Cloud is Dead (Final Fantasy VII CYOA)

[Esquilax]

Go "Tactical Genius"!

 

[Cassidy]

Proposal for character's portrait:

 

[oscar]

A shame scholar won. Guess tactical genius makes more sense with this build.

 

[Nevill]

How come Cold-Blooded Butterfly hasn't won yet?

Oh, and the poll did not allow me to pick a second level of Social Butterfly. So I am 1 vote short.

I hope to god there aren't any more ties.

 

[Baltika9]

Go "Tactical Genius"!

Need one more Mercenary vote.

 

[Random]

Oh, and the poll did not allow me to pick a second level of Social Butterfly. So I am 1 vote short.

Noted.

 

[Baltika9]

And I have the same problem with Mercenary, being restricted to one vote. So I suppose they're tied again.

 

[Random]

Well unless two or three dudes double vote for student, it's clear that Social Butterfly and Mercenary are the two skill packages that are gonna win.

 

[Baltika9]

So long as it allows us to CREEEED! and be a generally gentleman of fortune, I have nothing against that.

 

[Random]

So long as it allows us to CREEEED! and be a generally gentleman of fortune, I have nothing against that.

Bluffing, stealth, and so on do make for good CREEEED! material. Though I should mention that academics covers research as well as general encyclopedic knowledge, and that includes knowledge of various enemies, their weaknesses, and so on, which, along with observation, helps a lot when using Tactical Genius. Then again, if you want to be technical, no skills are essential other than the basic soldiering ones, the skill packages are there to fulfill two purposes:

A) flesh out the player character's past, and
B) give the player character a set of skills that he can use to surmount challenges

And of course, there will be opportunities throughout play to obtain more skills, and using skills long enough will upgrade them to the next level.

 

[Random]

The results are in. Out of approximately eighteen voters, the winning character model is:

Class:
Scholar

Skill Packages:
Mercenary and Social Butterfly

Inner Nature:
Tactical Genius

Name:
Shepard (WTF are you guys doing)

Updating now.

 

[Anabanana]

Shepard? Really. Really.

 

[Random]

Prologue Part 3

You dry yourself off with some paper towels, and pull out a cigarette, intending to take the edge off and relax a little. The employee restroom has a pretty great air filtering system, so anyone can smoke in it without leaving an obnoxious cloud of secondhand smoke floating around. You raise your lighter and click it a few times, trying to get a flame, but it seems strangely uncooperative today. The sparks fly out, but no flame starts. Five or six hopeless attempts in, the sound of loud screams reaches your ears. You almost dismiss it as a child not getting his way before the sound of loud and rapid gunfire echoes into the restroom. It doesn't sound like the distinctive, low, and heavy rhythm of the standard issue service rifles you and the other guards are carrying. It is firing far too quickly for that. It sounds almost like a heavy machine gun, or a high power minigun. Almost moments after that began, you hear the rifles of your co-workers answer in kind, but they are being drowned out by the unknown weapon.

You immediately put the lighter away and pull your helmet back on. Just as you start to move towards the restroom door, hoping to find out what the situation is, a line of bullets traces along it, smashing through the polished wooden surface. You freeze in place and see the holes appear one-by-one, and suddenly you realize you're on the ground, gasping for air helplessly. A quick glance down at your chest shows your cracked body armor, but it looks like the anti-ballistic fibers underneath the trauma plates were able to prevent the bullets from piercing your body and guaranteeing death. Not that it prevented the tremendous pain that feels like you got hit by a truck. You try to lift yourself off of the ground and notice a sharp, piercing flash of pain jolt through your gut. You're no stranger to broken bones, and you can feel that at least one of your ribs is cracked, or maybe outright broken. It is going to be hard to move around for a few weeks. But you have no time to rest and recover. There is an attacker in the building; maybe those infamous terrorists have come back again and their target is the seat of the corporation this time.

Mustering some of your impressive ability to resist pain, you slowly climb to your feet. You realize that with a broken rib, you won't be moving nearly quickly enough to engage in a real firefight, especially if the enemy has some kind of god@#$% gatling gun out there. As you grit your teeth to focus on moving, biting through the cigarette in your mouth in the process, you notice that two of your comrades' rifles aren't firing anymore. It must be going poorly, then. You walk to the door, and prudently, you peer through one of the large bullet holes in the wood to see what exactly is happening outside. From the looks of things, half of the guards on the second floor have already bought it. If that's true, then most of the guards on the first floor are probably already dead. The remaining ones that you can see are hiding behind cover and occasionally popping out to fire a burst before returning to their hiding place to avoid the roaming hail of bullets. It looks like some kind of sick game of whack-a-mole, but the hole is too small to see much besides that.

You try to glance through all six of the other holes in the wood, but none of them are any better. All you can see through them is the dire state of some guards. You can at least assume based on where your comrades are firing that the enemy is still on the first floor. However, it's clear that without leaving the restroom, you won't be able to find out what's really going on. Of course, doing so could be a death sentence for you, considering your wound and the lack of cover nearby the restroom door. Your feelings and thoughts are in turmoil.

What do you do?

Choices:
A) Go out there and go for cover immediately
B) Go out there and go to help some of your wounded comrades immediately
C) Go out there and try to talk the enemy down
D) [Tactical Genius] Carry the large metal trash can in the bathroom out there as portable cover. Break a piece of the mirror in the restroom off to peek around your cover with, allowing you to get a full understanding of the situation with the minimum risk.
E) [Tactical Genius?] Run out there carrying the trash can as cover and leap off of the second floor onto the first floor to distract the enemy, then toss the trash can at them for victory!
F) Stay in the bathroom; it's not worth risking your life
G) Stay in the bathroom; you should try to wait and see before you do anything hasty
H) Stay in the bathroom; you really need to take a dump right now

Character Sheet

Spoiler

Name: T. E. Shepard
Class: Scholar
Profession: Military Police
Age: 25
Inner Nature: Tactical Genius
Status: Light Wounds (broken rib, no internal bleeding)

Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 4
Tenacity 7 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Bluff Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Athletics Lvl. 1, Discipline Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Charm Lvl. 1, Persuade Lvl. 1, Drug Use Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1

Inventory: Peacekeeping Corps. Light Combat Armor, SM20-A2 Assault Rifle, SM2 Service Pistol, Nightstick, three magazines of 7.62x39mm, two clips of 9mm, ID Card, Lighter, Package of Cigarettes, Energy Bar, Portable Handheld System, Wallet

 

[Elfberserker]

D)

 

[Kipeci]

E! The word 'victory' is in the choice, so it must be right!

 

[Baltika9]

D. Time for Taktikul Jinyas.

 

[Nevill]

It isn't that I want to tell you how to conduct your own LP, but why tag the choices? That almost ensures that no others will be picked. Why would we choose our Skills and Inner Nature if not to play the character according to them?

Oh, and E. Because a tagged choice is a superior choice. The question mark here is the icing on the cake - if we ourselves do not understand the reason behind our actions fully, then surely our enemies shall be even more confounded. We can't miss such a chance to disrupt their plans.

 

[Random]

It isn't that I want to tell you how to conduct your own LP, but why tag the choices? That almost ensures that no others will be picked. Why would we choose our Skills and Inner Nature if not to play the character according to them?

Oh, and E. Because a tagged choice is a superior choice. The question mark here is the icing on the cake - if we ourselves do not understand the reason behind our actions fully, then surely our enemies shall be even more confounded. We can't miss such a chance to disrupt their plans.

Since this is only the prologue, I wanted to make things easy for now. This wasn't a particularly complicated or controversial decision to make by any means, and honestly I think those two options would be chosen anyways even without the tag since they're much more in depth (they're a plan, not a mere action). That will likely change in the future as decisions grow in complexity and difficulty.

That, and I wanted to make it clear which options exist thanks to your Inner Nature (so that you know your choices have consequences!). If True Grit had been chosen, for example, then there would be an option to make a suicidal advance (like option E but without the trash can for cover). If Heroic Impulse had been chosen, there would be a more in-depth variation on option B. Cold Blooded would allow you to grab a civilian to use as cover, and so on. I do understand your point, though. I will remove the Inner Nature tags from now on. Instead, I'll just use skill tags for choices that would rely on a particular skill for your convenience.

 

[Nevill]

You hear that, guys? E is not suicidal! Come on, don't be popamole wusses that hide behind cover. Face the danger like a man with a plan that you are!

Instead, I'll just use skill tags for choices that would rely on a particular skill for your convenience.

If you do that, please let us fail skill checks. Else it will end up just another superior option, much like the paragon/renegade choices in a game that shall not be named.

 

[Anabanana]

I vote H. We don't need constipation on top of having a broken rib.

 

[Random]

Prologue Part 4

You resolve yourself to do something insane and reckless, bolstered by the knowledge that such a thing may just be the thing to turn this battle around. Reinforcements would undoubtedly be coming soon, so even if you got hurt it would be fine as long as you distracted the enemy for a bit to buy time. You leave your assault rifle and the clips for it laying on the restroom counter. Where you're going, you won't need it. You pick up the heavy garbage can, holding it out in front of you for protection before uttering a proud roar, kicking the door open, and charging out into the foyer. It only takes a second for the stream of bullets to flow towards you, but a few seconds is all that you need. A few stray bullets ricochet off of the solid metal sides of the can. One blasts right into your right arm, and you suppress the desire to scream in pain, pushing forward. In an instant, you're already at the railing, and you dive over it, on your way down to the first floor.

Unfortunately, the weight of the garbage can causes you to lose your balance as you leap, and you accidentally fall into a forwards spiral as you go down. With grim inevitability, you hit the ground head first, cracking your helmet and dropping the garbage can. But that's not the real problem. You just fell a whole story and landed head first. All of your own weight crushed and snapped your neck. You are dying. With your vision gone, you are unable to see the person who walks up to you with heavy foot falls, cussing like a sailor with a deep bass voice. He kicks your helmet off of you, presses the barrel of his gun arm into your forehead, and fires once to kill you without any doubt. You are dead, having failed to accomplish anything at all.

GAME OVER



Afterword

Well, I'm disappointed. I can't believe you guys chose the one choice that clearly threw away your greatest strength and did something extremely stupid and reckless when the character you built was not meant for doing something like that. Choices and consequences. This must be a new record for getting a game over on a CYOA, not even finishing the prologue. Maybe that decision wasn't easy enough.

I'm feeling a bit lenient today. Since this happened so early, I'll let you guys create a new character and we can pick up where we left off. However, this time I'm invoking easy mode: you have access to all of the Inner Natures and can utilize them at will. Hopefully you'll be a bit more careful this time. For chargen, you guys have two options: go with the second place choices for class and skill packages from the first chargen (Ranger w/ Medic and Student), or you can just go through the whole process again with the Scholar class disabled (to avoid creating the same character as before). It's up to you guys.

 

[Nevill]

Maybe that decision wasn't easy enough.

It was crystal clear that E would lead to death. The wording was too awesome not to try it. And I kind of wondered if you would really kill us or fire a warning shot first.

Oh, and you have about 10 people playing this, but updated only once 5 people voted. This sample size is too small (and thus non-representative) to base the decision on. That factored heavily in our demise. A pair of troll votes and one flop should not affect the game, or there would be no consistency to the character's actions.

All right, I promise to behave myself this time and refrain from the obvious trolling votes. Honest. Just don't go easy mode on us. Please.

 

[Random]

It was crystal clear that E would lead to death. The wording was too awesome not to try it. And I kind of wondered if you would really kill us or fire a warning shot first.

Oh, and you have about 10 people playing this, but updated only once 5 people voted. This sample size is too small (and thus non-representative) to base the decision on. That factored heavily in our demise. A pair of troll votes and one flop should not affect the game, or there would be no consistency to the character's actions.

All right, I promise to behave myself this time and refrain from the obvious trolling votes. Honest.

I'll try to wait for around 10 votes per decision from now on, or put down explicit time limits (since my schedule's pretty wonky), thanks for the tip.

The silver lining to all of this is that it allowed me to make it clear that failure is possible and your choices hold weight.

 

[Anabanana]

This outcome only reinforces my determination to maintain a proper pooping schedule at all times.

 

[Nevill]

This outcome only reinforces my determination to maintain a proper pooping schedule at all times.

That was my initial plan, honest. But how would you elicit people to flop to that? Not enough XTREME.