Sorcery! Quest

[ShadowAngelBeta]

IC the character knows that the bad buy has purple and going in hot could get purple killed.

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I'll say it again... Demon-Blooded. First instinct for a problem in their way is to remove it. Yes we should have put some thought into it, actually we did, we called Jason. Holding off our instincts long enough to do that was probably pushing it IC. The voters just decided to go with it rather than think up a quick plan (I wasn't a voter for the record) *Shrug* can't help you there. Other than telling you that it is okay to yell at them "I told you so" at least once.

 

[Disminded]

It would work... if we had someone to keep us alive. That first death was our fault and the dice. This one... really, IC, what were we supposed to do, run and hide, we're a freaking demon-blooded. No this was... your idea has merit, but then we kind of end up with doing nothing but training to try and stay alive and pray the dice don't screw us over or we lose a life. Its like walking a tight-rope that you can't see the end of without a net to catch you.

Limited lives in this system was a bad idea without having back-ups, like having Jason pop in with a teleport in time to save us in this situation, in place. But it does make it more real and make us take it more seriously as well so... Its a good idea still.

Edit: I'm not saying to always give us an out... but to use our two deaths as examples, the first one no one could have really saved us from. that was just a high-risk option that bit us, the second though... we called Jason and a Demon-Blooded has to stand mystically, at least when your not on a Hell Plane, he should have been able to show up very quickly at least is what I'm saying.

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In theory, the three lives system gives players enough security that they are comfortable taking risks while still lending death some importance and severity. Ideally, this should encourage players to mitigate the risks they take and play intelligently. How well this works in practice...

As for giving characters outs from lethal situations... Eh. I'm not going to stretch my personal suspension of disbelief in order to save the character from a situation. That reeks of railroading, plot armor and deus ex machina. If the player arranges their own rescue or events conspire in a natural way to effect a rescue, then that's different.

As for Jason... he's a competent magician with centuries of experience. He can definitely find you and teleport to your location. However, even he needs more than a minute to do so. Your fight with Black Mask took around a minute from the end of the call to your execution. There really wasn't all that much time for him to intercede.

But I'll shut up now and let people vote.

 

[Bloodshifter]

True but... a lot of the other places wouldn't be much better. DC was actually one of the safer one comparatively.

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Our Demon Blood thrives on War and Bloodshed. Safe or not i'd take another world that isn't as upright and moral.

 

[Pipeman]

Huh.
Didn't really expect this to be Black Mask himself.
I kind of want to try this again.

We should probably start out with getting him to turn away from us by using Mage Hand or Dancing Lights to distract him.
Color spray is probably a lot more useful for buying us time than Lesser Burning Orb.
Once we've hit him we should probably just alternate between the two to make sure he stays blinded, but we still do enough damage that he can't cope with it easily.
If we can get him to drop his weapon we should be more or less golden, so depending on how the fight goes that would probably be something to aim for as well.

 

[Pipeman]

IC the character knows that the bad buy has purple and going in hot could get purple killed.

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IC we know Purple is heavily wounded and tied up.
We aren't going to run anywhere with her anytime soon.
Our best bet is to distract him from Purple and try to keep him pinned with Colorspray.
Even taking cover risks that he takes Purple hostage or just straight up kills her as a 'fuck you' to us.

 

[iamnuff]

[X] Roll back to last scene. (-1 life, 1 remaining) – Choices?


[X] sneak back up, get a look at whats going on, If mage-hand is capable of it, then take his gun (is it on his belt? left laying within arms reach? what exactly can mage-hand do in this situation?) if combat starts this turn, open with colour-spray, then try to get that fucking gun away from him, after he's disarmed, unleash the facemelter.


wait, can we use Mage-hand to take his gun before combat starts?

we don't need to retrive it, just get it away from him.


honestly, "lol use fire" wasn't the right option last time we tried it, and its not the right option now.


why the fuck do people keep voting for it?

 

[Pipeman]

[X] Roll back to last scene. (-1 life, 1 remaining) – Choices?


[X] sneak back up, get a look at whats going on, possibliy try to daze/sneak-attack him.


honestly, "lol use fire" wasn't the right option last time we tried it, and its not the right option now.


why the fuck do people keep voting for it?

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Noone is voting for "lol use fire" and sneaking isn't going to work because we have 0 points in that.
We either need to hit him with Colorspray as as the very first thing we do or distract him with one of our other spells, but straight up sneaking won't work.

 

[megrisvernin]

Honestly the Balance mechanic here is off.

We're playing as a Demonic character who wants a new start, & we're put in a dangerous new world where...we promptly die because we are too aggressive

I believe in actually rping a character & trying to not make OC choices. In a game where failure means autodeath this produces problems. I may know OC that if I'm not careful I'll die but I can't know that IC for her. The only way I can avoid danger is to be cautious but that doesn't make sense at all from her background, nor does she strike as being wise enough to figure that out is without having a bad outcome which doesn't kill her

So in others words I have to rp be a character to be cautious when her instincts tell her to jump into combat without any clear IC way why. The only way to do that is to portray her as a coward who would abandon her friends. Maybe this person isn't a close friend but we decided to stay because of her.

I don't like rping cowards, so I'm going to pick the only IC I can given this outcome.

I want to chose this [] Roll back to last scene. (-1 life, 1 remaining) – Choices? ATTACK

...However I have no plan we could pull off to attack this guy with besides
[] Go in with spells blazing. You need to kill something. NOW. (Tactics? Default is "BURN!")

I didn't roll his character so I'm not sure if this is the fault the of the GM or the players but we're an aggressive character with what I can see as a limited powerset. We could try sneaky but that feels completely OC.

In the end I'm stuck with either choosing options that feel completely OC & break my immersion or makes choices I hate, like leaving a companion to die.

With that in mind I'm going for

[x] End Game

 

[iamnuff]

Noone is voting for "lol use fire"

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umm, i was talking about the last vote, the one that killed us.

the one were a bunch of people voted "attack" but gave no tactics, thus defaulting to fire?

what other spells do we even have?

colour-spray is the "daze" i was talking about, we might be able to use dancing lights or mage hand to distract him, then get the drop on him.


also, for everyone voting to end the quest, why?


you don't like the quest? leave.

no reason to ruin it for the rest of us.

 

[Pipeman]

umm, i was talking about the last vote, the one that killed us.

the one were a bunch of people voted "attack" but gave no tactics, thus defaulting to fire?[/i]

no reason to ruin it for the rest of us.

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Misunderstood that then.

As for why noone posted any tactics, for me it was a combination of assuming this would only be some mook and roleplaying the character.
Her only friend was being tortured and the appropriate emotional reaction to something like that for a somewhat impulsive character like this seemed to be to go in and throw fire at the problem.
Not the smartest move, but it would have likely been sufficient against a mook.

Regarding tactics, we did get the first hit in last time and, if that had been Color Spray, it would have likely inflicted it's status effects. (If I'm understanding this right he'd have been "blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds, then stunned for 1 round" which would have been pretty useful in a battle were we care most about distracting him until Blood shows up.)
Combine that with the fact that, even if we manage to distract him with Mage Hand or Dancing Lights, he's not likely to keep looking the wrong way once we start attacking, and we should probably just start off with Color Spray and forgo the distraction.

Whenever we do manage to hit him with Color Spray, we could probably follow it up with a Lesser Burning Orb.
Since the orb does more damage and he'll already be under Color Spray's status effects, it's likely to do more to keep him from getting his shit together.
Our main priority though should be to make sure he's constantly under the effect of Color Spray so he can't see shit, since the most dangerous thing about him is his gun.

For that reason we should probably use Mage Hand to get it away from him should he ever let go of it.
Depending on where it is at the start of the battle, we may even keep him from getting his hands on it in the first place.
We probably shouldn't try to use it though, since we're not trained with it and don't want to hit Purple.

We also shouldn't get into close combat if we can avoid it, since he's a very good at hand to hand combat and we are not.

Anyone have anything else to add or should I turn this into an actual vote?

 

[iamnuff]

Misunderstood that then.

As for why noone posted any tactics, for me it was a combination of assuming this would only be some mook and roleplaying the character.
Her only friend was being tortured and the appropriate emotional reaction to something like that for a somewhat impulsive character like this seemed to be to go in and throw fire at the problem.
Not the smartest move, but it would have likely been sufficient against a mook.

Regarding tactics, we did get the first hit in last time and, if that had been Color Spray, it would have likely inflicted it's status effects. (If I'm understanding this right he'd have been "blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds, then stunned for 1 round" which would have been pretty useful in a battle were we care most about distracting him until Blood shows up.)
Combine that with the fact that, even if we manage to distract him with Mage Hand or Dancing Lights, he's not likely to keep looking the wrong way once we start attacking, and we should probably just start off with Color Spray and forgo the distraction.

Whenever we do manage to hit him with Color Spray, we could probably follow it up with a Lesser Burning Orb.
Since the orb does more damage and he'll already be under Color Spray's status effects, it's likely to do more to keep him from getting his shit together.
Our main priority though should be to make sure he's constantly under the effect of Color Spray so he can't see shit, since the most dangerous thing about him is his gun.

For that reason we should probably use Mage Hand to get it away from him should he ever let go of it.
Depending on where it is at the start of the battle, we may even keep him from getting his hands on it in the first place.
We probably shouldn't try to use it though, since we're not trained with it and don't want to hit Purple.

We also shouldn't get into close combat if we can avoid it, since he's a very good at hand to hand combat and we are not.

Anyone have anything else to add or should I turn this into an actual vote?

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sounds good, write it up and you have my vote

[X] pipeman

 

[Pipeman]

[X] Roll back to last scene. (-1 life, 1 remaining) – Choices?
[X] Go in with spells blazing. You need to kill something. NOW. (Tactics? Default is "BURN!")
-[X] Start off with Color Spray and mostly stick to that. Your main goal is to keep him from hurting Purple any more until Blood arrives and as satisfying as it may be to burn him to a crisp, if he proves to be a tough opponent Color Spray is more likely to keep him occupied.
--[X] Whenever you manage hit him hard with Color Spray, you can try to follow it up with nasty Lesser Burning Orb. Blinded he shouldn't really be able to dodge it and mixing it up a bit should make it harder for him to cope with the effects of Color Spray. Burning the asshole should also prove to be rather satisfying. Making sure he stays under the effects of Color Spray still has priority though.
-[X] If he has a weapon and you see the opportunity, use Mage Hand to get it away from him. Since you're not trained with any weapons, you probably shouldn't try to use them though. It's not like you have need of such things anyways, so you'll restrict yourself to making sure he doesn't get to use them either.
-[X] Try not to get into a fistfight. Such things are beneath you, after all.

I think that's everything.
I tried to keep the tone somewhat IC and to keep OOC knowledge out of the vote itself.
Not sure how well that worked, but eh.
Just to make sure, we aren't likely to run through our phantom hp before the battle is over, are we?

Edit:
Oh, and are there ways to earn additional lives?
I'd agree that death should retain its bite, but, given the inherent power level of the DC verse and that with the rather small user base even a couple of ill advised votes are enough to kill us again, chances are that this quest is going to come to a permanent Bad End sooner rather than later, even if we do get our shit together from here on out.

 

[megrisvernin]

I like this. A valid plan which still keeps us IC. Hope it works.

[X] Roll back to last scene. (-1 life, 1 remaining) – Choices?
[X] Go in with spells blazing. You need to kill something. NOW. (Tactics? Default is "BURN!")
-[X] Start off with Color Spray and mostly stick to that. Your main goal is to keep him from hurting Purple any more until Blood arrives and as satisfying as it may be to burn him to a crisp, if he proves to be a tough opponent Color Spray is more likely to keep him occupied.
--[X] Whenever you manage hit him hard with Color Spray, you can try to follow it up with nasty Lesser Burning Orb. Blinded he shouldn't really be able to dodge it and mixing it up a bit should make it harder for him to cope with the effects of Color Spray. Burning the asshole should also prove to be rather satisfying. Making sure he stays under the effects of Color Spray still has priority though.
-[X] If he has a weapon and you see the opportunity, use Mage Hand to get it away from him. Since you're not trained with any weapons, you probably shouldn't try to use them though. It's not like you have need of such things anyways, so you'll restrict yourself to making sure he doesn't get to use them either.
-[X] Try not to get into a fistfight. Such things are beneath you, after all.

 

[Disminded]

Just to make sure, we aren't likely to run through our phantom hp before the battle is over, are we?

Edit:
Oh, and are there ways to earn additional lives?
I'd agree that death should retain its bite, but, given the inherent power level of the DC verse and that with the rather small user base even a couple of ill advised votes are enough to kill us again, chances are that this quest is going to come to a permanent Bad End sooner rather than later, even if we do get our shit together from here on out.

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You have a fairly deep reserve of "phantom HP" and your actual HP is nothing to sneeze at.

As for additional lives... I'm open to suggestions. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any way that wouldn't be open to abuse and/or allow you to mill infinite extra lives.

On the subject of your inevitable demise, keep in mind that A) You do have a fairly easy (if unpleasant and rather dangerous) method of dimensional travel at your disposal, so you are not constrained to staying in the DCU, and B) If you do stay, you are slated to join a team of other capes, which should theoretically extend your lifespan.

 

[Silversun17]

You have a fairly deep reserve of "phantom HP" and your actual HP is nothing to sneeze at.

As for additional lives... I'm open to suggestions. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any way that wouldn't be open to abuse and/or allow you to mill infinite extra lives.

On the subject of your inevitable demise, keep in mind that A) You do have a fairly easy (if unpleasant and rather dangerous) method of dimensional travel at your disposal, so you are not constrained to staying in the DCU, and B) If you do stay, you are slated to join a team of other capes, which should theoretically extend your lifespan.

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how about you make a short hidden list of objectives and you award us a life for each one we get. by keeping it hidden we can't grind for lives.

 

[Disminded]

how about you make a short hidden list of objectives and you award us a life for each one we get. by keeping it hidden we can't grind for lives.

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Okay, I kinda like that idea. I'll think about it and try to come up with a few things.

 

[Disminded]

Taste the Rainbow, Bitch​

Yeah, that's about as much self-restraint as you can reasonably be expected to show. Someone's hurting your friend. Someone has to die screaming.

You don't bother to try for stealth. You're not very good at it in any case. You stride back to the bloodstained room, stoking the hellfire in your belly until it roared in your ears. There's a man in that rooms, clad in a simple white shirt and black pants. His most striking attribute is a black, skull-like mask that adorns his face and the knife in his hand, stained red with… with…

You snarl a word of power and thrust one hand out, fingers splayed. A cone of discordant light blasts from your fingertips and bathes both Purple and the black-masked man. The man staggers backward with a cry, clutching his eyes, his knife clattering to the ground.

You don't stop, rage mounting as you claw at the air, whispering blasphemies in infernal, ripping a great handful of fire out of the ether. You send it hurtling toward him, and it bursts on his chest, scourging him with flame.

He screams and the sound is the most beautiful song you've ever heard. You hurl another ball of searing flame and he drops to his knees with another anguished cry of pain.

You smile and hit him again. And again.

He falls, his shirt and pants a collection of burning rags melted to his skin, his flesh a cracked and bubbling ruin. Still he tries to rise.

You've read that heroes in this world do not kill… but you never really considered yourself a hero.

And he hurt your friend.

You hit him one last time, and he shudders, then stills, an insensate lump of charred flesh, fire still dancing on the remnants of his clothes…

Actions:

[X] Make sure he's dead. With more fire.
[X] Take his mask as a trophy. You need to start making your hero costume anyway…
[X] Get Purple down and try to treat her wounds.
[X]… through the time honored method of slapping the shit out of her until her lazy ass wakes up and she can treat herself. Hey, it worked last time.
[X] Get Purple down, keep her comfortable and wait for Jason.
[X] No! She could be dying! Take her in your arms and walk her to help (Default is walking to nearest hospital. Other destination must be specified).
[X] Write in.

Note: Your save DCs are actually fairly impressive due to your monstrous constitution. Blackmask needed to roll 16+ to save. He didn't. After that, it was pretty much all over but the shoutin'... And, well, the burning. Can't forget the burning.

 

[Silversun17]

[X] Get Purple down, keep her comfortable and wait for Jason.
-[x] apply pressure to any wounds still bleeding

 

[Pipeman]

Huh.
That was a lot easier than I expected it to be.
Now I'm really pissed at myself for not bothering with tactics last time.

[X] Get Purple down, keep her comfortable and wait for Jason.
-[X] apply pressure to any wounds still bleeding

I can't wait until our own Jason learns about this.
"Where were you this evening?"
"Found out I can walk to alternate universes, ended up in a house that world's Black Mask was using to torture that world's Purple, called that world's you to come help, burned Black mask to a crisp because you took to long and walked back here like a boss."

 

[iamnuff]

honestly, a part of me say make sure he's dead.

seriously, you know what DC villians are like.

then again, purple needs help badly.


and he is pretty charred.

I doubt he could fight, even if he survived.

[X] get purple down, wait for blood.

after that little show, something tells me he's going to be here soon.

 

[Disminded]

Cavalry​

You ignore the trash, besides rolling him away from Purple's hanging form with one booted foot. While he smells delightful, like roasting pork but sweeter, he is otherwise unimportant. What's important is your friend.

Purple moans in pain as you undo the chains holding her up and lower her gently to the ground. You hover over her fallen form, wringing your hands, uncertain how to proceed. Purple was covered with blood, the torn remnants of her costume soaked with it until "purple" really wasn't a pertinent descriptor. Every inch of exposed flesh is blooded or bruised.

Sure, you could walk that shit off. Hell, you'd done worse to yourself by accident when you were learning to control your magic. But regular humans were just so damnably frail…

It's an awful feeling, far worse even than the time you accidentally turned your ovaries inside out. Your friend is hurt, and you have no idea what to do.
You settle for tearing strips of your dress (a plain black one provided to replace your robe), folding them and pressing them against the worst of the wounds. From the way Purple shifts and groans in pain, you're not really sure whether you're helping or hurting…

Each second stretches into an eternity as you wait for that laggard Blood to arrive. Finally, after what you're sure are several eons, the air behind you sunders like a torn veil and angry red flames briefly spill out of the rent, before Blood steps out and it closes behind him.

He looks different somehow… His hair is longer, the pattern of white and red varying from what you were familiar with, and his form is a bit slighter…

Your attention is drawn to the sword in his hand, specifically the way it was brandished threateningly at you.

"Step away from her," he says, coldly.

And you do, not because you're particularly afraid of the pointy stick, but because he probably knows more about healing than you do.

As you retreat to a corner, Blood kneels beside Purple, produces a vial of blue powder, and begins sprinkling it over her wounded form while mumbling chants in a language you don't know.

For the first time in what seems like a long while, you have time to sit and think on what, exactly, happened… You were meditating on the Broken Road, tracing its curvatures and flaws in your mind as you moved… And then the world began to change around you, shifting slightly with every step.

Then you were here, because you thought of Purple while walking. But because you didn't know what you were really doing, you found the wrong Purple…

Because you were walking through dimensions. It would explain the way the world slowly transformed as you walked, the small differences in Blood you noticed, and, now that you look more closely, the differences in Purple, who looked a little older than when you'd seen her last underneath her mask of dried blood and bruises…

Admittedly, it is scanty evidence, but given what you already know about the abilities of the Broken Road, it makes sense.

The powder on Purple flares azure and for a moment she's wrapped in a nimbus of magic, before it sinks into her skin and fades away. You're not sure how much it helped, but she seems to be resting easier now.

You smile, then Blood rises, his sword once again in his hand as he glances at the smoking corpse of Blackmask, then back to you.

"You have some explaining to do, girl."

"Do I?" you ask, idly. You'd seen scarier. Hell, you'd summoned scarier on accident.

"You call me out of the blue, insist we know each other and demand my help. Then I come to find you with a corpse at your feet and one of my associate's wards clearly showing signs of torture. Yes, you have some explaining to do."


Actions
[X] Explain everything. Purple's out of danger, so you really have no reason not to.
[X] "Perhaps another day." Walk away, Blood will take care of Purple and you have other things to do. (Where to?)
[X] Yeah, you've had about enough of his sass. Attack! (Tactics would be a very good idea)
[X] Write-in

 

[Vindictus]

[X] "Perhaps another day." Walk away, Blood will take care of Purple and you have other things to do. (Where to? Who cares?)

We are now walking the multiverse.

 

[Silversun17]

[X] Explain everything. Purple's out of danger, so you really have no reason not to.

 

[iamnuff]

[X] Explain everything. Purple's out of danger, so you really have no reason not to.

going "yay plains-walker" now would be basically abanondoing our "join a hero team" plot that we have going on here.

 

[Pipeman]

[X] Explain everything. Purple's out of danger, so you really have no reason not to.

 

[nick012000]

[X] Tell him you're from another universe, and you were trying to rescue your universe's version of her but wound up here by accident instead, but you need to go home to rescue your version of her before her captor can harm her further.
-[X] Then Walk home.

 

[Ephemeral_Dreamer]

[X] Tell him you're from another universe, and you were trying to rescue your universe's version of her but wound up here by accident instead, but you need to go home to rescue your version of her before her captor can harm her further.
-[X] Then Walk home.

 

[Pipeman]

Lying to the century old magic user.
I'm sure that will go over well.

If you don't want to explain stuff to him, just leave.
No need to complicate things and give him the time to act when you're not going to be honest with him anyways.

 

[iamnuff]

Lying to the century old magic user.
I'm sure that will go over well.

If you don't want to explain stuff to him, just leave.
No need to complicate things and give him the time to act when you're not going to be honest with him anyways.

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the hell are you talking about?

whos voting to lie?

edit: i'm an idiot.

misread the last half of nick's vote.

then again, he might be right.

depending on how closely this world mirrors our own world.... "our" purple might actually be in the same situation.

 

[Kataphraktos]

[X] Explain everything. Purple's out of danger, so you really have no reason not to.