Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Does Kakara think she could shatter the wards and power down quickly enough that her ki signature doesn't escape?
Dragon Ball: After the End
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I mean, you've basically told us that the mechanics only you know mean that no plan, including the ones that intuitively seem like they should have a chance of working, actually have a chance of working.
Not just as in "are risky" but "cannot possibly work," unless I'm badly misunderstanding your past words.
Furthermore, by the terms you've laid out in your no-write-in vote, you are saying that by even wanting to find out how and why this would happen by, well, seeing it actually gamed out, I am implicitly expressing such a dire lack of faith in your game mechanics that henceforth, you'll be tossing the game mechanics out and switching to fiat rulings.
...
So basically, the rules forbid disengaging from this fight, for reasons you know and we don't. To the point where it's pointless to even discuss how to disengage from this fight. Anything we do, we are assured, will result in failure.
At which point all I can do is shrug, recognize that this quest is powered by a ruleset that I will never realistically be able to understand, and that does not resemble anything I can readily visualize either as a real life event or a Dragonball episode. Then, I am compelled to admit helplessly that I don't know how anything works anymore and that trying to make plans is, at least for me, pointless.
It's an effective way to get me to take back my desire to roll back the gameplay and try gambits in a desperate attempt to not lose the fight.
But it's also an effective way to get me to take back my desire to participate at all.
(EDIT: And, again, it does not take much ability to step into another person's shoes to see how someone can feel railroaded when they're being told over and over "yep, no way to disengage from this fight, even when your character can teleport by poking themselves in the forehead and concentrating for a moment.")
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
So we can't beat him with everything up until 'block a shot to our face, then pretend to have overused Kihoko or something while we Mind Project into him'?
She can't keep it down to the level of slightly-restrained Golden Oozaru?
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
I don't think they're impossible, they're just incredibly unlikely. Poptart then rolled every single plan with a chance of success, no matter how unlikely, and we failed each and every one.
I mean off the top of my head, chaining Willpower Pushes with increasing unlikely DCs until we're at a high enough PL to faceroll Yammar is technically possible no matter what, we'd just probably have to crit some of them.
I mean credit where credit is due, they tried really fucking hard to find a path for us to win with. I'd have preferred we chose a path and lost on just that, but it certainly wasn't malfeasance on their part.
I guess if there was one thing that could have been made clearer earlier in this fight, it's just how much Yammar outclasses Kakara by - we'd probably have voted differently if we realised how badly we were getting crushed? In other quests, this is achieved by logging all the rolls exhaustively, but as I understand it this system is sufficiently complicated that that would require listing hundreds of rolls each update.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I've been assured that it's "incredibly unlikely" to be able to disengage when you can teleport by poking yourself in the forehead, while holding hostage the one person whose protection is your opponent's sole reason for even being in the fight, because they can suss out a way to force you to stop the teleport, in mid-teleport, by threatening to blast the hostage faster than you can teleport out.
As I said, this means I no longer have any realistic hope of knowing how anything works anymore, and planning is pointless for me.
No, not as in "cannot possibly work" but as in "is less likely to work than just trying to beat the crap out of Yammar".
..And really, we'd never have voted for disengaging either way, we'd have tried to heal Jaffur and failed miserably.
I'm pretty sure this vote just reflects how tired Poptart is of this, and really, I had hoped this was over after the threat was unlocked and I'm pretty sure Poptart hoped that as well.
Edit:
I probably shouldn't have posted this, sorry. Don't want to cause any more arguing.
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- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Actually @PoptartProdigy if you have a log of how the rolls went in this update, would you be willing to share them? They don't have to be formatted particularly well, just enough to be legible.
He might already have this as a "standard response" to hostage-taking for all we know.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
See, what I'm thinking here is that this would force Yammar into his human masque if he continues to fight her, and that is where Kakara is much stronger, I suspect.
I know I probably shouldn't try to act like a backseat moderator (sorry), but at this point I think we really should stop arguing about this before it gets heated again.
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
[X] No, I do not want to replay the scenario from the point where Kakara laid hands on Dandeer. I understand that while Poptart may still elect to discard the quest mechanics given their inability to fulfill a key design aim, they will not necessarily do so.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Um. What're you talking about here? I'm not talking about teleporting? I'm talking about powering up tot he point the wards shatter, and then using the fact that it forces Yammar to power down to beat the tar out of him.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Violation of Rule 4: Doomsaying of this nature just disrupts the thread further.
If blowing up the hostage is his reflexive standard response to hostage-taking (which would actually make perfect sense given his background), then why didn't he do that during the fistfight? Was it because he had such absolute confidence in his control of the situation that he considered getting into a fistfight with him to be tantamount to handing over the hostage, with it only being a matter of time?
EDIT:
...No, I'm sorry.
You're right. I should give up and stop trying to regain fun.
I had hopes for fun. I had strong hopes for fun. I had ideas and notions and plans for fun.
When I was assured that fun was dead, I didn't want to believe it because it didn't make any sense.
But the assurances are, self-evidently, right, and I should trust the people assuring me that fun is dead.
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Conceptualist
Best Mega Sceptile
- Location
- I'm on the internet. Duh.
What would be the point?
You said that you have already gamed out all possible paths, and they all lead here. Now, unless you have written up some documentation listing out all the rules of the system you designed, we have no way of knowing what possibly has a chance of working.
I, personally, want to redo the entire confrontation with fiat ruling. As in, go back to the vote we started implementing the plan, or at the very least, several updates prior to this one. You aren't giving us that option. We either have the choice of going back to fight a losing battle, after being told we have no way to win, or we can except the aftermath of a lost battle and move on.
I, personally, have lost faith in your game mechanics. If I could, I would vote to have them definitely removed but move on from this point. There have been moments where the game mechanics poked the story in interesting directions, but without a mutual understanding of what goes on behind the scenes, I just don't trust them anymore.
You see, that's my problem. Without the ability to understand the rules you operate by, there is no difference on my end whether we have strict game mechanics or not. You have repeatedly said that you want us to trust you and your game mechanics. I trust you as a GM because I have seen you interacting with your player base, and you seem to be an alright guy. I don't trust your game mechanics because I don't have a way of knowing what they are doing.
At this point, I would rather move on. It makes no difference to me with or without game mechanics. If the story continues, I'll participate and read. But I just don't care about rules that someone else knows and won't tell me. Explain your rule system better and with actual details, and I believe I would be fine with you using it.
Tl:dr
Games with rules the players don't know are kinda shit. I would rather that Poptart just make judgment calls than follow rules his player base doesn't know.
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KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
How would us powering up further force Yammar to power down?
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Shatter the wards, immediately power down and switch to masque. I would be surprised if Yammar was as good at his masque as Kakara is. Use this to beat him.
Wait, why would it force him to switch to masque?
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
Why would Yammar switch to his Masque? Why would we not be swarmed by every other Exile who could possibly pile on us for quite possibly sentencing our people to death by the Enemy?
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
My ideal outcome is that we keep rolls, but that they (and the system using them) become more transparent to the players, because I enjoy reading Quest systems play out and trying to manipulate them favorably.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Presumably there's a reason the wards are a thing? OPSEC versus aliens, the enemy, etc.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Modus_Tollens
SCREAMING AT THE APOCALYPSE
- Location
- ALSO SCREAMING.
I think its more that hammering on the details of that particular action doesn't really help. Its been talked through and pretty much everyone agrees that, at least from a simulationist point of view, its screwball.
The question is why is it screwball. Ie, why it doesn't function either like it would in real life or in a narrative-based story. The second question is how we make it not screwball.
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Yeah, but I don't think he'd need to go to masque, just power a bit down or go to base, so he'd still be able to beat the crap out of us.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Does Poptart use physical dice, perchance? I'm having the strangest suspicion that the rolls are subconsciously influenced.
Non-Canon Omake: Live Forever
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Live Forever
You're losing. Yammar is just too good; the largest willpower push the wards could survive wouldn't be enough to beat him. You need some way to hit well above your power level.
Jaffur's trick is out; pressing your essence into a diamond edge is not your gift. (Perhaps it never will be.) That leaves Tabe's. And right now, the theme is obvious: he never thought before acting. It sounds very much like he's reinvented the Ultra Instinct.
So (still fighting, still dodging and blocking desperately) you stretch yourself in a way you never have before. Not pushing your mind (you won't need it), your endurance, your durability - you don't need the future, only one single moment - you clutch at everything else you are, and push.
***
As expected, Yammar blocks in such a way as to turn your punch aside. As expected, his arm shatters, as does your own. As expected, the real attack - a ki donation large enough to knock him out for some time - works flawlessly. You hope it's enough, because that was about all you had. You're not even sure you could make it out of the Hall to send a broadcast, but you don't have the choice; the vision is far too strong to resist now.
***
Gone...
Gone...
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