In Progress [LP CYOA] Tower

[oscar]

taking joy in the helplessness of your opponent, the kind that makes you want to wipe that smirk off their face even if it costs you your life.

I don't know what 10 year old kids are like where you're from

 

[Nevill]

Hey, everyone understands humiliation. And kids are more impulsive than others, not quite weighing the full extent of consequences resulting from their actions. I believe you've heard of children throwing rocks at the occupying army, yes? The adults would fear for the lives of their loved ones, the kids don't really have considerations like this, acting on their feelings.

The choice is there, so it is a plausible one.

 

[Life of the Party]

I still don't hear a single coherent theory of how B will result in a positive outcome.

We'll kick it in the butt.

 

[Absinthe]

You know, mutability powers provide shapeshifting abilities. What are the odds this beast we're up against is a person?

 

[Life of the Party]

It's our sensei.

Just kick him in the butt real hard and soak up every word.

 

[Absinthe]

I am strongly opposed to C votes, honestly. "Blank out from fear during a life-and-death crisis" is not the direction we should be going down. I would take anything else over that. If you want to make a sane escape, go for A, if you want to try to do shit, go for B, if you want to roll the dice, go for D, but if you want to prove MC has the most dangerously bad reaction to mortal peril possible, go for C.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

B - Cucks btfo. Ride or die, MFers.

 

[Life of the Party]

One advantage B has over C and D is that I'd rather fail doing my best than just falling asleep or trying to pray away the slaughter.

 

[Nevill]

trying to pray away the slaughter.

I find your lack of faith... disturbing.

The Nagas will provide.

The only reason I am not protesting B is that saving the kid is what we chose in the update before. I can respect being stubborn.
I would be wary of declaring that "our best" is picking a stranger to die for, otherwise.

 

[Baltika9]

I would be wary of declaring that "our best" is picking a stranger to die for, otherwise.

Who else have we got? No, really?

 

[Nevill]

That's a strange question to pose.

If we have no one to defend with our life, does it not make more sense to not risk our life rather than pick a stranger at random and die on that hill?

This is chargen, basically, so I am fine with motivations appearing out of thin air to define our character better, but I am not sure this is something I would advocate a few chapters in.

 

[Kz3r0]

I still don't hear a single coherent theory of how B will result in a positive outcome.

Well, I will elaborate on the scaring it away, if really is a transformed human used to bully weaklings getting a blade in the arse can cause quite the shock, another possibility is that our dagger has some unknown astra power, why go all the trouble to encircle us with fire, maybe is not just dumb sadism.

 

[Zerafall]

B.

 

[Baltika9]

===Poll===
A - 3
B - 8 (9 vs. C or 10 vs. D)
C - 4 (7)
D - 3 (7)

Votes

Tigranes - A>C>D
Absinthe - A>B
ItsChon - A>C>D

ERYFKRAD - B
Baltika9 - B>D
Life of the Party - B
Kz3r0 - B
Kipeci - B>D
Azira - B>D>C
Lambchop19 -B
Zerafall - B

Esquilax - C
Grimgravy - C>D>A
hello friend - C>D>B
CappenVarra - C>B

baud - D
oscar - D>C>A>B
Nevill - D

===

That's a strange question to pose.

If we have no one to defend with our life, does it not make more sense to not risk our life rather than pick a stranger at random and die on that hill?

This is chargen, basically, so I am fine with motivations appearing out of thin air to define our character better, but I am not sure this is something I would advocate a few chapters in.

And yet, this is the moment this question is posed to us.

Intelligence, yes. But I don't see it as any kind of respect.

That is the ultimate disrespect and taking joy in the helplessness of your opponent, the kind that makes you want to wipe that smirk off their face even if it costs you your life.

Or that.

 

[hello friend]

I am strongly opposed to C votes, honestly. "Blank out from fear during a life-and-death crisis" is not the direction we should be going down. I would take anything else over that. If you want to make a sane escape, go for A, if you want to try to do shit, go for B, if you want to roll the dice, go for D, but if you want to prove MC has the most dangerously bad reaction to mortal peril possible, go for C.

C is the one that makes the most sense. There's not a ten year old on earth who, after overcoming the fear of facing some supernatural monster, is shown so completely that he is not up to the task, wouldn't freeze up or run like hell. A grown man is one thing, but for a child this is the sort of thing that would make all his hair go white. Total abject terror is the only realistic choice here, no matter how mentally tough this kid is, barring an unusual amount of religious conviction. B is a fun meme choice, but it IS the meme choice.

 

[Absinthe]

Excuse me if I'm not interested in MC being the pants-shitting type of kid who looks like they're about to get offed in a horror movie. And not every kid will freak out and panic when shit goes really south. Different people react differently. That goes for kids too.

 

[hello friend]

There's a difference between shit going south and facing an impossible nightmare horror. Dude tried to bury me alive when I was 10 years old, I remember the strange calm that came over me as I stopped struggling to get him to let his guard down so I could spring out of the hole and run away. Still, I have a hard time imagining a kid that would be unfazed facing what, in their frame of reference, would seem like horrors from the warp.

 

[Tigranes]

I believe you've heard of children throwing rocks at the occupying army, yes? .

Said kids have not been flown across the sky, their backs smashed into a tree, otherwordly supernatural tails smashing them multiple times. There's just no proportion in the B argument. It's like saying you torture kids and pull their limbs apart and they'll still want to fight.

I still don't hear a single coherent theory of how B will result in a positive outcome.

Well, I will elaborate on the scaring it away, if really is a transformed human used to bully weaklings getting a blade in the arse can cause quite the shock, another possibility is that our dagger has some unknown astra power, why go all the trouble to encircle us with fire, maybe is not just dumb sadism.

This is the kind of desperate maybe maybe just maybe thinking we have to engage in just to conceivably think of a scenario where B is not overwhelmingly bad.

Right now the arguments are like
"B is the worst thing we could possibly do!" -> "Oh but the situation is bad anyway so it's totally OK to pick the worst option!"
"B is totally unrealistic and extreme!" -> "No no the gigantic eldritch horror just pissed us off clearly this 10 year old kid wants to slap him and give him the what for"

Why is it so difficult to vote for an option that involves acknowledging in some way that there are things too powerful for us by far, situations we cannot magically 'fix' right at this moment, and people we cannot always save? Does everything have to be a power fantasy every time?

 

[Baltika9]

Does everything have to be a power fantasy every time?

I resent that. I'm voting for character development in the direction that I already described in six posts. I don't expect us to actually beat the Thing.

 

[CappenVarra]

hardCore intuitive magiC powers > i'm not stuBBorn, my name is Bruce Willis

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Why is it so difficult to vote for an option that involves acknowledging in some way that there are things too powerful for us by far

I do not understand.

 

[Absinthe]

There's a difference between shit going south and facing an impossible nightmare horror. Dude tried to bury me alive when I was 10 years old, I remember the strange calm that came over me as I stopped struggling to get him to let his guard down so I could spring out of the hole and run away. Still, I have a hard time imagining a kid that would be unfazed facing what, in their frame of reference, would seem like horrors from the warp.

First, that is a legitimately awful experience you had there. Second, I don't think it's a matter of frame of reference so much as degree of danger and the awareness that you couldn't just blindly fight your way out of that predicament that triggered this kind of calm. I honestly prefer MC to be the type that handles danger calmly to the type that just freaks out. We have a choice to establish what kind of character we are here, so I'm strongly in favor of not being a panicking mess in such a dangerous situation. I'm a little off-put that so many people are in favor of that.

Said kids have not been flown across the sky, their backs smashed into a tree, otherwordly supernatural tails smashing them multiple times. There's just no proportion in the B argument. It's like saying you torture kids and pull their limbs apart and they'll still want to fight.

I'm down for walking away. I'm not down for being the kid whose brain shuts down from fear when up against a horror monster or for trying to PRAY our way out of this.

This is the kind of desperate maybe maybe just maybe thinking we have to engage in just to conceivably think of a scenario where B is not overwhelmingly bad.

Right now the arguments are like
"B is the worst thing we could possibly do!" -> "Oh but the situation is bad anyway so it's totally OK to pick the worst option!"
"B is totally unrealistic and extreme!" -> "No no the gigantic eldritch horror just pissed us off clearly this 10 year old kid wants to slap him and give him the what for"

First off, worst option imo is to lose your head and panic when shit's gone south. I'd take picking ourselves back up over that. Second off, seeing as the beast considered the woman and child a higher priority target than us, there's a chance they might be a threat to it if we buy them time. Moreover, this vote is by and large a character establishment moment, and I'd rather be that type that, when in over his head, grits his teeth and pushes through (however dangerous that might be) to the type that just freaks out or starts praying.

B is also the option that is most likely to see the woman survive and puts us on the best terms with her if she makes it. Pushing through on trying to save someone is really not the worst of decisions, even if it does put us in over our heads. I favor A, for sanity's sake, but B is still a viable choice. It also plays to our biggest strength (constitution is at 8).

Why is it so difficult to vote for an option that involves acknowledging in some way that there are things too powerful for us by far, situations we cannot magically 'fix' right at this moment, and people we cannot always save? Does everything have to be a power fantasy every time?

I would accept this argument much better if you didn't put C in your vote, which is the option in favor of losing our minds from fear and hoping that somehow this shit works out. I'd rather put a conscious decision to try something over that.

 

[CappenVarra]

well, this dude's mind don't have much to say, might as well have him listen to his body talk

it will say 'ouch, why must you be so dumb?'

 

[Absinthe]

Our MC's intelligence is average (Fish astra undid the Hunter penalty), and his wisdom is high. He's not dumb.

 

[Baltika9]

I think it's fair to call it for B. We have nineteen votes and the DISCUSS is going in circles.