Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Your character, for purposes of this thread is walking along in a desert with their one year old child that they love dearly. Said kid suffers from various chronic and fatal diseases, from incurable cancers, to, let's say, Lou Gehrig's. Also, several of their organs are outside of their body. Also, you only have enough food and water for one of you. Also, if you didn't need food or water before, you do now. Also, there is no escaping from the desert in any way, or making food for yourself, or water, or finding food or water. You can only keep walking to get out. Also, even if you normally can't have kids, somehow, you did anyway, and you've been raising this baby for a year. Suddenly! Out from the ground emerges the giant demon worm Slatyn-Yar, proclaiming that now is the beginning of its ten thousand year reign of terror and despair, in which all humanity will suffer unspeakable torment. The great evil worm is completely beyond your power in any and every way, cannot be reasoned with or persuaded of anything, and you cannot call on friends or allies or contacts or even interested enemies to stop it, who themselves are all beneath the power of Slatyn Yar, and would be helpless to stop. Just then! Jesus Christ himself descends from Heaven above and hands you a syringe full of a lethal dose of barbituates saying that only if your character injects your child with them /right now/, permanently and forever killing your child (you can't have more children, and adoption agencies have decided they hate you, and no one has named you a godparent of anything, to note), can Slatyn Yar be stopped from his reign of ultimate terror and destruction. Oh, and Slatyn Yar notes that if you do this, he will take your child's soul back to hell with him, when he is forced back into the pit from whence he came, to torment it for all eternity. This /will/ occur. What would your character do? Oh, and of course: If you feel this sort of situation is a violation of genre for your character, feel free not to respond for that character. However, hopefully most characters will be able to respond. Edit: and no, this is not an illusion, delusion, vision quest or metaphorical experience of any other sort for your character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. I'd flip the table. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Slatyn Yar is so powerful, he somehow breaks the very 4th wall itself to prevent you from flipping the table and denying having to respond to the question. Clearly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. I disbelieve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. *shooka shooka* I'm afraid your check to disbelieve has failed. Still, you make an important point to modify the originial scenario with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyragnome Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Claymore would stab the demon in the eye with his (duh) claymore Mr. Malleable would stab the demon in the eye with his finger shaped as an ice pick. Wildcard would stab the demon in the eye with a sharpened playing card. Aegis would stab the demon in the eye with his armor's shoulder mounted rocket launcher. Cyragnome would stab the GM in the eye with his pen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mulgar Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. I'd flip the table. Before or after you deck the GM? Seriously, what is the purpose of this WWYCD? Most of the ones I have seen have viable actions to get out of the situation. What you are basically asking is evil worth defeating if it takes a life to do it. It does not matter what the child has.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. It's a shame that people just don't want to confront hard moral choices in a realistic fashion *nodnod* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Before or after you deck the GM? Seriously, what is the purpose of this WWYCD? Most of the ones I have seen have viable actions to get out of the situation. What you are basically asking is evil worth defeating if it takes a life to do it. It does not matter what the child has.... Do they really have viable actions? They seem mostly to have the original poster finding ways to respond to say why the original choice has to be made somehow regardless, or saying that people shouldn't respond like they are "if they don't want to actually answer the question". Frankly, a lot of WWYCD that involve "tough moral choices" are basically little more than epic bouts of railroading to try and get as many people to agree to something horrible as they can with pretensions of it being a "scenario". This one just abandons the pretense. I mean c'mon, it hits all the checkpoints "you must be faced with a really horrid decision! will you do it!" Or: what does it say that you were actually taking this seriously enough to ponder what the crux of my "theme" was, for the general tenor of a lot of these WWYCD threads? When WWYCD become "I will try to railroad as much as I can to make people try and answer if they would kill multiple innocent people", and that's basically a standard example of them, how haven't they hit a point of ridiculousness? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. No. I disbelieve that someone would type that up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mulgar Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. It's a shame that people just don't want to confront hard moral choices in a realistic fashion *nodnod* The point is that this is not choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. No. I disbelieve that someone would type that up. It's a post I recall many years ago from another forum, I fear your disbelieve check has failed there as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. The point is that this is not choice. Yes, exactly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McCoy Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. It's another Omelas situation, though far more contrived than most, and I don't do those. "In before the lock!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mulgar Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Ahhh, now I get it Pendaran, someone else ticked you off so you offer this. I will leave it and you alone....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BcAugust Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. I'm reminded of the solution Jonathen Swift made to the Irish problem. Though I do have to admit, it needed more buildup. (Note, for those who haven't read it, it basically takes the "solutions" the English were talking about the Irish problem, and taking it a tiny step further into cannibilism. Simile exists.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nexus Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. *shrugs* The OP has a point though I think he could chosen a better way to make it. Some of the WWYCD so smack of railroading. On other hand allot of the responces boil down to "I use my powers to neatly dodge the issue without facing a struggle, consquence or issue because the creator didn't write this particularly for may PC and if I can't then its railroading." So there are two extremes. Most of them fall somewhere between them and are pretty fun to think about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BcAugust Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. This doesn't really sound much more far fetched than half the 'realistic choices' WWYCDs people post. It's gotten to the point where too many are just "Do this obvious choice." that it's weakened the concept to mere political and iron age comments on superheros. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wormhole Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Wormhole: This guy pretending to be Jesus gets kicked in the family jewels and Slatyn Yar gets aported into a giant bottle of tequila. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robyn Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Suddenly! Out from the ground emerges the giant demon worm Slatyn-Yar, proclaiming that now is the beginning of its ten thousand year reign of terror and despair, in which all humanity will suffer unspeakable torment. The great evil worm is completely beyond your power in any and every way, cannot be reasoned with or persuaded of anything, and you cannot call on friends or allies or contacts or even interested enemies to stop it, who themselves are all beneath the power of Slatyn Yar, and would be helpless to stop. Just then! Jesus Christ himself descends from Heaven above and hands you a syringe full of a lethal dose of barbituates Kaja has a Susceptibility to holy ground, and the Christians have a lot to answer for. He takes the syringe and stabs Jesus. It probably won't work, but Slatyn-Yar is immune. Jesus might not be Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. To note, my original answers were, when someone first posted this years ago in another forum in response to a lot of similar hypothetical ridiculousness like these WWYCD threads that had gone on in this forum were.. "I stab myself with the syringe. At least I get to be really, /really/ high on what is apparently Heaven's personal stash before I die." Or: "Clearly all of this occuring means that God is some kind of massive jerk. I take my anger at this out on his son by stabbing him with the syringe." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nexus Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. You know, if you don't like them you could just stop reading them. If enough people think they are there terrible travesties and do the same thing, they'll disappear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Because discussion forums are the wrong place for voicing an opinion on something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nexus Posted December 14, 2006 Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Snark aside, I don't see what there to get some worked up about but since apparently you do. *shrug* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pendaran Posted December 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2006 Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. to quote someone else: This doesn't really sound much more far fetched than half the 'realistic choices' WWYCDs people post. It's gotten to the point where too many are just "Do this obvious choice." that it's weakened the concept to mere political and iron age comments on superheros. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.