[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

[lifeaftr_mods]

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.



Those who tell their stories will start to notice something...odd taking place. Indeed, no matter how they intend to begin their tale, the land of Mu will immediately start to warp to accommodate it, or something utterly unlike it, until storytellers and listeners alike may find themselves in an exact recreation of a seemingly random memory, in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play - you will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

---

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story...with a slight twist! This is, in fact, our first player plot, as provided by Dragon! The initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams.

Yet for this Storytelling only, people can imagine whatever stories they wish, from both their homes and their time on LifeAftr, as long as they don't mind the fact that others will be reliving those stories in the form of an impromptu memory share.

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. If the memory is recalled in essence, Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

There is, however, a benefit to this: those who venture memories to be relived will receive both a befuddled apology from the Storyteller, who will assert that this was most definitely not meant to happen (they're the Storyteller, not the Rememberer!), as well as a tired promise that the relived memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation.

Not that it counts for much, probably.

Comments

[shineinside]

"A 'roll'... you mean, like a roll of a die, or something?" There's something strange about all this.

[greatcleavage]

"Yes, that's right." Roy had come to learn that most people didn't understand the general underlying rules of reality, so the question wasn't so insane as it once might have been to him. "Dice are generally the primary adjudicator of randomness."

[shineinside]

"Is that just how things work in your world? Whenever anyone tries to do something, some sort of abstract dice roll happens to determine what happens?"

This sounds bizarre, but it's also sort of fascinating.

[greatcleavage]

Roy arched an eyebrow. Maybe this was a good opportunity for a teaching lesson.

"How does it work anywhere else?"

[shineinside]

"That's, uh..."

This is a surprisingly hard question to answer. She takes a second to gather her thoughts.

"I guess... nothing is really entirely 'random', so there isn't anything like a die roll. If I tried to throw a punch, whether or not I hit would just depend on the angle of the punch, the speed, my footing, my condition, the other person's reaction speed, the atmosphere..."

Or does it actually get random when you reach the level of subatomic particles? Her science classes hadn't gone this deep.

"...When there's enough factors, it can seem random, but the outcome is always the exact result of the actions taken and the conditions surrounding them."

[greatcleavage]

Roy spread his hands slightly. "When you have so many factors as to be functionally infinite and literally unknowable, to the extent that knowing them would alter them, what's the difference between that and randomness?"

[shineinside]

"That's, uh..."

That's actually a good point. It made sense in her head, but maybe life IS just a series of dice rolls when you get down to it.

"...maybe it's not that different. If I was understanding what I saw in that memory, though, it seemed like everyone knew what dice were being rolled, and what numbers were affecting them. We don't get that kind of insight into anything."

[greatcleavage]

"Just because you haven't learned it doesn't mean you don't have it. After all, when you try to hit someone, you generally have an idea of whether or not you succeeded, and how lucky you were in the doing, don't you?"

[shineinside]

"I... this is more complicated than I thought. Maybe it's just a cultural difference..."

Does... DOES she have attack and damage modifiers? If she fought Roy, could they calculate them out?

"If I was fighting a monster, I wouldn't think about it in terms of attack bonuses or damage rolls. I'd just think, I'm fairly strong but not as strong as Kyouko, if I hit it here or there, I might be able to cause this kind of damage to that part of its body... then, if it works, then the damage might restrict what it can do to fight back, or it might not work and then I'll have to find a different way to attack."

[greatcleavage]

"And that's a perfectly valid way to think of it," Roy said. It was a very straight-laced way of thinking about it as well, and certainly not good for any rules jokes, but that was neither here nor there. "But is knowing you are generally stronger than one person or weaker than another meaningfully different from recognizing you have a +2 Strength modifier? Is estimating your best chance to strike and deal damage, an ability that increases as you gain experience, really functionally different than saying your base attack bonus increases as you advance in level?"

[shineinside]

"...I guess it isn't, when you put it that way... just a little harder to quantify." This conversation went in a very different direction than she expected it to.

"What does it mean to have +2 Strength? How's it different from +1?"

[greatcleavage]

"It's the point at which your Strength score has gone up to 14 from 13," Roy said, simply enough. "You have a better chance to hit through an enemy's defense, will deal somewhat more damage, and are that much better at skills like climbing or jumping."

[shineinside]

"Wait, maybe that's a difference! Where I'm from, there's no big milestones of strength or skill where you suddenly become more capable like that. It's gradual and incremental, getting a tiny bit better each day as long as you keep practicing hard."

[greatcleavage]

Roy nodded to acknowledge her statement, though he had also been prepared for it. "By what scale?"

[shineinside]

"What do you mean by that?"

[greatcleavage]

"You can't have a literally curved progression. So what scale are you using to determine improvement in this case?"

[shineinside]

"Well, for example, your best time at running a specific distance, or how many kilograms you can lift? For something like fighting ability, it's a lot more abstract, since all you could really measure it by is what kind of opponents you win or lose against."

[greatcleavage]

"So what's the difference between what I said and what you said? If with time and effort you improve your light encumbrance level from 58 pounds to 66 pounds, isn't that just effectively describing an increase in Strength score from 13 to 14, using a second-order effect rather than the primary mechanic?"

[shineinside]

"So... wait." Wait. She almost had this figured out for a minute. "Can you perform certain acts of strength because your strength is X, or is your strength X because you can perform those acts of strength? Wait, is there even a difference between those...?"

[greatcleavage]

"If you missed your foe because you rolled a 2, is it different from saying that a thousand variables, known and unknown, made you miss?" Roy said, building on that question. "They're abstractions, but in the end, they're the rules that govern us... acknowledged or not."

[shineinside]

"...I guess it's not. Maybe it's just a different way of looking at the same thing..." Roy's perspective was strange, but increasingly difficult to push back against.

"If your strength modifier is +2, does that mean that your attacks all do +2 damage?"

[greatcleavage]

Roy knew the rules. It was weird for other people NOT to know the rules, but that didn't make them inapplicable, right? "Not quite so simply. For example, crossbows and bows don't benefit, obviously, though a composite bow can be built with a higher draw strength to put more power into an arrow. For another, two-handed weapons have the necessary leverage and mass to derive greater benefits.""

[shineinside]

At this point, she had gone from confusion to curiosity. Weird as Roy's world seemed, it was really interesting.

"So there's strength, intelligence... how many 'scores' are there? What's your Strength?" The questions may slow down eventually.

[greatcleavage]

"Six different ones. We don't ordinarily discuss the numbers specifically, but..."

Roy glanced around, then leaned in slightly, the back of his hand bracketing his mouth to keep his voice for her alone. "If I said I was as strong as a frost giant with my belt on, and frost giants are known to have a Strength of 29, that might help."

[shineinside]

Yuka didn't know what a frost giant was, exactly, but it painted a picture of some pretty incredible strength. Where would that put her own strength? 20, 25? It's hard to guess without a proper frame of reference.

"Maybe that's why my enhance ability affected you so much. It seems to make Kyouko about twice as strong, so maybe it increased your Strength to a 58?" More likely, from a +9 to a +18 modifier.