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[Exalted/SMT] Shard of a Broken Sun

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[X] Focus on understanding Amu's soul
- [X] Concerning Chara and motivation interactions, as things stand, our current Host has a highly unorthodox Soul Structure. Though fundamentally 'Human' enough to qualify for Exaltation, the "Chara" are capable of providing significant advantages in terms of abilities and aptitudes, which accelerate learning, and allow rapid changes in outlook. These are potentially advantageous in the long run, especially if they can be preserved and augmented with the Exaltation proper.

As we cannot count on assistance from other Exaltations, and our prognostication has determined that our Host's death is guaranteed within days without our intervention, we must work under the assumption that averting it is beyond mortal means. Thus, further study on this phenomenon would be prudent before the Exaltation becomes mandatory, as proper augmentation will dramatically increase flexibility in the short and long term alike, compensating for the lack of a proper Circle and support structure, and increasing the host's chances.
 
Baughn said:
Note: There will be no calling of votes this time, since ~90% of the contents of the next update is already decided (and written). You can still expect 24 hours of voting time.
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Does that mean the next update'll be available soon?
 
Alectai said:
Does that mean the next update'll be available soon?
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No... actually, I decided to combine the next two instead. Which brings the completion percentage down to 60%. :p

What I meant was: Whatever you vote for here, I won't need to rewrite much if anything. So I don't need to call the vote before writing.
 
Oh!

Well, good enough, still means we might get to see the next part tonight, which makes me happy.
 
Alectai said:
[X] Focus on understanding Amu's soul
*snip*
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Wall of text! Paragraphs!

So, um. Actually, you do not know there is a great (SMT-level) disaster in the future, you just know a lot of people (including Amu) might die. A lot of things could cause that, right down to earthquakes.
 
[x] Focus on understanding Amu's soul
- [x] With an eye towards optimising the initial exaltation. Focus on protecting others.

Chara research, while very important, is not going to immediately save the people she cares about. Amu needs power now.
 
[X] Focus on understanding Amu's soul
- [X] Concerning Chara and motivation interactions, as things stand, our current Host has a highly unorthodox Soul Structure. Though fundamentally 'Human' enough to qualify for Exaltation, the "Chara" are capable of providing significant advantages in terms of abilities and aptitudes, which accelerate learning, and allow rapid changes in outlook. These are potentially advantageous in the long run, especially if they can be preserved and augmented with the Exaltation proper.

As we cannot count on assistance from other Exaltations, and our prognostication has determined that our Host's death is guaranteed within days without our intervention, we must work under the assumption that averting it is beyond mortal means. Thus, further study on this phenomenon would be prudent before the Exaltation becomes mandatory, as proper augmentation will dramatically increase flexibility in the short and long term alike, compensating for the lack of a proper Circle and support structure, and increasing the host's chances.​
 
pressea said:
Chara research is not going to save the people she cares about. Amu needs power now.
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Yeah, losing if we fumble additional dot in Str/Dex/Sta, 2 dots in Athletics and dot in Awareness and Dodge would be totally helpful! NOT.
 
al103 said:
Yeah, losing if we fumble additional dot in Str/Dex/Sta, 2 dots in Athletics and dot in Awareness and Dodge would be totally helpful! NOT.
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You can't seriously think Baughn is going to burn out the charas if we don't click every Chara option? They're the entire point of having Amu as an option.
 
pressea said:
You can't seriously think Baughn is going to burn out the charas if we don't click every Chara option? They're the entire point of having Amu as an option.
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Just crippling ability to use them short term would be enough to lose said bonuses in initial confrontation.

Also - it's hard difficulty - I can see GM doing that if we would do a wrong choice. Study at minimum would allow to spot that wrong choice.
 
[X] Focus on understanding Amu's soul
- [X] Concerning Chara and motivation interactions, as things stand, our current Host has a highly unorthodox Soul Structure. Though fundamentally 'Human' enough to qualify for Exaltation, the "Chara" are capable of providing significant advantages in terms of abilities and aptitudes, which accelerate learning, and allow rapid changes in outlook. These are potentially advantageous in the long run, especially if they can be preserved and augmented with the Exaltation proper.

As we cannot count on assistance from other Exaltations, and our prognostication has determined that our Host's death is guaranteed within days without our intervention, we must work under the assumption that averting it is beyond mortal means. Thus, further study on this phenomenon would be prudent before the Exaltation becomes mandatory, as proper augmentation will dramatically increase flexibility in the short and long term alike, compensating for the lack of a proper Circle and support structure, and increasing the host's chances.
 
al103 said:
Just crippling ability to use them short term would be enough to lose said bonuses in initial confrontation.
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I could see myself doing that.
Also - it's hard difficulty - I can see GM doing that if we would do a wrong choice.
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But not that. Permanent damage will be telegraphed. Even if it doesn't hurt Amu directly, I'll put in hints so you have a chance to see it coming. The difficulty rating is about the world, and Amu's hard-to-accomplish motivations, not how I'll handle it as a quest.

Mind you, no-one has noticed the permanent damage I telegraphed in this update yet, so...

Sometimes the telegraph is cloaked?
 
Baughn said:
I could see myself doing that.


But not that. Permanent damage will be telegraphed. Even if it doesn't hurt Amu directly, I'll put in hints so you have a chance to see it coming. The difficulty rating is about the world, and Amu's hard-to-accomplish motivations, not how I'll handle it as a quest.

Mind you, no-one has noticed the permanent damage I telegraphed in this update yet, so...

Sometimes the telegraph is cloaked?
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You mean
Cooking? It's not that she didn't want to, it just… wasn't what she did, and she worried she'd do badly. It would hardly be cool to ask for help, but at the same time, she wished she could. She wanted to hug Mommy without reservation, and to ask her about everything instead of pretending she already knew. She didn't want to act like this…

Held against her mother, who probably understood that, part of her broke under a sudden sense of urgency. She still couldn't make herself act that open, but that was okay.

Ran, please…

A moment of blankness, then her worries melted away and she leaned into Mommy's embrace, hugging her back with… a small fraction of her strength, now. She looked up at her favourite person in the world, who looked back with bemusement. "Sure, I'd love to help. You'll have to teach me how, though. What are we making?"
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This bit?
 
[X] Focus on understanding Amu's soul
- [X] Concerning Chara and motivation interactions, as things stand, our current Host has a highly unorthodox Soul Structure. Though fundamentally 'Human' enough to qualify for Exaltation, the "Chara" are capable of providing significant advantages in terms of abilities and aptitudes, which accelerate learning, and allow rapid changes in outlook. These are potentially advantageous in the long run, especially if they can be preserved and augmented with the Exaltation proper.

As we cannot count on assistance from other Exaltations, and our prognostication has determined that our Host's death is guaranteed within days without our intervention, we must work under the assumption that averting it is beyond mortal means. Thus, further study on this phenomenon would be prudent before the Exaltation becomes mandatory, as proper augmentation will dramatically increase flexibility in the short and long term alike, compensating for the lack of a proper Circle and support structure, and increasing the host's chances.
 
That's the problem when you have Conviction 1, it's really, really hard to stick to a single, sensible route.

That, and...


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baughn said:
The evening is a virtual treasure trove of emotions, and you gain a great deal of insight into Amu's way of thinking. This is crucial data: It will allow you to strengthen her mind without twisting her personality, something you will not do on your own, and which you have come to believe Amu would not ask for. You have also gathered valuable data on Chara interactions, after she spent half the evening in an altered state of mind.
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In other words? We need to be Very Careful about increasing "Personality" based traits like Virtues, because doing so recklessly can cause some serious damage.
 
Baughn said:
But not that. Permanent damage will be telegraphed. Even if it doesn't hurt Amu directly, I'll put in hints so you have a chance to see it coming. The difficulty rating is about the world, and Amu's hard-to-accomplish motivations, not how I'll handle it as a quest.

Mind you, no-one has noticed the permanent damage I telegraphed in this update yet, so...

Sometimes the telegraph is cloaked?
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SB tend to miss hints half of the time. So IMHO we do need said research to get straight warning instead of hint that we can (and half the time would) miss.
 
Alectai said:
We need to be Very Careful about increasing "Personality" based traits like Virtues, because doing so recklessly can cause some serious damage.
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Sure, but we just earned two "safe" virtue points. As long as we only spend those and work on understanding Amu more before buying more, she'll be fine.
 
pressea said:
Sure, but we just earned two "safe" virtue points. As long as we only spend those and work on understanding Amu more before buying more, she'll be fine.
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Which is good! I personally believe that getting Conviction up to at least 2 would be a prudent idea. Temperance to 2 would also be valuable, but so would Valor to 3.

Valor and Compassion are a Potent combination. But Temperance reduces the odds of you doing something really fucking stupid.
 
Alectai said:
Which is good! I personally believe that getting Conviction up to at least 2 would be a prudent idea. Temperance to 2 would also be valuable, but so would Valor to 3.

Valor and Compassion are a Potent combination. But Temperance reduces the odds of you doing something really fucking stupid.
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Well:
Compassion - Helps you succeed anyway when doing something stupid, especially something stupid which you would do with or without the Compassion anyway as a player.
Valor - Helps succeed at combat. Helps GET you into combat.
Temperance - Helps avoid ooo shiny. Not much help when the player is also ooo shiny.
Conviction - Fuel for the Willpower mill.
 
Considering how willpower-intensive Amu is, working to bolster it might be the best choice now. All the Chara shenanigans in the world won't help her if she runs out of willpower.

Just tossing that out there.
 
veekie said:
Well:
Compassion - Helps you succeed anyway when doing something stupid, especially something stupid which you would do with or without the Compassion anyway as a player.
Valor - Helps succeed at combat. Helps GET you into combat.
Temperance - Helps avoid ooo shiny. Not much help when the player is also ooo shiny.
Conviction - Fuel for the Willpower mill.
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But in fact you are playing as the Exaltation, not as Amu. This is mainly my excuse as storyteller for vetoing bad ideas - I want to make this work as a story, not just a quest - but it also means that OOC behaviour on part of Amu will not be a thing.

Picking the right virtues to increase will be a major part of defining what counts as IC behaviour.
 
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