Erfworld

I dunno, I'm still partial to the idea of popping hundreds of Gwiffons or air allies and filling a big ship's hold with them, and then releasing them like fighter planes from a carrier.

I'm thinking the problem with that plan (other than the standard "Erfworlders wouldn't think of it") is that they wouldn't contribute move to the ship, so it would be really slow.

Parson and Ace discuss duds.

Was Portal a thing when Erfworld (the webcomic) started?

Though I realise that the timeframe where Parson was yanked to Erfworld has seemed to be a little fluid in the past.

I'm pretty sure Portal came out long before Erfworld started, although it hardly matters; there are few if any real-world time references in the story that we could judge by. Do the Hamstard comics have posting dates? If so, that sets a bare minimum start.

edited 22nd Dec '14 9:55:11 AM by Fighteer

I had been kind of hoping for an update with Transylvito, but I did like seeing Parson and Ace actually have an extended interaction. They have pretty much the relationship you'd expect. I especially liked "Parson made a face" / "Ace made a face right back to him."

Parson still isn't over the pointless cruelty of Misty's death, which seems to throw a bit of cold water over all that shipping speculation given how much he holds Maggie responsible for it. I'd direct that ire at the Tool if I were him, since he's the one who ordered Maggie to break the link in the first place knowing about the backlash, but I can see why that would still linger in the back of his mind.

He resents Maggie for that because, as the Thinkamancer in charge of the link, she had the opportunity to save the other casters but protected her own mind instead.

I don't think it was a matter of Maggie just letting Jack and Misty take the backlash out of spite or something. The backlash was going to happen as a result of the link snapping. She chose to protect herself instead of the others. I think that if she had done the reverse, as in what Parson nearly ordered her to do with the link-up with Sizemore and Wanda, she herself would have died. So yeah it was selfish, but it was self-preservation. The idea that he'd resent her for not killing herself rather than let somebody else be harmed is kind of... well, even he realized it'd be hypocritical.

And Stanley himself does take some of the blame for what happened to Jack.

edited 22nd Dec '14 4:17:02 PM by Tyoria

I do not think he's still actively pinning it on Maggie. It still weighs on him, but he doesn't press it on her.

If she's starting to look more like Meryl Streep than Margarete Thatcher, I could understand him changing his attitude toward her.

@Discar: that's why you stow 'me in the hold until it's time to yell "fly my pretties, fly!"

iirc putting someone in the hold reduces the move penalty bunches. Ooh! You could call these "pigeon carrier" ships!

Ace is probably my favorite "new" character. It's just nice to have someone so enthusiastically happy. Sure, he'll probably angst a bit about Cubbins, but his post decryption life really does lend itself to being put on a pro-Toolism poster.

I imagine he'd be quite happy even if he wasn't mind controlled into having high loyalty. He finally gets to play around with his art instead of just making cloth golems.

Duke Forecastle, Part 45

Talk about Luckamancy mechanics! They ought to have been playing cards all along, indeed.

But who would they deliberately lose to?

My feeling is that losing at poker games wouldn't fuel the double eagle's Luckamancy reserves because the opposing player would simultaneously be the beneficiary of that bad luck, and as they are all part of the same crew, it cancels out.

Edit: What I find particularly interesting is that, because he can see the double eagle's stat block, Forecastle knows exactly when its Luckamancy power is in use. That means he can distinguish between a critical hit or a fumble that occurs naturally versus one that occurs as a result of the creature's manipulation.

edited 13th Jan '15 8:05:33 PM by Fighteer

There's no "deliberately" about it. Just play with real stakes and take it for the team, so to speak. We can be fairly certain the eagle affects such things because the Admiral had to ban all games of chance (due to fights breaking out over bad luck) after the double eagle joined them.

I wonder if Forecastle's going to become famous for being the landlubber who won a naval victory against a massively superior force while playing cards?

edited 14th Jan '15 4:31:43 PM by CorrTerek

Good point. If the double eagle can siphon luck off of something as prosaic as a poker game, then it's an incredible asset.

Oh, I see, it would make everyone lose, or at least experience worse luck than normally. Wow, am I evil because I can think of so many ways to exploit that effect?

Fighteer's point still holds, though. In a zero-sum game like poker, there doesn't seem to be a meaningful interpretation of "bad luck for everyone". Unless I suppose it makes everyone constantly get crappy hands, but that's also good luck for whoever has the least crappy hand.

Or perhaps the bad luck is in the form of negative effects spilling outside the poker game, like triggering fights between crewmembers.

edited 15th Jan '15 3:54:04 AM by ashnazg

There doesn't necessarily need to be a "bad luck for everyone" game in play, just one that offers plenty of chances for bad luck. If one guy gets a terrible hand due to bad luck from the eagle, that's one point for the eagle. Doesn't matter that someone else profits off that bad luck. If that wasn't the case then the eagle wouldn't be able to gain luck points at all — or lose them — because every action it affects would be lucky for someone and unlucky for someone else.

edited 15th Jan '15 4:29:05 AM by CorrTerek

It's interesting that losing the HMS Unsinkable II didn't give the eagle even a single point. Maybe it can only syphon luck out of units in it's same ship/stack?

Are we sure that the Eagle can actually siphon luck from things as simple as card games? I mean, I know, there were fights breaking out over bad luck attributed to the Eagle, but it only had seven points of luck when it was tamed, and when you have a magical bad luck beast hanging around you, you're probably inclined to blame it of everything bad that happens to you.

I think we are about to see that hypothesis being tested. I wonder what he wants the Eagle to do?

Whatever it is, he hopes to use it to defeat Anchorbar's entire fleet in this hex with a single damaged warship. Which would be remarkable.

edited 15th Jan '15 11:51:42 AM by Fighteer

"Are we sure that the Eagle can actually siphon luck from things as simple as card games?"

It's not a 100% certainty, but given the setup and unless the next update features a montage of him trying to game the luck system in various other ways, it seems pretty likely.

Best guess? He's going to send the eagle to yank all the landlubber officers off Anchorbar's ships. Depending on the exact mechanics for quacken-taming, at worst this sows confusion and at best this causes the other quackens to attack the Anchorbar ships now that there's no landlubber on board.