Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

[Amrynel]

Honestly the fact that you didn't give us any indication that we had an issue, or for that matter a chance to make any sort of recovery, save or escape after the last vote is the biggest issue here. Splitting the fight would have let us figure out that something didn't line up with our previous assumptions, and either change tactics or do something to fix things. Sure that'd slow the pace of the fight down a bit, but even giving it a snap vote (20 minute moratorium, 2hour window?) To avoid people making overly elaborate plans and force quick decisions would have been much better. It'd have taken some of the feeling of inevitably out of the fight even if we still lost, which would have greatly cut down on the feeling of a railroad.

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This. I read the chapter and felt like I'd been sucker punched murdered. There's a big difference between "If there is more of them or they seems actually dangerous" and "NOBODY EXPECTS THE BELKAN INQUISITION!" And then our device breaks their barrier and escapes? That was salt in the, um, fatal chest wound. It made me wonder why didn't we have that option when we saw we weren't up against anything like what we initially expected?

However, kudos for writing emotionally charged death scenes! (ouch)

Hmm. Oh! Why did mister "plunge my sword through her body" seem shocked that he succeeded when that was his entire plan, and what is TSAB policy when your team is wanted for murdering the local hero mage who invited you there in the first place?

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

Hope you don't let the negativity get you down SW and that this doesn't stop you from taking criticism.

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All this tells me that you just maybe read the first page of initial reactions and skipped the rest of the discussion.

No one has a problem with dying. In fact it might have been preferred depending on our situation upon waking.

So... Yeah, nice post, but you literally argued at a brick wall after the 3rd paragraph.

which could have been communicated better from the qm that this was such a fight,

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And this was communicated at all. Deliberately so really.

 

[Hate Fish]

*snip for size*

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This, right here. All of this. Personally, I'd've preferred a little heel-digging, but I'm not a quest guy, I'm a tabletop guy, so my views might be slightly skewed. Still, @Phantsai makes an excellent point in a well worded and thought out manner, and I'll second basically anything if it conforms to this basic line of thought.

 

[DemiRapscallion]

There was an "If you died" interlude. How did that not answer your questions?

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Look, I kinda forgot to read it. I'm dumb. Shh. I'm not really worried, SW is a good writer, I trust them to properly convey Taylor's incredulity at being attacked, and not murdered in the slightest, because I read the noncanon interlude like a smart person.

 

[Phantsai]

All this tells me that you just maybe read the first page of initial reactions and skipped the rest of the discussion.

No one has a problem with dying. In fact it might have been preferred depending on our situation upon waking

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People felt as if they were getting railroaded, either by the reincarnate mechanic or the encounter. The qm decided not to introduce the mechanic yet after it was discussed, so any talk about it being railroaded for that purpose should not have gotten louder after it was retconned. People who felt like they were railroaded by the encounter itself can reread my previous posts about rolling a Nat 1 for an encounter.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

Thing is that people need to realise for quests and tabletop rpgs, the qm/gm shouldn't always necessarily adhere strictly to the rules. Things like fumbling rolls to make a more interesting experience.

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And... kind of/not really? I understand this, I agree with this in some scenarios (which it should only be used sometimes so...), but you need to communicate with your players if so. GMs can smile evily or the players can read something is going down, Quest players can't.

I also noted earlier that very little of this, probably only from those who lurk and show up for updates, would have happened if SW had hashed out that something was about to get railroaded onto us.

He pulled a "Rocks fall, you die" scenario and then retconned the "you die" part.

 

[Inverness]

Situations like this is why I don't participate in this quest and only read it occasionally.

Too many times I've seen things happen that make me believe the QM is working against the participants instead of with them to create an enjoyable questing experience for everyone.

There seems to be this disconnect between what the readers know and what the QM thinks the readers know which consistently manifests as bad things happening.

 

[Phantsai]

He pulled a "Rocks fall, you die" scenario and then retconned the "you die" part.

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After the retcon people got even more upset which just felt strange after the situation changed, I fully understand being miffed at the character death for doing nothing wrong, and was myself. But after it changed I'm fine with it.

As for having it be communicated that we were about to get railroaded? Ehh maybe, it would've eased the sting on the loss of agency but it would've also kinda spoiled it. So kinda neutral on that one.

 

[goku90504]

Regardless, we engaged the pair. And order to stand down was ignored,

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an?

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

After the retcon people got even more upset which just felt strange after the situation changed, I fully understand being miffed at the character death for doing nothing wrong, and was myself. But after it changed I'm fine with it.

As for having it be communicated that we were about to get railroaded? Ehh maybe, it would've eased the sting on the loss of agency but it would've also kinda spoiled it. So kinda neutral on that one.

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Part of it is also that he was fully treating the situation like we did still have agency. We had a regular vote to set up a battle plan and everything at the end of 8.9. Literally nothing saying that something might be wrong other than some mooks shooting at us with maybe tinker-tech guns.

And really the plan meant Jack and Shit. Considering how blind we were, and I'm saying this for the third time, SW might as well have rolled for it.

Not giving us a vote at the end of 8.9 would have been a type of communication in it's own way really.

 

[Scope]

After the retcon people got even more upset which just felt strange after the situation changed, I fully understand being miffed at the character death for doing nothing wrong, and was myself. But after it changed I'm fine with it.

As for having it be communicated that we were about to get railroaded? Ehh maybe, it would've eased the sting on the loss of agency but it would've also kinda spoiled it. So kinda neutral on that one.

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After the whole explanation about Taylor basically looking like a IAE puppet and them being in the right for attacking first and asking questions later, the part that annoys me is them calling out to Taylor to stand down, as it gives them an out.

 

[Phantsai]

Part of it is also that he was fully treating the situation like we did still have agency. We had a regular vote to set up a battle plan and everything at the end of 8.9. Literally nothing saying that something might be wrong other than some mooks shooting at us with maybe tinker-tech guns.

And really the plan meant Jack and Shit. Considering how blind we were, and I'm saying this for the third time, SW might as well have rolled for it.

Not giving us a vote at the end of 8.9 would have been a type of communication in it's own way really.

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Yeah fully agree that it felt like it was a slap to our agencies face. Probably the best way to do something like this was split the encounter over a bunch of chapters even if they were small and just showed Taylor getting her ass kicked despite what she did. While not in the same league as an endbringer along the same feelings of a no win fight and what objectives to be voted on started to shift away from outright victory. My main issue was with how upset people were getting with it. Felt like it was blown heavily out of proportion.

 

[LancerisDead]

Okay, I think we've all hammered out more or less our thoughts on the update by this point. Can we cut it before it becomes beating a dead horse?

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

Okay, I think we've all hammered out more or less our thoughts on the update by this point. Can we cut it before it becomes beating a dead horse?

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New people can comment if they want to. Especially those saying something they felt hasn't, like Phantsai did.

Demetric's didn't, so I just told him to read the discussion and it turns out he had missed something.

 

[paebel]

I'm pretty much a complete lurker and really only created this account in the last couple of weeks, but I think a good idea at this point is to move beyond being salty at the QM (though I'd agree there is always room for constructive criticism), and more figuring out how we can be salty in the game itself. I'm not talking about derailing it or anything, but I feel like the mistakes of the TSAB here have basically opened the door to outright hostility with them pretty much no matter the situation upon waking up. To the extent that I think I'd actually like the death from the fight, just to justify Taylor being even more outraged about it.

I guess I'm just saying that I'm interested in the myriad ways we can make things difficult for TSAB as a whole due to this, from outright non-cooperation to turning Dragon, the PRT, or really anyone against them that we can. And also contacting their superiors and reporting an assault upon a friendly mage that effectively lost them their contacts, of course.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

I'm pretty much a complete lurker and really only created this account in the last couple of weeks, but I think a good idea at this point is to move beyond being salty at the QM (though I'd agree there is always room for constructive criticism), and more figuring out how we can be salty in the game itself. I'm not talking about derailing it or anything, but I feel like the mistakes of the TSAB here have basically opened the door to outright hostility with them pretty much no matter the situation upon waking up. To the extent that I think I'd actually like the death from the fight, just to justify Taylor being even more outraged about it.

I guess I'm just saying that I'm interested in the myriad ways we can make things difficult for TSAB as a whole due to this, from outright non-cooperation to turning Dragon, the PRT, or really anyone against them that we can. And also contacting their superiors and reporting an assault upon a friendly mage that effectively lost them their contacts, of course.

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Also already in the discussion... albeit pretty much only by myself actually. :/

 

[Tyrant's Bane]

I think one of the things we should do before this goes any further is apologize to @Silently Watches . While things got expectedly very heated (players tend to get very attached to characters in these types of games), a lot of what's being said has dropped from constructive criticism to maddened bitter yelling at the gm.

We may not like the decisions, we may rage, seethe, or even quit, but in the end he is the one who is taking the time to write this game and story, not us.

So I'm gonna say sorry if any posts of mine come off as overly salty or angry and hope all of us can move on.

 

[No One]

Edit: As someone who's only read the quest in reader mode, I'm not actually that annoyed by the death and would've been interested to see where the resurrection mechanic would go (since I've essentially been reading it as a story anyway). So just take this as commentary .

1. I've already said that death was not permanent. Both in the OP as well as during and after the voting for this chapter. It wasn't like this was a "You're dead. Game over. Thanks for playing" situation. It was "You're dead for now, but in a week you're coming back from the dead with a chip on your shoulder".

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Eh. You said in the OP:

2) Death is possible in this quest. It isn't permanent barring certain extreme circumstances, but it comes with consequences that you will not like. Try to avoid this, please.

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That...doesn't inspire me with confidence .

It seems like a situation where the story and the game intersect badly. If this were a story alone, that chapter would have been perfectly fine: mutual misunderstandings, one horrifically bad day on the part of one party, character flaws that all blow up together and cause a massive disaster... that's fine. Creates suspense and a challenge for the character to overcome, gives readership something to blow up the thread with argument about (as the above posters have!), etc., while waiting for the revelation and fallout.

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Well, in how many stories does the main character die ? The resurrection mechanic would work in a story, where you could leave it as a cliffhanger (or at least have demonstrable ability that it's not over, keep reading: which is a pseudo-cliffhanger, even if it had 'you died' on the end). But yeah, as a Quest? I'll second FunkyEntropy and say that it's the sort of mechanic that's actually really interesting. But introducing it...100 chapters, 210k words and 17 months in? Well...you're sort of trying to change the quest dynamic a fair bit at this point. *Shrug*

And really the plan meant Jack and Shit. Considering how blind we were, and I'm saying this for the third time, SW might as well have rolled for it.

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To be honest, rolling for it would've likely given us higher odds of living...It's...basically, did anyone really expect any other vote to win? As others have said, it's our standard MO. It's standard MO for a reason, because it normally works. With no definitive reason to stray from that...it's basically 100% chance people would stick with normal MO.

 

[LightMage]

I haven't seen anything near as bad as any of the AGG-meltdowns.

Like, from what I've seen in this thread, well the majority of posts anyway, after the latest update so far is repeating the same points (with some variation) or apparently skipping pages and bringing up things that have already been answered.

Which I'd sum up as 'It's a really neat idea you tried to pull off QM, but you screwed up the execution of it' and a bit of 'please remember player agency'.

I don't feel like people are upset so much as they are disappointed. At least, I get that feel that we're all like 'surprise ambu... wait no this is a cutscene, and we're dead now. That's... a bit of a letdown'. Being able to influence the results of an 'unwinnable battle' in a way players can see and understand is fun, but binary arbitrary *look at a guide for the flag info* kind of 'event cutscene' compared to what we've been doing in the past chapters is... not fun. Neat idea for an arc, but that doesn't mean it's a fun idea.

 

[veekie]

Part of it is also that he was fully treating the situation like we did still have agency. We had a regular vote to set up a battle plan and everything at the end of 8.9. Literally nothing saying that something might be wrong other than some mooks shooting at us with maybe tinker-tech guns.

And really the plan meant Jack and Shit. Considering how blind we were, and I'm saying this for the third time, SW might as well have rolled for it.

Not giving us a vote at the end of 8.9 would have been a type of communication in it's own way really.

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Mmm, I think this hit the nail on the head the best.
We would have been less pissed if we say, got bushwhacked by ButcherLung or Behemoth out of the blue(heck, that more or less happened to Danny and we were upset but dealt with it, since we could have prevented it, knew the risk, and failed). Or even potentially a Saint dead man switch we forgot to check for taking out Dragon.

People are extra pissed because the presentation was "Well you could have avoided this" followed by the entire win condition being what:
-Cost Vista an arm
-Got us taken down by bazooka
-Cost us the fight with the Dragonslayers the first time

Which is to say barring access to GM notes or the gift of prophecy this was inevitable but presented as though it was not, even after the fact.

 

[Tyrant's Bane]

I just had a thought. How likely that this wa small seen and or filmed.

Because this is a shitshow no matter how it goes down.

If the triumvirate knows they are going to try and get her back one way or another due to what she represents.

Then there's Eidolon who thinks she may be a way to restore his powers, which brings the endbringers into play via his subconscious. We may very well see a simurgh interrupt.

 

[Archeo Lumiere]

I just had a thought. How likely that this wa small seen and or filmed.

Because this is a shitshow no matter how it goes down.

If the triumvirate knows they are going to try and get her back one way or another due to what she represents.

Then there's Eidolon who thinks she may be a way to restore his powers, which brings the endbringers into play via his subconscious. We may very well see a simurgh interrupt.

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No chance, Recursion Field.

 

[LancerisDead]

I think one of the things we should do before this goes any further is apologize to @Silently Watches . While things got expectedly very heated (players tend to get very attached to characters in these types of games), a lot of what's being said has dropped from constructive criticism to maddened bitter yelling at the gm.

We may not like the decisions, we may rage, seethe, or even quit, but in the end he is the one who is taking the time to write this game and story, not us.

So I'm gonna say sorry if any posts of mine come off as overly salty or angry and hope all of us can move on.

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This. I don't think there's anything more that can be said, so let's drop it while we can.

I for one am awaiting the next interlude/chapter eagerly, and hoping we manage to steer Taylor to repairing at least some of the bridges the TSAB burnt.

 

[Tyrant's Bane]

This. I don't think there's anything more that can be said, so let's drop it while we can.

I for one am awaiting the next interlude/chapter eagerly, and hoping we manage to steer Taylor to repairing at least some of the bridges the TSAB burnt.

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Well at the very least I'm pretty certain Alexandria is going to get her wish because I do not see Taylor ever deciding to build any bridges towards recruitment.

 

[LancerisDead]

Well at the very least I'm pretty certain Alexandria is going to get her wish because I do not see Taylor ever deciding to build any bridges towards recruitment.

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Kinda?

Let's get this out of the way first: Erza and Teana done fucked up, there's no other way to read that clusterfuck. They opened with way too much force and barely considered that Taylor may not be a puppet; they totally misread the situation and didn't even thought of broadcasting on the native language.

So I'm going to say the weight of the blame falls on them.

But at the same time they were running on misinformation, or at least a near complete lack of it. Were they to know of Taylor, they would've just contacted her and probably worked through the shock she has CW's spells without violence. To them, a Template is a sign of a danger similar to what on Bet would be an Endbringer, so I can see why'd they could jump the gun.

Do remember that in the scrapped interlude they would've contacted HQ after Taylor's "death", so when Taylor inevitably wakes up in the Sojourner's infirmary (because of course she will with that injury) the first thing that she'll see is whatever highest ranking officer is on charge begging her apologies.

But most importantly, we the players know that ignoring the rest of the TSAB for the fuck up of a few of their operatives is throwing the best chance Earth Bet has of overcoming the Endbringers to the trash.