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May The Invisible Hand Be With You - (Star Wars CK2-Style Quest)

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Publicola said:
All right, we get one reroll and we can't touch any of the RED actions. I'm pretty sure this one should be rather obvious:
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Also laughing on how in 'spite' of Shiv going Xehanort "Bad roll" locking, he only what, cancelled 'a' critical escalation, instead of triggering a failed action?

I'd probably bet this is probably, the moment Sheev, is starting to 'sweat', over how... "Persistent", Ciaran is, in being hard to... 'ruin'. So hindsight, I'd not be surprised if his meddling will escalate, faster than foreseen. Or in other words;

End-game, indeed.
 
Publicola said:
Hot damn, that's how you know we're in the big leagues, when we're able to take on a Sith master at the height of his power, at the culmination of a thousand years of Sith manipulation, and win in a contest of intrigue.
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Not just win, but win spectacularly.

Publicola said:
the Kwa did destroy or disable most Gates as they retreated from the Rakata onslaught
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Not to mention the likelihood of more Gates being destroyed in the intervening millennia, intentionally or not.
 
Dr. Snark said:
Once again I am torn between my writer self, who is thrilled at having so much potential at his fingertips, and my QM self, who wishes that just fucking once things would stop massively escalating every two turns.
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Just a comment, so take it as you will, but as someone who's worked on several game and quest systems this is very much the, well, designed outcome of the system as it stands. If a 90+ is a critical success and a 100+ is a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious critical success, and there's a +25 bonus applied to a given roll, your odds of a super-crit are already better than russian roulette. Now, obviously the system has a long-standing legacy and has made and broken the story in such a way that it's kind of the expected norm, so I can't really call it good or bad. Invisible Hand has always been kind of popcorny in that odds are low and 'interesting' outcomes are guaranteed. Furthermore, there's so many bonuses and moving parts that it'd be rather asinine to push for adjustments, even putting aside the fact that I am a random and for the most part silent reader of the content you create.

I will however note that if there was ever a time to consider adjusting the mechanics of the quest to better align with the move into a higher difficulty, higher risk arc, or just to narrow down the amount of cascading crits as to allow faster turn output or whatnot, the return from limbo is a pretty good one.
 
Publicola said:
Also, given his recent wanderings, 'Roaming Jedi' might also include YODA, the Jedi grandmaster himself And given the Natural 100... we just might be adding the little green gremlin to our friends list this turn.
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Ciaran: *Clap her hands* ok time time to start searching for Jedi to help stop the issue that palpatine represent.

*Green goblin jedi crashes trough the roof*

Yoda: Darth Traya you are, and the force best hope you are too.

Ciaran: *Push the "welp that was easy' button*.
 
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Argidoll said:
Just a comment, so take it as you will, but as someone who's worked on several game and quest systems this is very much the, well, designed outcome of the system as it stands. If a 90+ is a critical success and a 100+ is a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious critical success, and there's a +25 bonus applied to a given roll, your odds of a super-crit are already better than russian roulette. Now, obviously the system has a long-standing legacy and has made and broken the story in such a way that it's kind of the expected norm, so I can't really call it good or bad. Invisible Hand has always been kind of popcorny in that odds are low and 'interesting' outcomes are guaranteed. Furthermore, there's so many bonuses and moving parts that it'd be rather asinine to push for adjustments, even putting aside the fact that I am a random and for the most part silent reader of the content you create.

I will however note that if there was ever a time to consider adjusting the mechanics of the quest to better align with the move into a higher difficulty, higher risk arc, or just to narrow down the amount of cascading crits as to allow faster turn output or whatnot, the return from limbo is a pretty good one.
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I do appreciate the honesty, and I also want to point out that I'm not actually that frustrated over things like this happening. It's less "RAAARGH I HATE THIS RAEEEGGGG" and more "welp, time to rewrite my plans for the sixth time, now with More Explosions. What a pity, I guess I'll just have to create entertaining stories based off of this, woe is me." It's just more fun to play up my reactions to this sort of thing.

I'm 100% aware that a lot (in this turn's case, I belive all) of these rolls are less "are we going to succeed or not" and "time to break out the popcorn and see what happens" and I am perfectly fine with that. Especially since they're the result of actions and decisions that have been built up over a significant period of time both in-game and IRL, as well as everyone's genuine enthusiasm through omake bonuses (which are honestly the real "culprits" behind most of the nonsense that's been going on around here). It genuinely makes sense that you guys have the resources to cause such explosive results, because to a large extent they've been earned. (I mean that. Omake bonuses count for a +20 on every single action, and there is still a reserve of them for another few turns. That is how enthusiastic you guys have been.)

...

...Well, for a certain value of "earned," to some extent. More like "you critted so hard in the past that it's given you the ability to do even crazier stuff now." :V Even without a decent chunk of bonuses there's still craziness like the Nat 100 hitting where it did for starters.

There is also the fact that success can in and of itself create problems of its own, as well as the opportunity cost of not doing certain things. For a simple and blunt example, Ciaran succeeded so hard at being a mastermind that she basically ended up being a threat to Palpatine without actually intending to do so from the start.
 
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Dr. Snark said:
There is also the fact that success can in and of itself create problems of its own, as well as the opportunity cost of not doing certain things. For a simple and blunt example, Ciaran succeeded so hard at being a mastermind that she basically ended up being a threat to Palpatine without actually intending to do so from the start.
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Opportunity cost is huge more so once the quest hit the point of we stop Palpatine or we lose, at which point everything is into how we can build to hit that point at the same time each action we don't take is possible chances to make it easier to stop Palp not being grabbed.
 
Ever consider introducing DC's that over 100?
Makes some sense for some battle actions. critical success is needed to achieve victory, and DC is more about what point the losses for a battle are less than what is gained for the battle.
 
Dr. Snark said:
There is also the fact that success can in and of itself create problems of its own, as well as the opportunity cost of not doing certain things. For a simple and blunt example, Ciaran succeeded so hard at being a mastermind that she basically ended up being a threat to Palpatine without actually intending to do so from the start.
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Hmm... so long as it isn't blatantly "You won, now you're f***ed" "But why?" "Because, that's why!" Had a QM once whose response to the villains getting Nat 1s was just "Welp, now they're actually gonna try instead of calling it a day and walking away oblivious to the problem."
 
TerrisH said:
Ever consider introducing DC's that over 100?
Makes some sense for some battle actions. critical success is needed to achieve victory, and DC is more about what point the losses for a battle are less than what is gained for the battle.
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Not particularly, because:
1. It'd be a bit of a pain to convey mechanically
2. All things considered, no action taken really justifies that level of DC anyway
3. If it involved an action taken against you, that level of DC would basically mean that you are fucked anyway

Don't forget, once the actual final showdown against Palpy kicks off properly, things are going to change mechanically to the point where Success Is Not Guaranteed with anything. (I have said as such previously for those of you who have come in later and may have missed that part.)

Kkutlord said:
Hmm... so long as it isn't blatantly "You won, now you're f***ed" "But why?" "Because, that's why!" Had a QM once whose response to the villains getting Nat 1s was just "Welp, now they're actually gonna try instead of calling it a day and walking away oblivious to the problem."
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This is a big reason why I'm legitimately happy that Palpy ended up falling into the antagonist role by default. Sure, you can succeed at things, spectacularly so at that, but it's also in-character for him to have another backup plan or react in some new and "exciting" way to whatever has gotten in his way this time. And I can do all that without taking away victories or breaking plausibility both narratively and mechanically.
 
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Basically it fells that we need to stack every advantage we can get too because palpatine have so may supports we have to take care off, hell we need to disassemble and reasemble the whole galactic government to take him down safely.
The main problem is not that we just need to kill sidius is that we need to do it the best way possible to make sure the galaxy flourish, if was just kill sidius we could say "HAHA DROID PRINTER GO BRRRRRRRRR" and burry him under an army of super droids.
 
I'm actually going to take this opportunity to salute Dr. Snark's ability to keep rewriting and expanding plans and keep finding ways to escalate and make things more challenging and scarier and bigger without taking away victories.

As a tabletop GM, when my players basically crossed Guardians of the Galaxy with the Original Trilogy (can you picture a small fuzzy sniper reminiscent of Rocket Raccoon getting to use the Hoth Planetary Ion Cannon? It happened. Can you picture a Jedi-school-dropout like Gamora running a tauntaun charge against AT-ATs? It happened. Peter Quill distracting a Stormtrooper patrol while the rest of his people evacuated a defecting Imperial General's family? It happened)...I had to do that.

I had Thrawn recalled from the Unknown Regions to assemble a task force to deal with them.

He evaluated them. Analyzed them. Recon-in-force'd them.

Then he quietly made them an offer: "I'd like a more orderly galaxy. I need deniable assets to demolish high-level Imperial officers who would not fall in line under my future command. You need wins to keep bringing back to your high command. I think we can make a win-win here, right? Otherwise I'll just leave the Interdictors in place and blast your ship to dust, but you're more useful as deniable assets than a rapidly-expanding dust cloud."

They agreed and things kept getting wackier from there. At one point the Jedi-school-dropout spent a Destiny Point on her TK roll to slam two Star Destroyers against each other. Collision damage rules being what they are, the ships themselves were fine, but pretty much everybody within rendered to chunky salsa.
 
That was a metal scenario too bad they probably could not steal the ISD's may be dumb by desing but the role their perform (ie captal ship mulching) they do very well.
JAGwin said:
Random Bystander: "You sure you flunked Jedi school?"
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"It wasn't my grades it was because they had some no attachment bullshit philosophy and i wasant down to be brainwashed"
But seriously the jedi bleeding tallent because the could not do people very well was an issue even under luke.
 
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Yeah at this point the quest is designed around the idea of needing to chip away at the enemy (Palpatine), super crits and what not let's us chip away faster but does not render the challenge irrelevant- and instead sets up good "episodes" that feel in universe.

Which comes down to what is the premise of the quest- for some the premise includes failed actions, others the opportunity cost is the balancing factor.
 
Void Stalker said:
Which comes down to what is the premise of the quest- for some the premise includes failed actions, others the opportunity cost is the balancing factor.
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Yeah, opportunity cost is the key here. This quest (and Dr. Snark) has been incredibly flexible in terms of what elements from canon we're able to draw on. But for precisely that reason, with so many different things competing for our attention, it's a matter of identifying what matters and prioritizing the most important things in order. It's also why I tend to put an emphasis on synergy -- each turn tends to be more interesting and more exciting if we spend multiple actions on actions that can 'pair' together for greater effect. Also reduces the amount of writing that Dr. Snark has to do, though sometimes that backfires... :lol:
 
Dr. Snark said:
I'm 100% aware that a lot (in this turn's case, I belive all) of these rolls are less "are we going to succeed or not" and "time to break out the popcorn and see what happens" and I am perfectly fine with that.
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Honestly? This is the main reason why I enjoy this story so much. For me (and I acknowledge that this is a me-thing) it's sometimes hard to invest too much into a quest because of the randomness of the dices. At any moment they can turn against you and screw everything up. Many people enjoy it, I don't. I like this quest because it's such a fun and exiting adventure. It's less about the threats and more about the interesting character interactions. Qymaen's journey, for example, remains one of the highlights to me and there wasn't any danger of failure there, it was the journey of a man making peace with his past, learning how to move on, and doing so in the most badass way possible.
 
Yeah, pre-Empire Palpatine was really on the ball with all the back-ups and stuff, and he's what we're dealing with. If this was during his reign as Emperor the most we'd have to worry about is the Dead Man's Switches in the form of the massive Power Vacum he knowingly prepped just to make it difficult if anyone other then Vader Ganked his ass, and his backup bodies that he created for himself for if he got ganked at all.

Pre-Empire Palpatine? He has so many back-up plans for potential set backs, that even our Miralukan crime lord gleefully throwing the massive amount of wrenches in his many plans just made him irritated rather then have him go "Fuck it, the Universe Dies." He's someone to be extremely cautious of at best during his Early Chancellor days, before he gained the resources he has now.

TLDR; we're gonna need all the help we can get for when we get to Salty Sheeve and the Aftermath of said attempt, successful or not.
 
JAGwin said:
Diana Ramble, the theoretical protagonist of Publicola's Gray Paladin (in practice, we never got past the point where she was a baby). I wrote a non-canon Omake where a six-year old version of her turned a B1 into a BX.
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Oh, ok i could never guessed that. But really uphrade ZK shod be easy like pirian was a protocol droid and even before he be turned into an android he was a a murder machine that could mulch the other evil C3PO. Based on upgrades alone.

If a BX is too unabitious we can put ZK on cyborg gievous body, the head still of a B-1.
3 times the arms 3 times the coffe
 
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