/cyoag/ CYOA General

I'll be honest, just with the first page, the compression is horrible. Lots of artifacts.

>Flying ship
Oh cool, really looking forward to this cyoa

>You are an extra speshul snowflake, young one.
I know that power fantasies and wish fulfillment are the bedrock of cyoas but come on. This fulcrum business just makes me feel like I'm making a character in some mediocre young adult fantasy series with twenty books.

Also the fonts could use some outline, white one many lighter colours is pretty hurt to read.

Heres the last Genie gallery

Give me some time. This is a lot to digest.

Right off the bat however I can tell you I dislike the use of such an incredibly diverse color palette and that the grey text color is a bad choice.

Other than that all is good. I'll make a build in a bit.

Also, put some border between each image, especially on the companions part.

And here's the first page of Fairy King again for anyone who doesn't read the second half of threads.

This one is probably personal, instead of using sharp edged square, incorporated a rounded one instead. Or using some borders, just simple like a simple painting frame is fine.

Only real question I got. You say higher skills cost more points. So is taking a 3 in something going to cost three points in total, is will it take 6 (1 for first, 2 for second, and 3 for third)

Did you not like the cleanup?

What's an Arcana Bonus?

Text is a bit hard to read in some places. It also feels directionless. Like what exactly will I be doing.

>What did I do wrong?
You didn't consider how this would look on other screens, I'd guess. I'm sure all this text looks perfectly clear on your screen, but on smaller screens or screens with higher contrast the text can be hard to read, especially on the gold and platinum sections of the gear page.

>What did I do right?
You don't believe in starting small, do you? Honestly I'm not sure whether your ambition is a strength or a weakness, because DAMN is this an impressive first offering, but at the same time, it has obvious issues you'd have been made aware of if you'd put forth a smaller project first.

Other than that, good mix of elements. You've got the power fantasy, plenty of mechanics, setting depth, and a metric fuckton of companions including a bunch of waifu types.

Does this person not know english? Jesus christ I'm from fucking venezuela of all places and these spelling mistakes are just atrocious.

Not sure what you mean, everything looks fine to me, though to be fair I have shit eyesight, so that might just be my inbuilt blur effect compensating.

>power fantasy
It's no different from the other thousand and three SUDDENLY YOU BE POWER cyoas.

>excited
Good to hear!

I hear you.

Cool.

It would cost six total. (one to move to rank one, two to two, three for three).

Arcana bonuses are listed at the bottom of each Lore of Magic entry. Each lore has a particular, powerful, potentially gamebreaking bonus effect.

>Like what exactly will I be doing.
Whatever you feel like doing, really. It's a big character creator more than anything.

The text and such are fine, however the image, like in the first page's Luna. Are not quite as sharp. Probably bad compression, or the source image source resolution are too small.

The thing that stands out to me the most is a lack of a consistent art style. most of it is pretty good, but some of the more cartoony ones can be jarring by comparison

THE SPELLING! THE GRAMMAR! MY EYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How do the discounts for Craftsman and Tradesman interact? Additive for 90% at highest ranks, Multiplicative for 80% (1*.5=.5*.4=2), or highest applies?

Do they not apply to the same items? If so that needs to be clarified.

So do you have to fill a magic tree to get an Arcana Bonus?

>It's no different from the other thousand and three SUDDENLY YOU BE POWER cyoas.

>You are a point of solidarity upon which the machinations of fate and fickle gods try to change the world.

Come on, that's some pretty over the top shit

Even Royal Revival, for instance, where you're the magical princess of a different world. You're still mostly just a person. A very powerful, very lucky person but you're still bound by the same rules as everyone else. I mean it's just a matter of taste but

>Whether you wish it or not, your decisions, large and small, will have deep rammifications for the world. You will shape reality around you, for good or ill,...

egh

I made it purely with MSPaint so I feel prety proud of it and its crushed images. yours looks better but it doesnt have the charm. Or maybe I'm the only person who would actualy care.

You're definitely the only person who thinks shitty quality constitutes charm in an age where free programs allow for so much more with so much ease.

retard.

If you know what you're doing, even MS paint can shrink images effectively. The trick is to not use the selector box and drag the corners. What you want to do is open the image you want to resize, then use the resize feature at the top (in the newer MS Paints, this is two overlapping boxes to the left of the pencil & eraser). This will resize the image with much better quality than dragging a selection box.

It's becoming clear that I need to clarify certain rules interactions.

As for discounts, they do stack, though crafting discounts still don't apply to relics. I think I'll have to add some kind of note about crafting perks not applying to alchemy items.

As for arcana, yeah, the idea is that you have to max out the tree to get it. I'll add a note about it in the next version.

I see the distinction as largely artificial. You're not the most powerful person in the setting, not even close (I can think of at least 10 companions that are more formidable than you). You're not so much powerful as you are important. Yeah, you can purchase superhuman abilities, but you're never going to be a god, and the more power you reach for, the more people are going to show up to fuck you up. You're more of a magnet for significant events than anything else. Perhaps I should have made my thoughts more clear in the intro, but the idea is that you're important, not godly powerful.

I'd go with renaming Arcana and Holy Faith as Arcane Insight and Divine Insight seeing as that's mostly what they do. Also, Holy Faith isn't getting a lot of love (in the second page at least)

>Malest

Well I can't be mad at some underage fag for actually contributing for once

>but you're never going to be a god

Yeah that's fair. My problem isn't even with the power level. I guess I'm just more bothered by our status as the cyoa player being some ineffable quality that grants us extra importance. Most other cyoas that I like have at least a veneer of some actual reason for why things are happening to us and not other people.

Saying instead "whether you like it or not, you will be at the center of events whose outcome will have deep ramifications for the world" or something like it is more along the lines of what you seem to have in mind. I don't mind being a fate magnet and having to 'live in interesting times', but having it spelled out that simply jacking off is likely to topple empires and fell gods seems a bit much to me.

Holy faith is designed to be a much more focused skill than arcana. While arcana opens up a bonus for whatever path you choose to take, holy faith specifically exists to allow you to become a paladin. If you take all the holy faith/paladin relics, you end up potentially having a magic immune character with combat level 4, and potentially 10 Elite Knight bodyguards, which is absurdly OP.

One is a widely applied bonus that gives you an edge in magic, the other is a specific, narrow path that can lead to powerful bonuses.

Look closely at the arcana bonuses for the magic trees and the relics. You can end the universe if you're creative.

Yeah, but that's all it is, just a veneer, it means nothing. You could replace Fulcrum with prince, wizard, knight, paladin, whatever. You're an important person who's getting a free ride to power. I guess in the end this is a just a difference in taste, because i see the premise of a cyoa as almost entirely irrelevant. It's the build that matters, what you make of the situation. The design philosophy for Fulcrum was to be a very open ended character creator. You want to be a scary deathknight necromancer dude? YOu can do that. You want to be a baker scientist traveling the world with your harmless friends improving people's lives through food magic? You can do that. You want to go on a road trip with a group of diverse royal siblings? That too. I enjoy (and build) cyoas for the narrative potential. more than anything.

I don't know if this will be a problem, but stacking teachers if far more cost effective than taking separate ones if you want all 4 skills the two teachers would offer. Like say I want Command, Combat Skill, Crafting and Tradecraft at 2. That'd be 12 points before reduction.

If I took both teachers I'd get four skills at rank 1, and then spend 8 to get them up to par. Leading to a 4 point savings as if I didn't have the teacher.

If I only took Tristain I'd get Command and Combat skill to 2, then it's 6 points to get Craftsman and Trade to 2. A 6 point savings as if I didn't have either, and a 2 point one compared to if I took both teachers.

20 points for skills and 20 points for magic is way too much. You can take like 2/3rds of the options

1/4th of the skills and 1/5th of the magic, without any teachers.

It costs 6 points to max a skill (1 point for level 1, then 2 for 2, and 3 for 3 totaling to 6), you can take 11 skills which costs 66 points. So you have a little bit less than 1/3rd of the points. And it takes 15 points for magic to master one school, with 6 schools at 75 points total.

it takes 6 points to get to level 3, so sayeth the author. Needs to make that way more obvious.

I don't have time to make a build, but I love me some companions, so I'll choose those right now.

>Pyyrah
I feel bad for her, and she seems like a really good ally. She'll warm up to me. Hopefully.
>Gyuhrpa
Seems like a nice guy, and it helps that he knows some stuff
>Saint Solace of Musora
Need a group healer. Guess I'll just have to make sure the enemy is dead so she doesn't heal them.
>Svengarl
Really nice guy, good warrior, and all around team player. Literally no downsides.
>Sequary the young sleeper
A massively powerful nice dragon? Sweet.

Like I said, will do a build later.

>Harambe
Really?

You didn't answer a part of my question. How do they stack, additive or multiplicative?

Fulcrums by their nature don't exert control, but okay.

Harlen the Irish Dwarf seems a good choice. Earth is a mighty thing, and crafting is a useful skill. I suppose Oberon is also a good choice, for he is wise and prophecy is of boundless utility.

>I hate the post limits on the blue boards.
Get a pass, poorfag.

>CYOA
This is a bit confusing, what's the base level and what do the picks in the previous section give for free? What is the point of these two overlapping pages?

Besides being confusing, it looks tedious.

Why is everything so verbose? Fuck it, I'm done.

Never forget.

Tell me about that one CYOA idea you've got shelved because you couldn't get it right?

>Create a Saber Clone CYOA
>Magical Janitor CYOA
>Extreme Pareidolic Disorder Waifu CYOA

Are some ideas I threw around and never got to working on.

I should have make it more clear that point costs are cumulative.

It costs 6 to max out a skill (one, plus two, plus three)

It costs 15 to max out a magic tree (one, plus two, plus three, plus four, plus five)

>but stacking teachers if far more cost effective than taking separate ones
Yep, that's lore and mechanics. Lore because if you work with someone a lot, you tend to get to know them and work better with them, mechanics because the rest of the system incentives versatility above specialization with the cumulative point cost, and allowing you to doubletap a teacher in the beginning sets you up to finish off their skills easier. You can be focused on a specific archetype, but it'll eat up your points fast, or you can spread the points out and be incredibly well rounded.

Really. There were originally 4 meme characters. 3 now that I removed the lelf.

>Magical Janitor CYOA

How is it different from a regular janitor?

Maybe they animate brooms? And those brooms flood the wizard tower?

So why be a janitor if you can do magic?

God damn it stop making me think. You'd apply crafting discount first, then apply merchant discount to the remaining price.

Your input is duly noted. Like I said, this is literally the first CYOA I've made, so mistakes are a thing.

>What did I do wrong
There are some aesthetic concerns, like the font. Saving as png was a poor choice as well.

More importantly, looking at the CYOA itself, your serious problem is that you appear to have conflated quantity with quality. This is a good draft of options, but you skipped the step where you reduce the number before making the CYOA. Look at each section and think if it's really necessary. Think if you can do as much, or very close to, with less. Apply this thought at every level. Less sections, less options in the section, less words in the options.

Maybe you can't do magic as well as the other magic users. Sure, you could be an elite in normal society, but even a magical janitor is a step above that.

With the economy the way it is, you should be thankful you found a job at all.

I'm sorry because it's obvious you've put a lot of work into this, but it just doesn't feel fun. The visual design is grating even at its best and it feels like I'm slogging through waist deep water reading through everything and it's just not fun, not even the companions which are supposed to be the big draw on a CYOA of this sort just feel flat and unappealing.

Please try learning some more about visual design, pleasing color contrasts and learning how to use whatever software you're using.

I'm out.

Are you telling me that magic can't do everything?

Of course it can't, if it could, there wouldn't be any unemployed wizards.

If it could do everything, why would there be any need for wizards at all?

>Saving as png was a poor choice as well.
What would have been better?

>you skipped the step where you reduce the number before making the CYOA
I actually cut down quite a bit from the original, but I get your point. I've gotten "unfocused" as feedback from several people. I appreciate the criticism though, it was much more constructive than most.

Don't feel bad, I knew when I began that i'd be producing a clusterfuck. Nobody does great their first time.

Because someone needs to cast the magic. It isn't going to cast itself after all.

>It isn't going to cast itself

>not even the companions which are supposed to be the big draw on a CYOA of this sort just feel flat and unappealing.
On second thought, could you elaborate on this point if you're still around? Do you mean they're flat and unappealing from a visual standpoint, or a writing standpoint?

That's a bad line of thought. You need to get a job making spell programs and learning Magical Intelligence (MI). It's smart, calculating, enchanted items that will take your job in the future. You need to get one of the jobs making those things.

You don't think I tried? All the positions at every company I checked are already full, and the ones that aren't have so many applications that I'm pretty sure mine just gets lost.

You should have made the backgrounds black or something since you're using brightly colored text. Just use colored borders or whatever, or for the items and shit it should just say tier 1, tier 2 after the name of the item. Maybe that would leave too little space between the text though, I don't know.

And they told as that all this "smart magic" would just make life easier, not take our jobs. It's like computers all over again.

And that's why I became a Wizard Janitor.

>What would have been better?
jpg. Not for your local copy (so you can avoid artifacting) but for what you post. Your filesize shouldn't be in the megabyte range.
>I actually cut down quite a bit
Not enough. Look at your first two pages, for example. Two separate pages that are both just "get your skills and magic". And each of those 18 options has four fucking paragraphs. Next page has 48 options each with a paragraph. Then the other pages have got a cumulative 351 paragraphs of describing singular items, all laid out in a big boring grid with an ugly sans-serif font in way too many colors and with no blank space. It's a giant wall of way too much shit.

It's better than nothing. I feel for you.

Quick note to several different CYOA authors. A "tenant" is someone who pays you rent to live on your property. Philosophies do not have tenants. Philosophies do, however, have "tenets", core principles that make them up as bricks make up a wall.

Do skills and magic have separate point pools?

It's really a mix of everything.

From a a visual standpoint your art picks are just ridiculous and you end going from a picture of a body horror tier monster to some pink haired gnome with WoW armor and it instantly just makes the entire world feel that much less worthwhile. This really doesn't happen too frequently but even then you end up switching between artstyles, themes, and smaller details like characters with intricate backgrounds placed right beside characters with white backgrounds or colored backgrounds or characters that are 3d renders vs 2d traditional art. There's a lot that goes into allowing the reader to enter the world you're creating and uniformity of art is a big fucking deal.

From a written point of view you do the same thing, jumping from serious to comedic in the same sentences. You use a lot of "reduced" sentence structures which is common when the subject matter isn't that serious or otherwise gets done well, but when the picture above it is again a terrifying monster and your description is "eater of worlds, nice guy to have around" it feels cheap and the integrity of the world suffers for it.

A lot of these complaints can be leveled at Space Refugee too, which I think you drew a lot of inspiration from, but in that case the art remained mostly the same or attempted to transition to avoid the same shock and there were only a few companions which were offensively jokey like the giant cowboy ferret. Another thing to keep in mind is that the entire character creation process in Space refugee was one page while yours is several pages longer, tiring out the reader much more in the process of reaching the companion section.

And finally your writing just isn't that good.

This is what I can tell you off the top of my head.

I can't even remember the last time I've seen either of those words used in a CYOA. If I have seen them, I forgot glossed over them. I don't think I've ever used them in any of mine.

...

I actually love this.
The companion sections is really extensive and they are all unique and interesting.

...

It's in the one at the start of this thread, which is why I thought of it, but it was also in the CYOA of someone who ought to have known better earlier. I think Battlemage?

...

>"Don't know anything about that, Sir, I'm just a farmer. To be frank with you I don't have the time to spare what with all the crops that need dealing with. Gonna have to decline."
>"Being a Fulcrum isn't something you choose, young one. We-"
>"Don't matter."
>"What?"
>"I said, don't matter none. If the gods and fate truly can't put a damper on our harvests then I reckon we'll pull good then this year, right?"
>"What? Listen, child, you coul-"
>"And if everything I do no matter the import will truly result in something great then doesn't it make the most sense for me to do what I know and am good at?"
>"..."
>"Now if you're interested and truly want to help I could use some hands to get this done. Willing?"
>"We're n-"
>"...to ensure that you're equipped to face whatever fate you may decide. Having your own is important out here, and it's what I'm deciding. Now lets get digging."

Ah, it's too late & OP is too long. I was going to look at it tomorrow.

Name: Gabriel Exitus

Teachers: Harlen of Caer Cuilhainx2

Skills: Combat Skill - 2 [-3,17]
Command - 2 [-3,14]
Crafting - 2
Tradecraft - 2
Governance - 1 [-1,13]
Alchemy - 1 [-1,14]
Shadowcraft - 2 [-3,11]
Investiagtion - 1 [-1,10]
Wild Lore - 1 [-1, 9]
Charisma - 2 [-3, 6]
Arcana - 3 [-6, 0]

Magic: Lore of Earth - 5 [-12,8]
Lore of Water - 3 [-6,2]
Lore of Fire - 1 [-1,1]
Lore of the Abyss - 1 [-1,0]

Inventory: Artificer Plate [-2400, 7600]
Ranger Mail [-150, 7450]
Artificer Weapons, Simple Claymore [-1120, 6330]
Earthforged Weaponsx2, Pair of Daggers [-180, 6150]
Artificer Bow [-1200, 4950]
Specialized toolsx3; Thief's kit, Blacksmith Tools and Alchemy tools [-960, 3990]
Traveling Supplies [-40, 3950]
Sky Frigate [-2800, 1150]
Skilled Workerx30 [-240, 910]
Knighthood, Knight Errant
Earthforged Weapon, Longsword
Plate Armor
Warhorse
Knight Bodyguard
Hireling
Academic Pass [-80, 830]
Trading Licence [-200, 630]
Golem [-320, 410]

Companions: Gyuhrpa
Nualla Pale
Phara Nagash
T'Qez Takalu
Sir Nemo Halsey

Fuck me sideways that was rough.

I wanted to make one about buying a child from human traffickers, but I didn't feel that I could do the subject justice in this format.

Try it, that sounds like a fun topic.

It could be heartwarming, right?

Yes.

>Dissonance of theme
Yup! Totally okay with that, that was actually partially intentional. I wanted the overall result of builds to be enormously diverse. You can take this system and built a group of grimdark murders and monsters to take over the world, or take a few friends and open a cake shop. It can be fucking horrifying, it can be light and fun. Like real life.

>A lot of these complaints can be leveled at Space Refugee too, which I think you drew a lot of inspiration from
Yup. I was literally reading through that wishing it was fantasy instead of sci fi when I started making my own.

>And finally your writing just isn't that good.
No, my writing is fine, the issue is that I couldn't decide on format, like you pointed out. I don't see mixing themes as being a mistake (pink haired gnome next to cannibal rapist), but I mixed writing styles too much. With some characters that really inspired me I was trying to cut a page's worth of text down into a paragraph, and clipping long, wordy, descriptive sentences into short, clipped, more format-friendly versions. My original writing was fine, but in retrospect, I should have either committed to brevity or depth, because the mixed content I actually posted was flawed as hell.

Good to hear.

This guy gets it.

>Fuck me sideways that was rough.
That's what I'm getting. Much was learned today.

making a bionic arm
I finished the text in 2015, but then realized I have the Paint skills of a fish.....

How many OC's in the last week? Jesus Christ did cyoag explode in popularity or creativity or something. They're actually visually decent and interesting as well. Keep up the good work, I love it.

Headpats for all the creators.

Also, SDA, I want to inquire about your card cyoa. Perhaps I'll Bliss contribute.

>Conspirator
>Augmentation
>Medium Scale
>Small Scale
>Iscariot
>Pandemonium
>The Outsider
>Blind Spot
>Voice In My Head
>Hacking
>Buying Time
>Identity Revealed+1
>Kidnapping +3
>Wanted: ABB, E88, Merchants, Coil's Organization +8
>The Candle

Honestly, I don't get why everyone complains about Earth Bet. I've got a cybernetic cult that worships me and I'm a full on artificial intelligence with no restrictions. I even beat Dragon with the full on no restrictions part. All it took was the help of my shard and some Cauldron assets. Even though Scion eradicated 75% of my process power during Golden Morning, I am still one of the most powerful entities.

>Lana Palandine
With the current exponential system, six +2s are half again as good as six +1s. She has the best skilla, and being hot doesn't hurt.

Also, for the sake of balance, I'm assuming the 20 points are shared by skills and lore.
>Combat 1 19
>Crafting 3 13
>Governance 1 12
>Shadowcraft 1 11
>Investigation 3 (+2) 8
>Wild Lore 1 7
>Charisma 1 6
>Tradecraft 1 5
>Command 1 4
>Arcana 3 (+2) 1
Pretty well-rounded, but a very powerful artificer and general wizard.

>Fire 2 (+2) 1
>Water 1 0
A little skimpy on these, but the bonuses don't hurt.

>Spellweave Clothing (Free)
>Artificer Shortsword 9550
Base price 1,000 at 45% cost; just an emergency weapon.
>Artificer Bombs 9212
For when something needs to get fucked up badly.
>Travelling Supplies 9122
Two sets for better than basic kits.
>Potions 8672
500 gold's worth of medicines (and a few magical reagents), plus the trading discount.
>Specialized Tools 7772
2,000 gold's worth of personally crafted artificing tools. What are artificing tools? I don't know, but I have a workshop full of them.
>Academic Pass 7592
Merchant discount applies, and double cost gets into the better research universities.
>Sanctuary 1742
No proper wizard goes without a tower.
>Golem 1562
I'm applying my bonuses to this, too. Bodyguards are good, especially if they have internal storage space.
>Cat 1557
A very fluffy one.

Holy hell, that's a lot of companions.
>Tyhaniel Carmine
>Lulu Lansvard LeLanden
>Void Shard
>Warden Hemdel
>Marek
A sufficiently motley crew.

We get together and do... things.

Name: Opertus Cognito
Path: Rogue

Companion: Farseer

Drawbacks: Birdcaged 20
Kill order 30
Wanted: All 40

Shard: Abbaddon 38

Perks: Time 37
Allies (Satellite) 35
Manton effect bypass 31

Powers: Repair 30
Potion-making 27
Fortifications 20
Fictional engineering (Warhammer 40,000) 0

Item: Prayer Beads

Thrown in the birdcage after dealing sabotaged arms to every gang in Brockton, The only thing the gangs missed more than the punchable faceplate of the red robbed man was the lovely toys he sold to them before being spirited away for inciting civil unrest.

Contacts on the outside along with a tinkers curiosity constantly strive to break the rogue out of prison keeping his anus untouched mostly via liberal use of acid and shoddy mechanics...

Far above the sky however, guided by a friend, awaits a rescue attempt for profit and the chance at conquering the stars.

I recognize that CG! It's from Bunny Black, 2 or 3 I think.

>for the sake of balance
>when it takes you 15 points to max a single magic tree

Only issue I have is that sometimes the light text on light background is a little annoying to read.

I started working on a "master of industry" build with High crafting/Tradecraft and some Charisma/Governance.

Then I realized that there's basically only one page of equipment and SEVEN PAGES OF COMPANIONS. This is mostly companions... you should cut that number in half.

Yeah, there are 200 companions which is downright silly. You could quarter that and still have a decent number of companions.