Tentative test CYOA thread

[David Lewis]

So I’m pretty active on the r/makeyourchoice cyoa sub and the QQ boards cyoa thread, and thought I might as well post one of my more recent ones here as a test case to see if people are interested.

CYOA in this context is only tangentially related to the awesome old books by Steve Jackson et all though, the ones on these subs/pages are kind of like quiz/character builders that people make, speculate on and occasionally write fiction around if they feel inspired. It’s kind of an obscure sub-genre/culture… not that that’s exactly rare on the internet (especially the nerdier parts), but I digress. 

Here’s my latest one (7 in a series) based around music and inspired by DW in a roundabout way. 

What choices would you make with these options? 

[classicdrogn]

Hmmm... I'd almost go for 2-6-7-9-13-15 and call the build "Ninja Crystal Dragon Jesus," but if you're going to do something...



First off, I did a CYOA too, a couple years back, though I never made big images for it, just text and the bare minimum of illustrations. So there's an extra option from that.

Seconds Count v1.14

Seconds Count CYOA v1.14

Nose deep in the internets, you barely notice a shivery feeling like a cool breeze or a piece of sheer fabric brushing over you aside from an idle and quickly forgotten thought to adjust the thermostat, but the way your connection drops just seconds later is far more annoying. No amount of cursing or switching the modem off and back on restores service though, and something annoyingly loud is happening outside to piss you off even more...

...until abruptly, it's INSIDE, as a dark haired teen girl crashes through the wall and literally falls into your lap amid a cloud of plaster dust and chunks of debris. It's not as fun as it might sound, since she's wearing a few bits of armor over a colorful costume and lands with bruising force. Fortunately nothing seems broken, but after shaking off the daze of the impact she stares up at you with a shocked expression.

"Wha... what are you doing here? The ward should have excluded everyone without powers!" she shouts. Before you have time to come up with a reaction to this, she wriggles out of your lap to sit on the floor and fumbles a ring off of each hand, then hurriedly passes them to you. They're simple bands of stainless steel decorated with black enamel highlighting the symbols of Mars and Venus, or possibly male and female. "Quick, put these on and kiss one to activate them, you won't last a minute without an active power and transforming your body!"



Which ring will you use?

* Mars: The power of the rings hits you like an electric shock, but your reaction is drowned out by the surging feeling of strength that follows. Looking down at yourself, you find you now have the body of a young man just entering his physical prime. Your clothes have also changed into a snugly fitting body suit similar to what the girl is wearing under her (rather scant) armor.

* Venus: The power of the rings wraps around you like stepping into a hot bath, but your reaction is drowned out by the surging feeling of strength that follows. Looking down at yourself, you find you now have the body of a young woman just entering her physical prime. Your clothes have also changed into a snugly fitting body suit similar to what the girl is wearing under her (rather scant) armor.

* Dither and ask questions: The shadowy, glowing-eyed wolf-thing that leaps through the hole in the wall kills you with a single swipe of its paw. BAD END.


Hearing a growl from the new hole in your wall, you look up to see the shadowy outline of a huge wolf, its eyes burning with hateful red fire.

What power has awakened within you?

* Chi: Before you even realize what you're doing you're on your feet, while the girl scrambles out of the way on the floor with a squawk. With a nimble grace you'd never have imagined possessing before, you sway out of the path of its swipes and bite, before lashing out with a single punch that smashes its head and leaves only scattering patches of dark energy behind as it disintegrates. Your basic ability is Energized Body - Improved health, resilience, speed, and strength.

* Magic: A pale, glowing sphere of energy about the size of a grapefruit rises out of your chest, and you have the strangest sensation of seeing your own face as even as you look down at it. Both viewpoints whip back to the wolf-thing as it growls again and crouches, then the ball zips forward and flattens into a disc just in time to intercept its pounce and shove it back into the hole. The disc folds umbrella-style into a cone and then a blade as the thing jumps back up to its feet, and launches forward in a slash that splits the monster in half. Only scattering patches of dark energy are left behind as it disintegrates. Your basic ability is Familiar - A glowing orb you can see from, which can become a shield or a blade.

* Psychic: Your mind is amazingly clear for being in such a shocking situation, with a huge demonic wolf-thing growling at you through a hole in your wall. And yet, even with a perfected body, what can you do against a monster like that? "Stay there," you think urgently at it. "Don't attack, don't attack, don't attack, just sit there and leave us alone..." Unexpectedly, its eyes dim and it sinks back onto its haunches like a docile house pet. The girl who landed on you climbs to her feet and gives you an impressed nod before holding out one palm and blasting it with a glowing bullet. You almost feel like you could do something of the sort yourself, as the monster disintegrates into wisps of dark energy. Your basic ability is Telepathy - Communication, mind reading, and the ability to give commands.


"Wow, nice work for a total rookie," she says. "I'm Cerulean, but there's no time for proper introductions right now; there's a lot more of those Shadow Wolves and their master is still outside." Touching a hand to her temple, she continues in a distracted voice that seems to echo in your head somehow, "Verte, Carmine, you've mastered your tokens, right? Hurry over to me while Jetta and Citrine hold him for a minute, I need you to help finish setting up a newbie whose dormant power left 'em inside the ward."

Turning her full attention back to you, Cerulean asks, "While they're on the way, where do you see yourself in a fight?"

* Assault: Getting in their face and attacking until one of you falls. Carmine gives you her arrowhead pendant to wear when she arrives.

* Defense: Intercepting and disrupting their attacks until you wear them down. Cerulean gives you her shield pendant to wear when her friends arrive.

* Support: Helping your allies and attacking indirectly or at range. Verte gives you her teardrop pendant to wear when she arrives.



Feeling a bit silly, you nonetheless wear the pendant you were given while the three young women hold hands in a circle around you, glowing auras forming around them and mixing together before flowing into you through the pendant charm that you're holding to your forehead. As it does, your mind fills with skills and techniques for how you can use the power that's now thrumming through your body. It's a confusing rush that'll take some time and a lot of practice to properly master, but you're confident that you could do the basics right now.

Considering that there are apparently still several more monsters and their boss running around, that's probably a good thing, though you're not at all eager to risk facing more of them alone. It seems you'll need to stick with these strange girls, at least for a little longer.

Your archetype is now:

Chi powers:
Assault: Warrior - Massive speed and strength, flight, close-in energy attacks
Defense: Guardian - Massive health and resilience, flash step w/afterimages, presence/emotion sense
Support: Alchemist - Create potions and medicines, exorcism, command lightning

Magic powers:
Assault: Elementalist - Walk the path of explosions with me! (fire/air/water/etc. control)
Defense: Witch - Directly heal, buff/debuff, counterspells, knockdown and stun-bolt attacks
Support: Sorcerer - Area effects to trap or hinder enemies, summons, HoTs & DoTs

Psychic powers:
Assault: Biokinetic - Rapid healing and shapeshifting, not so rapid used on others
Defense: Telekinetic - Invisible extra hands, mind bullets, shields, and levitation
Support: Clairvoyant - Precog, remote viewing, dowsing/finding, and teleportation (including offensive uses)

"Whew, that was more difficult than I expected. Anyway, while you'll need the rings and pendant for now to access the gender-change and archtype abilities, once you put in the practice to master them the items will no longer be necessary, and you'll be able to use weaker forms of all the abilities for your power source. You can even train the rest up too, if you put the time in. The basic ability and peak performance body are permanent, though!" Cerulean explains, with a perhaps inappropriate amount of cheer for someone telling you that your entire life has been changed and your body transformed to the point people will barely recognize you, if at all.

"Okay, we'll split into pairs from here. Rookie, you're with -

* Carmine."
Class: Warrior
Personality: Energetic and a bit hot headed, Carmine acts like a tomboy most of the time but has a softer side in private. She's a surprisingly good cook.
Likes: Cute things, trashy romance novels, action movies
Dislikes: Rap music, smokers, bland food

* Citrine."
Class: Witch
Personality: Spoiled and a little bossy, but cares deeply for her friends. Comes from a rich family. Organized and good at maths.
Likes: Sweets, fashion, classic rock and roll
Dislikes: Pushy guys, paparazzi, being alone

* Jetta."
Class: Sorcerer
Personality: A very reliable person, Jetta will always keep a promise and never tell someone else's secret. Gets embarrassed by public shows of affection.
Likes: Video games, hentai, fantasy and sci-fi novels
Dislikes: too-girly things, citrus fruits, pets that shed hair

* Verte."
Class: Alchemist
Personality: Shy and quiet, but often listens to heavy metal with her headphones. An excellent shot with pistols and rifles. Can utterly shred on an electric guitar.
Likes: Science, gardening, target shooting
Dislikes: Being photographed, earbuds, meaningless conversation

* me." (Cerulean)
Class: Telekinetic
Personality: Friendly and outgoing, has a way of taking charge without being obnoxious. Can only make the simplest foods without disaster.
Likes: Sewing and cosplay, small dogs, cooking shows
Dislikes: Liars, coffee, morning people


The enemy is a powerful Sorcerer whose favorite trick seems to be animated shadow monsters, of which the wolves are a minor example trading combat strength for sheer numbers and tracking ability. How you fight him is up to you, though your partner and the other girls will do their best as well.

The addition of your new powers seems to be decisive. Where the girls were only holding their ground before the group now rolls up the Shadow Wolves easily before taking down their master. Your partner does have to get you out of a pinch a couple times, but as your first super-powered battle you think that's a decent performance, and you have a chance to return the favor by the time it's all over.

"You did well out there, Rookie," Cerulean compliments you. "These guys have been appearing a lot lately, so we could really use your help if you're willing to join our team."

Your partner from the battle gives you a sideways look and adds, "I know I'm in favor of making it a more... lasting arrangement."

What will you do now? Who is the big bad? What do they want? How will you stop them?

(As an option, any or all of them could be using the gender-swap power of the rings to have a female superheroing form for secret identity purposes, if you'd rather have a bro than a dudette for your companion/fighting partner. The mini-bios are just suggestions and may certainly be modified to fit the story you want to tell.)

Q: "What if I want to be a tech-type like Iron Man?"
A: Clairvoyant is probably the best pick there, as the Psychic group has the best mental boosts to actually figure out the comic book supertech with, the active powers are useful for finding information or rare materials and getting them, and technological blasters or whatever would give you additional combat options beyond telefrags and forced splinching, which are both rather nasty for a heroic character to use. Super-invention is not explicitly included in any of the options, but all of them can be applied in ways to make it viable. Sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology!

Q: “Shouldn't Biokinetic and Telekinetic be the other way around?”
A: Nearly all of the archetypes can be developed to fit any of the combat roles, with a bit of creative interpretation. I left them vague for that very reason, as I really hate strict character class systems. That's also why you can train up the other two archetypes' abilities for your power source after gaining access to them by mastering your original set. Note: "Mastering" in this case means "able to use them without the token," not "you have nothing more to learn." You can give the token away to a new rookie at this point without losing anything.

Second, I'm adding two new options, because CYOAs are a writing prompt, not holy writ.

Now, there's quite a few different possibilities for a song related to this one, some only assosciated with the concept by fan videos even, but I choose

edited:
DLC-01 - Sum of All


-Puscifer-

Together We'll Cross the River

With a word and a gesture a group or groups (fixed at the time of choosing the option, barring plot developments written as part of an actual story) of between two and six of you and your allies can combine into or summon a more powerful, and usually larger, gestalt form. If you don't have any (or enough for the chosen group size) companions from other options, you instead gain a set of accessory items - rings, bracelets, belt buckles, or something similar - that can be given to friends you make after the fact. These can be lost or taken away, but will always find their way back to you or the ally you gave them to within days at most, usually only a few hours. Each member of the group will gain some unusual ability such as control of a (philosophical) element or the like, which while not particularly strong can be trained to have considerable versatility and precision of application, and the combined form will have all of them with all the precision the members have trained and much greater strength. It's up to you if the group physically combines or just summons the gestalt being.

DLC02 - Instruments of Destruction can be found a few posts down


Together with that... Hmm. Still going tp go with the ninja set, that is 11-13-15 (Gravity, The Invisible Man, and Strike of the Ninja) but the last three slots go to #4 (Tomorrow,) #5 (I Think I'm a Clone Now,) and #14 (Deep Fried Frenz)

edit: with Sum of All split, drop Tomorrow in favor of DLC02 to take advantage of the companion upgrade and (after reading A Clone Now's description again - not an intended exploit, but awesome in the long term so I'll take it) effectively infinite lifespan, along with the ability to rebuild into new bodies/alternate modes with only a small investment of time and materials if not at will.

Transformers G2 comics' Decepticon Empire, ho!

[Norgarth]

question about the write up for Werewolves of London; are extinct animals valid choices? not sure if it should be read as 'choose a real but non-extinct creature' or 'choose a real creature, even if it's extinct'

[David Lewis]

question about the write up for Werewolves of London; are extinct animals valid choices?  not sure if it should be read as 'choose a real but non-extinct creature' or 'choose a real creature, even if it's extinct'

Yeah, I phrased that poorly. No mythical animals (that’s what the other two are for) and no extinct ones (mainly to avoid dinosaur shenanigans)

[classicdrogn]

Oh, I forgot - other music recs:

Tomorrow by Nestor ft Samantha Fox
Bad Things by Summer Kennedy
Where the Wild Roses Grow by Nick Cage and the Bad Seeds
We Got the Moves by Electric (formerly Eskimo) Callboy
Bad Idea by The Devil Makes Three
Paint My Face by TDM3
Not Like the Other Girls by The Rasmus
Don't Wanna Stop by Ozzy Osbourne
Scary Little Green Men by Ozzy
Sorry, I'm Not Dead by Dead Posey
Strange Days by The Struts ft Robbie Williams
Army of One by Fozzy
I Still Burn by Fozzy

That last one really needs a post-RWBY-s3 Yang AMV. Anyway, that's some highlights from my current playlist.

edit: And on further consideration, yeah my new option should be split into something else for robot transformation, and Sum of All just for combining, since they're separate tropes and I only associate the song with TFs due to the game trailer, while I only added combination after being reminded by listening to the song.

Since it doesn't match the rest of the concept I'd drop Tomorrow for ... I guess Instruments of Destruction. Band: N.R.G., quote "The dust of all creation, to ashes we transform." Most of the current Sum of All write-up goes in there and something new fills out the one line about combining. It's not as iconic of the movie as The Touch or Dare, but those are generic "believe in yourself" hero songs, while Instruments of Destruction plays as the Decepticons are being being stompy war machines smashing their way though a shuttle full of Autobots like a wrecking ball through a building block castle of childish innocence. SO many wailing kids during that scene, only exceeded by the death of Optimus Prime.

[classicdrogn]

Sum of All has been edited in my first post, above.

DLC02 - Instruments of Destruction

- N.R.G. -

The Dust of All Creation, to Ashes We Transform

In just a flash you can change from your usual (and still fully functional) organic-appearing body to an armored power suit or a giant, robotic combat form which can also transform into some kind of vehicle or gadget, possibly more than one. Any companions you may have from other options also gain this ability. As a bonus, your lifespans will run to the billions of years before feeling any physical decline barring accidents or damage, and a factory-fresh body is only ever a rebuild away. You can also remotely interface with most data systems unless they have seriously beyond-cutting-edge security, and pick up new languages as fast as you can record or download a representative sample of vocabulary. You or at least one companion will be given a starter set of tools and all the knowledge you need to repair, maintain, or replace your robotic bodies and equipment.

[classicdrogn]

I don't have a song to suggest for it, but the ability to access L-Space ala the Discworld books would be cool, and there's a notable lack of dimensional travel among the current list unless you count "interdimensional" as a suitable magic "element."

[David Lewis]

Hmm. I like the idea of having a ‘turn into a transformer’ form power for my next one, but I like my CYOAs to be either low-powered, magical realism, or both. Is there a song that could let you design/switch into a transformer form, without all the extended tech-god singularity stuff in it?

[classicdrogn]

What part are you seeing as a tech-god singularity? (I mean, my build intentionally goes there in combination with the other choices, but on its own?) You could swap in auto-repair/regeneration for knowing how to fix yourselves and drop the companion upgrade, but super-hacking is both a very common robot trope and canon to both G1 and bayformers, as is easily surmounting language barriers. The companion upgrade I added because the "immortality is a curse, everyone you love dies in a blink" trope is old, overdone, and not that interesting to begin with.

Effective immortality is also indisputably canon; basically the whole G1 cast except the Dinobots and a couple of combiner teams were either crashed onboard the Ark or chillin' off in space somewhere for five million years and treated it as no more significant than a short and unofficial cease-fire in the ongoing war when the leaders' groups did turn up again. Alpha Trion was present for the rebellion against the Quintessons and still has a body that hasn't been refit since before the invention of transformation, and he's pretty spry aside from having a sharp beard and mustache. Omega Supreme as one of the Guardians built to keep the slave-bots in line is at least on par and probably even older than that, to an unknown degree.

On the bayformer side The Fallen as Unicron's minion has to have been around since before the Earth formed if Uni is buried inside it, as implied in the post-credits scene from The Last Knight and definitely canon to at least TF:Animated and Prime IIRC. You could maybe drop it from "billions of years without a refit" to "tens of millions" but on a storytelling time scale there's usually no real difference after (at most) a few thousand.

The "change in a flash" bit I based on the Pretenders for the sake of easy interaction with human-scale characters. At least the Autobots had a fully human disguise mode but could switch to their toys' actual shells as power armor, and then do a burst-of-lights thing from there to the (IRL much smaller, but cartoon magic) robot mode. The first fifteen seconds or so of this video show it off, being a no-crdits version of the opening sequence of Super God Masterforce. (which refers to the Godmasters, aka Powermasters in Western markets, not Pretenders.) The Decepticon Pretenders only ever used their monster "shells" or full robots as far as I remember, but presumably could have gone full-human or at least full-biological if they wanted to and/or weren't Stupid Evil kid show villains.

No need for a different song with the tweaking, unless you just don't like the one I used. Making it fit the CYOA's style better for inclusion is always fair game, and I can't think of any other songs that particularly reference transforming even as tangentially as Instruments of Destruction. Made of Metal by Dream Evil is... not very good, but not too bad, and clearly meant to be about music rather than robots, but I guess it could sort of work? Unless you use one of the literal show theme songs (or one of The Cybertronic Spree's original songs) that's about as close as anything is likely to get.


edit: To be clear, I'm explaining my logic, not arguing for why my interpretation is the only correct way to do it. Like I said above, adjusting the scale and power of my suggestions to make it fit with what you want in your story or CYOA prompt is always fair game.

[David Lewis]

No shade intended, boss.

I’ll devote some time to analysing these suggestions later in the week, to see how/if they’ll fit into any follow up.

For now, any other suggestions for this or any other power from anybody would be appreciated

(And yes, I know we have a sub for that, but I don’t feel like going through hundreds of pages for ideas - what are your own favourite suggestions?)

Also here’s a previous one I made in a different series


https://imgur.com/gallery/A2zvgdO

[David Lewis]

Okay, here’s a tentative version of a Transformers power I might put in my next one. I chose a different song mainly due to the lyrics.

I also nerfed it significantly, primarily due to scaling the power level to the rest of the series.


Electric Eye - Judas Priest - I’m Made Of Metal, My Circuits Gleam
So there’s this weird season of Transformers  that isn’t well remembered, about a group of humans who can puppet some soulless transformer bodies, effectively allowing them to become transformers without putting their own flesh at risk. You wanna do the same? A basic rundown. You can effective mentally project your consciousness into an inanimate object, vehicle or appliance (No living things, this isn’t Beast Wars). Whilst your spirit inhabits the creation, it magically becomes a transformer under your control. You can pick the aesthetics and any weapon (WITHIN REASON, you’re not getting a nuke launcher as a toaster. Or ever, actually.) And control it as if it was your actual body. During this your real body is in a state of sleep (and quite vulnerable if you’re not careful.) The bonus to this is that no damage or harm you will filter into your real body whilst you’re in a transformed state, but not vice-versa. You’re also limited to inhabiting forms no more then five times your own size dimensions - but not weight. I’m not gonna lie, this one is potentially powerful, but very dangerous.

[classicdrogn]

Cool beans. Kind of blends in some Karas, with the part where it abandons the original body to project into a transforming super-power form, but if you've ever seen Karas you'll know why I don't have any objections to the idea. If you haven't seen Karas, you've missed out on some really awesome action sequences.



This barely even shows a few flashes of them, but the full versions are too good to spoil by just watching clips without context. It's only six episodes and one of my top picks of all time despite normally disliking supernatural horror and detective stories separately let alone combined, so seriously, check it out.

[David Lewis]

Cool beans. Kind of blends in some Karas, with the part where it abandons the original body to project into a transforming super-power form, but if you've ever seen Karas you'll know why I don't have any objections to the idea. If you haven't seen Karas, you've missed out on some really awesome action sequences.



This barely even shows a few flashes of them, but the full versions are too good to spoil by just watching clips without context. It's only six episodes and one of my top picks of all time despite normally disliking supernatural horror and detective stories separately let alone combined, so seriously, check it out.

I may or may not own the DvD and ED song

[David Lewis]

A few more power ideas for my next CYOA, any thoughts from anybody?

One In A Billion - Wake Up May’N - Fusion! Mix! So Wonderful!
You are given ownership of a supernatural restaurant. It is only open for one day a week, and resides in a very small pocket dimension of your control. People can enter it via a magically appearing door that can appear anywhere in the world, mostly in front of people who are in need of the food or camaraderie of the place (although you can make magic keys to hand out to people if you want). You can design the layout and aesthetics of both the dimension and the restaurant (be it mundane like a modern industrial cafe with a cityscape surrounding, or a fantasy style tavern floating in the clouds). It is by default staffed with a small but competent roster of employees, who are paid and taken care of automatically (also things like contracts and HR are done by a manager with your input). You will always gain at least $5000 a month profit (adjusted for inflation) simply for being the owner. If you get directly involved, be it as a chef, waiter, manager etc, you can increase both your control over the magic of the restaurant, and more importantly its profit - perhaps significantly. And needless to say, any guests you bring always eat and drink the excellent food for free.

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This - Eurythmics - Who Am I To Disagree?
You gain a couple of little gifts from this one, boss. One, you gain control over your own sleep schedule, making you able to fall asleep at will or hold it off for days with no drawbacks. Just not indefinitely, it’ll come back and hit you all at once if you’re not careful. It also ensures your sleep is always restful and more importantly refreshing, no matter the circumstances. Ever gone for a nap and woke up feeling worse than before? Not with this. Stuck behind a screaming infant on a long-haul low price flight where you’re shoved in an uncomfortable chair like a sardine? It’ll be as good a rest as if you were in a perfectly made xxxl bed with a ten-thousand plus priced mattress and sheets. You also gain lucid dreaming in your sleep, allowing you to consciously control your dreams. The most potent though, is that you can access the dreams of other people. Influence their dreams, soothe their nightmares (or intensify them), make their dreams melancholic, lewd, action-filled, whatever. Whilst it’s not outright mind control, you’d be surprised how much you can influence a person’s personality via this method - albeit over time. You must be in relatively close proximity to them to influence a person’s dreams - let’s call it a 100ft radius.

[classicdrogn]

Hm... a couple more one liners (edit: AHAHAHAHahahah...) based on the music I linked above -- a little more restrained than my previous additions, but the ability to entertain on a moment's notice has a lot of value for politicking as well as simple celebrating, and I already talked about the virtues of precog, even in minimal forms.

We Got The Moves (Electric Callboy): You know those commercials where someone pops open a container of Product X and confetti flies, music and a light show starts up, and an instant party breaks out? You can totally do that, with the sound system and appropriate lighting magically provided (along with a DJ if you'd rather participate than officiate,) though you'll need to have food and drinks already on hand if you want those. You also gain a thorough, up-to-the-minute knowledge of dance styles and party etiquette, and the necessary grace to pull them off flawlessly. The equipment is only temporary, lasting XX_DURATION (a few hours? Just one is a little short) but the confetti and any other mess is cleaned up at the same time. Messes you or your guests make after that, well, those are up to you, and you can only summon them up once a day. I can only spare so much time to hang out, you know?

Bad Idea (The Devil Makes Three): basically a passive/sensory or reversed version of The Gambler, where instead of changing probabilities you get a feeling about whether a particular action you're thinking about will lead to a good or bad result. The exact nature and means by which that result comes about will vary, but the hunch itself will never lead you wrong with some time - not a lot, but enough to notice the pause in conversation if you stop talking to think - to mull it over. The feeling gets stronger the closer and more extreme the results, though its utility will be limited in combat without years of practice due to how fast the situation can change with or without your input. Casinos and other forms of gambling won't refuse to serve you, but taking advantage of them will always read as a bad idea, given how much you have to work and believably, intentionally lose to avoid drawing the wrong kind of attention.


Honestly, I was just recommending music for the sake of it, rather than as power songs specifically, but there's three or four of them that could probably be some kind of "Don't die even if you're killed" or similar never give up type effect, and Paint My Face feels like it should have some positive combat effect on allies, or maybe just blood relatives.


edit: Wait, no, it should be some kind of dynastic reincarnation th8ing, like the classic issekai insertion where the MC is a blend of the current host's childhood and the perspective of gradually regained past memories, but inheriited alonig the family line every two or three generations (or after the previous version dies, anyway) rather than in an actual different world, aside from possibly the first time as part of the story set up.



Possibly Bad Things could let the player avoid mental trauma for doing nasty stuff they've decided is necessary (or experiencing it?) Inviting a bit of a bobsled ride there, let alone a slippery slope, but maybe throw in a moral compass as well, as in a literal trinket of some kind that gives an indication of overall standing by the terms you yourself would hold others to? At least it would help avoid being a hypocritical monster. Or just provide the Moral Compass, to tell good thoughts from bad thoughts, and most critically tell the ones that only later will you realize were not what your feelings were telling you in the moment - it is quite similar to what I wrote for Bad Idea above, but in moral terms rather than focused on the practical so I'd still call them different enough to be worth including both.

Power song recs I usually put at lleast an effect category of and the title in the subject of the Game Everyone Loves To Play subforum when I post them, so mine at least should be easy to spot on a quick skim there.

[David Lewis]

Okay, I’m definitely yoinking that top one. Will pursue the rest after work.

[classicdrogn]

Hehe

A quote for that one: "'Cause we're addicted to the groove, oh yeah, let's do it again!" Or just "OH FUCK YEAH, LET'S DO IT AGAIN!" which are the first-verse version I quote when YouTube keeps popping it up in my recs list

[David Lewis]

Here we go.

[classicdrogn]

They put a bowl cut on the horse! Your argument is inval-- I mean, that's hilarious! Anyway, glad I could help.

edit: I dunno about sci-fi not working as atheme, though - I mean, look at any decent sized (pre-COVID) comics con, or their video for Spaceman. Or Nanowar of Steel's Uranus, or 2cellos' for The Show Must Go On. Okay, maybe not that one so much as in being party-like, but certainly sci-fi ... well, there's a fair number.

[David Lewis]

That’s fair, I meant more like sci-fi costumes and props would be okay, but actual lasers and hover boards wouldn’t be summoned. The guys on r/makeyourchoice will try and gain omnipotence from any inch you give them.

[classicdrogn]

... okay, fair point, though the one who added summoning themed guests was you (I was also thinking something like four hours a day, but a full 24 synergizes with the restaurant or home owner items better, so no complaints. Also, throwing regular parties to get the free cleanup is the best housekeeping plan ever )

I'd venture to guess that's why you made Electric Eye a matter of possessing and animating an existing device as well?

[David Lewis]

Oh hell yes it was. I had a 30-post back and forth with a bloke over the exact word-for-word and mathematical specifics of a pocket dimension power, and at the end he just said ‘eh, I’ll pass’.

Granted part of the point of CYOAs is to try and make good builds, but some of the guys over there can take it, shall we say, to extremes.

[classicdrogn]

As you can probably tell, I see them less as a game to be won and more idea generators for (nominally) a story to be told (or at least imagined as an outline, realistically speaking) with rules exactly as binding as I care to make them, but then I do tend to look at things from a storytelling perspective more than in character most of the time. In that kind of situation as a (nominal) writer I wouldn't bother asking, just tell the story as I like it -- though I wouldn't rule out a story about a normally-Benevolent ROB who has to smack a bitch for trying to lawyer and loophole their way into being ridiculously OP, either.

I keep thinking that would be an interesting theme for a CYOA itself, actually, but drawing a blank on how to set it up. I mean, lorewise it's simple, the player is the newly ascended rookie god (probably of the "Pick three other CYOAs or 5000pts of Jumpchain benefits to build your character, then get ready to be thrown in the deep end" type) so the senior ROBs dump a bunch of problem cases on them, but how to actually quantify that, even to levels sufficient to call it a writing prompt rather than a resource allocation game?

[David Lewis]

So a guy on r/makeyourchoice just gave me an excellent example of the degree of scrutiny we’ve been discussing. Let me post verbatim a response he requested for a list of questions he gave me.



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CYOAs don’t have to have been posted here to count, no.

… I hadn’t considered that you could use One In A Billion to get to other worlds, since the one in the base CYOA is locked to this one. If you get planes walking another way I’d say it would work, but at base level, no dice.

Our House would combine with One In A Billion, yes.

… I suppose One In A Million could link to these worlds yes, but only after you’d already traveled to them via VKTRS once (well done on busting the limit within a few options!) It also wouldn’t work by default, you’d have to explicitly allow it with your powers.
No getting things from other worlds via your demense or making more demense land in them - at least from VKTRS, any other dimension hopping you do/get might work. Using Turn To Stone to replicate things from other worlds…. Yes, WITHIN REASON. Remember the limits built in to the power.

Addict would have mild-to-moderate anime logic/toonforce applications, albeit often in ways you don’t expect - but that make you look good.

1. Yes, within reason. A guy who trains for a decathlon won’t turn into Goku for example.
2. …. It’s kind of on a case by case basis? It’d take a geologist to be very specific, but let’s just say… if a bystander would call it stone or crystal, it’d probably be fine. But likewise if a bystander calls it metal, no dice. Sorry I can’t be more specific, but again, geologist.
3. Anything portrayed as a moving story/film on a screen is fair game. In the replica world example, it would fall under the ‘tech/magic doesn’t work’ rules and not be effective, the knowledge you learned super-fast would fade instantly when you left. Any advancements you make wouldn’t carry over, as they would count as being in the movie world, and thus trigger the ‘nothing but memories’ rule. If you hypothetically went into a movie world and slowly designed new technology EXACTLY as you would in this world, with NO supernatural help or aid from ANYBODY within, then yes it would still work. But under those circumstances, why did you need to go into the movie world in the first place?
4. Base level power is just this world, there’s one loophole described above.
5. Hard no to pretty much all of these. If you had built in scanners or extra senses you could use them, but no nano machine shenanigans, or replicating tech or taking computer knowledge out. And no ‘I’m a transformer who can make more transformers’, won’t work.
6. I don’t think you could use this corrosion to forgive bodily need completely, but you could probably surpress/reuse them for a while before the loop died out and you were left with nothing. It only works on sentient beings to a minor extent, with extreme practice and effort you could maybe take a year or two off a person once, but that’s it.
7. ….. I lean towards no, you’d have to be more personally involved in killing a being for Godhunter to work, a missile you shot would just be a missile, not a supernatural god killing missile. I know bullets are explicitly allowed, but that’s different - for one thing you still need to be able to see a being to hit them with a bullet, and that’s not necessary with a missile as long as you know there general direction.

Thanks for all the questions!


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You see my point?

[classicdrogn]

I certainly do, I'm just saying that my response would be "It's your story, tell it the way you want. If being too OP makes it hard to build dramatic tension, you'll know exactly who to complain to." (Or "my story"/"I'll know," from the other end.)

And if they later think the person to complain to is me, I can just repeat the first sentence