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Exploration CYOA


Kathy

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Re: Exploration CYOA

C (aka B3)- Strip down on the spot and head back with a scale. Jellyfish were never that active to begin with and mostly like to grab at prey that already dives into them. As long as we aren't retarded, it should be easy to move back and forth through them many times.

If our clothes are being this much of a hindrance, then let's lose them finally and take advantage of the jellyfish's inactivity.

I want to get our ropes out once we get to the entrance though, set a scale down, and retrieve more. If we can tie them together and carry back 3 or 4 instead of just one, that would make this trip very worthwhile.
 
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Diagasvesle

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Re: Exploration CYOA

B3- Strip down on the spot and head back with a scale. Jellyfish were never that active to begin with and mostly like to grab at prey that already dives into them. As long as we aren't retarded, it should be easy to move back and forth through them many times.

If our clothes are being this much of a hindrance, then let's lose them finally and take advantage of the jellyfish's inactivity.

I want to get our ropes out once we get to the entrance though, set a scale down, and retrieve more. If we can tie them together and carry back 3 or 4 instead of just one, that would make this trip very worthwhile.
Nudity makes you stronger on this planet! *Snort*

But yah, kath's arguement sounds far more liking to mine eyes then DeMatt's with the wall. Walls can scuff the clothes you know :O
 

Kathy

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Re: Exploration CYOA

Nudity makes you stronger on this planet! *Snort*

But yah, kath's arguement sounds far more liking to mine eyes then DeMatt's with the wall. Walls can scuff the clothes you know :O
I personally think the nudity is stupid, but if we're really being so bogged down by having clothes on, then we need any benefit we can muster to get those scales out of the water. Once we're out, we can dry off as we start dragging the scales home, and get dressed somewhere along the way.
 

Tassadar

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Re: Exploration CYOA

C (aka B3)- Strip down on the spot and head back with a scale. Jellyfish were never that active to begin with and mostly like to grab at prey that already dives into them. As long as we aren't retarded, it should be easy to move back and forth through them many times.

If our clothes are being this much of a hindrance, then let's lose them finally and take advantage of the jellyfish's inactivity.

I want to get our ropes out once we get to the entrance though, set a scale down, and retrieve more. If we can tie them together and carry back 3 or 4 instead of just one, that would make this trip very worthwhile.
This.
 
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Alias

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Re: Exploration CYOA

[Some OOC stuff before I update.]
The reason I'm emphasizing the weight of our clothes is because you're getting a -4 to all rolls that involve Heavy activity (remember, there are three types, light, medium, and heavy). Have you ever tried to swim underwater, fully clothed? It's hard enough just to swim, not to mention trying to avoid hungry jellyfish tentacles. Let me reiterate that swimming with clothes on gives you a -4 penalty to all heavy activities, while going naked gives +2 stress, I posted this a while back but some folks might not have read it or have forgotten. A Heavy activity would involve something like, say, escaping a jelly's grasp or even avoiding a sudden movement of a tentacle, because of the hampering clothes. We're also getting penalized for carrying a big unwieldly scale.

As a side note, to the person saying jellyfish weren't likely to rape us... what forum are we on? A forum dedicated to persons sharing an interest in tentacle rape. What do jellyfish have? Tentacles. Think about that for a sec =P

Anyway, since there have been no dissenting votes, I'm going to go ahead and go with Kathy's suggestion to strip and try to sneak past with the scale. As for your idea of going back multiple times, that was actually going to be part of my next vote. I didn't think of roping several together with the line from the grappling hook, that's a good idea. Let me tell you how I was planning on having this work, however:

The wurm is huge, but it's still alive, and we're effectively yanking off pieces of its hide. Each time we do this, we have an opportunity for a Game Over - if the wurm wakes up, the dungeon will completely collapse. Each scale we rip off has a greater likelihood of waking it up. It's not going to be a very high likelihood, but the chance is there; it's up to you to decide if you want to take the risk or go home safe with the treasure we already have.

The other thing you'll have to take into consideration for the next vote is that the scales are quite heavy. We won't have a problem dragging three or four at a time underwater (aside from the risk of jellyfish rapeage), but once we get back on land, all that weight is going to catch up to us. We have no gold to hire any sort of help, even if you felt comfortable leaving our treasure here while we fetched a caravan or some such assistance. I've decided the maximum we can carry ourselves would be five.

With that in mind, if you're tuning in before I edit this post with the textual update, you might want to think about how many scales we want to risk pulling off (or if we want to go back at all), and whether or not we want to just kill the jellyfish before we go back down to fetch them, since more scales will penalize our ability to move even further than the one we're carrying now.
 

Kathy

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Re: Exploration CYOA

Just to sum everything up: Jellyfish are fairly passive creatures usually, they wait for something to swim into them, not the other way around. Though they will happily attack once they have something.

Clothes drop and swim makes the most sense in this regard now. Avoiding the jellyfish should still be fairly easy.

As for jellyfish tentacle rape... Ouch. Very ouch. Jellyfish tentacles sting. Badly. Our girl may not recover for weeks if that happens.

Beyond that. Don't actually RIP scales off. Scales of this kind, especially older ones, should easily be able to just be wiggled off. If any of them give us difficulty, don't toy with it. If it doesn't fall off almost on it's own with a bit of casual rubbing (the kind of thing the monster would do on it's own if it shifted in it's sleep at all), then don't mess with it anymore.

Other than that... this dungeon seems almost painfully small. We either missed something, or the rumors we heard were vastly exaggerated. Unless there's more dungeon past this monster?

(p.s.: I think 3-4 scales is still a good count to stop at, but test if we can take more (SAFELY) and try to store them someplace nearby. So they're hidden, but easy to recover again. If we end up with a lot of scales, we can always hire a few people to carry stuff and return here later for the rest.)
 

DeMatt

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Re: Exploration CYOA

Hmmm... naah, I'll stick with my existing vote - continue wearing clothes to protect against accidental stings, and sneak through. Grab just the one scale, for now.

I think Kathy's getting greedy - just how much is one of these scales worth, anyways? The scale's almost as tall as our heroine, so you could probably make a tower shield out of it, or several smaller pieces of armour. Or something similarly large.
 
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Alias

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Re: Exploration CYOA

She decided that her clothes were getting too much in the way for her liking, especially in the relatively tight quarters of the tunnel with three jellies. Setting the enormous scale down in the mucky tunnel floor, she fumbled with her clothes, eventually succeeding in pulling them off and deciding it wasn't worth opening her pack to put them in, especially since she had a spare set already in there. Leaving them in the tunnel, she shivered a bit as she felt the last bit of modesty-shielding cloth slip free, her face going red in slight embarrassment.

[Stress +2]

Hefting the scale once more and inhaling deeply through the mask, she swam to the top of the tunnel, keeping the scale on her underside, using it like a shield in case a jellyfish got too friendly.

It turned out that by blocking her vision in such a way, she failed to notice a jelly coming from below her until it was too late, apparently attracted by the movements in the water. She froze, her eyes widening in the murky light, cursing herself for being so careless. Its tentacles grazed against the shieldlike scale, one even wrapping around her wrist momentarily before withdrawing. It apparently decided she wasn't prey and swam off after a couple minutes of inspection.

She breathed a huge mental sigh of relief as it retreated, her nerves still amped up on adrenaline from the near miss. Being extra cautious as she moved past the remaining creatures, she made it to the other side of the tunnel without incident.

[OOC note:]
Wow, that was a close one. For those interested, that was the result of a tie roll.

Surfacing in the cave's entry-like open space, she laboriously dragged the scale up into the air, naked flesh gleaming in the pale light provided by the algae and now the pendant that shone around her neck. She gazed down into the pool, thinking to herself - that wurm had had more than just this scale, and even though she would be getting quite a chunk of gold for this one, it might be worth her while to go back and fetch some more.

She hesitated as she thought of that jellyfish tentacle sliding against her arm, stingers loaded with paralytics to enfeeble its prey. She was confident that she could navigate the tunnel, and avoid them fairly easily, but what if one of them snuck up on her blindspot again? She knew she wouldn't be as agile dragging the bulky scales back.

This doubt warred with her supreme confidence as an adventurer. She knew she could make many trips without anything happening to her, but the freak-accident nature of that encounter had shaken her somewhat.

If she did decide to return to the cave with the serpent, she would have to decide how many scales to take from it. She knew from the way it had been moving ever-so-slightly against the tunnel walls that it was still alive, and that ripping off its scales was a good way to wake it and get herself killed. A creature that size could easily tear apart the entire cavern and probably cause some sort of localized natural disaster if she managed to provoke it. She estimated from the weight of this one that she could carry a total of five scales back to town on her own... but was she confident enough to take four more from the hide of the beast?

In any case, she had to make a decision.


Choice 1:
A: Dry off, put on some clothes, and return to town with the scale we have.
B: Attempt to retrieve more scales for a bigger payoff. This means dealing with the jellyfish again and possibly a very large angry sea wurm.

If you voted B, amend your vote with the following options:

(B) Choice 1:
How to deal with the jellyfish:
A: Continue to sneak past to the best of our ability.
B: Attempt to kill them once and for all.
---A1: Attempt to "hook" one of them with our grappling tines and drag it closer for a kill. Possibly buys us some time before the other two reach us.
---A2: Attempt to "assassinate" one of them by slowly sneaking up on it and piercing its core with our sword, hopefully killing it before it alerts the others with its death throes.
---A3: Other; post your ideas of combat here.

(B) Choice 2:
How many scales to attempt to recover:
-- Just put a number 1-4.

[OOC Note:]
I will be rolling a die for each scale we attempt to take. Each successive attempt is going to have a higher number to beat. If the number I get when I roll is too close to the required value (for example rolling a 6 when the number to beat is a 5), I'll stop the rolling and make a voting post asking if we'd like to continue.

(B) Choice 3:
How to transport the scales back to the surface:
A: One by one. Offers us slightly more mobility and the option to use the scale we have in our possession as a shield or even a clumsy offensive weapon.
B: All at once, roping them together with the line from our grappling hook. Disables use of the hook and hampers our mobility considerably, seeing as we basically have to drag these things along with us in an uneven stack... but will reduce two or four trips down to one.
C: Other; post your ideas of transport here.




Stress: 3
Breasts: 15%
Equipment:
Amulet of Light (equipped), Grappling Hook, Breath Mask (equipped), Short Sword, Spare Clothes x1
Treasure:
Shimmering Azure Wurmscale
 

DeMatt

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Re: Exploration CYOA

*grumble* So we traded a temporary (until she got out of the water and dried off) -4 to our rolls, for a permanent (until she leaves this dungeon and rests up) -2... not what I had in mind. Oh well, not my vote.

I say, let's be cautious and go with A - she dries off, redresses and heads home with the one scale. If we're really desperate, I'm sure we can return to this dungeon later - it'll only cost 30g to make the return trip.

D'you think visiting Seth and letting him know Evym is at best beyond the wurm, would be a good idea?
 
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Alias

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Re: Exploration CYOA

You might benefit from reading the new rules. Stress doesn't effect us until it gets to 5 now. Check the first post.
 

Diagasvesle

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Re: Exploration CYOA

Kazam!

My votes and arguments. Hope you enjoyed the kazam.
Choice 1: Time to make cash at a lizards expense!
B - This character needs money. Mulah, cash, the goods, the slippery stack, she needs it. Scales like these are possibly hard to come by, unless these sleeping creatures are a common occurence, in which case I will feel duped.

Choice 1: Jelly-Fish Problem
A - Continue to sneak and ignore them, why bother with dealing with combat which, considering jelly-fish are highly dangerous creatures or assuming they are in this situation, Any weapons in water are slow and are doubtful to be able to penetrate even a jelly-fish, more likely to just push against it at fast in a spearing attempt.. Now if shallow water then yes, combat would be easy and nice, but swimming oh definitely not.

Choice 2: Scales versus Weight
4 - Lets go for the major haul of scales.. Like earlier in kathy's post, kathy suggested to pull off scales already naturally falling off and ignoring the scales hard to pull off the wurm. Assuming that their are scales like that.

Choice 3: The transportation Fiasco!
C - Lets see if Alias, and the character (Forgot her name or does she even have one? I don't know.) can rope the scales on herself, making a body armor of sorts using the grappling hook line rope thing whatever as holding it all together... Makes it vulnerable if they, I.E. an enemy attacks and severs the rope, but with 5 scales (hopefully) this will make some nice crude armor, mobility restricting, but nice armor.

I have said my piece, hope you find my arguments good to bandwagon onto.
 
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OAMP

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Re: Exploration CYOA

A, same reasoning as above. We can come back and farm later if this turns out to be profitable.
 

Archer

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Re: Exploration CYOA

I choose A.

 

slpowerhouse

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Re: Exploration CYOA

I'm going to have to go with A for my vote as well, I want to see how much the scales are worth before trying to get more of them.
 

Kathy

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Re: Exploration CYOA

Kazam!

My votes and arguments. Hope you enjoyed the kazam.
Choice 1: Time to make cash at a lizards expense!
B - This character needs money. Mulah, cash, the goods, the slippery stack, she needs it. Scales like these are possibly hard to come by, unless these sleeping creatures are a common occurence, in which case I will feel duped.

Choice 1: Jelly-Fish Problem
A - Continue to sneak and ignore them, why bother with dealing with combat which, considering jelly-fish are highly dangerous creatures or assuming they are in this situation, Any weapons in water are slow and are doubtful to be able to penetrate even a jelly-fish, more likely to just push against it at fast in a spearing attempt.. Now if shallow water then yes, combat would be easy and nice, but swimming oh definitely not.

Choice 2: Scales versus Weight
4 - Lets go for the major haul of scales.. Like earlier in kathy's post, kathy suggested to pull off scales already naturally falling off and ignoring the scales hard to pull off the wurm. Assuming that their are scales like that.

Choice 3: The transportation Fiasco!
C - Lets see if Alias, and the character (Forgot her name or does she even have one? I don't know.) can rope the scales on herself, making a body armor of sorts using the grappling hook line rope thing whatever as holding it all together... Makes it vulnerable if they, I.E. an enemy attacks and severs the rope, but with 5 scales (hopefully) this will make some nice crude armor, mobility restricting, but nice armor.

I have said my piece, hope you find my arguments good to bandwagon onto.
This.

Except for one thing to note: You apparently misread my comment about the living wurm rubbing against the cavern.

My implied suggestion was that scales will rub off naturally over time, and instead of simply yanking them off like some asshole that wants to be murdered by a large angry beast, she should rub against any of the exposed scales to see how loose they are.

The creature will feel as if it's just part of the cave wall, same as ever, and it will allow us to take as many scales as we possibly can with zero threat to us. ... As to how many scales that will be, I don't know. If we're unlucky, then maybe none (in which case, I vote to NOT take ANY scales), but if we're lucky, and the thing is perhaps ready to shed a lot of scales, we could even gently rub a bunch off, leaving us a cache to return to and pick up later on.


This is not greed, it's called being smart. We want money, but we don't want to just sit there hacking at a living creature that could easily crush us.

... You know, for an 'experienced adventurer', our girl sure is stupid sometimes.
 

Archer

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Re: Exploration CYOA

The scales are probably the "big haul" of the swamps for now, the wyrm might move later and let us explore further but for now lets go home, cash in the scale and head to the mountains or the desert for more payoffs with less risks. It's entirely luck based whether it wakes up or not and it appears to be an -instant game over- if we piss this thing off, or close to one. I'm not getting suckered by the casino trick of going double or nothing until you get nothing.
 
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Alias

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Re: Exploration CYOA

You guys should probably consider this project officially on hiatus until after Christmas. I'll do my best to sneak in an update here and there, but unfortunately working a retail job during the holiday season is just brutal on what little creative output I might have regularly. Typically when I get home lately I'm either with my girlfriend or just trying to grab some shuteye as fast as I can.
 

Termite

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Re: Exploration CYOA

Alias, as a former retail worker I completely sympathize with your plight. I wish you the best of luck and pray the holidays don't completely kick your ass.
 
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