Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Exotic Physics explicitly only works on Tinkertech. You can't copy a parahuman's powers with it.
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
Exotic Physics explicitly only works on Tinkertech. You can't copy a parahuman's powers with it.
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
The skill description refers to tinkertech only, not powers.
- Location
- Erebus
Fair enough. Edited. Keeping tract of too many stories. Guess I made a leap from studying tinker tech and tinkers being able to replicate powers to exoitic physics being able to do the same.
Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Kidnap Bakuda
AAR: Heatwave
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
After Action Report for Arc 9: Heatwave
For all that there was a lot to do in this arc (a LOT! I mean, 23 chapters including the two interludes?), I had a lot of fun, and it sounded like the rest of you did, too. The social slots helped a lot, so everyone give @lancelot and @Faraway-R a round of applause for getting that ball rolling.
Tickets to Gangland
I'm working on 10.1 now, and it should come out next week assuming work doesn't decide to thrash me.
For all that there was a lot to do in this arc (a LOT! I mean, 23 chapters including the two interludes?), I had a lot of fun, and it sounded like the rest of you did, too. The social slots helped a lot, so everyone give @lancelot and @Faraway-R a round of applause for getting that ball rolling.
Tickets to Gangland
- Laura warned you things were going to get messy, didn't she?
- The first week, you took to the skies to fight the not-Fantastic Four alongside Sere. Or, well, you were supposed to. Instead it was just you because you focused first on the only non-Breaker of the group (AKA, the only one Sere could defeat on his own). Because you gave Rubber Man/evil-Mr. Fantastic time to hit his emergency beacon and because you didn't suck everybody up into Recursion Field for reasons that I still don't understand, they managed to teleport out.
- The second week, you distracted Taylor and Vista both by
chatting her upchatting away with her to plan your globetrotting trip cum sleepover. Had you paid attention to the press conference, you would have realized that the leader of the PRT reinforcements was Thomas Calvert (as many people figured out anyway), and you would have thought something about him was familiar. Was it worth it? - Oh yeah!
- You didn't choose this activity the third week, which was sad. Primarily because Vista found out the truth about the villain Gush; i.e., that he is actually Tar Baby, the cape whose Trigger event following the Simurgh's attack on Brockton Bay killed her parents. This girl needs a hug, seriously.
- You took part in the conference in week 4, where you got to hear Jotunn's proposal that the heroes and villains of Philly join forces to protect their city from the outsiders pouring in. Now you know what political game Jotunn was playing toward the end of Arc 8 when he was agreeing with Chevalier about working together to go after the Maras.
- Had you not spent one-on-one time with Laura at the birthday party, Miss Militia would have called you to tell you about the meeting. Instead Taylor has a little bit better a relationship with a villain and is a little peeved with the other heroes.
- There were two opportunities to learn new spells, in weeks 1 and 3. You learned Multishot from the former.
- You ignored this quest the first week, but you got to it eventually. The first activity was discussing the Enforcers' actions with Admiral Tucson. You also involved Dragon, which was a great idea if you wanted Taylor to more or less forgive the Enforcers. Not so great if you wanted to drive a wedge between her and the TSAB.
- The third week, you zipped over to the Sojourner to have a little chat with the Enforcers directly about various aspects of the TSAB in general.
- Is it bad that I was hoping for more out-there questions?
- You had a nice day trip with Teana the fourth week, and she pledged the TSAB's assistance in dealing with the Endbringers. As far as they are know, the Endbringers are Lost Logia, which puts defeating and deactivating them firmly in the Enforcers' bailiwick.
- Because you didn't start this quest in week 1, you lost the opportunity to take Tim to the Sojourner and offer his expertise in getting the Enforcers' ship off the ground again.
- There were no opportunities to learn new spells. This was a purely plot advancement subquest.
- Does anyone else hear Jeromy Irons's voice?
- The first week, you tried to calm everything down and instead found out that because of your isolation from the rest of the Privateers during the quest so far and your willingness to protect civilians instead of destroying villains (what kind of Calamity Witch are you? ), you didn't have the kind of influence over the group that you thought you had. The "Danny would be ashamed" comment was still way over the line, though.
- The second week, you chose not to deal with the Privateers, which was not a terrible idea since it would have been an ugly argument, but it meant you had no warning something bad was going down in…
- Week three, when instead you found out that Ramirez, Kurt, and their half of the Privateers decided it was high time to try kicking Fairyland out of the city, mostly via bullets and lethal lasers. That was a messy vote for any number of reasons. It was also the last opportunity you had to salvage the Privateers as a heroic organization. Some of the individuals who remain may or may not be open to a different way of things. Still working on that.
- The vote itself was fairly simple: save the villainess Snow White or help out the minimally injured Privateers. By choosing her, you all but proclaimed yourself to be a supporter of the status quo, at least in the Privateers' eyes. Taking her to either Tim or the Protectorate would have saved her life, but the former also would have made things a little rougher on Tim because he would no longer be a technically neutral party. Instead, the Protectorate was put on alert that this vigilante group was becoming a problem instead of a solution. Not that it helped much in the end.
- A couple of people complained that voting to help the Privateers would be hypocritical and would fly in the face of all Taylor's previous character development. That was not the case. Had the vote been to help the Privateers (with the OOC knowledge that it was the only way to salvage the group as a whole), Taylor would have dilly dallied over whom to focus on only for Snow White to die in Samantha's arms. I expect the accompanying choice for this vote would have been to take them all to Tim, and when he examined Snow White's body he would have found that there was no practical way to save her because in this scenario, Ramirez had just a little better aim and had completely obliterated her abdominal aorta. She would have bled to death in less than a minute. That would have been enough to shock some of the militant Privateers, who were onboard with the idea of killing villains but would discover that surprise surprise, actually going through with such a plan is an entirely different beast.
- I had in mind a paragraph or two where Taylor dragged Kurt to look at Snow White's unmasked, uncostumed body and demanded to know if this was really the work of good men. Fighting a villain who's dressed up for the part is one thing. Realizing how young she is and that they killed a "kid" (actually young twenties)? That would have been a nice emotional punch to the gut.
- TL;DR? When I say "trust me", I mean it. I will never claim to be the world's greatest author or GM, but I'm not a blithering idiot either, and sometimes I actually do have a plan.
- The last week of the arc, you chose to do other stuff rather than keep an eye on the Privateers. As a result, no one knew Fairyland lured them into an ambush, and the results of that were… not great. Of the eight people of the aggressive faction, only two made it out alive, and that was the death knell of the Privateers as an organization.
- There was one opportunity to learn a new spell, which was in week 4. There could have been another in week 3, but that required doing parts 2 and 3 so you knew what they were doing ahead of time and could have chosen to join them on the condition that they stayed nonlethal.
- Yet another patrol option. That you didn't take. I may put this in the social slot from now on.
- There were, of course, four opportunities to learn new spells.
- You told Epoch at the start of Arc 8 that you would work with him and the Adepts to teach them magic. I warned you at that time that if you told him yes (which you did) but still didn't follow through that I would force the issue. Instead of delaying like I was afraid you would, you spent your very first social period meeting the Adepts.
- Who expected that revelation? As I mentioned at the time, I had already planned for only four of the Adepts to have Linker Cores. The rolls were to determine rank, with Epoch guaranteed to have at least a B-rank Core (because he can levitate/fly) and Thirteenth Hour/Standstill guaranteed to have a Core of a higher rank than Lilliput because Lilliput is an asshole. Epoch's Regenerator Rare Skill was a nice little surprise for all of us.
- Once the Adepts knew that they had wasted their time, they all left. Standstill is keeping her ear to the ground after returning to the Protectorate, and Argus joined her as a hero, so it's only Epoch and Maclibuin still members of the Adepts proper right now.
- What would have happened had you not gone to see them of your own volition by week four? Epoch made promises to the Adepts at large that you would come by, but after so many weeks of being ignored, the rest of the group would have dismissed his claims, and Gevaudan would have challenged him for leadership of the group. Of course, it wouldn't have been a fair fight, but in actuality a coup. Planeswalker would have teleported to you to get your and Samantha's help with the fight. I hadn't decided who would live and who would die, but rolls likely would have been involved.
- The second week, we really got this social-fu train rolling. You took Dragon and Tim to the Dragonslayers' lair, where everyone found out about Ascalon. Dragon appreciated watching that building burn more than she could put into words.
- You then spent a Saturday night hanging out with Vista and just hopping around the globe like… well, like two teenaged girls who can teleport and have no adult supervision.
- Week three was again spent with Vista and Dragon. Tim make Vista some concept art of new combat arms, of which you had her choose the most heavily armored version after finding out that unfortunately she does not have a Linker Core.
- Next on the list was finishing up the plotline involving Dragon and her crippled state. She now has a shiny new Unison Device body, and what she will do with that is going to be all sorts of interesting.
- The fourth and last week had three social events, primarily because one of them was Taylor's birthday. Sixteen doesn't feel much different from fifteen, unfortunately, and it isn't like she's even excited about getting to drive because, duh, flight. At the party, you chose to spend some private time with Laura (Shhhh! Don't tell Kayleigh!) and found out more about her and her unusual philosophy regarding capes and the limits of their power.
- Had you spent time with Kayleigh, you would have found out a few surprises about your first Philly friend. Nothing bad, though, promise! I won't go into everything here because there's still a chance to find out some stuff, but at the very least you would have gotten an explanation for the "stuck cape switch" Laura mentioned.
- Marcia was the worst choice of the three. Not that there's anything wrong with her personally – she's a nice enough girl – but trying to connect with her would have reminded Taylor of how different her worries and priorities are from those of the civilian girls at the party.
- Had you spent time with Kayleigh, you would have found out a few surprises about your first Philly friend. Nothing bad, though, promise!
- You checked up on Standstill and the Adepts, which at this point is just Epoch and Maclibuin, and told them more about Devices and templates. You immediately thereafter voted to teach Standstill how to create a Guardian Beast and have Tim make a Boost Device for Maclibuin, and after some debate it was decided in a multi-split vote to teach Epoch telekinesis.
- I was really worried at first that the plan to give Mac an Armed Device would win. Not that he would have refused, but an Armed Device is basically the worst option for his personality and skillset. The former I explained; the latter you'll have to wait for until you give him the Device. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
- I was really worried at first that the plan to give Mac an Armed Device would win. Not that he would have refused, but an Armed Device is basically the worst option for his personality and skillset. The former I explained; the latter you'll have to wait for until you give him the Device. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
- After that you finally asked for some of the world-building I've been waiting to give you. Unfortunately(?), because you wanted to talk about so many things, you didn't get very much detail on any topic. A full biography of Brevetti (Calamity Witch Origin) would take an entire chapter by itself, I'm pretty sure.
I'm working on 10.1 now, and it should come out next week assuming work doesn't decide to thrash me.
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- Location
- Russia
Surprisingly, we didn't seem to have missed much that we were actually interested in for a change. At least as far as I follow the in general consensus.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
I keep feeling that Recursion field is either completely useless or extremely poorly understood by the players here. It seems to have a lot of uncertainty around it regarding what can and can't be pulled in and what kind of damage will be done.
Like what? Details man! What do you even mean by 'out there' in this case? What kind of questions were you hoping for?
I mean... I'm pretty sure none of us thought of them, so you may as well tell us...
We trust you, but you also wrote that in a way that presented the privateers as... Pretty irredeemably crazy?
I mean sure, yeah, a shock to the system could work, but you didn't write them in a way that made it seem like that would work. So I personally at least had assumed 'salvaging them' at that point would involve forgiving them their complete and utter stupidity and/or joining in and trying to change things from within.
RoninSword
Sky God
- Location
- Canada
What Recurssion field affects is on the character sheet.
Agreed. The extra socials helped to pad things out quite a bit, and while we could've done things better - with the Privateers for example, but c'est la vie - things are looking fairly good.
Granted, now we have to deal with trying to convince Lacey to take a template, Coil, possibly helping the TSAB get their ship together, Coil, hoping that Fairyland doesn't want more revenge and ends up partnering with Coil to come after us, and other neat things.
We can't say we won't be busy, that's for damn sure.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Why would there be any confusion? HOW could there be confusion? That was one of the first FAQs I posted, and I haven't changed it since writing it.
As for damage, I explicitly stated in the text itself that nothing done inside Recursion Field translates to the outside environment.
Just random stuff. Where the best vacation spots are in TSAB space? Is Erga single? Is Teana single? Is there a swallow analogue on Midchilda, and if so, how fast does it fly? That sort of thing.
Coil is next Arc, and it's a single day goal directed arc like Arc 7.
Lacey has already said she's open to magic so long as it isn't direct combat magic. Reread 9.21.
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Oh I knew this stuff. I just thought that she would waver a bit after hearing about the Privateers getting destroyed.
Even as a healing support, she would still be involved in the cape scene once she chooses to accept it. I would figure that she would need a bit more time to think on it after dealing with that fallout and Kurt and whatnot.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
Okay...
Now I just want to know how on earth you ever imagined us asking any of that...
Fair enough I guess... I dunno, it feels like people keep choosing not to use it because of its restrictions. I've never been clear on why.
LancerisDead
Definitely not a cat
- Location
- Buenos Aires
I can answer that question confidently.
A swallow is a swallow, regardless if it's the size of an ant or a skyscraper, and they can all be slain the same way.
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
With the sword of REGEND!
- Location
- Illinois
No, no. Silly crusader: the answer is a sufficiently motivated cat, nya~
- Location
- Erebus
You said it randomly drags capes in, but people don't know how to predict who, and when things are judged by committie, chaos is useless.
which greatly annoys me. though for different issues.
MetaChthonia
Disco Inferno: ⌈I Learn Through Suffering⌋
- Location
- Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere. Maybe. Probably.
...not sure how Coil is a problem especially after achieving his goal (which he apparently already has). maybe fighting against him but as long as he's not an enemy then there's not much problem since he can use you. Then again it seems Lisa is directing him at Taylor so it's less fighting Coil and more fighting Lisa using Coil.
Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Emphasis mine. This is somewhat agravating to me. A quest vote, in my eyes, is like a Coil scenario where we don't normally know the dropped timeline; everything outside of the sphere that is our actions stays the same. The fact that something would change outside of that sphere based on a purely in character vote, thus, baffles. It is what it is, and the desired end for me was met, but that feels a bit cheap looking at it.
Honestly, we're assuming that Lisa directing Coil at Taylor because Taylor assumed that's what Lisa did. And either way, he already tried to take us out and killed innocents in the attempt, so he's definitely still a problem that needs to be dealt with since he doesn't seem to overtly care much about innocent casualties.
- Location
- USA
Its not at all random, its based on the specifics of their powers and closely matches the PRT categories.
Its just that it can at times be tricky figuring out what categories a given cape falls into from a glimpse of their powers.
I think there was different assessment of matchup's and threats among the average of players than there was by SW, namely a lot of people seemed freaked out by barrier-chick because of some of the higher end of what her Fantastic Four lookalike has done in comics.... don't think I'd fully supported it but forget by now.
Not using Recursion likely was an assumption that either we'd interfere with other unknown trouble (that huge radius) , or that we'd leave The Thing behind (brute right? or is he breaker or something odd) and some similar issues.
Personally, I have no issue with the described scenario. While theres often events happening off-screen we find out about later in this quest, something small like being uncertain until we vote and then resolving to match is also not unknown in this quest (See also, how Lacey reacts to magic depends on whether we vote to give it to her, and how Vista reacts to cyberware and transhumanism depended how we voted for her) .
This is interesting....is it meant to mean that Taylor isn't suspicious about a similarity to (voice?) of Calvert and Suit-Guy-She-Met-Once, making the players unable to act on their correct paranoia about Coil, or shaping some "between votes" action of hers?
I get the idea, that we went and didn't pay a lot of attention.... but I mean, it wasn't immediately obvious that we coulnd't mingle before or after, or tune out blowhard speeches while paying attention to the new peeps... eh. Just don't wanna feel punished for social with Vista ;-; (and comboing that vote was my idea >_> for failed attempt at a larger hangout)
It could easily be seen as a "trap" vote if some of the options to save Snow White fail anyways (say, Tim is bad at surgery) or if the Privateers are unsalvageable, and we've had enough worries over that with fill-in-the-blank rather than presented choices. While yeah, we've had some "assured doom" options in ENDBRINGER FIGHTS I just can't make myself find it odd that the situation with her wound varied by our choice to whatever made the most interesting scene.
Is this strictly a bad thing
? Selfishly we didn't want to risk them leaving before they'd decided to help with Endbringers, after all Otherwise I don't think offering such help ever occured to us really.... IAE may well have some crazy tricks to offer Tim, but we probably assumed they have comparable device-meister types who didn't need help. But... is this a thing that might be an option later, or why is it week-1-limited? Do they just have the repairs mostly done without us, and it was purely a Social-Brownie-Points (or Inspiration Points) if we'd helped?
I always feel so bad at this part of the AAR ;-; Like with the worldbuilding, it sounds like you have fun ideas you don't get to use because we aren't picking it (much like using PS training sim from early on).
From Taylor's perspecitve with heroing actions though....a lot of the defined actions like dealing with gangs or beasts are a matter of patrolling and finding them o.o Its only the OOC perspective of whether its a mystery box option or one of the ongoing fires we already know we need to chase after (especially after early burns with unfinished Purity questline).
Hopefully we've dealt with some of our social backlog re:adepts and others, and can find time for things like Patrol-With-Vista (or Miss Militia or anyone PRT, if we want closer ties there). Or, for that matter..... patrol with Cailleach, thanks to that last meeting ^__^
I think , in other words, we haven't done a lot of social-patrols because our pool for it is limited by silly antisocial Taylor
13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
Because of it's selectiveness about who it grabs, Recursion Field is of limited utility against capes we don't know the powers of. It's risky to use when we don't know who precisely will get pulled in. Enemies who don't get pulled in could make their escapes, prepare an ambush for when the field drops, gang up on friendlies who didn't get pulled in (if the numbers are on their side), or conduct some other nefarious activity.
I think there might also be a bit of an assumption that any fight we're not personally present for will go horribly wrong.
"Get off my lawn" as a policy definitely generates interactions, some of which will be incidents. Incidents like blowing up transports full of civilians in a manner similar to IRL airliner shootdowns. The policy also requires enforcement, which consumes some level of resources to do. This is in contrast to a world without interdimensional travel that the TSAB could do absolutely nothing in relation to and not have anything happen.
A non-unified world is no more or less inherently stable than a cluster of unified worlds. Otherwise undefined planets A and B going to war is just as possible as otherwise undefined countries A and B going to war. I doubt that the TSAB would have good relations with Planet North Korea despite PNK having a strong, unified world government.
So the TSAB as you have it would refuse to let an art exhibition from not!Switzerland (haven't had a war in 200 years) occur? It wouldn't let the not!Swiss import lifesaving medical technologies?
You mention the TSAB being willing to work with UN-like organizations, but the UN is far from a world government. The UN is a forum to facilitate international relations. It has only as much power as the great powers let it have, and it is set up so that major decisions can only be made by unanimous agreement of the great powers.
How would the TSAB, as you have it, deal with a hypothetical Planet Cold War that has the not!USA and not!USSR setting up colonies and outposts on unclaimed and uninhabited planets? Planet Cold War has the not!UN, but it mostly serves as a place for the not!USA and not!USSR to posture and poke at each other. Both of them are technically interdimensional polities, but the worlds they have complete control of only have the equivalents of small towns on them with the vast majority of each nation's holdings being on Planet Cold War.
I think there might also be a bit of an assumption that any fight we're not personally present for will go horribly wrong.
"Get off my lawn" as a policy definitely generates interactions, some of which will be incidents. Incidents like blowing up transports full of civilians in a manner similar to IRL airliner shootdowns. The policy also requires enforcement, which consumes some level of resources to do. This is in contrast to a world without interdimensional travel that the TSAB could do absolutely nothing in relation to and not have anything happen.
A non-unified world is no more or less inherently stable than a cluster of unified worlds. Otherwise undefined planets A and B going to war is just as possible as otherwise undefined countries A and B going to war. I doubt that the TSAB would have good relations with Planet North Korea despite PNK having a strong, unified world government.
So the TSAB as you have it would refuse to let an art exhibition from not!Switzerland (haven't had a war in 200 years) occur? It wouldn't let the not!Swiss import lifesaving medical technologies?
You mention the TSAB being willing to work with UN-like organizations, but the UN is far from a world government. The UN is a forum to facilitate international relations. It has only as much power as the great powers let it have, and it is set up so that major decisions can only be made by unanimous agreement of the great powers.
How would the TSAB, as you have it, deal with a hypothetical Planet Cold War that has the not!USA and not!USSR setting up colonies and outposts on unclaimed and uninhabited planets? Planet Cold War has the not!UN, but it mostly serves as a place for the not!USA and not!USSR to posture and poke at each other. Both of them are technically interdimensional polities, but the worlds they have complete control of only have the equivalents of small towns on them with the vast majority of each nation's holdings being on Planet Cold War.
Frescopino
(Verified Air Freshener)
- Location
- The Pit of Hate
You're not sure how a villain that is currently a top dog in the Protectorate and burned our house down is a problem? Even without Cauldron he's a nightmare to face, and he clearly has it in for us.
- Location
- Ural, Russia, Earth
Yeah, I have a distinct feeling that if our meeting with Tattletale happened now, she would be much friendlier. Not only because Taylor proved her strength and in a better headspace, so attempt to bully her would be even more counter-productive, but also because Taylor proved herself to be not "crazy, violent extremist", but good lil hero, who plays her role in cops and robbers game and ready to side with villains against worse villains.your willingness to protect civilians instead of destroying villains (what kind of Calamity Witch are you?
I had only one other question for them: "Is there other Galean remnants?"
It could be a good way to find out about Ix, but I wasn't sure we want IAE to find out about Ix.
Important question:
Did we actually teach them these spells or do we need to invest actions in it next arc? If the latter, how many actions?
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Again, it isn't random. It's very predefined, and most of the time I give you at least a broad overview of what opponent capes' powers are so you can plan appropriately.
It means that Taylor wasn't paying attention to Calvert's speech and so couldn't realize that he sounded familiar.
It isn't limited, and you weren't expected to come up with it on your own. It was going to be Close Encounters Part 4.
There is a location for a TSAB representative to speak with representatives from all nations, so it is JUST BARELY unified enough to reach out to. Colonies are colonies, not independent worlds. And if this kind of UN can't get its shit together, the TSAB will – are you ready? – LEAVE THEM ALONE.
Is this idea really that hard for you to understand, or do you keep asking pointless hypotheticals because you don't like my answer? Because it's looking more and more like the latter, and if so you're doing a terrible job trying to change my mind on the subject and at this point are mostly just annoying me.
Yes, you need to spend one action with them to teach Epoch and Standstill their spells and give Max his Device. This can be done in one or two actions depending on if you want to talk to Standstill alone.