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me

8 (16%)

me

2 (4%)

me

5 (10%)

help i'm trapped in a poll i don't know why i'm here i'm so scared someone please help

29 (58%)

me

6 (12%)

Total Members Voted: 50

[flame99]

A proposition for keeping vote pyramids as non-confusing as possible: We have two seperate pyramids for +1s and -1s. If you have an  issue with an action, quote the original post and -1 it if nobody else has already. If they have, then quote them and post -1. The same goes for giving +1 to actions you like.

The problem is that this isn't really a crazy, YOLO thing, it's just acting tough to somebody who knows we can't actually do anything. It'd be on par with threatening Oric or a Seraph, in that they'll like us less and otherwise probably nothing will change.

I fail to see how threatening Al is like threatening Oric. Both will laugh at us, but in Oric's case it would be because he's not threatened by us. In Al's case it will be out of sheer stupidity.

The problem is that this isn't really a crazy, YOLO thing, it's just acting tough to somebody who knows we can't actually do anything. It'd be on par with threatening Oric or a Seraph, in that they'll like us less and otherwise probably nothing will change.

I fail to see how threatening Al is like threatening Oric. Both will laugh at us, but in Oric's case it would be because he's not threatened by us. In Al's case it will be out of sheer stupidity.

I don't see how it would be sheer stupidity. Sure, Al can't do much to us, but we can't really do much to Al either, or at least not with our current party composition. For example, our party, if Al were to abandon us, would be:

Ciro, the low-HP blood mage who can deal damage well
Cherish, the low-HP healer who doesn't heal particularly effectively
Goombess, the low-HP I-don't-even-know who, in battle, can hit multiple low-HP enemies easily and can give information on enemies.
Slog, and do I even need to say why he wouldn't work well versus Al?

For Al's party, he has:

Al, the mid-HP, damage-dealing, bartering, high-DR nature's pupil who's possibly working with the Angels
Probably Betweenford
Possibly other Cherubs

You might notice that if even Betweenford gets on in the fight, and since we'd be menacing his apparent close ally, he almost certainly would join him. Betweenford, being what appears to be an influential individual in the Angel's resistance, could probably get some other angels in on the fight. Frankly, unless we somehow managed to get Rilita to join our party before Al strikes (He knows where we are, after all, and we can't flee to anywhere. DL2 is going to render us utterly dead. DL1 is faaaar too small to effectively hide us, if it's even reachable, and if we can get through DL2. Underside is his home, the Greens he evidently knows well, and DL3 is also likely to kill us, as well as removing our sole advantage. DL4 is full of unknowns, and he can contact Ecco, who doesn't seem very hostile to us, and might think that Al is still in our party and tell him where to find us, plus Ecco evidently wants Oric dead as well, and may also be in league with the angels, meaning yet another powerful party member for Al, and even then if he finds Ripriver he'd probably tell Al where to find us too) we'd be utterly at his mercy. Even if we DID find Riltia and get her to rejoin us, unless she's been powerlevelling and has ridiculous gear, we still wouldn't stand much of a chance against Al and all of his likely allies.

Frankly, threatening Al is one of the absolute worst ideas we could possibly act upon.

[WormArmy]

The Players already made Al a psychopath by telling him to kill Wilford, and that in turn (temporarily) destroyed his relationship with Cherish. Unless his ability to refuse the voices extends beyond plot-information and allows him to 'go rogue,' we could make him do some pretty terrible things to himself.

IF he can refuse absolutely anything (which would be a mostly new, startling concept), or if he decides to stop listening entirely (newer, more startling), what happens?

Is he going to just go attack the other party? Probably not. He's got nothing against them, at least nothing more than he has against everything and everyone. So arranging the main party's stats alongside Al and a theoretical party's stats to show he could beat us isn't exactly relevant.

Do we lose control of him? How? What would even happen? We targeted him with the Astral Influx, so theoretically that gives us control (not that we remotely understand how any of this works). If he just 'stops listening,' where do we go? How does that work? It's probably either

1. Impossible for him to do that,

or

2. Something that would set off a weird spirit journey thing where the Voices are lost in the ether, which would surely yield interesting plot/mechanical information.

In light of that,

Remind Al that we are his friends and want to help, but if he makes things hard... we like it that way.

[IronyOwl]

The Players already made Al a psychopath by telling him to kill Wilford, and that in turn (temporarily) destroyed his relationship with Cherish. Unless his ability to refuse the voices extends beyond plot-information and allows him to 'go rogue,' we could make him do some pretty terrible things to himself.

This isn't all-or-nothing, though. He's currently refusing us rather bluntly, but that doesn't mean he's stopped listening to us altogether. If we keep spamming STAB THAT GUY or THROW AWAY YOUR LOOT suggestions over and over again, it's hard to say how he'd react, but there's no particular reason to think he'd be at some point mindraped into doing as we command.

I'd agree that alienating him completely would be "interesting" in some sense, but it might end up similar to "jump in the void" interesting, in that it gives us new information but was also just a completely terrible idea.

[flame99]

While it is true that Al probably can't directly do much to us, and we could probably kill him pretty quickly if we wanted to, we would still be invoking the ire of a group who is almost certainly way to powerful for us to beat, and could probably locate us extremely quickly via support from Ecco, as well as get to us to deal with us extremely quickly, via use of the Rainbow Key that Betweenford clearly has.

[TopHat]

Ciro, the low-HP blood mage who can deal damage well
Cherish, the low-HP healer who doesn't heal particularly effectively
Goombess, the low-HP I-don't-even-know who, in battle, can hit multiple low-HP enemies easily and can give information on enemies.
Slog, and do I even need to say why he wouldn't work well versus Al?
For Al's party, he has:
Al, the mid-HP, damage-dealing, bartering, high-DR nature's pupil who's possibly working with the Angels

I'd just like to point out the max HP of our entire party, and their best attacks based on current equipment, to dispel the myths about this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ciro: 12 (- bloodshaping); 6-8 Holy damage from Influx depending on current SC.
Cherish: 8; d4 damage (& d4+1 healing)
Goombess: 11; d4 damage
Slog:8; d4+2 FIRE damage (probably double, as I'm sure vampyric flesh counts as 'organic')
Al: 8; 2d4 damage, (& 2d4 self healing).

I'd also like to note that Al's bulwarks lose a point of DR for each attack they receive. At three or four opposing attacks a turn that's going down pretty fast.

[WormArmy]

How many sinister voices actually intend to carry out their threats? The whole point of a threat is to say "don't go down that road, it won't go well for us so we'll make sure it won't go well for you."

If we're lucky, we might get Al to take us more seriously. Worst Case Scenario, we get trapped in limbo. Big deal, it'll be fun. Best Case Scenario, plot-relevant info with no consequences other than a snarky comment or two. Most Probable Scenario, we just get the snarky comments, which are the primary appeal of this game.

[flame99]

Ciro, the low-HP blood mage who can deal damage well
Cherish, the low-HP healer who doesn't heal particularly effectively
Goombess, the low-HP I-don't-even-know who, in battle, can hit multiple low-HP enemies easily and can give information on enemies.
Slog, and do I even need to say why he wouldn't work well versus Al?
For Al's party, he has:
Al, the mid-HP, damage-dealing, bartering, high-DR nature's pupil who's possibly working with the Angels

I'd just like to point out the max HP of our entire party, and their best attacks based on current equipment, to dispel the myths about this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ciro: 12 (- bloodshaping); 6-8 Holy damage from Influx depending on current SC.
Cherish: 8; d4 damage (& d4+1 healing)
Goombess: 11; d4 damage
Slog:8; d4+2 FIRE damage (probably double, as I'm sure vampyric flesh counts as 'organic')
Al: 8; 2d4 damage, (& 2d4 self healing).

I'd also like to note that Al's bulwarks lose a point of DR for each attack they receive. At three or four opposing attacks a turn that's going down pretty fast.

...Huh. I could have sworn Al had a higher HP.

How many sinister voices actually intend to carry out their threats? The whole point of a threat is to say "don't go down that road, it won't go well for us so we'll make sure it won't go well for you."

If we're lucky, we might get Al to take us more seriously. Worst Case Scenario, we get trapped in limbo. Big deal, it'll be fun. Best Case Scenario, plot-relevant info with no consequences other than a snarky comment or two. Most Probable Scenario, we just get the snarky comments, which are the primary appeal of this game.

The best and most probable case scenarios are both correct, but the worst case scenario is that we piss off what may be the most powerful organization in the Warrens aside from Oric and his Siblings themselves (And even then, they may be more powerful than even them) while losing a party member and causing an alliance with said extremely powerful group very unlikely, if
not off the table already.
Keep in mind that we've had fights with Betweenford before, and he evidently doesn't think highly of our primary host. Our standing with the rebellious angels is already low, so why should we risk lowering it further while hoping to learn plot information that FFS with almost certainly not give us?

[WormArmy]

I personally consider limbo the worst case, as having a high-level group of angel/demon/things after our blood is a plus in my thinking. The challenge would be fun, plus they'll probably spill plot details in every fight.

Limbo is scary because we'd be outside the bounds of what we've seen thus far. We have no idea what would happen.

[anailater]

I'd like to point out we are giving Freeform ideas, this is a bad thing as then He uses the ideas, also these ideas are almost universally bad for us, so lets just hope for snark.

[LordSlowpoke]

what makes you think i don't want the bad things to happen

i want all the bad things

i want to put ciro through the 2d capitalist simulator equivalent of prequel

[Eotyrannus]

I wonder if the disagreement over this issue will make Al hear a voice civil war or something.

Someone else ask if he can hear our debates.

[~Neri]

Kevak uses Lick on Al.

[laularukyrumo]

See now I want to see if we can cause such a chaotic mass of schizophrenia that "The Voices" legit manifest as (a) playable character(s).

[javierpwn]

i'm not going to contribute much to this cacophony of voices.

it'll just end with Al telling us to all shutup, or him going TURBO BATSHIT MURDERFEST

[~Neri]

I just wanna manifest with fox ears and a tail.