[LP CYOA] 傳

[treave]

A
Shouldn't these skills have increased caps after we got AGI and PER boost, treave?

Yeah. Fixed. Thanks.

 

[m4davis]

AB

 

[Esquilax]

You would pick it up much easier by actually experiencing the technique first hand, yes. If purely by observation, you'll need to see at least two or more matches of the guy to get a feel for the technique; you won't pick up things in a single match. Considering that our INT is at 7, there's also a more limited amount of information you can remember at any given time compared to, say, Goat Adjutant with INT 9.

We are an agile character who is developing some Sneak skill, potentially going incognito in a city full of orthodox pugilists: surely there's an opportunity here to use our infiltration skills to allow us to collect intel. There must be some way here to sneak and observe a few competitors while they're training. A skilled infiltrator going incognito should have plenty of options.

I think there's a lot more to learn here than there is to give away.

Like what? Because believe me, there is a lot to give away. Jing is a "special snowflake" and he has many traits that are unique to him that we must guard very closely: his lack of meridian lines and the resulting immunity to pressure point strikes as a result of that and his unique neigong that comes with the drawback of losing control of his movements - these are all things that are very particular to Jing that can be exploited by someone who has observed our Art of War.

Because of this, I feel that the benefit of learning about our enemy is not worth the cost of giving up info to our enemy. Considering the unique nature of our qi, as well as our overall style, they would end up learning more about us than we would about them. Right now, Jing is a secret weapon that will bring a lot of things that these guys aren't expecting to the table. There are two options here in the long-run:

• Our opponent knows something about us, but we know something about them too.
• Our opponent knows nothing about us and we know nothing about them.

Of course, there are varying degrees of knowledge, but this is the general gist of it, I'm sure you'll agree. The important part here is that of these two scenarios, the fight that favours Jing is the one where he knows nothing about his opponent and his opponent knows nothing about him, not the one where both parties have some knowledge of each other. This gives an intelligent, analytical opponent no time to prepare a counter for Jing, whose style favours lightning-fast aggression and his unique nature to win. The way to take out that type of high PER/high INT fighter is to overwhelm them before they can figure you out. If they've already figured you out beforehand, you are fucked.

1A to see how we actually match up with our opponents. We might even glean some new techniques or make a new one.

We'll find out just how we match up when we challenge each sect as Master Zhang's apprentice. Why do it now, when it doesn't actually count?

I feel that this approach of "maybe we can get MOAR techniques" is short-sighted because this whole situation isn't about learning new techniques from people, it's about the two-way flow of knowledge and how it can be a double-edged sword. We might know our opponent, but they'll know us, and believe me - them knowing us is worse than us knowing them.

Oh, and if we do learn techniques, they'll probably be orthodox ones that our opponents will have already seen before.

 

[Nevill]

The important part here is that the fight that favours Jing is the one where he knows nothing about his opponent and his opponent knows nothing about him, not the one where both parties have some knowledge of each other. This gives an intelligent, analytical opponent no time to prepare a counter for Jing, whose style favours lightning-fast aggression and his unique nature to win. The way to take out that type of high PER/high INT fighter is to overwhelm them before they can figure you out. If they've already figured you out beforehand, you are fucked.

I concur. They never saw anything like Jing, never mind fought, while their techniques have been out there for years.
We are at an advantage when both sides are playing it blindly.

Let's treat this as a hit.
We have a primary objective: defeat the top students of the eight Orthodox Sects. Everything else is peripheral.
We know that the targets will be attending the Young Tigers tournament to which we are also invited, we can use this to gather information on them and their styles to make things easier for us in the future. Whether we go incognito to avoid troubles at the tournament, or announce our presence to make them underestimate us is up for future debate. What matters is that we get into the tournament and "locker room" to learn as much as we can.

We are treating it like a hit. We intend to go there and collect intel, but no hitman lays out their arsenal before their victims for them to observe and prepare for it.

There is no participating in the tournament incognito.

 

[treave]

We are an agile character who is developing some Sneak skill, potentially going incognito in a city full of orthodox pugilists: surely there's an opportunity here to use our infiltration skills to allow us to collect intel. There must be some way here to sneak and observe a few competitors while they're training. A skilled infiltrator going incognito should have plenty of options.

I don't think there's any way for me to answer this without making it look like I'm arguing for one side, so I'll have to refrain from explaining the pros and cons of such an action.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

1A to see how we actually match up with our opponents. We might even glean some new techniques or make a new one.

We'll find out just how we match up when we challenge each sect as Master Zhang's apprentice. Why do it now, when it doesn't actually count?

I feel that this approach of "maybe we can get MOAR techniques" is short-sighted because this whole situation isn't about learning new techniques from people, it's about the two-way flow of knowledge and how it can be a double-edged sword. We might know our opponent, but they'll know us, and believe me - them knowing us is worse than us knowing them.

Oh, and if we do learn techniques, they'll probably be orthodox ones that our opponents will have already seen before.

I don't see where us knowing them is worse than them knowing us. Knowing how your opponent fights is always better than going in blind. Just because we have a special qi situation, or whatever it is, doesn't mean that our fighting style is special. The orthodox sects have fought with our master and other unorthodox fighters before, so it is not like they will be completely blindsided by our unorthodox fighting style. We don't really even have any styles of our own that we could use to surprise them, so I see things differently from you. You also talk about our style as if we had one. treave has made it pretty obvious every time that we fight that our way of fighting amounts to "overpower our enemy with strength and speed." I am sure that the orthodox fighters are equipped to handle something like that.

Since we are playing as we go, I think we should fight in the tournament to see how our opponents fight and maybe start formulating counters to their known styles. The tournament is a safe, relatively danger-free environment where we can test the waters to see where we stand. I would rather find out that we have a lot to learn about fighting orthodox fighters in the tournament than in a duel to the death like with Rong a few updates ago.

Besides, I am still holding out hope of winning our way into the hearts of the Wudung and being orthodox

 

[Baltika9]

Besides, I am still holding out hope of winning our way into the hearts of the Wudung and being orthodox

Not going to happen, bro. The Wudang focus on controlling and harmonizing qi, after Zhang's treatment of our condition we are pretty much anathema to them, our qi being the embodiment of Chaos Undivided. Any one of them that tries to feel for our energy is probably going to spazz out and start frothing at the mouth.
"Oh God! The horror! Death and despair, all is lost!"

 

[Kipeci]

Your argument back does seem to hold up pretty well, but there's one thing that's bothering me.

Oh, and if we do learn techniques, they'll probably be orthodox ones that our opponents will have already seen before.

I was more under the impression that our new techniques would be more to counter theirs than to plagiarize their moveset, as when we used the pine-felling sword move to attempt to slash the nonsense out of Mr. Poisoning Son guy. I don't think we're nearly perceptive enough to mentally jot down everything they're doing to pull it off exactly by ourselves, either.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Besides, I am still holding out hope of winning our way into the hearts of the Wudung and being orthodox

Not going to happen, bro. The Wudang focus on controlling and harmonizing qi, after Zhang's treatment of our condition we are pretty much anathema to them, our qi being the embodiment of Chaos Undivided. Any one of them that tries to feel for our energy is probably going to spazz out and start frothing at the mouth.
"Oh God! The horror! Death and despair, all is lost!"

I can dream, can't I?

 

[Nevill]

Here is what I expect from our participation.

I'll drop the ambiguity. The only people I am actually worried about are the Wudang Sect. They are the ones that have the expertise to identify our qi situation. Then they will naturally take interest in us. What happens next I don't know, but they would definitely be well-prepared by the time we challenge their disciple. Their master is also stronger than ours, so they would be the toughest opposition we face, and you propose to show them our hand. I expect their best disciple would then be impossible to overcome with the attack that is specifically tailored to utilize our unique qi, and we are going to make that fight much more difficult for ourselves.

Make of that what you will.

Actually, when we get to it, I would like to go after the Wudang disciple first. Because once we dispose of our first 2-3 disciples, our intentions will become clear, and other sects will begin collecting data on us in anticipation of our attack. Might as well start with the head.

 

[TOME]

Oh, and if we do learn techniques, they'll probably be orthodox ones that our opponents will have already seen before.

We want to learn their techniques so that we can counter them.

I vote 1A because I don't want to go blindly challenging fighters that are simply better than we are. We have one year to complete this mission. If we know which opponents we can easily beat and which ones we can't, we can plan in which order we challenge them and maybe level up and gain new techniques before going against the top dogs. Or if we come to a conclusion that we can't beat them honorably, we can start practising our sneak and maybe use some laxatives before the fight.

Our fighting techniques might be analyzed, but they do not know we are going to challenge them. We do, and because of that we will pay more attention to their style than they will to ours. You don't seriously believe that our year and a half training under Southern Maniac has made us better than someone who has trained 15+ years under the Central Tao? We are the underdog here, we need the extra info.

 

[Nevill]

Our fighting techniques might be analyzed, but they do not know we are going to challenge them.

The Wudang would know. If you won't come for them, they will come for you, sooner or later. As Baltika9 said, we are an anathema to them.

You don't seriously believe that our year and a half training under Southern Maniac has made us better than someone who has trained 15+ years under the Central Tao

Might I remind you that we would be fighting disciples of our generation? What 15+ years?

 

[Azira]

Ye gods you make many assumptions Nevill. Though it is at times amusing, there are other times when it's simply aggravating.

treave is the only one where who knows what will happen. You can only assume. And while you might very well be proven right (I'll make no assumptions in this regard), you might as well not.

Just say outright that your votes are based on what you fear might happen, instead of what you hope for.

 

[Nevill]

Just say outright that your votes are based on what you fear might happen, instead of what you hope for.

Basing you votes on your hopes is wishful thinking. Forming your opinion after weighing both fears and hopes is called rationalising. If you think you mostly hear fears from me, that might be because there are a lot of hopes out there already.

I do this a lot, better get used to it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Also, a year and half under Zhang is thrice the lifespan of his previous apprentices.

 

[Esquilax]

I don't see where us knowing them is worse than them knowing us. Knowing how your opponent fights is always better than going in blind.

Certainly, it's better to know our opponent than to not know, but that isn't the choice we face. The choice is this: know about our opponent at the cost of our opponent knowing something about us, or have both parties blind. Again, there are degrees of knowledge here, but this is the gist of it. Considering our unique nature - I'm not using the word "unique" frivolously here - we bring something to the table with our neigong that nobody else in the world does.

Just because we have a special qi situation, or whatever it is, doesn't mean that our fighting style is special. The orthodox sects have fought with our master and other unorthodox fighters before, so it is not like they will be completely blindsided by our unorthodox fighting style. We don't really even have any styles of our own that we could use to surprise them, so I see things differently from you. You also talk about our style as if we had one. treave has made it pretty obvious every time that we fight that our way of fighting amounts to "overpower our enemy with strength and speed." I am sure that the orthodox fighters are equipped to handle something like that.

Our fighting style is special, because our Primordial Chaos neigong is something that nobody else can ever use. It's intrinsically tied to our nature, and our nature is unique. The orthodox sects may have faced other unorthodox types before, but I guarantee you that they will be blindsided by our style because they have never faced anybody like us, no question about it. When you combine that with our immunity to pressure point strikes - also a unique trait - it becomes apparent that we differ so much from the average practitioner that giving away even a little bit of ourselves is a bad idea. If we were anyone else, I would go to the tournament, but we are different from anyone else, and we ought to realize what that entails.

Since we are playing as we go, I think we should fight in the tournament to see how our opponents fight and maybe start formulating counters to their known styles. The tournament is a safe, relatively danger-free environment where we can test the waters to see where we stand. I would rather find out that we have a lot to learn about fighting orthodox fighters in the tournament than in a duel to the death like with Rong a few updates ago.

Allow me to rephrase this, because it explains so well what I'm trying to articulate:

I think we shouldn't fight in the tournament and just observe how our opponents fight so they don't formulate counters to our unknown style. The tournament is a safe, relatively danger-free environment where they can test the waters and see where we stand. I would rather they find out that they have a lot to learn about fighting a completely unique unorthodox fighter in a duel to the death than in a safe, risk-free environment like the tournament.

Everything you just said here applies to our opponents. It is a safe, danger-free way for them to formulate counters to us for the next time we meet. I think that you are viewing the positives of two-way information flow without really examining the negatives and applying it to our character's situation.

The Wudang focus on controlling and harmonizing qi, after Zhang's treatment of our condition we are pretty much anathema to them, our qi being the embodiment of Chaos Undivided. Any one of them that tries to feel for our energy is probably going to spazz out and start frothing at the mouth.
"Oh God! The horror! Death and despair, all is lost!"

Not saying you're wrong, but let's actually meet one of them first. That being said, I agree with Nevill that they are our biggest threat and the ones most likely to develop a counter to our neigong and our qi. But hey, that's why we invested in the counter-technique.

We want to learn their techniques so that we can counter them.

I vote 1A because I don't want to go blindly challenging fighters that are simply better than we are. We have one year to complete this mission. If we know which opponents we can easily beat and which ones we can't, we can plan in which order we challenge them and maybe level up and gain new techniques before going against the top dogs. Or if we come to a conclusion that we can't beat them honorably, we can start practising our sneak and maybe use some laxatives before the fight.

All of the competitors are under 20, so roughly the same age and skill level. What's "better" really depends, don't you agree? A perceptive, intelligent fighter who isn't as athletic as us but has us figured out isn't strictly "better", but he can still beat our ass. As I've established already, the flow of information favours them more than it does us, so it's smarter not to give anything away.

Just say outright that your votes are based on what you fear might happen, instead of what you hope for.

My attitude here isn't based on fear, for the record, it's based on the understanding that knowledge must flow both ways. Given our unique nature, the flow of knowledge would favour our opponent more than it does Jing. Therefore, the prudent thing to do is not give information. There are two scenarios here: (1) Both fighters have some knowledge of one another, (2) Neither fighter has knowledge of the other. Given the circumstances, (2) places us in a better position for victory than (1) does.

 

[Azira]

I'm pretty sure, that if we decide to participate in the tournament, treave will let us choose whether we play to win, or just to size up the opponents.

In the case of the latter, prudency would dictate that we do not tip our hand by utilizing our neigong skill.

That way, we're likely to keep our nature secret.
And if anyone tries to pressure point us, we could fake it. Jing isn't stupid, nor blind.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

The last thing that I will say on the matter is that the biggest reason that we have won/survived the fights we have been in is because we are faster/stronger/smarter than our opponents were. That will not always be the case. We are going to be fighting the best of the best here, so we might be against some people who are more of our match. We can't always just rely on neigong skill to win things for us, either, so I think we should try to learn to be adaptive.

Like Azira said, we don't have to go all out and give them everything in the tournament, so I think that this fear of them learning and countering out technique is a little bit embellished. It might happen, sure, but I doubt that they will dedicate that much time to countering something that is by nature unpredictable (as the skill description of our neigong states).

 

[Esquilax]

I'm pretty sure, that if we decide to participate in the tournament, treave will let us choose whether we play to win, or just to size up the opponents.

In the case of the latter, prudency would dictate that we do not tip our hand by utilizing our neigong skill.

That way, we're likely to keep our nature secret.
And if anyone tries to pressure point us, we could fake it. Jing isn't stupid, nor blind.

Leaking information is going to be inevitable:

The main thrust of the choice here is between getting more information, and inevitably leaking some of your own info, and getting less information, and keeping your own info private.

We are going to give something away no matter what; a perceptive opponent will know if we are faking or not if we get our non-existent meridians struck. Using Zhang's Chuzhan Fist against a Wudang practitioner also presents many problems: for every move, there is a counter, but for every counter there is a counter.

However, the main point from my post is that the flow of information favours the enemy, not us. You might say "well, we're just going there to size up the competition", but at the end of the day, between the two scenarios I laid out, it is better for Jing if both parties are ignorant of each other than if both parties are knowledgable of each other. I don't see any way around that, and I would be interested to hear an argument in which someone could show me how that two-way flow of information would favour us instead.

If we compete to get a handle on our future opponents, they get the opportunity to see us in the same way, and I think I've done a pretty good job of explaining why it's worse for them to know about us than it is for us to know about them. You haven't explained why the flow of information favours us here, and that's really the crux of it all.

 

[Azira]

You're going at this wrong Esquilax. Every other participant is from one of the orthodox sects. Orthodox fighters fight fair, and they fight to win. They want to prove the supremacy of just their sect. Jing is under no such pressure. He can afford to fight at 80% and not use his best moves, whereas the other fighters will be admonished if they hold back.

Not participating will naturally mean they learn less of Jing. But Jing's own lack of information I believe will hurt more.

I might be wrong, I'm not claiming to know it all. But I perceive this choice differently from you, that much is sure.

 

[Baltika9]

Our fighting style is special, because our Primordial Chaos neigong is something that nobody else can ever use. It's intrinsically tied to our nature, and our nature is unique. The orthodox sects may have faced other unorthodox types before, but I guarantee you that they will be blindsided by our style because they have never faced anybody like us, no question about it. When you combine that with our immunity to pressure point strikes - also a unique trait - it becomes apparent that we differ so much from the average practitioner that giving away even a little bit of ourselves is a bad idea. If we were anyone else, I would go to the tournament, but we are different from anyone else, and we ought to realize what that entails.
...
I think we shouldn't fight in the tournament and just observe how our opponents fight so they don't formulate counters to our unknown style. The tournament is a safe, relatively danger-free environment where they can test the waters and see where we stand. I would rather they find out that they have a lot to learn about fighting a completely unique unorthodox fighter in a duel to the death than in a safe, risk-free environment like the tournament.
...
All of the competitors are under 20, so roughly the same age and skill level. What's "better" really depends, don't you agree? A perceptive, intelligent fighter who isn't as athletic as us but has us figured out isn't strictly "better", but he can still beat our ass. As I've established already, the flow of information favours them more than it does us, so it's smarter not to give anything away.

I understand what you're saying here and you are absolutely right with your concerns, but you are overlooking a few things:

Our marks are living, breathing people, not kust a collectipn of stats and styles. That means they have their own quirks, personalities an unique traits and styles. It's foolish to just assume they'll have only their by-the-book styles and that's it. Some may be trickier than others, some may bend the orthodoxy and honor to the limits of their sect, some may fight dirty. Point is, you can't just charge into fighting them blind and expect them to act like a neat little paragon of their sect.

Going incognito as a nobody will give us insight to that, even if we just sit by the sidelines after dropping out of the first competition. Your idea to sneak around and spy on them is great, it gives us additional insight into them.

Granted, I don't see Jing going far in the tournament at all, I don't care about. What I care for is socializing with them in the "locker room."

 

[Grimgravy]

Also consider that after we our first challenge knowledge of our unique nature will spread to the other 7 sects. With each sect we face, the whole orthodox world gains knowledge of us and we gain NO additional knowledge about the next sect we face. They have channels we're not privy to. We need knowledge of 8 opponents. They need knowledge of 1. Not participating, at best, slows down this uneven flow of information to our enemies. It can't stop it. The uneven flow is more reason to participate than sit on the sidelines. Rumors, and tales of our challenges will fly much faster than we can move on to the next opponent. Let alone the 5th, 6th, etc...

We should take the risk and participate. We can avoid using those techniques we don't want known and get some experience with all of our opponents.

 

[XenomorphII]

AA

 

[Stygian Lurker]

voting AA

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

I think we shouldn't fight in the tournament and just observe how our opponents fight so they don't formulate counters to our unknown style. The tournament is a safe, relatively danger-free environment where they can test the waters and see where we stand. I would rather they find out that they have a lot to learn about fighting a completely unique unorthodox fighter in a duel to the death than in a safe, risk-free environment like the tournament.

No, no. We should fight in the tournament and lose PATHETICALLY. Then our first few opponents will seriously underestimate our abilities when we fight them and the others won't know what to expect when we get to them.

I'm not saying we throw our first match, just that we shouldn't use any of our techniques and fight like a normal boring martial artist (and feign injury when hit with pressure point attacks).
VOTING AA

edit: Also, some of you seem to be missing the fact that we are the Maniac's apprentice. If we DON'T fight, then all they will know of us is that we are the apprentice of one of the most dangerous men in China and have survived under his insanely harsh conditions for 3x as long as any other human to date. In other words, if we DON'T fight, they will think we're probably a total badass and will be very cautious. If we DO fight and throw the match, they'll think we're a punk who's just been lucky enough to survive his training and will underestimate us when the time comes.