Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
...Well. At least the matter is settled for good, one way or the other, now. Regardless of my position on the debate, disappointing Missy like that was a little sad.
*Miss Militia suddenly manifests a shotgun and has an urge to glare in Tim's general direction*
Hm. I'm leaning towards the light combat arm myself initially, since it meshes better with Vista's learned combat habits. The allure of superstrength could get her into trouble since she'd lack the requisite durability (for the most part) to go along with it.
- Location
- Land of Confusion
You should probably address how this choice will impact Vista's growth, given she's a 12? year old, and those augmentation options potentially involve massive modifications to her biology.
The only problem with this is that Vista is still like 13 or so. So we have to account for her future growth and whether or not replacing all the things in her body is worth it right now.
We could hold off on the full tier transhumanism until she's old enough that a few years won't result in her needing to go get another surgery to account for her body's growth. She probably wouldn't appreciate Tim unintentionally stunting her growth too.
Of course, this all depends on whether or not Tim can make it so the upgrades will be able to show growth as she gets older. Kinda doubt it though.
We could hold off on the full tier transhumanism until she's old enough that a few years won't result in her needing to go get another surgery to account for her body's growth. She probably wouldn't appreciate Tim unintentionally stunting her growth too.
Of course, this all depends on whether or not Tim can make it so the upgrades will be able to show growth as she gets older. Kinda doubt it though.
- Location
- Russia
I am personally leading towards the medium arm. Enough cool to appease Vista, and yet I imagine that she'd also have those concerns about outgrowing her arm. Or even worse, not outgrowing it.
somnolentSlumber
(Verified Proofreader)
- Location
- hell
Missing letter there.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Please show me where I promised you anything. I never guaranteed Vista would have magic. I never even hinted at it because I wasn't guaranteeing it. You guys were excited at scanning Vista in hopes of her having magic, and that was great. I'm never going to turn down enthusiasm.
BUT!
That doesn't mean I'm going to guarantee her magic. I have a list of people who were guaranteed Linker Cores, most of whom you've already found (Purity and the four Adepts). Vista isn't on that list; she wasn't even planned to be a major character. I gave her an advantage to her chances, which when you think about it is more than I needed to give her, solely because I thought it would be fun for her to be a mage. But she's also fun without magic, and I'll take cyborg-Vista no questions asked.
Yes, you could implant another generator.
Actually, since she's already 13 (and a September baby) and most girls stop growing at 14-15, she doesn't have that much more growth to go through. Little enough that Tim could give her new muscles some wiggle room.
And again, this is a personality vote even more than it is a tool vote. What she chooses here will determine how she responds to your plans to give her other cyborg tech. If you go light arm, there are a lot of options that I'll have to veto because you voted for her to say no to them.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Yeah... still combing back through the thread for all your posts that contain 'vista', and have done three of the six pages, but the short version? I'm seeing alot of 'would' being used, which can be interpreted to support either side.
But then there's two cases where you outright state that it's up in the air, not counting the post from Saturday I missed. But that... kinda doesn't get rid of the issue, just recontextualize it from the result to the history.
But it still means some folks have spent the better part of a year arguing and mud-slinging over something that was not likley to come to pass.
I know the thread so far has just rolled with this development, but given how intense the debate got I'm wondering if I'm not the only one who got the same impression. Maybe some of the thread's just that bad at understanding you, maybe there could have been more clarity on your end. Both are valid, and not contradictory, conclusions IMO.
So question on the generators. With those, is it possible to have, like, pre loaded spells installed in her arm, where the generators provide the necessary mana to activate them while the arm runs a pre-generated script to activate the program for the spell? Or would that be too much of a attempt to work around her not being able to use magic?
It worked for the Adepts in a way, with how they powered their non-magical members and all, so I can see it working for Vista if it's limited to a single pre-generated spell.
I'm inclined towards the medium combat arm, though I could easily be convinced to vote for the heavy arm as well.
Sudden death of a beloved character due to a couple unfortunate rolls in a row? Happens!
I don't know if you noticed, but this is a quest. Tying major character development to dice rolls is kind of a central element of questing with all but the most narrative-driven quests.
Sudden death of a beloved character due to a couple unfortunate rolls in a row? Happens!
Hoyden
Hugbot v0.28
- Location
- UK
So the vote is really more along these lines?
No combat arm – Vista just wants a normal arm, and would honestly prefer her flesh and blood one back if she could.
Light combat arm – Vista is leery of more surgery, but a holdout weapon inside her prosthetic sounds like a neat idea.
Medium combat arm – Vista is wary of more surgery, but then again, super strong handshake...
Heavy combat arm – Vista looks to her flesh and blood arm with distain, you suspect she might have an 'unfortunate accident' in the near future that requires it's removal.
No combat arm – Vista just wants a normal arm, and would honestly prefer her flesh and blood one back if she could.
Light combat arm – Vista is leery of more surgery, but a holdout weapon inside her prosthetic sounds like a neat idea.
Medium combat arm – Vista is wary of more surgery, but then again, super strong handshake...
Heavy combat arm – Vista looks to her flesh and blood arm with distain, you suspect she might have an 'unfortunate accident' in the near future that requires it's removal.
Late. I understand that you're frustrated, but right now you're the only one expressing this frustration while everyone else is more focused on cyborg Vista. Calm down.
What's done is done and it's time to move on man.
Frescopino
(Verified Air Freshener)
- Location
- The Pit of Hate
... Bummer.
For a change I think I'll try to join the discussion. Trunshumanism or not, let's work with what Vista has: she's a little girl (shut up, Missy, you are little), both in age and body structure. The heavier arm takes care of the physical problem with super strength, and given the lack of need for any serious ranged weaponry (space, meet space distortion) wedw have the occupied last slot doing something that grearlg benefits her. On the other hand: she hasn't even gone through puberty yet. Transhumanism is, eventually, a concept that could ensnare everybody, but I don't think we should just jump at the chance to say goodbye to flesh and blood without trying it out first.
So, I'm assuming there will be the chance for Missy (not us, Missy) to eventually chose a different arm, but the middle one is the perfect place to start: the more extensive surgery gives the chance to see how mechamagical components interact with the growing body and gives the taste of unlimited power, but the fact that it's integration, and not substitution, makes it so that Missy has away to compare herself to the upgrades, and decide how much more she wants without (much) bias.
So, as I've seen be the most common pick: I think the middle arm is the perfcrp choice for beginner cyborgs/androids.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Love the contradiction there, really buries your point. 6/10 on the ineffectual meter.
The post you quoted was me being calm.
If you'll pardon the saying, the polls are still open. Maybe I'm one voice, maybe I'm just the first. I didn't put all my analysis and cites into that, but if SW doesn't feel like continuing the conversation and nobody else speaks up on it, I think my post can stand more or less on what's there. I'll step back and see what develops.
- Location
- USA
EEEeee yess, adorable Vista can join our magical adven....
......
SKKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEee
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WHHHYYYYYYYY GOOOOODS
Dice are the cruelest of gods. How did I ever forget. I cannot unto sufficient textual emotion. ("ten thousand tears i've criiied?")
....Seriously, all of my sads ;-; My dreams of a new hero team.. yeah she's still Vista and her powers are I'm told badass (have we seen her fight besides Cadejo, in this?) but... but the rest of the thread hasn't wanted to talk to other good potentials! How are we gonna feel about potentially giving Cailleach or Circus or someone magic with Vista right there?
Is all friendshipping lost?!
Taylor confirmed for us
Bad Shipwright, how could you even right now?Oh. Oh dear.... this is tricky. Overt robo-adaptations have always been my least favorite area of 'warez (the internal muscle adjustments are cooler, as would be replacement organs or mind-uploading or anything. I know the aesthetic focus is irrational though).
How far to cyborg the child in the name of glorious rational future?! Hmm....
"My body is a shell, change it. My mind is a computer, program it."
I think I know how IAE would vote here anyways. Could actually be really interesting to see an invisitext reaction to how Taylor responds to this topic, considering the changes its made to her? (Lets not tell Vista about the body upgrades she'd have gotten free of charge if she opted Template. That was probably an unlikely path anyways).
*Hugpile*
Yeah... the risks to basing story off of dice are something I'm a bit used to from Tabletop Gaming, but it also means I'm well sympathetic to how that can go badly. Its been a consistent thing throughout the quest, true, but hows our luck been there anyways? >_>
Danny Wrekt Thoroughly.
Gank'd like a Chump by Mooks (the RPG).
Very Limited Privateer Capes.
Very Few Adepts. (were they all preset, or some preset and some rolled? Think I remember the latter).
Maximally Boring Result from Arms-master (though, his waving off and rubberstamping Tim's project could at least be amusing when we send Vista back with massive upgrades. He approved it its fine right?)
Raccoon instead of Tiger (poor Momberian, you shall never be...)
Are there any super lucky dicerolls my grief-fogg'd brain is forgetting right now? Maybe the success we had talking down Purity? Or I suppose Epoch having a rare skill (if one a bit..odd, for his power set. Maybe if he goes Kiritsugu with the combo?)
But anyways, what Always Late is saying... in character this isn't so odd a result. And its not like Vista is a nobody without magic (now, if I ever convince people to scan Kayleigh? And that rolls a nothing? .....) so it could be worse. But boosted chances or not, this was always going to be highly unlikely (30% is still quite low) , and can we say for sure that sort of randomness makes for a more interesting story?
We've already injected game-style difficulty and uncertainty with the skills and shifting votes and combat plans. Does randomness enhance it with realism and unpredictability, or just hinder the ability to shape a choice narrative?
I know its easy to regret random rolls in hindsight, when they turn out poorly, just as I'm sure we'd have been giddy and cheering if she was an S-Rank with a Rare Mana Skill or something. I still feel its...worth discussing, if we want to gamble with this story.
An interesting idea... would it work? Are there any benefits to "stacking" like that, where gauntlet interfaces with her arm or something? I'm suddenly picturing a combo of Wanted movie and Saito from Ghost in the Shell, giving Vista a hard-light sniper rifle and an implanted Eye to go with her space-warping powers. (Alternately, something like Gae Bolg or maybe that Katana-assassin from Fate...why has noone given her a weapon yet xD)
Remember Land, this is a vote on her view of transhumanism and further upgrades. Who says she'll lack the durability for long?
- Location
- Vancouver, Canada
Hi all, I'm new to the posting side of stuff, but personally I'd go with the full Cyborg route, AKA Heavy combat, since it offers her the highest survivability overall. As for the Mana generator, would it be possible to add some of the spell projection components from a Device to it? That would be one way to allow her to cast some basic spells, even just generating a basic barrier jacket would be an enormous boost for her armor.
Eh, I have doubts that Vista would want to be Adam Jensen-tier Augmented.Remember Land, this is a vote on her view of transhumanism and further upgrades. Who says she'll lack the durability for long?
Nice try.
Hint: for all that they're rarely shown, this is a fairly dice-driven quest.
Gotta take the bad luck with the good.
In short: stop complaining. It's ineffectual and annoying.
Remember that this is piggybacking off of Vista's metabolism...
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
There's a lot of "would" being used because I'm the kind of person who LOVES talking about hypotheticals and thought experiments and stuff that's probably never going to happen. My friends know that if they make the mistake of saying, "Hey, hypothetically, if blah blah blah", I'll spend the next ten minutes thinking it out and worse thinking out loud about it, so they have to suffer my random musings.
And how am I supposed to fix that? Seriously. How many times have I reminded people that there's a five percent chance for someone to have a Linker Core? What am I supposed to do if you guys get excited about a possibility for someone to have magic, end my every post on the subject with "But it probably won't happen anyway, you know"? That seems like a GREAT way to kill all interest in scanning people, and if nobody gets scanned… Well, then the chances of finding another mage go down to zero.
To address the last point first, the nonmagical Adepts got a benefit because Maclibuin created a specific spell that enhances a parahuman's power. He wasn't giving them the ability to use magic; he was giving their shards a boost.
As for the actual question:
Short answer, I've already said no to pre-made spells. Multiple times.
Long answer. There are some things that you can do with energy weapons that are magic-LIKE. She can have a laser, either a traditional beam or a blast that is almost sort of a Shooter spell. She can have a shield generator, which does the same job as Strong Shield. If you wanted to give her a super magnet or something gravity based that gives her a facsimile of very short range telekinesis, I could be persuaded.
Instead of asking "Can we give her spell X even though you've already said she doesn't have magic?", you guys should really really REALLY ask "Tim has skill Y, does that mean we can build cool thing Z?".
I view it like this:
No arm – Vista is more than happy with prosthesis and returning her body to some facsimile of normal, but it should be done for necessity rather than to attempt becoming "superhuman".
Light arm – Small adjustments and improvements are acceptable, but people should stay flesh and blood by a vast majority.
Medium arm – Enhancements are perfectly reasonable for whatever your life's goals are, but there's something comforting about the human form that she does not want to stray from.
Heavy arm – Being effective at whatever task stands in front of you (in her case, fighting crime) is paramount, and if the natural human form has to be abandoned for that to happen, that's just how life is.
Yeah she has. I just said she's basically at the end of her growth spurts.
You know what? How about this.
ALL OPTIONS ARE REASONABLE, AND BECAUSE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT MAGIC IN A COMIC-INSPIRED WORLD, NONE OF THEM WILL POSE SHORT- OR LONG-TERM HARM TO HER.
If all friendshipping is lost with this update, that's entirely on you guys. As Taylor and Vista said, from their perspective this changes nothing in their friendship.
- Location
- Russia
I mean, we could make it up by building her a heavily customizable suit of Magical Power Armor? Oh, or maybe make it so that she can install mission-based "packages" of tools onto her arm. @Silently Watches, Can we get Tim to build the arm in a way to allow for easy swapping of combat components like that?
After all, I think that Tim can build stuff like healing beams, expandable energy shields and stuff like that. She could end up with the ability of changing classes at will that way, heh.
After all, I think that Tim can build stuff like healing beams, expandable energy shields and stuff like that. She could end up with the ability of changing classes at will that way, heh.
Last edited:
Hoyden
Hugbot v0.28
- Location
- UK
Hmm.. Tim has Mobility already, so we could maybe end up giving Vista some basic form of flight.
Intergration would allow a telepathic radio.
Then Energy Weapons could maybe either give a hard light shield, or alightsaber hard light energy blade.
That's without stuffing a second Mana generator in her.
Though I wonder, could we get away with a mana battery instead, have it run the the weapons and flight and recharge overnight...
That would allow one more magical gubbin, without the stress of an extra Mana Generator. But I'm not sure it'd be allowed.
Even without that's already a pretty ok magical girl. Maybe coach her on lines about love and justice....
Intergration would allow a telepathic radio.
Then Energy Weapons could maybe either give a hard light shield, or a
That's without stuffing a second Mana generator in her.
Though I wonder, could we get away with a mana battery instead, have it run the the weapons and flight and recharge overnight...
That would allow one more magical gubbin, without the stress of an extra Mana Generator. But I'm not sure it'd be allowed.
Even without that's already a pretty ok magical girl. Maybe coach her on lines about love and justice....
Last edited:
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
@kokuenDG, this is exactly the kind of thing I didn't want to just stay back from. All this is worth discussing, just like the timeslots were. It's not me being an ass about things I don't like. And speaking of...
You seemed to have come across your answer to @Racoras's questions: The low probability decreases interest in the mechanic's use. Five percent versus zero percent is not much of a difference mathematically, much less how it gets viewed by a player in a time-management quest. On paper, there's roughly two* ways to fix low-probability rolls 'fairer' and more appealing. One, make it easier to do a bunch of rolls at once. Making, just as an example, six rolls of a d100 where you need to get a 95 or above on one of them is a way that makes the difficulty feel easier. It's still at the whims of the dice, rather than true reliability, but the saying about throwing shit at a wall is something people take stock in. Two, up the odds. There's just no getting around that, again as an example, fifty percent is better than five percent. It's direct, it's simple, and it usually simplifies the problem down to the proper balance of the variable.
But in the context of the quest, they both have issues: Making a bunch of scan rolls could clash with the timeslot system. Running around and scanning a bunch of people would be a major undertaking competing with ongoing quests and major events, to say nothing of the narrative consequences. Meanwhile, making it more likley someone has a Linker Core wouldn't be faithful to Nanoha, and by itself invents a problem of 'cheesing' a bunch of mages via mass-scaning.
So long-winded explanations out of the way, here's my proposal of an actual solution: Take door number three and drop the mechanic. Rather than a roll, tie the gathering of magical potentiates into how much time the players put into it, an ongoing quest line. Getting 'rarer' and more specific characters can be tied to their own quest chain/Social Link of varying length. Which would mean you'd have to decide whether or not even more people have a Linker Core. Things like how strong the Linker Core is, whether or not they're a parahuman, any Rare Skills, etc. that's all stuff that's fine being put to the dice. It's just that there is a reason even Loot Boxes usually give you something on a bad roll: Something is usually better than nothing.
EDIT: I say two, there technically is the third option. The classic 'make the rare RNG-dropped item super-worth more'. But given the further rolls to things like Linker Core strength and things like device-less vs device-with magic, I don't really see a way to make that mechanic fit the quest. It'd mean every success gets super-powerful mages, which is wierd.
Last edited:
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Well, Tim does have three suits of power armor already standing around. Customizing one of them wouldn't be too terribly hard.
Swapping out tools would weaken the basic structure of the arm, though. Honestly, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, you'd be better served giving her multiple arms if you wanted her to multiclass like this.
Flight would be really hard to build into an arm. Telepathy would be out of the question.