but I try to put myself in the mind of the character, who is at risk and doesn't realise that he's the protagonist
Oh, so you want to roleplay a coward, OK. Then your suggestions are perfectly logical. I'd like to see another kind of character
I have
a trope for you. It's not cowardice, it's wanting to live longer and better.
Also, this elf strikes me as the type to kill us if we end up doing more harm than good
Why kill us if he can order anything?
Because we're doing more harm than good?
We're not a slave, we have too much freedom.
As long as we get no worse orders.
And we WILL get worse orders if we go about our rebellion all obvious-like.
Sure.
Work within his rules and use every ambiguity and loophole against him.
So, in short: "Do nothing and hope for the best?" Let him use us? Let him create enemies for ourself? Let him send us on any suicide mission he wants?
Um...Thanks for strawmanning me! No, take his orders literally. If he has us bring him water, flood the house because he didn't tell us to stop. Ignore his orders that would require us to be outside during daylight hours, because he told us not to. Stuff like that.
Oh... And just a little "let's find what can go wrong" from me
-Send a bird to Alice. She owes us one and can come help break us out.
Terrible, the bird could work on Vindel, elves are known to employ animals.
True enough, so we wander a ways away before choosing the bird, and we bribe it with food. That way, the bird flies fast to Alice and Vindel won't know until Alice has been contacted. Unless he questions every animal leaving his neck of the woods, which seems rather paranoid and impractical.
-Survey the area at night for good escape routes once we do break free.
Terrible. What if someone sees us? That will create so many problems. Let's sit entire night in the basement. It's safe. Besides what can Alice do? We decided that Vindel is unbeatable ubermage
When did we decide that Vindel was unbeatable? I was talking about him repeating his exact, same victory, only with more knowledge and a weaker night troll.
And anything we do has a risk of being seen. Besides, that would be a good thing; people wonder why a night troll sprinted to Vindel's residence after being seen.
[quite]
Examine the enchanting workshop during the night and look for a book on enchantment so we can disenchant the bracelet.
Oh, Vindel will be mad when he finds that attempt, besides we can hurt ourself by trying enchantments
[/quote]
Well, if we succeed, he won't be able to do much. With us at full strength, he'll have a lower chance of defeating us in combat, and without the bracelet that's all he'll have. And we can be hurt by anything we do.
If all else fails, send Vindel as far into the future as we can and just wait it out in Vindel's workshop.
Terrible. Doubt that we can do that, besides if we fail he will be mad at us and much more cautious (this time I am serious)
This, I agree with. I think the GM said that temporal manipulation would be beyond our leash to do to him.
We could, however, wait until he was in danger, then "save" him by catapulting him a few decades into the future....
I vote that we ignore Ukrainian Ranger on the grounds that he is enormously butthurt about us not listening to his suggestion.
And he's making strawmen.
"Oh, you want to avoid making yourself weaker before battling someone who defeated you? You're a coward and think Vindel is unbeatable!"
I vote that we ignore Ukrainian Ranger on the grounds that he is enormously butthurt about us not listening to his suggestion.
LOL. I just like discussion, even if they are a bit rough. Just posting a suggestion or +1 isn't really fun
You know what else isn't fun? Being strawmanned.
I have a suggestion that is feasible, although it may have backlash that we cannot necessarily predict. We could incriminate our intrepid master in the crimes that we know he has committed.
Something to think about, he doesn't seem to know... that we know, his other companions may also crack if the rumor breaks out.
So, you want to make enemies for our master. How do you think who will fight against that enemies?
Vindel will fight against the enemies and hopefully weaken himself. Or ruin his public image.
Basically we have only three basic ways to deal with the situation
a) Do nothing, cooperate with Vindel and hope that something good happens ( minus: Eventually he will use us for something that we really don't want to do)
b) Look for loopholes, find allies, weaken the magic and so on. ( Minus: It's damn hard to intrigue if you must answer questions like "What are you trying to do to get out? What did you do last night? " And if Vindel is not an idiot he'll ask that. While half-truth may help, most likely it will not. IMO it's a worst route
c) Find a way to get rid of the bracelet NOW (Minus: It's not easy to do)
I think b has the least chance of immediate punishment. And we can claim that we were only following his orders like the bracelet ordered us to.
If he asks, just say we were planning on cutting off our arm or something
Gods, no... Then you'll take away option to get rid of hand if we get a suicidal order. I really can't understand why everyone is so opposed to this solution with temporal injury but at least do not take it as last rersort
Wrong, I consider it a last resort.
If I am correct, we have fire magic. And the bracelet is steel. It may be impossibly painful, but would it be possible to melt the bracelet off with enough fire?
If we can't send it in the future, then we can't melt it away. Besides arm damage would be so severe that it's no better than chopping it off
Slightly better--there's a higher chance we can get healed and a lower chance of exsanguination. We'll consider it if we need to.
Can we at least search Vindel shop for healing magic? As enchanter he may have that.
and\or Look for healer in the town
I'd advise putting that stuff off a day, and spend the first night investigating our surroundings.
EUREKA! I have the solution. If we hear Vindel give us a command, we have to obey it, but if we can't hear anything, he can't command us. Plug our ears with wax or something, and use our eon magic to distort time around our head so that everything we do hear is unintelligible. Then we can just tie Vindel to his bed/ barricade him in the basement and not have to worry about his orders. We can even reinforce the rope/door with eon magic to protect our possessions if is looks like he's going to escape.We should, however, make these preparations at night, outside the house, and whatever room we trap him in should have no enchanting supplies whatsoever.
Good idea. Best wait to spring our plan into action when we're acting on it, ideally shortly after he's given us permission to leave before dark, so we can run to the tower and escape to safety.
[auote]
b) Look for loopholes, find allies, weaken the magic and so on. ( Minus: It's damn hard to intrigue if you must answer questions like "What are you trying to do to get out? What did you do last night? " And if Vindel is not an idiot he'll ask that. While half-truth may help, most likely it will not. IMO it's a worst route
This sort of twisty logic requires even twistier logic to counteract: We must precommit ourselves to preemptively abandoning all escape plans that are in danger of being discovered within the immediate future due to us being forced to answer questions about them. That way, when asked "What do you plan to do to escape?" we are forced to honestly answer that we've given up on all of our plans to escape because we know he'll figure them out.
E: Also, we should come up with some unworkable and stupid plans to escape so that we have something to tell him when he asks "Well, what DID you plan to do to escape?"
This is a good idea. We can also remind ourselves that this is not an escape plan, because we will still be here. Finally, if he asks "what did you plan to do to escape", we can honestly say that we though of cutting our arm off, so that huge argument everyone just had was actually very productive.
[/quote]
Yup.
