[LP CYOA] 傳

[Kipeci]

Would the story have been from the first person point of view if we'd gone ox farmer?

 

[treave]

Nope.

 

[Stygian Lurker]

C > B

 

[Baltika9]

On the other hand, using Shouwang claws reveals Jing's best offensive technique which is also Zhang's signature technique. Not only would opponents anticipate his best move, but there is a good chance he would be exposed as Zhang's apprentice. There are a lot of eyes on Yiling, after all.

Exactly, only the spectators that saw us and/or Zhang in action, and besides the Abbess there won't be that many of them because the other sect heads are paying full attention to their students, will be able to start suspecting something about our apprenticeship. And that is good for us for two reasons, one, it starts building up dramatic tension and rumors for our Big Reveal, also giving our claims credibility over all the impostors around here. Honestly, if there are four people running about assaulting and killing people Zhang-style, while we're acting all civil and don't show one bit of what we've learned, our claims won't have as much weight. We need to show something of Zhang's for people to believe us. And we absolutely need to do that if we want our challenges at the schools to be faster and simpler affairs, or to challenge them to an all-on-one, whichever we prefer (read: have the cojones to do). Second, it keeps our sword skills a secret for now, we will need to keep some surprises up our sleeves for the latter stages.
Edit: and it would also discredit their claims, because we're taller and male, they're shorter and lighter, and female.

Also, Jing's unarmed skills are superior to his sword skills.

Uh, yeah it is. Which is even more reason to go with A, you don't train during a tournament, bro, you train before. Right now, our best bet is adapting our biggest advantages over our opponents, she is definitely the superior swordsman here, we are the superior hand-to-hand combatant, A just makes sense. Also, anyone who thinks about developing a sword uber-technique in time for Murong Yandi's duel isn't thinking straight: he was taught by the biggest badass swordsman in China, he is what Zhang is to brutal unarmed combat. No way our measly 4 sword skill will trump him through some Hail-Mary trick, that's just unreal.

treave, is eventually adapting the trick from A to rend metal and break swords possible?
Edit 2: also, are we still disoriented from that palm-strike? Because if we are, that may really impact our chances with C.

 

[Nevill]

On the other hand, using Shouwang claws reveals Jing's best offensive technique which is also Zhang's signature technique. Not only would opponents anticipate his best move, but there is a good chance he would be exposed as Zhang's apprentice. There are a lot of eyes on Yiling, after all.

No. You seem to forget that we will take the advantage of the existing tecnique, yes, but we will do so in a manner it had never been used before. In fact, we will have to invent a completely new move:

You utilize the Shouwang Claws. Instead of using your fingers to rend flesh, you will use it to grasp weapons and wrest them from the enemy. You would have to devise a new form of movement to intercept the Qingcheng Stab successfully, but as the weapon is blunted at least you won’t be losing your fingers if you fail.

The Shouwang Claws are used to rip the flesh off the enemy bones, not to stop swords with bare hands. The crowd won't go "Oh, it's the Southern Maniac's disciple, GRAB HIM!" over a move they had never seen before. None but the most perceptive among the viewers will even make a connection, and those who will notice a certain familiarity will be left with nothing but a lingering suspicion. As treave said, there is a number of techniques that are different in nature, but strive to do the same thing - they can never be sure of what they have just witnessed. It would not be enough to incite the rumors if you only use it once.

You may attract attention due to both your victory over a known fighter and due to the boldness of the move, but it will not automatically expose you.

It is, however, a technique that is most likely to work, as it is one of your most practiced ones. If we want not only to overwhelm Yiling, but not to harm her as well, this is our best choice.

Compare this to C, where you will make use of an advice that the Abbess had given you to clue you in on how to counter a completely different technique than the one Yiling uses, the advice that her students had likely taken to heart long ago. You will try to apply your average swordsmanship skills to make a technique on the spot (zero practice), that is based on the teachings of the one who had trained your opponent. How well do you think it will go? Using a move that we had never seen in action without sufficient skills to make up for it was a dead end in the Songfeng duel. Here the failure wouldn't be nearly as lethal, but it would still be a failure nonetheless.

Kazgar did an excellent breakdown:

A - High chance of winning match, may shock onlookers, reasonable risk of breaking the rules, new skill not much use outside of tournament

C - Small/Medium chance of winning match, low risk of breaking rules, low risk of shocking onlookers, new skill possibly of good use outside of tournament.

Even the C proponents do not count on it winning the match, instead settling for learning a skill that could potentially be of use and forfeiting the fight:

Esquilax I don't recall saying it'd win us the match. All I figure is that if we're coming up with something, it could as well be more useful in a fight than A and less brutal than B.

Why do we need to win the match? Well, for starters, it will allow us to keep an eye on the "-lesser" fighters, as they seemed to have a certain plan in mind when they had entered the finals. Maybe they are trying to win the tournament as well. Being one of the active contestants will grant us more options to interact with them and counter their plots. We can defeat them and force them to drop out, making them seek alternative routes for whatever goal they are after and allowing us additional possibilites to hunt them down. If we could unmask one of them during a fight, all the better. Not to mention that we have our own reasons to make it as far as possible in the tournament.

Therefore, I choose A.

 

[Nevill]

I understand well the narrative lure of C. Standing against a foe that surpasses him in skill, Jing remembers the advice of an old mentor of his at a critical moment, empowering him and allowing him to fight back with a strength of a thousand men. It is a motive often seen in a work of fiction, but how it actually happens in a real fight usually differs from what you find in the books.

You land with both feet on her sword while she is distracted, forcing it from her grasp. With a sweeping backhand you force the nun away, long enough for you to kick up her sword, grab it, and point it at her.

...Of course, after this physics defying escapade I am no longer sure if the wuxian logic corresponds with ours.

choosing A reveals one of Jing's trump cards, and he will need them against Murong Yandi.

I would now like to address the point about Yandi. Our ace against him is not the Shouwang claws - which we'd better not use for a while when we win over Yiling - but our Qinggong and Yuanshi Hundun, namely, our agility and speed. We had already identified it as one of our advantages over him:

For some reason, you can feel your fingers twitching in anticipation. The swordsman is fast, true enough, but you think you might just be a little faster. Pitting your skills against him should teach you some interesting tricks - you are already beginning to wonder how you can overcome his sword energy.

And, no, an earlier post by treave indicates that they won't give your identity away, either.

 

[Tigranes]

I've held steadfast to the idea tttttttttttthat having failed to capitalise on the rumours properly we should kee a low profile and bow out of the tournament soon. The presence of three conspirators, who are of no mean skill and clearly have some pppppplan to use the tournament and not just acttt outside it, potentially changes things. Why would they even enter otherwise?

C is no doubt a prudent option but I agree with the sentiment that A has thhhhhe best chance of winning aand we won't be immediately Zhang Jue'd by everyone present. A>C for now.

Blooody wireless keyboard.

 

[Grimgravy]

C

I'd like to win, but I'm ok with losing this match. I'll take a shot at victory with learning a useful technique. We learn and grow best in difficult situations. I say push the boundaries now in a relatively safe situation. Plus, diversifying with some more swordsmanship will be good in the long run.

 

[Nevill]

How can you learn a useful technique if you fail to apply it successfully? You either win and learn something, or you lose miserably.

Now, are you saying that we can easily win against a girl - who is second only to te previous tournament champion - without exposing a technique we are proficient with, without harming her, and by learning a completely new move on the spot, no less? Do you think we can win on all fronts without sacrificing anything?

Why aren't we the best pugilist of China yet if we are that awesome already?

 

[Kipeci]

Nope.

I can't think of many people who might be around the ox farmer for long other than the wife. Would that have forced you to write from female POV?

 

[Esquilax]

The only notable eyes on Yiling are the Abbess, whom we already have an agreement with. Only the most perceptive of observers who are familiar with the Southern Maniac (and, as mentioned before Abbot Fangzhang and Taoist Zhengchong aren't here) will be able to notice something amiss with our style. Even then, it'll be suspicion, not anything concrete. Look guys, if you want to make your way up the ladder, you have to make peace with the fact that we're going to be noticed more. If you think this is bad, imagine how many eyes are going to be on us if we get to the semi-finals or even the finals. If we want to gain knowledge of our enemies so that we can take advantage of their weaknesses and issue our challenges, we must accept a little bit of spotlight. We can't shy away from it.

I think you might be underestimating the number of people that could know of Zhang's main technique. The Maniac is hardly the most subtle person and there could be many that saw him rip some unfortunate bastard apart. He could be famous for ripping people to pieces with his claws in front of an audience. Using a claw technique now with the rumours of his apprentice participating (and now an actual false-flag attack) could mark us his disciple both to the competitors and to the mysterious attackers.

That's fair. Somebody in the audience might recognize the technique we're using, sure. But at the end of the day, I find that this is an acceptable risk, because I don't want to get kicked out of the preliminary round. Keep in mind that it's not against the rules in this competition for Zhang Jue's apprentice to compete, so even if they do suspect us, they can't do much about it. And as I've already mentioned, these suspicions will be so far off that it'll be long before we start catching a lot of heat because of this.

I'd like to win, but I'm ok with losing this match. I'll take a shot at victory with learning a useful technique. We learn and grow best in difficult situations. I say push the boundaries now in a relatively safe situation. Plus, diversifying with some more swordsmanship will be good in the long run.

Knowledge of our enemies is more important than any one technique. It's good to know techniques, yes, but if you know their weaknesses and they don't know yours, you'll always be victorious. Anything less than that is short-sighted. Besides, if you win the tournament, you'll get a Shaolin technique too (if we decide to take things that far).

Bros, if we lose here, it will fucking suck. We came here to learn about our opposition, and as of now, we only have knowledge of ONE school. Leaving after having only competed with the Emei will make this endeavour nothing less than a big failure in my opinion. Of course we won't be able to spot everyone, but we should make the effort to watch at least three or four schools in action. We'll have an opportunity with the Huashan in the next round, and should we beat Murong Yandi, we might encounter a Shaolin monk or Yifang. Don't blow this opportunity just because of a single fucking sword technique. Knowledge is more important than a single technique, so let's stay focused.

 

[Esquilax]

I can't think of many people who might be around the ox farmer for long other than the wife. Would that have forced you to write from female POV?

Heh, I think you're right - we'd probably be controlling the Ox Farmer through Pu'er. The Ox Farmer would have INT 0, so he wouldn't even be able to make decisions or even understand people. He's barely smarter than a zombie.

 

[ScubaV]

B > A

I don't like the risk of A revealing our identity so soon, but it's definitely better than C which I think has a low chance of success as already DISCUSSed. B seems like a happy medium. Good chance of success, less chance of giving ourselves away.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

C - Remember, our goal is NOT to win the tournament, but to get a leg up on our competition through spying and developing new techniques without revealing our own.

It doesn't matter if this works or not. Even a failure will result in us learning enough to pull it off later.

Btw, B would cripple her, making the nuns even more angry at us.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Voting A.

 

[Baltika9]

Uh, actually, the best way to get info on them is to fight as many of their styles as possible, which means advancing as far as possible. Winning just makes more sense right now, with the WiB and the prize also considered, because that will allow us to win Zhang's challenge easier: instead of having to prove ourselves at every monastery, we can just roll up, throw our street cred out there and get our fights with minimum hassle. The publicity is also good for curbing any more pretenders (seriously, fuck that, I don't want to be taking the falls for the WiBs' bullshit).
Or, y'know, we can always use our victory to taunt them into a fight as well. Really, winning is just a better idea in this situation.

 

[Esquilax]

C - Remember, our goal is NOT to win the tournament, but to get a leg up on our competition through spying and developing new techniques without revealing our own.

It doesn't matter if this works or not. Even a failure will result in us learning enough to pull it off later.

Look, if it doesn't matter and you didn't intend to win this match at the very least, why bet on ourselves in the first fucking place? It makes no sense at all. I say that if we decided to throw money down on Jing winning, we should be consistent with Jing winning. It may or may not be a good idea to continue this into the finals, but right now, we must progress further. It's the only thing that makes sense. I don't want to leave here with only the Emei techniques under my belt - we have Eight Sects to contend with, and I want to dig into their knowledge as much as possible. Dropping off after Murong Yandi I can accept, but dropping off in the initial round is a huge shame.

Uh, actually, the best way to get info on them is to fight as many of their styles as possible, which means advancing as far as possible. Winning just makes more sense right now, with the WiB and the prize also considered, because that will allow us to win Zhang's challenge easier: instead of having to prove ourselves at every monastery, we can just roll up, throw our street cred out there and get our fights with minimum hassle. The publicity is also good for curbing any more pretenders (seriously, fuck that, I don't want to be taking the falls for the WiBs' bullshit).
Or, y'know, we can always use our victory to taunt them into a fight as well. Really, winning is just a better idea in this situation.

Absolutely. We may not want to win the championship itself (we'll see how things play out), but we absolutely must win right now. We laid down money on ourselves, and we ought to be consistent with it. We need to learn more about the Huashan, Shaolin and the others here - failing right now is a big mistake.

 

[Kipeci]

I think C is distressingly close to winning, so I'll modify my vote to B>A.

 

[treave]

ERYFKRAD - C
XenomorphII - C
Ifeex - B>C
Esquilax - A
Azira - C
Zero Credibility - C>B
TOME - B
Smashing Axe - A>C
Kashmir Slippers - C
Jester - C
Kipeci - B>A
Rex Feral - A
Absinthe - C
Stygian Lurker - C>B
Nevill - A
Tigranes - A>C
Grimgravy - C
ScubaV - B>A
Lambchop19 - C
The Brazilian Slaughter - A
m4davis - C

Current tally:

A - 6
B - 4
C - 11

After flops:

A - 8
B - 1
C - 12

Summary of arguments thus far:

Voter opinion is broadly divided into A and C camps.

Supporters of A claim that a sword-snatching technique will be sufficient for victory in the match. As the character is more skilled in unarmed than he is with a sword, they say that it is likelier that A will succeed compared to C. Defending themselves against allegations of A revealing their true identity, they use the argument that it would not be noticed as a technique of their master's due to the modifications made by the character in A.

Supporters of C, on the other hand, are not too confident about its success, but think it will be a better technique than A in the long-run. They say that A's utility against a real weapon would be limited due to the risks involved. Furthermore, with regards to the likelihood of success, C supporters also bring up the character's experience with combating Emei moves as a point in favour of C, while using A may reveal their strongest attacking technique too soon.

There are no arguments for B in general, though arguments against it involve the risk of injury it may cause to the target.

There are - surprisingly - no votes for D despite widespread agreement amongst the voters previously to throw the matches.

 

[Baltika9]

*cough*

treave, is eventually adapting the trick from A to rend metal and break swords possible?
Edit 2: also, are we still disoriented from that palm-strike? Because if we are, that may really impact our chances with C.

 

[treave]

That's more of a function of strength. You don't have enough perception to learn a proper sword breaking technique where you perceive the weak spots and intercept the blade there.

And if you're disoriented it should affect you in all the choices. You won't magically feel worse just because you're holding a sword. Not sure why you're asking this question.

 

[Absinthe]

No. You seem to forget that we will take the advantage of the existing tecnique, yes, but we will do so in a manner it had never been used before. In fact, we will have to invent a completely new move:

The Shouwang Claws are used to rip the flesh off the enemy bones, not to stop swords with bare hands. The crowd won't go "Oh, it's the Southern Maniac's disciple, GRAB HIM!" over a move they had never seen before. None but the most perceptive among the viewers will even make a connection, and those who will notice a certain familiarity will be left with nothing but a lingering suspicion. As treave said, there is a number of techniques that are different in nature, but strive to do the same thing - they can never be sure of what they have just witnessed. It would not be enough to incite the rumors if you only use it once.

You are not devising a new move or creating a new technique. Get that out of your head. You're just trying to use a lethal technique in a nonlethal way. Sure, there's a bit of improv going into it. And if you do it right, a killing technique can be reduced to a disarming technique that can get you killed in a real fight, but the fact that it is Shouwang claws does not change.

People who recognize Shouwang claws won't be thrown off guard that much just because we're using it to disarm. Sure, if we rip someone open, even people who don't know about Shouwang claws will guess he's Zhang Jue's apprentice, but people who know of the technique can still recognize it if you're using it to disarm. Rumor has it Zhang Jue's disciple is participating, so they're probably going to look for anything that looks like Zhang Jue's moves. This is still Zhang Jue's signature move, and Zhang Jue being the kind of unsubtle man he is, you can bet there will be people, especially among the pugilistic community, which loves to learn about martial arts and the Five Great Pugilists, who will recognize it for what it is.

Also, just because Shouwang claws is Jing's specialty does not mean it's a good idea to use a barehanded technique against one of the best sword fighters in the tournament. Not unless we are using some kind of agility boost. Not only that, but you are using Shouwang claws against Yiling. Yiling is from Emei. Emei has fought against Jing and I'm pretty sure all of Emei knows about you, since you have their sword, and lets not forget Jing has already used Shouwang claws against Yifang. It's possible that Yiling, as a fighter entering a tournament when Emei already knows you are entering, might actually have knowledge of this technique, which will make it harder to execute this.

You may attract attention due to both your victory over a known fighter and due to the boldness of the move, but it will not automatically expose you.

We're already in the Martial Arts Competition proper and we're up against Yiling, who is one of the favorites to win. The idea that there will be skilled individuals checking out her fight is far from unreasonable.

It is, however, a technique that is most likely to work, as it is one of your most practiced ones. If we want not only to overwhelm Yiling, but not to harm her as well, this is our best choice.

For all you know, your flesh-ripping move is going to rip the skin off her hands. Jing tried using Chuzhan Fist non-lethally and wound up killing a man by accident. The idea that he could injure Yiling with his most lethal technique is not exactly farfetched. If this happens, Jing will not only out himself but also be disqualified from the competition and mire himself into a lot of trouble.

Compare this to C, where you will make use of an advice that the Abbess had given you to clue you in on how to counter a completely different technique than the one Yiling uses, the advice that her students had likely taken to heart long ago. You will try to apply your average swordsmanship skills to make a technique on the spot (zero practice), that is based on the teachings of the one who had trained your opponent. How well do you think it will go? Using a move that we had never seen in action without sufficient skills to make up for it was a dead end in the Songfeng duel. Here the failure wouldn't be nearly as lethal, but it would still be a failure nonetheless.

Actually, in the Songfeng duel, he devised a counter based on 1 night's worth of study against the Songfeng school's first step. That won him the match. Here, he would devise a counter based on his considerably greater experience against Emei, when he has just watched Yifang fight with Cao'er to get a better grasp on Yiling's techniques, and he has just gotten a feel for Yiling's fighting style. Treave said it takes 7 Per and 7 Int to be able to come up with a counter in the middle of a fight with no prior experience or knowledge. Jing has 6 Per and 7 Int and a rather large amount of prior experience and knowledge against the Emei. Don't forget that 5 represents above average. Our guy is smart and observant enough to do this, and Yiling is hasty enough to leave an opening for us to use. There is a very good chance C will work without causing any problems.

Even the C proponents do not count on it winning the match, instead settling for learning a skill that could potentially be of use and forfeiting the fight:

Whether it wins or loses, we'd say Jing comes out ahead, but I'd say C has a rather good chance of winning.

Why do we need to win the match? Well, for starters, it will allow us to keep an eye on the "-lesser" fighters, as they seemed to have a certain plan in mind when they had entered the finals. Maybe they are trying to win the tournament as well. Being one of the active contestants will grant us more options to interact with them and counter their plots.

Actually if you lose here you can spend the next matches observing the mysterious trio instead of being drawn into researching and preparing your own fights. Murong Yandi only needs to lose for the tournament, not for Zhang's requirement.

We can defeat them and force them to drop out, making them seek alternative routes for whatever goal they are after and allowing us additional possibilites to hunt them down. If we could unmask one of them during a fight, all the better. Not to mention that we have our own reasons to make it as far as possible in the tournament.

1. It's not even confirmed they are the same trio.
2. Stopping them from winning the tournament (if they would win - they don't seem to be the most skilled fighters here) might not even do anything to them, since I doubt they particularly need to win the tournament.

 

[ScubaV]

Despite what we thought earlier, I think winning or at least getting far in the tournament is in our best interests at this point.

1. The farther we go, the more we can learn about the Eight Sects' techniques.
2. The more we fight, the more experience we get (a la creating a technique variation as in this choice)
3. If we beat one or more of the Sects' best fighters we can reveal ourselves at the end to cash in credit towards fulfilling Zhang's quest.
4. The better we do, the easier it will be to directly challenge other Sect fighters without having to work our way through their crappy fighters and give them time to study us (this one was directly mentioned by treave).

If, as most people seem to agree, C has a low chance of success then it would erase all these potential benefits. I urge you C voters to flop.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

C - Remember, our goal is NOT to win the tournament, but to get a leg up on our competition through spying and developing new techniques without revealing our own.

It doesn't matter if this works or not. Even a failure will result in us learning enough to pull it off later.

Look, if it doesn't matter and you didn't intend to win this match at the very least, why bet on ourselves in the first fucking place?

Seriously? The bet is your concern? I bet on Jing because I'm an optimist and because I didn't want to throw the match. I still think we can win using C, but it is a whole lot more necessary that we don't reveal our technique - and that we try to learn this new one - than to win a stupid bet for the pittance Jing is carrying (unless he did something retarded like bet his sword). Who cares if Jing has to sleep outside a night or two, if it means it provides us with a long term advantage in Zhang's challenge? Don't let the risk of a minor loss of money make you go all in for no reason.

We have to keep our priorities straight, bros.

BTW, A is NOT a guaranteed win in my book. We aren't using the technique as it's meant to be used and she'll be expecting us to try for the blade again as we've already tried it once. So it's possible A will reveal our technique AND cause us to loose the match.

There are - surprisingly - no votes for D despite widespread agreement amongst the voters previously to throw the matches.

treave, throwing the matches is useless to us because we haven't revealed ourselves. The Man Tiger Pig persona and the fact we pretended to be a merchant's son revealed too much of our cunning and therefor nixed the plan of making ourselves look the fool in order to catch our competitors off guard.

We can still learn about our opponents from fighting and watching the matches though, so it's not a wash yet. We just need to make certain we don't ever reveal ourselves as Tiger Pig Man (whatever) or as the merchants son. Otherwise they'll know a bit of what to expect when we come after them and be on guard. (And using one of Zhang's signature techniques would definately reveal us. Not to everyone, but given how quickly gossip seems to spread, all it takes is one person with sharp eye to sink us.)

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

I don't like A because it involves us trying to catch a blade with our hands. Even if it is blunted, we might get our fingers broken, or worse, and that would cripple us for a long time. treave even mentions the possible repercussions of failure in the choice.

I like C because the technique seems a bit more useful in a real fight against sharp swords, and because I think that fighting with a sword is a safer bet than fighting with our hands. It is not like the difference between our two abilities is so ridiculously uneven that using our hands would be better automatically and make up for our lack of reach and parrying ability.