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Caidin posted:Okay no I get the joke, the deiform essentially wants to be the referee of Erf world. Ok now I want it to succeed.
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Jun 7, 2017 17:54
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Onmi posted:...god drat mother fucker. In turn though he found out that Portals are infinite juice. I think I'm missing the reference.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:02
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Caidin posted:I think I'm missing the reference. GM means Game Master. Getting access to infinite juice would let the Deiform stabilize itself and do anything it wants.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:05
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Remember when Janis said that there might be peace on Erf if they broke the rules enough? Someone doesn't like that idea.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:06
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White Coke posted:GM means Game Master. Getting access to infinite juice would let the Deiform stabilize itself and do anything it wants. I made the post about the GM thing, I thought there was some joke about infinite juice and portals I was missing.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:13
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Caidin posted:I made the post about the GM thing, I thought there was some joke about infinite juice and portals I was missing. Nah, it's just how the portals are. They use natural shockamancy to run. You can have a portal open as long as you want and it's "juice" cannot be exhausted. Therefore if you tap into that and drain the shockamancy energy from the portal, you essentially have a perpetual energy machine. That's how Charlie powers all his stuff. So that's the connection there. Not a joke or anything fun like that, unfortunately.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:29
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I think we can all assume we've all read the page. I think Omni just used a weird turn of phrase with "[reaction]. In turn though [basic foundational fact for the thing I'm reacting to]", so others thought there must be yet another hidden pun or reference, and then the thread kept confusing itself from there. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jun 7, 2017 |
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Jun 7, 2017 19:36
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Theoretically, you'd be able to kill the GM by luring him into Erf and then abandoning/relocating the capital, repeat as necessary when he moves towards nearest portal location until he starves to death? Though as a caster he's also a commander that could found his own side, so you'd have to destroy all the cities and make everyone go barbarian, living out on the far flung edges of Erf praying the baleful gaze of the GM doesn't turn your way.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:38
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isndl posted:Theoretically, you'd be able to kill the GM by luring him into Erf and then abandoning/relocating the capital, repeat as necessary when he moves towards nearest portal location until he starves to death? Hence the bedrock suit. Its Signamancy is based on Iron Man, who is known for having an embedded power source that keeps him alive.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:55
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Otherkinsey Scale posted:Hence the bedrock suit. Its Signamancy is based on Iron Man, who is known for having an embedded power source that keeps him alive. Yeah but Iron Man doesn't have infinite power either and has had to replace his battery, so it could work in theory. Though now that I think about it a hex with natural shockamancy (e.g. thunderstorms) could be possibly exploited for recharging.
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Jun 7, 2017 20:00
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More to the point, though, a Bedrock suit of armor would render one immune to the bullets of guns.
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Jun 7, 2017 20:08
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XkyRauh posted:More to the point, though, a Bedrock suit of armor would render one immune to the bullets of guns. You would think it would have some interesting anti magic effects too
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Jun 7, 2017 20:09
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Rygar201 posted:You would think it would have some interesting anti magic effects too It's sorting through every exploit Parson ever bounced off the wall with the minds so it'll probably come to that eventually but infinity juice and protection from a stealth archon hit or jumpy rednecks check off the most immediate issues. Caidin fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jun 7, 2017 |
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Jun 7, 2017 20:22
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It probably isn't going to be completely proof against magic like Thinkamancy as long as there's air holes, but having a dozen Thinkamancers crammed inside will do a lot to help with that.
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Jun 7, 2017 21:26
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It might still not be able to survive past this turn, so while the GM has infinite juice, it might not be able to do EVERYTHING.
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Jun 7, 2017 22:56
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It's gonna really suck if infinite juice keeps the GM from running out of energy, but it still falls apart at the end of the turn, leaving Charlie with a free Bedrock Man suit. ...clothing scales, so his size isn't an issue. And a powered suit is how people in scifi overcome paralysis.
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Jun 7, 2017 23:22
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Bobulus posted:It's gonna really suck if infinite juice keeps the GM from running out of energy, but it still falls apart at the end of the turn, leaving Charlie with a free Bedrock Man suit.
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Jun 8, 2017 02:11
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Bobulus posted:It's gonna really suck if infinite juice keeps the GM from running out of energy, but it still falls apart at the end of the turn, leaving Charlie with a free Bedrock Man suit. It's either that or Charlie settles his differences with Parson to team up and beat the GM gone rampant.
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Jun 8, 2017 02:38
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Or some other random thing. I've been trying to put my finger on what I haven't liked about the last few story arcs, and it's that the comic is just completely unpredictable now. The original setup was Parson comes to this strange world and learns how to bend the rules to his advantage, but at this point enough has happened that the rules are basically meaningless and can be superseded at any time. There's a difference there from what Parson was doing -- I liked seeing him learn all these weird laws of Erf physics and figure out stuff like units being able to "move" if they fall from their flying mounts -- because he was using real-world logic to leave the rules in place but figure out how to exploit them, and you could imagine yourself being able to do the same thing if you looked around with a real-worlder's perspective. At this point, though, I feel like anyone can wave a hand and literally magic away the rules in a way that seems very deus ex machina. "Oh, we just carnyed that" or "We're in State 99 Thinkamancy so we can do whatever." It makes it a lot harder to get invested in the plot when they've spent so long establishing the way things work on Erfworld and then make the plot depend on characters that simply ignore all these mechanisms. I think the first instance I noticed was when Charlie ended Gobwin Knob's turn in the middle of the Spacerock battle. If he can do that, then you can't really play the Erfworld wargame with him. There's no way to prevent your turn from suddenly ending with half your forces moved up ready to be slaughtered.
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Jun 8, 2017 07:11
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Phenotype posted:Or some other random thing. I mean that's kind of why Charlie is dangerous. He doesn't want to play the Erfworld game with anyone. He wants to be immortal, and that means perpetuating a cycle of war and blind loyalty.
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Jun 8, 2017 07:29
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isndl posted:It's either that or Charlie settles his differences with Parson to team up and beat the GM gone rampant. One thing I just thought of that might happen because it's a huge pun. If the GM can't survive past this turn, he's restricted by move. If he could build something that moves him around that runs on juice, like a train, he could be everywhere in the same turn. A dirtamancer with infinite juice might be able to build a giant rail network. What I'm saying is the GM might railroad himself.
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Jun 8, 2017 08:18
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Onmi posted:I mean that's kind of why Charlie is dangerous. He doesn't want to play the Erfworld game with anyone. He wants to be immortal, and that means perpetuating a cycle of war and blind loyalty. Well yeah, but I'm talking more about the direction of the plot. It's gone from Parson and friends coming up with exploits for the rules to a bunch of increasingly powerful deus ex machina ignoring the rules at will, and I think it's generally worse off for it. It used to feel more like the solutions were logical answers to the world around them, but at this point I feel like they could almost have a caster wave their hands and have Stanley, Jillian, and Charlie all drop dead at once because of special magic.
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Jun 8, 2017 18:00
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Phenotype posted:Well yeah, but I'm talking more about the direction of the plot. It's gone from Parson and friends coming up with exploits for the rules to a bunch of increasingly powerful deus ex machina ignoring the rules at will, and I think it's generally worse off for it. It used to feel more like the solutions were logical answers to the world around them, but at this point I feel like they could almost have a caster wave their hands and have Stanley, Jillian, and Charlie all drop dead at once because of special magic. They tend to foreshadow and explain the magical stuff pretty well, IMO.
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Jun 8, 2017 18:04
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e: wrong thread e2: To make this post on topic, I think in part it's because too many tricks got pulled out. Like, Parson and Charlie both trying to maneuver around their contracts was interesting but then the ways they maneuvered around became rather silly, and things escalated from there.
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Jun 8, 2017 18:50
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Phenotype posted:Well yeah, but I'm talking more about the direction of the plot. It's gone from Parson and friends coming up with exploits for the rules to a bunch of increasingly powerful deus ex machina ignoring the rules at will, and I think it's generally worse off for it. It used to feel more like the solutions were logical answers to the world around them, but at this point I feel like they could almost have a caster wave their hands and have Stanley, Jillian, and Charlie all drop dead at once because of special magic. I think the way I would frame it is, it's still about rules exploits and gamesmanship, but it's gone far afield from 'rules-lawyering and outside-the-box strategic thinking by Parson, whose thought process we're privy to.' Instead, it's mostly rules exploits like the bedrock armor, where they're extensions of a magic system that, for all the theorycraft and exposition, is still very vague and often produces extremely unpredictable possibilities. Especially given Carnymancy, which is just 'I cast Cheat.' This would be less frustrating if the story had more focus, in my opinion, on Parson being the source of outside-the-box magical experiments. Charlie as well, I suppose. But now this, that, and the other 'mancer are all bending the rules in a way that makes it very hard for me to believe standard combat troops have ever mattered in Erfworld.
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Jun 8, 2017 20:00
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Stanley drilling with the Clowns bit may have been intended as foreshadowing some sort of 'casters are good but you still want boots on the ground' deal. Our perspective as readers is definitely skewed with all the magic shenanigans that's been happening though, and we haven't seen any sort of mass combat that wasn't a one-sided slaughter thanks to guns for a while.
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Jun 8, 2017 20:05
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the magic system was always a little too clever and balder's completely disappeared up his own rear end with it
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Jun 8, 2017 20:05
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Joe Slowboat posted:that makes it very hard for me to believe standard combat troops have ever mattered in Erfworld. Hahdly any soljas mattah
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Jun 8, 2017 20:07
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I'm assuming, or maybe just hoping, that the finale of this exceedingly long book is the destruction of the magic kingdom. Maybe the GM will find a way to stick around and be a scary wildcard in the whole affair but blowing up the MK will finally get us out of this tangle of caster cliques, bullshit magic system mastery and cut off the infinite juice shenanigans. Plus it knocks all the mancers back down to Erf to live with in the meat grinder of side warfare with the rest of the mortals. plus+ we need to tip Sizemore over the edge somehow. Caidin fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jun 9, 2017 |
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Jun 9, 2017 01:24
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I'm going with "Gobwin Knob winds up with a hundred Decrypted casters, the Magic Kingdom is in ruins, and Parson's problems with having overpowered prima donnas to herd become a thousand times worse."
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Jun 9, 2017 03:43
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At some point Parson is going to have to wind up on the opposite side as Wanda, one way or the other. 'Killing people because it's easier than talking to or feeding them and then raising them in a manner that makes them slavishly devoted and infatuated with you, and also, the protagonist has nothing to do with this' can't possibly be presented as the 100% positive end game situation here. ...but then again, the Decrypted were yesterday's abominations, we've moved way past that with what DeIsaac's doing by now.
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Jun 9, 2017 23:30
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If he does the Thinkagram before trying to waste Parson, this'll turn out very interesting.
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Jun 14, 2017 09:52
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I wonder what the word 'Deiform' would mean to him, if Parson were to get around to describing what happened when he tried to contact Isaac. But fixing to be moot it seems. 'something has happened to Translyvito's Thinkamancer' ....okay gently caress off Roger.  God it's going to feel <i>so</i> good when Caesar learns what happens and takes you apart.
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Jun 15, 2017 02:29
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So we finally found out the plan Parson had been hinting at since quite a few updates ago (since he went "I need to talk about Moneymancy" to Ben), and First we know the contract can take gems in payment nstead of shmuckers. Second, even if it couldn't, it would start taking 5M worth cities or units instead. Either there's a second part to this plan I'm missing (Moneymancy adding clauses to an already-signed contract? That would be super OP...) or something's not right. Nevermind, I missed one part. The 5M figure is a maximum, not a minimum. With the treasury down, the penalty (for GK) changes to a minimum of 500K, so they can deal 10 hits for every one that CC does. Man, it's a good thing this comic has a comprehensive wiki, that detail really needed a reminder IMO. NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Jun 17, 2017 |
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Jun 17, 2017 08:58
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Mind you, Charlie is already using this strategy to someone degree himself.
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Jun 17, 2017 19:06
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It'll also depends on whether Deiform-merged-Ivan counts as a GK unit while they topple Charlie's tower.
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Jun 18, 2017 08:44
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Man, Claud is having just the shittiest day.
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Jun 21, 2017 04:30
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I am now on the side of "Deiform" is going to gently caress everyone club after this update. And yea, lovely day for claud.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:27
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Warning bells. Endless warning bells should be going off.
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Jun 25, 2017 13:58
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Parson seems a lot less intelligent when the story is told in a way that he's constantly two steps behind what the readers already know.
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Jun 25, 2017 16:28
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