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. The second question is how we make it not screwball.
I don't think it's possible to discuss it at this moment without the discussion turned heated. If this quest doesn't end up ending due to all of this, it might be interesting to discuss mechanics at some point, but I don't think this is the time.
Arguing about the outcome of an action we would never have taken (because we would have tried to heal Jaffur) is really pointless right now.
Alright, here's the idea: Kakara makes enough distance (even through getting punched) that once the wards shatter she can IT out with Dandeer since Yammar can't close as fast.
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.
Same here. A lack of transparency has killed my faith in the rules as they stand. If we actually understood to game we are playing, I'd be fine with losing.
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.
If we can't go back and redo things in a non-screwball fashion, then the screwball-itude has already bad-ended the quest and the discussion is now
"So, who's up for Kakara Quest 2: The Space Ghost?"
If this were accompanied by a discussion I deemed likely to fix the underlying issue of screwball-itude, I wouldn't be saying fun is dead. For me, fun would not be dead.
But, well. I no longer think that will happen, and think calling for it to happen is pointless. So for me, fun is dead.
I don't think it's possible to discuss it at this moment without the discussion turned heated. If this quest doesn't end up ending due to all of this, it might be interesting to discuss mechanics at some point, but I don't think this is the time.
Arguing about the outcome of an action we would never have taken (because we would have tried to heal Jaffur) is really pointless right now.
By the time we got to Dandeer, Jaffur had already flipped back to being Jaron, stood up, and gotten knocked down. I'm not sure "heal Jaffur" was a possible action for us anymore.
Alright, here's the idea: Kakara makes enough distance (even through getting punched) that once the wards shatter she can IT out with Dandeer since Yammar can't close as fast.
Broadly, this quest takes pointers from a system I've seen in a few others (the biggest I've seen it in is Droman's "A Dragon of the North," which anybody who likes "A Song of Ice and Fire" should go read immediately), but with a less stringent underlying mechanical framework than I get the impression they have.
LATER NOTE: This changed significantly over the course of the quest. The underlying mechanical framework has grown and spread, and it is now hopelessly obtuse. My below offer to share if asked remains open, but goodness gracious me do those mechanics get dense.
I had a thought, and wanted to check if the rules had be shared and I just didn't know about it. Apparently you haven't, but you haven't publicly published them, but you have a standing offer to share on request.
Is this offer still valid, and if so, can you please share the rules with me/the thread?
Could we instead of using a cookie to boost power level, use a willpower push and use that cookie to instead boost a relevant combat skill? If we want to go the teleportation plan, we could boost deception/ki control and then trick him into letting us teleport away.
What are the chances of us boosting our communications skills and convincing him to stand down? We know that Jaffur is a weak point of his...
EDIT: If we use willpower push to boost our power level and then boost our Ki Control skill, would we be able to use it in spikes to prevent it from breaking the wards?
EDIT2: Not registering a particular opinion on the moving on/re-voting thing, I am fine with either though I feel like any rules issue should be separate from that vote. I'm just trying to puzzle out a way around the fight.
If we can't go back and redo things in a non-screwball fashion, then the screwball-itude has already bad-ended the quest and the discussion is now
"So, who's up for Kakara Quest 2: The Space Ghost?"
If this were accompanied by a discussion I deemed likely to fix the underlying issue of screwball-itude, I wouldn't be saying fun is dead. For me, fun would not be dead.
But, well. I no longer think that will happen, and think calling for it to happen is pointless. So for me, fun is dead.
..At this point, I don't really think there's any chance at getting what you want.
If there hadn't been this giant mess, I think it would have been possible to talk about potentially counter-intuitive mechanics, but I don't think Poptart is in the mood to do that right now, which is pretty damn understandable.
So, well, I don't really think there's any point in you arguing about any of this anymore, sorry.
The fact that a significant amount of people have been threadbanned is not a persuasive argument in favor of me delaying this for days or weeks. It is, in fact, the primary reason I want to be done with this quickly; I want this done and in the past so that things don't blow up again.
I do think some people can discuss things like this without being heated (you and Cariyaga, for instance), but I don't think the thread as a whole can, and I think focusing on what we could have done in that fight is just going to result in more arguments and potentially stressing Poptart.
Why is it so hard to believe that the fight was already lost by the time of the last vote? That can still be completely fair so long as it wasn't doomed from the start, but by the time the decisions culminated in child-vs-eldar-vampire it was over and the only options were whether to mitigate the loss by wrecking the hall and magic lab.
I'm not seeing this as a viable strategy, but I have to remind myself that I don't know how things work and my intuitions are generally wrong about the rules at plot-critical moments.
I can't speak for the threadbanned people, as I wasn't threadbanned, but I'm starting to feel like avoiding or at least entirely bypassing my input was part of the point here.
I do think some people can discuss things like this without being heated (you and Cariyaga, for instance), but I don't think the thread as a whole can, and I think focusing on what we could have done in that fight is just going to result in more arguments and potentially stressing Poptart.
Vote Tally : Dragon Ball: After the End - Sci-Fi | Page 1254 | Sufficient Velocity [Posts: 31327-31370] ##### NetTally 1.9.10
[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. No. of Votes: 16
Not a one person for the replay, with the most vocal on the opposing side offering very long posts on why they think it's pointless. I consider that definitive.
Well, we're not doing away with the rolls. What I am going to do is restructure the system's scope.
Certain individuals already know this (they're the ones who took me up on my offer in the Rules Screen, and asked), but this system is optimized with scalability in mind. I aggressively de-prioritize a rules set for covering every situation in favor of establishing a paradigm which I can modulate to any scale. What I'm going to be doing is dragging the level of detail way back. Where I presently roll, say, five rolls for every five actions (approximation), I'll now roll one (also approximation). I may even switch to a more esoteric means of determining advantage in combat, although I'm yet unsure of what.
Unfortunately, this also means you will be waiting for me to completely reformat the character sheet, along with my presentation of the rules. Plenty of you have requested (only now that something has gone horribly wrong, but requested nevertheless) that I give you access to the mechanics. You'll now get that, but it will take time while I rejigger the rules into something more easily accessible.
I am unbelievably frustrated with how this has gone. I feel like I'm talking endlessly, and every post but the one I posted most frequently is immediately forgotten. I've seen people assert things I contradicted in the post to which they're responding. Many complaints being passed around are things I have answered multiple times, and I am absolutely livid at the accusations of bad faith regarding the rules given that they are now and always have been freely available for the asking to anybody who wants to understand the system on a deeper level. Frankly, I was and am still very personally angry with some of the people who acted this way, which I don't enjoy given that I'm now angry with people I previously quite liked. I'm sure there are many of you with legitimate concerns; I can no longer tell.
On balance, I'm hoping to privilege those with legitimate concerns, so I'm going to spend my free time over the next several weeks completely reworking how my quest runs instead of actually continuing to run it. I like this quest. I like this world. I like how the characters surprise me as I write them, and I especially enjoy modeling something of this scope -- because the world of AtE is so much larger than Garenhuld, and you all have so much to discover as we proceed farther into the quest. I use this quest to delve into the world of Dragon Ball. I am here to run a quest that celebrates and challenges one of the stories that I loved most in my younger years. That it is a quest -- a collaborative medium -- has, until now, only elevated the experience for me, because it means it's not just me, philosophizing from an armchair. This is one the reasons why I am so furious at the accusations of railroading. I don't get it, I have never done it, and it is in fact the exact opposite of what I want out of this quest.
I remember, once, that this quest went four hundred and fifty pages without a single staff visit. The problem has only gotten steadily worse from there, and now we have this latest staff action -- the largest I've ever seen that didn't involve glassing a thread entirely. Fewer than twenty-four hours later, we're ramping up again with exactly the same kind of rhetoric that got the thread locked in the first place. I have no idea why things keep spiraling like this. I want it to end. I desperately hope that changing things so that you all can peer into the mechanics helps, there.
The thread has been through a lot over the past several pages. I have heard your complaints. I'm working to fix them. I hope that my efforts bear fruit, and that we can fix whatever it is that keeps causing these explosions. Thank you for your time, and I hope to see you around the thread as I work on reformatting the rules. As I go, I will occasionally chime in with descriptions of the old paradigm, and how I hope to change it for better results. I look forward to hearing your input.
Not a one person for the replay, with the most vocal on the opposing side offering very long posts on why they think it's pointless. I consider that definitive.
I think we have me, @Simon_Jester, @Lailoken, and @Conceptualist all in favor of a replay, ideally after the mechanical overhaul. May we please divorce the overhaul question from the replay one?
I think we have me, @Simon_Jester, @Lailoken, and @Conceptualist all in favor of a replay, ideally after the mechanical overhaul. May we please divorce the overhaul question from the replay one?
I'm still kind of curious if my ideas would work regarding powering down quickly enough that the ki signature doesn't escape after breaking the ward, just not curious enough to vote.
Many complaints being passed around are things I have answered multiple times, and I am absolutely livid at the accusations of bad faith regarding the rules given that they are now and always have been freely available for the asking to anybody who wants to understand the system on a deeper level. Frankly, I was and am still very personally angry with some of the people who acted this way, which I don't enjoy given that I'm now angry with people I previously quite liked. I'm sure there are many of you with legitimate concerns; I can no longer tell.
I'm sorry for my small part in that. I honestly didn't know or remember until earlier today that we actually could just ask for the rules and get them. It's been three or four years since I read the front page of this thread, and just didn't know that I could just ask for them until about half an hour ago.
Sorry for not asking first, instead of talking shit about it.
And secondly, I haven't seen anything I can remember on the rules and public GM clarifications of them before half an hour ago, when I started reading the informational threadmarks while waiting for your next post. I, personally, normally do not have the time to do an indepth read of everything that you've said in this thread. I thought the people who's said there wasn't enough transparency on the rules knew what they were talking about. They were wrong, and I believed them.
I think we have me, @Simon_Jester, @Lailoken, and @Conceptualist all in favor of a replay, ideally after the mechanical overhaul. May we please divorce the overhaul question from the replay one?
I'm still kind of curious if my ideas would work regarding powering down quickly enough that the ki signature doesn't escape after breaking the ward, just not curious enough to vote.
Exactly. The way the replay vote was phrased, we'd have to be massive jerks to vote in favor. I want the replay because while I trust Poptart's honesty and diligence, it looks like a fascinating challenge to outthink them - not something I'm sure I can do, but something I would have a lot of fun trying.
Exactly. The way the replay vote was phrased, we'd have to be massive jerks to vote in favor. I want the replay because while I trust Poptart's honesty and diligence, it looks like a fascinating challenge to outthink them - not something I'm sure I can do, but something I would have a lot of fun trying.
If you want to replay that fight -- which is never going to be anything other than a crushing challenge, I'll state -- then you would be well served to leave the topic be until I have had time to cool down from all the people who felt entitled to salt up the thread, and I am capable of evaluating the prospect objectively.
I think we have me, @Simon_Jester, @Lailoken, and @Conceptualist all in favor of a replay, ideally after the mechanical overhaul. May we please divorce the overhaul question from the replay one?
I'm not so interested in a replay. What happened was... shitty... but once you start allowing retcons things fall apart rather quickly. It cheapens things. I'd just like to go forward knowing that choices are made with eyes wide open with players being incentivized to be creative, that choices are never meaningless, and that characters (ourselves or others) act as internally consistent beings capable of doing their own due diligence and not as game tokens.
If I have that, I can go forward with confidence that things can be salvaged.
