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Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I bet A, B and C will all have us take the blame one way or the other.
You'd have to spin a very long tale if you want to make us responsible when we didn't even touch him. Remember that in this setting it is possible to determine who killed whom by traces that qi and techniques leave on the bodies.

How do you blame A on us while simultaneously presenting the body as proof? Especially when manlou already suspects BJ.

The best move for BJ would be if zhang manxing and his support crew go missing. I'd think he would be better off never mentioning he saw us or manxing in that case.
 
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Elfberserker

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
1,540
Why everyone thinks of miss Bai as an ally?

Why everyone thinks of miss Bai as an ally?
Because she's a hot chick that just needs a hug.
:love:


I thought that codex just lusted after that tsundere cock. Honestly, if Treave didn't have so many women in this adventure I doubt we would have met even one named female character since we tend to go to place where there is highest amount of cocks.:M:M
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Rereading the update more carefully, I think I have to grudgingly accept that there is merit in building some goodwill with Bai Jiutian.

The amount of time that it takes for him to reply tells you that this turn of events was certainly unexpected to him. Finally, he says, “Why are you telling me this? I… I cannot believe you.”

“You sent me Zhang Manxing as a present after all. Clearly you do not care for him or the wishes of the Zhang family. If it makes you feel better to believe that this is my way of making up for failing to kill him… well, go ahead!”

[...]

“I don’t have to be your enemy,” you say. “You are already making plans to separate yourself from Master Nie and the Zhang clan, aren’t you?”
After all, these were our own words. He is in doubt whether or not he can trust us enough to work with us. I guess if we want to prove that we meant what we said, we'd have to get involved.

And I think at least a part of his motivation is established:
“You have been a thorn in the side of Madam Nie for a long time now, Xu Jing… but I might not pluck out that thorn today, depending on what you say.”
We have noticed back at the Young Tigers Tournament that he might have acted at the behest of someone else, and there was that inexplicable attempt to attack us at the Black Tigers Valley. It all makes sense if he was carrying out the will of his shimu who picked him up 'when no one else would'. If he wants to distance himself from her, it is a good sign, and we should help him find allies elsewhere.

“Well, no matter what you say, they certainly don’t like you. If they’re that dangerous…”

“…that is right,” he admits grudgingly. “But that only means I need to find ways to protect myself from them instead of relying solely on my shimu.

Speaking of which, the woman has quite a Lady Macbeth vibe about her. Guiding her husband's ambition, manipulating his best disciple and trying to play zhang clan while simultaneously committing treason (if she was involved with Youxia events) takes some serious balls and cunning. When did we manage to cross her? At this point it is safe to say that the incident in Songfeng was her doing, but what else did we do to warrant the status of her enemy and make her sick BJ on us? We never quite learned who planned to implicate Zhang Jue back at the tournament, even though we dodged all attempts against us or Guo Fu. That one might not be hers, though. And of course, our stint in Youxia didn't endear us to her at all. I'd say, she might prove to be a worse enemy than Wuxing and manlou combined.

Regardless, I am very hesitant of trying to kill manxing after being burned the first time. Even though I have to retract my point about manxing having hostages with him - he couldn't have afforded such a drastic move if all he had was a lingering suspicion, - still, he must have some kind of a safety network with him if he thought that BJ is out to kill him. Engaging him in battle blindly just does not sit well with me, considering our track record.

I guess C would still be more acceptable to me than B. But we might get in the way of BJ, and end up with some unforeseen result, not unlike what happened in Tufan. Let's just hope manxing does not have that aphrodisiac with him. If Jing and Juitian both get hit, things might get awkward.
 
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Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
Engaging him in battle blindly just does not sit well with me, considering our track record.
Actually, at this point Jing should be prepared for any foul play on not-a-manxing's part: we did get a double whammy from the poison vest and aphrodisiac last time. I'll bet the slimeball came here prepared.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
It might be amusing if the board gets disrupted and Xu Jing has to replay it from the first hand to continue where they left off. It's just the kind of skill that would throw Bai Jiutian off balance. While I'm not sure Jing is that talented, I reckon if he had to learn Weiqi against masters, they made him to learn this skill for the weiqi lessons where they go over his games and pick apart his mistakes. Treave, could you confirm if Jing can replay a board from the first hand? Also, can Jing detect any presences in the bushes?

For now, I'm not trusting the "men in the bushes" feeling. Zhang Manxing's luck seems good enough to fuck with our Reikan and if there are men in the bushes, they must have some pretty good stealth skills to avoid notice by ourselves and Bai Jiutian.

Voting B>C
 
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Jester

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 24, 2013
Messages
1,493
Zhang Maxing aphrodisiac escape part 2 "dashing rogue and young cross-dressing 'gentlemen' ". This movie will take Codex Oscar.
 

TOME

Cuckmaster General
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
1,820
A. Why the fuck would we let BJ blame MTP for Manxing's death? And I'm not convinced that his killing intent is directed towards Zhang Manxing.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Because our reputation is already down the shitter for this so we don't really lose anything. And it might also convince Bai Jiutian to work with us.

Also, I don't think A is going to work. Bai Jiutian may be unleashing killing intent, but I suspect that if we leave it to him he's just going to back out and try to diplomacy his way out.
 

Fangshi

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
1,997
A>C

I see no compelling reason to get involved. Our rep is bad but that is no reason to actively try and make it worse. BJ is not a reliable enough ally to get our hands dirty for. If we witness the attack and murder we will have something to hold over him (it will also give him another reason to kill us but he has enough of those already).

Given how sick zhang is BJ should be able to handle the man just fine. While zhang has ridiculously good luck it did not save him from the poison, if BJ catches him cold he should kill him.

With any luck BJ kills him and gets hit by some sort of powder or poison or nasty trick. We will have revealed nothing, committed no crime and we will have the advantage over him for a change.

Alternatively if zhang gets away, well BJ is the only one that actually loses anything here and he can probably spin things to avoid the hit to his rep. For example, if zhang really is alone then it will be his word against BJ's with no actual evidence. zhang is quite sick, BJ can just claim that he is delusional or something. As long as we do not leave any evidence that we were here it should work out fine.


Failing that we should attack with BJ to give us the best chance of killing zhang. If we kill him and get rid of the body it will just be one of those great mysteries that is never solved.
 
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TOME

Cuckmaster General
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
1,820
Our reputation is not that bad. No one has attacked us on sight yet. No one has put bounty on our head yet. I would like to keep it that way.
 

TOME

Cuckmaster General
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
1,820
Youxia city's inhabitants? Army commander with his 3000 men? If we are that powerful, why didn't we just waltz to Huashan?
 

Esquilax

Arcane
Joined
Dec 7, 2010
Messages
4,833
Why the fuck would we let BJ blame MTP for Manxing's death? And I'm not convinced that his killing intent is directed towards Zhang Manxing.

Because Bai Jiutian is more useful to us at Huashan as a respected orthodox pugilist than he is in disgrace. On the other hand, our reputation is so bad that finishing the job that we started back at Qingcheng won't really surprise anybody.

I see no compelling reason to get involved. Our rep is bad but that is no reason to actively try and make it worse. BJ is not a reliable enough ally to get our hands dirty for. If we witness the attack and murder we will have something to hold over him (it will also give him another reason to kill us but he has enough of those already).

If our instincts are right, and Manxing has people backing him up who have seen BJ attack him, then we have nothing to hold over him. As for reasons to kill us, I think that it's the time for Shulgi-esque paranoia against Bai Jiutian to be dialed back a bit. I'm not saying we should trust him completely, but he has dealt with us fairly and we both have a common goal here. For now, I think that trying to get one over on BJ will just set us both back on our (mutual) goal of taking down the Zhang family.

With any luck BJ kills him and gets hit by some sort of powder or poison or nasty trick. We will have revealed nothing, committed no crime and we will have the advantage over him for a change.

Alternatively if zhang gets away, well BJ is the only one that actually loses anything here and he can probably spin things to avoid the hit to his rep. For example, if zhang really is alone then it will be his word against BJ's with no actual evidence. zhang is quite sick, BJ can just claim that he is delusional or something. As long as we do not leave any evidence that we were here it should work out fine.

I'm not following, what are we at risk of revealing? I don't think of this situation as a zero-sum game, where we're somehow better off if BJ gets fucked over. I don't see why having Bai Jiutian in a bad situation helps us here. I guess one way to make sure it all works out is to kill Manxing and whoever he brought along with him so that the deed is never discovered, but that didn't work so well last time either. :lol:

The issue with a situation where it's Manxing's word against BJ's is that at this point, the Zhang family's political clout is important to Nie Wuxing and BJ's star is falling. Again, I'm not sure why Bai Jiutian having his reputation tarnished ends up helping us.

Who would be retarded enough to attack Jing amd his group on sight? :lol:

Precisely. I'm sure Master Zhang has a million bounties on his head, but who the fuck is going to try and collect it? :lol: We aren't on his level yet, but we're getting there ourselves. As for TOME's objections, well, we obviously can't take an entire orthodox sect on our own. But at the same time, it's not like Huashan would put every resource they have at their disposal towards killing us anyways, they have more important matters to attend to than Man Tiger Pig.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Nothing good comes out of our attempts to kill zhang manxing, ever. It was an obviously bad idea at the tournament, it would have been a waste of precious time to search for him after we escaped Dukezhong, and it was a total disaster in Qingcheng. One would think people would take a hint. But no, this time it's going to be different. This time we'll surely get him.

At least our Qingcheng fuck up was understandable - we were sure that nothing could interfere if we wanted him dead. This time we know that he has something up his sleeve, since he went here expecting to find proof of Bai Jiutian's treachery who, he suspects, wants him dead. He also knows that Bai is an unmatched swordsman, far superior to him, and that was when he was healthy. So one has to ask himself, what does he count on? Maybe it is not such a good idea to jump him without considering it, first.

I know it is a bad sport to mention luck in an argument, but our fortunes interact with each other in a bizarre way. We always encounter manxing in situations where it is a better idea to leave him alone and humiliate him than to force the hand of fate. He is lucky that he keeps slipping away with his life, but he loses more and more as time goes on. We are unlucky as we fail to put an end to his infamy once and for all, but we still come up victorious. At this point I almost begin to think that Bai Jiutian has better chances of killing manxing if we don't interfere. At least he does not have laws of the universe actively working against him.

Ah, but watching people step on the same rake twice is satisfying, too.
 
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Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
Nothing good comes out of our attempts to kill zhang manxing, ever. It was an obviously bad idea at the tournament, it would have been a waste of precious time to search for him after we escaped Dukezhong, and it was a total disaster in Qingcheng. One would think people would take a hint. But no, this time it's going to be different. This time we'll surely get him.

At least our Qingcheng fuck up was understandable - we were sure that nothing could interfere if we wanted him dead. This time we know that he has something up his sleave, since he went here expecting to find proof of Bai Jiutian's treachery who, he suspects, wants him dead. He also knows that Bai is an unmatched swordsman, far superior to him, and that was when he was healthy. So one has to ask himself, what does he count on? Maybe it is not such a good idea to jump him without considering it, first.
And the only reason not-a-manxing survived us at Qingcheng in the first place is because of being prepared and well armed: poison vest and aphrodisiac powder, and bodyguards. Unlike BJ, we are ready for his dirty tricks, we know what kind of fighter he is. My problem with A is that it basically leaves BJ at a complete disadvantage in that regard. And yeah, BJ> sleazeball.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
On the other hand, our reputation is so bad that finishing the job that we started back at Qingcheng won't really surprise anybody.
It would surprize manlou, among other people. Unpleasantly. To the point where he will have to actively allocate resourses to hunt you down and avenge his brother.

If our instincts are right, and Manxing has people backing him up who have seen BJ attack him, then we have nothing to hold over him.
I am sorry, why is that? It only means that Bai has to kill more people.

I'm not following, what are we at risk of revealing?
Our involvement in the whole deal? I guess you really want to add another malus to our reputation? We are not at the bottom yet.

I don't think of this situation as a zero-sum game, where we're somehow better off if BJ gets fucked over. I don't see why having Bai Jiutian in a bad situation helps us here. I guess one way to make sure it all works out is to kill Manxing and whoever he brought along with him so that the deed is never discovered, but that didn't work so well last time either. :lol:
So what is the plan, then, if you don't think killing everybody is the answer? For that matter, why are you killing everybody in that case?

Again, I'm not sure why Bai Jiutian having his reputation tarnished ends up helping us.
This is the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is that BJ kills him and no one ever learns that.

Should I conjure a worst case scenario for B?

Precisely. I'm sure Master Zhang has a million bounties on his head, but who the fuck is going to try and collect it? :lol: We aren't on his level yet, but we're getting there ourselves. As for TOME's objections, well, we obviously can't take an entire orthodox sect on our own. But at the same time, it's not like Huashan would put every resource they have at their disposal towards killing us anyways, they have more important matters to attend to than Man Tiger Pig.
*sigh*

Mao Sanjiao has a small army of orthodox pugilists and mercenaries at his beck and call that he used to attack the Fire Cult at Wufushan. Those were strong enough to make Yunzi flee despite Vahista and Vairya being there. But I guess you are stronger then all of the Amesha Spenta combined and are thus invulnerable. We better get on the bad side of as many Grand Eunuchs as possible just to prove how badass we are.

Unlike BJ, we are ready for his dirty tricks, we know what kind of fighter he is.
He was never dangerous to us as a fighter. Even with his vest and poison and whatnot he was not a threat to us. It is always some unfortunate circumstances that keep him alive, not his martial prowess. I am not sure how you can be ready for those. For that matter, why did he follow you despite an obvious danger it presents to his life?

If you don't know what he hides, how can you be ready for it?
 
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TOME

Cuckmaster General
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
1,820
You just had to mention Shulgi-paranoia, didn't you, Esquilax? I got two quotes for you and for others who you have swayed voting B, just to show how right you have been in the past judging characters.

That being said, I've flopped to A after mulling it over a bit. As much as I hate the idea of leaving behind a strong and noble individual like Theseus to die (truly, a man like Theseus is the best humanity has to offer), I don't see any other choice. The bottom line is that I don't fancy being out of commission for a millennium and there are times when honor has to compromised because the real world is a cruel place. Ean is an idealist, and he's just experienced the crushing reality of your ideals dying. You can't always be honorable and succeed.

You guys are buying into Lambchop's whole "NAIM IS THESUES!!!!" nonsense, which I always thought was bullshit from the beginning because the analogy doesn't really work. I seem to recall Lambchop19 being pretty goddamn gung-ho about stabbing Kumare in Chapter 3 of Ean's saga just because he might have been Shulgi. Well, he was wrong then and I am pretty sure that he's wrong now.

+M
 

Fangshi

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
1,997
Esquilax said:
I don't think of this situation as a zero-sum game, where we're somehow better off if BJ gets fucked over. I don't see why having Bai Jiutian in a bad situation helps us here.

If manxing had not shown up at that exact moment this was going to end in a fight and an attempted interrogation by BJ. Ideally he gets injured or otherwise incapacitated killing manxing in which case we can interrogate him at our leisure. The weaker his position the better as far as I am concerned. Of course I am working from the assumption that the man will never be our friend and the best we can hope for is an uneasy and temporary alliance until one of us gets what we want followed by a series of betrayals and double crosses.

That assumption might prove to be incorrect but I have no desire to risk a knife in the back (or a bullet to the eye ;)) to find out.

The issue with a situation where it's Manxing's word against BJ's is that at this point, the Zhang family's political clout is important to Nie Wuxing and BJ's star is falling.

Manxing says he came alone, that he can not simply accuse BJ without proof:

Zhang Manxing said:
“Of course I came alone. What do you think I am, stupid? It would ruin my reputation if I dragged other disciples all the way out here without confirming the rumour with my own eyes first!”

If he flees he still has no actual proof that we were meeting with BJ. If he is not confident enough to bring witnesses then why would he be confident enough to accuse BJ after the fact. He will need some proof at least that we were present. (Once BJ puts the board and cups away (hell throw them down the mountain if necessary or give them to us) there will be no actual proof that we were ever here.)

Now he might be lying but why? By saying he came alone he is giving BJ the perfect excuse to attack him. Either he really is a fool which seems likely or he wants BJ to attack him.

Now he would have to be a complete fool to think that a few bodyguards or conspirators are going to be able to stop BJ, Jing or both. So if he wants to provoke a conflict he would need something better than that.

What would work is if he took a massive gamble and dragged Nie out here. It is doubtful that BJ would attack Nie directly and it would instantly ruin BJ. If that is the case then we should still not attack. We should hang back and be ready to flee should such a trap be sprung.

So either manxing is a fool (which honestly is the most likely explanation) and BJ should be able to handle him without us or he has set this whole thing up and we should be careful to avoid a trap.

Again, I'm not sure why Bai Jiutian having his reputation tarnished ends up helping us.

It is not so much that it helps us. Honestly I don't much care what happens to BJ one way or the other. If this ruins him it will be on him. But again I am working off the assumption that he will eventually betray us so having him ruined simply weakens an enemy.
 

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