It's raining again...

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Written for Endmaster's Prompt Contest 3

Prompt 42: A story set in an area ravaged by a plague or famine.

S.D.G

Edit 5/4/24: removed square brackets outline accidentally left on one page

Edit 14/4/24: eliminated several typos

The fish are hungry...

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Scores:

-3: You let innocents die and joined a death cult. You are scum.

-2: You let innocents die, but you chose an 'honourable' death.

-1: You joined the cult, like a sheep.

0: Nothing meaningful happened to you (you met an untimely death).

1: You destroyed the cult, but failed to kill the fish

2: You eradicated the fish, but the cult remains, hidden deep in the shadows...

3: You destroyed the cult AND eradicated the fish. Impressive.

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Written for the Gone Fishin' Contest 2023.

S.D.G

Edit 10/7/23: fixed green shoots error, clarified that swamp-fish can live in any water-type, proofread for spelling errors.

Edit 12/7/23: fixed Question Cultists loop error

Edit 19/10/23: fixed Resigned to Waiting paths loop error

Edit January 2024: added title page picture (drawn by mizal, not me - thank you!)

You, a human mage with little to no reputation (who needs that anyway), are friends with an elf from Summer called Cocoa Lire. You (for some mysterious reason) call her Watermelon.

However, you learn that she is having an affair with a human commander called Jael Rock, which is disastrous for a whole host of reasons:

• Too many to list here (but you get the idea)

Your solution? Convince them to end the relationship!

However, a small problem called 'true love' may make this harder than you think...

WARNING: Contains sadistic goats, holy cucumbers, and a whole lot of other things that may cause heinous offence. You have been warned.

There are seven 'endings' to reach. If you like that kind of thing.

Written for EndMaster's Prompt Contest 2.

Prompt 35: 'A story where you must save someone close to you from a disastrous relationship.'

S.D.G

Edit 6/6/24 - fixed some typos

I was aiming to seem as apathetic as possible because it seemed like a fun thing to do.

Voting-wise I didn't vote on whether to raise Cat because I wasn't sure whether that was a good move so early in the game. Or to vote anyone out because no one had really seemed suspicious to me.
The next night Cel asked what my role was, and I told him the truth albeit ambiguously, because for all I knew he was a troll pretending to be a mod. After the three-person death I thought that, seeing as my role didn't require me to do anything (gather knowledge ---> questions being asked), trolls would likely try to copy it. I also didn't really mind whether Avo was resurrected or not. As for voting someone out, I did actually roll a die to vote Ace out (I still had no clue who was who). As a result Cel became really suspicious of me (understandably) and told me to reveal my role and change my vote to Malk. I did change my vote but also told him my reasoning for not revealing myself (I think either the stupidity of the plan or the apathy my role had been giving off stunned him into silence and he let it lie).
After the spam attack I decided one of two things could be true: either Malk/other troll had spammed to save him, or one of the trolls had spammed to make him look guilty (a clever, if risky, double play). Liminal's last words also pointed to both Malk and Will, which again was a pretty good play (I was suspicious of Will and Ace at some points in the game, Will for trying too hard and Ace for not wanting to vote anyone out on Day 2, and both for never nominating someone to vote out [as if I could talk]. Social deduction is not my strong point). Malk crossed both lists, and I'd already committed to voting him out the day before, so I voted him out on Day 3 as well. I'll be honest, my reason for raising Cavus was a bit hazy, but I figured the game was in the final stretch and we may as well use the resurrection on a certified non-troll Coder.

That's my thought process - on the fence was basically my strategy. I was in the dark most of the game, but it worked out. Maybe I should read the room rather than the books next time :).

Thanks once again Mystic for running this - it was a really good experience! Maybe there's a Christmas-themed one in the site's future... (really don't feel you have to, Christmas is a busy time for everyone).

And, finally, long live CYStian justice! Ogre's cool too.

I... was not a troll

How did I lose?

It can get confusing in TTRPG contexts though

No worries, happens a lot. The role fits my role on CYS a bit too neatly. 

Cel the only one who asked who I was though and was quite insistent about it. My strategy to stay low to see if the trolls tried to pretend to have my role failed as none of them even claimed a specific role. All in all, I was effectively apathetic enough to not cause an obstacle to victory, so a success I guess?

Thanks for the game Mystic! And thanks everyone for playing!

I'm slightly disappointed no one considered me worthy of killing, but I guess it fits the role. Either way, it was a fun game.

Voting out Malk makes the most sense logically, though the Spammer Troll could have played their cards very well indeed and made an innocent look guilty. Still, there's at least a 50% chance Malk or another troll did it to save his skin.

Raising Cavus also makes the most sense, given that we know for a fact he couldn't have been a troll. 

Thus I vote to eliminate Malk and raise Cavus from undeath.

Congrats RK - BHWE (Best Hotdog Wizard Ever)!
Also to Mystic!

Thanks for reporting this sensitively, Milton et al. Stay strong!

Oh. There's no one else in here. 
Looks like I'm going to have to be productive if I want to read anything.

Or I could chill by the campfire. The flickering flames are nice to stare into while thinking about nothing.

I had noticed those purple boxes instead of images, thank you for considering it! Seems to vary as to which images it blocks though. Images can take a long time to load, but it really depends on how much stress you're giving the computer. A long thread, lower RAM for the computer or multiple images ---> greater loading time. I think that applies to all images, but then I'm not a tech person - I have no clue if it's software specific or not.

Question 1: Lots of description, characters are fleshed out and the choices make sense. Well-expanded and satisfying endings. Bonus points for making me feel things.

Question 2: Consistent SPaG errors. They're like a flickering lightbulb - tolerable but really, really annoying. If the story's still excellent I'll privately message them about it. If it's clear the story's slop with no effort put into it, I'll either highlight it in a review or just sigh sadly to myself and press on.

Question 3: I think most reviews should be well-evidenced with specific quotations, and reflect the story as a whole. Thus reading at least 70-80% is a must if you want to leave a balanced review, otherwise you may have read only the well- or badly-written branches. But if you just want to leave a short review complimenting/criticising the author for the one branch that's fine too. Also, if a storygame is noticeably slop/low-effort, it's worthy of a review of no more effort or quality. TL;DR - it depends.

Numbers (a summary):
1 - this hasn't had any effort put into it at all, SPaG is all over the place and there's no actual story. Choices aren't choices at all. Must be improved.
2 - there is some SPaG but not much. Characters and plot elements are flimsy at best, mostly negligible. Choices are very few or non-existent. Must be improved.
3 - there is some SPaG, still low quality. One or two characters have a little depth, but not much. Plot makes sense. Choices are few and often carry no weight. Should be improved.
4 - some weakness in SPaG but not much. The characters have limited depth. Plot makes sense. Choices are fine, if limited. Still needs improvement.
5 - your average story. The occasional SPaG error, as to be expected, but fine. Characters make sense, have personalities and depth, and serve a purpose. Plot is good. Choices are good. Could be improved in some areas.
6 - very rare SPaG issues. Characters feel necessary and deep. Plot is original and logical. Choices are logical and well-expanded. Improvement could happen, but isn't necessary for this story to be enjoyable.
7 - very rare SPaG errors noticed. Characters felt natural and deep. Plot is well thought out, logical and original. Choices are nuanced and logical. Could be improved, but there's really no need to improve it.
8 - not to be awarded lightly. No or very few SPaG errors were noticed. Characters feel real. Plot is exceptional, original and well-developed. Choices are logical, nuanced and carry great weight within the story. Story made me smile/laugh/get angry/cry (I'm invested). No improvement necessary in my eyes.

Element of a review I most appreciate: the praise the 'to improve' section. I may like the ego-stroking, but that's not going to help me get better at writing - it's really more likely to make my writing worse. Criticism from people other than myself is helpful in that it shows me what the reader thinks is wrong with the story, aspects and contradictions which I might have missed, and generally helps me improve. There's a reason proofreading is a profession (for now), y'know - I want to be aware of the mistakes in my writing so that I don't look stupid to the other people who read it can make it better. And it's satisfying to be able to know you've changed something for the better, even if it's just correcting a typo.