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[Remuthra]

Are we? I haven't noticed a whole lot of chaos in our behavior so far and we've been more "cordial" than "good". And look where that got us. Everyone's dead or about to die.

I suggest an alternative that might save them and the response is that saving them would be evil? Because they would rather die than have their appearance altered? So we're supporting their stupidly shallow viewpoints even though it means almost certain death for them?

Think of these people as little kids... Stupid little kids with apparent death wishes. No, we should not validate their behavior. We've done that enough already and we've lost all that's been worked for so far. From now on, I say we engage in a little bit of tough love because sometimes tough love is the best love.

Edit:
Make sure at least one of those umbral stalkers escapes. Since they breed asexually we could raise a new army without spending any more mana. Also ensure that our commander escapes. We'll need someone around with leadership capabilities and he's overall just a useful follower to have around.

If we lose all of our followers, we'll need to find a new base. Taking a town over willingly is preferential but if that doesn't work, we can use our umbral stalkers to take over forcefully. If no good town can be found to take over, maybe set up a base in the woods and build a sacrificial altar. Raid nearby settlements and sacrifice them for mana until we can work out something new.

You might have to talk to your leader first and convince him to come along. He's only indirectly loyal to you, after all.

[gman8181]

It was silly of me to use the vague term "leader" instead of the names. I'm myself confused who we're talking about now.

I'd like to save Ericus and Enreich if possible. The latter is my preferred choice though if it comes down to one or the other. I assume he's the more loyal of the two?

[Remuthra]

It was silly of me to use the vague term "leader" instead of the names. I'm myself confused who we're talking about now.

I'd like to save Ericus and Enreich if possible. The latter is my preferred choice though if it comes down to one or the other. I assume he's the more loyal of the two?

Nope, less. He's actually loyal to the group left behind by the previous god, who are helping you and may later integrate completely if you seem to have the interests of the people at heart. Thus, he won't automatically come help you kill everyone and turn them into abominations, then escape their ancestral homes to go and possibly take over the world.

[gman8181]

Aww shucks. Seriously though, I'm pretty sure they'll be turned into abominations either way. Either slimy undead abominations by the other god or shadow creatures by us. At least we'd let them retain (some) free will. I'd call it the lesser of evils.

Edit: Just have the more loyal one escape with umbral stalkers.

[GreatWyrmGold]

a big -1 to the above. we are supposed to be a chaotic good god. not a chaotic-evil god.

Fixed the title .

+1

I suggest an alternative that might save them and the response is that saving them would be evil? Because they would rather die than have their appearance altered? So we're supporting their stupidly shallow viewpoints even though it means almost certain death for them?

Think of these people as little kids... Stupid little kids with apparent death wishes. No, we should not validate their behavior. We've done that enough already and we've lost all that's been worked for so far. From now on, I say we engage in a little bit of tough love because sometimes tough love is the best love.

...
So, because people don't want to be turned into monsters, they deserve to die?
And letting them die counts as "tough love"?

If we lose all of our followers, we'll need to find a new base. Taking a town over willingly is preferential but if that doesn't work, we can use our umbral stalkers to take over forcefully. If no good town can be found to take over, maybe set up a base in the woods and build a sacrificial altar. Raid nearby settlements and sacrifice them for mana until we can work out something new.

Why does no one ever let Bay12 make someone nice?

[HissinhWalnuts]

Enter thy godly slumber and remerge several centuries later with your newfound mana horde!

[gman8181]

No... that's not what I meant. They don't deserve to die but they are going to die. Not from us but from the monster killing them right now and if not that then the army outside the gate.

I want to save them... by turning them into monsters. They don't want to turn into monsters because... well I guess because they just like being human.

(Moved to new post for bump powers.)
You may have helped these people out, but something needs to be done to keep them safe! Soldiers are not enough when fighting another god. They need to be something more...
(3) After asking around, you've discovered people are very much against the idea of being modified by you. They are kind of shocked that you would even suggest turning them into some sort of mutants. Your average conversation went like this:
Hello. I am Lorimre, and I want you. I can make you stronger, faster, and smarter, and cure your ailments, that you might better serve me.
What? You're seriously suggesting we let you turn us into some kind of freaks? Lord, we'd rather just die already.
After trying to recruit people for you to modify, you go to see the scouting party. He's already giving his report.

See. They'd rather die than become monsters. They don't deserve to die for being stupid. Which is exactly why I'm saying we should transform them against their will. Transforming them against their will is what I was referring to by "tough love" not letting them die which is what I was opposed to.

Anyway, Bay12 plays nice all the time believe it or not. Hell, even the "Evil Overlord" game got turned into some babysit the little blob suggestion game (although it is well written). Frankly I'm a little sick of people trying so hard to be nice that it puts the main character at a disadvantage.

When there is a goblin siege outside your fort, do you let your dwarves blindly run out because they want socks? Because personally, I close the gate and lock those stupid little dwarves up until the military cleans things up. Is it mean of me to deny my dwarves of the socks they so desperately desire? Maybe but I'll be damned if it isn't for their own good. My own good too but still.

Rough comparison maybe but the point is that the people are acting stupid and it's going to result in them all dead. My "evil" suggestion is trying to transform them into shades against their will so they might survive.

Edit: Nice guy approach has almost resulted in this game dying. Clearly it isn't completely effective. Not saying we can't be nice but that we shouldn't be nice to a degree where it hurts us.

Edit2: I'm definitely not a "nice" guy in the godhood game I'm participating in right now. Yet I still managed to end a civil war and form a prospering empire as well as convincing them to make peace with a neighboring nation that they had been fighting against for centuries. Sure, it required some oppression and some slaughtering of heretics but the results, I think, speak for themselves.

[HissinhWalnuts]

The only thing we can do is take our stalkers and run for our money .

[gman8181]

The only thing we can do is take our stalkers and run for our money .

+1
The priest too and try and get at least a couple humans to safety if possible. But yeah, running the only apparent option I see for maintaining at least some of our assets.

[GreatWyrmGold]

No... that's not what I meant. They don't deserve to die but they are going to die. Not from us but from the monster killing them right now and if not that then the army outside the gate.

In that case I fundamentally misunderstood large parts of your post.

I want to save them... by turning them into monsters. They don't want to turn into monsters because... well I guess because they just like being human.
See. They'd rather die than become monsters. They don't deserve to die for being stupid. Which is exactly why I'm saying we should transform them against their will. Transforming them against their will is what I was referring to by "tough love" not letting them die which is what I was opposed to.

Fallacy.
There are non-turn-everyone-into-monsters-against-their-will solutions.

Anyway, Bay12 plays nice all the time believe it or not. Hell, even the "Evil Overlord" game got turned into some babysit the little blob suggestion game (although it is well written). Frankly I'm a little sick of people trying so hard to be nice that it puts the main character at a disadvantage.

And I'm tired of people who are so pragmatic that they come of as unrealistically cold. Which comes up a lot. The Last Night Troll, The Heroe's Wife, even TWoOtA (one of the greatest suggestion games in all of Bay12's history) have all had us be uncharacteristically, pragmatically callous...and most had us suffer for it.

When there is a goblin siege outside your fort, do you let your dwarves blindly run out because they want socks? Because personally, I close the gate and lock those stupid little dwarves up until the military cleans things up. Is it mean of me to deny my dwarves of the socks they so desperately desire? Maybe but I'll be damned if it isn't for their own good. My own good too but still.

True dilemma.

Edit: Nice guy approach has almost resulted in this game dying. Clearly it isn't completely effective. Not saying we can't be nice but that we shouldn't be nice to a degree where it hurts us.

Fallacy.
Other god games (like The New God, which inspired this) survived far more "nice-guy"ness. What killed this game is more lack of updates.

Edit2: I'm definitely not a "nice" guy in the godhood game I'm participating in right now. Yet I still managed to end a civil war and form a prospering empire as well as convincing them to make peace with a neighboring nation that they had been fighting against for centuries. Sure, it required some oppression and some slaughtering of heretics but the results, I think, speak for themselves.

Congratulations. Oh, and same fallacy.

[gman8181]

Fallacy.
There are non-turn-everyone-into-monsters-against-their-will solutions.

You say that but I'm not seeing you referencing nor suggesting any of those supposed alternatives. The last suggestion post I see from you is:

Wall: At least TRY to suck some of that bloody water into your roots.

"Bloody tides, sweepin' away the defenses stoppin' that army o' wankers from killing everyone an' ruinin' tea time."

Seriously though, we should give 'em the best we've got. In the words of Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courferac: "Let us die facing our foes, make them bleed while we can. Make 'em pay through the nose, make 'em pay for every man!" With the addendum of "And every godly monstrosity as well."

Now I could be wrong but to me that seems like a suicidal charge to the death type of suggestion which runs contrary to my stated objective of getting at least some survivors out alive. I'm all ears if you or anyone else has a suggestion that accomplishes that. My idea was simply the first thing that came to mind.

Now of course, I am completely human and it's always possible there was just such a suggestion. If that were the case, then I missed it and apologize profusely. I suppose Javier had at least a decent overall strategy going on but judging from the prior post by GM, a straight up fight seems rather destined to lose. A tactical retreat or clever manipulation of our followers however might yield better results hence my suggestion.

And I'm tired of people who are so pragmatic that they come of as unrealistically cold. Which comes up a lot. The Last Night Troll, The Heroe's Wife, even TWoOtA (one of the greatest suggestion games in all of Bay12's history) have all had us be uncharacteristically, pragmatically callous...and most had us suffer for it.

Both can be annoying depending on the circumstances. I suppose which you see more of and get sick of sooner depends on which forum games you frequent. In all honesty I'm only familiar with "The Last Night Troll" but I disagree with your argument that we suffered from our acts of cruelty. As I recall the game crashed due to the GM getting bored with it and it also probably had a lot to do with the absurd amount of back and forth arguing among the players. We were cruel to our enemies and nice to our allies for the most part. Overall we were pretty successful too, although I'm sure one could point out areas where cruelty hurt us just as one could also point out areas where kindness hurt us. Both are useful depending on the situation. I just think it's harmful to adhere to either end of the spectrum without regard to what's currently going on. Right now I think acting heedlessly nice at the expense of our followers lives and our worship base is silly.

True dilemma.

 

Fallacy.
Other god games (like The New God, which inspired this) survived far more "nice-guy"ness. What killed this game is more lack of updates.

"New God" "nice-guy"ness did work. There wasn't ever a need for more drastic actions that some might deem evil. That died from lack of updates.
This is dying from:

I'm sorry. The tide got a nineteen to your three . I'm not even sure you can win this anymore. If you want, I can either deus ex machina or sequel, though.

Along with a lack of resources and soldiers on our side. We've already lost the battle, I simply wish to salvage it. I offered a suggestion and others to my knowledge have not really offered any other suggestions that appear to offer a better chance of survival. All I'm seeing are attacks on my suggestions for being too "mean" or "evil" or "pragmatically callous" .
Again I'm all for better solutions should one be provided. It's just that from what I can see you were all just about ready to let this game die and then when I try and breathe some life back into it via a suggestion that might save some people, you all suddenly spring back to life to assault the idea for it not being nice enough.

Also slow updates don't necessarily kill a game. They do often cause a loss of player interest which kills the game and they are often a symptom of GM disinterest but as long as the game is updating, it's all good in my opinion. I've tried running a forum game before and I definitely understand that things can get hectic and that even when you might want to update, sometimes you can't or just don't have the energy to do so for a while.

Besides, what I've seen from JUST reading through this, is a lot of the GM bumping the thread because he/she wants to update but doesn't have enough suggestions. That blame falls directly on the players so I struggle to feel that it's purely a result of inactive GM updating that is causing this game to start choking on its own blood. Not to mention the speed with which the GM just responded to my suggestions informs me that said GM has at least a mildly vested interest in this.

Congratulations. Oh, and same fallacy.

I apologize if it seemed like I was boasting. It wasn't my intention. That was more of an aim at demonstrating that sometimes actions that seem cruel may actually end up resulting in good things. Perhaps it was a poor example but I can only try.
Regarding the "same fallacy," I'll be waiting for the better suggestion to be proposed. By better, I mean one that leaves us with the most leftover followers/resources and a still running forum game. When such a suggestion is brought to my attention, it would be my pleasure to +1 it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Fallacy.
There are non-turn-everyone-into-monsters-against-their-will solutions.

You say that but I'm not seeing you referencing nor suggesting any of those supposed alternatives. The last suggestion post I see from you is:

Wall: At least TRY to suck some of that bloody water into your roots.

"Bloody tides, sweepin' away the defenses stoppin' that army o' wankers from killing everyone an' ruinin' tea time."

Seriously though, we should give 'em the best we've got. In the words of Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courferac: "Let us die facing our foes, make them bleed while we can. Make 'em pay through the nose, make 'em pay for every man!" With the addendum of "And every godly monstrosity as well."

Now I could be wrong but to me that seems like a suicidal charge to the death type of suggestion which runs contrary to my stated objective of getting at least some survivors out alive. I'm all ears if you or anyone else has a suggestion that accomplishes that. My idea was simply the first thing that came to mind.
Now of course, I am completely human and it's always possible there was just such a suggestion. If that were the case, then I missed it and apologize profusely. I suppose Javier had at least a decent overall strategy going on but judging from the prior post by GM, a straight up fight seems rather destined to lose. A tactical retreat or clever manipulation of our followers however might yield better results hence my suggestion.

I was busy trying to split my time between Bay12 and homework. Yes, it was dumb.
Other possibilities: We are a god of force, life, and darkness, are we not? We could create a force field to shield our people, or shroud the town in darkness to let them escape, or summon short-lived but flesh-eating bacteria to enter the enemy's troops, or whatever as easily as make a bunch of monsters.

[quotr]

And I'm tired of people who are so pragmatic that they come of as unrealistically cold. Which comes up a lot. The Last Night Troll, The Heroe's Wife, even TWoOtA (one of the greatest suggestion games in all of Bay12's history) have all had us be uncharacteristically, pragmatically callous...and most had us suffer for it.

Both can be annoying depending on the circumstances. I suppose which you see more of and get sick of sooner depends on which forum games you frequent. In all honesty I'm only familiar with "The Last Night Troll" but I disagree with your argument that we suffered from our acts of cruelty. As I recall the game crashed due to the GM getting bored with it and it also probably had a lot to do with the absurd amount of back and forth arguing among the players. We were cruel to our enemies and nice to our allies for the most part. Overall we were pretty successful too, although I'm sure one could point out areas where cruelty hurt us just as one could also point out areas where kindness hurt us. Both are useful depending on the situation. I just think it's harmful to adhere to either end of the spectrum without regard to what's currently going on. Right now I think acting heedlessly nice at the expense of our followers lives and our worship base is silly.
[/quote]
We didn't have a chance to suffer for skimping on Alice's Gift, or from antagonizing the elves, or anything like that.

True dilemma.

Alright, let me rephrase that.
Fallacy.
There. I didn't try to be amusing.

This is dying from:

I'm sorry. The tide got a nineteen to your three . I'm not even sure you can win this anymore. If you want, I can either deus ex machina or sequel, though.

Along with a lack of resources and soldiers on our side. We've already lost the battle, I simply wish to salvage it. I offered a suggestion and others to my knowledge have not really offered any other suggestions that appear to offer a better chance of survival. All I'm seeing are attacks on my suggestions for being too "mean" or "evil" or "pragmatically callous" .

If we have, quote, "already lost the battle," by definition we cannot salvage it...
Besides, I find the kinds of "salvaging" you suggest to either fall into the category of "winning" ("impossible," by your suggestion) or that of "will soon lead to guerrilla warfare without any equipment or much training in anything useful against a god with a wide variety of troops who can bust guerrilla warfare".

Again I'm all for better solutions should one be provided. It's just that from what I can see you were all just about ready to let this game die and then when I try and breathe some life back into it via a suggestion that might save some people, you all suddenly spring back to life to assault the idea for it not being nice enough.

Trying to breathe life into a game by making the protagonist act out of character is not good. (GreatWyrmGold is not eloquent this late.)
And do you really think that this will come back to life if we somehow got a few people out?

Also slow updates don't necessarily kill a game. They do often cause a loss of player interest which kills the game and they are often a symptom of GM disinterest but as long as the game is updating, it's all good in my opinion. I've tried running a forum game before and I definitely understand that things can get hectic and that even when you might want to update, sometimes you can't or just don't have the energy to do so for a while.
Besides, what I've seen from JUST reading through this, is a lot of the GM bumping the thread because he/she wants to update but doesn't have enough suggestions. That blame falls directly on the players so I struggle to feel that it's purely a result of inactive GM updating that is causing this game to start choking on its own blood. Not to mention the speed with which the GM just responded to my suggestions informs me that said GM has at least a mildly vested interest in this.

...Which supports the idea of "This game is dying because we were too nice!", how?

I apologize if it seemed like I was boasting. It wasn't my intention. That was more of an aim at demonstrating that sometimes actions that seem cruel may actually end up resulting in good things. Perhaps it was a poor example but I can only try.

No one is doubting that. We are merely doubting that they are the best solution.

Regarding the "same fallacy," I'll be waiting for the better suggestion to be proposed. By better, I mean one that leaves us with the most leftover followers/resources and a still running forum game. When such a suggestion is brought to my attention, it would be my pleasure to +1 it.

Considering that turning all of our followers into monsters unwillingly will leave us with no followers...

[gman8181]

I'm tired of typing and I don't really care to continue this on for much longer. I have seen the way these types of back and forth things can go (again I'm reminded of the Last Night Troll) but real quick, I'd just like to respectfully leave my parting opinions.

I was busy trying to split my time between Bay12 and homework. Yes, it was dumb.

I wasn't calling it dumb, I was calling it suicidal. For all I know that was your objective, in which case it would be quite an intelligent way of going about it. Seriously though, I'm not trying to insult your ideas, I just saw that most of the suggestions offered had a high chance of resulting in a game over and thus I wished to present my own in the hope of averting that.

We didn't have a chance to suffer for skimping on Alice's Gift, or from antagonizing the elves, or anything like that.

What led you to assume we would have? I recall no indicative signs that we were in for any serious karmic retribution. It wasn't about morality, it was about intelligence and being clever. From my perspective you seem moderately biased towards the idea that "bad guys" suffer because being "evil" is "wrong" and "just retribution" is unavoidable. I also take it that you view me the opposite; referencing the "unrealistically cold and pragmatic" comment. Perhaps there's a bit of truth to both. Honestly I do try and look at things from both sides of the coin. I suppose it doesn't matter, it looks like I'm just tired of seeing one type of behavior a lot on certain forum games and you tired of seeing the other type of behavior. Again probably based off where we respectively frequent. It just made me sad to see the spiritual successor to one of my favorite suggestion games dying and I admittedly got a little annoyed at the immediate and vehement opposition to my suggestion on the mere grounds of it being "evil".

Alright, let me rephrase that.
Fallacy.
There. I didn't try to be amusing.

I appreciated the amusing comment, hence the smiley. It saddens me greatly that my attempt at reciprocating what I saw as a friendly gesture has resulted in you snapping at me. If anything I said seemed like a personal attack, you again have my apologies. I suppose my humor can be a bit off but usually I'm just trying to get people to crack a smile while simultaneously arguing my view.

If we have, quote, "already lost the battle," by definition we cannot salvage it...
Besides, I find the kinds of "salvaging" you suggest to either fall into the category of "winning" ("impossible," by your suggestion) or that of "will soon lead to guerrilla warfare without any equipment or much training in anything useful against a god with a wide variety of troops who can bust guerrilla warfare".

Try and carry that logic over to real life military practice. If a battle is lost and there are survivors on the field, would a general shrug it off and say, "Hey, we already lost and can't salvage it. No point in trying to evacuate those troops stuck over there." I'd say there's a marked difference between "winning" and "not losing completely". The former seems currently out of reach. I'm aiming for the latter.
Also what makes you assume the enemy god has troops well suited for rooting out stealthy guerrilla warfare troops? It's clearly not the greatest solution but it was no less suicidal than the suicidal charge idea proposed before.

Trying to breathe life into a game by making the protagonist act out of character is not good. (GreatWyrmGold is not eloquent this late.)
And do you really think that this will come back to life if we somehow got a few people out?

I've heard this argument before and it's a personal pet peeve of mine. Who gets to choose the character of the main character? The players. Am I not at the moment a participatory player in this suggestion game? Is the opinion of other players somehow more valuable than mine simply because they found out about this suggestion game before me?
The "character" of the character is based on either the GM's writing and rules or barring that, on the players. To my knowledge, the GM has made no specifications on what type of personality the god must have. Therefore it falls to the majority vote of the players, not some weird personality sheet set up early in the game by the first 4 players to be lucky enough to find out about the game.

It might not come back to life. I have no way of telling anyone that it will for a fact all work out if people follow my suggestion. I can tell you that if everyone dies it definitely will end though. What right do you have to deprive me of the enjoyment of trying to keep this alive? I'm pretty sure only the GM and the forum admins have that right.

...Which supports the idea of "This game is dying because we were too nice!", how?

It doesn't. That was in reply to your comment that the game died due to lack of GM updates. The argument that the game is dying because we were too nice was lightly touched upon elsewhere. Actually, it was never my intention to argue that we're losing because we were nice. My argument was more centered around us losing because we refused to be "mean" when the situation called for it. There's nothing wrong with being nice if it doesn't have negative effects on the character or game. I did say "And look where that got us. Everyone's dead or about to die." but that was just out of frustration at being shot down for being evil. Niceness isn't a bad thing, it's just not helping in the current situation. My whole "take over the world, MWAHAHA!" comment was mainly a joke. Perhaps a bad joke but a joke none the less. I mean technically that is sort of one of the potential goals anyway. It doesn't have to be by crushing people with armies, it can be the nice way. Personally I just lean a bit towards the more effective way. It doesn't always have to go the most effective way but I definitely don't want to go the way that leads to game over.

No one is doubting that. We are merely doubting that they are the best solution.

The best solution is relative. In this case, I'd say the best solution (relatively) is not dying. My suggestion may potentially have resulted in survival while the others seemed less likely to do so. Of course that is somewhat opinionated but I think the logic behind the thinking is somewhat apparent. They do have a much more powerful army than us and they have already killed just about all our followers.

Considering that turning all of our followers into monsters unwillingly will leave us with no followers...

Sorry, do monsters not count as followers? Seriously, because I may have missed that mechanic. I suppose that would invalidate my plan somewhat. As long as they give off mana and can reproduce and are intelligent, I personally would consider them viable followers.

Other possibilities: We are a god of force, life, and darkness, are we not? We could create a force field to shield our people, or shroud the town in darkness to let them escape, or summon short-lived but flesh-eating bacteria to enter the enemy's troops, or whatever as easily as make a bunch of monsters.

Didn't want to neglect responding to your suggestions. Forcefield is great if we can afford it and if we have reason to believe the enemy god is incapable of breaking it down. I honestly don't know the answer to either of those questions and we also would have to maintain it for an unknown amount of time. Darkness shroud is a viable solution assuming the enemy's followers can't see in the dark. I think thematically undead usually can but if not than great. Creating a new species like flesh eating bacteria is likely to be too time consuming. It seems like all our species creation acts thus far have taken a good amount of time. Actually, I guess the same could be said about turning the humans into shades.

Fair enough, we don't have to transform anyone into monsters but can we all agree retreat is a good idea? Also do we even have enough mana to do anything besides order our followers to retreat?

Edit:
Actually I revoke my comment above "if everyone dies it definitely will end." As I said before, there is the possibility that we might be able to start completely from scratch with a new village if they all die. I guess that's the GM's decision.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm tired of typing and I don't really care to continue this on for much longer. I have seen the way these types of back and forth things can go (again I'm reminded of the Last Night Troll) but real quick, I'd just like to respectfully leave my parting opinions.

Fair. I'll reply to those I believe are worth replying to, with such considerations on both ends.

I wasn't calling it dumb, I was calling it suicidal. For all I know that was your objective, in which case it would be quite an intelligent way of going about it.

1. It was dumb. More on that in a second.
2. It was more of an attempt to go out with a bang, to make the most of a loss I saw as inevitable, because (circling back to 1 as promised)...
3. ...I hadn't given it much thought. Which is arguably the definition of "dumb".

We didn't have a chance to suffer for skimping on Alice's Gift, or from antagonizing the elves, or anything like that.

What led you to assume we would have? I recall no indicative signs that we were in for any serious karmic retribution. It wasn't about morality, it was about intelligence and being clever.

Mostly that it wasn't the right gift to give Alice.

From my perspective you seem moderately biased towards the idea that "bad guys" suffer because being "evil" is "wrong" and "just retribution" is unavoidable. I also take it that you view me the opposite; referencing the "unrealistically cold and pragmatic" comment. Perhaps there's a bit of truth to both. Honestly I do try and look at things from both sides of the coin. I suppose it doesn't matter, it looks like I'm just tired of seeing one type of behavior a lot on certain forum games and you tired of seeing the other type of behavior. Again probably based off where we respectively frequent. It just made me sad to see the spiritual successor to one of my favorite suggestion games dying and I admittedly got a little annoyed at the immediate and vehement opposition to my suggestion on the mere grounds of it being "evil".

And yet, the evil is not always the most effective...especially for someone who needs the worship of his/her/its followers. The best path to a game over in this kind of god game is to make sure that no one wants to worship you.

I appreciated the amusing comment, hence the smiley. It saddens me greatly that my attempt at reciprocating what I saw as a friendly gesture has resulted in you snapping at me. If anything I said seemed like a personal attack, you again have my apologies. I suppose my humor can be a bit off but usually I'm just trying to get people to crack a smile while simultaneously arguing my view.

Actually, I thought you had completely missed my point. Damn the Internet and its inability to convey meaning well!

If we have, quote, "already lost the battle," by definition we cannot salvage it...
Besides, I find the kinds of "salvaging" you suggest to either fall into the category of "winning" ("impossible," by your suggestion) or that of "will soon lead to guerrilla warfare without any equipment or much training in anything useful against a god with a wide variety of troops who can bust guerrilla warfare".

Try and carry that logic over to real life military practice. If a battle is lost and there are survivors on the field, would a general shrug it off and say, "Hey, we already lost and can't salvage it. No point in trying to evacuate those troops stuck over there." I'd say there's a marked difference between "winning" and "not losing completely". The former seems currently out of reach. I'm aiming for the latter.
Also what makes you assume the enemy god has troops well suited for rooting out stealthy guerrilla warfare troops? It's clearly not the greatest solution but it was no less suicidal than the suicidal charge idea proposed before.

As to the first: The difference is that we are completely surrounded, by enemies who can literally flood the battlefield. We don't have much of any chance of getting anyone out. Maybe one or two, if we directly intervene.
As to the second: Vague memories of what the enemy god was, combined with the fact that these would be "random villagers playing guerrilla warfare until they desert" rather than "stealthy guerrilla troops".

I've heard this argument before and it's a personal pet peeve of mine. Who gets to choose the character of the main character? The players. Am I not at the moment a participatory player in this suggestion game? Is the opinion of other players somehow more valuable than mine simply because they found out about this suggestion game before me?

Let me put it this way.
Let's say that you were watching a Batman movie (or a Batman knockoff movie, if you prefer to avoid the complications of Batman's past continuity). For the first 60-70 minutes, Batman was a superhero who emphasized his refusal to kill anyone. Then, he gets cornered by the Joker, before calmly shooting him in the head and turning down the darker route. Would you like that movie?
We're telling a story together. A new director or similar entering halfway through filming shouldn't make the protagonist's actions during the final act of the story discordant with everything else, why should a new player do essentially the same?

The best solution is relative. In this case, I'd say the best solution (relatively) is not dying. My suggestion may potentially have resulted in survival while the others seemed less likely to do so. Of course that is somewhat opinionated but I think the logic behind the thinking is somewhat apparent. They do have a much more powerful army than us and they have already killed just about all our followers.

Who not dying?
As noted, turning everyone into monsters when they already told us clearly that they didn't want to would make them not want to worship us. And we need worshipers.
Are you trying to save the villagers? Aw, how sweet and discordant with the rest of your argument. Therefore you probably aren't.

Sorry, do monsters not count as followers? Seriously, because I may have missed that mechanic. I suppose that would invalidate my plan somewhat. As long as they give off mana and can reproduce and are intelligent, I personally would consider them viable followers.

Viable, probably.
Willing? Probably not.

Fair enough, we don't have to transform anyone into monsters but can we all agree retreat is a good idea?

We can retreat? I thought we were surrounded.

[gman8181]

Bleh.

And yet, the evil is not always the most effective...especially for someone who needs the worship of his/her/its followers. The best path to a game over in this kind of god game is to make sure that no one wants to worship you.

The god who just kicked our butt seems to be doing fine. We however are not. I won't even bother going into this.

As to the first: The difference is that we are completely surrounded, by enemies who can literally flood the battlefield. We don't have much of any chance of getting anyone out. Maybe one or two, if we directly intervene.
As to the second: Vague memories of what the enemy god was, combined with the fact that these would be "random villagers playing guerrilla warfare until they desert" rather than "stealthy guerrilla troops".

It probably wouldn't work but it was better than not trying anything or trying something that definitely results in a loss. Also the villagers wouldn't be the guerrilla fighters, the special stealth troops would fill that role.

Let me put it this way.
Let's say that you were watching a Batman movie (or a Batman knockoff movie, if you prefer to avoid the complications of Batman's past continuity). For the first 60-70 minutes, Batman was a superhero who emphasized his refusal to kill anyone. Then, he gets cornered by the Joker, before calmly shooting him in the head and turning down the darker route. Would you like that movie?
We're telling a story together. A new director or similar entering halfway through filming shouldn't make the protagonist's actions during the final act of the story discordant with everything else, why should a new player do essentially the same?

Fair point. I mean characters can and do change but I suppose plot wise they'd need a good reason. Losing all of one's worshipers and potentially being cast back into the void might be a significant enough reason to bring out a bit of a character change but I won't argue it because it's pretty subjective.

Who not dying?
As noted, turning everyone into monsters when they already told us clearly that they didn't want to would make them not want to worship us. And we need worshipers.
Are you trying to save the villagers? Aw, how sweet and discordant with the rest of your argument. Therefore you probably aren't.

The villagers dying, yes. If you think it's discordant with my prior arguments than you probably didn't understand my arguments. I could quote myself multiple times where I said I wanted to change the villagers to save them or failing that at least try and get them to retreat. To me the prior seemed like it had a better chance of working due to them being surrounded as you have yourself pointed out.
Would they be willing followers? Maybe not initially but it probably wouldn't be that difficult to get them to come around.

You seem to have confused transforming them with killing them. The whole point of my arguments is that their preference for death over being changed didn't make sense. I suggested we ignore their wish to die over being transformed and go through with it anyway if it could save them. I'm not going to quote everywhere where I said this stuff. It's only spread out over two pages or whatever and I made the argument in practically every post.

We can retreat? I thought we were surrounded.

We are. It probably won't work. Transforming them might have worked as it could have given them the necessary skills to escape but clearly that isn't something you intend to let happen and the other players either agree or simply don't care enough to post.

No use arguing anymore. Go ahead and suicide charge them. Or not. Do nothing because it doesn't matter. There are few options and no good options and the only slightly viable options are apparently also not options. Congratulations on achieving your objective whatever it may have been. At least we can say when the game ended the main character had a clean conscience. I mean letting them choose death is clearly the moral high road.

It was a nice read while it lasted I guess. Thanks for the story GM.