Rei Ayanami Raising Project
- Thread starter Sutekh
- Start date
Man, I just caught up on this. Phenomenal writing from start to finish, but by god, I joined at the worst time humanly possible, it seems
Maybe you can help us make better decisions. I don't think I've voted on anything significant since my plan nearly lost pur Evas some limbs.
At this rate, assuming Asuka doesn't end up a vegetable, he gets in her head instead of Shinji's.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Don't feel bad about it. It's been the worst time humanly possible for, at minimum, the last in-game month.Man, I just caught up on this. Phenomenal writing from start to finish, but by god, I joined at the worst time humanly possible, it seems
Misato has had a rough half-year.
JIMI94
Birdman with a cauldron on it's head
- Location
- The Garden of Earthly Delights
Wait, I'm having a galaxy brain: Does that mean Tabris could end up coming over as a girl instead (don't blame my bizarre shipping brain, blame the original Shinji/Kaworu shippers and artists who drew cute gender flipped versions of it) if they went after Asuka instead of Shinji?
Edit: Supposedly they have a Lilin body, but are also made of particle waves or whatever (and they say Adam is their 'Mother' so I'm going with it because *confused home improvement grunt*).
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Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
In before Tabris has been Hikari the entire time and Misato will have to kill her.
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To be fair to Rei, Asuka was caught doing what reasonably could be considered doing espionage on her home and specifically on her guardian. After having lived with someone Rei immediately correctly identified as trying to pump her for information. Granted, Asuka was doing espionage on her own personnel file, but it's the principle of the thing.
Thank you! I plan to do some line edits soon to improve the prose a bit. Not going to change any pertinent information (that would be cheating), but to avoid stuff like "she nervously fired her weapon nervously", an unfortunate bad habit of mine I do to an embarrassing degree. Despite the fact every update is typically the third draft of whatever I wrote.
- Location
- Irradiated Wasteland
Let's hope you're right on this one.
I know fans have sometimes funny ideas, but what!?
Hikari is a pure and innocent maiden and I shan't tolerate such slander.
Yeah, can you imagine if it got worse?
Because I sure can.
- Location
- Irradiated Wasteland
If this is not some big secret, did you expect that questers will be so hell-bent in finding this Fuchs guy?
Has somebody forgotten in which setting we are here?
But, if some mind-raping angel happens, I hope that Asuka will not be (again) the only one who is unlucky.
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Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
But don't you see? She's been fighting her instincts this entire time, putting in a valiant effort to be the kind of person she wants to be, not just mindlessly following her instincts to find Adam (or kill Lilith, I was never clear on what was the end goal). Her upcoming death is her seeking mercy, choosing to die before she can't resist anymore and be forced to hurt her friends.
Not a betrayal, but a tragedy.
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
This ain't the kind of story for Tabris-XX
Honestly, no. I was expecting them to find it suspicious and maybe look into it, maybe not, and then if not I'd at some point have Asuka casually mention it like it was no big deal at some point down the line, to Misato's and/or Rei's shock and dismay.
I was not expecting them to have Gendo do a top to bottom purge of NERV or to board the Pacific Fleet with an army of goons, but it worked out that way. I'm kind of glad it did, as I think it turned out to be a fantastic comedic moment, even if it did cause significant early friction between Rei and Asuka that you're now being forced to grapple with (among other issues Misato has neglected).
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
We really fucked up by giving Gendo free licence to purge NERV.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's a reasonably popular interpretation that Shinji is transfem, and Kaworu pretty much states gender isn't a thing to him (albeit that may or may not be actually Kaworu at the time). It's less of a stretch than inserting an entirely new character into the plot, making her a pilot who's an adult and has ties to old GEHIRN, implying she might actually be a biblical figure, and giving strong hints that's who Shinji ends up with in the Correct and Proper Timeline, You Damn Nerds
I joke, I actually like Rebuild.
One of the things I appreciate about this quest is it always feels like we're a few steps behind on everything except what we're focussing on right this instant, which we're only behind one step on. There's always some fire that Misato (and by extension, the players (?)) need to put out, and when we've got a handle on it someone tosses a hand grenade into the room. Most of the time, we can even see them pulling the pin and winding up, but for one reason or another we either don't have the time to deal with it or just decide other things are more important.
See also: right the fuck now.
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Frankly, too many QMs coddle their playerbase way too much.
Sutekh has done a way better job of creating a sense of tension and negative consequences than many, even if they are quite generously throwing us an opportunity for damage control on our past mistakes in this update.
Sutekh has done a way better job of creating a sense of tension and negative consequences than many, even if they are quite generously throwing us an opportunity for damage control on our past mistakes in this update.
- Location
- Irradiated Wasteland
Well, we also ran defenseless into zombie apocalypse created by Eldritch Abomination during the blackout...
You're not the only one. Even more true, considering that people here try to choose options by reason.
I'm curious how it all will unfold
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Eh, I'd say it's fine. Ultimately, a lot of QMs want to keep running their quests, and a lot of players want to keep playing. It's like any work of fiction; you need the stakes to be believeable, but you also don't want to run into the Game of Thrones (books and TV) problem where there's too much of an emphasis on GRITTY REALISM and ANYONE CAN DIE. The interesting thing about this quest is our choices actually are improving things - slowly and unevenly - despite the constant uphill struggle. If Gendo had just plugged us in the back of the head the moment we moved Rei out of her apartment, or for our first mistake (which is probably what Canon Gendo would do!) then I don't think anyone would still be reading.
If any of that makes sense, managed to get the same damn sickness bug two months in a row.
Plus I have an irrational hatred of the word "coddle"
Well that's unfortunate, but thanks for reading. I'm sorry this didn't live up to your expectations.
Thank you. I generally try to be pretty lenient with you guys and like, I want you guys to succeed! I'm not trying to run Evangelion Tomb of Horrors here.
That said, this is Evangelion and unfortunately, your job is pretty hard and your charges are pretty fucked up. I'd say despite the current situation you're probably a better guardian than canon Misato, not that that's a particularly difficult bar to clear.
I will say that the quest will start getting more difficult from here, and a big part of your future success does depend on making sure you're meeting the needs of your charges (while also not stepping too hard on the toes of the Big Man).
If you want some unsolicited advice, I think this group is really underutilizing special activity slots to handle shit. I do pick the most entertaining option but if someone genuinely has a good idea to attack an issue (that isn't just "I vote we solve the problems" or "I vote we simply brute force the issue by voting for eight different approaches") I do try to use it, if not in its own slot in an appropriate conversation slot later.
I'd also pay more attention to what you're asking the pilots every week. There was a stretch of time where Asuka was being asked the same thing almost every week (how are you feeling Asuka? Still mad?). Honestly, that very much influenced the outcome you're working on now. @GreatWyrmGold has a spreadsheet for you, use it!
Some of the pile up here is also due to some mild metagaming. Which is fine, better to tackle issues sooner rather than later. But as a result you guys are triggering some stuff I didn't really have planned until after the eleventh Angel slightly early, which is why the quest has suddenly gotten more difficult, I think.
Keep pushing through it and I think you'll muddle your way through. I believe in you guys.
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I've been running the game balance here much like a horror video game as a model, for the record. The good ones always make you feel like you're going to die at any moment but they rarely actually kill the player because doing so completely deflates all the tension and forces them to repeat sequences they've already played.
The odds of this quest ending prematurely or getting locked into a definitive bad ending are fairly low right now. You'd have to make a lot of very bad decisions in a row and have some abysmal dice luck to get there.
The current state of affairs was a predictable one and I accounted for it.
- Location
- Irradiated Wasteland
Hm, interesting. I think that we avoided metagaming, like in "why Rei constantly claims about her disposability" case.
Can you give some moments where we do this?
How much details in description of the activity is "too much"?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Don't underestimate us
More to the point, this broadly aligns with what I was trying to get across; for this style of quest the threat of severe consequences sometimes works better than the consequences themselves.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Obviously you haven't played the first Alone in the Dark - the game is short, but to pass it the first time you need to know where all the monsters are located.... And it is likely that you will have time.
There was some very serious discussion about aggressively trying to cow Rei into revealing her deepest darkest secrets and then the vote selected on how to confront Rei was similarly very aggressive (though didn't specifically include the "let's scare Rei Ayanami into talking about her childhood" approach). I took into account the discussion and what the questers seemed like they were trying to do with her and then wrote accordingly.
The result was that they managed to put a wedge between her and Gendo earlier than usual (which was the closest thing I could give the questers to what they clearly wanted at this time juncture) but there are also serious consequences in doing so, namely pissing off Gendo and unmooring Rei from her reasonably stable (if incredibly stagnant) existence.
This turned into an issue that dominated the last couple of chapters, which of course gave you less time to do anything else.
Acceptable detail in write-ins
It's hard to give an exact amount as it really depends on what's being suggested, but I use the phrase "sufficiently general" (relative to other similar choices) a lot.
Basically, I don't like votes that are just writing my drafts for me, or votes that are clearly throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. I put in the effort to craft a puzzle to get worked through, and I do expect some kind of commitment to a specific solution or approach rather than just trying to brute force the thing.
There isn't a single solution that works either, and so if players take an approach that can plausibly work they'll be rewarded, though obviously any approach has drawbacks that will then come through later (either direct ones or just contextual ones; if you consistently played Misato as a strict disciplinarian for example, the parts where the players don't have direct influence would also be reflective of this, which may not always create optimal results).
Part of my limitation on long or excessively detailed write ins is also for the players' own good, believe it or not. In my experience doing DMing for old DND games I found some players tend to think "more = better" when in reality really detailed plans often have a mixture of very good ideas that are spoiled by bad ones also being present. Not every idea put forth might be beneficial. Having some flexibility in how I interpret an idea helps me implement it in a way that works with the desired outcome more, while a very detailed idea tends to mean I have to work with everything and have less room for leniency.
On the flip side, I'm also not terribly fond of "I vote we Solve the Problem" with no other detail included because that work should a) be incumbent on you to actually think of a solution, otherwise there's not much game to it b) means I have to work harder because I have less basis to come up with ideas and c) the lack of specificity means that what I come up with might not be what the players want, and that feels bad.
As for the "no speeches" thing I constantly bring up, this is mainly just an issue I had with the quest I'm
For a better illustration, here's a made up example.
Scenario: Rei ate shit at mahjong the last few times she played with your operations staff and she's been stewing over it for the last couple days. It's off putting, and Rei has been neglecting her other duties to work on her game.
Too sparse:
[q] Talk to Rei and convince her to let it go.
I got nothing to work with here.
Too haphazard:
[q] Comfort Rei and sympathize with her
[q] Offer to let her practice on you and the other two
[q] Remind her of her other duties
[q] Tell her that statistically, most top professional mahjong players only come in first in around 33% of their games
[q] Talk about how getting too tilted actually makes you play worse and that she should take a break
[q] Take her out for dinner
[q] Challenge the others to a rematch
One or two of these is fine; all of them is clearly flailing for literally anything to get them out of this.
Too detailed:
[q] Tell Rei only 33% of games played by professionals result in total victory
-[q] Pull up the statistics on Google
—[q] Run a statistical analysis proving this if she doesn't believe you.
—-[q] Tell her a story about a bad losing streak you had. [the player includes here more or less the exact story they want Misato to tell]
—— [q] Talk about how it doesn't matter how good she gets because there's always someone better with another statistical analysis.
—-—[q] Give Rei a hug
This isn't super egregious but it would cramp my style a bit, so I don't think I'd like it much. Also, trying to convince Rei to stop trying to get better at the game is the bad idea mixed in with a perfectly fine concept that now I'm forced to include. If the player stopped short of enumerating precise details I wouldn't have to deal with it.
The life coach speech:
[q] "Look Rei, I get how you feel, I really do. When I was your age I too would get tilted at baiman haitei raoyue in my dealership. However, I learned the value of radical self care, and I think you can too! Also I stopped drinking and have gotten over the Angel thing. I love you no matter what Rei. Can I hug you?"
Good:
[q] Talk with Rei about how much she's dwelling on this. Explain you're concerned about how much of her time it's taking up and try to focus on the importance of moving forward after failure.
-[q] Maybe throw in an anecdote about a time you got stuck on something.
Detailed enough that I know what you're trying to do but not so detailed it's clearly desperate.
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