[LP CYOA] Spiral

[Esquilax]

philosophical art of humanistic gendered theology

What is this even...?

It means that you should check your privilege, Nevill.

 

[Baltika9]

I just realized that this won't be a serious LP at all.

 

[Nevill]

It means that you should check your privilege, Nevill.

Oh, um, alright. NEET privilege, that's a new one. So where do I start?

I just realized that this won't be a serious LP at all.

It's a test run, after all. Ganbatte, Baltika-san, and we might see something better if this works out.

 

[Cassidy]

Special Surprise

Donna the fitness trainer. Why not?

 

[treave]

Hm, that's a good idea. Alright, that's everyone then.

 

[Kz3r0]

Foxface is the Maiden of the Dead.

Obvious in hindsight, a true Fox Spirit, but the parrott tells me that in reality it was the Baron.

Literally, an experiment gone wrong.

If by chance you mean this LP I disagree, this was really one of a kind and very well done.
It's unfortunate that everyone seems so eager to move on considering that something similar won't be made in the future.

 

[Akkudakku]

Will love to see how this trainwrecks

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

You assholes. I deserve a character. Though I'd probably just end up working against the group because you're all a bunch of lemmings.

 

[Nevill]

You assholes. I deserve a character. Though I'd probably just end up working against the group because you're all a bunch of lemmings.

You can still pick a character.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

yeah, but then I'd have to share it with one of you.

edit: or maybe I should pick your character, Nevill, for that reason...

 

[Kayerts]

It just won't work very well for a longer story with a large scope, and you'd be better off joining a P&P game.

Few people are willing to play P&P games over an internet forum. This format makes our CYOAs a bit of a different experience, even though they are similar in nature.

Large world probably won't do because the teams might not interact and you risk running two separate CYOAs in one, but that might be addressed with a stricter narrative that makes them pursue the same goal.

What do you see as largest hurdles? Well, besises the Dex' barely hidden desire to screw the other guy over.

No one asked me, but: The pitfall of forum CYOAs is that an amorphoous group of players who each get exactly one vote have a hard time establishing and sticking to any sort of coherent policy over the period of months or years that the threads run, and participants frequently forget arguments in the days or weeks between updates. Particularly passionate pleas can sway people, but probably can't convince them to keep showing up and keep voting under the same logic for weeks, in sufficient numbers to maintain character consistency. If you imagine a person who had to poll a discordant, revolving choir of voices is his head periodically for important decisions and then do what they said, it'd probably go about the same way.

Multiplayer CYOAs have the potential to reduce this greatly, by reducing the number of personalities per decision-making entity so that consistent behavior is actually possible. However, as the CYOA brings in more expectations about how the world should react into play, those perspectives become harder to work out without true mechanics. In single player mode, conflict there is veiled if not avoided: if we think about it, it's hard to deny that the the goodness or badness of our decisions is determined not according to some objective truth but by the judgment of the GM. But we all accept that premise as the price of entry, and the fact that our single character suffers or profits from the GM's judgment makes it seem an integrated part of the setting rather than one dude arbitrarily screwing us over or letting us win. There are cases when the players get upset by what they saw as an unreasonable result, but fundamentally, we tend to accept the storyteller's authority to tell us how his story's world works. Playing against each other has the risk of multiplying those disagreements, however. Competition will make the threads more gamelike, which is harder to handle without real mechanics. In stories, it's easy to be equanimous with the idea of not knowing how the rules of the world work; in games, that's more of a frustrating handicap.

Basically, every update would risk becoming the DEMONZ fiasco. If crude mechanics were provided, every update would contain lengthy arguments about whether your character's +1 SWORDS ought be weighed more or less heavily than his opponent's skill in designing black hole guns. I don't doubt it could be done well, or that it would be amazing if it were, but it seems like it'd be pretty exhausting for the GM.

 

[treave]

Basically, every update would risk becoming the DEMONZ fiasco. If crude mechanics were provided, every update would contain lengthy arguments about whether your character's +1 SWORDS ought be weighed more or less heavily than his opponent's skill in designing black hole guns. I don't doubt it could be done well, or that it would be amazing if it were, but it seems like it'd be pretty exhausting for the GM.

You could simplify the characters heavily to the extent that they only have a couple of things that they're good at. A fighter is a fighter, a talker is a talker, and so on and so forth. Combined with a short duration for the game, giving them no time to pick up new skills, this makes matters easier to handle. In an interaction between two characters each controlled by different group of players, the outcome of the choices should be quite clear before they are made.

 

[Rex Feral]

Is this still on? I'd want to be an anti-villain!

Actually I missed a lot of discuss, what's next?

 

[Nyarmith]

Great job overall, but the whole narrative was just disappointing and overreaching.
If anyone has some book recommendations similar to this in genre and tone hmu.

 

[an Administrator]

Can't believe i read the whole thing just in 4 days