In Progress [LP CYOA] Tower

[Life of the Party]

Better than the Bull but I'd prefer at least one more point in WIS.

 

[Baltika9]

Support the Bull Revolution! Support a strong and silent protagonist!
Support Comrade Bull!


===Tally===

==Votes after conditionals==

Archer - 7
Bull - 6
Fish - 8

==Raw votes==

Lion - 2
Bull - 4
Fish - 8
Archer - 3
Twins - 2
Goat - 1
Ram - 1
Virgin - 1

Poll

Spoiler

ERYFKRAD - Lion>Bull
CappenVarra - Lion > virgin > goat > twins > ram > balance > water bearer > crab > scorpion > archer > fish > bull

Lambchop19 - Bull>Fish
Baltika9 - Bull>Fish
Zerofall - Bull
Kz3r0 - Bull

Nevill - Fish
Azira - Fish>Archer>Virgin>Scorpion
Esquilax - Fish>Virgin
Grimgravy - Fish>Archer
hello friend - Fish>Twins>Virgin>Archer
ItsChon - Fish
Kipeci- Fish>Bull
Tigranes - Fish>Archer

Absinthe - Archer>Twins
asxetos - Archer
Nahel - Archer

baud - Twins>Virgin
Smashing Axe - Twins>Archer>Lion>Ram

oscar - Goat>Water-Bearer>Bull>Ram

Egosphere - Ram>Archer

Life of the Party - Virgin>Archer>Twins>Fish

 

[Nahel]

The archer sounds fun. I like some balance.

 

[Absinthe]

Voting tallies:

Initial tally:

Goat 1

Oscar Goat>Water-bearer>Bull>Ram>Anything other than Archer​

Bull 6

Baltika9 Bull>Tiger>Ram>Fish
Kz3ro Bull
Lambchop19 Bull>Fish
Zerafall Bull
ERYFKRAD Lion=Bull​

Ram 1

Egosphere Ram>Archer​

Archer 3

Absinthe Archer>Twins
asxetos Archer
Nahel Archer​

Fish 8

Nevill Fish
Azira Fish>Archer>Virgin>Scorpion
Grimgravy Fish>Archer
Hello Friend Fish>Twins>Virgin>Archer
Esquilax Fish>Virgin
ItsChon Fish
Kipeci Fish>Bull
Tigranes Fish>Archer​

Twins 2

Baud Twins>Virgin
Smashing Axe Twins>Archer>Lion>Ram​

Lion 1

CappenVarra Lion>Virgin>Goat>Twins>Ram>Balance>Water-bearer>Crab>Scorpion>Archer>Fish>Bull​

Virgin 1

Life of a Party Virgin>Archer>Twins>Fish​

Runoffs/Conditional vote flipping

1st Runoff: (Goat, Ram, Lion, and Virgin eliminated)

Bull 6

Baltika9 Bull>Tiger>Ram>Fish
Kz3ro Bull
Lambchop19 Bull>Fish
Zerafall Bull
ERYFKRAD Lion=Bull
Oscar Goat>Water-bearer>Bull>Ram>Anything other than Archer​

Archer 5

Absinthe Archer>Twins
asxetos Archer
Nahel Archer
Egosphere Ram>Archer
Life of a Party Virgin>Archer>Twins>Fish​

Fish 8

Nevill Fish
Azira Fish>Archer>Virgin>Scorpion
Grimgravy Fish>Archer
Hello Friend Fish>Twins>Virgin>Archer
Esquilax Fish>Virgin
ItsChon Fish
Kipeci Fish>Bull
Tigranes Fish>Archer​

Twins 3

Baud Twins>Virgin
Smashing Axe Twins>Archer>Lion>Ram
CappenVarra Lion>Virgin>Goat>Twins>Ram>Balance>Water-bearer>Crab>Scorpion>Archer>Fish>Bull​

2nd Runoff: (Twins eliminated)

Bull 6

Baltika9 Bull>Tiger>Ram>Fish
Kz3ro Bull
Lambchop19 Bull>Fish
Zerafall Bull
ERYFKRAD Lion=Bull
Oscar Goat>Water-bearer>Bull>Ram>Anything other than Archer​

Archer 7

Absinthe Archer>Twins
asxetos Archer
Nahel Archer
Egosphere Ram>Archer
CappenVarra Lion>Virgin>Goat>Twins>Ram>Balance>Water-bearer>Crab>Scorpion>Archer>Fish>Bull
Life of a Party Virgin>Archer>Twins>Fish
Smashing Axe Twins>Archer>Lion>Ram​

Fish 8

Nevill Fish
Azira Fish>Archer>Virgin>Scorpion
Grimgravy Fish>Archer
Hello Friend Fish>Twins>Virgin>Archer
Esquilax Fish>Virgin
ItsChon Fish
Kipeci Fish>Bull
Tigranes Fish>Archer​

3rd Runoff: (Bull eliminated)

Archer 7

Absinthe Archer>Twins
asxetos Archer
Nahel Archer
Egosphere Ram>Archer
CappenVarra Lion>Virgin>Goat>Twins>Ram>Balance>Water-bearer>Crab>Scorpion>Archer>Fish>Bull
Life of a Party Virgin>Archer>Twins>Fish
Smashing Axe Twins>Archer>Lion>Ram​

Fish 11

Nevill Fish
Azira Fish>Archer>Virgin>Scorpion
Grimgravy Fish>Archer
Hello Friend Fish>Twins>Virgin>Archer
Esquilax Fish>Virgin
ItsChon Fish
Kipeci Fish>Bull
Tigranes Fish>Archer
altika9 Bull>Tiger>Ram>Fish
Lambchop19 Bull>Fish
Oscar Goat>Water-bearer>Bull>Ram>Anything other than Archer​

Penultimate tally:

Bull 6
Archer 7
Fish 8​

Final tally:

Archer 7
Fish 11​

 

[Baltika9]

Part of what made Legend so good was the batshit insane shenanigans Jing got into because of his abysmal Luck. I chose Bull over Archer precisely because the statline is extreme, and because I think Treave can craft a fun story reflecting that. I also like the idea of this dumb, brutish goon becoming smarter as we go further along, honing his intellect with every new encounter. Sure, he'll never be the sharpest tool in the shed, but who's to say that he can't at least be decent?

Plus, I'm not really too interested in a trapper play-style or anything like that. I feel like we'd botch it with aplomb. And who cares about dumb wizard shit when you can cast FIST and or other melee instrument?

Bumping our new fellow for the dual purposes of not leaving him forgotten on the backpages, and hopefully raising more support for the Bull. He will most definitely be a fun character.

 

[oscar]

I'll vote for about anything that isn't the steaming pile of boring mediocrity that is Archer.

 

[Absinthe]

I don't get the weird hate for all-rounders some of you have, but vote updated. But I'll say this, if you think all-rounders are boring, you're just displaying your lack of imagination. The entire point of playing an all-rounder is that we get creative with the wide set of options at our disposal instead of just blindly picking whatever suits our character's lopsided strengths the most. Min-maxed builds are often much more boring in practice than all-rounder builds precisely because they default too easily to playing to their strengths instead of contemplating their options.

 

[Kipeci]

I don't get the weird hate for all-rounders some of you have, but vote updated. But I'll say this, if you think all-rounders are boring, you're just displaying your lack of imagination. The entire point of playing an all-rounder is that we get creative with the wide set of options at our disposal instead of just blindly picking whatever suits our character's lopsided strengths the most. Min-maxed builds are often much more boring in practice than all-rounder builds precisely because they default too easily to playing to their strengths instead of contemplating their options.

Why just charge into the strengths? I fondly recall when we inspired Xu Jing to proclaim his love with utmost sincerity. The tension of working through and challenging or avoiding weaknesses can be quite fun and entertaining in itself. Anyway, each stat feeds into a diverse array of skills and use modes so I’m not concerned about us having a broad array of approaches, particularly when we already start with entry level knowledge in a fairly broad field. Practical experience usually beats out unused talent so we should get a good development of those and related skills.

 

[Absinthe]

Jing's charisma was also above average. I think we had 7 charisma (out of 10) at that point. That declaration you mention was just a complete joke. Treave collected all the shit-posts and half-serious suggestions into a big paragraph that was amazingly bad, but amusingly so. It wasn't that we lacked charisma, it was that we picked a romantic option so ridiculously bad (with an emphasis on the ridiculous) I would not have been surprised if treave gave us stat damage to charisma for it. Instead we had a result so bad (See update) that treave would have dead-ended the quest because everyone laughed at us and MC ran away crying, except a last-minute flop blindsided treave so treave didn't realize the option hadn't won until after he wrote it. Anyway, if Jing didn't have the charisma he did we would've done much worse in a lot of segments, with a number of them (like the Black Dragon Society infiltration) being flat-out unworkable and many others going much worse, considering how infamous our protagonist was.

Now it's true that we don't have to play to our strengths at all times, but generally we tend not to play to our weaknesses unless the choice in question doesn't matter or we have no good choices. And the tension of avoiding weaknesses isn't very tense. It's usually pretty obvious which options we shouldn't take in that case. 3 Charisma? Gonna guess talking our way out of our problems is not the way to go. And it's odd that you have Bull down the line on your vote (and previously voted for it outright), Kipeci, if you're seriously in favor of utilizing our starting skills. Bull directly hurts the all our starting skills in their respective stats.

 

[Kipeci]

Jing's charisma was also above average. I think we had 7 charisma (out of 10) at that point. That declaration you mention was just a complete joke. Treave collected all the shit-posts and half-serious suggestions into a big paragraph that was amazingly bad, but amusingly so. If Jing didn't have the charisma he did we would've done much worse in a lot of segments, with a number of them (like the Black Dragon Society infiltration) being flat-out unworkable and many others going much worse, considering how infamous our protagonist was.

Now it's true that we don't have to play to our strengths at all times, but generally we tend not to play to our weaknesses unless the choice in question doesn't matter or we have no good choices. And the tension of avoiding weaknesses isn't very tense. It's usually pretty obvious which options we shouldn't take in that case. 3 Charisma? Gonna guess talking our way out of our problems is not the way to go. And it's odd that you have Bull down the line on your vote (and previously voted for it outright) Kipeci if you're seriously in favor of utilizing our starting skills. Bull directly hurts the all our starting skills in their respective stats.

That one is a bit beyond the nominal numbers, Jing’s slick haha trolled ya facade had a tendency to shatter to pieces when there was a matter of sincerity that came up with the women he actually cared about; see the back and forth with Yunzi or when Qilin was actually in danger. As stated before, his incredible luck made for quite the entertaining read even as it caused us some nasty pitfalls along the way.

I have pretty good confidence that treave won’t write it so that our two options are “hulk smash” or “wipe drool and attempt conversation” for every interaction. Generally we had a number of plausible actions we could take with the skills that we developed and some stretch ones that sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t. We had pretty good opportunities to stretch out our skillset and often took a broad way, and again, the high stats in Fish or Bull are useful in a vast array of situations beyond just a brute force arm wrestle or fireball as the one solution to rule them all.

Regardless of where we cap out, we do have the starting skills and they’re better initially than something we have potential in but have never heard of. The bull in the china shop may not be the sneakiest there ever was, true, but I’m 100% sure there will be circumstance and hefty benefit to occasionally overhearing things we shouldn’t and sneaking our hefty mass around without notice. If you wanted to be the best trapmaster ever I was on board with the Scholar, but that train has left the station. The Hunter doesn’t have the best potential at using any of their starting skills, only that initial practical benefit of having a level in them.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

In the end, it's the choice between a unique build or an average build and creating uniqueness ourselves with our actions.

Either way, I'm sure we could have fun.

I think someone who has spent his life in the woods hunting could conceivably be a bit of a social retard and have a hard time talking through things.

That said, I don't look forward to Charisma 3, as Absinthe points out.

Idk, I am not flopping any more. I mainly did so initially because my vote (twins) lost and the stealth ninja I envisioned died with it. I did so again with Bull as a joke and because playing a dangerous retard is fun and anyone who disagrees hasn't played enough of Arcanum or Fallout.

 

[treave]

Checking through the votes, am I correct that Fish is our final answer? Will be locking it in.

 

[Baltika9]

So dies the hope for our Glorious Revolutionary Comrade Bull. Good night, sweet prince.

Oh well. Yes, the Fish Hunter takes it. Let's get this show on the road!

 

[Absinthe]

That one is a bit beyond the nominal numbers, Jing’s slick haha trolled ya facade had a tendency to shatter to pieces when there was a matter of sincerity that came up with the women he actually cared about; see the back and forth with Yunzi or when Qilin was actually in danger. As stated before, his incredible luck made for quite the entertaining read even as it caused us some nasty pitfalls along the way.

I'm pretty sure a lot of situations we were in would've turned out much worse if Jing didn't have the charisma that he did. Sure, our interactions were very important, but our charisma also determined a lot of why we were given a chance in the first place. Most of the characters who wound up becoming part of our crew probably would not have given us a chance if we had shit charisma when we met them. We wouldn't have had that band of companions near the end.

I have pretty good confidence that treave won’t write it so that our two options are “hulk smash” or “wipe drool and attempt conversation” for every interaction. Generally we had a number of plausible actions we could take with the skills that we developed and some stretch ones that sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t. We had pretty good opportunities to stretch out our skillset and often took a broad way, and again, the high stats in Fish or Bull are useful in a vast array of situations beyond just a brute force arm wrestle or fireball as the one solution to rule them all.

I have confidence he won't write choices that bad either, but what I am saying is that it will be a narrower route in terms of how we go about things when we find ourselves in difficult situations. A lot of choices will be more obviously good ideas or bad ideas when we have very high and very low stats related to them. And Bull honestly is a vote for going Hulk Smash on your problems because all he has is very high strength, very high constitution, and really poor mentals.

Regardless of where we cap out, we do have the starting skills and they’re better initially than something we have potential in but have never heard of. The bull in the china shop may not be the sneakiest there ever was, true, but I’m 100% sure there will be circumstance and hefty benefit to occasionally overhearing things we shouldn’t and sneaking our hefty mass around without notice. If you wanted to be the best trapmaster ever I was on board with the Scholar, but that train has left the station. The Hunter doesn’t have the best potential at using any of their starting skills, only that initial practical benefit of having a level in them.

I am seriously interested in seeing where we can take Traps skill for once. It's a Dex+Int skill, and Hunter+Archer would be well-suited for it. As Traps reaches 10 I'm sure we're going to see some crazy stunts come out of it alright.

In the end, it's the choice between a unique build or an average build and creating uniqueness ourselves with our actions.

Either way, I'm sure we could have fun.

Aye, I'm partial to the latter alright. And I suspect that a min-maxed build ends up being less unique overall.

I think someone who has spent his life in the woods hunting could conceivably be a bit of a social retard and have a hard time talking through things.

That said, I don't look forward to Charisma 3, as Absinthe points out.

Tbh I'm a bit of a fan of the "go at it by yourself" approach to problems, but it is going to get in the way of a lot of the fun and practical options we could have.

Idk, I am not flopping any more. I mainly did so initially because my vote (twins) lost and the stealth ninja I envisioned died with it. I did so again with Bull as a joke and because playing a dangerous retard is fun and anyone who disagrees hasn't played enough of Arcanum or Fallout.

But you don't play as a retard for your first run in either of those games, because of how much content it locks you out of.

Checking through the votes, am I correct that Fish is our final answer? Will be locking it in.

Aye, Fish has it.

 

[ItsChon]

Holy shit, the Legend thread has 1200 pages? I'm super excited for this right now. Hunter-Fish baby, let's do it.

 

[Baltika9]

Holy shit, the Legend thread has 1200 pages? I'm super excited for this right now. Hunter-Fish baby, let's do it.

The longer and more dramatic our character creation, the better the CYOA. Our internecine drama and butthurt feeds treave's writing ability.

It took us one page more to create a character for this CYOA. Therefore, this CYOA will be better than Legend. My job is here is done.

I have spoken.

 

[Absinthe]

Legend's chargen Drabbit vote sticks out in my mind more than the entire discussion we just had though.

Anyway, we'll just have to train up charisma to be not shit. It'll be a shame that we can't spend a stat-up on strength or something for a while, but eh.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

, I like the Virgin spread

I don't think they spread, that's why they're virgins.

 

[Baltika9]

Legend's chargen Drabbit vote sticks out in my mind more than the entire discussion we just had though.

Meh, give it a couple of months. Every time we fail, we will always think back to this moment as the origin of the failure. And everyone will be right in their own minds.

Just as God intended.

 

[Smashing Axe]

I'm incredibly butthurt that physical ability won over nerd chad.

 

[oscar]

5 strength and 6 dexterity isn't exactly Conan the Barbarian.

He can do 40 push ups and climb a tree

 

[Zerafall]

5 strength and 6 dexterity isn't exactly Conan the Barbarian.

He can do 40 push ups and climb a tree

He can also take a hell of a beating, due to his high CON.

 

[hello friend]

I'm glad we ended up going with booze wizard. Good times ahead.

 

[Absinthe]

Personally I feel like charisma and drinking skill go hand in hand, if you want to have a really good time. And maybe low wis too.

 

[Azira]

I'm glad we ended up going with booze wizard. Good times ahead.

Rincewind, is that you?