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Okay, folks, apparently me announcing after reading the discussion that I was pushing the update back a day didn't do it, so let me make it very obvious: that will be enough, thank you. You all aren't even arguing with me at this point, counterproductive as that would be with your current tactics. If you want to argue about default options versus essay-length write-ins in general, take it elsewhere.
Might I make a specific suggestion about a way to structure votes that might help avoid problems like this? One that is specifically directed, not at arguing with you, but at recommending a possible approach to solving the problem you've identified and asking what you think of it?

If no, would you be interested in PMs on this subject?

Because I think my idea kind of got lost in the shuffle, and I like it well enough to be willing to try it myself in the semi-likely event I wind up running quests at some point, so I was hoping to discuss it.

A thought on the chapter: given the conceptual basis of the exiles' magic (i.e. sealing) how is Dandeer able to do this kind of direct mind control? We know she can seal away memories, but the mc we seen her do before, while terrifying, is different from the kind of puppetry she is doing now.

Heck even Babidi, who was incredibly powerful compared to exile's magicians, only managed to control those who had evil in their hearts, and it still wasn't anything like this enslavement.
...Are we sure Dandeer isn't as strong as Babidi? I mean, do we really know that for certain? Maybe she's not actually weaker, just specced differently and/or less experienced.

Among the ways Dandeer may be accomplishing mind control:

1) Sealing away every memory of why someone shouldn't listen to Dandeer, leaving only the reasons to do as she says. I mean, imagine if Yammar just lost all his many memories of why Dandeer is terrible, and remembers only that she's the regent for his grandson, and loves the boy very much, and is being attacked by a conspiracy formed by the Gokun House. Yammar, knowing only this and not the enormous pile of context that justifies why we came to arrest Dandeer, might well "rationally" decide that the correct course of action was to trust her and defend her.

2) Sealing away a person's critical thinking skills from their decision-making process: might make them weaker in some ways, but would certainly make them obedient. In this case they might obey anyone's orders, so Dandeer might have to slap on a secondary Seal of the form "seal away your ability to listen to anyone but Dandeer." Brute force, but arguably a lot simpler than "seal away every one of a jillion memories."

3) Sealing away the memories of why someone SHOULD trust the people opposed to Dandeer's agenda. This is more or less a mirror image of (1). Berra, right now, may honestly have no idea that Dandeer lied to him about Jaffur attacking her, have no idea Jaffur's been tortured, and have reverted entirely to what he thought he knew about the situation shortly after the Sealing. Namely, "Jaffur is dangerously insane, my daughter is inexplicably/foolishly willing to support him against his own mother and for that matter ME, and seriously why the fuck is Mom in on this!?" From his perspective at the moment, squaring off against Jaffur (a dangerous lunatic who damn near killed him once before) or Kakara (who is obviously making a very bad choice) might actually seem like a great idea, while listening to Dandeer (who's a very skilled sorceress and who's been a valuable ally to him for several years) might seem likewise.
 
Aftwr this crisis barring worst case outcome we should go to the friends and families of those caught in the crossfire and beg them for forgiveness for not being able to save their loved ones.

Then a public one. Then using sight to visit their ghosts and apologise to them.

That will hopefully help kakara deal with her own guilt.and help her to become a renowned exile saint that can reduce any saiyan to tears with simply a disappointed look.


edit: double post
A thought on the chapter: given the conceptual basis of the exiles' magic (i.e. sealing) how is Dandeer able to do this kind of direct mind control? We know she can seal away memories, but the mc we seen her do before, while terrifying, is different from the kind of puppetry she is doing now.

Heck even Babidi, who was incredibly powerful compared to exile's magicians, only managed to control those who had evil in their hearts, and it still wasn't anything like this enslavement.
Saiyan masques + what she did in the sealing = replace a saiyan's conscious mind with a custom one built by you.
 
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Among the ways Dandeer may be accomplishing mind control:
Potential mechanics, but we also need the hows and whens?

What's the medium for her to take control of them and how'd she get it on them as well.

Lord Vegeta I don't think we need to know she's had a very long time to get one on him, although whether or not she was able to do it through the seal may complicate matters. Whatever the case is, she can obviously trigger it (whatever it is) mentally and at long distance. Potentially it can also unravel the seal around Vegeta as well (and depending on whether or not he goes back into it after we're done is going to make things "interesting.)

Berra's timeline is much shorter, since perhaps ever since she took command of the clan and thus had to be in meetings with him and can seemingly also be triggered from a distance, but I think its not as good as the one on Vegeta since Vegeta was able to get there before she took control of him. Also unlike Vegeta we were able to sense her power taking over Berra.

Finally Yammar has both the longest and shortest time line. She could have done it before/after she killed the sorcerors when she was likely in his presence a lot (due to all the sorcerers being dead and thus her the only sorceror left to the Vegta clan aside from the likely traumatised one.) However, she may have also been able to slip it on during the week he spent keeping an eye on Jaffur, but I doubt it as I hope he wouldn't be so careless. Regardless this seems to be the most circumstantial of the three as it required her to place her palm on his forehead to activate.

And of course we need to figure out how she made the Seers useless.
 
Likely they forgot what they saw right after seeing it just like with her slaughter of the sorcerors. I really hope there's more to it because personally being able to no sell sight is goddam terrifying.

I don't find it terrifying we know that there are ways to no sell them we've known this for a while, what irritates is that Dandeer can pull it off, cause the Enemy doing it is one thing, but this sight is supposed to go through all wards and crap if you know what you're doing.

In any case I really hope it is more complex than that, but what I really hope is that it isn't some BS "ALL ACCORDING TO PLANNNN" which meant they wouldn't tell us. If that is the case I reserve the right to let Kakara beat them, they deserve it.
 
I don't find it terrifying we know that there are ways to no sell them we've known this for a while, what irritates is that Dandeer can pull it off, cause the Enemy doing it is one thing, but this sight is supposed to go through all wards and crap if you know what you're doing.

In any case I really hope it is more complex than that, but what I really hope is that it isn't some BS "ALL ACCORDING TO PLANNNN" which meant they wouldn't tell us. If that is the case I reserve the right to let Kakara beat them, they deserve it.
My take is that something that compromises a seer should have similar chance to trigger an automatic futuresight vision just like aomething that will kill a seer.

But im probably not thinking rationally when it comes to the relationship between sight and sorcery.
 
Might I make a specific suggestion about a way to structure votes that might help avoid problems like this? One that is specifically directed, not at arguing with you, but at recommending a possible approach to solving the problem you've identified and asking what you think of it?

If no, would you be interested in PMs on this subject?

Because I think my idea kind of got lost in the shuffle, and I like it well enough to be willing to try it myself in the semi-likely event I wind up running quests at some point, so I was hoping to discuss it.

...Are we sure Dandeer isn't as strong as Babidi? I mean, do we really know that for certain? Maybe she's not actually weaker, just specced differently and/or less experienced.

Among the ways Dandeer may be accomplishing mind control:

1) Sealing away every memory of why someone shouldn't listen to Dandeer, leaving only the reasons to do as she says. I mean, imagine if Yammar just lost all his many memories of why Dandeer is terrible, and remembers only that she's the regent for his grandson, and loves the boy very much, and is being attacked by a conspiracy formed by the Gokun House. Yammar, knowing only this and not the enormous pile of context that justifies why we came to arrest Dandeer, might well "rationally" decide that the correct course of action was to trust her and defend her.

2) Sealing away a person's critical thinking skills from their decision-making process: might make them weaker in some ways, but would certainly make them obedient. In this case they might obey anyone's orders, so Dandeer might have to slap on a secondary Seal of the form "seal away your ability to listen to anyone but Dandeer." Brute force, but arguably a lot simpler than "seal away every one of a jillion memories."

3) Sealing away the memories of why someone SHOULD trust the people opposed to Dandeer's agenda. This is more or less a mirror image of (1). Berra, right now, may honestly have no idea that Dandeer lied to him about Jaffur attacking her, have no idea Jaffur's been tortured, and have reverted entirely to what he thought he knew about the situation shortly after the Sealing. Namely, "Jaffur is dangerously insane, my daughter is inexplicably/foolishly willing to support him against his own mother and for that matter ME, and seriously why the fuck is Mom in on this!?" From his perspective at the moment, squaring off against Jaffur (a dangerous lunatic who damn near killed him once before) or Kakara (who is obviously making a very bad choice) might actually seem like a great idea, while listening to Dandeer (who's a very skilled sorceress and who's been a valuable ally to him for several years) might seem likewise.
We know exiles as a whole are weaker than Bibidi / Babidi; Babidi was able to block multiple attacks from Piccolo, while the exile mages involved in the assault on the prison complex had their sheilds shattered to our pl 50 Million attacks. I'm not sure of where Piccolo was in canon around Buu arc, but somewhere around 400 Million sounds about right for 7 years training post cell? It survived 3 or so of his hits (I don't have an exact anime clip on hand, but it was about that,), which would imply that the shield was somewhere in the area of 24 times as strong as what that our exile mage could produce. It'll do for a rough estimate, anyway. Dandeer was able to take on 50 Sorcerers, but it wasn't strength to strength; we know almost nothing about sorcery combat, but in Ki there's no way 50 Raditzes could have inconvenienced Racoome, much less given him a serious fight. I would rate her at probably being between 2 and 10 times as as strong as an average sorcerer, less so compared to the really talented ones.

This would put her between 10 and 2.5 times weaker than babidi, assuming all these assumptions hold. They probably don't hold completely, but at the same time she's pretty obviously not stronger than he is because then her shield would let her take on super saiyan level attacks, and her showing against those sorcerers wasn't nearly that impressive, so this will probably do as an estimate.
 
Dandeer is working with something foreign. She has some special resource or ally not generally available to or even known by the Exiles. My guess would be that it is related to the Unknown.
 
We know exiles as a whole are weaker than Bibidi / Babidi; Babidi was able to block multiple attacks from Piccolo, while the exile mages involved in the assault on the prison complex had their sheilds shattered to our pl 50 Million attacks. I'm not sure of where Piccolo was in canon around Buu arc, but somewhere around 400 Million sounds about right for 7 years training post cell? It survived 3 or so of his hits (I don't have an exact anime clip on hand, but it was about that,), which would imply that the shield was somewhere in the area of 24 times as strong as what that our exile mage could produce. It'll do for a rough estimate, anyway. Dandeer was able to take on 50 Sorcerers, but it wasn't strength to strength; we know almost nothing about sorcery combat, but in Ki there's no way 50 Raditzes could have inconvenienced Racoome, much less given him a serious fight. I would rate her at probably being between 2 and 10 times as as strong as an average sorcerer, less so compared to the really talented ones.

This would put her between 10 and 2.5 times weaker than babidi, assuming all these assumptions hold. They probably don't hold completely, but at the same time she's pretty obviously not stronger than he is because then her shield would let her take on super saiyan level attacks, and her showing against those sorcerers wasn't nearly that impressive, so this will probably do as an estimate.
Alternatively, it's a matter of style/technique/knowledge. The Exile Sorcerers specialize in sealing, and have trouble with everything else in comparison. So the difference might simply be that Babidi knows how to make far better shields, while the ones the Exiles use are crude ramshack contraptions by comparison.

Incidentally, such a thing could also be an explanation for her seemingly impossible abilities: Dandeer might have made a breakthrough in branches outside of the Sealing specialization.
 
Though you'd think that if there's one kind of physical combat magic Seals should be good for, it should be seals. Like, you construct a seal that blocks "incoming fire" from "your torso" or something. :p

I mean heck, the Hall wards are sealing magic, and they are literally the strongest defensive force fields known to the Exile race, capable of absorbing blasts from super-saiyans.

We know exiles as a whole are weaker than Bibidi / Babidi; Babidi was able to block multiple attacks from Piccolo, while the exile mages involved in the assault on the prison complex had their sheilds shattered to our pl 50 Million attacks. I'm not sure of where Piccolo was in canon around Buu arc, but somewhere around 400 Million sounds about right for 7 years training post cell?
Probably higher; he must have been at 300-400 million during the Cell saga just to keep up with the androids. Seven years of training would be a lot for him.* That being said...
____________________

*Remembering that Piccolo Junior is actually only, oh... what, five or so years older than Gohan, technically, and had a power level in the hundreds as of the start of the Saiyan Saga; Piccolo's twentieth birthday would have taken place some time after the Cell Games unless I miscalculate)

It survived 3 or so of his hits (I don't have an exact anime clip on hand, but it was about that,), which would imply that the shield was somewhere in the area of 24 times as strong as what that our exile mage could produce. It'll do for a rough estimate, anyway. Dandeer was able to take on 50 Sorcerers, but it wasn't strength to strength; we know almost nothing about sorcery combat, but in Ki there's no way 50 Raditzes could have inconvenienced Racoome, much less given him a serious fight. I would rate her at probably being between 2 and 10 times as as strong as an average sorcerer, less so compared to the really talented ones.
It may well be that almost all her injuries were suffered dueling a handful of the very most powerful of the Vegetan sorcerors.

I think this specific part of your calculation (the comparison in raw power between Dandeer's shielding ability, the no-name mage we defeated's ability, and Babidi's ability) is shaky enough that we shouldn't rely on it at all. Furthermore, there may be tremendous differences between raw power to deflect/absorb blasts, and the skill/subtlety with which people can perform other magical feats. Dandeer may have a greater aptitude for mind control, or may have worked out a way to do it more efficiently than Babidi did, or who knows what, exactly?

This would put her between 10 and 2.5 times weaker than babidi, assuming all these assumptions hold. They probably don't hold completely, but at the same time she's pretty obviously not stronger than he is because then her shield would let her take on super saiyan level attacks, and her showing against those sorcerers wasn't nearly that impressive, so this will probably do as an estimate.
Again, I'm not sure her ability to defend against massed attacks by sorcerors and her ability to deflect ki blasts with Sealing-based shields are even commensurate. Among other things because I'm pretty sure that if you're being attacked by an Exile sorceror, blasts aren't your biggest problem, the sorceror doing something like trying to Seal the upper half of your body off from the lower half is. Defending against that might require much more esoteric combat techniques than just the ability to trade slams with powerful energy blasts, and Dandeer's ability to cope with one scenario may say NOTHING about her ability to cope with the other.
 
I'm shocked. All this time and I think you are the only person that has ever acknowledged this in any way. I didn't quote your whole post but the whole thing is gold.

Isn't new. This is, like, a bi-yearly discussion in PMAS, it's just not an actually important one because that quest runs on write-ins.

Perhaps the biggest issue with how I've been handling votes, of late, is that they're an afterthought.

Of late, I've been tending to treat them as starting points for the vote crafters. While that can lead to some interesting results, it also creates an intensely hostile environment to newcomers and casual questers. From the perspective of somebody not in on the vote crafting group, the default options are basically ignored by all of the big names, there's a high bar for entry in the form of very involved discussion, and the in-group only gets more in-group as time elapses. That's an intimidating prospect.

Good, robust, default options are one of the best ways the QM can address this. The lurkers who just want to add their voice to a vote can pick something they like and leave; the people who genuinely want to participate in the thread discussion, but don't want to face down the (let's be honest with ourselves) literal essays we write in support of our votes, can just pick something they like and leave.

Unfortunately, this isn't something you can just make happen.

Inherent to offering options in a post instead of accepting write-ins is the nature that the QM must create those options. In so doing, the QM's biases and knowledge are resourced.

You could write, yourself, the myriad options that the questers will generate. You could. But, not without exception -- eventually someone will come along with something you didn't think of. Maybe it'll be stupid. Maybe you won't have considered it, or... name an issue. When that happens, that system breaks completely -- casual questers don't return to check up on the thread, they outnumber the people who do, and you have successfully locked yourself to offering only votes written by yourself.

Generally speaking, I don't believe in QMs offering incredible basic votes in this kind of quest format. Turn-oriented empire builders are a different matter; BAHHSCQ is a different matter -- the former doesn't do write-ins, not really, and the latter is a novel being done as a quest, at this point (which I love, thank you).

No. What you want to do here is to offer quester-made votes to casual questers. Hilariously, it's not even hard. You trigger an OP alert every time you post over a word count. Impose a large moratorium and at its expiration, post some subset of the write-ins along with whatever else you want to offer as votes. The casual quester is given a buffet of well-considered options. You don't try to do the work of a vote-crafter for the quest you're writing. Preserve the update cycle by locking the vote relatively quickly after the moratorium ends. Make liberal use of BBcode to adjust the alerts you send out: 200-500 for a voting post, larger for an update, less for an informational post...

The lurkers who just want to add their voice to a vote can pick something they like and leave; the people who genuinely want to participate in the thread discussion, but don't want to face down the (let's be honest with ourselves) literal essays we write in support of our votes, can just pick something they like and leave.

If this is what you want, this is how you should go about achieving it. You should not go about trying to write better default options, because it will not work the way you are hoping. Not forever -- and it will be liable to fail at the most crucial times.
 
Isn't new. This is, like, a bi-yearly discussion in PMAS, it's just not an actually important one because that quest runs on write-ins.







Unfortunately, this isn't something you can just make happen.

Inherent to offering options in a post instead of accepting write-ins is the nature that the QM must create those options. In so doing, the QM's biases and knowledge are resourced.

You could write, yourself, the myriad options that the questers will generate. You could. But, not without exception -- eventually someone will come along with something you didn't think of. Maybe it'll be stupid. Maybe you won't have considered it, or... name an issue. When that happens, that system breaks completely -- casual questers don't return to check up on the thread, they outnumber the people who do, and you have successfully locked yourself to offering only votes written by yourself.

Generally speaking, I don't believe in QMs offering incredible basic votes in this kind of quest format. Turn-oriented empire builders are a different matter; BAHHSCQ is a different matter -- the former doesn't do write-ins, not really, and the latter is a novel being done as a quest, at this point (which I love, thank you).

No. What you want to do here is to offer quester-made votes to casual questers. Hilariously, it's not even hard. You trigger an OP alert every time you post over a word count. Impose a large moratorium and at its expiration, post some subset of the write-ins along with whatever else you want to offer as votes. The casual quester is given a buffet of well-considered options. You don't try to do the work of a vote-crafter for the quest you're writing. Preserve the update cycle by locking the vote relatively quickly after the moratorium ends. Make liberal use of BBcode to adjust the alerts you send out: 200-500 for a voting post, larger for an update, less for an informational post...



If this is what you want, this is how you should go about achieving it. You should not go about trying to write better default options, because it will not work the way you are hoping. Not forever -- and it will be liable to fail at the most crucial times.

While I am broadly in agreement with your proposal, having made a similar (if less detailed) one myself upthread, we have been asked to discontinue this line of discussion.
 
Rando question.

Any chance that The Sundering didn't actually happen (or happened differently) and it's the result of Dandeer? Or that part of what drove Vegeta2​ mad was that some part of him knew that his people had been killed?
 
Okay. Hello there, hi. I've been here for a bit more than a year. I try to keep up - though admittedly I sometimes can't because this quest's discussion moves absurdly quickly at times - and a looking through my posts in the thread has a fair number of them as just votes, so I suppose that makes me... oh, how was it so dismissively put upthread? "Low-information"? "Low-investment"? Eh. Anyways, like I said I can't always keep up, but even so I've noticed a constant - whenever something doesn't go the players' way, there's always someone (or multiple someones) who throw(s) a temper tantrum. Examples that spring to mind would be, well, the vote-style change bitching that's still rather fresh, or when we were shown that "oh, Dandeer's kinda absurdly bullshit."
(Also, there have been a fair number of arguments that got far more heated than they deserved, but that's a different matter. Not by a lot, but still.)
Aaanyways, I gotta wonder. Why does this keep happening? I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not naming names, I'm... honestly, not really expecting an explanation to appear, really(Not here, at least). I'm just... Look. This is a recurring thing. If we could switch to it not being so, that would be grand.
 
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Rando question.

Any chance that The Sundering didn't actually happen (or happened differently) and it's the result of Dandeer? Or that part of what drove Vegeta2​ mad was that some part of him knew that his people had been killed?
This has been speculated on. We have no concrete evidence, but it's a very real possibility. Because we know that, based on Dandelor's information, the slaughter of the Vegetan sorcerors and Dandeer's casting of a massed geas to stop anyone from realizing they were missing? Yeah, all that happened within, oh, no more than several months before or after the Sundering.

We don't know exactly when or have the timeline exactly nailed down, but that's about the size of it.

I strongly suspect there are a LOT of things Dandeer has sealed off from Sight to be viewed "only by members of the Vegetan royal family," It's a very effective lock to put on things if you think/know there are no Vegetan-descended Seers and are unlikely to be any in the next generation. If there even is a next generation of the royal line. I have no idea what Dandeer's intentions along those lines are/were for Jaffur given that she showed every sign of wanting to keep him as a forcibly-Masqued ignoramus unaware of his true ancestry for the rest of his life.

It might even explain why when we were born, a Seer was so adamant about declaring us the heir. As the only royal Seer in the history of the Exile race, Kakara is the only one who can look around the blocks Dandeer's been putting up. Even though in many other ways Kakara is temperamentally unsuited to lead the Exiles as a warrior-princess, she has a very specific position that may let us pull a "till Birnam Wood comes to Dunsanine" moment on Dandeer's ability to lock us the Exiles out of understanding their own past.

Of course, none of this matters if we don't beat her here and now, in all probability. :(
 
Okay. Hello there, hi. I've been here for a bit more than a year. I try to keep up - though admittedly I sometimes can't because this quest's discussion moves absurdly quickly at times - and a looking through my posts in the thread has a fair number of them as just votes, so I suppose that makes me... oh, how was it so dismissively put upthread? "Low-information"? "Low-investment"? Eh. Anyways, like I said I can't always keep up, but even so I've noticed a constant - whenever something doesn't go the players' way, there's always someone (or multiple someones) who throw(s) a temper tantrum. Examples that spring to mind would be, well, the vote-style change bitching that's still rather fresh, or when we were shown that "oh, Dandeer's kinda absurdly bullshit."
(Also, there have been a fair number of arguments that got far more heated than they deserved, but that's a different matter. Not by a lot, but still.)
Aaanyways, I gotta wonder. Why does this keep happening? I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not naming names, I'm... honestly, not really expecting an explanation to appear, really(Not here, at least). I'm just... Look. This is a recurring thing. If we could switch to it not being so, that would be grand.
Happens in basically any quest people are invested in.

A quest is, in the end, a sort of collective story-writing. On some level, this isn't just a story you're reading but one you're making. So when you're invested and things don't go the way you wanted/planned/expected/etc... it creates mental dissonance and/or mistrust in the QM and/or disbelief which leads to bitching.

It's pretty much unavoidable in any quest where the voters actually care what's going on.
 
Babidi I was mostly referring to babidi's ability to unseal and potentially reseal making Buu. He was able to credibly threaten Buu with resealing, and that takes power.

Edit: according to the wiki, he is able harm ss2 Vegeta with his magical attacks, which makes him ludicrously more powerful than dandeer, who needs to get you when your power is suppressed.
 
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I can agree with that; my main point is that we shouldn't just casually assume that there's a huge power gap between Babidi and Dandeer that makes Dandeer a vastly lower-tier threat. Maybe Babidi is significantly stronger and/or more skillful, there are reasons to imagine that this is so, but it's not an obvious or simple thing, especially when we're talking about what is clearly Dandeer's specialty, Sealing-based mind control and depowering her enemies.
 
It's pretty much unavoidable in any quest where the voters actually care what's going on.

Not true. But I've been talking with Poptart on SB over this, after we'd previously already established contact over design elements of Terminus Quest, and there are sound reasons in Quest theory for why this sort of thing happens with high frequency in here.

But the topic has been shut down, so Poptart will reveal whatever they wish of our conversation contents.
 
Not true. But I've been talking with Poptart on SB over this, after we'd previously already established contact over design elements of Terminus Quest, and there are sound reasons in Quest theory for why this sort of thing happens with high frequency in here.

But the topic has been shut down, so Poptart will reveal whatever they wish of our conversation contents.
Odd. I see stuff like this all the time over on Akun?
 
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