Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LordBucket]

Honestly, my real concern about going down that particular path with Yagrum is that there's no way I can justify him being who he is not grilling you for eternity with questions. Which turns this game for the next 2-3 episodes at least into a Q&A session answering Yagrum's questions.

For example:

: "Hi, Voices In Michael's Head! So, tell me about your people. Please start with your physiology. Do you have two arms and two legs and a head like Michael, or are you all non-corporeal daedra and is Michael's form simply a convenience for interacting with us? You seem very interested in math. Please give me a complete history of your species' in terms of math and physics. Also, here are a list of 20 unsolved math problems in Tamriel. Would you offer your insight into each of them? Oh, wow...'internet' you say? Fascinating! Would you look up the following 200 topics of personal interest to me and have Michael recite everything he can on them? Oh, wait...wikipedia you say? Awesome! Let's start with A..."

To which you then respond in the thread over several days, and then you read an episode about Michael repeating your answers back to him.

I've been trying very hard to abide by a 'no railroading' policy, but I'm pretty sure this particular suggestion would take us in a direction that wouldn't be very fun to read.

[WillowLuman]

NINJA'd 3 freaking times, adding considerable length

Explain to him that you still have mental contact with people from the world where stuff like this exists

make sure to tell him about how you have mental contact with the people from a world like the one where the phone came from

This suggestion would need consensus to be acted on, as it could potentially have long-reaching consequences for better or worse. Remember there were some things you decided to specifically not tell Divayth.

But we did have consensus to tell Divayth about the voices. We agreed not to give him the impression that the world might reset if we died, but there was no objection to asking him about voices in one's mind. I hypothesized that the voices might have something to do with the mark of Azura. Asking Yagrum to come home with us seems a bit much, though.
NINJAEDIT: Yeah, I can see the problem with that. The main reason to ask him would be to find out if he knew of any similar phenomena, and so gain a better understanding of our situation and capabilities. We can't know if somebody doesn't know something until we ask them. But as you have just expressly told us that he doesn't, asking Yagrum about us would be pointless.

Does Yagrum have the mark of Azura? I doubt it, but it would be good to check.

About firearms: Likely possible, as the Dwemer themselves have chemical explosives. I know LordBucket might say "Why bother? Destruction magic!", but then again using destruction magic to the same efficacy as firearms and artillery requires a lot more training than just channeling Magicka, more training than most soldiers would have. It's possible than some alchemical mixture could make an even better propellant than modern smokeless gunpowder or cordite.
Or if you want to get really fancy, maybe you could give the firing pin a very small fireball enchantment, which might not be powerful enough to do much damage on its own but if released inside the confines of a metal barrel, could propel a slug at deadly speeds. Such an indirect use of destruction magic might even be more practical than directly throwing large fireballs, using a smaller amount of charge to inflict physical damage, perhaps even bypassing the magic resistance of a creature that would have merely resisted the direct magic attack.

Ask Yagrum what he knows about Clover and the Nerevarine, and then leave, making sure to be on time for the boat above all. Don't sell the phone. Do not in any way tell him about voices in your head.

If we're going to live in Morrowind and not talk science with Yagrum Bagarn, we may as well take that dagger right now and stick it in our skull. What's the point of playing this game if we skip interesting things like this? Things that some of us have waited literally the whole game for? It might not be the most practical thing to do, but being cagey, asking as little as possible, then just leaving this place forever (we're not going to get a good reason to come back here again any time soon) would be just so deeply unsatisfying. Situations like these provide good writing and good worldbuilding on LordBucket's part, moreso than just asking him. Though I do agree that we must make sure to get the important questions out of the way.

And I must impress, again, that we should tell him of our Magicka-less universe, to avoid wasting time with misunderstandings.

[Araph]

Let's be succinct, then. Tell/ask Yagrum:

-Our universe has no observable magicka. If he's interested in investigating, tell him he's free to pursue that endeavor with Divayth, but we don't have any explanation for it.
-What's up with Clover and the Nerevarine.
-That's all we've got time for, we've got a boat to catch.

Then do:

-Sell the phone. There is literally no use for it in this world aside from being a trinket to pawn off.

Let's consider what it can do: be a calculator, play Angry Birds, and... basically nothing. We aren't trying to start a technological revolution here. At best, it takes forever to get going and we die of corprus or something before we see its effects. At worst, it destabilizes the entire timeline and we don't have any useful intel on the future. Get rid of it, get some pocket change, learn magic.

After that:
-Catch a ride back to wherever it was (Sadrith Mora?) with Cinia. Make her our friend. Weaponize our charming dorkiness.


Totally unrelated: I like LordBucket's DMing style. He actually keeps us somewhat on track and drops hints when we're going to get ourselves permanently stuck as Divayth's 'guest' because of SCIENCE MAGIC. Morrowind itself is plenty of a killer DM for low-level scrubs like Michael on its own without another DM trying to kill us.

[LordBucket]

I like LordBucket's DMing style. He actually keeps us somewhat on track

Thank you. Though if and when this thing ever finishes, some of you might be shocked at how completely far into left field this game has gone.

Unrelated, to address your suggestion from this post:

ask him about what made him interrupt Uupse.

In case it wasn't clear, that whole exchange was a joke. Yagrum is a bit self absorbed, and he fancies himself a womanizer:

: "I'm Yagram, sexy genius incarnate. Pleasure to meet me, I'm sure."

: wow, this is pretty. Though not as pretty as our lovely host, of course."

: "Dashing and handsome!"

: "And great with the ladies!"

But, the 'lower half' of his body was lost due to corprus and had to be replaced:

Yagram Bagarn, the dwarf, his belly distended from corprus growths and the lower half of his body removed and
replaced with a mechanically powered six-legged dwarven metal walker

So this all sets up the following exchange, where Yagrum is explaining that even though fluid logic gates take up more space than electronic gates, he likes that, because he likes big, and "he's big" too:

: "Internal biology, acoustics, stone, lots of things. Personally I'm fond of steam. Vastly superior to electricity. The logic gates take up more space, but that's just the kind of man I am. Big."

: "At least before the corpr-"

: "WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT."

Yagrum, full of himself as he is, is bragging about the size of his genitals. Uupse is pointing out that he doesn't have any because they were removed.

[WillowLuman]

+1 to Araph

I'm glad we kept the phone as long as we did. If Yagrum Bagarn looks at it and says its worth 600 gold, then its worth 600 gold. It's our only obvious material proof of our extradimensional origin, but now that we've shown it to the people who would find it most interesting, it's time to take the best offer we're ever going to get for it.

And LordBucket, I love the style of this game. One of the best parts about this is asking all the questions, stupid or no, that we've always wanted to have answers to but there were never enough dialogue options for.

[Araph]

In case it wasn't clear, that whole exchange was a joke. Yagrum is a bit self absorbed, and he fancies himself a womanizer:
[snip]

I recognized the implications; the only reason I would tell Michael to ask about that is to very intentionally piss Yagrum off. So, probably not a good suggestion.

[LordBucket]

LordBucket, I love the style of this game. One of the best parts about this is asking all the questions,
stupid or no, that we've always wanted to have answers to but there were never enough dialogue options for.

Thank you. I've always disliked railroading in games. The Elder Scrolls games have always been good about that. If you want to ignore the main quest and trek into the woods at random, there's always something to find more interesting than a confused GM saying "umm, you didn't do what I expected."

When I first started this it never occurred to me that it would lead to me researching roman military organization so I could come up with a plausible characterization for the Legion. Or that I'd end up explaining medieval alchemy processes. Or that I'd need to think up an internally consistent behavior for teleport mechanics. I did come up with a "the plan" before I started this and there is a "what's really going on" that I hope you guys eventually figure out. But wow have we gone in some directions I didn't anticipate on the way to getting there. And curiously, there have been a few directions that I completely assumed would be taken that you guys have completely avoided.

And that's ok.

[IronyOwl]

If we're going to live in Morrowind and not talk science with Yagrum Bagarn, we may as well take that dagger right now and stick it in our skull. What's the point of playing this game if we skip interesting things like this? Things that some of us have waited literally the whole game for? It might not be the most practical thing to do, but being cagey, asking as little as possible, then just leaving this place forever (we're not going to get a good reason to come back here again any time soon) would be just so deeply unsatisfying. Situations like these provide good writing and good worldbuilding on LordBucket's part, moreso than just asking him. Though I do agree that we must make sure to get the important questions out of the way.

This is... more or less my feeling on the matter. If we're more careful with the instructions in getting home, it shouldn't be nearly as bad as getting here. The boat shouldn't be a necessity; if anything, I'd miss chatting with whatshername more than the free ride. Fyr also mentioned we might be able to catch him at dinner, which we're probably not going to have time for if we rush to get out of here.

I would agree that standing here for ten updates explaining how to play tic tac toe to Yagrum is probably not a good use of time, but otherwise I don't think we need to make sure every single question we ask is a curt inquiry about Clover.


That said... it's true that the tower's not going anywhere, at least as far as we know. If we really wanted to chat with Redhead or avoid the hassle of swimming, theoretically we could just leave now, work on our skills until a lone kagouti can't literally eat us alive, and then come back to chat with Yagrum literally any other time we feel like it.

Thank you. Though if and when this thing ever finishes, some of you might be shocked at how completely far into left field this game has gone.

Considering how little this LP currently resembles pretty much any interpretation of a game of Morrowind, I doubt I'd be among them. I guess barging into Vivec's study as our first course of action worked for certain definitions of the word, but it still sort of baffles me.

[WillowLuman]

If this was ever intended as a mostly-standard-with-some-mods, except the PC is from Earth, LP of Morrowind, I'd say this direction is much better.

It's true that we could technically come back here. But I doubt we'd have a good reason to come back here in the near future, and even if we had the means it would require going out of our way in the midst of an ongoing crisis. I'd like to talk science as much as reasonably possible before we have to go. If we only have time for one more science question, let it be about atomic/nuclear energy, since this has the most chance of providing useful information (if this universe has similar atoms, for instance).

[hostergaard]

If we want to impress him I think telling that the number of people in Michaels world is approximately 7 billion is our best bet, that's the only thing I can think of that we can be sure is in order of magnitude greater than theirs. The entire population of Tamriel would barely fill a small city where you are from. 

Or rockets and satellites, a space program is sure to interest him (I mean, their moons are ostensibly the corpse of a god), the fact that we have visited our moon mechanically. And our phone network use satellites too.

[Descan]

We visited our moon in person, unless you mean "using mechanical means".

We visited Mars mechanically, either by means or because we sent a machine, either way fits. Of course, I don't know if Yagrum has any point of reference for how difficult that might be, I don't know if Mundus has a Mars-equivalent.

[The_Jester]

Ask Yagrum what he knows about Clover and the Nerevarine, and then leave, making sure to be on time for the boat above all. Don't sell the phone. Do not in any way tell him about voices in your head.

If we're going to live in Morrowind and not talk science with Yagrum Bagarn, we may as well take that dagger right now and stick it in our skull. What's the point of playing this game if we skip interesting things like this? Things that some of us have waited literally the whole game for? It might not be the most practical thing to do, but being cagey, asking as little as possible, then just leaving this place forever (we're not going to get a good reason to come back here again any time soon) would be just so deeply unsatisfying. Situations like these provide good writing and good worldbuilding on LordBucket's part, moreso than just asking him. Though I do agree that we must make sure to get the important questions out of the way.

I don't disagree that talking to Yagrum about science is interesting, I just think we should place more importance at this stage of Michael's ability on catching the boat. I think that it is going to be much more difficult than many of you seem to think to make it back in one piece without at least some assistance, and here is a great way to get back safely, and perhaps start gaining some real acquaintances for Michael.  There has been so much of a focus on talking to these wildly powerful and knowledgeable beings that Michael has acquired little to no friends, and the few people that were actually seeming to go that way have been abandoned a long time ago because it was decided to switch focus and not go back to Seyda Neen.

-Sell the phone. There is literally no use for it in this world aside from being a trinket to pawn off.

Let's consider what it can do: be a calculator, play Angry Birds, and... basically nothing. We aren't trying to start a technological revolution here. At best, it takes forever to get going and we die of corprus or something before we see its effects. At worst, it destabilizes the entire timeline and we don't have any useful intel on the future. Get rid of it, get some pocket change, learn magic.

I know that I am in the minority about the phone, but I can actually think of tons of uses for it. It can take pictures, which could provide us with a way to "prove" things to people who may not be inclined to agree with us about something, or could be used to at least catch someone's interest. I am sure that it can make voice notes, so we could use it to become the ultimate courier, "speak into the box and I will guarantee your exact message gets there!", etc. Also, it could help us to become an effective spy, with said picture and voice recording capabilities, or it could be used as a distraction for some Solid Snake-esque sneak attacks.

Anyway, my biggest concern at the moment is catching the boat back.

[GlyphGryph]

Fine, if we are going to have to leave soon...

Tell him we have a boat to catch, but the people from our world can speak directly to us psychically and would love to chat with him forever. If he can provide us with any help we would love to come back later after the world is not in imminent danger of being immediately destroyed, and provide him with all sorts of diagrams and walkthroughs on how to build the things that support our planet of 7billion people, none of whom can use magic but who LOVE machines.

But for now, we dont want to miss our only ride out of here and miss being trapped, so we need to keep it brief, as much as the voices admire him and looked forward to this meeting - because yes, his reputation is so great he is known even in our world.

Then, unless he offers an alternative way home, ask the important questions and get out.

[The_Jester]

What are we going to tell Caius when we get back? I lost interest in trying to save Clover and I no longer think I am the Nerevarine? Looking back over the previous stuff, he basically told us that we needed to catch Corprus and be cured in order to prove to him that we are the Nerevarine, and Michael said he was confident that he was.

Also, Cinia is an NPC that apparently was missing from the original morrowind but was added back in by a mod called the secret masters mod, she is the master trainer of medium armor. So that is good to know.

[GlyphGryph]

Oh yeah, Ask him if there's an easy way to get corprus while we're down here. Gotta fulfill that prophecy, right?