Dragon Ball: After the End

[KnightDisciple]

...Because you literally just said "What if this gambit gave us less than a minute more's time before we were KO'ed anyway?"? A minute is more than enough to IT at any PL.

Click to shrink...

It's more than enough time to IT if you're uninterrupted. My point is that Yammar is there to contend with, and that the risk of, for lack of a better term, "power exposure" rises dramatically if we don't just stay down on the planet, but instead teleport to the opposite side of our local star in the middle of deep space.

If we instead power up then immediately, before using IT, begin to depower, the likelihood of the gambit working ought to approach 0, as Yammar's control over his power and his skill at combat are likely both better.

 

[Rmnimoc]

Kakara entered the fight with two opponents showing no interest in attacking so long as she only focused on helping Apra, then disabled those two opponents with one of them reduced to outright insta-loss level, then proceeded to get an absurd buff working synergistically with the combat god on her side who could already break the power limit rules over his knee and could solo his father. Then the allied mage showed up and started KOing the enemy combatants while his family disabled the enemy mage. Oh, and her side was the one with the Senzu beans.

The fight was lost by the time of the last votes when the vision had come knocking trying to tell Kakara that the fight was lost. It absolutely was not lost at the start.

Click to shrink...

I'm not really sure why you quoted me on this. I didn't say we lost at the start at any point, just that we lost. We unquestionably got our butt handed to us and now Dandeer is planning to mind control the whole world. If you're taking that from the "If you take all that and combine it with what looks like a challenge from Poptart, that there was simply no possible way to win, and it's really no surprise that there are players who want to go back and give it a shot and try to salvage a victory from this absolute defeat." part, then you misunderstood what I meant. Poptart said there was no way that could be seen to win at the mid-point of the update, and that's the reason it wasn't broken there. That's what I was referring to. If you're looking at something else, mind pointing it out?

 

[ElleonXan]

Contrary to apparently everyone ever, I really enjoyed the last update. I dunno, maybe it's because I have been having IRL issues and haven't had as much time to be as fanatically obsessed (or even really serously engaged) with the story as I used to be, but this update didn't strike me on as personal a level as it seems to have struck everyone else.

To me, this didn't feel like a personal slight, but rather a perfect ending to the first act of a story in three act structure; the "inciting incident" or moment where nothing will be the same again, if you will. Up until now, we were a child playing a child's part. And then we hit a very grown up problem: in spite of our perky personality and childlike enthusiasm and superior planning capabilities and "outside of the box thinking" and the million other reasons why we "should have won," our choices put us in a situation that we just couldn't win... not without compromising the integrity of the world our illustrious author has created. So we lost.

So where does this leave us now? Well, it might just be me, but it feels like we might just be starting on the second act: Kakara has had the situation pretty well contained thus far, even dare I say trapped, in its own little paradigm. We've trained, and plotted, and conspiracized, and done everything we needed to successfully execute a seal-break. (And lest anyone forget, we DID manage to free Jaffur, even if we flubbed the follow up bad enough to make it moot.) But narratively, it seems it's time to see our precocious saiyan princess off on her Hero's Journey. We have our quest (redeem our failure/return in victory), our helping mentor (future vision Kakara, whom I'm hoping we'll see again), and after this defeat we are overdue for some serious character development.

Not, I hasten to add, that Kakara hasn't had character development before... just that aside from going from Pacifist to Protector, she is still pretty much the same odd, control-obsessed little girl we've been playing from the start. In the immortal words of abridged!16, I think it's time for Kakara to "Grow! Up!" and this failure seems the perfect catalyst for such development.

But hey, that's just what I think. No beef if everyone thinks I'm full of shit.

 

[HoratioVonBecker]

The fight was lost by the time of the last votes when the vision had come knocking trying to tell Kakara that the fight was lost. It absolutely was not lost at the start.

Click to shrink...

It was winnable, but a lot harder than we were expecting. Part of this is probably because @PoptartProdigy expected, on some level, that we would think infiltrating the Vegetan compound was a worthwhile risk.
(It probably was. Poptart doesn't knowingly write trap options. But we heeded the warnings too well.)

 

[Wiadi]

Part of this is probably because @PoptartProdigy expected, on some level, that we would think infiltrating the Vegetan compound was a worthwhile risk.

Click to shrink...

Not at all the impression I'm getting of Poptart's GMing style. It was as hard as it was because that was how hard it made sense for it to be. Poptart's expectations of what the players would do seems unlikely to have majorly factored into that one way or the other; had we been supreme gods of planning, the encounter would have been trivial, and had we been utterly incompetent, it would have been actually unwinnable.

 

[Gore17]

Something I've seen a lot of people comment on is the amount of hard work put into the Conspiracy, and all I can think is ''when did we do more then bare minimum?''

 

[Rmnimoc]

Something I've seen a lot of people comment on is the amount of hard work put into the Conspiracy, and all I can think is ''when did we do more then bare minimum?''

Click to shrink...

You personally might have done the bare minimum and Kakara may not have done a ton, but quite a few people have put quite a bit of hard work into it over the last two years. Enough work that there are around 8 pages of discussion for every story post.

Edit:

Contrary to apparently everyone ever, I really enjoyed the last update. I dunno, maybe it's because I have been having IRL issues and haven't had as much time to be as fanatically obsessed (or even really serously engaged) with the story as I used to be, but this update didn't strike me on as personal a level as it seems to have struck everyone else.

To me, this didn't feel like a personal slight, but rather a perfect ending to the first act of a story in three act structure; the "inciting incident" or moment where nothing will be the same again, if you will. Up until now, we were a child playing a child's part. And then we hit a very grown up problem: in spite of our perky personality and childlike enthusiasm and superior planning capabilities and "outside of the box thinking" and the million other reasons why we "should have won," our choices put us in a situation that we just couldn't win... not without compromising the integrity of the world our illustrious author has created. So we lost.

So where does this leave us now? Well, it might just be me, but it feels like we might just be starting on the second act: Kakara has had the situation pretty well contained thus far, even dare I say trapped, in its own little paradigm. We've trained, and plotted, and conspiracized, and done everything we needed to successfully execute a seal-break. (And lest anyone forget, we DID manage to free Jaffur, even if we flubbed the follow up bad enough to make it moot.) But narratively, it seems it's time to see our precocious saiyan princess off on her Hero's Journey. We have our quest (redeem our failure/return in victory), our helping mentor (future vision Kakara, whom I'm hoping we'll see again), and after this defeat we are overdue for some serious character development.

Not, I hasten to add, that Kakara hasn't had character development before... just that aside from going from Pacifist to Protector, she is still pretty much the same odd, control-obsessed little girl we've been playing from the start. In the immortal words of abridged!16, I think it's time for Kakara to "Grow! Up!" and this failure seems the perfect catalyst for such development.

But hey, that's just what I think. No beef if everyone thinks I'm full of shit.

Click to shrink...

We're bad, but we're not so bad that anyone's going to call you full of shit for having an opinion. Probably.

Anyway, the difference in opinions here comes largely from a difference in how we're viewing this.

You see it as a story, as an observer, and as such, this is a good story moment. Kakara lost and has to abandon everything she had to start standing on her own.
I see it as a game, as Kakara, and as such, this is an unmitigated failure. We, the voters, screwed up so badly we have to abandon everything we've spent time over the last two years building and run off into space, abandoning all our plans and most of the characters we've grown attached to.

Even if you don't see it the same way I do, that should help you see why some of us see it that way at least.

 

[KnightDisciple]

You personally might have done the bare minimum and Kakara may not have done a ton, but quite a few people have put quite a bit of hard work into it over the last two years. Enough work that there are around 8 pages of discussion for every story post.

Click to shrink...

But in-character, what all did Kakara do, is his point. How much actual time and effort. This is beyond theorycrafting in the thread (which is actually a useful tool at times even if it an be intimidating for someone catching up).

I do appreciate that it's become clearer that the issues that've been happening aren't just "literally only our collective consciousness is competent at anything", but rather "there were roadblocks we haven't previously seen or been aware of".

Also, @PoptartProdigy , I personally would be in favor of a scaled-down version of the current system; it requires the least "shop time" from you to re-calibrate everything, preserves one of the more interesting character sheet styles and formats I've seen, rewards a more thoughtful and in some ways diversified approach to character-building, and gives us room for those epic random moments, like Spirit Saiyan.

 

[Terrabrand]

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.

Click to shrink...

It's the largest staff action I've ever seen personally, and it seems it might be the largest ever that did not end with a permanent threadlock, yes.

Regardless.

I, personally really liked the update. I, personally, would like to see the system stay, as much as possible, because I like what the system does, flatly. I, personally, hope we can fix things without ruining the experience for you.

Because, ultimately, when running a quest, that's something I do for fun. By the same token, I would hate to see another QM running a quest that makes them miserable.

I somewhat wish I had made my support more clear during the blow up, but I went from tired to asleep, and in the initial period was trying to avoid exacerbating the blow-up. Which, well. I wouldn't want a worse blow up, but I regret not making it clearer that at least some of your audience/playerbase thinks you did nothing wrong.

And to be clear, I'm a fairly picky quester. I don't follow quests I'm not interested in participating in, and I'm fairly quick to drop quests from disinterest. I do follow a fair number of quests, but most quests simply do not gain my attention, and even a lot that do quickly lose it.

 

[HoratioVonBecker]

Not at all the impression I'm getting of Poptart's GMing style. It was as hard as it was because that was how hard it made sense for it to be. Poptart's expectations of what the players would do seems unlikely to have majorly factored into that one way or the other; had we been supreme gods of planning, the encounter would have been trivial, and had we been utterly incompetent, it would have been actually unwinnable.

Click to shrink...

Well, I'm not certain what other means of getting to know Dandeer were on the table, but infiltrating the Vegetan compound was the one Poptart mentioned us as having passed over.

 

[Rmnimoc]

But in-character, what all did Kakara do, is his point. How much actual time and effort. This is beyond theorycrafting in the thread (which is actually a useful tool at times even if it an be intimidating for someone catching up).

I do appreciate that it's become clearer that the issues that've been happening aren't just "literally only our collective consciousness is competent at anything", but rather "there were roadblocks we haven't previously seen or been aware of".

Also, @PoptartProdigy , I personally would be in favor of a scaled-down version of the current system; it requires the least "shop time" from you to re-calibrate everything, preserves one of the more interesting character sheet styles and formats I've seen, rewards a more thoughtful and in some ways diversified approach to character-building, and gives us room for those epic random moments, like Spirit Saiyan.

Click to shrink...

When I'm talking about being unhappy about the hard work put into the conspiracy coming up flat, I'm talking about the work that we the players put into it. I imagine most of the other posters talking about the time and effort put into the conspiracy were talking about it too. Unless they're actually talking about the time and effort Kakara put into it which, yeah, is basically not a thing.

 

[Wiadi]

Well, I'm not certain what other means of getting to know Dandeer were on the table, but infiltrating the Vegetan compound was the one Poptart mentioned us as having passed over.

Click to shrink...

Sure, my point is just that Poptart didn't necessarily expect us to get to know Dandeer & set the encounter difficulty in some way based on that expectation.

 

[KnightDisciple]

When I'm talking about being unhappy about the hard work put into the conspiracy coming up flat, I'm talking about the work that we the players put into it. I imagine most of the other posters talking about the time and effort put into the conspiracy were talking about it too.

Click to shrink...

My point is that the non-vote discussion can only go so far in having an actual, tangible impact on the game. I'd argue that, in-game, the involvement with the Conspiracy was middle-ground, but not highly dynamic or inventive. Kakara did a fair bit of recruiting, and was definitely a driving force in terms of motivation and available options (mainly the whole "mind-walked Jaffur" thing), but didn't necessarily shape a lot of the particulars of the plan.

So, again, non-vote discussion is, to a point, all well and good, but it should not be taken as an absolute indicator of what actually goes into things occurring in-game.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

Honestly, if we can get out of this without being stuck as a shade an awful lot of my distress at the situation Kakara finds herself in goes away. We'd finally be able to work on fucking Perfect Multiform, after literal years of it getting knocked back after I fought to get it into the bloody yearly plans.

 

[Terrabrand]

When I'm talking about being unhappy about the hard work put into the conspiracy coming up flat, I'm talking about the work that we the players put into it. I imagine most of the other posters talking about the time and effort put into the conspiracy were talking about it too. Unless they're actually talking about the time and effort Kakara put into it which, yeah, is basically not a thing.

Click to shrink...

I mean, ultimately, it's a quest. Discussion is the out of character part, votes the in character. Expecting to get good results just for talking about it is insane.

Otherwise, we're talking Kakara having Perfect Multiform and more ridiculous powers besides, solely because a lot of people talked about it, which... Doesn't work.

If you can't point to lots of votes/ well considered votes for Conspiracy Stuff, then the whole thing is sorta moot. Discussion isn't the actual gameplay of a quest, and to expect results solely from it is fairly unreasonable.

Or, put another way, if the players talk about something a lot, but don't leverage it into in-character via votes, that's not a failing of the QM. That's a failing of the players collectively.

 

[Lailoken]

You personally might have done the bare minimum and Kakara may not have done a ton, but quite a few people have put quite a bit of hard work into it over the last two years. Enough work that there are around 8 pages of discussion for every story post.

Edit:

We're bad, but we're not so bad that anyone's going to call you full of shit for having an opinion. Probably.

Anyway, the difference in opinions here comes largely from a difference in how we're viewing this.

You see it as a story, as an observer, and as such, this is a good story moment. Kakara lost and has to abandon everything she had to start standing on her own.
I see it as a game, as Kakara, and as such, this is an unmitigated failure. We, the voters, screwed up so badly we have to abandon everything we've spent time over the last two years building and run off into space, abandoning all our plans and most of the characters we've grown attached to.

Even if you don't see it the same way I do, that should help you see why some of us see it that way at least.

Click to shrink...

It's not even that bad. If we follow the plan the Senzus will remain a hidden enclave training Maya and protecting Kakara's friends while collecting intel and conducting what operations they can afford to.

 

[Bakkasama]

When I'm talking about being unhappy about the hard work put into the conspiracy coming up flat, I'm talking about the work that we the players put into it. I imagine most of the other posters talking about the time and effort put into the conspiracy were talking about it too. Unless they're actually talking about the time and effort Kakara put into it which, yeah, is basically not a thing.

Click to shrink...

Thing is, as players we didn't put that much effort. We pretty much assigned one action a year to it and that was an extra action we got from a trait that had to be used on helping to get Jaffur out. Then we switched to a non-yearly system after the fight with Dazarel and for the last month before the unsealing we socialized with Dandelor and Jaffur then we stopped preparing and hurried for it to happen since we didn't want to look suspiscious by changing our behavior. The closest I can think to effort we put were the actions of the last month in universe and we didn't exactly go the extra mile there, though we didn't do the bare minimum either.

 

[Kaiya]

You personally might have done the bare minimum and Kakara may not have done a ton, but quite a few people have put quite a bit of hard work into it over the last two years. Enough work that there are around 8 pages of discussion for every story post.

Edit:

We're bad, but we're not so bad that anyone's going to call you full of shit for having an opinion. Probably.

Anyway, the difference in opinions here comes largely from a difference in how we're viewing this.

You see it as a story, as an observer, and as such, this is a good story moment. Kakara lost and has to abandon everything she had to start standing on her own.
I see it as a game, as Kakara, and as such, this is an unmitigated failure. We, the voters, screwed up so badly we have to abandon everything we've spent time over the last two years building and run off into space, abandoning all our plans and most of the characters we've grown attached to.

Even if you don't see it the same way I do, that should help you see why some of us see it that way at least.

Click to shrink...

Well, i mean, bluntly? Losing in a game is still kind of a good thing, as long as you don't die. Games aren't meant to be about winning. Stories aren't about victory, and roleplaying games are an interactive story. Kakara isn't you. By entering the game, by posting and voting, everyone in this thread has agreed to play, and part of playing is accepting that sometimes, you lose.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

Otherwise, we're talking Kakara having Perfect Multiform and more ridiculous powers besides, solely because a lot of people talked about it, which... Doesn't work.

Click to shrink...

It was in there every year I could cram it in

 

[Terrabrand]

It was in there every year I could cram it in

Click to shrink...

Well, yes. It not being around more was a failure of the players, collectively.

That's actually in seriousness a perfect example of what I'm talking about. We talked about it a lot, but ultimately it wasn't popular in winning plans, so regardless of the talking, it's only right that our collective failure to commit means we don't have it.

 

[Bakkasama]

Well, yes. It not being around more was a failure of the players, collectively.

That's actually in seriousness a perfect example of what I'm talking about. We talked about it a lot, but ultimately it wasn't popular in winning plans, so regardless of the talking, it's only right that our collective failure to commit means we don't have it.

Click to shrink...

Actually, it kind of was popular to winning plans but it also wasn't a must do so whenever we had to drop an action because something unexpected happened during the year, we chose to drop its research. I think it was in the winning plan a couple of time but we had to drop it later those years without doing it.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

Well, yes. It not being around more was a failure of the players, collectively.

That's actually in seriousness a perfect example of what I'm talking about. We talked about it a lot, but ultimately it wasn't popular in winning plans, so regardless of the talking, it's only right that our collective failure to commit means we don't have it.

Click to shrink...

I mean, it was in every plan successfully. It just got dropped both times because the first time our time got used up by crises and we had to drop something, and people voted for Scion Duties (I don't think we got anything important from that we'd have missed in the short term?) and then it got dropped to prepare for the dragon (which admittedly turned out to be the correct move given the Spirit Saiyan, but... yeah.)

Doubly irritating because the first action at least should have got us to Exceptional Multiform, which under the yearly system meant a free extra action.

 

[ElleonXan]

Even if you don't see it the same way I do, that should help you see why some of us see it that way at least.

Click to shrink...

Oh trust me, I get it. I know WHY everyone was mad. I just wanted to show that as a counterpoint view, of which I've made no secret that I view narrative first and mechanics second, I wasn't salty at all and actually got more out of the update than normal.

Actually, as an addendum to that, I'm probably going to piss off a lot of people but I have to say: I'm really looking forward to going specter. Honestly, I think getting us out of our comfort zone can only do the quest good. (And by that, let me clarify that I'm talking about getting us, the voters, out of our comfort zone, not necessarily Kakara being out of her comfort zone.)

 

[Lailoken]

Y'know, she might already have everything she needs to timeskip. She's a ki-sensing prodigy who has already unlocked two extraordinary ki sensing paradigms, one of them completely unprecedented. She mastered IT at a very young age. IT is all about sensing the target, and time is in many ways just another dimension, especially to a seer.

 

[Conceptualist]

Well, i mean, bluntly? Losing in a game is still kind of a good thing, as long as you don't die. Games aren't meant to be about winning. Stories aren't about victory, and roleplaying games are an interactive story. Kakara isn't you. By entering the game, by posting and voting, everyone in this thread has agreed to play, and part of playing is accepting that sometimes, you lose.

Click to shrink...

The problem with this idea is that just because we can lose, doesn't mean we want to lose. I think that there isn't anybody who actively participates in this quest who wanted to lose this confrontation. And now that their preferred outcome cannot happen, those people are upset. The whole "games mean sometimes losing" philosophy means a lot less outside of team sports. We, as the collective player base of this quest, want the best outcome we can get from this situation. We didn't get that.

We lost out on four years of buildup, planning, and questing due to a mistake in judging the fight we were building up to.

As an example: nobody believed that the adults we were bringing into this fight were compromised. The vast majority of the player base believed that, since we had recruited an overwhelming amount of fight power, the moral choice of a fair trial was best. Things were planned around that belief. We structured about two year of real time questing on the fundamental assumption that those we recruited to our cause were on our side.

Frankly, I'm not personally upset out losing this fight. I'm upset that we rigged the deck against ourselves by using comprised agents as our main method of trying to win. If the mindcontrol wasn't a factor, we would have won. If we simply didn't have the people who were mindcontrolled there, we probably would have won. And if we knew that mind control of this level was possible, we would have planned everything differently. I don't know how it would have in that scenario, but that's because everything would be completely different.

Frankly, the only thing about this last update I am upset about is the mindcontrol, and how it came across like an asspull. I believe it wasn't, but that doesn't means it didn't come across like that.