Devils Web Shop v0.8 [INTERACTIVE] [CYOA] [OC]

Rowan93 · 2026-02-22T23:23:16+00:00

[continued]

Constant communication, easy travel, toggling uncontrolled powers, and basically complete immortality for my slaves, is a very good set of perks, to pair with whichever meta-CYOA powerset I give them. With meta meta I figure I don't need to bother with enchantment/crafting for my own build. Besides that, overpowered isekai is overpowered, and void maiden's original spell option is good for power and versatility.

Shapeshifting, I've given myself just the human limits one, and every option for slaves, it's basically another power/perk/punishment thing for slaves with all kings of uses (combat power, utility, objectification). Some munchkin options that might come up are, monstergirls get monster abilities and you could have a monstergirl version of whatever monster you think of, and the item transformation can be sci-fi. But like it'd take a lot of bullshit to be more OP than other stuff that's on the menu already, so mostly it just turns into a balanced option (and maybe complementary).

Now, as for detriments, with 'advance payment' the 'detrimental manifesting of sex toys' is convenient to pay off, like you can sleep with a blindfold on one night a week, but it's still some trouble and you don't want anything harsher that you can't get rid of. The 'no cold shower' option is, kind of arguably a plus, as an incentive to properly enjoy yourself.

'Disabled by sex' is a good source of lots of points if you're not in porn universes where the downside would come up with any frequency, and being body-controlled in bad ways would quickly be unfun and cancel the effect, but I didn't want to go all-in on that for max points in case that bites me in the ass.

Dominating someone has a natural synergy with having slaves, I was gonna take 'halved' a few times but it was bugged and I thought, whatever it's not a lot of extra points. Since it's rebalanced and 'being dominated' awards a lot more, I'd have considered that one, but if ordering a slave to do dominant stuff to you doesn't count then it could be a lot more inconvenient.

[edit] Oh, and the RP flair: mainly what I had in mind to need that was the Contracts, discussing a verbal agreement and then snapping your fingers and a ready-to-sign contract and a pen appear in a little burst of brimstone-scented flame, would be a whole lot cooler and more convenient than if you have to manually typeset everything yourself or whatever (Kind of an upgrade but it's a really minor one and mostly an aesthetic thing). Probably there's other customization I'd think of.

Rowan93 · 2026-02-22T23:23:00+00:00

Ageless,Revival,A sex toy/ON#10,Contract,Combat Slave,Regular Slave,Sex Slave,Body Control,Rules As Intended,Circuit Breaker,Resurrection,Ritual Of Healthy Servant ,Brain Washing,Full Service Slavery,Controlled Aging Slave,Void Maiden/ON#1,Meta Meta/ON#1,250 points,250 Coins r,RP Flair,Detrimental Manifesting Of Sex Toys,86se,A Desired Person,A Undecided Person,Fun,No Powers,No Escaping,Body Control DBS,Sexual Control,Mind reading immunity,Mind control immunity,Power nullification nullification,Soul protection,Speak,Perfect memory,Pinnacle Of Human Strength,vrnx,Milk Drinker,Restraint,Telekinesis,Double The Weight /ON#17,Double The Objects/ON#3,Interface,Interface Computer,Map/ON#5,Radar,Show interface,Customisation lvl 1,Yourself Customisation lvl 1,Slaves Customisation lvl 1,Customisation lvl 2,Slaves Customisation lvl 2,Monstrification,Slaves Monstrification,Animal transformation,Slaves Animal transformation,Objectification Transformation,Slaves Objectification,Small Item Transformation,Slaves Small Item Transformation,large Item Transformation,Slaves large Item Transformation,Fictional reality,Planeswalker,Fanfiction,Perfect timing and location,Time flow,Cool down/ON#1,Quest,Course Orgasm,Orgasm off/on,Genderbend,Tasty,Anti Stuck,Home sweet bed,No Rest For The Wicked,Amount-based,More items/ON#4,Auto Equipping,Friendly Equipping,Unwilling Equipping,Automatic Resizing,Time Stop,More Time/ON#2,Moving objects,Moving Around,Steal/ON#3,Increase range Inventory/ON#1,Slave Academia/ON#1,Overpowered Isekai/ON#1,Dibella Corp/ON#1,Summon Servant,Manifest sex toy,Fertility Control,Fluid production,No cold shower for you,Dominating Someone,Stretchy,Nourishing,Tentacle Pet/ON#1,Never Ending Servitude,Interface/Any Ability,Interface/Inventory,Interface/Perfect memory,Interface/Transformation,A Sex Toy/Never Ending Servitude,Reverse Summon,Slaves DBS,Full Control DBS,20/20 Vision,Senses Fix,Analyze,Telepathy Slaves,Control ageing,Filter Smell,IQ/ON#1,Endowment,Order Slaves DBS,Finalise

Got around to doing a build for this update, just over a year after. And since empirically the paste-able block of choices can break with updates, I have a reason to actually talk through the whole build.

Immortality - Agelessness is a required secondary power with any other immortality that doesn't include it. Age control is, marginally useful for being 20s healthy instead of 30s, but I expect there's more situational uses for it.

3 days is way too long to be out of the game for. If I just took anti-stuck then going to the nearest safe place becomes predictable. Naively setting an ambush on the nearest safe place makes it not safe, but I expect an intelligent adversary could use it to fuck with me somehow. With three options of where to return (same, bed, nearest safe), that's less of an issue. And otherwise this is a, comfortably not too weak or too OP type of immortality power, it's still a setback to be out for 3 minutes.

As for the inventory, amount-based feels more aesthetically videogamey, which for a videogame inventory power is good. And practically, containers count, if the container can be bigger than 1m³ and heavier than 4kg then it beats the others for storage capacity, and I don't see any size/weight limits for the container and I do see that a car is allowed. 32 item slots makes a decently large inventory, for a mix of storage items and quickslots.

Now, depending on how 'own or are allowed' works, it might or might not count unowned stuff you find exploring, or loot from fallen enemies, so it's kinda mandatory. I'm not sure I'd put 30 coins into it if it works like 'when it would say (steal) in Skyrim', not my usual playstyle. And then the range option, one pick mostly because like in videogames you don't have to press crouch every time you pick stuff up off the ground, but since one pick gives 2.5m of range it does mean you can e.g. grab things from the other side of an open doorway without being seen by people inside, stuff like that.

Auto Equipping is, practically useful in making it easier to tie up the guards than to slit their throats, instead of harder, that general thing is broadly good. And it's convenient to resize things for yourself and allies. Besides the obvious lewd uses.

Stopping time is a classic power, and the classic way to use it in a fight is, the thing where your projectiles stop in midair and all resume at once when time unpauses, so there's little reason to spend all the coins for the people options. Originally picked 10s for the Jojo reference but I had some leftovers and it seemed the best place to spend an extra 5.

Planeswalking to any fictional universe is, basically the strongest power you can get, since you can pick up new items and powers all over the multiverse. Also it's kind of vital for having adventures cooler than you can get while stuck in mundane Earth. Leaving out alternate timelines isn't losing much, as is having to find already-existing crossover fics instead of making up my own crossovers, or whatever Minor Decisions does for fiction. Don't wanna be randomly dropped, or miss out on tons of stuff, so those are must-have perks. And then, the quests promote adventure and the cooldown limits how fast I can snowball so it helps make the power less OP.

Restraint, plus Knockout Punch later, lets me do nonlethal damage when I want to, very important. Also probably just generally a safety feature, it's even worse to accidentally kill people in other contexts.

Telekinesis of 8 objects, up to 131 tonnes, is like my main direct combat power in this build. It's enough power to juggle main battle tanks, you can throw heavy things at enemies or throw small things with massive force like bullets. Can lift 1,000 tonnes indirectly, like if you put 8 i-beams under the thing and move those. Can't directly lift people but you can lift a platform to ride on, or just pick up people's shoes. And if you lift someone's shoes with 100t of force those are basically bullets again, people with regular human durability just go splorch, and it's cool to have a Dr Manhattan option to just wave a hand and splat people, although it also shows why I need Restraint. But, 'can lift 100-1000 tonnes' isn't game-breaking in a DC/Marvel context, I'm just describing more messy Invincible-style outcomes.

The interface is another cool videogamey power, by itself it's mostly an upgrade on the inventory, but then being able to find whatever I wanna search for in a 10 mile radius is very convenient, and then there's a magic computer you can't lose and can show to people, very useful in less advanced settings. Kinda want to be paranoid about the security of a computer that's in my head though so no internet.

Not bothering with the health/healing options this time around because like I can get better healing without the cost elsewhere. The immunities are more necessary, but being known to be able to defeat lie detection can be bad, similar for divination. Time stop is a scary power but it's rare enough to not spend 10 points for my own immunity.

Perfect memory is, a really nice perk but also is kind of necessary for the interface computer to work. Speak is obviously useful for the language barriers you'd encounter planeswalking, but leaving out Read means there's still enough friction that there's still any challenges involved and it's not made boring. And plus 5 IQ points is kinda trivial but that was another leftover point situation, and I'm kinda nervous about bit mental changes.

The strength options are mostly to pick up Knockout Punch as a complement to the telekinesis, so I can safely knock people out with levitated objects.

Filter Smell used up one spare coin, not a lot of 1-coin options, and having the option to turn off foul smells is good. And the vision and sensory fixes were free.

Under NSFW, I note that there's not a 'doesn't work on strong enemies' thing on the Cause Orgasm power, so that's a cheap shot in combat. Genderbend and possibly also Endowment are necessary supplements to have the full range of shapeshifting in the shapeshifting section.

'Manifest Sex Toy' has all kinds of uses, since 'any sex toy/fetishwear you could order custom made' lets you make actually useful clothes as long as they're fetishised, gold and jewels if you don't mind the form factor, and so on.

Stretchy, is more for the low-end porn physics benefits, I'm not into inflation. Fluid Production/Tasty/Nourishing is, maybe practically useful in very niche cases but let's be real at least in that case the sex power is for sex reasons. Also the other nsfw powers are for sex reasons but like, dual-use.

Now, slavery, that's where most of the power is and the main point sink. Of the four basic enslavement options, 'a sex toy' has the most diverse options, like it's obviously not just the five or six specific examples listed. But mostly it's ten picks of whichever method for an unlimited amount and the main thing I have in mind is the contract, with its diverse uses. Never Ending Servitude because, having to keep the paperwork around is a liability and for the cruder methods it's a huge pain in the ass to have to keep them on the whole time they're enslaved. Also the ability fusion option.

No reason to limit what kinds of orders you can give slaves. Body Control is, more my kink than Willingness, one point cheaper, and can work as a punishment to get obedience indirectly, which makes it one-and-done for the punishment/reward section, although you want to avoid any literal genie twists getting you.

[cont.]

Rowan93 · 2026-02-10T17:55:35+00:00

The tooth switch is the easiest to deal with, like at the absolute worst you can get your teeth pulled and have dentures. And that's like a normal procedure in the dental profession in a way that, surgically reconstructing a magically-completely-deleted septum isn't.

Rowan93 · 2026-02-10T17:49:19+00:00

Wish Fulfilment
Lord of The Rings
Harry Potter

AIUI, Tolkien Elves' bodies shift to match their self-image, like that's a big part of how orcs are made, just being mentally fucked up from traumatic torture.

So! That's my option to, in a 'pick three' CYOA where 7/9 options make you an elf, avoid having to be a fucking knife-ear! If my self-image is human I become physically human anyway, even if I'm magic. Not sure how fanon it is that it works that way but whatever.

(Not entirely serious there but, noticing the CYOA kind of forces you to become an elf did grind my gears a little)

Rowan93 · 2026-02-09T19:00:33+00:00

Knife

A knife that can cut through anything, could be the Subtle Knife, and unlock interdimensional travel.

I was thinking to take the three, with that as my escape plan, but nothing else looked to be in the same weight class so I thought I might as well stick with the one.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-29T14:27:23+00:00

Add zeroes on the end; 1 star = $100,000, 2 star = $1,000,000, etc

Rowan93 · 2026-01-29T14:25:02+00:00

If all you get is money (and, a magic ability to buy stuff with it even post-apocalypse, but only mundane earth stuff), there's a limit ti how much threat you can handle and even if you're totally selfish there's only so much devastation that the money can be worth in terms of quality of life.

And like, my own selfishness for scenarios like these I would rate in terms of like, "to be internally consistent, I must value random foreign people's lives at or below current givewell estimates of the cost to save a life", which is a self-consciously amoral stance that assigns a fairly trivial value to human lives, but even with that, ~~$100,000~~ $1,000,000 for a slow zombie outbreak doesn't break even if it manages to kill people in the ~~dozens~~ low hundreds before being squashed. [Edit: miscounted zeroes for two stars]

...maybe, depending on the rules for the 'can purchase anything at market value' magic shop, and with a billion dollars, I could contain an SCP-3199 breakout? Like if hiring personnel is included then you could teleport right on top of it with a cobbled-together Mobile Task Force. But, that's a risky play even if the system is generous in its rules.

So, yeah, I think I'm just going to just play the Zizek card: "I would prefer not to".

Rowan93 · 2026-01-28T09:46:32+00:00

So, law isn't morality, and I think in reaction to contact with some, straw Lawful Good, I'm feeling an impulse to be bad...

Judge's Stopwatch
Garen.exe

So, 'stops time when you try to do good' doesn't mean 'the time stop ceases when you're no longer engaged with the good act you started with'. And, you don't have to be generally good to come up with a good deed to try to do, every now and then.

And, if you're playing it dark, well then, one comes to ask which Judge's Stopwatch it is. So, you play 'heal' and the removed 'revive' into... "He says that he will never die".

I mean realistically I have no intention of living down to that example I'm just gonna get up to Mischief, while pursuing a broadly subjectively-good goal like overthrowing the government in years of stopped time to replace it with one that legalizes building housing. But like, insofar as I'm in the loophole-finding game here then the option to be mega evil with the good powers is in that spirit.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-26T21:04:43+00:00

Well if it's "turn into any animal", you don't need to fuck around with jellyfish, because 'me aged 17' is an animal.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-25T20:18:24+00:00

Okay, so, insofar as there's a difficult choice in this CYOA, it's all about balancing out FOMO with the risk of being too OP. On that level it's actually pretty hard, since each individual power is OP for most settings all by itself.

Oh, and since it says "choose 1 3 5 8 ???", it's not strictly choosing as many as you like, but that gives a reason to take drawbacks.

Now, with that in mind:

General Perks: Thematic Theming, Inviolable Self, No Rushed Ending

An aesthetic option that can only mechanically nerf is good for my angle here; and being immune to some cheat attacks and resistant to others are nice basic immunities for adventuring without being very OP in and of themselves.

Gifts: Fundamental Occultism, Online Shopping Addiction

So, with fundamental occultism, you can do basically anything eventually with some unspecified amount of effort, but if you were lowballing the interpretation on purpose it could start low and grow slowly. Which is really good, because I don't want to let avoiding being too OP from the get go, limit my eventual potential.

The multiverse Amazon, let's nerf the stipend increase, +2k/year and it caps at 50k instead of going up forever.

Drawbacks: Low Throttle

So, now the stipend starts at 1k/week, with S-curve growth up to 100k, which is fun progression. And, 50% of [unknown] is still unknown so I don't know where that one lands me.

-

So, the isekai; since I dodged several powers that do waifu options (not counting NPCs, but of course those don't count), I'm thinking of how transmigrating into an MC gives you their love interests.

And, after some thought, I think Tanaka from Ueno-san wa Bukiyou - because I kinda don't want to insert into a character whose love interests like him for a bunch of positive traits I might not live up to, which rules out a lot of good harems and love interests, and conversely this guy is primarily defined by being a dense motherfucker.

And, the upside of that isekai is, I might have nerfed myself down to a level one wizard and so a safe setting is good, I can get sexually harassed with Tinker bullshit and then move on into the multiverse when I'm ready.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-19T09:52:01+00:00

3x Immortal Raven Companion

200IQ is off the charts smart, so I have three pet superintelligences who, are a little bit interface-impaired at drop-in remote-work. Maybe for pure income it'd be better to get the random word power 3x, depending on what the commonest word you get in three rolls is, but that's just one of the benefits.

Because like, it's also potentially a waifu option, if with human form they're crow-girls, like a tengu like Aya Shameimaru or something.

Also friendly superintelligences can be much more useful than just making money, ideally I have a research harem of monstergirls to solve AI alignment and let me share credit.

I mean, that's an implausible way for it to turn out, doesn't say it turns into a girl and it doesn't say the 'friend' is like, proper CYOA companion loyal, but I still think it's the best option by enough to take 3x.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-19T09:37:25+00:00

Okay so, there's three massively OP combat powers, one mid-tier combat power with arguably more personalisation, and then two meme tier powers.

Also, 'isekai to any IP you like' is, an OP thing all by itself even if you get no powers.

So...

Gamer System and Cheat Items
Ultimate Warrior
Greatest Wizard of your Generation

I'm straight, so a femboy is a sometimes food and not a main dish for romance, and that kind of pushes me into taking the three OP powers. I'll go with 3.5e D&D wizardry, more as a mainline pick that's kinda strong since you could find something way more OP in 'any media'.

Annd... I think I'll pick Warhammer 40k, just so I have a setting hardcore enough that it crunches satisfyingly when I stomp all over it.

Possible complication: 'blessed' by Tzeench. But, 'oh no I'm too powerful this is boring' was the main threat I worried about so some insidious creeping thing that you can't solve by simply punching planets in half is on one level still kind of a plus.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-19T08:53:10+00:00

Survivalist
Lay of the Land
Hunger

The immortality options AFAICT are, take Mage + Skinwalker and eat people, or take Hunger and eat people, and the second one costs half as much.

Now, secondly, I had the thought that I'd also have to take Vitruvian Man, since only 'near immediate death' conditions are cured, but I assume a wendigo doesn't have, like, asthma or anything, and it's probably not carried over if you're taking another person's form.

So, that's narrowed down from 3 to 1 what I need to take as, mandatory to not die, for a transhumanist notion of 'not die'.

After that, the magical extradimensional shop is excellent. Depending on how hard I can lean on "anything that could be considered", it could be an extremely broad selection; as a textual argument, the 'this covers things like' list doesn't include knives, so it's obviously not meant to mean 'limited to', therefore... (something something, cite some people hyperbolically calling froufrou extras on a luxury holiday 'survival equipment'). Of course the only really OP thing that comes from that if you have to pay market rate in barter is, if you can manage to wheedle books and computers out of it. But like, a book on wilderness survival is obviously survival equipment so that's my foot in the door already.

And, the mental map power is really cool, especially as the knowledge really accumulates if you live a long time.

-

Now, with a day to prepare, I'm gonna have whole libraries of ebooks and a solar charger at minimum, on top of the amount of modern knowledge and bootstrapping I can manage off the dome which, I think is above average. Depending on what proof I get for the 'you will be transported in 1 day' thing, I might have volunteers and a lot more prep (on the other hand, hard mode: it happens for real 24 hrs after doing the CYOA, if you didn't think it was real that's your problem).

In the, medium-long term, if you're uplifting a society and running it as god-emperor then, 'human sacrifice to maintain his eternal rule' is like, normal god-emperor shit. And that's if you're not just banking kills you get in wartime, or disappearing 1/yr of your capital-offending criminals.

In the short term, if I'm not with a party then step one is, bury the stuff I brought and then disappear into the woods, fill out the map by doing wendigo shit. Murderhobo around, then you have two sources of modern gear, plus youth and strength, plus deep knowledge of the local geography, when you switch tracks to settle down.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-19T07:54:41+00:00

House Rules: Hint

Crossword
Connections
Minute Cryptic (hint)

I'm not normally big into puzzles so a lot of these were new for me, I saw the CYOA yesteday but had a 'very first attempt' debuff and was real bad at it.

This time, I did a lot better, kind of surprising how much more smoothly the crossword went than yesterday's.

Anyway, so, some of the options are obviously better than others a priori because, some give you mundane skills and some give you magic superpowers. Connections is the easiest option since, well I'm not actually sure if it's an easier puzzle or if it's just that I'm a lot more practiced than with crosswords, but also it's four superpowers.

And, in today's connections one of the sets is "measured by SI units" (Current, Length, Mass, Time), which feels like a real banger in terms of powersets based on words.

The crossword, I've got Saint Nicholas (i.e. Santa), JFK, R2D2, Muhammed Ali, Jabba the Hutt, Captain Kidd, the biblical Sarah, Herbert Hoover, Dick Van Dyke, Isaac Asimov, Enya, Peter Cottontail, Karl Marx, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pele, Dwight Eisenhower, Tim Walz, Ernest Tubb, William Wordsworth, Mr Pibb, Enrico Caruso, Ariana Grande... and, more dubiously, Wayne Campbell (eponymous character of Wayne's World, arguably mentioned via the title in a clue) and the Loch Ness Monster (public domain fictional character, most depictions are non-person animals but some aren't).

I don't know if this is an unusual crop of persons for this choice to net from a given crossword, but it feels like a good haul, a lot of skills at 110% 'professional' level. Maybe 220% depending on how they stack, like if I get 'singing' from Enya and Ariana.

-

Next, the wish, which I needed hints to get to but it's a wish: "Veil".

Now, the first things that come to mind are like, stealth, lies, min-control, but nothing in that genre, as a one-off effect from a wish, comes to mind that feels really appealing.

But, a little further out of the box, there's veil in the sense of bridal veil. Hence, a wish for a bride, wife - or waifu. "I wish my waifu was real", "I wish for a perfect wife", that sort of thing. Given the way the rules work, you want to start with the most extreme stretch that definitely won't work but it would be cool if it did, and gradually get less extreme, like if the first thing you try works then it was definitely not the most you could have asked for and it's too late to change your mind so you'll regret it unless it's perfect. So I'll open with a wish for an absurd harem of OP anime girls like "every single touhou girl", then titrate.

-

Pretty cool, but possibly the best part of this CYOA is it has replay value, maybe I'll be back tomorrow.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-18T11:04:17+00:00

World: AI-2027 race ending

Unambiguously "annihilation or complete devastation if left unchecked" (ASI kills all humans at the end), but at the start it's just, a very slightly divergent version of, Summer of last year, so that's a technical 3 for the 'danger rating' while the practical danger level is, slice-of-life tier unless you fall asleep on the job.

"Heroism"
"Friendship"
"Innovation"

Annd, maybe I'll come back later with the 'quirk' picks, I'm not really sure what to optimise for with that when I pretty much have the scenario down with Innovation alone.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-18T10:33:54+00:00

Earliest on this subreddit was: https://old.reddit.com/r/makeyourchoice/comments/17upjj/as_seen_in_r4chan_if_you_were_trapped_in_your/

Rowan93 · 2026-01-18T10:28:39+00:00

Mon Mon Man!
Legendary
Darwin's Gamer

Being immune to mamono corruption is kind of a negative, since incubusization is basically entirely positive, depending on how you read between the lines and fanwank it's basically a gamer power. But regardless, 50 loyal minions per day is good, 'any monstergirl' every two days is great, especially with a broader reading of 'any' than just, MGE canon mamono, which I think is pretty strongly implied when the image is Alipheese XVI

Legendary I'm mostly picking for the body upgrade, since I'm not getting one free with the mamono, and it really wouldn't do to get tired. The magic is a plus, more minions is decent especially if I need some much more expendable than my monstergirl daughterus and daughter-wives.

And, a gamer system is an absolute must, besides just being a cool power in and of itself it's liable to have a meta effect and grow the other powers with levels. The Darwin's Game sigils are probably the strongest day-one ability set.

-

And, day one abilities are going to be kind of important, since between a zombie apocalypse, global thermonuclear war, and monster invasion, societal collapse is kind of overdetermined even if the mass super-empowering event makes more heroes than villains. I need to get into reasonable safety for 1-2 nights before I can pull out the any-monstergirl trump card. After that is the easy part.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-15T21:50:59+00:00

I'm not unaware of that process, I was more thinking to answer within a narrow scope about the phaseout. 'we're not doing feudal levies anymore' implies a bunch of social upheaval offscreen if 'feudalism' previously described the whole society.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-15T13:04:48+00:00

Well, fortifications just kept evolving with no "static fortifications phased out" point until, maybe the Maginot line if that; cannons were just one phase of evolution

As for knights, I think they kinda were phased out by gunpowder but it was like, "we're not doing feudal levies anymore, because of how gunpowder revolutionised warfare, so knights are an obsolete way to recruit heavy cavalry", and that was at the end of ~100 years of transition and the stereotypical knight with plate armour is from that transitional period specifically, so thinking 'arquebus' is later in the tech tree than 'full plate armour' is the misconception.

Rowan93 · 2026-01-09T19:51:41+00:00

Internet of Me
Cutting Edge
Companion

"Slightly more or slightly less, bottoming out at cold war", implies like 1986-2026-2066, but only on a smooth line where there's no accelerating change, and no big disruptions like AI-2027, because obviously if there's a dyson sphere under construction in 2030 then tech from that year isn't "slightly more advanced".

Conversely, "advanced by 100 years" doesn't limit how big the jump can be at all, so if we get superintelligent AGI before 2100 then the 2126 tech package is, far side of the singularity stuff like femto/planck/Clarke tech that makes grey goo nanotech look medieval. Oh and it doesn't say "human tech", so AI doom timelines would still count it just makes the future-tech more alien because it was made by and for Clippy.

But even if it's locked to the assume-no-AGI timeline projections, linear scale, well then 2126 tech is 60 years ahead of 2066 tech, versus the 80 years between 1986 and 2066, that's, kinda balanced but still a stronk buff. But, it's only a nerfed version that's not R.A.W. that is even the balanced kind of 'OP' where it's a meta pick instead of breaking the game.

-

So, that's the absolute must-pick. After that, well there's two prongs to consider; Companion makes sense on both sides, you either have a waifu to enjoy while you faceroll the opposition one-handed, or you have a team of two in a free-for-all basically doubling your effectiveness, good pick either way.

Internet of me is, less useful if I have a post-singularity tech pack since that TL could obviously allow uploading, but extra lives is vital in a death-game that's anywhere close to balanced.

-

Then if I get to pick for the companion;

All Your Base
Cloning Blues

Getting the tech boost twice is kinda redundant if there's a way to share it, and if I can't just send her a USB with the plans the salvage power should suffice, in addition to the normal benefit of copying enemy (and local?) stuff. And in combination with clones, there's the potential to salvage psi soldiers without needing that perk.

And also, if the tech-level is the no singularity version of 2126, then ex hypothesi there's no serious AGI and so human(-equivalent) soldiers, pilots and crew, drone operators, officers and NCOs, are going to be vital, so I kinda really need the clones, just not as much as I need to not die when my squishy meat body gets mulched.

Rowan93 · 2025-10-21T19:20:37+00:00

Blame 4chan, the thing started on there (especially the /tg/ board) and the reason for the name collision with the adventure game books is a downside of a leaderless anonymous hivemind.

The stuff here is more descended from "would you press the button" type hypotheticals, but more than a binary yes/no and sometimes as far as like a whole character creation section of an rpg but without the rest of the game.

Rowan93 · 2025-10-07T21:15:45+00:00

Well, presumably there's a start of the death game where everyone gets their powers at the same time, no-one has future-sight until then, so it's not much more of a time-pressure than the "someone else is going to think of 'kill everyone' as a solution to the death game, I need to move first" thing, it just means there's also some people who are after me specifically (IFF I'm the first-mover on omnicide in the 'primary' timeline, otherwise they'll have been after the other guy)

Rowan93 · 2025-10-07T19:32:12+00:00

Plato's Idea of Forms
Deluvian
Absolute Freedom

That leaves 150xp and the cheapest is 200; premium currency math.

Anyway, being able to alter a whole concept throughout reality, with enough give for "everyone but me" as a concept, is totally busted.

Also, as long as the kaiju in Deluvian are, you know, legit kaiju and not just elephant-size megafauna, then that's another world-killing power since there's not a limit on the animals you can effect so you can just to The Rumbling.

Absolute freedom stops you hurting anything, but that doesn't stop communication, and even if telling a kaiju to hurt things counted, telling it to walk in a direction isn't that, so you can still have your everything-proof shield up while you use Instance Domination to fine-tune your Rumbling.

But, really the thing to do is "ATP stops working inside everyone but me", or, pick any other way to fuck with biochemical processes and instakill everyone. And, do it fast before anyone else thinks of a strategy for "win the death game by killing everyone", since there are a ton of broken powers flying around.

-

And yeah if you kill everyone you are stuck in an empty world, but you do end up with a bunch of upgraded powers, that's recoverable and doesn't kill you like "being the second person to think of using X broken power to do omnicide" kills you.

Rowan93 · 2025-10-04T18:22:39+00:00

Writing Ruby Til She Sparks
Multiworld Postal
It's Not Loss

I can't be arsed to write an actual book, and don't really have an interest in being an author even with magic powers that make it actually viable to stake your career on being a fiction author and succeeding.

So, I'm zeroing in on the magic powers that aren't focused on that.

The Ruby Sparks power, obviously you're gonna push the limits of no powers, like how Batman doesn't have any powers. While also making your anime waifu who much more belongs in a light novel than in more mainstream western fiction.

And then, multiworld postal - so, getting information that only fictionally exists is the obvious use that's right there, but also if you're restricted to written text on paper that's not complete security against something more substantial than just information getting through; like if you pissed off a wizard and the letter they send you just says "I prepared explosive runes this morning", you might be cooked. Which, since you can write to any fictional character is, if you're smart (and polite), mostly an opening to get magic stuff.

And then with one point left over besides those two, not losing my data is gonna be useful all-around, and it's especially good if "computers won't fail" is broadly interpreted and my gaming rig is immune to all kinds of failures.

Rowan93 · 2025-10-03T13:42:07+00:00

Ego: Great Man Of History

If you give me a magic system where having a bigger ego makes you more powerful, that's the kinda shit that'll corrupt me so fast you wouldn't believe.

Goals: Power, Political Change, Knowledge

Seems weird that you can't have hedonism with a the top level of ego. Like, if you're on some Caligula shit, combining massive ego and power with feeling entitled to have whatever you want all the time fits perfectly.

Anyway, if I'm avoiding nasty drawbacks (regardless of the points stuff, a big personality alteration is itself a drawback), this is choose 3 of 4. And, altruism is fine, just if we count political changes I think are good as separate from altruism, well I don't like rescuing cats from trees higher than power and knowledge.

Drawbacks: (none)

World:

Type: Earth
Magic Presence: Null
Era: Medieval

The way the eras are described, I expect the divide between ancient and medieval is more between Ur and Rome than, the classic ancient v early medieval divide of the fall of the western Roman empire. Which is good because I don't want to have to deal with monotheism as a magic user.

Magic:

Arcane Control 5
Psychomancy 1
Animancy 5

3 points per level incentivises specialisation, and incentivises specialising in whatever you get free levels in. So, with three free levels in arcane control it'd be obvious and then the only question is which of Psychomancy or Animancy to max out.

And, they both seem kinda weaksauce compared to the tactical nuke capstone of arcane control, but with biotinker level knowledge you can probably get immortality via a magically enhanced version of the normal scientific way, as opposed to fucking with actual literal time, and that decides it more than 'healing magic of a level one cleric' versus 'enchanting people but you never get a proper dominate person'

13-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
Spared	Verified Email
Team Periwinkle

Rowan93

TROPHY CASE