In Progress [LP CYOA] Tower

1 A>B. We’re experienced with melee weapons and this appears a high quality one. Failing that, a slingshot is a weapon we at least know how to use.

A gun might be more effective, but if you’ve ever seen a novice wield a gun, you’d know that we’d be more likely to kill ourselves or the girl than our target with one. The “how hard could it be” should have been a clue to that.

2 D>B>C. I think we’d get in her way if we helped her. Better to defend Liz or Sophie.

Sophie is our eyes and she is unguarded. If the creatures are at all intelligent and realize this, they will try to attack her.

Liz is protected for the moment. The enemy is injured and unlikely to attack the cat. Even if it does, I doubt it would survive.

E sounds smart, but it’s really just cowardly and we would look like a pretty big coward should we not help and let a woman do all the fighting. We are armed after all.

 

Our character sheet disagrees:

Which is kind of odd, I'll admit. We've been slashing things up with our knife rather well for an unskilled childd.

 

Man bear croc? Sure, why not.

Yes. Oh God, yes.
...I hope it's a choice of a future weapon specialization, and not just a one-time offer for the fight.

So far the plan is working 50/50. Tlalli is busy with the second foe, and so can't help Elizabeth who is only armed with an orb that is supposed to slow her opponent down.

Liz can't actually finish the job on her own. But she has the mobility through the boots, and Bernard is at her side. If anything happens, she can likely either dodge it, or stall.
Tlalli has the fight well in hand, and will probably finish off her foe soon. We can't count on her in the meantime though.
That leaves us and Sophie as the least defended participants on the battlefield. We are armed with... something, yet to be determined what, and Sophie is just wide open in the middle of a mire with only her sight for special ability. If there is anything else in this bog, she is the most probable target.

As such, I see two choices. Either use her as bait, or come over and present a less convenient prey. Not sure if her sight can point out enemy weaknesses; if so, we can probably shore up each other's shortcomings.

However, if those two enemies are all there is, it would obviously be better to back up one of the combatants. I don't know about lying in wait, though... we risk not being able to react in time to make a difference, since the terrain is bad for movement. We'd need a ranged weapon for this... and preferably one we are good with.

C. A revolver. You have no experience with firearms but you know the theory behind using one. Just aim and shoot. How hard can it be?
D. Head towards Sophie to guard her. She’s the only one left alone at the moment and you want to make sure nothing untoward happens to her.

Deciding on this, after all. Every RPG in existence has "gank the mage" as one of its top stratagems, so pre-empting the possibility is not a bad idea.

 

1C>D - Our rank of weapon skill and respective stats should make use of a revolver within our abilities. The macuahuitl is a great weapon but we're too inept of a wielder to make good use of it. Wielded improperly, a macuahuitl would pose a danger to ourselves. Odds are our form of melee turns into a match of wild grappling and wildly striking each other, so brass knuckles are much more up our alley.

2D - Tlalli does not need our help, but Sophie definitely needs someone to protect her. And Elizabeth has a protector plus boots that make it easy for her to flee. We should move to protect Sophie, as she is in the greatest danger and possesses the least capability to see to her own safety.

Might favor package voting here. If we're going 2B (keep the monster busy while Tlalli faces the other monster) then I favor 1D (brass knuckles). If we're going 2D (protect Sophie) then I favor 1C (the revolver). A revolver is fine for protecting Sophie but shit for a protracted fight.

 

You put too much emphasis on stats. treave is a (human?) writer and only part computer at best. I'm sure our experience with the knife will factor in.

Regardless, we don't have experience with a gun, we do have experience with a bow but the two are hardly similar. Have you ever shot a gun? Most first-timers can't even figure out how to disarm a safety, have zero trigger discipline and tend to point it in all sorts of stupid directions.

You're comparing riding a bike to driving a car.

Add to that that we will only have 6 shots to hit our target. Even assuming that 1/5 ranged weapons will negate the difference between a bow and a gun entirely, it's still 1 out of 5. That's a pretty shit skill level to hunt monsters. If we don't kill ourselves or one of the girls, we're still unlikely to kill our target.

 

A>D on 1
B>D on 2

 

CD

Revolver, Sophie

 

I am not worried about trigger discipline for our guy. He is cool as a cucumber.
And I assume he'll really only shoot up close, what with limited ammo.

This, however, is true. The size of these creatires also makes it unlikely they would go down with a single shot... or even three, unless we are lucky.
But then, you are advocating pushing a ten-year old boy with a corresponding muscle strength to fight a bear-sized monster with a sword, and expect him to be more successful at it, so...

Well. There is always the option to fistfight like Lord Zhang decreed, so it can't be the worst option.

 

I am swayed.
D>C C. Punch>shoot the wounded one good, help Sophie if needed afterwards. Depending on how fast grandma finishes her guy off, we might not even have to do that.

 

The more I look at it the more I feel like this fight is mostly under control. Bernard can handle the injured shifter and Elizabeth can flee with her boots. Tlalli can handle the new shifter. The person in greatest danger atm is Sophie, and Tlalli already indicated she won't take responsibility if we die during a hunt, so I think Sophie needs protection the most atm.

Taking 2B off of my ranked preference vote. I don't think we can sanely tie down the second shifter in top condition and protect Sophie at the same time. We're not that good.

 

B > C. A slingshot to replace the one you lost. The pebbles that Tlalli provides are already polished and sharpened – they will fly well.
B. Tell Tlalli to leave this one to you while she goes after the injured enemy. You might not be able to beat it, but you think you can buy enough time until the old lady finishes off the previous enemy and returns.

 

A very sharp sword.

I acknowledge this, but we’ve already proven ourselves against shadow beasts and large lizards.

A slingshot is a ranged weapon we can actually use. Surprised so many are going for the obvious trap choice, but codex gonna codex.

My guess is that we will shoot through a monster and kill one of the girls. Ffs

 

I’m amending my original vote to 1A>B, in case more sane voters come in and realize that a 10-year-old with a gun is a bad idea.

Don’t you understand that “how hard could it be?” is a trope said before things that are actually quite hard?

 

We have the relevant skill as well as decent int, constitution, perception, and willpower. I don't think we'll fuck up a revolver. We're smart enough and skilled enough to figure it out, focused enough to maintain decent trigger discipline, sturdy enough to withstand recoil, and perceptive and skilled enough to be able to aim the damn thing. If our stats and skills were otherwise, I'd agree that the revolver would be a bad idea (for the very reason that I think the macuahuitl is a bad idea - it actually takes some skill to use properly and is a danger to ourselves wielded improperly), but as it stands we have the qualification to pick one up and use it passably.

Guys, I don't recommend 2C. Sophie is in need of our protection much more than Elizabeth, who is rather agile with her boots, dealing with an injured attacker, and protected by Bernard. And 2B is a terrible idea. This would expose Sophie to far worse danger than if we were to leave her with Tlalli.

 

I don't know if it's a "trap choice". Colonel Colt made people equal, and a gun is a great equalizer between a pre-teenage human and a beast.
Yes, we'd have to pay for it with limited ammo and poor accuracy, but we also have a dagger as a fall back weapon.

And, well. You say that it's hard to hit a monster coming for us, but warn against hitting a girl that is about 100 to 200 meters away and moving on accident? It's possible, but fringe enough that it shouldn't factor in this. Sophie might be a problem if we go with that, but I'd figure we are coming over to be between her and the monster.

I acknowledge the risks, but there are also benefits.

Edit: an appeal to stats is the worst argument I can imagine, though. As if gun accidents are exclusive to mentally deficient cripples.

Edit2: another reason I want a ranged option is because hags have one:

They can simply run circles around us, and we won't catch them in this terrain.

 

the short term situation doesn't seem too bad
unless there's more shapeshifters around and we're in Fantasy Fucking Vietnam (TM)

in the long term, we want guns and Lizzy (and more guns)


1C
2C

 

With a gun and four allies around us we're just begging for a tragedy.

B/D

 

I had to look up the macuahuitl, and even though it's 'smaller sized', are people really sure its a good choice? For a child? First of all, its not a sword, its a cricket bat shaped club with obsidian blades sticking out at one end. No hand guard, small pommel. Since its small, and we're not strong, we'll have to swing it pretty damn hard. What if we miss, or it slips? Not impossible at 0 melee skill. I'd stick to the dagger, if i was Wrinkly. If the revolvers too hardcore, then the slinshot is the safe choice.

 

Sick update! C>B is my first vote. I know we attacked the weird bear thing in the woods with our knife and we killed the lizards in the jungle with one too, but I want to stick with our whole ranged hunter theme we've got going on. I have no fucking clue what people are talking about when they discuss a gun and there being a tragedy. It's entirely dependent on what option we choose to go with. If we go and guard Sophie, there is absolutely no way we can hurt her. She'll stay really close behind us and if a shapeshifter appears, we'll shoot at him. Bernard, Elizabeth, and Tlalli would all be out of sight and out of danger. It's also the most badass, and we have a point in ranged weapons already. Slingshot as the alternative because I want us to stick to ranged.

D. D is the best choice. Elizabeth will be safe with Bernard, as the first Shapeshifter is already weakened and she has the bronze sphere. If she manages to bungle throwing a ball at someone she doesn't deserve our love. We'll simply get in the way if we try to help Tlalli, and hiding is just a shit choice. We should shore up our weak points and go help Sophie, especially as if we can make her more partial to us that will increase our standing with the town when we get back.

 

Using a gun for the first time in your life, untrained, is a recipe for disaster, no? Gun nerds can correct me, but wouldn't he just fuck it up? Long-term it's a great choice, short-term maybe not helpful?

BD for now. There's clearly good reasons to cover the undefended Sophie, while grandma takes the biggest threat and Elizabeth+Bernard handles the weaker threat as planned.

 

Depends. If we have an understanding of what a revolver is, and it looks like we do, then we can handle it. Revolvers were designed to be simple and easy to use. I'm not at all concerned with our mental inability to use one, Nevill gave a good rebuttal to that argument:

I don't think we should hang back. I think we'd be a better contributor if we helped grandma or Elizabeth take down their quarries faster, than if we hang back and take a piss.

 

We can help shoot the enemy with slingshot while covering Sophie, no?

We may know how to fire the revolver without falling over on our arse, but you think we're going to shoot and hit our quarry - and not hit our allies? Because that only happens in Hollywood.

 

Depends on the range. If we want to go at long range, then the slingshot is the only choice. And it's not a great one, considering that slingshots don't have a great effective range.

That's why I want to get up close and help Lisa.

 

That is true. However, that is only true so long as there are no more monsters around, because otherwise you take out some of theirs and they take out some of yours. The group is split, and only Liz can reconnect with the others quickly; the rest will be slower to react if anything bad happens.

Unfortunately, we can't be certain that's all of them, because we already thought there'd be one, and we were proven wrong. Fool me once...

 

First: that's a big if. Second, if we're concerned about enemies, why not go with E and ambush our would-be ambusher? And staying with Sophie just feels very 'meh:' okay, bro, you wanted to come here and hunt a changeling, but now you're hanging in the back 'protecting' your sister who can spot an attacker ahead of time anyway. Uh-huh. Pussy.

This a good point: grandma's intel already missed the second changeling, there's nothing that guarantees that there isn't a third one. Like I said, the point is iffy.