talk to the hand" or "kill on sight" policies.
 
Alivaril said:
Multiple reasons, but the foremost is my "screw destiny" stance. I want to give players the chance to gain happiness after becoming MGs, instead of the whole "the balance of hope and despair always balances out to zero" thing. The latter kinda throws a wrench into the concept of free will, y'know?

As such, the latter was still implemented, but (mostly) only for those who wish beyond their potential.
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But that line came from a manipulative creature that doesn't understand emotions, and emotions are all but impossible to effectively quantify in the first place. It's entirely possible to basically ignore it entirely while still complying with its text through a relatively small amount of semantic or theoretical handwaving. Free will doesn't even have to enter the picture- particularly when from the players' perspective free will is drastically reduced by making their character broken and emotionally abused to the point that a wide spectrum of actions which a reasonable person would want to take become wildly out of character.
 
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Potential Reboot
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    • SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
    That was the entire reason I voted Low Potential in this quest...
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    In an unusual case, both the high and low potential are actually going to have OK lives once the initial problems are sorted out.

    Alright, it's been made.

    Inversion (PMMM AU)

    ...Why won't this stupid thing post? I've hit the button about fifteen times. Blasted poor Internet connection...
     
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    • cyberswordsmen said:
    In future quests it might help to tone down the manipulative dickness of Kyubey. While it is true to his character it is emotionally exhausting to deal with on a regular basis. In Ignition we got away from him before it became too depressing but in a quest where he is going to be around for a while he gets grating.
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    I don't mind him really but It did feel like he came on too hard too quickly. Though that's more because of the time-skips though. If we had actually played those out it would have been better but since there was nothing to do it kind of compounded. It was "Kyubey Shows Up!" And then on the next day "Kyubey Shows Up!" And then within like the next two posts it's been about a week and "Kyubey Shows Up!" And then the next day "Kyubey Shows Up!" If we had some breaks between visits they would have had more impact.
     
    DarkLight140 said:
    Okay, yes, it was magical girls talking about it, but what the hell do any of them know about emotional metaphysics that doesn't come back to Kyubey telling tales? If anything that means it's secondhand and thus less reliable.
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    If you're going to say "absolutely everything we hear from kyubey is literally the word of the devil and cannot hold any validity" then 85% of our knowledge of PMMM metaphysics goes out the window, because he's literally the only one who's an actual credible authority on the subject.
    That entire line of discussion is self defeating, because you come out of it with less than you had going in.
     
    LostDeviljho said:
    If you're going to say "absolutely everything we hear from kyubey is literally the word of the devil and cannot hold any validity" then 85% of our knowledge of PMMM metaphysics goes out the window, because he's literally the only one who's an actual credible authority on the subject.
    That entire line of discussion is self defeating, because you come out of it with less than you had going in.
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    No, I'm not going to say that. What I am going to say is that we know he is the primary source for virtually all metaphysics in-setting, and that magical girls misinterpret Kyubey's words all the time, usually to draw conclusions that support what they want to believe. Because of this, Kyouko and later Sayaka building a philosophical construct that supports their own bitterness means virtually nothing in terms of solid setting information.

    And while that argument can be made for a lot of things, the reason I'm making it here specifically for this is to make the point that because you can logically reason your way to throwing it out just this easily, the only reason to write a story or quest about a magically powerful girl suffering from horrible abuse is if you actually want to write about a magically powerful girl suffering from horrible abuse, and there is no reasonable setting restriction which supports that being meaningfully more canon-compliant than the same character being written abuse-free.
     
    DarkLight140 said:
    Your quests are the only PMMM quests- or fiction, for that matter- that I have ever seen which directly links high potential to a miserable life. Or at least, does so blatantly enough that's it's really noticeable. More common is for the cause of high potential to be unexplained, or related to a girl's future impact on the fate of the world, or influence on others, something like that. Why did you decide to implement that relationship? It doesn't seem like it did anything positive for the game at all.
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    Kyuubey canonically says that the power of a magical girl is equal to the despair she is destined to feel.
     
    Sereg said:
    Kyuubey canonically says that the power of a magical girl is equal to the despair she is destined to feel.
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    In the interests of accuracy, I went over PMMM's scripts (here) and checked everything that Kyubey said throughout the original series. Based upon my readings, I would dispute that he actually said this. He has a number of lines that mention despair or curses, most of which seem like they're referring to witching out, such as this one:
    The wish she made carries a heavy burden. Imagine all the curses she'll have to take on now. With all the hope she's harnessing, she's giving birth to a new universe. But that means her eventual despair will be so great, it would destroy another universe. It's only natural.
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    The reference to "her eventual despair" seems fairly obviously to be describing the power of her witch. And we know that girls aren't "destined" to witch out because they can die before that happens, resulting in no witch ever appearing- there's no influence of fate there. But also relevantly to the relationship between potential and a girl's circumstances was this:
    The truth about you does answer one important question though. It solves the mystery of why Madoka Kaname has so much incredible potential as a magical girl. At last I have a theory that explains it. A magical girl's potential is based on the weight of the karmic destiny she bears. If she were a queen or Messiah, I could've understood, but Madoka was given an ordinary life. So it was hard for me to understand why she would be the focal point for so many destinies.
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    A queen or Messiah would be expected to have higher potential than a normal person. Being "the focal point for so many destinies" is implied to have a relation to "the weight of the karmic destiny she bears", which in turn determines potential- that is to say, the more people whose destinies are tied up with a girl's, then the stronger her potential as a magical girl. You could invoke Kyubey-as-tricksy-devil to weasel word around this relationship but it seems direct enough that you'd have to make a significant effort.

    As far as I can tell, every time that Kyubey draws a relationship between the potential/power of a magical girl or her hope and despair, he is (or easily could be understood as) talking about witches. The ones who talk about that relationship in pre-witch terms are Sayaka and Kyouko, neither of whom even knows that magical girls turn into witches at that point. So any understanding that a girl's unhappiness during her lifetime is tied to her potential, or that she's destined to experience or inflict unhappiness every time she tries to be happy, is more likely than not to be philosophical bullshit that they've conjured up to justify their own miserable circumstances and decisions, backed by misunderstanding what Kyubey says since he hasn't given them complete information on the magical girl life cycle.

    There's probably a PMMM general thread somewhere or other that we can take this discussion if necessary, as I think it might be growing outside the original question of the reasoning behind a certain GM decision.
     
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    DarkLight140 said:
    In the interests of accuracy, I went over PMMM's scripts (here) and checked everything that Kyubey said throughout the original series. Based upon my readings, I would dispute that he actually said this. He has a number of lines that mention despair or curses, most of which seem like they're referring to witching out, such as this one:

    The reference to "her eventual despair" seems fairly obviously to be describing the power of her witch. And we know that girls aren't "destined" to witch out because they can die before that happens, resulting in no witch ever appearing- there's no influence of fate there. But also relevantly to the relationship between potential and a girl's circumstances was this:
    A queen or Messiah would be expected to have higher potential than a normal person. Being "the focal point for so many destinies" is implied to have a relation to "the weight of the karmic destiny she bears", which in turn determines potential- that is to say, the more people whose destinies are tied up with a girl's, then the stronger her potential as a magical girl. You could invoke Kyubey-as-tricksy-devil to weasel word around this relationship but it seems direct enough that you'd have to make a significant effort.

    As far as I can tell, every time that Kyubey draws a relationship between the potential/power of a magical girl or her hope and despair, he is (or easily could be understood as) talking about witches. The ones who talk about that relationship in pre-witch terms are Sayaka and Kyouko, neither of whom even knows that magical girls turn into witches at that point. So any understanding that a girl's unhappiness during her lifetime is tied to her potential, or that she's destined to experience or inflict unhappiness every time she tries to be happy, is more likely than not to be philosophical bullshit that they've conjured up to justify their own miserable circumstances and decisions, backed by misunderstanding what Kyubey says since he hasn't given them complete information on the magical girl life cycle.

    There's probably a PMMM general thread somewhere or other that we can take this discussion if necessary, as I think it might be growing outside the original question of the reasoning behind a certain GM decision.
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    Hmmm ... My translation words it differently.
     
    DarkLight140 said:
    In the interests of accuracy, I went over PMMM's scripts (here) and checked everything that Kyubey said throughout the original series. Based upon my readings, I would dispute that he actually said this. He has a number of lines that mention despair or curses, most of which seem like they're referring to witching out, such as this one:

    The reference to "her eventual despair" seems fairly obviously to be describing the power of her witch. And we know that girls aren't "destined" to witch out because they can die before that happens, resulting in no witch ever appearing- there's no influence of fate there. But also relevantly to the relationship between potential and a girl's circumstances was this:
    A queen or Messiah would be expected to have higher potential than a normal person. Being "the focal point for so many destinies" is implied to have a relation to "the weight of the karmic destiny she bears", which in turn determines potential- that is to say, the more people whose destinies are tied up with a girl's, then the stronger her potential as a magical girl. You could invoke Kyubey-as-tricksy-devil to weasel word around this relationship but it seems direct enough that you'd have to make a significant effort.

    As far as I can tell, every time that Kyubey draws a relationship between the potential/power of a magical girl or her hope and despair, he is (or easily could be understood as) talking about witches. The ones who talk about that relationship in pre-witch terms are Sayaka and Kyouko, neither of whom even knows that magical girls turn into witches at that point. So any understanding that a girl's unhappiness during her lifetime is tied to her potential, or that she's destined to experience or inflict unhappiness every time she tries to be happy, is more likely than not to be philosophical bullshit that they've conjured up to justify their own miserable circumstances and decisions, backed by misunderstanding what Kyubey says since he hasn't given them complete information on the magical girl life cycle.

    There's probably a PMMM general thread somewhere or other that we can take this discussion if necessary, as I think it might be growing outside the original question of the reasoning behind a certain GM decision.
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    There was one line where he commented on Madoka's potential being unusual, because she had the potential of a future queen or prophet(aka, the potential she has to affect other people even before contracting), while being a completely ordinary girl with completely ordinary responsibilities.

    Turns out Homura was linking entire parallel worlds to her and Walpurgisnacht's fates.
     
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