[LP CYOA] 傳

[ScubaV]

BA4

Also, you guys totally hurt our chances for the harem ending by not voting for the poetry contest.

 

[Baltika9]

I think that joining this team and working to get to them final stage with them will work better for us, as we'll earn some friends by not being a backstabbing snake.

It is a nature of FFA to be "a backstabbing snake". Or a better and more cunning fighter, if you prefer.

That's not our game, though, we only care about getting into the Manor and everything else (including victory) is peripheral. This, right here

After a while, you manage to strike up a conversation with a warrior-poet from Changsha, far to the south. His name is Ling Tong, a member of the Zifu Hall, a small gathering of gentlemen scholars in that city. According to him, the competitions do attract participants, but not as many as one would think. A good number of the fellows of the manor will pass their invitations on to worthy disciples or friends during a trial year, so that they may have a chance to be accepted. Others trade it for favours, though outright selling the invitation for money appears to be a taboo and could lead to a revocation of their fellowship.

Means we have a chance to be noticed by the Fellows, in which case they'll give us their invitation. Remember, this FFA is just the preliminary trial

Initially, you think that Master Yao appears to have been mistaken about the need for an invite; according to the innkeeper, many scholars travel there year-round. However, you find out from an old scholar in Xuzhou that there is an ‘inner court’ that can only be accessed by known fellows of the manor. These fellows are selected via a mysterious trial during the winter solstice conference which can only be attended by obtaining an invitation. This is probably the ‘real’ Luoying Manor.

We still have the finals coming up and I'd much rather we have at least one person there whom we could call a friend during the Trial. We're definitely not making it in there all by ourselves, we need a bro. This seems like a good chance to make a couple of them.

Fight each other, what else? The purpose of the competition is to get one winner, after they're done with everyone else, they'll be fighting amongst themselves.

Right. So, in a group that encompasses people that know each other for some time and some new guy, who would be the first to be omitted from the definition of 'an ally' when there are no enemies left?

I won't be naive and say "not us," but they will also be thinking on how to take down the other guys from their group too, it's not like they'll fight until there's just their group left and call it quits. If we keep our head down, expend our energy wisely and stick with the poet that approached us, I think we'll be good. Besides, that's just a good chance to start showing that our skills are worthy to the Fellows once shit hits the fan.

There's also the matter of our rep,

“By the way, young master Xu, I will say that many of the competitors here will be looking to come to an understanding before the battle starts. Do you know what I speak of?”

You nod, rubbing your chin – a habit you have started to pick up from Master Yao stroking his beard all the time. It only makes sense. “A non-aggression pact? That would make things neater.”

Ling Tong beams at you. “Exactly. This is not my first time participating, and I happen to know a few familiar faces. If you like, I could spread the word that you will be in on the pact. Your, ah, reputation for defeating the heir of Songfeng precedes you. I think I would rather you direct your ability at others, at least for the initial minutes of the match,” says the man honestly.

“My reputation, eh?” you say, curious. “What have you heard, by the way?”

“Well,” the man speaks carefully with a smile, “two tales. One where you are the villain, and one where you are the hero. In both, you strike down the young Rong with a single blow. I believe that, at least, is the truth. To be honest, after talking with you I would prefer the heroic tale of ‘The Apprentice Defends His Beautiful Physician’.”

“Beautiful… wait, never mind.” You have no idea what that old drunk Qi Liuwu told his beggars, but the results are certainly terribly embellished. Perhaps you should tell Master Yao to send a note to Qi about this.

“So,” says Ling Tong brightly, “Will you accept my offer, young master Xu?”

While he wants us on his team because of our skills, he's coming up to us with a gentleman's offer: stick with my guys, and we'll get you to the final stage of the fight. If we weasel against them, he'll notice and suspect us immediately, the "villain" story will just make it easier for him to guess our motivations. The only reason he believes we're a pretty cool guy is because we're acting like one.

BA4

Also, you guys totally hurt our chances for the harem ending by not voting for the poetry contest.

Relax, bro, we can learn in Luoying.

 

[treave]

treave, how are the votes counted?

The alliance choice will still be counted separately from the cheating choice.

A4, despite being introduced on Esquilax's request, does not involve you personally insulting anyone. It's more of rumour spreading. Like, for example, someone might be placing laxatives.

 

[Tigranes]

BA4 for now, we definitely need to take some risks and we can't count on not fooling anyone and beating them all or being noticed by someone while getting our arse hauled out.

 

[treave]

Current tally:

ERYFKRAD - CC
Azira - BA1
Ifeex - AC > AA2
Grimgravy - A A1,4
Kipeci - BC
Jester - BC
Esquilax - AC
Storyfag - C A1,3
LWC1996 - BB
Smashing Axe - C A1,3
Baltika9 - AC
Nevill - BC
TOME - B A1,3,4
Xenomorph - AC
Lambchop19 - B A1,3,4
The Brazilian Slaughter - BC
Kashmir Slippers - CC
Zero Credibility - BC > BA4
ScubaV - BA4
Tigranes - BA4

***

1. A - 5, B - 11, C - 4

2. A1 - 1
A1/3 - 2
A1/4 - 1
A1/3/4 - 2
A4 - 2

Total A: 8

B - 1

C - 11

***

How this will go is that if A, the option to cheat wins, the specific subchoice in A as listed above with the most votes will win. Right now that is A4.

And it seems that we only have one person with enough balls to do all of the cheating here. You disappoint me,

 

[Baltika9]

Dunno, this just doesn't sit right with me, we've been extended a gentleman's offer and here we are about to renege on that, this poet obviously know guys from the inside of the Manor, so they may even be able to vouch for us if we give a good show. Will this let us win? Very likely, yeah, but our rep out in the world will take a hit and making friends on our travels will be harder. Right now, no one knows what to make of our first deed, but that can change depending on how we act in general. The people that look out for Number One only oftentimes end up alone and that's a bad position to be in of you're unorthodox and don't have a sect to fall back onto.

I see this as an opportunity to make friends for the future: win or lose, the poet will tell tales of how Xu Jing acted here, with loyalty or selfishness, and that will color the opinions of others on the road. I'd rather it be a good opinion.

Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.

 

[ScubaV]

And it seems that we only have one person with enough balls to do all of the cheating here. You disappoint me,

Disappointed that you won't get to write an entry where we hilariously fail at trying to pull off ALL THE CHEATING!?

 

[treave]

And it seems that we only have one person with enough balls to do all of the cheating here. You disappoint me,

Disappointed that you won't get to write an entry where we hilariously fail at trying to pull off ALL THE CHEATING!?

Who said it was going to fail? No one is going to believe that one boy would do all the cheating. Safety in numbers.

 

[treave]

Huh, I believe it is. Thanks for spotting that. I need to hire a professional vote counter.

 

[XenomorphII]

And it seems that we only have one person with enough balls to do all of the cheating here. You disappoint me,

Disappointed that you won't get to write an entry where we hilariously fail at trying to pull off ALL THE CHEATING!?

No, he is disappointed that he won't get to write up how we screwed up the concoctions on 1 and 2, and accidentally killed everyone.

 

[Nevill]

How this will go is that if A, the option to cheat wins, the specific subchoice in A as listed above with the most votes will win. Right now that is A4.

I am sure you understand why this doesn't quite work as intended. If people voted for poisoning, their votes would count to 2A victory, yet once they "win" they would get something completely different from what they expected and voted for. Why is A treated as a whole? A1 is radically different from A3 or A4, enough to warrant it being a separate choise.

Right now we have 7 people who want to go with A4 (4 of them do not want to do anything with A1), 6 people who want to try A1 (3 of them never chose A4), and 9 people who chose C. Yet A as a whole got 10 votes.

BC>BA4 to prevent A1 from winning if 2C fails. I still think we can get by without A4.

 

[Esquilax]

I still think we can get by without A4.

Why? And why would it be better to pick BC instead of BA4, for the reasons that I detailed in my previous post. If we're going to forge secret pacts between teams, we better know how to exploit it to our advantage. That's what A4 is for.

 

[treave]

If I did not count A as a bloc, then the option to be a cheater would be too split up given the multiple choices offered. That would also be unfair.

The line here is being drawn between cheating and not cheating. That much should be clear. First you decide whether you want to cheat or not. If you don't, go C. If you do, you go A.

If you only want a particular choice out of A to win, that's what a fall-back choice to C is for, should your combination not win. If it isn't stated, I'll assume you don't care as much about how you cheat, only that you do, i.e your intent here isn't for a clean game, which is what C is all about.

 

[Nevill]

BC strikes me as a bit wishy-washy. You're still trying to be sneaky and make secret pacts, but you're not turning the odds to your favour by pitting those groups against each other with a divide-and-conquer strategy. If you want to do things cleanly, why not AC?

Because AC never had a chance in hell. And yes, I want a clean win.

Sorry, can't argue further, got to run. A4 is winning anyway.

We still have the finals coming up and I'd much rather we have at least one person there whom we could call a friend during the Trial.

I bet playing sides against each other in the field and maneuvering alliances without resorting to outright cheating would impress the Fellows better that just losing due to some misguided loyalty.

We still have the finals coming up and I'd much rather we have at least one person there whom we could call a friend during the Trial. We're definitely not making it in there all by ourselves, we need a bro.

That is something to consider, but we also need an invitation, and I don't want to deal with the governor. And I don't pick my bros on the street.

 

[Esquilax]

AC won't work. We'll be fighting a bunch of martial artists who are older, better, and more experienced than Jing once the alliance breaks. It just doesn't look like a winning strategy. Playing groups against each other might be.

I bet playing sides against each other in the field and maneuvering alliances without resorting to outright cheating would impress the Fellows better that just losing due to some misguided loyalty.

Are we here to impress a bunch of dudes we just met or are we here to get into Luoying Manor? In order to get in, we have a contest that pretty much tacitly accepts cheating so long as you don't get caught. At times we do have to keep appearances and play courtier, but this isn't one of those times. We wanna get into the Manor - to that end, I can't say I really give a shit about the feelings of a bunch of strangers we're competing against here. The goal is to get in, not impress them.

Actually, wait a sec:

After a while, you manage to strike up a conversation with a warrior-poet from Changsha, far to the south. His name is Ling Tong, a member of the Zifu Hall, a small gathering of gentlemen scholars in that city. According to him, the competitions do attract participants, but not as many as one would think. A good number of the fellows of the manor will pass their invitations on to worthy disciples or friends during a trial year, so that they may have a chance to be accepted.

treave, does this mean a lot of people that might lose at this event will get invitations anyways? This might move me to go for AC. All things considered, I'd rather do things cleanly here if we've got alternatives for getting an invitation.

 

[treave]

After a while, you manage to strike up a conversation with a warrior-poet from Changsha, far to the south. His name is Ling Tong, a member of the Zifu Hall, a small gathering of gentlemen scholars in that city. According to him, the competitions do attract participants, but not as many as one would think. A good number of the fellows of the manor will pass their invitations on to worthy disciples or friends during a trial year, so that they may have a chance to be accepted.

treave, does this mean a lot of people that might lose at this event will get invitations anyways? This might move me to go for AC. All things considered, I'd rather do things cleanly here if we've got alternatives for getting an invitation.

A lot? No, I don't think so.

I'd assume a lot of those worthy disciples or friends already obtained an invitation from their sponsors and wouldn't be participating in the competition, assuming the fellows did not want to attend.

This is why the competition is rather sparse in the first place. These are mostly the ones not well-connected enough to obtain one. And you do have alternatives for the invitation should you fail to get it here. It's never been an all or nothing situation here. The other options in the previous choice, A and D, could still be on the table. Also, you could always mask yourself and unburden one of the three poetry winners of theirs. Or even jump the winner of this competition in a dark alley and steal it.

And when it comes right down to it - they do hold it every four years. There is no shame in coming back when you're older, stronger and wiser. A fifteen year old fellow is certainly unprecedented (and good for bragging rights), but there's no guarantee that you will pass the trial to become a fellow even if you get there.

edit: I'm not ruling out the possibility of some of the losers getting an invitation, but you don't know if there are any lurking fellows in the audience and might not want to bank on there being some. You also don't know what will impress them. Some may like cheating. Some may enjoy blatant cheating. Some may like fairplay and a valiant last stand. You don't know who's there, or if there's anyone there.

Probably best not to bank on making an impression on a bunch of people who may or may not be around when you don't know what type of impression would impress them.

 

[Nevill]

AC won't win a fight. We want to impress the Fellows, not our dudes. By being clean, not stupid. Thus BC. Smartphones suck.

 

[Baltika9]

And I don't pick my bros on the street.

I'm sorry, what? You do realize we are the streets right now, right? We aren't even "beggar level," our situation is as ghetto as it gets. The streets are pretty much the only place we can find friends right now.

Which brings up an important topic: we need a bro that will watch our back in the future, someone we can rely on in any situation. That used to be Shun, but it's over for a long time now, maybe forever.
Cao'er isn't physical enough to go with Tigerbro on all the crazy shit we'll do; Yunzi isn't anywhere close to us, sadly.

 

[Baltika9]

Flopping to AC, let's fight this clean and let some other asshole get caught cheating. We're too for that.

 

[Esquilax]

treave, what does our character know of Zifu Hall? He has some Scholarly Knowledge, so does Jing know if this place is reputable?

Anyways, I've decided I'd rather do this shit clean. We tried to do things with integrity back in Songfeng, we ought to continue with that. I think I've been way too wrapped up in winning this competition at all costs, and not concerned enough with the sort of character that we'll develop along the way, and that's ultimately more important. Sadly, time's almost up so this will probably be only symbolic.

Flopping to AC > BA4

 

[treave]

treave, what does our character know of Zifu Hall? He has some Scholarly Knowledge, so does Jing know if this place is reputable?

You haven't really heard of it. It's probably some obscure hall, dime a dozen. Scholarly Knowledge deals with knowledge of the classic texts, not of current affairs, so it wouldn't be covered anyway. The characters all start with a relatively small pool of knowledge of the world of martial arts, which you're building as you go along.

With yours and Baltika's flops, I believe that puts C at 11 to 8 for A.

Coincidentally, I'm about to close the polls to prepare the update, so the winning vote appears to be BC.

 

[Baltika9]

 

[Azira]

Wankers. The laxative prank would've been hilarious.

 

[treave]

Sometimes I do wonder just why that orthodox/unorthodox vote was so split in the first place.

 

[Azira]

Really? This is the 'dex. You've done one CYOA already. How can you still be surprised/full of wonder?

Not that I mind. I'm impressed actually. I thought you'd be a bit jaded by now.